My Path to Atheism

by Annie Besant

The history of this doctrine has been a curious one. In the New Testament the Atonement is, as its name implies, a simply making at one God and man: how this is done is but vaguely hinted at, and in order to deduce the modern doctrine from the Bible, we must import into the books of the New Testament all the ideas derived from theological disputations. Words used in all simplicity by the ancient writers must have attached to them the definite polemical meaning they hold in the quarrels of theologians, before they can be strained into supporting a substitutionary atonement. The idea, however, of "ransom" is connected with the work of Jesus, and the question arose, "to whom is this ransom paid?" They who lived in those first centuries of Christianity were still too much within the illumination of the tender halo thrown by Jesus round the Father's name, to dream for a moment that their redeemer had ransomed them from the beloved hands of God. No, the ransom was paid to the devil, whose thrall they believed mankind to be, and Jesus, by sacrificing himself, had purchased them from the devil and made them sons of God. It is not worth while to enter on the quaint details of this scheme, how the devil thought he had conquered and could hold Jesus captive, and was tricked by finding that his imagined gain could not be retained by him, and so on. Those who wish to become acquainted with this ingenious device can study it in the pages of the Christian fathers: it has at least one advantage over the modern plan, namely, that we are not so shocked at hearing of pain and suffering as acceptable to the supposed incarnate evil, as at hearing of them being offered as a sacrifice to the supreme good. As the teaching of Jesus lost its power, and became more and more polluted by the cruel thoughts of savage and bigoted men, the doctrine of the atonement gradually changed its character. Men thought the Almighty to be such a one as themselves, and being fierce and unforgiving and revengeful, they projected their own shadows on to the clouds which surrounded the Deity, and then, like the shepherd who meets his own form reflected and magnified on the mountain mist, they recoiled before the image they themselves had made. The loving Father who sent his son to rescue his perishing children by sacrificing himself, fades away from the hearts of the Christian world, and there looms darkly in his place an awful form, the inexorable judge who exacts a debt man is too poor to pay, and who, in default of payment, casts the debtor into a hopeless prison, hopeless unless another pays to the uttermost farthing the fine demanded by the law. So, in this strange transformation-scene God actually takes the place of the devil, and the ransom once paid to redeem men from Satan becomes the ransom paid to redeem men from God. It reminds one of the quarrels over the text which bids us "fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell," when we remain in doubt whom he is we are to fear, since half the Christian commentators assure us that it refers to our Father in heaven, while the other half asseverate that the devil is the individual we are to dread. The seal was set on the "redemption scheme" by Anselm in his great work, "Cur Deus Homo" and the doctrine which had been slowly growing into the theology of Christendom was thenceforward stamped with the signet of the Church. Roman Catholics and Protestants, at the time of the Reformation, alike believed in the vicarious and substitutionary character of the atonement wrought by Christ. There is no dispute between them on this point. I prefer to allow the Christian divines to speak for themselves as to the character of the atonement: no one can accuse me of exaggerating their views, if their views are given in their own words. Luther teaches that "Christ did truly and effectually feel for all mankind, the wrath of God, malediction and death." Flavel says that "to wrath, to the wrath of an infinite God without mixture, to the very torments of hell, was Christ delivered, and that by the hand of his own father." The Anglican homily preaches that "sin did pluck God out of heaven to make him feel the horrors and pains of death," and that man, being a firebrand of hell and a bondsman of the devil, "was ransomed by the death of his own only and well-beloved son;" the "heat of his wrath," "his burning wrath," could only be "pacified" by Jesus, "so pleasant was this sacrifice and oblation of his son's death." Edwards, being logical, saw that there was a gross injustice in sin being twice punished, and in the pains of hell, the penalty of sin, being twice inflicted, first on Christ, the substitute of mankind, and then on the lost, a portion of mankind. So he, in common with most Calvinists, finds himself compelled to restrict the atonement to the elect, and declared that Christ bore the sins, not of the world, but of the chosen out of the world; he suffers "not for the world, but for them whom Thou hast given me." But Edwards adheres firmly to the belief in substitution, and rejects the universal atonement for the very reason that "to believe Christ died for all is the surest way of proving that he died for none in the sense Christians have hitherto believed." He declares that "Christ suffered the wrath of God for men's sins;" that "God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for," sin. Owen regards Christ's sufferings as "a full valuable compensation to the justice of God for all the sins" of the elect, and says that he underwent "that same punishment which.... they themselves were bound to undergo."

The doctrine of the Christian Church—in the widest sense of that much-fought-over term—was then as follows, and I will state it in language which is studiously moderate, as compared with the orthodox teaching of the great Christian divines. If any one doubts this assertion, let him study their writings for himself. I really dare not transfer some of their expressions to my own pages. God the Father having cursed mankind and condemned them to eternal damnation, because of Adam's disobedience in eating an apple—or some other fruit, for the species is only preserved by tradition, and is not definitely settled by the inspired writings—and having further cursed each man for his own individual transgressions, man lay under the fierce wrath of God, unable to escape, and unable to pacify it, for he could not even atone for his own private sins, much less for his share of the guilt incurred by his forefather in Paradise. Man's debt was hopelessly large, and he had "nothing to pay;" so all that remained to him was to suffer an eternity of torture, which sad fate he had merited by the crime of being born into an accursed world. The second person of the Trinity moved to pity by the helpless and miserable state of mankind, interposed between the first person of the Trinity and the wretched sinners; he received into his own breast the fire-tipped arrows of divine wrath, and by suffering inconceivable tortures, equal in amount to an eternity of the torments of hell, he wrung from God's hands the pardon of mankind, or of a portion thereof. God, pacified by witnessing this awful agony of one who had from all eternity been "lying in his bosom" co-equal sharer of his Majesty and glory, and the object of his tenderest love, relents from his fierce wrath, and consents to accept the pain of Jesus as a substitute for the pain of mankind. In plain terms, then, God is represented as a Being so awfully cruel, so implacably revengeful, that pain as pain, and death as death, are what he demands as a propitiatory sacrifice, and with nothing less than extremest agony can his fierce claims on mankind be bought off. The due weight of suffering he must have, but it is a matter of indifference whether it is undergone by Jesus or by mankind. Did not the old Fathers do well in making the awful ransom a matter between Jesus and the devil?

When this point is pressed on Christians, and one urges the dishonour done to God by painting him in colours from which heart and soul recoil in shuddering horror, by ascribing to him a revengefulness and pitiless cruelty in comparison with which the worst efforts of human malignity appear but childish mischief, they are quick to retort that we are caricaturing Christian doctrine; they will allow, when overwhelmed with evidence, that "strong language" has been used in past centuries, but will say that such views are not now held, and that they do not ascribe such harsh dealing to God the Father. Theists are therefore compelled to prove each step of their accusation, and to quote from Christian writers the words which embody the views they assail. Were I simply to state that Christians in these days ascribe to Almighty God a fierce wrath against the whole human race, that this wrath can only be soothed by suffering and death, that he vents this wrath on an innocent head, and that he is well pleased by the sight of the agony of his beloved Son, a shout of indignation would rise from a thousand lips, and I should be accused of exaggeration, of false witness, of blasphemy. So once more I write down the doctrine from Christian dictation, and, be it remembered, the sentences I quote are from published works, and are therefore, the outcome of serious deliberation; they are not overdrawn pictures taken from the fervid eloquence of excited oratory, when the speaker may perhaps be carried further than he would, in cold blood, consent to.

Stroud makes Christ drink "the cup of the wrath of God." Jenkyn says, "he suffered as one disowned and reprobated and forsaken of God." Dwight considers that he endured God's "hatred and contempt." Bishop Jeune tells us that "after man had done his worst, worse remained for Christ to bear. He had fallen into his father's hands." Archbishop Thomson preaches that "the clouds of God's wrath gathered thick over the whole human race: they discharged themselves on Jesus only;" he "becomes a curse for us, and a vessel of wrath." Liddon echoes the same sentiment: "the apostles teach that mankind are slaves, and that Christ on the Cross is paying their ransom. Christ crucified is voluntarily devoted and accursed:" he even speaks of "the precise amount of ignominy and pain needed for the redemption," and says that the "divine victim" paid more than was absolutely necessary.

These quotations seem sufficient to prove that the Christians of the present day are worthy followers of the elder believers. The theologians first quoted are indeed coarser in their expressions, and are less afraid of speaking out exactly what they believe, but there is no real difference of creed between the awful doctrine of Flavel and the polished dogma of Canon Liddon. The older and the modern Christians alike believe in the bitter wrath of God against "the whole human race." Both alike regard the Atonement as so much pain tendered by Jesus to the Almighty Father in payment of a debt of pain owed to God by humanity. They alike represent God as only to be pacified by the sight of suffering. Man has insulted and injured God, and God must be revenged by inflicting suffering on the sinner in return. The "hatred and contempt" God launched at Jesus were due to the fact that Jesus was the sinner's substitute, and are therefore the feelings which animate the Divine heart towards the sinner himself. God hates and despises the world. He would have "consumed it in a moment" in the fire of his burning wrath, had not Jesus, "his chosen, stood before him in the gap to turn away his wrathful indignation."

Now, how far is all this consistent with justice? Is the wrath of God against humanity justified by the circumstances of the case, so that we may be obliged to own that some sacrifice was due from sinful man to his Creator, to propitiate a justly incensed and holy God? I trow not. On this first count, the Atonement is a fearful injustice. For God has allowed men to be brought into the world with sinful inclinations, and to be surrounded with many temptations and much evil. He has made man imperfect, and the child is born into the world with an imperfect nature. It is radically unjust, then, that God should curse the work of His hands for being what He made them, and condemn them to endless misery for failing to do the impossible. Allowing that Christians are right in believing that Adam was sinless when he came from his Maker's hands, these remarks apply to every other living soul since born into the world; the Genesis myth will not extricate Christians from the difficulty. Christians are quite right and are justified by facts when they say that man is born into the world frail, imperfect, prone to sin and error; but who, we ask them, made men so? Does not their own Bible tell them that the "potter hath power over the clay," and, further, that "we are the clay and thou art the potter?" To curse men for being men, i.e., imperfect moral beings, is the height of cruelty and injustice; to condemn the morally weak to hell for sin, i.e., for failing in moral strength, is about as fair as sentencing a sick man to death because he cannot stand upright. Christians try and avoid the force of this by saying that men should rely on God's grace to uphold them, but they fail to see that this very want of reliance is part of man's natural weakness. The sick man might be blamed for falling because he did not lean on a stronger arm, but suppose he was too weak to grasp it? Further, few Christians believe that it is impossible in practice, however possible in theory, to lead a perfect life; and as to "offend in one point is to be guilty of all," one failure is sufficient to send the generally righteous man to hell. Besides, they forget that infants are included under the curse, although necessarily incapable of grasping the idea either of sin or of God; all babies born into the world and dying before becoming capable of acting for themselves would, we are taught, have been inevitably consigned to hell, had it not been for the Atonement of Jesus. Some Christians actually believe that unbaptized babies are not admitted into heaven, and in a Roman Catholic book descriptive of hell, a poor little baby writhes and screams in a red-hot oven.

This side of the Atonement, this unjust demand on men for a righteousness they could not render, necessitating a sacrifice to propitiate God for non-compliance with his exaction, has had its due effect on men's minds, and has alienated their hearts from God. No wonder that men turned away from a God who, like a passionate but unskilful workman, dashes to pieces the instrument he has made because it fails in its purpose, and, instead of blaming his own want of skill, vents his anger on the helpless thing that is only what he made it. Most naturally, also, have men shrunk from the God who "avengeth and is furious" to the tender, pitiful, human Jesus, who loved sinners so deeply as to choose to suffer for their sakes. They could owe no gratitude to an Almighty Being who created them and cursed them, and only consented to allow them to be happy on condition that another paid for them the misery he demanded as his due; but what gratitude could be enough for him who rescued them from the fearful hands of the living God, at the cost of almost intolerable suffering to himself? Let us remember that Christ is said to suffer the very torments of hell, and that his worst sufferings were when "fallen into his father's hands," out of which he has rescued us, and then can we wonder that the crucified is adored with a very ecstasy of gratitude? Imagine what it is to be saved from the hands of him who inflicted an agony admitted to be unlimited, and who took advantage of an infinite capacity in order to inflict an infinite pain. It is well for the men before whose eyes this awful spectre has flitted that the fair humanity of Jesus gives them a refuge to fly to, else what but despair and madness could have been the doom of those who, without Jesus, would have seen enthroned above the wailing universe naught but an infinite cruelty and an Almighty foe.

We see, then, that the necessity for an atonement makes the Eternal Father both unjust in his demands on men and cruel in his punishment of inevitable failure; but there is another injustice which is of the very essence of the Atonement itself. This consists in the vicarious character of the sacrifice: a new element of injustice is introduced when we consider that the person sacrificed is not even the guilty party. If a man offends against law, justice requires that he should be punished: the punishment becomes unjust if it is excessive, as in the case we have been considering above; but it is equally unjust to allow him to go free without punishment. Christians are right in affirming that moral government would be at an end were men allowed to sin with impunity, and did an easy forgiveness succeed to each offence. They appeal to our instinctive sense of justice to-approve the sentiment that punishment should follow sin: we acquiesce, and hope that we have now reached a firm standing-ground from which to proceed further in our investigation. But, no; they promptly outrage that same sense of justice which they have called as a witness on their side, by asking us to believe that its ends are attained provided that somebody or other is punished. When we reply that this is not justice, we are promptly bidden not to be presumptuous and argue from our human ideas of justice as to the course that ought to be pursued by the absolute justice of God. "Then why appeal to it at all?" we urge; "why talk of justice in the matter if we are totally unable to judge as to the rights and wrongs of the case?" At this point we are commonly overwhelmed with Paul's notable argument—"Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?" But if Christians value the simplicity and straightforwardness of their own minds, they should not use words which convey a certain accepted meaning in this shuffling, double sense. When we speak of "justice," we speak of a certain well-understood quality, and we do not speak of a mysterious divine attribute, which has not only nothing in common with human justice, but which is in direct opposition to that which we understand by that name. Suppose a man condemned to death for murder: the judge is about to sentence him, when a bystander—as it chances, the judge's own son—interposes: "My Lord, the prisoner is guilty and deserves to be hanged; but if you will let him go, I will die in his place." The offer is accepted, the prisoner is set free, the judge's son is hanged in his stead. What is all this? Self-sacrifice (however misdirected), love, enthusiasm—what you will; but certainly not justice—nay, the grossest injustice, a second murder, an ineffaceable stain on the ermine of the outraged law. I imagine that, in this supposed case, no Christian will be found to assert that justice was done; yet call the judge God, the prisoner mankind, the substitute Jesus, and the trial scene is exactly reproduced. Then, in the name of candour and common sense, why call that just in God which we see would be so unjust and immoral in man? This vicarious nature of the Atonement also degrades the divine name, by making him utterly careless in the matter of punishment: all he is anxious for, according to this detestable theory, is that he should strike a blow somewhere. Like a child in a passion, he only feels the desire to hurt somebody, and strikes out vaguely and at random. There is no discrimination used; the thunderbolt is launched into a crowd: it falls on the head of the "sinless son," and crushes the innocent, while the sinner goes free. What matter? It has fallen somewhere, and the "burning fire of his-wrath" is cooled. This is what men call the vindication of the justice of the Moral Governor of the universe: this is "the act of God's awful holiness," which marks his hatred of sin, and his immovable determination to punish it. But when we reflect that this justice is consistent with letting off the guilty and punishing the innocent person, we feel dread misgivings steal into our minds. The justice of our Moral Governor has nothing in common with our justice—indeed, it violates all our notions of right and wrong. What if, as Mr. Vance Smith suggests, this strange justice be consistent also with a double punishment of sin; and what if the Moral Governor should bethink himself that, having confused morality by an unjust—humanly speaking, of course—punishment, it would be well to set things straight again by punishing the guilty after all? We can never dare to feel safe in the hands of this unjust—humanly speaking—Moral Governor, or predicate from our instinctive notions of right and wrong what his requirements may be. One is lost in astonishment that men should believe such things of God, and not have manhood enough to rise up rebellious against such injustice—should, instead, crouch at his feet, and while trying to hide themselves from his wrath should force their trembling lips to murmur some incoherent acknowledgment of his mercy. Ah! they do not believe it; they assert it in words, but, thank God, it makes no impression on their hearts; and they would die a thousand deaths rather than imitate, in their dealings with their fellow-men, the fearful cruelty which the Church has taught them to call the justice of the Judge of all the earth.

The Atonement is not only doubly unjust, but it is perfectly futile. We are told that Christ took away the sins of the world; we have a right to ask, "how?" So far as we can judge, we bear our sins in our own bodies still, and the Atonement helps us not at all. Has he borne the physical consequences of sin, such as the loss of health caused by intemperance of all kinds? Not at all, this penalty remains, and, from the nature of things, cannot be transferred. Has he borne the social consequences, shame, loss of credit, and so on? They remain still to hinder us as we strive to rise after our fall. Has he at least borne the pangs of remorse for us, the stings of conscience? By no means; the tears of sorrow are no less bitter, the prickings of repentance no less keen. Perhaps he has struck at the root of evil, and has put away sin itself out of a redeemed world? Alas! the wailing that goes up to heaven from a world oppressed with sin weeps out a sorrowfully emphatic, "no, this he has not done." What has he then borne for us? Nothing, save the phantom wrath of a phantom tyrant; all that is real exists the same as before. We turn away, then, from the offered atonement with a feeling that would be impatience at such trifling, were it not all too sorrowful, and leave the Christians to impose on their imagined sacrifice, the imagined burden of the guilt of the accursed race.

Further, the Atonement is, from the nature of things, entirely impossible: we have seen how Christ fails to bear our sins in any intelligible sense, but can he, in any way, bear the "punishment" of sin? The idea that the punishment of sin can be transferred from one person to another is radically false, and arises from a wrong conception of the punishment consequent on sin, and from the ecclesiastical guilt, so to speak, thought to be incurred thereby. The only true punishment of sin is the injury caused by it to our moral nature: all the indirect punishments, we have seen, Christ has not taken away, and the true punishment can fall only on ourselves. For sin is nothing more than the transgression of law. All law, when broken, entails of necessity an appropriate penalty, and recoils, as it were, on the transgressor. A natural law, when broken, avenges itself by consequent suffering, and so does a spiritual law: the injury wrought by the latter is not less real, although less obvious. Physical sin brings physical suffering; spiritual, moral, mental sin brings each its own appropriate punishment. "Sin" has become such a cant term that we lose sight, in using it, of its real simple meaning, a breaking of law. Imagine any sane man coming and saying, "My dear friend; if you like to put your hand into the fire I will bear the punishment of being burnt, and you shall not suffer." It is quite as absurd to imagine that if I sin Jesus can bear my consequent suffering. If a man lies habitually, for instance, he grows thoroughly untrue: let him repent ever so vigorously, he must bear the consequences of his past deeds, and fight his way back slowly to truthfulness of word and thought: no atonement, nothing in heaven or earth save his own labour, will restore to him the forfeited jewel of instinctive candour. Thus the "punishment" of untruthfulness is the loss of the power of being true, just as the punishment of putting the hand into the fire is the loss of the power of grasping. But in addition to this simple and most just and natural "retribution," theologians have invented certain arbitrary penalties as a punishment of sin, the wrath of God and hell fire. These imaginary penalties are discharged by an equally imaginary atonement, the natural punishment remaining as before; so after all we only reject the two sets of inventions which balance each other, and find ourselves just in the same position as they are, having gained infinitely in simplicity and naturalness. The punishment of sin is not an arbitrary penalty, but an inevitable sequence: Jesus may bear, if his worshippers will have it so, the theological fiction of the "guilt of sin," an idea derived from the ceremonial uncleanness of the Levitical law, but let him leave alone the solemn realities connected with the sacred and immutable laws of God.