Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Christ, Part 20.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonablefaith.org.

Today we come to the important question of the justice of penal substitution.

We've already dealt with an objection to the coherence of penal substitution

and saw that that objection was really quite weak.

But today is the biggie.

This is the fundamental objection that is raised again and again to penal

substitution. To punish Christ in our place would be unjust on the part of God. And so we're

raising here the question of what justification there is for God's punishing Christ.

Now one's justification will be determined by one's overarching theory of justice.

We've alluded to this in the past, and let me recap that.

Theories of justice can be classified as broadly retributive or consequentialist. Retributive theories

versus consequentialist theories of justice. Retributive theories of justice hold that punishment is

justified because the guilty deserve punishment. The guilty deserve to be punished.

By contrast, consequentialist theories of punishment hold that punishment is justified because

of the extrinsic goods that can be realized through punishment.

For example, the deterrence of crime or the isolation of dangerous persons from society at large

or the reformation of criminals to help them become law-abiding citizens.

Retributive theories are often said to be retrospective theories of justice.

They impose punishment for crimes that have been committed, whereas consequentialist theories

of justice are prospective, that is to say they aim to prevent future crimes from

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