## What Torrance means by “Latin heresy”
– The “Latin heresy” is Torrance’s term for the Western tendency to think in terms of **external relations**: atonement as a transaction that changes our legal status before God without touching the being of humanity.[2][3]
– He sees this as rooted in a dualism (God/world, nature/grace, person/work) that separates Christ’s *person* from his *work*, so that atonement becomes “something Jesus did, not something he was.”[4][1]
## His critique of the Anselmian line (as received in the West)
– Torrance thinks Western theology took from Anselm a primarily **satisfaction/penal** frame in which the key problem is an offended honor or violated law, and the solution is a compensatory payment or punishment.[1][4]
– This produces a model where the cross is viewed as an external payment that alters God’s attitude or the legal relation, rather than God in Christ entering our plight to heal our actual condition.[5][1]
(He and his interpreters repeatedly note that this is in part a *misreading* of Anselm, but it is this “Anselmian” tradition, as developed in Latin theology and popular Protestantism, that he targets. )[6][1]
## Torrance’s alternative: ontological, incarnational atonement
– For Torrance, atonement is **internal and ontological**: in the incarnation the Son assumes our fallen humanity “as it was” and heals, judges, and renews it from the inside, in line with the patristic maxim “the unassumed is the unhealed.”[4][1]
– The work of Christ is never detached from his person: *who* Christ is (God–man in hypostatic union) **is** the place and mode of atonement; atonement is not a separate transaction added onto the incarnation.[3][4]
A simple contrast often used in Torrance circles:
– Latin line: atonement is primarily a legal satisfaction; then we are declared righteous and later sanctified by the Spirit.[4]
– Torrance: atonement is the ontological reconciliation and sanctification of humanity in Christ’s vicarious humanity; we are made righteous *in him*, and justification/sanctification flow from participation in that reality.[5][4]
## Trinitarian and pastoral stakes
– Because he sees the Latin pattern as “externalist,” Torrance believes it obscures the relational, Trinitarian nature of salvation and risks presenting a God whose inner being is different from his saving act.[3][1]
– His own soteriology insists that the same God who is Father, Son, and Spirit in eternal communion is the God who, in love, reconciles and heals us in Christ, drawing us into that communion, not merely changing a legal ledger.[1][5]
If you’d like, I can sketch a brief table: Anselm’s satisfaction (as classically received) vs. Torrance’s ontological atonement for classroom use.
Sources
[1] T. F. Torrance and the Latin Heresy – First Things https://firstthings.com/t-f-
[2] What Does Thomas Torrance Mean by ‘The Latin Heresy’? Jerome … https://growrag.wordpress.com/
[3] [EPUB] Kataphysical inquiry, onto-relationality and elemental forms in T.F. … https://indieskriflig.org.za/
[4] God for Us!: Ontological Healing vs. Traditional Views of Atonement http://martinmdavis.blogspot.
[5] The Ontological Theory of the Atonement and Evangelical Calvinism https://growrag.wordpress.com/
[6] The Atonement, by Thomas F. Torrance – A Few Thoughts https://johnploughman.
[7] God for Us!: The Latin Heresy Revisited – Martin Davis’s Blog http://martinmdavis.blogspot.
[8] (PDF) T. F. Torrance and the Latin Heresy.pdf – Academia.edu https://www.academia.edu/
[9] [PDF] T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian – InterVarsity Press https://www.ivpress.com/Media/
[10] Anselm’s “satisfaction theory of atonement” vs. today’s +Barron’s … https://www.reddit.com/r/
[11] T. F. Torrance, Catholicism, and the quest for church unity https://www.cambridge.org/
[12] Robert D. Culver, “The Doctrine Of Atonement Before Anselm” http://www.globaljournalct.
[13] The Ontological View of the Atonement – The Face Of Christ https://recreatedinchrist.
[14] Thomas Torrance’s Objection to Federal Theology: In Response to … https://growrag.wordpress.com/
[15] Anselm’s Individualist Account of Atonement? Nope. – Reformedish https://derekzrishmawy.com/
