Atonement According to Aquinas

Eleonore STUMP

Saint Louis University , United States
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6983-5562

Sylwia WILCZEWSKA

Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6674-1130

Abstract

The doctrine of the Atonement is the central doctrine in Christianity, but it has not achieved much attention in contemporary philosophy of religion, in part because it tends to be known only in an unreflective version full of philosophical and theological problems. I present an alternative version of the doctrine, taken from Aquinas, argue that it is a cogent and consistent account, and show that it does not suffer from the problems of the unreflective version.

The present article is a translation of “Atonement According to Aquinas” (Philosophy and the Christian Faith. Edited by T. V. Morris. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988, 61–91). Translated with the permission of the author.