It can be shown through mere logic alone that, given the salvation of any sinful human being, it was necessary for God to become man. Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, fulfils this role.

Definitions of terms:

• Justice: retributive justice (e.g., Psalm 62:12; Romans 2:6).
• God: The greatest being possible. Being the greatest being possible would include moral perfection (which would itself include being all just and all merciful, etc.).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIRST REASON.

The first reason is that sins against an infinite God is a wrong of infinite severity or is at least a wrong which none greater can be conceived (see below). This is due to the severity of the wrong being dependent on the moral status of the entity sinned against, all other things being equal. Wrong against an animal is more severe than wrong against a plant, while wrong against a human is more severe than wrong against an animal, all other things being equal. Since God is of infinite ontological or moral status, the severity of the wrong for the sin against Him is infinite (the severity of the wrong goes up as the ontological status of the being wronged goes up, all other things being equal). Only God could correct such a wrong, but only man is responsible for correcting it. It follows that salvation requires that God become man.

Keep in mind that the Status Principle according to many accounts is not about social status or something like that, but rather ontological status. Further, this principle only applies when all other moral considerations are equal. Let's say someone steals five dollars from their friend, and another person tortures an animal. The Status Principle does not imply that stealing the five dollars is worse, because all other things are not equal. Other moral considerations come into play to determine which is worse.

Also, I don’t think of the “infinite” in this discussion must be a mathematically modeled notion of infinity, as if there were individual units of dignity for a being (e.g., this cow has 14, I have 100, Archangel Michael has 145, etc) or individual units of demerit for an action (e.g., stealing a cow is worth 15 demerits, punching a nun is worth 200, etc). 

Instead of thinking of God’s moral status as quantitatively infinite, or even a qualitative infinite, perhaps it is better to think of it as being the limit case, or that moral status is that which none greater can be conceived. So if one is caught up in the "infinite" in my argument, replace it with "than which none greater can be conceived." It would look like this:

Since God has the highest ontological status possible, the severity of the wrong for the sin against Him that which none greater can be conceived (the severity of the wrong goes up as the ontological status of the being wronged goes up, all other things being equal. [In other words, the severity of the wrong for the sin against God is that greatest sin possible.] Only God could correct such a wrong, but only man is responsible for correcting it. It follows that salvation requires that God become man.

​

• Objection #1: God cannot be harmed, and so cannot be wronged.

God being infinite or eternal does not logically preclude Him from being harmed. God is a consciousness. Thus, it is logically possible for Him to be harmed in a psychological like manner, or by having the conscious experience of pain but, not corporeal damage. In fact, the OT consistently speaks of God being in some sort of psychological pain in response to people's sin: “Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So, he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.” - Isaiah 63:10.

But even if divine impassibility is true, there’s no good reason to think that physical harm is the only norm of what is "wrong." Being a closet diehard racist is wrong even if they never happen to cause harm to others or themselves in any way. Likewise for any other heinous belief or conscious thought. Even further, my wife could wrong me if she cheated on me, even if I never found out and was not harmed by her action. Another example: you might wrong me by frustrating goals. So likewise, you can wrong God by frustrating his goal to unite all humans to him, say, by being a hypocritical Christian that leads others to reject the gospel. So even if God can't be harmed, why think the discussion of wronging Him stops there?

​

• Objection #2: Guilt cannot be imputed or transferred in PSA or vicarious satisfaction.

In addition to many of the points made below in the next atonement section, which apply here also (e.g., the point about the metaethical view), there are parallels in our human justice system that would allow the imputation of sins so that Jesus could fulfill justice for our sins without committing those sins. I introduce vicarious liability.

Vicarious liability is when the liability for a crime committed is put on another who acts as a representative of the person that committed the crime. This representative can endure part of the deserved punishment or should they wish the full punishment. In Jesus' case he could have acted as our representative through vicarious liability in order to take the punishment we deserve without violating negative retributive justice. Indeed, vicarious liability can even be another case of strict liability, where the someone (e.g., a superior) is held to be guilty *without being found blameworthy,* since no mens rea is required. Here is what this informative website says:

"In criminal law, strict liability is liability for which mens rea (Latin for “guilty mind”) does not have to be proven in relation to one or more elements comprising the actus reus (Latin for “guilty act”) although intention, recklessness or knowledge may be required in relation to other elements of the offence. The liability is said to be strict because defendants will be convicted even though they were genuinely ignorant of one or more factors that made their acts or omissions criminal. The defendants may therefore not be culpable in any real way, i.e. there is not even criminal negligence, the least blameworthy level of mens rea." https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/criminal-law/strict-liability.php#:~:text=In%20criminal%20law%2C%20strict%20liability%20is%20liability%20for,in%20relation%20to%20other%20elements%20of%20the%20offence.

This is truly imputation of guilt. One needs to show that this parallel isn't analogous to Jesus' case in any relevant respect. Even if that can be shown, that could be a deficiency of our legal system. Indeed, one would need to provide a defeater to our sins being imputed to Jesus.

​

• Objection #3: The severity of the offense committed also depends on the moral status of the one who committed it. So, wrong by an animal is not as morally weighty as wrong by a human, all other things being equal. The severity of the wrong goes up when the ontological status of the being who sinned goes up. And so since the sinner in this case is not infinite (human beings), it stands to reason that the punishment is not infinite or incommensurable.

The reasoning of this objection doesn’t work. Anything times infinity is infinity. And so, if I were a, say, 6 on the ontological-status-meter, that times infinity would still max out my blameworthiness. The same holds if I’m only a .004 on the ontological-status-meter. In short, the mitigation due to my ontological status will not render my culpability less in light of wronging an infinite being.

​

• Objection #4: Necessitarian accounts of Vicarious Satisfaction and PSA limit God because Him fulfilling His requirement of justice serves as a precondition for forgiveness. God must do something in order to forgive.

This objection also ignores that the necessity of the atonement lays in God's nature rather than only His will. Something can only be said to limit God if it imposed by something beyond Himself. God not being able to let wrongdoing go unpunished no more limits God than Him not being able to lie (2 Timothy 2:13). God as Judge can't act in a way that is not consistent with His nature. Once again, omnipotence does not include bringing about logical contradictions.

​

• Objection #5: God the Son became a man and died in our place in order to save us from God the Father.

Yet it's a strawman to say that we are saved from God. Rather, we are saved from our sin, and more importantly for the models in this post, from the just consequences of our sin. This is basic Christian doctrine. If you are a criminal guilty of serious crime in, say, a country with the best justice system humanly possible, and you get a pardon from that government, did the government save you from the just consequences of your wrongdoing, or the government save you from the government?

​

• Objection #6: Doing goods has infinite significance, and so offsets infinite wrongs, so long as one does more or an equal amount of good in comparison to bad.

Doing good does not nullify infinite wrongs. Indeed, it strikes me that praise and blame might be asymmetric here. I think punching my mom is more grave than punching some stranger or an amimal, given our relationship. I think that failing to help my mom after surgery is more grave than failing to help a stranger, given our relationship.  I don’t think that helping my mom is more praiseworthy than helping a stranger, due to our relationship. Helping my mom might well be obligatory, whereas helping a stranger might well be supererogatory. Or failing to help a stranger is graver than failing to help an animal. It could be that there is greater obligation to help a stranger human than an animal. And the supererogatory is, all else equal, more praiseworthy than the obligatory. So it seems to me that there is an asymmetry in the case of blameworthy offense and praiseworthy action with respect to those we bear special relations to, like our parents and God. So even prima facie, good actions cannot outweigh bad ones, for we already owe God total obedience in our behavior towards our fellow humans and bearers of the images of God, as well as towards God Himself. 

See below for more comment on this.

"If ... the heavenly kingdom be made up of men, and this cannot be effected unless the aforesaid satisfaction be made, which none but God can make and none but man ought to make, it is necessary for the God‑man to make it." - Anselm of Canterbury.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECOND REASON.

The second reason is that God's moral attributes are immutable (God is defined as the "greatest being possible"). All have transgressed God's law and are guilty. Sure, there are some better than others. But being better than others does not make you *good enough*. Even if you do the speed limit most of the time, a cop would be just in issuing you a ticket if he caught you violating the speed limit. Sure, they could show mercy, but then the cop is relaxing justice, and God can't relax an attribute essential to His nature. But how can God as Judge forgive guilty people and remove their liability to justice *while remaining all just*? Sure, a judge has the power to not convict a criminal, but they would no longer be just. Traditionally omnipotence doesn’t include bringing about logical contradictions so even God wouldn’t be able to relax justice while still being fully just. Mercy seems a relaxation of justice, and justice a refusal of mercy. The laws of logic seem to prevent God from being both just and merciful at the same time in response to human sin. God solves this dilemma on the cross. Full justice is fulfilled: sin is punished through an infinite being (thus having infinite merit), but mercy is also enacted. The trick is for God to give *us* the mercy and *Himself* the justice.

Keep in mind that PSA says that the satisfaction of divine justice was achieved through substitutionary punishment, not compensation (satisfactio), as in Anselm's theory (here). This is how the two theories are distinct.

​

• Objection #1: It is not just for an innocent person to be punished for the sins of others.

This argument has many assumptions which are not defended but required for the argument to work. First, most people don't realize that only negative retributive justice holds it to be wrong to punish someone who is innocent. Since there are other views of justice this objection can't even lift itself off the ground without independent argument for negative retributive justice.

Second the argument will need to get contextualized in some metaethical view. Not all metaethical views will make it be immoral for God to not be a negative retributive judge even if negative retributive justice is correct for us. One will need to find a metaethical view where God would need to be a negative retributive judge and defend that view, or defend that negative retributive justice is an essential attribute of God's nature.

Next there is the assumption that there are no weightier moral considerations that override the prima facie demands of negative retributive justice. Even among those who hold to retributive justice there are many that recognize such overriding considerations may waiver the demands of retributive justice. In this case the salvation of world could serve as such a weightier moral consideration. Even the staunchest of retributivists like Michael Moore agree that the demands of retributive justice are prima facie demands that can be overridden in specific cases:

“A 'threshold' deontologist refuses to violate a categorical norm of morality until not doing so produces sufficient bad consequences as to pass some threshold, then, he will override such categorical norms.” - Michael S. Moore, Placing Blame: A Theory of Criminal Law, p. 158, n. 13.

So, if one must punish an innocent (especially if they are willing, as with Jesus), or else the world be totally destroyed (or lost!), that person should be punished. I think this makes sense and I don’t see a defeater to such a proposal.

Finally, there is the assumption that if a person isn't the one who commits the sin that they can't then be considered legally guilty for those sins. See above for the response to that. Since our guilt was imputed onto Jesus, technically, he was extrinsically guilty, though intrinsically innocent.

​

• Objection #2: Jesus did not suffer eternal hell.

First, while Christ’s punishment and the revoking of the Father's blessings from Him was not infinite as to duration, intensity can more than make up for duration. Combine this point with the fact that no one in hell will have suffered for an actually infinite amount of time at any given moment, since the future is merely *potentially* infinite, as opposed to being an actual infinite, I think that this point is weakened.

Second, more importantly and more simply though, Jesus' blood has infinite merit. Jesus could have suffered for five minutes and that alone would be sufficient to satisfy divine justice by His having infinite ontological status. Thus, Christ’s suffering, though it lasted only a finite time, was infinite in merit and equivalent to the suffering of the damned due to the infinite dignity or ontological status that Jesus has.

Keep in mind also that on some models of PSA at least, it's not about matching the hatred of hell, but more about fulfilling the justice and mercy of God at the same time in light of human sin. Perhaps the punishment doesn't even need to be exact.

​

• Objection #3: If I can forgive someone without any punishment and no violation of justice, why can't God?

The problem with this argument is that it is based on construing God on the analogy of a private party involved in various personal relationships rather than as a Judge. Regular people are free to show mercy without being held to justice. By contrast a judge in many contexts have an obligation to do justice—at minimum upholding the rule of the law. Thus, legal philosopher Jeffrie Murphy notes that if the judge "is moved, even by love or compassion, to act contrary to the rule of law—to the rules of justice—he acts wrongly” - Jeffrie Murphy, “Mercy and Legal Justice,” in Forgiveness and Mercy, ed. Jeffrie G. Murphy and Jean Hampton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 175-76.

In short, God as Judge and the law itself cannot merely forgive without violating his all just nature. Indeed, without God upholding moral responsibility for wrong actions, we wouldn't live in a moral universe. But God can't just let everyone's just due fall upon them, elsewise He is not fully merciful. Thus comes the solution of God the Son taking the punishment Himself.

Further, it's different to say that sinful people should forgive other sinful people, over against a sinless entity forgiving sinful beings.

Many people claim that God's relationship to humans is more like a human to child relationship rather than a judicial Judge. However, it must at least be a both/and, not an either/or. The Bible is flooded with language of God being Ruler and Judge, including in a judicial setting: "The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people" (Isaiah 3:13).

​

• Objection #4: The Bible already had a system of repentance with no substitute required.

Penal Substitution merely shows how it is the case that an all-just God can forgive based on repentance without denying His own nature. Whenever someone is forgiven, it is on the basis of the cross.

​

• Objection #5: What about people before Christ?

If someone repents and turns to God before Christ's first coming, Christ's atonement would be applied to them without their conscious knowledge of it. For them, waking up to heaven would be like receiving a will from a family member that you never met and knew about. Further, in the OT, I would argue that for at least some people in the covenant of Israel (or at least the Biblical authors), Christ was "dimly perceived" (to quote OT scholar Peter J. Gentry). This could have even been possible for non-Jews before Christ.

​

• Objection #6: If the God-man takes the punishment due sinners, then all would be saved.

Christ’s death potentially accomplished the redemption of all men, but for redemption to be actualized in each person, the gift must be freely accepted by that person. Like a pardon that has been issued and yet refused, Christ’s redeeming work remains inefficacious in the lives of those who freely reject Him. This explains why Jesus says He is the only way to salvation. If you don't accept the pardon (or more rightly, the gift), then one falls back on God's Justice.

​

• Objection #7: This view presupposes an illogical form of justice where it doesn't matter who is punished for wronging, so long as someone is punished for sins, justice is satisfied.

There are contexts where imputation of guilt is not appropriate, and contexts where it is not. Just because imputation of guilt is inappropriate in some circumstances does not mean it is inappropriate in all circumstances. Thus, this counter presupposes that there are no contexts where imputation of guilt is allowed based on it not being allowed some or certain contexts is not good logic.

Equally important is that it is NOT a third party who gets punished on this theory of atonement. It could NOT have just been anyone. It had to be God Himself because of His being infinite in value, and the necessity of His moral attributes needing to be fully and equally true at the same time in response to human sin.

"He allowed himself to be slain for the sake of justice." - Anselm of Canterbury.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BONUS THIRD REASON

Adam and Eve, as well as man in general, has freely sold themselves over to Satan through sin. As such, Satan has legal right over mankind. Following most church fathers, like Gregory of Nyssa, if God were to take us out of Satan’s grasp, God was required to act in accordance with His Just nature. This means that God couldn’t have torn us from Satan’s grasp by divine fiat, “thus leaving a complaint to him who enslaved man” (Gregory, Catechetical Oration, 22). So, God had to become man and entice Satan into exchanging the human race for Himself through his virtuous deeds and miracles, etc. Once Satan exchanged humanity for Jesus, Jesus then shows his divine nature which cannot be held by Satan by rising from the dead. Satan’s purchase over anyone is thus nullified. The main point here is that God had to respect Satan’s rights and so if He were to buy humanity back, He had to do so without violating Justice. Gregory concludes that “His choosing to save man is a testimony of His goodness; His making the redemption of the captive a matter of exchange exhibits His justice, while the invention whereby He enabled the Enemy to apprehend that of which he was before incapable, is a manifestation of supreme wisdom” (Catechetical Oration, 23).

Sone scholars think that this atonement theory contradicts the above two. I think not.