We'll back in March, you were invited to speak to linear theological library in Houston

on your book The Atonement in the Death of Christ.

Roger Olson was there, he blogged about it, he writes,

one of the most interesting claims Craig makes in his book The Atonement in the Death

of Christ is that God, as Judge and ruler of the universe, faced a dilemma when confronted

with creaturely rebellion and sin.

A dilemma caused by his love and his justice, which are not just two facets of the same

attribute.

The substitutionary atonement was, we agree, God's self-decided, voluntary solution

to that inner dilemma.

Is that a good summation, Bill?

Yes, the key word or expression here in Dr. Olson's paragraph is that God's love and

justice are not just two facets of the same attribute.

Some Christian philosophers tried to reduce God's moral perfection to his love, and they

think that God's justice is merely an expression of his love.

And I think that this is quite mistaken, that God's love and his justice are distinct

moral perfections, both are essential to God, and these occasion, this dilemma that Roger

speaks of, on the one hand, as a God who is perfectly just, God must punish sin.

He must give the just dessert for wrongdoing.

On the other hand, as a loving God, God must forgive and pardon sin.

And so the question is, how can God do both without compromising one of his essential attributes?

And I'm persuaded that the substitutionary atonement of Christ is the answer to this dilemma.

...