Last time, we discussed how and why the “one drop” [una gutta] dictum entered into Catholic consciousness. “Even one drop of the most precious blood would suffice for the redemption of the world,” proclaimed Nicholas of Clairvaux.1 This phrase came to embody the long-held belief in the superabundance of Christ’s merit, which itself formed the groundwork of the developing doctrine of indulgences. As Clement VI stated in his papal bull Unigenitus Dei Filius (1343), Christ “shed not merely a drop of blood—although this would have sufficed for the redemption of the whole human race because of the union with the Word—but a copious flood, like a stream…”2 By means of this excess, Clement declared, Christ had stored up for the Church an infinite treasury of merits. These could be distributed at will by the Church to the contrite and confessed faithful for the complete or partial remission of the temporal punishments due for sin.
Unfortunately, the complex doctrine of indulgences is beyond the scope of this reflection. Instead, what matters for our purposes is the fact that Clement’s bull, which solidified the authority of the “one drop” dictum in popular consciousness, maintained that the extreme suffering of Christ was nevertheless not “empty [supervacua], meaningless, or superfluous.”3 Christ did not have to suffer to such an extreme, but it was fitting for accomplishing the fullness of his designs for humanity and for manifesting his boundlessly merciful love.
This position will be deeply undermined within Protestant thought in a fascinating and telling manner. The Reformation emboldened such a grave heresy as Socinianism, a early form of Unitarianism, which not only denied the Trinity but also denied the doctrine of redemption. In 1594, Fausto Sozzini pointed to the “one drop” dictum and insisted that if Christ spilled more than one drop, then his punishment was excessive and unjust, which makes the entire doctrine untenable.4
Although the Protestants were especially threatened by the Socinian heresy, the basis of its attack lay within mainstream Protestant theology. John Calvin set the stage by insisting on a strict proportionality between the debt humanity owes for sin and the punishments undergone by Jesus Christ. In his view, Christ underwent humanity’s just desserts exactly, even to the point where Jesus must have been quite literally abandoned by the Father on the cross, since a rupture between the sinner and God is a necessary and mechanical consequence of sin. Contrary to Catholic theology, Calvin thus saw Christ’s redemptive suffering not according to the logic of gratuity (the logic of love) but rather according to an economic logic of quid pro quo.5
The Socinians easily countered this theology by turning it on its head. How can Christ’s suffering be proportional to human sin when even one drop of blood would have sufficed? In a vein reminiscent of modern-day deniers of the doctrine of satisfaction, they thus insisted that a God who would require such an excessive sacrifice could only be a cruel, blood-thirsty tyrant.
A variety of Protestant theologians sought to counter this view, including the Dutch theologian Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), the Anglican Nonconformist Richard Baxter (1615-1691), and the Lutheran Johann Gabriel Drechsler (1645-77).6 Although their responses were varied, the Reformed theologians tended to insist upon the justness of Christ’s suffering by reemphasizing and clarifying Calvin’s insistence upon the proportionality between human sin and the passion of Christ.
Perhaps it is because of this debate that the Calvinist approach to atonement has continued to exert a profound influence within the bulk of Protestant thought. The dominant idea of penal substitution is built upon the insistence that Christ had to undergo exactly as much suffering as was due to us as human beings. By eliminating the idea of superabundance embodied within the “one drop” dictum, it reduced redemption to a kind of economic exchange. In other words, Christ paid precisely the price that was due, a price that the Father demanded as a matter of retributive justice.
- PL 144:762 ↩︎
- DS §1025. Clement’s wording is likely influenced by Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs 22, 3, 7. ↩︎
- DS §1025. ↩︎
- Fausto Sozzini, De Iesu Christo servatore (n.p.: Typis Alexii Rodecii, 1656), 3.4 (271). ↩︎
- There are several caveats to this that cannot be treated here. For example, despite this insistence on the exactitude of Christ’s suffering, Calvin still maintains that the efficient cause of Christ’s merit is his obedience rather than his pain. ↩︎
- Richard Baxter, Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ (London: John Salusbury, 1794), 144-45; Johann Gabriel Drechsler, Quaestio: num una gutta sanguinis Christi satisfacere potuerat pro mundo (Leipzig: Johannes Köhler, 1685). ↩︎