 Royce found traditional Christian accounts of atonement unsatisfactory. They do not adequately explain how both the traitor and the community are reconciled and saved in the human sphere. Much less do they explain the mysterious details of how atonement reconciles the sinner with God. The traitor who recognizes the magnitude of what has been lost through the act of betrayal lives in a state that Royce called “the hell of the irrevocable” (Royce 1913 [2001, 162]). Royce sought an explanation of atonement that acknowledges the irrevocable nature of a deed that has been done, and which changes everything for the sinner and the community that has been harmed. “Penal satisfaction” theories of atonement simply do not speak to the sinner’s situation: to be told that an angry God demands repayment or retribution for the betrayal, and that this price has been paid (by the violent death of Jesus Christ, or by any other sacrifice) does not repair the sinner’s own devastated moral universe. The sinner “is dealing, not with the ‘angry God’ of a well-known theological tradition, but with himself” (Royce 1913 [2001, 170–71]). Royce seeks a theory that first makes sense of the immediate human aspect of atonement. If one can be found, it may then be considered theologically. A theory of “penal satisfaction,” which claims to answer theological questions, but remains meaningless or mysterious in human terms, is simply unsatisfactory.