The debate over Hofmann’s doctrine of the atonement thus issued in opposing views of the relationship between law and gospel. Harnack, opposing Hofmann’s interpretation of Luther, found a view of law based on a natural knowledge of God “outside of Christ.” This concept of law, he insisted, is the basis for a real dialectic between wrath and love. Ritschl, on the other hand, believed it necessary to eliminate all “natural knowledge” because it distorts the purely