The Contemplative Lutheran

T.F. Torrance and Penal Substitutionary Atonement Introduction Did the great theologian and Patristic and Reformation scholar T.F. Torrance affirm Penal Substitutionary Atonement? In order to answer that question more fully, what follows is a series of quotations from T.F. Torrance’s magisterial book dedicated to the subject of the Atonement as accomplished, given, and received in Christ. There is minimal commentary, yet the following will show that T.F. Torrance most certainly affirmed the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). Appropriately, he resisted oversimplifications of PSA, artificial narrowings of it, and legalistic caricatures of it, all in an effort to positively maintain PSA according to its full, Biblical, theological, Patristic, and Reformation proportions. As such, it will be appropriate to outline very briefly the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, which is quite simply to say that the justifying and reconciling atonement ( at-one-ment ) effected ...