Well… I’ll post some quotes from GMD’s writings that contain the word “atonement” and it may reveal his thoughts on the concept.
He who trusts in the atonement instead of in the Father of Jesus Christ fills his fancy with the chimeras of a vulgar legalism, not his heart with the righteousness of God.
Hope of the Gospel. 131
Some of you say we must trust in the finished work of Christ; or again, our faith must be in the merits of Christ—in the atonement he has made, in the blood he has shed; all these statements are a simple repudiation of the living Lord, in whom we are told to believe, who, by his presence with and in us, and our obedience to him, lifts us out of darkness into light, leads us from the kingdom of Satan into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
Unspoken Sermons II. 240
Tell me something that you have done, are doing, or are trying to do because he told you. If you do nothing that he says, it is no wonder that you cannot trust in him, and are therefore driven to seek refuge in the atonement, as if something he had done, and not he himself in his doing were the atonement.
Unspoken Sermons II.248
The work of Jesus Christ on earth was the creative atonement, because it works atonement in every heart. He brings and is bringing God and man, and man and man, into perfect unity:
“I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one.”
Unspoken Sermons III.128
I believe in the atonement, call it the atone-ment, or the at-one-ment, as you please. I believe that Jesus Christ is our atonement; that through him we are reconciled to, made one with God.
Unspoken Sermons III.156
No atonement is necessary to him but that men should leave their sins and come back to his heart.
Unspoken Sermons IIII. 160
We are never told to believe in the atonement; we are told to believe in Christ.
What’s Mine’s Mine