The Horror of Hell: St. Gregory Palamas on God's Retributive Justice Contra Hyper-Therapeuticism

The notion that God’s justice is exclusively restorative or, as it were, therapeutic, is being hailed by some as the Orthodox understanding of God’s justice. In this view, God never imposes a non-rehabilitative penalty. All penalties are necessarily rehabilitative, and so to understand justice as retributive is to misunderstand God fundamentally. God, being merciful, cannot be conceived as operating according to a mode of justice that excludes the objects of His justice from being thereby healed through the application of said restorative justice. Justice is never imposed, so the view goes, without mercy as its principle aim or telos. Of course, this notion is false, and is a travesty as regards its being touted as the teaching and preaching of the Church. Although it is true that God’s justice can and often does include a therapeutic and even merciful aspect, as when He limits the extent of Adam’s sin by imposing mortal limits to man (a mercy not available to Satan), it is not exclusively so, for God is holy, and those who refuse to repent of their sin and follow Christ in faith and holiness of life will be eternally condemned according to the principles of God’s retributive justice.

Some may try to oppose the full position of the Church by appealing to the many instances in which God’s mercy is demonstratively present in His just judgments. But one cannot prove that one thing, X, is not there by showing that some other thing, Y, is there, and so this critique assumes a false dichotomy. No amount of proving X can ever in principle disprove Y, which in the present case is to say that, short of universalism, no number of examples of God’s merciful judgements will prove that God never judges retributively. This critique can therefore be dismissed altogether.

Another attempt at opposing the full teaching of the Church may attempt to bind retributive justice to some passibility in God, say a passion of wrath, or more generally to a law which would act as a force controlling God’s freedom, and then seek to tar and feather retribution by associating it with what is necessarily condemned, i.e. that God is passible. Of course, this attempt at invalidating God’s holy and just retribution, by ascribing passion to it, would also have the necessary consequence of ascribing passion even to God’s mercy, for if God’s wrath must be understood as a passion, then nothing in principle discludes mercy from that same ascription. Since God, however, is axiomatically impassible, both in His mercy and in His wrath, and retributive justice is present in the Scriptures alongside His mercy, then the concept of retributive justice must refer to an impassible reality in God, i.e. the inexorable opposition and necessary incompatibility between God and sin. Not compelled by either some passion of wrath or even His own law, God freely upholds His lawful justice, for it accords implicitly with His holy nature.

As discussed in a previous study and as will shown more explicitly below, justice is the sword of the sinner falling on his own head, the pit he digs and into which he falls, the snare he lays and by which he finally entraps himself. God is a just Judge, and His judgment seat is a dread Judgment Seat. It is not only the throne of the Healer, and so if God only uses justice medicinally, then everyone must be healed because God does nothing without justice. Hyper-Therapeuticism, the belief that God’s justice is exclusively therapeutic in nature, would thus necessitate the heresy of universalism. Since universalism is unequivocally denied, as shown here and here, if the judgment, i.e. the justice, of God does not heal everyone, then it cannot be exclusively therapeutic. For unless one succumb to a false dichotomy, it must also be able to function retributively. God, then, being impassible, and not saving everyone, His justice is and must be both medicinal and retributive, where the nature of each case being the factor which elicits one or the other divine response. 

Before turning to Scripture, it is necessary to recall that retribution is a word that derives from the Latin retributio, which refers to recompense or repayment. It is composed of the prefix re- plus tributum, and so means to pay again or pay back. Tributum is also found in such words as tribute, tributary, contribute, distribute, etc. Retribution therefore simply refers to repayment of something owed, whether for good or ill. Moving onto the Bible’s own testimony, retribution is also a biblical concept, and means simply repayment or recompense, even to restore. The Hebrew terms, such as שׁוּב, shûwb;  שָׁלַם, shâlam, נָתַן, nâthan, and, to a lesser extent, גְּמוּלָה, gᵉmûwlâh and גְּמוּל, gᵉmûwl, and still others in the Hebrew and Greek, are so common and flexible in the original languages that rather than their general meaning it will be more necessary to see them in their context. Not only the words, then, but the context in which they appear will show the retributive nature of God’s justice. The Scriptures’ holistic testimony states:

From the Pentateuch

-And He repays (shâlam) those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay (shâlam) him to his face. (Deuteronomy 7:10)

-If I whet My glittering sword, And My hand takes hold on judgment, I will render (shûwb) vengeance to My enemies, And repay (shâlam) those who hate Me. (Deuteronomy 32:41)

-Vengeance (naqam) is Mine, and recompense (shillêm); Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them. (Deuteronomy 32:35)

From the Histories

-If anyone sins against his neighbor, and is forced to take an oath, and comes and takes an oath before Your altar in this temple, 23 then hear from heaven, and act, and judge Your servants, bringing retribution (shûwb) on the wicked by bringing his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness. (2 Chronicles 6:22-23)

From the Prophets

-According to their deeds (gᵉmûwlâh), accordingly He will repay (shâlam), Fury to His adversaries, Recompense (gᵉmûwl) to His enemies; The coastlands He will fully repay (shâlam; LXX ὑπεναντίος, hypenantíos). (Isaiah 59:18; cf. Colossians 2:14; Hebrews 10:27)

-Because the plunderer comes against her, against Babylon, And her mighty men are taken. Every one of their bows is broken; For the LORD is the God of recompense (גְּמוּלָה, gᵉmûwlâh), He will surely repay (shâlam). (Jeremiah 51:56)

-And as for Me also, My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense (נָתַן, nâthan) their deeds on their own head. (Ezekiel 9:10)

-"But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense (nâthan) their deeds on their own heads," says the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 11:21)

-"Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but agitated Me with all these things, surely I will also recompense (nâthan) your deeds on your own head," says the Lord GOD. "And you shall not commit lewdness in addition to all your abominations. (Ezekiel 16:43)

-Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "As I live, surely My oath which he despised, and My covenant which he broke, I will recompense (nâthan) on his own head. (Ezekiel 17:19)

From The Gospels

-Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:45-46)

-Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. (John 5:28-29)

From the Epistles

-Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay (ἀνταποδίδωμι, antapodídōmi) with tribulation those who trouble you, (2 Thessalonians 1:6)

-Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay (ἀποδίδωμι, apodídōmi) him according to his works. (2 Timothy 4:14)

-Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary (hypenantíos) to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2:14)

-But a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries (hypenantíos). (Hebrews 10:27)

-Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:28-29)

-For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay (antapodídōmi)," says the Lord. And again, "The LORD will judge His people." (Hebrews 10:30; cf. Deuteronomy 32:35-36)

From Revelation

And I heard another voice from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. 5 "For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. 6 "Render (ἀποδίδωμι, apodídōmi) to her just as she rendered (ἀποδίδωμι, apodídōmi) to you, and repay (διπλόω, diplóō) her double (διπλοῦς, diploûs) according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. 7 "In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, 'I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.' 8 "Therefore her plagues will come in one day--death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. ... 20 "Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her!" 21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, "Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found anymore. (Rev 18:4-8, 20-21)

As has been made abundantly clear, to deny that God acts retributively not only denies that God keeps His own Covenant word, but also denies a pervasive theme and logic of the whole of God’s word. In short, if justice is not retributive, then it is quite simply not justice. Justice is thus retributive, and also restorative, for the Biblical notion of restoration does not disclude retributive, non-therapeutic repayment.  This is to say that the concept of restoration also includes that, unless an evil man repents, God will justly restore to him his evil as a just retribution. Therefore, although some assert a distinction between restoration and retribution, it ends up being a distinction without a difference, for to assert that there are two types of justice, retributive and restorative, amounts to the same thing and points to the same principle.

The Biblical position regarding the certain presence of retributive justice having been conclusively demonstrated, in order to know that this Biblical teaching is also preserved in its plain retributive sense in the Fathers, although an exhaustive study of their teaching on the issue is not possible here, it will be sufficient to look at St. Gregory Palamas’ unambiguous teaching on the subject. In many ways he sums up both the theoretical and the practical wisdom of the Fathers, and so his letter written to the nun Xenia will positively exemplify the Patristic consensus and so prove decisive for the matter at hand. He writes:

True life - the life that confers immortality and true life on both body and soul - will have its origin here [i.e. earth], in this place of death. If you do not strive here to gain this life in your soul, do not deceive yourself with vain hopes about receiving it hereafter, or about God then being compassionate towards you. For then is the time of requital and retribution, not of sympathy and compassion: the time for the revealing of God's wrath and anger and just judgement, for the manifestation of the mighty and sublime power that brings chastisement upon unbelievers. Woe to him who falls into the hands of the living God! (cf. Hebrews 10:31) Woe to him who hereafter experiences the Lord's wrath, who has not acquired in this life the fear of God and so come to know the might of His anger, who has not through his actions gained a foretaste of God's compassion. For the time to do all this is the present life. (St. Gregory Palamas, To the Most Reverend Nun Xenia, The Philokalia, Vol. 4, paragraph 16, pgs 298-99)

The clarity of the foregoing affirmation of retributive justice is so vivid that it would require an incredibly dishonest form of sophistry in order to obfuscate and avoid its import. We are even instructed by the Fathers to meditate on the Last Things, which is to say not only heaven, but also death, the final judgment, and hell. Since hell is a reality, which is to say an eternal punishment and an endless chastisement, God’s justice necessarily includes a retributive dimension. For “the violation of the commandment of God’s commandment is the cause of all types of death, whether in this present life or in that endless chastisement” (ibid, 296). Describing the retributive horror of hell, the “unbearable and immeasurable chastisement, which is the second and final death” (ibid, 298), St. Gregory writes:

These torments of hell are inexpressible, and… even worse than they have been painted... they are unending. Heat, cold, darkness, fire, movement and immobility, binds, terrors, and the biting of undying beasts are all brought together into this single condemnation; but all of these things fail properly to convey the true horror of hell which - to use St. Paul’s words - “man’s mind has not yet grasped” (1 Corinthians 2:9). What, then, is this profitless, unconsoling and endless grief experienced in hell? It is the grief stirred up in those who have sinned against God when they become aware of their offences. There, in hell, convicted of their sins, stripped of all hope of salvation or of any improvement in their condition, they feel yet greater anguish and grief because of the unsought reproof of their conscience. And this itself, and the everlasting nature of their grief, gives rise to yet another form of grief, and to another dreadful darkness, to unbearable heat and a helpless abyss of despondency. (ibid, 314)

To conclude, since "the Lord is the God of recompense, He will surely repay" (Jeremiah 51:56), it is inescapable that God’s retributive and restorative justice is not exclusively therapeutic. God’s justice functions to heal, in some circumstances, but in others it is expressly but justly retributive, an "immeasurable chastisement." The grief produced by the knowledge of the reality of hell is in this life most salutary and beneficial (cf. ibid, 314), which is why we are instructed to meditate on it, and those who would seek to evade the retributive nature of God’s holy justice are deprived of this, and gravely misled, having a low view of sin and a low view of God’s holiness. They, moreover, cheapen the hope of heaven and the glory of God in saving man from that “dreadful darkness.” Hyper-Therapeuticism thus does not make the true God more palatable, it preaches a different God, sells fallen man an attractive but damning counterfeit, and thus departs from the saving teaching of the Church, undermining Her clear teaching about the eternal consequences of man’s life here on earth. It is thus that Christ exhorts, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!” (Mark 1:15)

-Fr. Joshua Schooping

Free But Bent: Contra Neo-Pelagian Libertarianism

In light of the foregoing article on the freedom of the will, some may object to its criticism of libertarianism by saying that the technical definition of “libertarian free will” is simply the denial of determinism. Although this is in a sense partially correct, it is ultimately too weak of a definition for reason of its being too vacuous. Proving an apple wrong doesn’t prove a banana right. In other words, the purported wrongness of determinism is not proof positive of libertarianism. It’s an argument from silence, i.e. silencing the opponent. This leads to the libertarian’s tendency towards dismissive triumphalism. At best, however, such libertarianism would be a false dichotomy, reducing free will to either libertarian free will or nothing. 

Libertarianism itself, in reality, makes positive claims about its own position, which then get smuggled in alongside their bare negation of determinism (or compatibilism or what have you): that human acts of will are not constrained in any way by prior conditions, i.e. undetermined. As O’Connor and Franklin state in their Stanford Encyclopedia article (Summer 2019) on free will regarding what is said to be agreed among Libertarians:

True sourcehood—the kind of sourcehood that can actually ground an agent’s freedom and responsibility—requires, so it is argued, that one’s action not be causally determined by factors beyond one’s control.

In this light, it would seem that Libertarianism does not mean merely that a person be able to choose between more than one choice. That would be the idea of free will, not libertarian free will. In other words, man, according to libertarian anthropology, possesses radical self-mastery, and requires it in order to be said to have freedom and responsibility. According to Biblical and Patristic anthropology, however, fallen man apart from Christ is overmastered by sin and enslaved to the passions, and that these are beyond fallen man’s control and infect every element of fallen man’s choosing and acting. Man, moreover, cannot free himself apart from God’s grace. Apart from grace there is zero possibility of libertarian free will, and yet free will remains in fallen man, together with responsibility, despite fallen man’s enslaved state - since that state is ultimately grounded in an autodoulia. Thus, even in the face of his own slavery, man paradoxically retains his freedom of will and responsibility, since any given sinful act was not forced, for fallen man could have, by virtue of his fundamental nature, done otherwise than commit any particular sin.

Obviously, libertarianism is a complex field with much internal debate, but at minimum it affirms that the fallen human will is fundamentally unconstrained by the effects of sin. In other words, the Fall does not infect man's ability to freely choose the good, and the root passions do not radically exploit man’s will, for man’s will is not metaphysically “disturbed.” Robert Kane, in his lauded defense of libertarianism, states the position: “Free will is the power of agents to be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends or purposes” (The Significance of Free Will, pg 4).

Now, in a theological context this is simply Pelagianism (or a kissing cousin) or perhaps even Sartrean existentialism. It is certainly not Christian. To say that man as such is the ultimate creator or originator of his own ends or purposes is to either subtly or explicitly deny that God created man in God's image, with an end and purpose determined by his Creator. Man, having fallen from his created end and purpose, separated from God and spiritually dead, enslaved and in bondage to sin, is of himself unable to will himself into, much less sustain, a position of righteousness.

Libertarianism cannot be encapsulated as the mere ability to do otherwise. At best, libertarianism requires a non-fallen anthropology in order to work, for as the Fathers agree throughout their teachings, fallen man is enslaved to the passions. For example, among many possible, St. Maximus states that the fallen soul is "held in bondage to the passions" (Ad Thalassios 54.11, cf. 54.12). Since fallen man is enslaved and requires liberation, every single fallen, graceless choice of his is mixed with evil, which is to say mixed with some element that is beyond fallen man's control, and that influences and subtly manipulates his act of willing - even if it does not utterly dominate it so as to compel any given act of sin. Natural virtue, in other words, is still available to fallen man. Grace, therefore, is absolutely required for true freedom, and this is precisely what fallen man lacks as a given condition of his fallenness. He requires God's intervention through faith and the sacraments. God, however, is not required for libertarian anthropology, nor His grace for freedom. That is why libertarianism is essentially a form of Neo-Pelagianism. 

Although created in and for righteousness, and although he may even want or will to be righteous, true righteousness as such is not “open” to fallen man, not accessible to his free choice. His natural, fallen righteousness is but filthy rags. Therefore, fallen man absolutely requires God's unilateral intervention (i.e. the entire cruciform economy of the Incarnation) and “leading grace” (via a new, divine nature received in baptismal regeneration and holy Communion) to renew him, and to light and energize his way. Man does not create himself, his own ends, or his own ultimate purposes, and apart from Christ and enslaved to sin he is and can only be a tool of Satan's ends, free but lost at sea. He can sail and he can fish, but he cannot find safe harbor in the tumult of his passions and the blindness of his heart (Ephesians 4:18). Only after regeneration is the rightful freedom of man’s created nature restored.

Immediately - and purposefully - following his teaching on Baptismal Regeneration, St. Paul treats with God-inspired mastery the paradox of free will and bondage:

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine (διδαχή) to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:16-23)

St. Paul's doctrine indicates clearly that man is enslaved to what he presents himself to obey. This is the essence of autodoulia. Having presented himself a slave to sin, man requires communion with Christ, whose death and resurrection become the instruments of man’s liberation. Man was delivered to the doctrine (διδαχή) of grace in Christ, receiving its freeing effects through baptismal regeneration, co-crucified and co-resurrected with Christ, and even now ascended and sitting at the Father's right hand, our life hidden in Christ in the heavenly places (Colossians 3:1, 3). Man thus had to be set free from sin. He could not set himself free from it, even though sin involves the will. This is the death knell of libertarianism. Although he was not forced to commit any sin, yet man could not extricate himself from its grip. Thus St. Paul exposits the paradox of the bondage of the free will.

To affirm a libertarian free will in light of man’s enslavement to sin is utterly misguided. If man had such freedom he would not require Christ to set him free, for such would be redundant; he would merely require Christ as his spiritual coach and cheerleader. The reality, however, is that man presented himself to sin, and thus sin became his master, and he its slave. After the Fall, although man's freedom is preserved in his ability to “choose otherwise,” his will is enthralled in such a way that apart from Christ he will not choose in a way that is not preconditioned by egotism, pride, lust, anger, etc. These passions or “constraints” acting on man's will, therefore, deny the libertarian position, but do not deny the reality of free will. If fallen human nature is self-constrained in autodoulia to sin, then it is folly to assert that the fallen human will is not correspondingly constrained and in bondage.

In conclusion, the will is free, but it is warped in a virtual reality projected by the passions onto the screen of the world, and so the will is warped or "bent," free but "bent." Because of fallen man’s willing agreement with the passions, he is responsible for what he chooses. Despite the seeming paradox, he is both free and bound. In short, man’s fallen will is free but there is no freedom in fallen man. Without Christ and the liberating energy of His leading grace, there is no authentic freedom, for Christ is our freedom just as He is our wisdom, our life, our righteousness, and our sanctification, and only in Christ can a man be truly free, for “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed (ὄντως)” (John 8:36). Otherwise, freedom is only another name for bondage, for in that sense even in hell everyone is "free," for its punishment does not destroy man's nature, hence the tragedy of its everlasting torment. For who is more free than the immoral man, yet who more bound? Man's will is thus a battle ground, and even with true (ὄντως) freedom in Christ, the regenerate man must still strive to mortify the passions, for the desires that indwell the flesh ever war against the Spirit:

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want (θέλω, meaning to will, intend, desire, or purpose, etc.) to do. (Galatians 5:17)

-Fr. Joshua Schooping

God’s Pleasure Was Not In the Act of Bruising: Resolving Misconceptions About Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Having discussed the Patristic teaching on Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) beginning here, and continuing here, here, here, and here, it is unfortunate that in seeking to understand the Atonement, especially those elements that address justice, satisfaction, substitution, penalty, and punishment, some people (both for and against PSA) misunderstand key texts in such a way that God is misrepresented as cruel or even sadistic. This misrepresentation of the Atonement, then, not only places God in a false light, it also places that misrepresented aspect of God’s atoning work into ill repute, i.e. guilt by association. This misrepresentation will then cause many to back away from an essential aspect of the Atonement, or even lead some otherwise excellent scholars to deny it altogether. This creates a nest for heresy to grow, for one of the functions of this aspect of the Atonement, properly understood and represented, is that it places God’s justice and mercy in magnificent relief. The Scriptural and Patristic teachings on the Atonement include dealing with justice, satisfaction, substitution, penalty, and punishment, as addressed in previous studies, and so these aspects cannot be reduced to post-Schism inventions. Rather, the reverse is true, that the post-schism exaggerations and caricatures ought not be allowed to cause us to ignore or sideline these essential aspects of the Atoning work of Christ. For even if the elaboration and refinement of PSA came more recently, along with exaggerations and misrepresentations of it, the concept itself has been demonstrated to be present in key Patristic authors. The present study will attempt to address  misrepresentations such as God being passibly pleased with the mere act of bruising mentioned in Isaiah 53, anthropomorphism, the Son's so-called damnation, and lastly that of PSA purportedly entailing a division within the Godhead.

To deny the catholic and orthodox understanding of Penal Substitutionary Atonement is to deny a fundamental element of God’s sovereign glory in His eternal justice, and in consequence serves to reduce the glory of His mercy in atoning so magnificently for sin and death in the Cross. What follows logically from this denial is a progression that begins with a weak, neutered view of God’s justice that develops into a weak view of sin, and so on into a weak view of God’s glorious grace, a weak view of the Cross, and finally a weak view of Christ that, ultimately, bottoms out in faithlessness and man-centeredness. The motivation for this denial, though, appears twofold. The first is a right rejection of gross caricatures, which in the overzealous rejection ends up “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” which is to say that in rightly rejecting gross caricatures of PSA, many ignorantly throw out the Scriptural and Patristic understanding of it as well. The second seems to be that people falsely try to protect people from the alarming severity of God’s justice by minimizing it, and so try to magnify His mercy by minimizing His justice, and as such people end up being offended at the very idea of God’s justice, but also end up being uncompelled by His milquetoast mercy.

In this light, the importance of getting Penal Substitutionary Atonement right is very important, and the consequences of getting it wrong are high. To get it wrong in either direction is to get the Gospel wrong: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

One of the major misunderstandings that arise in regards to Penal Substitutionary Atonement relates specifically to this sort of sentiment: “how much joy God the Father took in each strike of the hammer driving the nails into His only begotten Son and satisfying His anger.” In other words, God is said by some to take emotional joy and satisfaction in the physical aspect of Christ’s crucifixion. Now, it is noteworthy that this misunderstanding comes from a promoter of PSA, for it is not only those antagonistic to PSA that misrepresent it. This sort of statement, however, makes at least two fundamental misunderstandings, including mistaking the actual object of joy in the crucifixion, on the one hand, and failing to account for God’s impassibility, on the other, which is a version of the heresy of anthropomorphism. In the present study, we will attempt to resolve these and related misunderstandings.

As asserted, one of the common misunderstandings and consequent misrepresentations of PSA is the actual object of joy in the crucifixion, mistaking the instrumentality of the Cross as the object of joy rather than the object of joy being its telos. The origin of this misunderstanding is rooted in a misinterpretation of Isaiah: “Yet it pleased (chaphets; LXX boúlomai) the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). The Hebrew term chaphets more strongly suggests “pleasure,” whereas the Greek term boúlomai means more strongly “to will” or “to determine,” but according to Mounce also means “to desire” or to “be pleased,” and Vine suggests that it “expresses more strongly than thelo,” which is another term for “to will.”

If the object of joy was the bruising as such, considered independently of its telos, then it would be accurate to claim that PSA necessitates a sadistic God and therefore right to reject PSA. But since the Scripture itself, both in Isaiah and in Hebrews, indicates that there is a sense in which pleasure and joy were present in the bruising and enduring of the Cross, that in a sense even motivated the suffering, it is not enough to simply say there is no pleasure in it; one is rather put in a position of needing to understand how this is so. Denying PSA does not explain Isaiah 53:10, and reference to the LXX boúlomai does not “correct” the Masoretic reading. 

The fact of God’s “pleasure” must be reckoned with, and as we will see it is not so problematic if one is willing to move beyond a superficial reading, for obviously the pleasure is in the telos of the suffering, as indicated in the very next verse of Isaiah: “He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11). Clearly God is not pleased with or willing the act of bruising for its own sake, and so the pleasure cannot be seen as being in the mere act, but in its result. Sadism is thus denied and rejected as having any bearing on PSA. God was pleased with the act in light of its result: that many were justified. God was pleased because Christ, in being bruised, satisfied the demands of justice in order to justify many. 

The object of joy, utilizing a Scriptural teaching to capture the principle of it, is found in Hebrews, speaking of Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). In other words, God the Son was Himself motivated by joy, and so joyfully endured the Cross, despising the shame of it, and in this sense was Himself pleased to endure it for the sake of its greater purpose, although the enduring of it was in itself obviously utterly unpleasant. There is therefore a distinction between the objects of joy which clarifies the statement of Isaiah. God was pleased with the purpose of the bruising, and so Isaiah uses the metonymy of being pleased with bruising to express that God was pleased with the telos of the bruising.

One cannot justify without or apart from justice, thus God was pleased that His Son was willing and able to bear the bruising in order to justify many. He was not pleased with the bruising; He was pleased with its ultimate purpose and goal. Similar to how an athlete is pleased to endure all manner of hardship for the sake of a victory, so God was pleased to bruise His willing and fully knowledgeable Son, who endured it for the very sake of the joy set before Him, for the sake of our justification. Paul even states of himself: “I discipline (hypōpiázō) my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1Co 9:27). The term hypōpiázō means “beat black and blue, to smite so as to cause bruises and livid spots, like a boxer one buffets his body, handle it roughly, discipline by hardships.” Is Paul sadistic? By no means! If Paul can in some sense bruise himself to a greater purpose, cannot the Father do so with His Son? 

“You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you” (Deuteronomy 8:5).

“For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6).

Notice that Hebrews 12:6, just quoted, follows on the heels of Hebrews 12:2 quoted above. Some people refuse to understand that God providentially uses pain in order to accomplish His purposes. It is in every sense right to affirm that God is pleased in accomplishing His purposes, even if He is not per se pleased with the evil which attends it. To deny this is to deny a pervasive theme, even the logic, of Scripture. The context of Hebrews shows this: 

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives’ (quoting from Proverbs 3:11-12). If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? (Hebrews 12:5-7)

Paul has just finished telling us to “look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” and so clearly the idea here is that God Himself does the chastening, “for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives,” and therefore it ought to be unproblematic that God chastened the Son on the Cross for the greater purpose of raising Him from the dead and saving man. If, in referring to the Cross, Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, and also the Son of God, and God the Father chastens us as sons, then God clearly chastened the Son on the Cross, who for the joy that was set before Him endured it. If Christ had the purpose of the Cross in mind and found joy, then it would be blasphemous to assert that the Father had less knowledge than the Son and less joy in the accomplishing of His will. The Father’s chastening of the Son on the Cross is the very model for Paul’s argument, and the justification for our endurance of suffering. Paul concludes his argument:

Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:9-11)

Can God not take pleasure in raising up, and therefore chastening, sons for Himself? But someone will object that this cannot include suffering. But Paul just criticized his audience, saying “You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin” (Heb 12:4). The very chastening of God is being directly related both to sonship and to striving against sin unto loss of blood and life, modeled on Christ Himself. For, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Ephesians 1:5). If it is according to the good pleasure of God’s will to have sons, and in love He chastens us, for certainly it would not be in hate, then God’s chastening and God’s pleasure are not mutually exclusive. Notice this theme of Scripture: 

“But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

“And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance” (Romans 5:3).

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake” (Matthew 5:10-11).

“So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:41).

"Are they ministers of Christ?--I speak as a fool--I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often” (2 Corinthians 11:23).

“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

“For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).

“Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me" (Philippians 2:17-18).

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, ... Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:2, 12).

“But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13).

“But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. ‘And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled’” (1 Peter 3:14).

“Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter” (1 Peter 4:16).

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

“A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world” (John 16:21).

The rejection of PSA on the grounds that God could not have pleasure in the accomplishing of His own will, for as the Garden of Gethsemane makes plain it was the Father’s will that Christ be crucified, is also to offend against God’s omniscience, and Christ’s complete knowledge of what was about to happen. If Christ could suffer the Cross joyfully, as He, James, Peter, and Paul each commend us to rejoice in our tribulations, even though “no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful,” then cannot God in His omniscience be pleased with the action, in light of its purpose, by which He accomplishes the salvation of man? To accuse God of sadism in being pleased to bruise His willing, fully knowledgeable, and joyful Son for the sake of saving man is to accuse both the Father and the Son of ignorance.

The problem with anthropomorphism is also considerable, because when people who are advocating or denouncing PSA make claims for or against it by referring to God’s “pleasure,” they falsely assert passibility into the doctrine of PSA. Those who are for PSA, who also anthropomorphize, do in fact make God out to be sadistic by lowering God to the level of passibility. Those who are against PSA, and yet posit this anthropomorphism as essential to PSA in order to fight against PSA, create a strawman, erecting an idea foreign to PSA in order to reject PSA. Neither work. One cannot either establish or critique a doctrine by assuming a heretical stance as a standard of proof for or against it. 

St. John of Damascus in Book I Chapter 11 of his Exposition, discussing anthropomorphic language as used in the Scriptures, clearly states: “By His wrath and indignation let us understand His aversion to evil and His hatred of it.” When discussing God’s “wrath” against sin, or His “pleasure” in bruising, or even in propitiating God’s wrath, we must therefore proceed hermeneutically according to the principle that “all these things which are affirmed of God as if He had a body contain some hidden meaning which, through things corresponding to our nature, teaches us things which exceed our nature.” In other words, Scripture uses “images, types, and symbols that correspond to our nature” in order to communicate “symbolically” that which “has a loftier meaning.” This is no less true of Isaiah 53. PSA does not require anthropomorphism, but necessarily and rightfully rejects it, whereas those who reject PSA on the basis of a perceived anthropomorphism have engaged in a logical fallacy. (Please also see the two relevant chapters of Leon Morris’ exemplary word study related to the concept of propitiation as used in both the Old and New Testaments in his magisterial work, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, where he unravels among other things the inadequacy of eliminating the Biblical concept of propitiation, as many do, in exclusive favor of expiation.)

Another falsehood asserted against PSA is the concept sometimes associated with PSA that God “damned” the Son. A confusion here arises almost entirely based on a non-relevant connotation with the term “damn.” Terms must be defined, not merely objected to. The word itself evolved from Middle English “dampnen, also damnen, dammen” and means “to condemn, declare guilty, convict.” It also bears relation to the Latin damnare, meaning “to adjudge guilty” or “to pronounce judgment upon.” Christ precisely bore the judgment of man, which is death. Damnation here simply means that Christ bore the punishment of man, the curse of man was imputed to or appropriated by Him, which is to say Christ bore the guilt and condemnation of man in His Person, all the while remaining sinless. Obviously it was God’s will that Christ went to the Cross to accomplish this, so it is fair to say that Christ bore the judgment of man’s guilt, bore man’s condemnation. As St. Philaret of Chernigov states of Christ’s death, “this is the very death that guilty mankind deserved, and which Jesus underwent for all men” (On the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Homily 46, pg 341). This is what the term damned means, and so what Christ’s being said to be “damned” means; it means that “By His own will He took upon Himself the guilt of mankind and voluntarily resolved to endure the punishment for it” (ibid, pg 344). What sinful man deserved, which is God’s divine judgement, this is what Christ bore in order to “reconcile God’s righteousness with guilty humanity” (ibid, pg 342). The quibbling complaint surrounding the word “damn” is therefore committing the red herring fallacy. George Mastrantonis, speaking of Christ’s sacrifice in A New-Style Catechism on the Eastern Orthodox Faith for Adults, continues the Patristic witness when he says that Christ “replaced the penalties of man” (pg 90). For “the highest penalty was imposed on the Innocent One instead of the guilty” (ibid). That is precisely what the word “damn” means, despite the caviling of objectors. 

Lastly, and perhaps the most egregious complaint, is that PSA entails a division in the Godhead. The absurdity of this claim ought to be obvious, but alas to many it is not. If Christ can be tired, if He can be hungry, if He can be thirsty, if He can suffer in His human nature, then He can suffer anything that is appropriate to human nature. If His fatigue, hunger, and thirst do not entail a division in the Godhead or in His Person, if His suffering does not entail a division in the Godhead or in His Person, and if His death does not entail a division in the Godhead or in His Person, then to say that Christ was divided from the Father by bearing the judgment of and for man is patently absurd. Gethsemane clearly shows that it was the will of the Father that Christ suffer, and it was for this purpose that Christ came (cf. Matthew 16:21, 20:18-19, 28, 26:2; Mark 8:31; Luke 24:7, 26-27, 46; John 12:27; Acts 2:23). Suffering and death were the judgment, the damnation, the curse, the sentence, and so to deny PSA is to deny the very Incarnation and Atoning work of Christ. To assert a division in the Godhead in the Atoning work of Christ’s destroying the condemnation of death by bearing the condemnation of death is to utterly unravel the Atonement, for the “limitless love of the Son offered itself in sacrifice upon the altar of the Cross so as to proclaim to heaven and earth the inviolable laws of eternal righteousness” (Philaret, 344).

-Fr. Joshua Schooping