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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Moral Influence atonement theology
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Ok - I can see the difficulty and the point you're making - but could it not be a both/and thing?
No because as you illustrate, if you continue with that thought you end up with something that looks nothing like PSA.
PSA is a redundant bit of hardware which looked shiny and new for a while but after repeated use is found to be doing a pretty crap job even of the thing it says it is doing.
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arse
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
One of he problems, as I see it, is a faulty understanding of the humanity and divinity of Christ.
In just about every complaint about the PSA model from Chalke's 'cosmic child abuse' to mr cheesy's 'uninvolved Jesus' we have a view of Jesus, as Gamaliel reflects, that says that God chose the innocent Jesus and blasted him with the sins of the world that he had nothing to do with!
The Trinity is divided, the deity of Christ even as he dies on the cross is denied, the union of God and humanity through the incarnation is ignored, the identification with the fallen nature of mankind is not considered.
The word 'innocent' is bandied about as if Jesus was a bystander on the cosmic stage who had no idea what was going on; that God needed someone independent, a third party not involved in the argument, to throw the sin of the guilty upon so they could go free.
Jesus may have been sinless but that is not the same as innocent!
Was Jesus innocent? No he was not.
He was innocent of sinful action - of course, he committed no sin.
But was he innocent? No, he was not.
Because, by identification with fallen humanity, being born in the likeness of sinful flesh, he was totally identified with Adam's sin.
There is a war film - I have no idea what it's called and I didn't see the whole thing.
In the film some POW has committed an offence against the rules of the camp.
The whole company of prisoners is marched outside and formed up. The commandant reads the riot act to the assembled prisoners and threatens that ne by one they will all be shot until the real culprit identifies himself. One just knows that he is not joking.
But he has not reckoned on the solidarity of the assembled prisoners of war. One by one they each raise their hand thereby identifying themselves as 'the culprit'.
Each man therefore has 'confessed' that he is the offender, the guilty one.
The commandant*, of course, knows that they are not all guilty and so randomly* chooses one of the men.
The guards bring him to the middle, tie him to a post.
Everyone knows he is not the offender and as the commandant is giving the order to shoot him, the poor man cries out Oh my God! He is shot and slumps forward.
The commandant justifies his 'lawful' action by saying that the man confessed to the crime and was therefore guklty by his own admission - even though he and everyone there knew for a fact he had committed no crime.
That is a poor illustration of Jesus in union with humanity.
One of us, one with us, identifying himself with sinful flesh and taking the penalty.
Please don't fixate on the cruelty of the commandant. I am not suggesting in the slightest that God is like that.
Don't fixate on the fact that the victim who got shot is in no way related to the commandant!
Neither fixate on the fact that out of all those POWs only one is actually guilty.
The ONLY point I am wishing to make is that Jesus 'owns up' to being one of us and therefore willingly takes the place of the guilty one.
He is not, for example, one of the guards, drafted in as am uninvolved sacrifice.
That really would be someone who had nothing to do with the offence.
And that is not how PSA works.
[ 10. February 2017, 10:33: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
It seems to be generally agreed (though not by all) that all theories and metaphors concerning the atonement have their weaknesses. The question then arises as to which theories are more convincing or acceptable. Scripture, it is argued, can be quoted to sustain them all, which is why Mudfrog accepts them all. To my mind that points to the limitations of scripture because it cannot be the arbiter in this matter, and to accept all the theories when they have important incompatibilities is difficult for me. The question I ask myself in relation to the theories is to what extent are they compatible with my view of God. My rejection of PSA is that it fails to sustain the notion of a God whose essence is Grace, pure and simple, and is unable to save sinners until his wrath towards them is satisfied. In my opinion God’s law, justice, and judgement are an expression of his gracious nature, not a limitation on it, or something that has to be sorted out before he can express “his everlasting love to man (humankind).” That can only be the case when judgement is diagnosis and the necessary prelude to healing.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
It's why I don't preach theories, I preach the texts.
If it's not in the text, why preach it?
If it's there in the text, then preach it.
By the way, I've yet to read a convincing explanation of the text
quote:
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
The only comment about it, one that I fully accept and agree with, is that the original readers of this text would only have seen it in an immediate context and not as a foreseeing of the Messiah.
And that same argument would, of course, apply to any old testament passage, including other Isaiah readings about Immanuel, a virgin will give birth, etc, etc.
I don't see many vehement disagreements that Jesus cannot be God with us because Isiah was only talking about the immediate context. So, a consistent hermeneutic must of necessity allow that Isaiah 53 does actually refer to Jesus (as Philp himself believed when speaking to the ethiopian eunuch.)
[ 10. February 2017, 11:19: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I don't think anyone is disputing that the early Christians applief those verses to Christ.
The issue is how they've been understood.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Besides, none of us simply preach 'the text.' You preach the text as understood within the context of the Wesleyan Holiness and evangelical traditions.
An RC priest would preach it from that context, a Seventh Day Adventist minister from his or hers, an Orthodox priest from theirs, an Anabaptist from theirs ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Is there any Biblical justification for a concept of "innocence" in which someone can be free of sin and yet not innocent? This isn't just a novel Biblical interpretation, it's nonsense from a linguistic point of view.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Besides, none of us simply preach 'the text.' You preach the text as understood within the context of the Wesleyan Holiness and evangelical traditions.
This is the hardest thing in the world for Evangelicals to understand/accept. They seem predisposed to believe that everybody else has an interpretation, and they believe the text itself. It's a blind spot the size of a barn.
[ 10. February 2017, 12:00: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I think it's allied to the idea that God 'condemned sin in sinful man' through Christ 'becoming sin for us'.
I've got to be honest, even in my more full on PSA days I never envisaged Christ as anything other than spotlessly innocent ... There could be some Irving in here ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
Language and logic is meaningless, MT, when you can twist and change the meaning of words and say that the usual rules of logic don't apply.
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arse
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think it's allied to the idea that God 'condemned sin in sinful man' through Christ 'becoming sin for us'.
I've got to be honest, even in my more full on PSA days I never envisaged Christ as anything other than spotlessly innocent ... There could be some Irving in here ...
That just puts the problem at one remove. Sure, Christ isn't "innocent" when Christ becomes sin for us. But he couldn't become sin for us unless he was innocent to start with. So instead of killing an innocent man, God is dumping our sins on an innocent man. Same diff as regards justice.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
By the way, I've yet to read a convincing explanation of the text
quote:
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
The only comment about it, one that I fully accept and agree with, is that the original readers of this text would only have seen it in an immediate context and not as a foreseeing of the Messiah.
I'm pretty sure I posted pages ago something suggesting there was a dispute about the translation of words in Isaiah 53.
But I guess it didn't convince you and therefore obviously isn't biblical..
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arse
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
So instead of killing an innocent man, God is dumping our sins on an innocent man. Same diff as regards justice.
Only if that innocent man is not also God.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
The whole human race will be found to be under a curse. For it is written in the law of Moses, 'Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the law. to do them.' And no one has accurately done all, nor will you venture to deny this...
...If, then, the Father of all wished for his Christ for the whole human family to take upon him the curse of all, knowing that after he had been crucified and was dead, he would raise him up, why do you argue about him who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father's will?
Justin Martyr 100-165
quote:
And the Lamb of God...was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty he did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so he became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because he received death for us, and transferred to himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down upon himself the appointed curse, being made a curse for us.
Eusebius of Caesarea 275-339
It's not just an evangelical view at all. Neither is it recent.
(And no, I didn't Google them; I have books you know ![[Smile]](smile.gif) )
[ 10. February 2017, 13:29: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
iAs discussed above, the idea that God's holiness cannot cope with sin is not biblical.
I have a very strong idea of holiness, thanks all the same. God's holiness is a disinfectant which is strong enough to cleanse anything.
Your idea of justice is flawed because you consider it need not be penal. The entire wiring of humanity is that all wrongdoing must have reparation.
Your idea of what is Biblical is flawed because you admit you do not know what is Biblical or not and that whether something is or is not does not concern you.
Your idea of holiness is flawed because it is an aspect of God's character. If you ever encountered it you would be on you face repenting not posing the arrogant and spurious nonsense you continually do here.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Your idea of justice is flawed because you consider it need not be penal. The entire wiring of humanity is that all wrongdoing must have reparation.
Wrong. See the bible.
quote:
Your idea of what is Biblical is flawed because you admit you do not know what is Biblical or not and that whether something is or is not does not concern you.
Wrong. I just look at it differently to you.
quote:
Your idea of holiness is flawed because it is an aspect of God's character.
Wrong again. You only think it is flawed because I'm disagreeing with your pet theory.
0/3
quote:
If you ever encountered it you would be on you face repenting not posing the arrogant and spurious nonsense you continually do here.
Fortunately for me, God is a lot nicer than you give him credit for.
[ 10. February 2017, 14:02: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I live in fear sometimes that God is as Jamat thinks he is.
But then I remember that these three endure - faith, hope and love.
Jamat's picture of God takes the life out of faith, destroys hope, and has precious little love.
So while hope endures, I shall continue in hope that God is love, mercy and forgiveness. Not the John Smyth like character Jamat describes.
If hope fails, well, I'm going to toast anyway, because there's no way I can bend my will to Jamat's vision of God, and God would know I was pretending, and I'd burn anyway.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Mudfrog, sure it's possible to find Patristic quotes that appear to chime with PSA. Perhaps they do. The point though is that the overall Patristic witness and the ongoing witness of those Traditions which claim direct descent from the Fathers - Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy - don't understand these things in the way that contemporary evangelicals do.
I'm no Patristic expert, far from it, but I've certainly seen Patristic quotes taken out of context in evangelical literature in order to declare - 'tan-tan-tara - Look at this! The Fathers believed in PSA after all!'
I'm not an expert on Roman Catholicism nor Orthodoxy either - but it's pretty clear that the former takes a more juridical and penal view than the latter - and Protestantism has imbibed that approach from Roman Catholicism of course.
Both the RC and Reformed (and reformed) traditions draw heavily from St Augustine.
Whereas the East doesn't. Hence the differences.
Now, I have no idea how the Orthodox deal with passages from the Fathers that apparently seem to put forward a PSA position or something like it - my guess would be that they take them at face value but don't put a great deal of store on them because they don't tend to fillet these things up in quite the same way. They tend to look at the overall thrust rather than break everything down into chunks and put it under a microscope.
It's not that the Orthodox don't have any concept of punishment for sin, it's more that they hold that alongside the other aspects - such as healing, cleansing, deliverance and recapitulation etc etc ... 'That which is not assumed cannot be healed ...'
Christ shared our humanity and shared our death ... we can also share in his divinity* (through theosis) and in his resurrection.
* That needs unpacking, of course, but you know what I mean.
If you are going to bring Patristic proof-texts into the equation then you are going to have to demonstrate:
1) That the RC and Orthodox Churches conveniently forgot about them at some point.
2) If so, when that was. The 4th century is usually blamed. But then the 4th century also saw the first great Creedal statements on Christology and Trinitarianism ...
3) That these quotes are to be understood in the same way that contemporary Protestant evangelicals understand them.
I'm sorry, but I still don't think you fully understand what I'm driving at when I say that we are all wearing spectacles.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Sorry to double-post - but I think we are back to the Ancient Faith blog post which Mousethief took great exception to - in which a Western convert to Orthodoxy was asking his new Tradition to consider some of the Western juridical emphases on the grounds that they weren't necessarily at variance with an Orthodox understanding but compatible with it.
Mousethief went up like a scalded cat at this suggestion and railed against right-wing US evangelicals joining the Orthodox Church and introducing all manner of alien concepts.
I'm not knocking Mousethief for that. I think I'd take a similar stance where I in his shoes. What right have these Johnny Come Latelys to introduce their juridical preconceptions to our Church?
I'm still naive enough, I think, to look for balance and common ground between the Eastern and Western traditions. After all, the West didn't 'invent' the juridical features they perceived in the scriptures - it was a question of them - under Augustinian influence - putting far more stress upon them than the East did - and gradually, over time, the emphases diverged ...
Perhaps that was inevitable. Perhaps there was always some kind of conceptual fault-line between the Greek East and Latin West ... not in the Schismatic sense but in terms of different mindsets and approaches, barely discernible at first, but which later widened into a growing rift.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
To be honest, I'm not at all sure why we put so much store on Orthodoxy anyway; well you do, but I don't.
And I don't particularly worry about what their opinion on this issue is - in fact I am as bothered about what the Orthodox say about PSA as much as I am bothered about what they say about filioque. Which is to say, I am not bothered in the slightest because few of us, if any, in the Western Church agree with them.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Whether you are bothered about them or not, they represent a significant segment of world Christianity.
They are germane to this discussion in that respect, as they represent a long and venerable tradition within Christianity which doesn't subscribe to PSA.
Irrespective of whether they are right to do that or not, it must surely raise a few questions. If they don't, then why not? Why is PSA such a big deal to some Christian traditions and not others?
And other questions besides.
No man is an island. If there's a church down the road or another half way round the world then I have some kind of fraternal interest in whatever it is they do or don't believe.
I've not brought the RCs into the equation quite as much because they share a similar juridical approach to us Protestants. The Orthodox in this instance are a Significant Other.
FWIW, I tend to side with them on the Filioque issue, insofar as I understand it ... And I'm conscious that there are different ways of understanding that and again, wiser minds than mine ...
But that's a different issue.
I'm not saying that anyone should abandon a belief in PSA because there are large groups of Christians around who don't see things that way ... But what I am saying is that the onus is on those who do accept PSA to demonstrate why they do when plenty of others don't ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eliab
Host
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Your idea of justice is flawed because you consider it need not be penal. The entire wiring of humanity is that all wrongdoing must have reparation.
Your idea of what is Biblical is flawed because you admit you do not know what is Biblical or not and that whether something is or is not does not concern you.
Your idea of holiness is flawed because it is an aspect of God's character. If you ever encountered it you would be on you face repenting not posing the arrogant and spurious nonsense you continually do here.
With due allowance for the fact that I can plausibly read the "arrogant" comment as being directed at arguments, not opponents, that post is still too personal to be appropriate for Purgatory.
The proper venue from which to judge another's experience of God's character is Hell.
Eliab
Purgatory host
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Gamaliel quote:
Why is PSA such a big deal to some Christian traditions and not others?
The importance of PSA is that some Christian organisations hold that belief in it is essential to membership, if not salvation. That is not the case, as far as I'm aware, with other theories or metaphors of the atonement. To question its premises and conclusions, therefore, is an existential attack on them and the basis of power and authority within them. It also explains why there is such hostility towards former luminaries that abjure their belief in the theory, because they suggest it is possible to be a Christian without assent to PSA.
I suspect it is also the case that PSA offers a simple theory and certainty to those who need answers to unfathomable questions and are disturbed by ambiguity and loose ends. To question the coherence of PSA, therefore, is seen as a spiritual threat to the fundamental faith of its adherents. I reckon there are very few like Mudfrog who are able to accommodate other approaches.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
To be honest, I'm not at all sure why we put so much store on Orthodoxy anyway; well you do, but I don't.
And I don't particularly worry about what their opinion on this issue is - in fact I am as bothered about what the Orthodox say about PSA as much as I am bothered about what they say about filioque. Which is to say, I am not bothered in the slightest because few of us, if any, in the Western Church agree with them.
You miss the point. Orthodox thought isn't brought up because anybody thinks you should take it into account (although it might do you good), but because its existence as an ongoing church and as a theological community serve as a constant disproof of universal claims made for purely Western (let alone purely Protestant) ideas. "You can't be a Christian unless you believe X" or "if you believe X you must be a liberal" kinds of arguments founder and break on the rock that is Orthodoxy.
[ 11. February 2017, 00:38: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I am not so sure that awareness and acceptance of other ateonement models are as rare as you suggest in evangelical circles, Kwesi.
Sure, conservative evangelicals like Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones would doubt the salvation of anyone who didn't espouse PSA, but my experience has been that although PSA is the primary model across evangelicalism as a whole, it is held alongside the other models.
The charismatic evangelical church I was a member of for 18 years held strongly to PSA but there were strong elements of Christus Victor and the 'classic' theory there too.
So, no I don't think Mudfrog is unique in combining or attempting to reconcile various models. The bottom-line for most evangelicals, though, is that PSA had to be in the mix.
One of the reasons I've been reluctant to jettison PSA is a kind of deep-seated and visceral idea that to do so would somehow to lose comfort and 'assurance' - that somehow my son's might not actually be forgiven, that there remains a question mark ...
There's all of that in there and going on. It's not just about the text. There are emotional associations.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Whoops ... I meant sins, not sons ...
Meanwhile, regarding Mousethief's post about 'the rock that is Orthodoxy.'
Whilst I'm not Orthodox, he's expressed what I've been trying to say, that the fact that there is an Orthodox Church which differs in its approach from the Western Christianity with which I am familiar, in itself is sufficient to give me pause and to test and assess my own theological tradition and assumptions.
In doing so, I've found much that reinforces and confirms what I already believe and other aspects that have caused me to adjust my thinking and even my behaviour.
If we get past some of the loopier elements we find online, both convertski and some of the whackier phyletists among the 'ethnics', then things are as Mousethief says, here is a venerable form of Christianity that doesn't fit neat liberal/conservative categories, that is deeply spiritual without being cloyingly sentimental or pietistic (although there can be elements of that) and which is attractively robust.
Some of the theological knots we Westerners tie ourselves up in just don't apply - arguments about freewill and predestination for instance.
Of course, there are other issues and problems ...
But in the context of this debate, it intrigues and fascinates me how a large body of Christians can function and sustain themselves without the forms and assumptions I am most familiar with from a background in Western Christianity more generally and Protestant evangelicalism in particular.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
The simple fact is that for some PSA = the atonement = chridtianity. And Evangelicals who say this want to say that they're the only ones being Orthodox and biblical.
If you say this, don't be surprised when people wheel out the evidence of other Christians with a better claim to Orthodoxy and other views which can be described as biblical.
There is a certain irony in someone from the Salvation Army describing others as heterodox and irrelevant.
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arse
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
It depends on our vantage point, of course ... and what lenses we're wearing ...
From the perspective of the Historic Churches then the Salvation Army is going to look fairly heterodox and something of an 'outlier' in some respects - although in broadly creedal terms of course, the Salvation Army shares the main thrust of small o orthodox Western Christianity.
It is of course, a subset of a subset - it's a subset of the Wesleyan tradition which in turn is a subset of small r reformed Protestantism which is a subset of Western Christianity per se ...
To be fair, the Salvation Army doesn't claim to be 'universal' - it readily acknowledges its roots within a particular tradition and that it shares certain universals with wider Christianity as well as certain subset emphases.
If we are going to criticise the Salvation Army for that then we may as well criticise the Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians or any other Protestant church for having particular distinctives ... and the RCs too, come to that ...
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What intrigues me is that PSA is obvious to me in the text but not to half of Christendom.
Hence my sympathy, empathy with conservatives.
It's obvious to me in the mind of Jesus before His death, who continued to use a hermeneutic that doesn't work rationally now, after His resurrection; showing His ontological pragmatism.
The same divine pragmatism that was prior to the Incarnation (of the nature AND will but NOT the person of God the Son) in which it was divested.
Or was it? Was the pragmatism in the divine nature? In the new person, infinitesimally unique to the infinitesimal human story, the Son of Man?
And PSA is obvious to me in Paul.
But it's not ontological.
Whereas sacrifice is.
For the eternal and therefore infinite creation.
?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I have sympathy and empathy for the conservatives too, Martin.
But PSA isn't obvious to Orthodox conservatives ...
This isn't a liberal vs conservative thing.
It's more of an East/West divide on the broader scale - with the West being more juridical and the East being far less so ...
Within Western Christianity the fault-lines over PSA run along a different set of fissures.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I agree Gamaliel. It's most intriguing. What is it about E-W pre- and sub-Christian culture that predisposes the West to PSA and the East to be oblivious to it? I see the Roman juridical template. What does the East have?
Your contributions here are essential by the way.
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Love wins
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Please don't fixate on the cruelty of the commandant. I am not suggesting in the slightest that God is like that.
Ummm.... Why not? The whole point of our objection is that the only way the analogy works is if the commandant is unjust. That his action is not lawful but only 'lawful'. That would be the same whether it were an English camp commander with German POWs or a schoolmaster with schoolboys. Whatever way you present it the Commandant's action is unjust.
That's not fixating on an incidental point. That's the essential point.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Please don't fixate on the cruelty of the commandant. I am not suggesting in the slightest that God is like that.
Ummm.... Why not? The whole point of our objection is that the only way the analogy works is if the commandant is unjust. That his action is not lawful but only 'lawful'. That would be the same whether it were an English camp commander with German POWs or a schoolmaster with schoolboys. Whatever way you present it the Commandant's action is unjust.
That's not fixating on an incidental point. That's the essential point.
What is unjust?
Why is it unjust?
According to what standard?
Did God become unjust at the cross?
Or was he always unjust because it was going to be his plan all along that the Messiah would die?
[ 11. February 2017, 12:05: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Mousethief would be better placed to answer that one than me, Martin.
FWIW, it's generally seen that whilst the West was more juridical and influenced by Augustine, the East tended to emphasise the Incarnation per se and the atonement as an element within that - rather than something that can be separated out and analysed and dissected as it were ...
The West has emphasised the issues of justice and so on, the East our union with Christ and our participation in the divine drama as it were.
It:s not that the latter is 'missing' in Western traditions, it's more a question of emphasis.
Some Western traditions are closer to the Orthodox on that than others.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Please don't fixate on the cruelty of the commandant. I am not suggesting in the slightest that God is like that.
Ummm.... Why not? The whole point of our objection is that the only way the analogy works is if the commandant is unjust. That his action is not lawful but only 'lawful'. That would be the same whether it were an English camp commander with German POWs or a schoolmaster with schoolboys. Whatever way you present it the Commandant's action is unjust.
That's not fixating on an incidental point. That's the essential point.
What is unjust?
Why is it unjust?
According to what standard?
Did God become unjust at the cross?
Or was he always unjust because it was going to be his plan all along that the Messiah would die?
Firstly, I don't have (and I don't think many others have-do the orthodox?) any dispute with the 'christ like' nature of the prisoners, in the metaphor, you gave there.
And personally (though suspect others would differ) I think PSA in general ties in with large chunks of what we know of Jesus's bit in the atonement fairly well. There's a lot of verses it doesn't cover (anything with the cross being a victory) and the stuff abuout his relation to the father conflicts ('not my will, but yours' takes on a different meaning). But it deals with a lot nicely.
It is, as Dafyd says, precisely what PSA says about the father where PSA (as presented, has ugly bits). Having the answer to "Show us the father", as "Well, imagine Hitler, but with more authority and power" contradicts a few key verses, and isn't something we've the authority to assign to God.
If we can say PSA's* good, except on that bit where somethings wrong miles off course somewhere then it's a different matter. (similar statements apply to Ransom, CV, Satisfaction, Recapitulation, etc, but in each case the disconnect is at a different point)
*That is in the context of the theory, distinct from the atonement, or weaker statements (that contain P,S&A) like 'give his life as a ransom for many'.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
Which to answer your questions, the Commandant was unjust, from the moment he put them in that spot, even more so if his plan was to get rid of an inconvenient innocent. We don't think God's like that.
(you could possibly create a retelling, where it's different, but then it becomes a different metaphor. Perhaps the prisoners were German soldier's where one had raped a civilian family, but then the substitution fails to be virtuous, or perhaps it was a 'beating' to embed a spy, again with issues)
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
*sigh* The illustration was only meant to show how Jesus was not an uninvolved, innocent; but rather that he was one of us - voluntarily identified with us.
There is no other parallel.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The charismatic evangelical church I was a member of for 18 years held strongly to PSA but there were strong elements of Christus Victor and the 'classic' theory there too.
In my experience when this is the case, they believe that PSA is what really is going on -- there is a transaction along those lines -- but the other "models" help us understand, as metaphors, how that transaction works. PSA is the reality. Other models are useful but ultimately disposable commentary. ("If this doesn't help you understand, feel free to dismiss it" can be said of CV but for God's sake not PSA.)
quote:
So, no I don't think Mudfrog is unique in combining or attempting to reconcile various models. The bottom-line for most evangelicals, though, is that PSA had to be in the mix.
Exactly. For reasons just stated.
quote:
There's all of that in there and going on. It's not just about the text. There are emotional associations.
This is similar to some people's attitudes toward homosexuality, you understand? Emotions as a hermeneutical tool are notoriously unreliable.
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
If we can say PSA's* good, except on that bit where somethings wrong miles off course somewhere then it's a different matter. (similar statements apply to Ransom, CV, Satisfaction, Recapitulation, etc, but in each case the disconnect is at a different point)
Hence the excellent comparison, made upstream, to the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each "model" explains or illumines some aspect of it, but none of them does it completely and all of them have points where they're just wrong if you try to push them too far. If you (generic "you") start your comparison with "It's kinda like...." then you're on the right track. If you start it with "This is what really happened, it's not a metaphor, it really is exactly like this in every detail" then you have left the path of wisdom and are veering toward hermeneutical idolatry.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Your idea of justice is flawed because you consider it need not be penal. The entire wiring of humanity is that all wrongdoing must have reparation.
I assume you can produce evidence for this startling generalization? All of humanity? Buddhism? Hinduism? Sufiism? Atheism? All of these humans believe wrongdoing must have reparation?
Actually I lie. I assume no such thing. I know you cannot (because it's not true), and know you will not (because you can't because it's not true).
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
How's about this for an explanation of why evangelicals tend to gravitate to wards PSA - it's because they are evangelicals. Their whole raison d'etre is to evangelise, to persuade, to convince, even to warn and offer a solution. Therefore PSA has that 'edge' to it.
The Gospel consists of 'repent, believe, be born again' - why? because we're sinners, Christ has died to rescue you, pay your dead, take your penalty and now you can be free!
Other traditions are more pietistic, reflective, meditative, sacramental, less evangelistic and conversionist and therefore the other theories are more relevant and helpful.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
How's about this for an explanation of why evangelicals tend to gravitate to wards PSA - it's because they are evangelicals. Their whole raison d'etre is to evangelise, to persuade, to convince, even to warn and offer a solution. Therefore PSA has that 'edge' to it.
The Gospel consists of 'repent, believe, be born again' - why? because we're sinners, Christ has died to rescue you, pay your dead, take your penalty and now you can be free!
Other traditions are more pietistic, reflective, meditative, sacramental, less evangelistic and conversionist and therefore the other theories are more relevant and helpful.
Or maybe it is just that others have a problem spreading an idea that they think is spiritually toxic. How about that?
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arse
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I would hope they would gravitate to it because it's true, not because it's edgy. Of course if it's not true and they still gravitate toward it because it's edgy, that doesn't speak highly of them.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
[QB] In my experience when this is the case, they believe that PSA is what really is going on -- there is a transaction along those lines -- but the other "models" help us understand, as metaphors, how that transaction works. PSA is the reality. Other models are useful but ultimately disposable commentary. ("If this doesn't help you understand, feel free to dismiss it" can be said of CV but for God's sake not PSA.)
I've definitely seen that distinction made pretty much explicitly (I can't find it now, I remember the selectivity grating and not feeling backed up).
And yes (personally) on the elephant, just wanted to make sure it wasn't forgotten, as a counterweight.
Regarding MF new post. I suspect it ties in to the cultures, but it's not the only approach that has that edge, so I don't think it's just that. And it's not the only tradition concerned with the gospel (and as presentations it's weaker on living the name). It would be interesting to compare...
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
How's about this for an explanation of why evangelicals tend to gravitate to wards PSA - it's because they are evangelicals. Their whole raison d'etre is to evangelise, to persuade, to convince, even to warn and offer a solution. Therefore PSA has that 'edge' to it.
The Gospel consists of 'repent, believe, be born again' - why? because we're sinners, Christ has died to rescue you, pay your dead, take your penalty and now you can be free!
Other traditions are more pietistic, reflective, meditative, sacramental, less evangelistic and conversionist and therefore the other theories are more relevant and helpful.
Well, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Evangelicalism is pietistic, of course - highly so. It's essentially a fusion of Puritanism and Pietism with some Wesleyanism thrown into the mix ...
I don't see why the other qualities you list should be incompatible with an evangelistic impulse, although in practice ...
PSA does lend itself to forms of conversionist preaching and presentation more easily than other atonement models - whether that's good, bad or indifferent depend on our specs ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Your idea of justice is flawed because you consider it need not be penal. The entire wiring of humanity is that all wrongdoing must have reparation.
I assume you can produce evidence for this startling generalization? All of humanity? Buddhism? Hinduism? Sufiism? Atheism? All of these humans believe wrongdoing must have reparation?
Actually I lie. I assume no such thing. I know you cannot (because it's not true), and know you will not (because you can't because it's not true).
Alternatively, and perhaps for the sake of a consistent hermeneutical lens, it might be worth considering whether a reparation-requiring wiring of humanity is, in fact, part of the fallen nature of humanity.
Jesus did seem to encourage his disciples to follow a different path.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Nice one Nick.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Alternatively, and perhaps for the sake of a consistent hermeneutical lens, it might be worth considering whether a reparation-requiring wiring of humanity is, in fact, part of the fallen nature of humanity.
That very well could be. But it's an empirical question whether that wiring exists at all.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
The thing that I have never figured out is how punishing an innocent person, even as a volunteer, is properly penal. It reminds me of the Patrician's policy in Anhk Morpork: if a crime is committed and someone is punished, justice is served. How does that work, again? ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Thing is, is PSA any more toxic an atonement model than the others?
As has often been said in this thread, all the models will only stretch so far.
It seems to me that it's the most contested of all partly because a particular branch of Christianity focuses on it so much - almost to the exclusion of the otherodels or theories.
I think there is something in what MT says about evangelicals entertaining other, complementary models, but always treating PSA as a non-negotiable. I don't think that necessarily implies that the other models are treated as an after thought though. It is generally the case that PSA is rather more than the first among equals - it is the 'Pope' of atonement theories as far as most evangelicals are concerned ...
It's a tricky one to address or question as it forms part of evangelical DNA. One cannot really envisage evangelicalism without PSA - although some Anabaptists seem able to be evangelical in tone and emphasis without it.
It's a conundrum. Would I want to see evangelicals become less evangelistic? No, I wouldn't. I'd like to see them become more holistic and less reductionist ...
Would I like to see contemplatives, sacramentalists and social-gospellers become more evangelistic? Yes, I would ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Alternatively, and perhaps for the sake of a consistent hermeneutical lens, it might be worth considering whether a reparation-requiring wiring of humanity is, in fact, part of the fallen nature of humanity.
That very well could be. But it's an empirical question whether that wiring exists at all.
Indeed. But I think even if one assumes arguendo that such wiring does exist, that doesn't advance the argument to a place of establishing the divine need for reparation as part of an atonement model. In other words, even if it is assumed that it is part of human wiring, that tells us nothing about divine wiring.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
The thing that I have never figured out is how punishing an innocent person, even as a volunteer, is properly penal. It reminds me of the Patrician's policy in Anhk Morpork: if a crime is committed and someone is punished, justice is served. How does that work, again?
Please go back and read my posts about Jesus and his identification with fallen humanity and being in the likeness of sinful flesh. He was in union with us, so, though sinless, he is not therefore an innocent third party. He is one of us dying for all of us.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Gamaliel quote:
I think there is something in what MT says about evangelicals entertaining other, complementary models, but always treating PSA as a non-negotiable. I don't think that necessarily implies that the other models are treated as an after thought though. It is generally the case that PSA is rather more than the first among equals - it is the 'Pope' of atonement theories as far as most evangelicals are concerned ...
I know, Gamaliel, that you are trying to act as an honest broker, but what you have written here stretches the bounds of credulity. How can one possibly entertain models that are mutually exclusive, it's like believing in Creationism and the Big Bang?
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