The Atonement Creating Unions: An Exploration in Inter-Religious Theology

The Atonement Creating Unions

An Exploration in Inter-Religious Theology

Godfrey Kesari

foreword by Marius C. Felderhof

Foreword

Most histories of philosophy in the Western world begin with the works of Plato who lived some two and a half millennia ago (427–347 BC). What is most striking about Plato’s philosophical contribution is his use of dialogues as the medium of thought. In effect, for him that sphere of human interest defined by a cluster of terms, such as, wisdom, knowledge and understanding, is grounded in human conversation. And ever since Plato’s time, many of the most outstanding philosophical and theological thinkers have used the medium of a dialogue to explore ideas to deepen our understanding.

The reference to ideas makes it all sound rather abstract. Perhaps it is not only thought, but life itself that is deepened and enriched through conversation. Some of the conversations may be casual, others more formal and structured; some may be light-hearted, others deeply serious, but all contributing to a substantive depth in human life. The lack of conversation is a sign of shallowness, of anger, of indifference or of a passion for a single-minded commitment that blocks a genuine dialogue. It seems that the very character of life itself turns on the nature and quality of the conversations that are generated. So it is that conversation and dialogue, even by their absence, define the nature of human life and thought¹.

Where thought and life are intimately entwined, some of the great thinkers have wondered how understanding the other is possible at all, if one does not already share a form of life, culture or thought world. Thus the Christian theologian, F. D. E. Schleiermacher (1768–1834), sometimes known as the father of modern theology and hermeneutics², developed a whole theory of how one might go about understanding a deep and alien text, whether written or spoken by another. Whilst the Danish thinker, Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), the father of existentialism, wondered³ how from one position in life, e.g., of being a non-Christian, one could join another, e.g., of being a Christian, when the life one lives determines what one could potentially understand. The transition from one world to another is not easy when one grasps that life and thought go hand in hand. His solution was simply to present these wholes side by side. His whole corpus of work is a grand polyphony, that is, a presentation of many different voices occupying different positions in life to show the character of the particular understanding of each.

The difficulty of gaining a deep understanding of the other in matters that touch the very character of our existence is addressed with three different strategies. The first is to avoid any deep conversations with the other. This was relatively easy in times past by virtue of the fact that the people who lived a significantly different life also lived in a different part of the world. Real engagement was avoided. This is no longer a realistic possibility when we live in a global village. However, such an easy method is still actively pursued today simply by providing descriptions of the other without letting it have any bearing on the life of the person doing the studying or the describing. Or for that matter, letting it have any bearing on the life of the reader. Voyeuristic descriptions are essentially monologues rather than dialogues.

A second strategy is to focus only on those elements in human life that are shared. It is this commonality which provides a basis for mutual understanding and a common life. Those elements that are singular and unique are then sometimes simply jettisoned to avoid incomprehension, misunderstanding or the potential offence that comes from claiming a truth that is apparently not accessible to the other. In the field of inter-religious studies, those committed to the position of pluralism, that values all people and forms of life equally, have not infrequently sacrificed precisely those elements which seem to mark off one faith from the other. For example, some of the contributors to the debate about the myth of God incarnate appeared to be embarrassed by the unique role that Jesus Christ was assigned in Christian Life and thought. They set this key church teaching aside, or dismissed it as best left in the past, an embarrassing legacy. Others felt that by setting aside the traditional teaching relating to Jesus, the heart was taken out of the Christian faith and life.

A third strategy is that adopted by Dr. Kesari, which is to take precisely that core controversial church teaching about Jesus Christ that causes offence and makes that the focus of discussion with the other, who is here identified as the Visistadvaitic Hindu. A first step is to recognize the complex intra-Christian discussions and then gauge exactly where the offence might be and what possibilities might be pursued to enable the Hindu to grasp what is at stake. But it is a two way process in which the Christian tradition may be encouraged to benefit from, and be illuminated by, the thoughts, doubts and experience of the Hindu traditions, without the integrity of either party to the conversation being compromised. The exchange of ideas and the interaction brought about by the conversation deepens our common human life. Fresh ideas and related fresh ways of living that come from the other provides the means for moving forward in history.

Rather than seeing the other as the stranger, the unknowable, or as a threat to one’s intellectual life and practical ways of living, the other is truly a gift, an opportunity to see one’s own life and its intellectual constructions anew. The other offers a new pair of eyes! It is always to one’s advantage to seek out ‘the other and to start a conversation about what matters most to one in life. Of course, the other may present in various guises. The other may most obviously be a neighbor, a stranger in one’s midst, but the other" might equally well be the inner self that speaks to you, or as in the case of St. Augustine’s Confessions, the other is the God who challenges, and who leads to truth and the good. What matters is to engage in a genuine conversation rather than a sham conversation in which neither party really listens to the other to the point where they might admit the possibility of living differently.

What Dr. Kesari has shown in what follows is how a truly serious conversation might go and the insights to be gained from one very specific encounter—with the atonement at its core.

Dr. Marius C. Felderhof

Hon. Sr. Research Fellow

Department of Theology and Religion

The University of Birmingham, UK

1. It is an open question whether modern life with its access to the Internet, social media, and Twitter, have stimulated conversation or impoverished it, e.g., it is not unusual to observe couples in which each member of the pair is engrossed in his or her mobile phone rather than communicating with each other.

2. i.e. theory of interpretation.

3. See Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1967

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Visistadvaitic Hindu Conception of the Means to Liberation (Salvation)

Chapter 3: An Analysis of Existing Theories of the Atonement in a Hindu-Christian Indian Context

Chapter 4: Constructing an Atonement Model in a Hindu-Christian Indian Context

Chapter 5: The Atonement Creating Unions

Chapter 6: Conclusion

Abbreviations for Reference Works

Bibliography

Preface

This book presumes that the theology of the atonement needs to be made lucid in every context and in this work I attempt to make it intelligible to those who belong to the Visistadvaitic Hindu tradition, in effect taking an interreligious perspective. This is in conformity with a traditional Christian way of thinking because the New Testament writings use many insights from the Graeco-Roman and Jewish religious traditions to express its own meaning and to serve its own purpose. Hence, in a way, our work is going back to the New Testament in attempting to formulate a doctrinal theology of the atonement with a cross-cultural bearing. Thus, methodologically this book is in the nature of finding a direction towards formulating Christian theology in the Visistadvaitic Hindu context.

I have always been fond of atonement theology. Christians generally insist that we see the love of God in Christ in its fullness on the cross. Without denying that understanding, in this book, I am devising a theology in an interreligious perspective using the theology of the atonement as an exemplar. To put it succinctly, this work will make explicit the connections between Christian and Visistadvaitic Hindu thinking with the theology of the atonement at its heart. It will become clear to readers that this is a creative way forward for pursuing the doctrine of the atonement in a new direction. This line of thought of course will retain the historicity and uniqueness of the love of God in Christ revealed on the cross whilst linking clearly to the distinctive thoughtfulness that is encountered within Visistadvaitic Hinduism.

Further this work will carefully elucidate the potentialities and problems in constructing a theology of the atonement in this direction. It will be obvious that this work ultimately is an attempt to find a way of treating and shielding the centrality and significance of the cross of Christ, in a fresh way, with contextual relevance and it is presented as filling a gap in the literature of interreligious theology relating to Christianity and Visistadvaitic Hinduism with the concept of means to salvation at its core.

In recent years, there has been much interest in the theology of the atonement. This book, I anticipate, will add to that interest not only amongst scholars and students of theology but also amongst people interested in the theology of the atonement in general as well as interreligious theology in particular. My prayer is that this book will promote better understanding, reconciliation, unity and peace within and between religious cultures in a world of alienation. I hope that you will enjoy reading this book. May God bless you as you turn the pages.

Holy Week 2018

Southwater, West Sussex

Acknowledgements

This book has been blessed by the grace of God, who had given me the time and all resources I needed from the beginning until the conclusion of this work. Many people along my life journey have helped me to think clearly and encouraged me by sharing lessons they learned from their own life.

My sincere thanks goes to Dr. Marius C. Felderhof of the University of Birmingham, UK, the author of Revisiting Christianity: Theological Reflections. He is an inspiring teacher and supportive tutor and I thank him for his invaluable comments and suggestions. I have enormously learned to think clearly, critically and constructively from his sharp insights and thorough scholarship. He was my PhD supervisor and this book is a revised version of my work under his guidance. I am also grateful to my examiners Professor Alan Torrance and Dr. David Cheetham for their encouraging comments.

My gratitude also extends to my teachers at the Princeton Theological Seminary, particularly to Professor J. Wentzel van Huyssteen who was my admired guide in philosophical theology and science and to Professor Bruce Lindley McCormack, who taught me the history of the theology of the atonement. 

I am also grateful to Rev. Dr. O. V. Jathanna, former Principal of the United Theological College, Bangalore, India, who first introduced me to the theology of the atonement and its beauty. My heart-felt thanks also goes to my other teachers and mentors at UTC Bangalore where I pioneered the joy of learning and living theology.

Further, I am indebted to many people in the UK, the USA and India for the information and experiences that are offered in this book. Many authors and friends have helped me with the materials, bibliography, and methodology. Particularly, I would like to thank the staff at OLRC and the Main Library of the University of Birmingham and the staff at the Princeton Theological Seminary, and more recently the staff at the Chichester University library.

My grateful thanks also goes to my editors Hannah Harris and Dr. Robin Parry and all the staff at Wipf and Stock for their wonderful support and help in publishing this book.

Finally, I am deeply indebted to my parents for their prayers, support and encouragement. I also thank my wife, Pradhma and our children, Emy and Evans who generously and lovingly shared the burden, pressure and the blessings involved with publishing this book.

Being a deep committed Anglican Christian, if this work could enhance friendship and peace between religions, such as Christianity and Visistadvaitic Hinduism, and promote progressive theological communication on the theology of the atonement between the West and India, I would be more than happy.

The Atonement Creating Unions

An Exploration in Inter-Religious Theology

Copyright ©

2019

Godfrey Kesari. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Kesari, Godfrey, author. | Felderhof, Marius C., foreword writer.

Title: The atonement creating unions : an exploration in inter-religious theology / Godfrey Kesari, with a foreword by Marius C. Felderhof.

Description: Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications,

2019

| Includes bibliographical references and index.

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isbn 978-1-5326-5262-2 (

paperback

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hardcover

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ebook

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Subjects: LCSH: Comparative theology | Christianity and other religions—Hinduism | Hinduism—Relations—Christianity | Religion—Theology—Hinduism | Religion—Theology—Christianity | Atonement

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bt750 k271 2019 (

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Scripture quotations are from The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©

1965

,

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National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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1

Introduction

A Setback of the Theology of the Atonement Clarified

The theology of the atonement has been regarded by many as central to the Christian scheme of doctrines throughout the Christian tradition. It is in important respects the very nexus of Christian theology because it brings meaning to all aspects of our lives under the divine. But, it is also a fact that this theology of the atonement is one amongst all the different theologies that are most consistently disputed and rejected in many other religious traditions, including the Indian Visistadvaitic Hindu tradition. The words of Israel Selvanayagam, an Indian Christian theologian, powerfully portray the nature of the problem of atonement theology in India. In his words,

Western missionaries working in the non-Western world, who were insistent on the atonement theories had to face the challenge of those who either could not understand their argument or were unwilling to subscribe to their view. Some thinking persons were questioning the logic of a wrathful God demanding the blood of an innocent person like Jesus in order to maintain justice. Some western missionaries changed their view and started to present the cross as revealing the eternal suffering of a loving God . . .¹

Precisely, the theology of the atonement remains a singular problem in Hindu-Christian contexts right up to the present time. This is because the whole concept of a God dying as a divine human being is not only alien but difficult to integrate into the Visistadvaitic Hindu Philosophy.

Of course, the atonement is an alien concept to other religious traditions such as Islam or Buddhism, too. However, since our endeavor is to understand the atonement using one another tradition we will limit ourselves to the Visistadvaitic Hindu tradition here. A similar study might be possible using other religious traditions.

The fact is many theologians within Hinduism, in general, accept the teachings of Jesus, but no Hindu has ever accepted the theology of the atonement as explained by the traditional theories. Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda, and Raja Ram Mohan Roy are amongst the many of those who could be mentioned in this regard. We will very briefly highlight the problems posed by Gandhi, Vivekananda, and Ram Mohan Roy in their opposition to the atonement concept. It may also be pointed out here that Hindus form the vast majority in India. There are about 80 percent Hindus, whilst Christians form only about 2.3 percent of the population. Now, we will very briefly look at the difficulties that Mahatma Gandhi raised in understanding the atonement concept as accepted within traditional Christianity.

Mahatma Gandhi

Although Gandhi admired the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus, he had rejected the concept of the atonement in its traditional forms. On the Sermon on the Mount, Gandhi writes, When I read in the Sermon on the Mount such passages as ‘Resist not him that is evil: he who smiteth thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also, and love your enemies, pray for them that persecute you that ye may be the sons of your Father which is in heaven,’ I was overjoyed.² But, on the atonement, he says,

I could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice and a Divine teacher and not as the most perfect man ever born. His death on the cross . . . that there was anything mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept. The pious lives of Christians did not give me anything that the lives of other faiths had failed to give me. I had seen in other lives just the same reformation that I had heard among Christians. Philosophically, there was nothing extraordinary in Christian principles. . . . It was impossible for me to regard Christianity as a perfect religion or the greatest of all religions.³

Gandhi held the view that we need to seek redemption not from the consequences of sin but from the idea of sin itself. He writes, I seek to be redeemed from sin itself, or from the very thought of sin. Until I have attained that end, I shall be content to be restless.⁴ A good Christian, from Manchester, remarked that man must sin, that it was impossible in the world to live sinlessly, and it was for this that Jesus suffered and made atonement. Gandhi replied, The brother proved as good as his word. He voluntarily committed transgressions and showed me that he was undisturbed by thought of them.⁵ As we noted, Gandhi’s idea of redemption was different. In this regard he shared the view of most Vaishnava⁶ Hindus for he was not the only one amongst that group of Hindus with such views. We now turn to Swami Vivekananda’s thought on the atonement.

Swami Vivekananda.

Swami Vivekananda also attacked the doctrine that Christ died to save people. For him, experience, not doctrine, was the fountainhead of Christianity, as with other religions (i.e. the experience of Christ and his disciples in meeting God).⁷ However, on the atonement, Vivekananda writes,

The Christians believe that Jesus Christ died to save Man. With you it is belief in a doctrine, and this belief constitutes your salvation. With us doctrine has nothing whatever to do with salvation. What difference does it make to you whether Jesus lived at a certain time or not? What has it to do with you that Moses saw in the burning bush? . . . Records of great spiritual men of the past do us no good whatever except that they urge us onward to do the same, to experience religion ourselves. Whatever Christ or Moses or anybody else did does not help us in the least, except to urge us on.⁸

In fact, for Vivekananda, the teachings of Christ are part of Indian thought as well. More precisely, he finds many similarities between the thoughts of Buddha and Christ.⁹ However, according to him, the concept of the atonement is alien to Indian thought. Like many Hindus, Vivekananda too is reluctant to accept the atonement as understood in its traditional forms. In short, the problem, which atonement theology faces in India, with regard to its acceptance, is clearly evident in Vivekananda’s writings.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Another thinker who has rejected the atonement concept, as understood in traditional ways, is Raja Ram Mohan Roy. For him, Jesus’ mission on earth was not to die a substitutionary death but to preach and impart divine instructions.¹⁰ Probably, it is difficult and enigmatic to account for Christ’s suffering. Ram Mohan Roy interprets the parable of the wicked Husbandmen (Mark 12:1–9) as follows:

This parable and these passages give countenance to the idea, that God suffered his Prophets, and Jesus, his beloved Son, to be cruelly treated and slain by the Jews for the purpose of taking away every excuse that they might offer for their guilt.¹¹

The anti-Semitic bias in this explanation is unfortunate. It may in fact reflect Ram Mohan’s uncritical deference to those Christian interpreters, who are inclined to cast the Jews in the role of Jesus’ crucifiers.

Nevertheless, Ram Mohan raises the traditional question of whether Jesus suffered death and pain in his divine nature or human nature? For him, on the one hand, the divine cannot suffer. On the other hand, if Jesus suffered in his human nature it has grave moral problems. Whereas on the notion of an atonement for the offenses of others, Ram Mohan says,

. . . it seems totally inconsistent with the justice ascribed to God, and even at variance with those principles of equity required of men; for it would be a piece of gross inequity to afflict one innocent being, who had all the human feelings, and who had never transgressed the will of God, with the death of the cross, for the crimes committed by others, especially when he declares such great aversion to it.¹²

We could possibly offer some traditional solutions to the problems which Ram Mohan raises. Nevertheless, our intention in this chapter is only to point out that atonement theology still remains problematic for Visistadvaitic Hindus amongst others.

Other notable Hindus who have rejected the atonement concept, the details of which we will not note here, are Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo and Sri Radhakrishnan. We will examine some of the criticisms focused on atonement theology later in this book. Here, it is worth noting that even Indian Christian theologians find it difficult to accept the traditional understandings of the theology of the atonement. Indian Christian theologians criticize the view of the work of Christ as propitiation to satisfy an angry God and refuse to accept the work of Christ as reconciliation between God and human beings achieved through sacrifice.¹³ The common questions, amongst many others, raised by the theologians in India are: Why does God need an innocent’s blood for forgiveness? and Is God not more powerful than evil?

Generally, the problem which atonement theology faces in many other cultures is not merely one of communication but also of its inherent inadequacy to explain it logically.

As mentioned in the preface, I had the privilege of attending a fully-fledged course on the theology of the atonement at Princeton Theological Seminary, and I acknowledge that the course has influenced my thoughts on atonement theology. I was taught that the three basic motifs in New Testament teaching on the atonement are reconciliation, redemption, and propitiation/expiation. The course included the doctrine of the atonement as espoused in the early church and in the Middle Ages analyzing pre-Irenaean positions, Irenaeus’ recapitulation theory, Athanasius and divinization, Gregory of Nyssa’s dramatic view, Anselm’s satisfaction theory, Peter Abelard’s Moral Influence theory, Thomas Aquinas’ Modified Anselmianism, and the Penal Substitution theory. Furthermore, the atonement in the reformation period and in modern theology were discussed in detail. Martin Luther’s theology of the cross, John Calvin’s threefold office of Christ, Hegel’s reconciliation of the finite and the infinite, Schleiermacher’s Person-Forming theory of redemption, Gustav Aulen’s reaction to nineteenth century historiography, Dorothee Solle’s Principle of Representation, D. M. Baillie’s Evangelical liberalism, and the insights of yet other theologians (like Karl Barth, Dillistone, Pannenberg and Moltmann) on the atonement were all discussed. Having been given a thorough exposure to the theology of the atonement, we were asked to critically evaluate the various works on it.

This is when I found that there had been no in-depth attempt to construct a theology of the atonement using other religious traditions. The sophisticated and well-designed course on the atonement, which was taught, supposed that the existing theologies of the atonement addressed the people of other religious traditions equally well. However, finding the truth to be just the opposite was stimulating and challenging. This book is an attempt to bridge that gap in theology.

Finally, why does atonement theology remain problematical in an Indian Christian-Hindu context? The simple answer is, as we will see in the next chapter, the Visistadvaitic Hindu notions of sin and salvation imply a different logic. Hence, the atonement theology fails to address significant concerns in that context. In this book, we will attempt to construct a fresh model of atonement that would be more readily understandable and applicable to the Vivistadvaitic Hindu context. Interestingly, this attempt will also help Christians in the West and worldwide to perceive the atonement in a different way and draw out fresh dimensions. We will call the fresh model of the atonement, which we will outline in chapter 4, as the atonement creating unions.

The Problem of Alienation Which the Theology of the Atonement Can Address

Indubitably, alienation in its manifold dimensions is one of the crucial problems, if not the central problem of our world. The word, alienation, is often used to describe social estrangement. Vince says that the vast disorientation caused by World War II and the writings of Weber, Kierkegaard, Tillich and Marx have a bearing on the extensive use of the word, alienation in contemporary society.¹⁴ In general terms, alienation is treated as undesirable because it is the experience of being away from home and living as a stranger in the society.

Alienation is the immense quandary that has affected humanity throughout history. Hegel, in particular, dealt with the concept of alienation at length. He, in fact, sees a positive dimension to our minds being in a state of alienation with itself. For him, alienation stimulates the creative ardour of the mind; it is alienation that makes civilization.¹⁵ However, it was Marx and Engels who were amongst the first to provide a comprehensive approach to alienation as a problem. Though they regarded the dynamics of self-alienation as inevitable and necessary in terms of growth from childhood to adulthood, they thought that the negative side of alienation during adulthood should not be overlooked. They held that alienation is self-denying and self-contradictory.¹⁶ In Marx’s early writings, alienation (entfremdung or entäusserung in German) refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. In fact, Marx bases his theory of alienation on economic disparity. For him, the evidence of alienation is the misery and poverty that abounds in this world of potential abundance. It is likely that this sense of alienation became a dominant theme after Marx.

However, although alienation can help in understanding the dynamics of the development of an individual against others, the work of Christ does not deal with the growth of the individual at a cost that is detrimental to others, but overcoming it has to do with collective growth. In this context, alienation, no doubt, needs to be viewed as a hurdle on the path of harmonious growth, mutuality, and development. We need to assert that alienation is a crucial problem because 1) it is against our nature, 2) it is against peace and harmony, 3) it denies growing together, 4) it is a product