Re: Day Of Atonement Torrent
Lillia Iniguez
Cecilia and Robbie both refuse to forgive Briony, who nonetheless tells them she will try to put things right. She promises to begin the legal procedures needed to exonerate Robbie, even though Paul Marshall will never be held responsible for his crime because of his marriage to Lola. As Briony leaves Cecilia's, she is optimistic about her role in Robbie's exoneration, thinking that it will be "a new draft, an atonement" and that she is ready to begin.
The reader learns that Briony is the author of the preceding sections of the novel. Briony attends a party in her honor at the Tallis family home, where the extended Tallis children perform The Trials of Arabella, the play that 13-year-old Briony had written and unsuccessfully attempted to stage with her cousins in the summer of 1935. Leon and Pierrot are in attendance, Jackson is fifteen years deceased, and Lola is alive but does not attend. Finally, Briony reveals to the reader that Robbie Turner died of septicaemia on the beaches of Dunkirk, that Cecilia was killed several months later when a bomb destroyed Balham Underground station during the Blitz, and that Briony's story of seeing them together in 1940 was a fabrication. Briony did attend Lola's wedding to Paul Marshall, but confesses she was too "cowardly" to visit the recently bereaved Cecilia to make amends. The novel, which she says is factually true apart from Robbie and Cecilia being reunited, is her lifelong attempt at "atonement" for what she did to them.
The structure of the McEwan novel and this film directed by Joe Wright is relentless. How many films have we seen that fascinate in every moment and then, in the last moments, pose a question about all that has gone before, one that forces us to think deeply about what betrayal and atonement might really entail?
There are two other closely related notions used by scholars that drawfrom the semantic range of the term. Linda Radzik, in perhaps the mostextensive work on atonement in analytic philosophy, defines a notionof making amends:
First, does this connection really hold and, if so, how shouldreconciliation be understood? After all, there seem to be clear casesin which a person makes atonement and does not aim to reconcile therelationship that was shattered by the offense.
Even so, both senses presume that in removing the rift between theparties due to the wrongdoing, there is some sort of relationship thatis restored (or created) after atonement has been given and received.What could that relationship be given the other cases mentionedabove?
Forgiveness is intimately tied into atonement. It would appear thatforgiveness is necessary for full atonement. Reconciliation of twoparties seems to require that the one who is wronged forgive thewrongdoer. If the wronged does not forgive the wrongdoer, the wrongedis still holding something against the wrongdoer for the wrong thatwas done, and thus the two are not reconciled with regard to thewrong. To fully atone would be to fully remove the rift, and thusachieve reconciliation.[5]
To offer satisfaction, in the sense that has been connected toatonement since at least the time of the writing of the later books inthe Hebrew scriptures, is to pay a debt (Anderson 2009: 44ff).Economic metaphors for atoning and making amends have flourished eversince; evidence of them is seen in various second Temple Jewish textsand early Christian texts, up through the medieval discussions ofsatisfaction (Anderson 2009; Burns 1975). Forgiveness is alsosometimes understood in terms of canceling a debt (Pettigrove 2012:21ff). How seriously to take the economic metaphor is debated, butbroad notions of satisfaction and moral debt can be outlined that stayneutral about the aptness of economic metaphors.
Repentance contributes to atonement in various ways. It is a necessaryingredient of a genuine apology. Repentance is a prerequisite formoral and thicker sorts of reconciliation. Moral reconciliationinvolves entering into a relationship of mutual moral respect and itseems that a wrongdoer does not respect a victim by refraining fromrepenting. The wrongdoer has an obligation to fix what can be fixedabout the wrong action and its effects; one thing that can be fixed isthe insult to the victim. By repenting, the wrongdoer begins towithdraw the insult.
The wrongdoer will have to do at least some of the atoning work.Atonement aims at moral reconciliation at the very least, whichrequires a renewed respect for the victim from the wrongdoer. Thisrenewed respect requires at least repentance and perhaps make someefforts at moral transformation. However, it seems that people otherthan the wrongdoer can assist with atonement. Indeed, according toChristianity, Christ has made atonement for all human sin even thoughChrist himself is completely innocent of sin.
Atonement is deeply important for religions such as Judaism and,especially, Christianity. (See Cornille 2021 for a comparison of thesewith other religious approaches to atonement.) In this and thefollowing sections we will focus on the Christian notion of God andwhat atonement might look like in a Christian context.
In this section we briefly survey some of the most prominenthistorical accounts of the doctrine of the atonement. Various schemeshave been used to categorize accounts. Aulén (1930 [1931])famously divides them into three categories: Christus Victor,forensic, and subjective or exemplarist. Others distinguish betweenobjective and subjective theories, or God-ward and man-ward theories(MacKinnon 1966; Grensted 1920; Fiddes 1989; Thurow 2021a). Anotherway to categorize accounts would be according to which of the ways ofatoning (see section 2 above) are emphasized in the explanation of what Christ does to atonefor human sin.
Participation theories take these statements to indicate thatatonement works by humans being in some way united with Christ, sothat what he does is done also for them, which also effects healing inhuman hearts and minds. These theories thus emphasize the divinization/healing motif, where this healing is brought about through participation in a unionwith Christ.
In everyday speech we sometimes talk of collectives (or groups)offering atonement or being the recipients of atonement. For example,people discuss whether Germany has sufficiently atoned for its Nazipast (M. Smith 2019 [Other Internet Resources]) and how the Canadian government has atoned for its mistreatment ofindigenous populations (Skylstad 2021 [Other Internet Resources]), and Roman Catholic popes have apologized for the role of the Churchin the sexual abuse scandal and in harm to native people during theconquest of the Americas (Cunningham 2022).[46] There is considerable dispute about how to understand theseattributions of responsibility to collectives and the moral action ofthe collectives (see the entry on collective responsibility for details). Some take them at face value and accept a realm ofcollective responsibility that is distinct from the individualresponsibility born by members of the collective (e.g., Isaacs 2011).Others object that only individuals can be responsible for actions andthat groups can be regarded as responsible in only a metaphoricalsense (e.g., H. D. Lewis 1948; Narveson 2002).
One thing the feminist and womanist critiques show is that there isneed for further reflection on how the Christian doctrine of theatonement ought to integrate with and impact human practices ofatonement. (See McKnight 2007 and Swamy 2018 for recent excurses inthis issue.)
A cleric or druid who has lost the ability to cast spells by incurring the anger of his or her deity may regain that ability by seeking atonement from another cleric of the same deity or another druid. If the transgression was intentional, the casting cleric loses 500 XP for his intercession. If the transgression was unintentional, he does not lose XP.
How would punishment work in an ideal community, one in which the members of the community identify with one another? In this article, Professor Stephen Garvey argues that punishment in such a community would be understood as a form of secular penance and would form part of the process by which the wrongdoer atones for his wrongdoing. Compared to this account of punishment, which Garvey calls "punishment as atonement," other accounts fall short. The older and dominant approaches of utilitarianism and retributivism offer justifications for punishment that ignore the goal of atonement. Newer approaches, restorativism and libertarianism, recognize the importance of atonement but fail to recognize that securing atonement requires punishment. Punishment as atonement captures both critical insights: The goal of punishment should be atonement, but atonement requires punishment.
Thank you for sharing the healing theory of atonement. It is IMO very compatible with the Christus Victor theory making Christ the antidote which makes us immune to the power of sin, death, and the devil.
Yeshua dieing for the elects sins is to be understood that He was sent to take away in atonement and free us by redemption from our devoted lifestyle toward sin by His sacrifice as a ransom of His own perfect life to purchase the elect as Gods own possession. Not as a substitute to be of equal or equivalent exchange.
Traditional views on the atonement tend to be reductive, focusing solely on Jesus's death on the cross. In his 2011 groundbreaking book Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, David Moffitt challenged that paradigm, showing how the atonement is a fuller process. It involves not only Jesus's death but also his resurrection, ascension, offering, and exaltation.
In the succeeding years, Moffitt has continued to expand and clarify his thinking on this issue. This book offers a more fulsome articulation of his work on the atonement that reflects his recent thinking on the topic. Moffitt continues to challenge reductive views of the atonement, primarily from the book of Hebrews, but he engages other New Testament passages as well. He offers fresh insights on sacrifice and atonement, the importance of resurrection and ascension, Jesus's role as priest, and a new perspective on Hebrews.
This important book brings Moffitt's award-winning and influential scholarship to a broader audience.
Contents
Foreword by N. T. Wright
1. Rethinking the Atonement: An Introduction
2. Modeled on Moses: Jesus's Death, Passover, and the Defeat of the Devil in the Epistle to the Hebrews
3. Wilderness Identity and Pentateuchal Narrative: Distinguishing between Jesus's Inauguration and Maintenance of the New Covenant in Hebrews
4. Isaiah 53, Hebrews, and Covenant Renewal
5. "If Another Priest Arises": Jesus's Resurrection and the High-Priestly
Christology of Hebrews
6. Blood, Life, and Atonement: Reassessing Hebrews' Christological Appropriation of Yom Kippur
7. Weak and Useless? Purity, the Mosaic Law, and Perfection in
Hebrews
8. Serving in the Tabernacle in Heaven: Sacred Space, Jesus's High-Priestly Sacrifice, and Hebrews' Analogical Theology
9. It Is Not Finished: Jesus's Perpetual Atoning Work as the Heavenly High Priest in Hebrews
10. Observations on Directional Features of the Incarnation and Jesus's Sacrifice in Hebrews
11. Jesus's Heavenly Sacrifice in Early Christian Reception of Hebrews: A Survey
12. Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew's Passion Narrative, and the Temple's
Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext
13. The Sign of Jonah and the Prophet Motif in the Gospel of Matthew: Moving toward the Gentile Mission
14. Atonement at the Right Hand: The Sacrificial Significance of Jesus's Exaltation in Acts
15. Affirming the "Creed": The Extent of Paul's Citation of an Early
Christian Formula in 1 Corinthians 15:3b-7
Indexes