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An article written for Survey of Theology II in regards to the "atonement". Limited or unlimited atonement? That is the question. And can I be honest and share with you how beautifully freeing it is to say �I don�t know!� I honestly have no idea. Five years ago, I would have said one thing. A year ago I would have said another. Today I say one thing. Tomorrow I might believe another. And 20, 30, 40 years from now. On my death bed . . . who knows? And since I�m not going to know one way or the other before I enter into the glorious presence of the only One who does know, I�m not going to spend a lot of time, nor passion supporting one position or another. But for the sake of this class, and my all important grade, I will briefly touch on what this ignorant 22 year old might tend to lean towards at this present moment. I might begin by sharing that I approach all of theology and the �touchy� subjects such as this one, in the way the author of Hebrews wrote about as he made reference to the �mercy seat� as a foreshadowing of the �atonement� cover. Hebrews 9:5 reads, �. . . But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.� While this in no way discounts my need to study and �show myself approved� and to �be able to give account� for what I believe, I believe there are many �grey� areas that we have arrived at in our interpretations. And since we have what we call finite minds, I can rest easy not knowing everything. I think we do ourselves a great disservice when we try and prove God is one way or the other (which I think is what Eli was alluding to) instead of allowing there to be some open space for us to let some things just be unexplainable, even a mystery. This may blow some people by surprise, but everything is not always cut and dry, black and white, either/or. The theological discussion regarding limited or unlimited atonement is one of the areas where it�s a little stickier, a little grey, both/and. I often wonder why we have to make God be �either/or� instead of �both/and�. G.K. Chesterton in his book �Orthodoxy� has a wonderful chapter about the paradox of God. Is it so hard to believe that God, because of his completeness and fullness, can hold in the same hand both grace and law? Beauty and pain? Election and choice? Realizing that God is both/and, unexplainable and mysterious at times, gives me great hope because it lets me know that He is not a man-made God that thinks and acts like us humans. Instead He operates on a different plane, a different level of reasoning and logic. When we begin to make it an �either/or� issue, it shows to me that we are trying to cram God into one of our logical boxes. We have to leave some space in there for God to be God and do things differently than the way we would do it. There has to be some tension. Some unexplainable left in our theology. For if not, we will have defined the Indefinable. Put the Transcendent in a box. And I myself am not prepared to do that. How do you come to a conclusion one way or the other when there are two verses that seem to lead to different conclusions? How do you reconcile 1 Timothy 2:6 where Paul writes that Jesus �gave himself as a ransom for all men� and Christ�s specific prayer for �those whom the Father had given him�, in John 17? How does the backend of a verse like Hebrews 2:9 where it says, �that he might taste death for everyone� mesh up with a passage like Romans 9:11-27 where Paul discusses that God specifically and purposefully hardens hearts and softens others, where Paul writes that some were created for �noble purposes� and others �destruction�? You could take the position of unlimited atonement like Charles Ryrie as he writes, �The death of Christ pays for the sins of all people.�1 Or you could take the position of Louis Berkhof as quoted by Millard Erickson, �since Christ prays only for those whom the Father has given him, it must be only for them that he died.�2 But it is precisely because �He is who he is that He does what He does�3 that makes the paradox beautiful. I think that is where Paul finally landed after he wrote the words that set up the framework for much of our present day theology in Romans 1-11. In his �doxology�, glory statement, I think Paul was still trying to understand what the Spirit had led him to write. I think Paul was floored and taken back with what had just been written, especially chapters 9-11. And in 11:33-36, I think that�s why he writes, �Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! For who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who knows enough to be his counselor? And who could ever give him so much that he would have to pay it back? For everything comes from him; everything exists by his power and is intended for his glory. To him be glory evermore. Amen.� Sadly, instead of leaving some things as unexplainable we move into the dangerous place of wasting our time by inventing great big words like �supralapsarians and infralapsarians�. But since making up big words and using them to define a bunch of finite theories and opinions makes us feel better, we continue to march down the road of ignorance seeking to arrive at the perfect, complete ORTHODOXY instead of attempting to live the perfect, complete ORTHOPRAXY. My question for the class is this, what right do we think we have to tell the potter what to do with his clay (Romans 9:20-21)? For what reasons do we need to know? Is it even possible to know this side of heaven? 1. C. Ryrie, Basic Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 373. 2. M. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 844. 3. J. Stott, Romans (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 273.