If we are to appreciate — if not entirely adopt — Anselm’s language of satisfaction, we need therefore to be clear that the change effected by Christ’s self-oblation does not occur within God. This is of primary importance. If we do not emphasize this, we end up with a dangerously capricious God who is indeed open to the critiques brought by those who think of the wrath of God as an emotion that must be appeased. In all our discussions of reconciliation, this underlying point is fundamental. It is not God that is changed. It is the relationship of human beings and the creation to God that is
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