II.3.1 Debts and Debts of Punishment
Penal substitution invites some of its greatest criticisms from the idea that Christ’s death is equivalent to his absorbing the penalty for the sin of humanity. Or to put it differently, that the work of Christ is a payment of humanity’s debt of punishment. This is quite a subtle and nevertheless critically important distinction from Christ’s work being construed as payment for a debt simpliciter. Not understanding the difference between the nature of a simple debt and a debt of punishment is to miss the substance of penal substitution altogether. And the difference is this: to owe God a debt of punishment is to owe a debt specifically for an offence that requires humanity (the debtor) suffer loss by suffering a punishment equivalent to their offence(s).58 This is the work of Christ on the penal substitution model, namely, to suffer loss by paying humanity’s debt of punishment to God’s retributive justice. To owe God a debt of any other sort is to owe God for something that requires that God (the creditor) not suffer loss. The work of Christ in this light fits more than one model of atonement. And it is in this distinction—between debts and debts of punishment—where the tension in Edwards’ and his son’s account of divine justice and atonement appears. This tension has two parts. The first tension we will see by way of a contrast between what a debt demands and what a debt of punishment demands and we will see the second by understanding the direction, as it were, of sins offence.
First, notice that a debt of punishment requires that transgressors (or more accurately, Christ) suffer loss. In this way, the penal substitution model is surprisingly anthropocentric in terms of its chief goal, in that the problem facing sinners is not a matter of their failed effort to restore anything to God, so much as it is with his exacting a penalty from them (or again, Christ). President Edwards says as much about this sort of judicial demand in several places throughout his work. For example, he argues that,
God declares that those sinners that are not forgiven shall pay the uttermost farthing, and the last mite, and that all the debt [of punishment] shall be exacted of them, etc. Now it seems unreasonable to suppose that God, in case of a surety, and his insisting on an atonement made by him, that he will show mercy by releasing the surety without a full atonement, anymore than that he will release it to the sinner that is punished, by not insisting on the complete punishment.59
In other words, in the same way that the full punitive demands of God’s retributive justice are to be exacted from sinners, Edwards says that they are exacted from Christ and this, because he is their representative and God should require no less from him despite his status as a divine person.60 Notice that Edwards says nothing in this context of what Christ’s work does positively, that is, positively for God. This is because restoring anything to God is not a problem that the penal substitution model endeavors to solve. Interestingly, in another place, Edwards argues that restoring to God the honor that is due him is precisely the work Christ undertook in making atonement, saying,
The sacrifice of Christ is a sweet savor, [first], because as such it was a great honor done to God’s majesty, holiness and law, and a glorious expression and testimony of Christ’s respect to that majesty etc.; that when he loved man and so greatly desired his salvation, he had yet so great respect to that majesty and holiness of God, that he had rather die than that salvation should be any injury or dishonor unto those attributes. And then secondly, it was a sweet savour, as it was a marvellous act of obedience, and so an expression of a wonderful respect to God’s authority. The value of Christ’s sacrifice was infinite, both as a propitiation and as an act of obedience; because he showed an infinite regard to the majesty, holiness, etc. of God, in being at infinite expense from regard to it. (See Nos. 451, 452).61
To make the distinction between owing a debt and a debt of punishment clear, consider the following analogy.
Imagine that you get a call one day from “Easy Eddy,” the notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone’s bookkeeper. Eddy calls to talk to you about some massive unpaid debt that you owe Capone after losing a few hands of poker to Capone a few weeks ago.62 Eddy reminds you that you owe Capone a hundred-grand and that if you don’t pay up soon, the next call you’ll be getting will be a “house call,” from none other than Capone’s so-called “Enforcer,” Frank Nitti, and a few of his leg-breakers—only they won’t be breaking legs, they will be coming to finish you. Desperate to avoid a thrashing by Nitti-and-company, you quickly hang up on Eddy and phone your brother, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, who happens to be a close-confidante of the Capone family. After telling your brother what you’ve done and that you don’t have the money, he arranges a meeting with you and Capone to make a deal. To your great surprise and relief, in the meeting, your brother promises to pony-up the hundred-grand to pay your debt to Capone. The problem, however, is that having brokered the deal and bought your debt to Capone, your brother Guzik is now out a hundred-grand (provided he pays-up of course). What is interesting is that by discharging you of your debt to Capone, and assuming it himself, Guzik is now in a position to either forgive your debt to him outright and absorb the financial loss or exact the same sort of retribution from you, as would have Capone and company. Buying up your debt gives him that right. In this way, Guzik can either pay your debt or your debt of punishment.
Now, if we stop here we could cash out this analogy in terms of either a payment of a debt of punishment or payment of a debt. To owe Capone a debt—in this case, a debt of honor—means that he may neither lose money nor his honor and thus remains both vigilant and patient until these things are restored to him. To owe him a debt of punishment means that getting back the money means less to Capone than killing you, perhaps in order to show that he is not one to be trifled with and that he will inevitably and eventually settle all accounts of those offences against him.63
It is the Capone-like exaction of a debt of punishment that is precisely the problem that the death of Christ solves on the penal substitution model. God’s punitive action for offences against him is the actualization of his retributive justice. And according to exponents of penal substitution, it is the retributive demands of divine justice that Christ takes upon himself to meet for humanity’s sake. Divine retributive justice is that which God visits upon the unrighteous for sins against him.
For Edwards’ part, Christ is somehow depicted as paying both a debt simpliciter and a debt of punishment. For Christ to perform both of these works is a problem on several levels. But before we show how this is a potential problem—because it is so intimately bound up with the direction of sins offence—let us consider a second aspect of a debt of punishment.
II.3.2. Retribution and the Direction of Sins Offence
The second aspect of a debt of punishment that demands our attention here is the underlying assumption that sins offense is directed against God himself, and not, say, against his moral law. According to Edwards,
Sin is of such a nature that it wishes ill, and aims at ill, to God and men, but to God especially. It strikes at God; it would, if it could, procure his misery and death. It is but suitable that with what measure it meets, it should be measured to it again. ‘Tis but suitable that men should reap what they sow, and that the reward of every man’s hands should be given him.64
In this way, exponents of penal substitution make much of the fact that divine retribution for offenses against God are private legal affairs—that is, they are offenses against God himself by individual, morally responsible creatures, in contrast to say, a public offense, which is an offense against a society. Consider that if someone commits a crime against another, that person is liable for the offense and punishment will likely befall the offending party. The individual, who sins against God, so they argue, is thus justly liable to the punitive measures of God’s retributive justice as an individual. Such exponents