The Necessity of Christ’s Satisfaction

Could God have saved fallen humanity in some other way than by Christ’s satisfaction? This study explores this hotly contested question among the seventeenth-century Reformed orthodox discussions by an analysis of the representative Reformed theologians, William Twisse and John Owen.

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The seventeenth century Reformed Orthodox discussions of the work of Christ and its various doctrinal constitutive elements were rich and multifaceted, ranging across biblical and exegetical, historical, philosophical, and theological fields of inquiry. Among the most contested questions in these discussions was the question of the necessity of Christ’s satisfaction. This study sets that “great controverted point,” as Richard Baxter called it, in its historical and traditionary contexts and provides a philosophical and theological analysis of the arguments offered by two representative Reformed scholastic theologians, William Twisse and John Owen.