Substitutionary atonement, also called vicarious atonement, is a central concept within Western Christian theology which asserts that Jesus died "for us", as propagated by the Western classic and objective paradigms of atonement in Christianity, which regard Jesus as dying as a substitute for others, "instead of" them.

Substitutionary atonement has been explicated in the "classic paradigm" of the Early Church Fathers, namely the ransom theory, as well as in Gustaf Aulen's demystified reformulation, the Christus Victor theory; and in the "objective paradigm," which includes Anselm of Canterbury's satisfaction theory, the Reformed period's penal substitution theory, and the Governmental theory of atonement.