Regarding Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PS), I’m not sure that Andrew is saying there are well thought out and functionally equivalent alternatives to PS. I think he is saying that believing strongly in PS is functionally equivalent to not thinking about it at all. That is, for most people, what they believe about PS does not and would not effect how they function as Christians.

Christianity starts as a propositional truth (”God saves through Christ”), but it does not consist merely in ever increasing “clarity” about how we think. If pondering/debating a question is not likely to help us live more like Christ would have us live, then it may be a waste of our time.

Where I would disagree with Andrew is in his unqualified “it doesn’t matter” statement. It may be true for him that the question has no impact on his life. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say it doesn’t matter for anyone today - or that it didn’t matter for those in history who struggled to understand PS from the beginning.

I have heard similar dismissal of many Christian ideas saying, “it doesn’t matter”. For example, does it matter if we understand approx. how old the earth is? Or, is it important to know what prophecies are yet to be fulfilled? Or if the rapture will take place? Do any of these matter for how we will behave today? For some people, it matters very much. I would want to qualify any dismissal I made of those arguments.

In the same way, to the person who is struggling with PS, for that person it is very important to work it through. But, except for that minority, I would probably agree with Andrew that it holds little significance in most people’s lives. I would take his comments simply as a “reality check” on how important this issue really is.

I think I see what you (and probably Andrew at Theo Geek) are saying, Brad.

I accept that any of us can be Christian believers without certain Christian beliefs deeply affecting our lives. But is that really representative of the importance of those beliefs? First, perhaps there are some beliefs that ought to matter to all, even if they don’t. Second, do some things matter, even if the experiential/life-affecting dimension isn’t (immediately) there?

Example: The doctrine of the Trinity. Arguably right at the top of the list of essential Christian beliefs. Many of us don’t have a good experiential connection to it, though. (1) Shouldn’t we have such a connection–and if we don’t, does that say anything about its importance (or does it say something about us). (2) Even if one cannot make the experiential case, isn’t it reasonable and good for most orthodox Christians to want insist on the importance of the belief?

Final thought: on PSA (awful acronym, I know): doesn’t the character and nature of the God we believe in make a big difference? The way Andrew put it, it doesn’t. But he did so based on dismissing the character of God as being of significance to us (if it makes no experiential difference to us). But many doctrines are more about who God is than who we are. Doctrines may come out rather abstractly, but any doctrine that says something about who God is, is actually relational. This God to whom we relate as Father is thus and so and not this way or that way. Knowing this must make a difference, if only because we know more about the one to whom we relate. Thus, even if we can’t see the difference on our end of the relationship, it should still be important.

I personally can think of all sorts of differences that PSA makes for me personally (e.g., it change my understanding of what Christ did for me, both heightening my understanding of God’s love and of his wrath, and what it means for the former to be mercifully greater than the latter). But even if I couldn’t, and I still thought that PSA were the case, wouldn’t it be important information? (”This is what Christ did”). Wouldn’t it tell me something important about God, and thus be important?