ABSTRACT
Retributivism in some form is often assumed to characterize the nature of justice which underlies the narrative arch of the Christian scriptures. It is the purpose of this chapter to clarify precisely what retributivism is and argue that it is not clearly present in any of the scriptures. The chapter starts, however, with an investigation of Anselm’s explanation of atonement, which serves as a foil of sorts since it assumes a fundamentally retributive understanding of justice. From there, we distinguish two forms of retributivism (i.e., axiological and deontological retributivism), critically assess the philosophical motivations for it, and move into a discussion of its putative scriptural support. What we find as we assess passages from both the Hebrew scriptures and the Gospels and Apostolic Writings is that there is a difference between karmic order—i.e., a descriptive thesis—and retributive justice. Moreover, when one attends to the rationale behind a given punishment, the reasons tend toward a restorative as opposed to retributive one. Thus, in developing an explanation of the atonement, one’s reasons for it ought to be grounded in a fundamentally restorative conception of justice.
