A Combined Analysis of Abelard's Accounts of Sin and Atonement Anonymous College

Throughout his tumultuous career, Peter Abelard faced a series of vehement backlashes against his theological work as well as the manner in which he conducted his personal life; indeed, his affair and secret marriage to Heloise famously culminated in a physical castration, and his conflicts with Bernard and William of St. Thierry, a theological one. Abelard's controversial stance regarding the Trinity and the rights of the devil lead to his condemnation at the Council of Sens in 1141 and, after a failed attempt to win favour with the Pope, he was excommunicated and his works burned. The viciousness of Bernard's polemic against Abelard has branded him and his theology with the stamp of heresy, but Abelard was a talented thinker and debater, as the Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him, "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century"[1] and, especially given the rise of the moral theory of atonement within our more liberal modern context, Abelard's theology, especially his soteriology, deserves to be revisited. Having disregarded the ransom and satisfaction theories of atonement, ubiquitous in medieval soteriology, Abelard embarked upon a consideration of the true role of Christ and the crucifixion...