XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books   
   From: a24061@ducksburg.com   
      
   On 2015-02-14, Steve Hayes wrote:   
      
   > On Fri, 13 Feb 2015 21:51:21 +0000 (UTC), Wayne Brown    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >>In alt.usage.english Steve Hayes  wrote:   
      
   >>> Yes, the writer is Evangelical, and is writing against Fundamentalist   
   polemics   
   >>> that are often aimed at appealing to Evangelicals. The penal substitution   
   view   
   >>> of the atonement that Lewis was accused of rejecting is basically a   
   Calvinist   
   >>> one, and accepted by most Fundamentalists. I think that they would argue   
   that   
   >>> it is one of the Fundamentals.   
   >>   
   >>If Lewis were here I think he would say (and did say, as I recall)   
   >>that the Atonement itself is a lot more important than all our theories   
   >>of how it works.   
      
   +1.  I don't see why churches need to get hung up on choosing &   
   enforcing (in a manner of speaking) very specific models of the   
   Atonement (or a lot of other theological points).   
      
   >>I don't remember him explicitly rejecting the penal   
   >>substitution view but instead considered it one of several ways of taking   
   >>something beyond human understanding and expressing it in terms that   
   >>we can at least partially understand.  He himself preferred the idea of   
   >>Christ "footing the bill" and paying a debt on our behalf that we could   
   >>not pay (which is just as much a Scriptural image as penal substitution)   
   >>but he also said each person should take whichever Biblical "formula"   
   >>best helps him understand the Atonement and above all not argue with   
   >>other people because they choose a different "formula."   
   >   
   > Indeed, but I think most Fundamentalists would say that there is no atonement   
   > without penal substitution, and that in saying otherwise C.S. Lewis was a   
   > heretic.   
      
   Is there a specific Orthodox model of the Atonement, or does what I   
   think of as the "less is more" approach to theology apply?   
      
      
   --   
   A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.   
   Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?   
   A: Top-posting.   
   Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)