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The writing and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall: The early years - to 1905.

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Letter from W E Inge in response to Rashdall's sermon on Abelard's Doctrine of the Atonement
[The letter is not dated. but Inge was Fellow of Hertford College 1889-1905 and a quotation in the letter is clearly from the sermon on the Abelardian doctrine of the Atonement printed in “Doctrine and Development”. A whole Greek phrase is omitted, but I have attempted to give English 'equivalents' for individual Greek words, while recognising that there is rarely an exact equivalent. SAB]

HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD.

My dear Rashdall,
   Many thanks for letting me see your most interesting sermon. I did not know the passage of Abelard before - it is certainly very fine. Of course, I thoroughly agree with your rejection of the bargain theory and that of a legal fiction. (How characteristically, by the way, that the middle-class Englishman should conceive the scheme of salvation as entries in a ledger!) but Abelard seems to leave out one side of the Atonement which is perhaps most prominent in NT. To St Paul at all events, Sin and Grace were objective spiritual principles, representing the will of Satan and of God respectively, and human life is little more than the arena of their conflict. The death of Christ was at once the efficient cause & the manifestation of the victory of [grace], and its consequence to us is the potential destruction of the [flesh], the real principle of sin, after which our personality is merged in that of Christ [Gk phrase follows]. I think this mystical union is too fruitful an idea to be abandoned – it is a safeguard against false imputation theories, and it enables us to say that the faults of the [human spirit] are mere defects - ‘good in the making’, while those of the [earthly] contain no principle of recovery, but tend to increase - this seems true to experience.

≈
In short, I believe that Christianity can only rise above dualism by including it, and that if we do not recognize an Evil Principle, which resists God, and is not subject to His law, we soon lose the idea of sin. This in turn causes the idea of God as Supreme Good to fade, for the Supreme Good can only be exhibited in conflict with Supreme Evil: goodness without a Devil would be merely bombinans in vacuo, at least so it seems to me. I believe that the flabby optimism of men like Emerson and (?) Robert Browning is quite incompatible with real Christianity. You seem to recognise the Pauline view when you speak of rescued captives; but in NT they are ‘primarily the Devil’s captives’, and this deliverance is surely not merely a ‘negative and subordinate aspect’ of their salvation.

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I do not think you have done justice to the substitutionists in giving them only one text. [ransom] occurs in 1 Tim; & texts like ‘he made sinless sin’ are clear for substitution, though they are incompatible with other Pauline doctrines, e.g. that of the mystical union.
   Have you not exaggerated the extent to which the Devil’s Ransom theory was held in the Patristic age? Gregory Naz. for instance, vehemently opposes it.
   Excuse this harangue. You are doubtless more familiar with my side of the question than I am myself.

   Yours ever,
   W.R. Inge

The writing and correspondence of Hastings Rashdall: The early years - to 1905.			HastingsRashdall.org.uk
Letter from W E Inge in response to Rashdall's sermon on Abelard's Doctrine of the Atonement [The letter is not dated. but Inge was Fellow of Hertford College 1889-1905 and a quotation in the letter is clearly from the sermon on the Abelardian doctrine of the Atonement printed in “Doctrine and Development”. A whole Greek phrase is omitted, but I have attempted to give English 'equivalents' for individual Greek words, while recognising that there is rarely an exact equivalent. SAB]
HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD. My dear Rashdall, Many thanks for letting me see your most interesting sermon. I did not know the passage of Abelard before - it is certainly very fine. Of course, I thoroughly agree with your rejection of the bargain theory and that of a legal fiction. (How characteristically, by the way, that the middle-class Englishman should conceive the scheme of salvation as entries in a ledger!) but Abelard seems to leave out one side of the Atonement which is perhaps most prominent in NT. To St Paul at all events, Sin and Grace were objective spiritual principles, representing the will of Satan and of God respectively, and human life is little more than the arena of their conflict. The death of Christ was at once the efficient cause & the manifestation of the victory of [grace], and its consequence to us is the potential destruction of the [flesh], the real principle of sin, after which our personality is merged in that of Christ [Gk phrase follows]. I think this mystical union is too fruitful an idea to be abandoned – it is a safeguard against false imputation theories, and it enables us to say that the faults of the [human spirit] are mere defects - ‘good in the making’, while those of the [earthly] contain no principle of recovery, but tend to increase - this seems true to experience.
	≈	In short, I believe that Christianity can only rise above dualism by including it, and that if we do not recognize an Evil Principle, which resists God, and is not subject to His law, we soon lose the idea of sin. This in turn causes the idea of God as Supreme Good to fade, for the Supreme Good can only be exhibited in conflict with Supreme Evil: goodness without a Devil would be merely bombinans in vacuo, at least so it seems to me. I believe that the flabby optimism of men like Emerson and (?) Robert Browning is quite incompatible with real Christianity. You seem to recognise the Pauline view when you speak of rescued captives; but in NT they are ‘primarily the Devil’s captives’, and this deliverance is surely not merely a ‘negative and subordinate aspect’ of their salvation.
Back to "Explore the writings of Rashdall - The Early Years to 1905"	I do not think you have done justice to the substitutionists in giving them only one text. [ransom] occurs in 1 Tim; & texts like ‘he made sinless sin’ are clear for substitution, though they are incompatible with other Pauline doctrines, e.g. that of the mystical union. Have you not exaggerated the extent to which the Devil’s Ransom theory was held in the Patristic age? Gregory Naz. for instance, vehemently opposes it. Excuse this harangue. You are doubtless more familiar with my side of the question than I am myself. Yours ever, W.R. Inge