Relational Consistency and the regulation of atonement : a theological proposal

Contemporary soteriology is commonly structured by a models-based approach to the work of Christ in which self-contained conceptual accounts propose mechanisms to explain how reconciliation is effected. Yet this proliferation has not been accompanied by sustained theological reflection on the methodological conditions governing their use. This thesis addresses that methodological lacuna by proposing Relational Consistency as a regulative criterion for assessing accounts of atonement. Its central claim is that the means of atonement must be consistent with the end of reconciliation, because both are grounded in the relational life of God. The thesis begins by establishing that while models are not themselves the problem, they require regulation if they are to serve rather than displace the normative dogmatic grammar underpinning accounts of reconciliation. It grounds this regulation Christologically, showing how Chalcedonian dogma and trinitarian logic function as a regulative grammar conditioning how accounts of reconciliation may proceed. Three engagements with historical accounts of atonement follow—with Anselm, John Calvin, and Friedrich Schleiermacher—each undertaken on its own terms and each disclosing a distinct configuration of the relations atonement presupposes and enacts. Drawing on this work, the thesis concludes by articulating four requirements constituting the criterion of Relational Consistency. These are: that an account preserve trinitarian unity; that it construe sin as a rupture or distortion of right relation; that its proposed mechanism cohere with the relational end of reconciliation; and that its account of salvation extend the restored relation into participation in the divine life. The criterion operates at the level of explanatory structure, testing whether an account’s proposed means of reconciliation remain consonant with its relational telos. In this way, the thesis argues that the most pressing question for discourse on atonement is not “Which model is correct?” but “What conditions must an account satisfy to remain theologically coherent?”