God Most Moved

Grotius ( Defensio Fidei Catholoicae: De Satisfactione Christi Adversus Faustum Socinum Senensem , 10.1-2) agrees with Socinus that Christ’s death is an “expiatory sacrifice . . . for sin.” He locates the difference in two places – the “target” of that expiation, and the time frame.

Socinus says that “expiation primarily and properly concerns future sins” because Christ’s death awakens faith that draws us away from sin; it affects past sins only insofar as Christ’s death prepares us ‘to receive remission, viz., by amending our life.” The target in both cases is us not God. “God is not moved to remit” ( non Deum moveri ad remittendum ). For Grotius, the death of Christ liberates from past sins and the target is God, who “is moved to remit” ( qui ad remittenum moveatur ).

Behind these differences, though, there are perhaps differences in theology proper. Does Socinus deny that the death of Christ “moves God” because he thinks God wholly immobile? Does Grotius recognize that the satisfaction theory works only if God is a God capable of being moved, a responsive God capable of “passion,” and moved by an event of human history, the death of Jesus? Is the contest between a static Socinian God and a lively, interactive Anselmian/Grotian God?

It so, that would be an ironic result. Socinus would not be the first (Arius preceded him) who fancied himself a biblicist while chained to an alien theology?