Abstract
R. G. Collingwood’s philosophical analysis of religious atonement as a dialectical process of mortal repentance and divine forgiveness is explained and criticized. Collingwood’s Christian concept of atonement, in which Christ \(=\) the Atonement (and also \(=\) the Incarnation), is subject in turn to another kind of dialectic, in which some of Collingwood’s leading ideas are first surveyed, and then tested against objections in a philosophical evaluation of their virtues and defects, strengths and weaknesses. Collingwood’s efforts to synthesize objective and subjective aspects of atonement, and his proposal to solve the soteriological problem as to why God becomes flesh, as a dogma of some Christian belief systems, is finally exposed in adversarial exposition as inadequately supported by one of his main arguments, designated here as Collingwood’s Dilemma. The dilemma is that sin is either forgiven or unforgiven by God. If God forgives sin, then God’s justice is lax, whereas if God does not forgive sin, then, also contrary to divine nature, God lacks perfect loving compassion. The dilemma is supposed to drive philosophy toward a concept of atonement in which the sacrifice of Christ is required in order to absolve God of the lax judgment objection. God forgives sin only when the price of sin is paid, in this case, by the suffering and crucifixion of God’s avatar. The dilemma can be resolved in another way than Collingwood considers, undermining his motivation for synthesizing objective and subjective facets of the concept of atonement for the sake of avoiding inconsistency. Collingwood is philosophically important because he asks all the right questions about religious atonement, and points toward reasonable answers, even if he does not always deliver original philosophically satisfactory solutions.
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Notes
Collingwood (1997 [1916], pp. 180–181).
Collingwood (1997 [1916], p. 147).
Collingwood explains his understanding of religious doctrine in the form of propositionally expressed belief as essential to religion as he understand the concept, at least for his purposes in the book. See ibid., p. 12: ‘Now the Doctrine of God is of course theology; it is in fact the translation of that word. Accordingly, a creed is a theology, and there is no distinction whatever between Theology and Religion, so far as the intellectual aspect of religion is concerned. My theology is the beliefs I hold about God, that is to say, my creed, the intellectual element of my religion.’ Ibid.: ‘Without examining further theories of the same kind, therefore, we may venture to assert that religion cannot exist without a definite belief as to the nature of God. This contention would probably be borne out by any careful investigation of actual religions; every religion claims to present as true and intellectually sound a doctrine which may be described as a theory of God.’
Ibid., p. 182: ‘In examining actual theories of the Atonement [event of the Incarnation], however, we must bear in mind that a verbal statement which appears to be one-sided does not necessarily either neglect or exclude the other side. The objective view is perfectly true so far as it goes; and the criticism often directed against it, on the ground that redemption is a matter of the individual will alone and must arise entirely from within, is due to a fallacious theory of personality.’
Collingwood (1997 [1916], p. 181).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 181–182.
Ibid., p. 182.
Ibid., pp. 185–186.
As useful background companion to Collingwood’s metaphysics more generally, independently of its applications in his philosophy of religion, refer to Collingwood 1998 [1940]. Among the secondary literature see also Rubinoff 1972, and the essays collected in Krausz (1972).
Collingwood (1997 [1916], p. 184). A more recently published discussion by Kasuga (2011) argues that a balanced interpretation implies that Collingwood seeks in his philosophy of religion to overcome a number of traditional philosophical dualisms of ‘realism’ and ‘idealism’. I propose in contrast that Collingwood regards the concept of religious atonement in particular as capable of being understood only by correctly applying an extant dualism involving precisely the realism-idealism distinction. I do not see Collingwood as departing from these two polar extremes, and I read him instead as preferring a synthetic but not merely syncretic metaphysics, in which each of these opposite concepts lends an essential complementary dimension to a more complete grasp of the dialectical dynamics of religious atonement.
Ibid., p. 185.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 186.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 187.
Ibid., p. 192.
Ibid., pp. 192–193. See also Johnson (1967), especially chapter V, pp. 45–51.
References
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I am grateful to an anonymous journal referee for useful comments, criticisms and suggestions for improvement.
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Jacquette, D. Collingwood on religious atonement. Int J Philos Relig 76, 151–170 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9456-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9456-3