Kathryn Pogin

If belief in the redemptive nature of the life and death of Christ is to be intellectually defensible, Christian philosophers must have an account of it that is not only philosophically coherent, but also morally unobjectionable. Drawing on feminist theology, this paper explores the epistemological and gendered implications of traditional approaches to the atonement; namely, the normalization of submission to violence and the idealization of suffering. Conceiving of redemption as arising out of sacrificial submission to violence has corrupted the shared hermeneutical resources through which Christian communities conceptualize ethical conduct, love, and virtue. Borrowing in part from those who have suggested a moral influence view, like Abelard, this paper argues Christian philosophers pursue a new kind of exemplarist model. That is, perhaps death has no central role in what redeems us, nor sacrificial love, but rather resisting injustice, even when the risks of doing so may be fatal.

Eleonore Stump’s Atonement marks a significant advance in atonement theory, especially in its nuanced approach to ethical and relational complexities, but tends to treat sin as social only insofar as one individual’s sin can harm or shame another. I argue that that social sin requires social redemption and that exemplarism would provide a solution. Christ’s pursuit of love and justice, in the midst of oppression, temptation and struggle, offers a distinctive model of virtue, toward collective restoration of the world. While we cannot redeem ourselves, in calling us to effect justice and union with one another, God may also call us closer to Godself.