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# “When I Survey the Awesome and Wondrous Cross”: The Inner Life of an Atonement Theologian
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/when-i-survey-the-awesome-and-wondrous-cross-the-inner-life-of-an-atonement-theologian/
- Published: 2026-09-17T11:00:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-17T11:00:05.000Z
- Description: A theologian should never treat atonement in a neutral-disinterested manner. A theologian should write and teach out of a sense of awe and wonder about the cross.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Theology, Christopher Woznicki

Of all the places it could have happened to me, it was in a medieval philosophy course at a public university. In my naivete (I use the term non-pejoratively) I had thought that everyChristian simply believed that Jesus died on the cross to *pay the penalty I deserved*. Before the lecture that morning I couldn’t tell you what the options were for making sense of the cross, let alone that there were even options! But as I walked out of the lecture hall, I now had three.

The reason I share this anecdote is not to talk about atonement theories (models, motifs, metaphors, take your pick) per se but to expose something about the method we employ when thinking about the cross and atonement. 

I don’t know much about the religious convictions of my professor at that time—though I must admit I learned much about Christian theology from Calvin Normore and other professors at UCLA who were very attentive to the theological context of the philosophy they taught. What I do know about the way he talked about these things was that he believed Christian doctrine could be used as fodder for fascinating thought experiments exposing our intuitions about matters of perennial significance. 

The class reflected upon the nature of substances and accidents by considering eucharistic debates, freedom and responsibility by reading Anselm’s *On the Fall of the Devil*, and justice by mulling over Anselmian and Abelardian accounts of atonement. It did not matter whether the Christian doctrine of atonement was true, or whether the Anselmian or Abelardian version was correct. These accounts simply served as just-so-stories that exposed what we thought about justice; a useful theological tale (which could be true or false) that taught something important. Centuries after Anselm and Abelard, the Princeton Philosopher David Lewis would analyze the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement in order to assess if and how people (non-Christians included) believe in penal substitution more generally. I don’t mean to comment on my professor or Lewis’s spiritual commitments but their approach raises the issue of theological method when thinking about atonement.

In my book, [*The Cross in Context: A Historical, Contemporary and Global Introduction to Atonement*](https://bhacademic.bhpublishinggroup.com/product/the-cross-in-context-3/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com#flipbook-sampler/)(B&H Academic, 2026), I propose thirteen desiderata for a constructive account of atonement. These desiderata are (1) methodological, (2) doctrinal, and (3) spiritual. These desiderata consider how to begin articulating an account of atonement, how to approach atonement in light of other doctrinal commitments, and how to an account of atonement should relate to the Christian life. 

Number thirteen on my list is that "atonement accounts should assure us of God’s reconciliation and kindle our love for Him." 

Reading Paul, one gets the sense that for him Christ’s atoning work is more than just important news, it is *good news*. And it is more than just *good,* it is truly wonderful. Paul seems to hold to this news with a sense of awe: “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself or me” (Gal 2:20b).

Christ died on the cross to bring about the reconciliation that Paul desperately sensed *he* needed—the reconciliation that *we* needed. Contemporary atonement accounts should reflect the Pauline mindset. Humanity’s problem has been resolved by the God-man. The only appropriate response is gratitude, worship, love, and awe for the one “who loved me and gave himself for me.” An atonement account that does not lead to an experience of love, awe, and gratitude for God fails to understand the gravity of Christ’s work for us. The atonement is not a neutral act of history to be dissected and theorized in a disinterested manner. As Margaret Turek has said, “a theology of atonement is not complete unless it… serves to elicit the profession of faith: ‘See how much God loves us!”

While this desideratum has to do with the spirituality of atonement accounts and what theologians should aim for when speaking about atonement there is a related methodological desideratum that I did not develop in *The Cross in Context*. In some ways this desideratum felt a bit out of place because it was not about the atonement account itself but rather about the atonement theologian. However, if I were to add a bonus desideratum to be considered I would say that, "atonement theologians should have a sense of awe and wonder about the Cross*."*

The atonement theology I encountered as an undergraduate in my medieval philosophy class and in the writings of David Lewis did not issue from a sense of awe and wonder about the cross. Sure, there is the fact that neither Normore nor Lewis wrote as theologians, so I’ll give them a pass on missing the mark. A theologian, however, should never treat atonement in a neutral-disinterested manner. A theologian should write and teach out of a sense of awe and wonder about the cross. There are at least three reasons why this is so. 

The first reason is summarized elegantly by Turek when she writes that, “Theology provides a sure orientation by which to follow the Lord on the path of sanctity; conversely, the lived experience of sanctity aids theology as a means of confirming and verifying—and even enriching—its grasp of revealed truth.” I would take it that a sense of awe and wonder for the works of God is part of having a sanctified mind. To have a sense of awe and wonder about the cross aids the atonement theologian in their grasp of God’s revelation of self upon the cross. The reason being that in a biblical sense, “to know” has an experiential component. One cannot be said to *know* about the cross apart from having experienced a subjective change because of the cross. The theologian who is not changed in light of the cross does not *know* the cross and therefore is in no position to declare truths about the cross. 

The second reason has to do with the nature of theology in general. Theology is not merely the study of what humans have written about God. That is a valuable task, but on its own it is not theology. Theology has God as its proper object of study. According to Tom McCall, the theologian’s task is “to speak truly of God (so far as we can) and to do so in a way that celebrates the glory of God’s being and actions.” If the theologian cannot celebrated the glory of God’s action upon the cross then they are not speaking truly of God.

The final reason has to do with the nature of scientific knowledge. In a scientific discipline, the knowledge of an object is only accordance with that object’s nature. Personal beings, for instance, require personal modes of knowledge and behavior. When it comes to the scientific study of God, as Torrance says in *The Mediation of Christ*, “God may be known only in a godly way, in accordance with his nature as God.” God is by nature holy, loving, wonderful, and awesome, thus to know God one must approach God in a holy, loving, wonder-filled, and awe-inspired way. 

Of course, arguments need to be made for Turek’s epistemology, McCall’s understanding of theology, and Torrance’s knowledge-nature principle. One might disagree with them but if any of these three reasons are correct then anyone who does atonement theology—as a Christian theologian—should do so with a sense of awe and wonder about the cross.