I began, in the last issue, sharing the difference between Eastern and Western Christian positions on the work of Christ. I ended the last issue with the fact that St. Athanasius the Great stated that Christ is the ransom that was paid to death. In stark contrast, the Anselmian position asserts that the debt was paid to God the Father to satisfy His infinite wrath, a by product of offense to His justice and honor. This doctrine of Atonement also states that sin is an affront to the Divinity, for which mere man cannot make reparation. It regards sin as a transgression in the legal sense rather than the Eastern perspective of an illness of the heart and will. In this light, Anselm’s assumption is that a “divine honor” has been wounded and is in need of “satisfaction.” This necessitates a legal transaction by which Christ pays the Father with His own blood the debt incurred by man’s sin. The Resurrection of Christ does not occupy a central place in man’s redemption.

If God then is infinitely offended by our sin and is therefore in need of some infinite “satisfaction,” many can rightly (and most unfortunately) begin to equate this God with a sadistic image of a father compelled by honor to inflict punishment. Thus God is made subject to justice. By subjecting God to this law of necessity and ascribing to Him human characteristics such as vengeance and anger, we make it appear that it is God who is in need of healing, and not man. (As I have always said: mankind has worked hard to make God in his, man’s, image and likeness).

However, God never changes, for it is not God that is at enmity with man; but man who is at enmity with God. The foundation of a proper understanding of salvation is that God does not change: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Thus, the Eastern Church’s approach seeks to heal man, and not God, recognizing sin as a refusal of the Love of God, the entrance of death, and the deconstruction of the soul. The Eastern Church sees the Fall of man from a medical perspective: as an illness of the heart that brings death by cutting off communion with the One Who is Life. This is a natural consequence of free will. But, God desired to create humans with a free will so that they might freely return His love. Therefore He came to call man to union with Him through Jesus Christ.