Theological understandings of reconciliation

Though it certainly existed in human affairs long before the Christian era, reconciliation has taken on a decidedly Christian aspect, characterized as theologically central, both in doctrine and in practice. Simply defined, to reconcile is to ‘restore to union and friendship after estrangement’ or to ‘bring to agreement’ (New American Webster Dictionary). Such a concept comes inextricably bound to communication. A kind of anthropology of reconciliation calls several things to our attention. First, communication and reconciliation appear as correlates. Reconciliation implies communication as the means by which it is achieved; communication flowers fully where reconciliation exists. The two reinforce each other.

Second, reconciliation describes two related situations, bound together by a move from enmity to friendship. In one situation, reconciliation restores a prior relationship, as when two family members or friends have a falling out and then re-establish the relationship. In the worst case, the enmity severs all communication and the individuals have nothing to do with each other; less severe is the case where only perfunctory communication occurs. This situation moves from open communication to enmity (and the lack of communication that characterizes it) back to open communication. In the other related situation, reconciliation refers to the creation of a relationship between enemies, where the enemies become friends, though they may never have had friendly contact before. This situation best describes peacemaking.

Third, an anthropology of reconciliation highlights its interpersonal aspect. Reconciliation primarily occurs between individuals – and implies an equality. An imbalance of interpersonal power distorts communication and prevents true reconciliation: one cannot impose reconciliation by force or one-sidedly. Without true equality in communication, reconciliation cannot exist. This does not mean that one side cannot reach out to the other and initiate a reconciliation. Since, by extension, we sometimes apply the concepts of reconciliation to communities, here, too, the sense of equality must exist as a precondition for reconciliation.

Fourth, the communication necessary for reconciliation can come through a mediator, someone able and willing to communicate with each estranged party and able and willing to provide indirect communication until the two can communicate with one another.

This initial anthropology of reconciliation sets the stage for a consideration of theological approaches. Reconciliation involves communication under four aspects: between individuals, between communities, in equality, and through a mediator. Each aspect appears in theology, though Christian usage transforms them as it includes God’s action in the process of reconciliation.

Christian theology considers the reconciliation between God and the human race as a central concept, one that, as articulated by St. Paul, gives rise to every other instance of reconciliation. In the Christian vocabulary, reconciliation appears as one of a constellation of linked terms: forgiveness, atonement, justification, reconciliation, sanctification, redemption, liberation, healing, purification, regeneration, and so on (Marty, 1998, p. 11; Osborne, 1990, p. 5). The concept has a controverted history within theology since its associated terms played a prominent role in the disputes of late medieval and Reformation theology. However, since these disputes figure only peripherally in the present broader discussion of reconciliation, the interested reader can refer to the bibliography for more detail.

Within the history of theology, different theological understandings of reconciliation include reconciliation of humanity with God, reconciliation between communities, reconciliation within a community (between an individual and the community), individual reconciliation (between two individuals within a community), personal reconciliation (between an individual and God), and sacramental reconciliation. These different understandings receive greater or lesser emphasis throughout the history of theology, though all trace their genesis to the Scriptures. Similarly, each incorporates communication to a greater or lesser degree.

The New Testament

Reconciliation or its related terms appear throughout the Gospels in the preaching and ministry of Jesus. Jesus preaches repentance (Mark 1:14); tells parables of reconciliation with God (Luke 18:10-14, the tax collector and the pharisee at prayer) and, to illustrate reconciliation with God, of reconciliation within the community (Luke 15:11-32, the prodigal son); forgives sins (Matthew 9:1-8), and commands his followers to be reconciled (Matthew 5:23-24, leave your offering at the altar and be reconciled), even giving directions for correcting one another (Matthew 18:15-17). In the Gospels, forgiveness of sins removes obstacles to reconciliation (Taylor, 1960, pp. 8, 15, 23); the death of Jesus accomplishes that forgiveness and its consequent reconciliation with God. All of these instances, but particularly those that refer to reconciliation within the community, imply some communication and, in fact, mandate an openness to communication.

In John’s Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, the communicative consequences of reconciliation come through more clearly. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost reverses the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel and acts to reconcile those who hear the proclamation of the resurrection. The giving of the Holy Spirit in John 20 has a similar role in opening communication through the power of forgiveness.

The Pauline letters offer a more thematized outline of the theological dimension of reconciliation. Four principal texts highlight the key elements. The New Testament Greek katallage (‘reconciliation’) is a legal term used of husband and wife, as in 1 Corinthians 7:11, and thus deals with personal relations – the end of hostility and the restoration of friendship. In the four Pauline applications of reconciliation to salvation, it is always God who takes the initiative to restore what was meant to be. In 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 God reconciles us to God’s own self in and through Christ by not holding our sins against us. In Romans 5:10-11 Christ’s death is the means whereby God destroys the hostility. In Colossians 1:20-22 Christ’s death is the means whereby peace is made, although there are two ambiguities: whether it is God or Christ who acts and whether the peace is between God and creatures, among creatures, or (probably) both. Ephesians 2:11-16 is clear – Christ, by his death, restores friendship with God by breaking down the walls of separation among people, with the Jew-Gentile distinction, so radically divisive for the early Church, the archetype of how change takes place and what we are freed from. (Dallen, 1987, pp. 23-24)

The Pauline material identifies several important factors: reconciliation refers to the restoration of human fellowship with God by God’s action through Christ (Taylor, 1960, p. 84). All subsequent reconciliation flows from this act.

The Pauline material also calls attention to several theological understandings of reconciliation. First, we see the reconciliation between God and the human race, achieved through the forgiveness of sins (2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Colossians 1:20-22). God takes the initiative but, as the Philippians hymn (Philippians 2:5-11) proclaims, sets aside the imbalance of power between creator and creature, humbly becoming incarnate and even more humbly accepting death, to establish humans in a relationship with God. The key theological understanding of reconciliation expresses it in terms of the mystery of salvation–God’s gratuitous justification of humans. In keeping with our theme, we could say that God restores communication through the mediation of the incarnate Word. The root understanding of reconciliation in Paul is the reconciliation between God and the human race. Reconciliation restores a relationship.

Second, Paul writes of the reconciliation between communities, namely the Jews and the Greeks /Gentiles (Ephesians 2:11-16). Seen as a result of the reconciliation between God and the human race, this reconciliation also acts as a sign of that prior reconciliation and is motivated by the divine reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). Within the history of Christianity, this reconciliation was experienced as open communication between individual members of the two communities (Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10, for example), but for Paul it represented a wider communication between Jews and Greeks in the Christian communities in Philippi, Corinth, Rome, and so forth. The dynamic of human reconciliation manifests itself in the communication of the communities.

Third, Paul describes the reconciliation between individuals and the community and, in so doing, seems to echo the Gospel instruction in Matthew about fraternal correction. This very real situation (one quite human) involves a specific kind of communication–telling others their faults–and forgiveness. However, Paul also holds out the possibility of cutting off communication if the sinner fails to repent (1 Corinthians 5).

Fourth and finally, Paul also calls for reconciliation between individuals in the community, between husband and wife for example (1 Corinthians 7;11). While this is in fact a category of the reconciliation between an individual and the community, it can appear separately as a kind of one-to-one relationship within the community. In addition, it clearly fits the model of reconciliation as restored communication. Here reconciliation does not create something new, but returns a relationship to full communication. Here, like in the other areas, the motivation lies in the reconciling work of Christ and the reconciliation itself functions as a sign of the foundational reconciliation in Christ.

Dallen notes the connection among these instances of reconciliation in Paul:

There are thus two very different applications of ‘reconciliation’ to salvation. In the first, ‘reconciliation’ has a metaphorical character since the hostility is one-sided–human beings have chosen to separate themselves from God. In the other, the term is used literally–differences among people who have indeed become divisive and separated them from what God is creating; their reunion reunites them with God. What both usages have in common is a focus on God’s eternal purpose realized in time (p. 24).

Three of the Pauline texts on reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18, Ephesians 2:13, Colossians 1:20) emphasize that Christ acts as a mediator in the act of reconciliation: it occurs ‘through Christ.’ Ephesians 2:14, 16 summarizes: Christ works as a mediator to reconcile us, simultaneously both to God and to one another, as communities and as individuals. Again, though Paul does not use the categories of communication, the reconciliation accomplished through Christ’s communication opens the door to human communication.

Early church practices

The Pauline texts do not exhaust the theological understandings of reconciliation. These continue to develop, driven by two forces: the practice of the Church and an ongoing reflection on the work of the Redeemer. Both take on urgency from the process of personal reconciliation as practised in the forgiveness of post-baptismal sins and manifest in sacramental reconciliation.

During the Patristic period, the church fathers regarded baptism as the chief locus of reconciliation. An individual experienced the forgiveness of sins and a new birth to holiness and a reconciliation with God in baptism. Simultaneously, that individual entered into the community of the church and experienced a reconciliation with others. The later practical necessity of forgiving and reconciling those separated from the community due to apostasy or other serious offence led to a penitential practice that involved both ritual action and public penance. The sinner, cut off from the community by serious sin (the categories vary but usually include apostasy, adultery, and murder), could enter the order of penitents only once. The process involved asking prayers of the community from outside the assemblies, confession of faith in God’s mercy and acknowledgement of sin, doing penance, and a public ritual of reconciliation, often celebrated on Holy Thursday. In this instance, personal reconciliation consisted of a reconciliation with the community, which became symbolized in the re-admission to Eucharistic communion (Osborne, 1990, pp. 52-83). The theological focus of reconciliation shifts to the individual; the communicative focus follows, highlighting the restoration of an individual’s contact with the community.

A different theological understanding of personal reconciliation emerges in the 8th century Celtic monastic practice that gradually spread throughout the Western church. Two significant changes from patristic or Mediterranean forms occurred – reconciliation could be celebrated as often as needed and it took place privately. The emphasis lay on the personal: individual confession of sins and the performance of specified, usually private, penances chosen according to the nature and severity of the sin. This form of post-baptismal reconciliation emphasized the relationship between the individual and God, with the confessor representing the community. ‘In the public Mediterranean form of penance, the severity of ‘doing penance’ was the dominant feature, but as the Celtic form of penance took over there was in early medieval spirituality a tremendous stress on the ‘confession’ aspect of the process’ (Osborne, 1990, p. 92).

Growing from its monastic origins, the practical emphasis, coupled with the interpersonal emphasis of the direction of souls, dominates and leads to a more private theological understanding of reconciliation. A second, cultural, element also works to shift the theological understanding. In both the patristic and Celtic forms, penitents had to do some acts of penance. But a key interaction between Celtic practice and Frankish tradition further moved the focus away from restoration of communication with the community. Now, payment of some kind could replace the penitent’s acts of ‘satisfaction,’ in accordance with the Frankish compositio or substitution of payment for a punishment. Where patristic Mediterranean practice had focused on exclusion from Eucharistic communion and public penance as a sign of repentance, the Celtic one moved to private, individual confession of sins and acts of satisfaction. This led to a coupling of reconciliation with private forgiveness, satisfaction, and justification.

Medieval and Reformation understanding

The theological understanding of reconciliation interacts with the penitential practices and fosters a medieval theology of Christ’s work as redeemer that stresses ‘satisfaction.’ This eventually leads to a theology of sacramental reconciliation. Anselm of Canterbury gave it a theological expression that set the stage for the late medieval and reformation debates about the relation of justification and reconciliation.

Orthodox thought is shaped by the objective need for the reconciliation of God with human beings. This can only happen if expiation is made. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) deeply influenced Western Christianity in his assumption that God’s honour and justice had been violated by human sin, so that satisfaction had to be offered before God could forgive human beings and they could be declared righteous. But because no sinner can offer adequate penance, this is fulfilled by the God-man Christ. He assumes the burden of human guilt and the punishment which follows from it, namely death, and so makes it possible for God to be God, in other words, to exercise grace (Sölle, 1990, p. 79)

The theological discussion of satisfaction unites the ritual or practice of reconciliation and the concept of justification; Anselm’s treatment also brings in an allied term, ‘merit,’ something that will fuel later theological discussion (Osborne, 1990, p. 99). Throughout this period ‘reconciliation’ as a term of discussion applies more to the ritual than to the act of God in Christ. As a communicative event, reconciliation refers to the human interaction of the ritual rather than to God’s self-communication.

Bearing in mind the dangers of Pelagianism, the late medieval theologians saw the ritual and the reality of reconciliation as a balance between God’s freedom and human action. By the 13th century, theologians agreed that sacramental reconciliation involved four elements: contrition, confession, satisfaction, and absolution, all in response to God’s grace (Osborne, 1990, pp. 111-112). Inspired by the new Aristotelian synthesis, a great deal of theology addressed questions of the various causes (final, formal, material, instrumental) of the sacramental action. Theological discussion shifted away from reconciliation per se and towards the question of justification.

Luther’s theological understanding of reconciliation takes justification as its point of departure. Unlike the scholastic theologians, he begins with Christology and therefore focuses on the action of God. As St. Paul wrote, it is God who reconciles us through Christ. Only then does Luther address ecclesiology and the role of the church in the process of reconciliation.

If one uses the theological term ‘cause,’ one finds its meaning in Jesus, not in the church. God/Jesus is the cause of grace, the cause of justification, the cause of remission of sin, etc. The action of the church is revelatory and declaratory (Osborne, 1990, p. 141). Here Luther turns away from a formal understanding of the sacrament and returns to a more communicative sense. God gives grace and the church proclaims God’s action.

The debates about a sacramental understanding of reconciliation yield several conclusions about the theological discourse. (1) The starting point of the analysis (scholasticism’s Aristotelian categories, or Luther’s Christology, for example) dramatically alters how theologians understand the act of reconciliation. (2) The ritualized practice of reconciliation focuses attention on the individual penitent, with the community dimension fading. (3) Cultural factors play a role, too. Celtic and Frankish practices led to the emphasis on satisfaction and the substitution of money or ‘spiritual’ payments for punishment. (4) Even though all acknowledge that both divine and human action play a role–God initiating and humans responding through conversion and changed relationships–Reformation and counter-Reformation theologians had not resolved ‘the relation of the subjective and personal factor to the objective and ecclesiastical one in the production of the forgiveness of sins’ (Poschmann, 1963, p. 202, quoted in Osborne, 1990, p.184). (5) Never thematized, the communicative dimension of reconciliation remains in the background, applied either to the interpersonal interaction between priest and penitent or to the proclamatory role of the church.

Tridentine Roman Catholic theology stressed the necessity of the confession of sins; in a way, this maintains a community dimension to reconciliation. In a commentary on Canon 7 of the Council of Trent, Osborne explains the role of the community:

Reconciliation is a two-way street...The community must itself acknowledge that the sinner is repentant enough to resume Christian life, or, more accurately stated, the Christian community must say something about itself, namely, that the community itself wants to reflect the forgiving love of Jesus in the way it deals with this sinful member. Confession of sin within an ecclesial setting is not merely a case of an individual penitent Christian confessing his or her sins, but it is also a case of a penitent, forgiving, Christian community trying to live up to God’s own command to forgive seventy times seven times (Osborne, 1990, p. 175).

Here, in an idealized way, we find a two-way communication represented in the sacramental interaction between the community representative (the confessor) and penitent.

Later theology

Post-Reformation Protestant theology did not attend as much to questions of sacramental reconciliation. Following Luther, it held that the ritual of private confession was not a ‘sacrament in the same sense as the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist...In this profession of ritualized reconciliation, the Lutheran Church bears Christian witness to Christ’s power within the church to isolate, repel, and negate sin’ (Osborne, 1990, p. 143). In the 18th and 19th centuries, Liberal Protestantism takes on the image of reconciliation to describe the action of grace; in so doing, it embraces a subjective and more explicitly communicative model. Forgiveness represents a change of heart, which happens as God draws human beings ‘away from guilt, sin, and ignorance,’ away from egoism and isolation into a relationship with God. ‘To put it in the language of the eighteenth century, reconciliation is really a form of education’ (Sölle, 1990, p. 86). The education of the human race occurs through communication–through God’s revelation. Communication with God is restored in forgiveness through the process of reconciliation, but the traditional emphasis on the individual remains since this theological view has God speaking to the hearts of human beings.

The 20th century theological discussion of reconciliation reintroduces two significant elements. First, it makes community a more conscious dimension. In an essay exploring the theological foundation of the ecumenical movement, for example, Bonhoeffer points out that a ‘community of peace’ depends on the forgiveness of sins. ‘There is a community of peace for Christians only because one will forgive the other his sins. The forgiveness of sins still remains the sole ground of all peace, even where the order of external peace remains preserved in truth and justice’ (1947, p. 169). In this he returns to a New Testament understanding that reconciliation comes only as a consequence of the forgiveness of sins. He also notes that the community is both the locus and the result of forgiveness. Forgiveness characterizes full life in community and leads members of the community to imitate the divine action by forgiving one another. ‘One is called to the Christian community or church to experience forgiveness from God and a consequent awareness and reality of a ‘new creation’ or ‘the new being.’ The consequence of this experience is that the divine version somehow inspires forgiveness among humans’ (Marty, 1998, p. 11). Restored communication with God leads to renewed communication among human beings. The same insight appears in the post-conciliar Roman Catholic understanding of the social nature of sin and reconciliation.

Reconciliation is reconciliation both with God and with one’s neighbor... The revised ritual of reconciliation stresses the reconciliation not only with God but also with the church... The assembled community is not merely present in an observing way, but the assembled community is present in a participative way. ...The assembled community is an agent of reconciliation (Osborne, 1990, pp. 209-210).

Liberation theology extends this with a strong emphasis on the social nature of sin, an insight into the sinful structure of the world, and the discovery of human co-optation by the language of the oppressor. Its response through solidarity, shared vision, undoing the structures of injustice, and a creation of a new community speaks the language of communication. It is not enough to ask for forgiveness and still enjoy privilege (Sölle, 1981). To create the shared vision and new community means learning a new language, being reconciled through the mediation of Christ. In this context reconciliation repeats the Pauline proclamation that in Christ, God has reconciled Jew and Gentile and created a new humanity from the two (Ephesians 2:15).

Second, contemporary theology broadens the understanding of reconciliation by considering its wider sacramental nature. Any ritual of reconciliation practised by the church points both to church as a sacrament of reconciliation and to ‘the Christ-event as a reconciliation-event’ (Osborne, 1990, p. 213). In other words, all reconciliation takes root in Jesus, the primordial sacrament of reconciliation. ‘When this sacramental process is applied to reconciliation, we see that the church, in order even to be church, must reflect the forgiving love of God, which one sees in Jesus, the light of the nations’ (p. 216). The reconciliation celebrated by the church indicates the reconciliation that Christ has achieved:

The overarching context of a Christian account of forgiveness is the God who lives in Trinitarian relations of peaceable, self-giving communion and thereby is willing to bear the cost of forgiveness in order to restore humanity to that communion in God’s eschatological Kingdom’ (Jones, 1995, p. xii, quoted in Marty, 1998, p. 18).

God’s forgiveness motivates those who have received it to live in communion with God, with one another, and with all creation (Marty, 1990, p. 25). Reconciliation leads directly to communication which, in turn, motivates forgiveness and a wider reconciliation. This view mirrors the New Testament material where reconciliation is seen in terms of relationships–with God and with the community, with the latter serving as a symbol of former.

Conclusion

The various theological understandings of reconciliation expand on a purely anthropological view, principally by introducing a dependence on Christ. Christ reconciles all things in himself; Christian reconciliation thus refers back to Christ as source, as model, and as motivation. Where the anthropological view places reconciliation between individuals and communities, in equality, and perhaps through a mediator, theological reflection introduces God’s action in Christ, producing a sacramental reality whereby humans encounter the mystery of God’s salvation in and through reconciliation.

Over the centuries, theological reflection has understood reconciliation literally, metaphorically, and sacramentally. Beginning with the reconciliation of God and the human race, it understands reconciliation as occurring between communities, between individual and community, between individuals, between and individual and God, and as both a sacramental ritual and as a sacrament referring to the Christ-event of forgiveness.

The theological understanding of reconciliation has not remained constant. Focused primarily on the reconciliation of communities in the Pauline writings, it shifted attention to the public reconciliation of a sinful individual with the community in the patristic period to the private reconciliation of an individual to God in the Celtic church. Influenced by historical and cultural factors, the medieval and reformation theologians examined sacramental action and the roles of personal, ecclesial, and divine action in the process of reconciliation. More contemporary theology understands reconciliation again in terms of the community and sees the community action as witness to Christ.

The vocabulary of communication places reconciliation in terms of restoring relationships. Following the theological history, it would speak of reconciliation as revelation (the Gospels and Paul), intercession (patristic period), conversation (Celtic practice), ritual (medieval practice), public discourse, and witness (both contemporary). None of these terms disappear, but weave in and out of the history of understanding reconciliation.

References

Bonhoeffer, D. (1947) A theological basis for the world alliance. In E. H. Robertson (Ed.), No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lectures, and Notes, 1928-1936, The collected works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Vol. 1, (Trans, E. H. Robertson & J. Bowden). New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1932)

Dallen, J. (1987). Theological foundations of reconciliation. In R. J. Kennedy (Ed.), Reconciliation: The continuing agenda (pp. 14-33). Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.

Jones, L. G. (1995). Embodying forgiveness: A theological analysis. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

Marty, M. E. (1998). The ethos of Christian forgiveness. In E. L. Worthington, Jr. (Ed.), Dimensions of forgiveness: Psychological research & theological perspectives (pp. 9-28). Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press.

Osborne, K. B. (1990). Reconciliation & justification: The sacrament and its theology. New York: Paulist Press.

Poschmann, B. (1963). Penance and the anointing of the sick (F. Courtney, Trans.). New York: Herder and Herder. (Original work published 1951)

Sölle, D. (1981). Choosing life (M. Kohl, Trans.). Philadelphia: Fortress Press. (Original work published 1980)

Sölle, D. (1990). Thinking about God: An introduction to theology (J. Bowden, Trans.). London: SCM Press and Philadelphia: Trinity Press International. (Original work published 1990).

Taylor, V. (1960). Forgiveness and reconciliation: A study in New Testament theology. London: MacMillan & Co. (Original work published 1941).

Paul A. Soukup, S.J., has explored the connections between communication and theology since 1982. His publications include Communication and Theology (1983); Christian Communication: A Bibliographical Survey (1989), Media, Culture, and Catholicism (1996), Mass Media and the Moral Imagination with Philip J. Rossi (1994), and Fidelity and Translation: Communicating the Bible in New Media with Robert Hodgson (1999). This latter publication grows out of his work on the American Bible Society’s New Media Bible (www.newmediabible.org). In addition, he and Thomas J. Farrell have edited four volumes of the collected works of Walter J. Ong, S.J., Faith and Contexts (1992-1999). These volumes have led him to examine more closely how orality-literacy studies can contribute to an understanding of theological expression. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D., 1985), Soukup teaches in the Communication Department at Santa Clara University.