Thomas Aquinas and the Dominicans agreed with the mainline position that some kind of debt had to be paid for human salvation. Many scriptures and the Jewish temple metaphors of sacrifice, price, propitiation, debt, and atonement do give this impression. But Franciscan teacher, Blessed John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308), who founded the theological chair at Oxford, said that Jesus wasn’t solving any problems by coming to earth and dying. Jesus wasn’t changing God’s mind about us; rather, Jesus was changing our minds about God. That, in a word, was our nonviolent at-one-ment theory. God did not need Jesus to die on the cross to decide to love humanity. God’s love was infinite from the first moment of creation; the cross was just Love’s dramatic portrayal in space and time.
The image of the cross was to change humanity, not a necessary transaction to change God—as if God needed changing! Scotus concluded that Jesus’ death was not a “penal substitution” but a divine epiphany for all to see. Jesus was pure gift, and the idea of gift is much more transformative than any idea of necessity, price, or transaction.It shows that God is not violent, but loving.
Duns Scotus firmly believed that God’s perfect freedom had to be maintained at all costs. If God “needed” or demanded a blood sacrifice to love God’s own creation, then God was not freely loving us.
.. Jesus was not changing the Father’s mind about us; he was changing our mind about God—and thus about one another too. If God and Jesus are not violent, punishing, torturing, or vindictive, then our excuse for the same is forever taken away from us. This is no small point! And, of course, if God is punitive and torturing, then we have full modeling and permission to do the same.
Nonviolence
If you look at texts in the hundred years preceding 313, it was unthinkable that a Christian would fight in the army. The army was killing Christians; Christians were being persecuted. By the year 400, the entire army had become Christian, and Christians were killing the “pagans.” In a two-hundred-year period, we went from being complete outsiders to directing the inside! Once you are inside, you have to defend your power and your privilege.
It is during this transition that people like St. Anthony of the Desert, John Cassian, Evagrius Ponticus, and the early monks went off to Egypt, Syria, and the deserts of Palestine. They critiqued the self-protective, privileged lifestyle of mainline Christianity by utterly leaving it! Soon they learned and taught a different way of seeing called “contemplation.” From that point through the modern period, most governments assumed that Christian monks and priests could not, or should not, wage war or kill others.
Why this split between two brands of Christianity? Why were some expected to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously, while the rest were exempt? Even as recently as the Vietnam War, laity could kill, while the clergy could not. As a Franciscan, I received an immediate draft deferment in the 1960s. When the Gospel is heard and understood at its deepest level, Christians cannot and will not kill or wage war.
10 Principles for Living Simply
Quaker teacher Richard Foster suggests ten principles for expressing simplicity outwardly. [1] Here’s his list in my words:
- Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status or prestige.
- Learn the difference between a real need and an addiction. Then find support and accountability to regain “sobriety,” freedom from addiction.
- Develop a habit of giving things away.
- Avoid unnecessary and short-lived technological gadgets that promise to “save time.”
- Enjoy things without owning them. For example, take advantage of public libraries and parks.
- Nurture awe and appreciation for nature. Spend more time outdoors!
- Get out—and stay out—of debt.
- Use plain, honest speech. Say what you mean and keep your commitments.
- Reject anything that oppresses others. For example, buy Fair Trade products.
- Seek God’s kingdom of love and justice foremost. If anything distracts you from that purpose, let it go.
Simplicity: Where You Can’t Be Bought Off
When you agree to live simply, you put yourself outside of others’ ability to buy you off, reward you falsely, or control you by money, status, salary, punishment, and loss or gain. This is the most radical level of freedom, but, of course, it is not easy to come by. Francis and Clare had little to lose, no desire for gain, no loans or debts to pay off, and no luxuries that they needed or wanted. Most of us can only envy them.