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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Moral Influence atonement theology
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
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.
Good point. It could be a result of the Fall.
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
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? ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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.
Well, he was in the likeness of sinful flesh, but he wasn't sinful. He was in union with us sinners, but he wasn't sinful. If he was innocent, he was innocent and penalty was not dealt out to the guilty. I don't see how you actually get around that.
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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
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
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'.
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?
I don't know. The words are yours. You're the one who compares God to a Naxi prison camp commandant.
I believe God is just. Therefore God does not do what is unjust. Punishing Jesus for our sins would be unjust. Therefore, God did not punish Jesus for our sins. Your analogy does not show that Jesus was involved with us or voluntarily identified with us in any way that makes punishing him for our sins just.
On other models of the atonement, the justice of Jesus' death is not the point at issue. It's only penal models that make justice at issue, and then fail on their own terms to resolve the problem they say needs to be resolved.
In any case what you are describing is not Penal Substitution. It's much closer to Anselm's Satisfaction theory, according to which because Jesus is human Jesus is able to make satisfaction to God for our sins. It has the merit, which Penal Substitution does not have, that although it does not accord with our notions of justice, it does at least accord with some of the standards of justice in Anselm's society. In Anselm's society it was considered just to hold families or communities collectively accountable for the wrongdoing of one of their members. But we in our society believe that was wrong. I don't see any evangelicals arguing that our society is incorrect about that in any context other than the atonement. Indeed, it's precisely because the evangelicals (and some counter-reformation catholics) agree that Anselm's theory evolved into penal substitution proper.
quote:
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.
I think what I notice here is that you've given a whole lot more detail than is at all necessary to make your point. On the other hand, the detail does contribute to the pathos and emotional effect of the story. It seems to me that what you are responding to and wanting us to respond to is the emotional effect and not the logical coherence. Which is fine as a reaction to Jesus' death, but not as an explanation of why Jesus died.
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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
I never said he was sinful. I said he was identified. It's why he was baptised. It's all about solidarity.
In the Philippians hymn, where he says he took on the likeness of a servant, the word means an actual change, a real and substantive change. He became 'in Adam': God with us, God one of us.
He may have been sinless, but our sin was laid upon him. When do you think that happened?
I believe that was in the Incarnation, not half way down the Via Dolorosa.
[ 11. February 2017, 20:24: 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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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Dafyd, you said,
quote:
Your analogy does not show that Jesus was involved with us or voluntarily identified with us in any way that makes punishing him for our sins just.
But that is exactly the point I was making.
the 'innocent' soldier, along with all the other soldiers who were innocent, raised his hand in confession, in solidarity with the true offender.
Every soldier 'became' guilty.
When the commandant selected him from the ranks, he had him shot as a 'guilty' man because he confessed to it.
When Jesus insisted on being baptised he was 'raising his hand' to at say that he identified with all those around him who were being baptised as a sign of repentance for their sins.
Jesus had no need to 'raise his hand'/be baptised. But it was necessary in order to show that he was assuming the guilt of the world, aligning himself with his fellow man.
He wasn't an innocent bystander chosen to be punished for something that was nothing to do with him.
Yes, I did give far too much detail - more than I needed to make the point. That's because I was relating the whole scene from memory. The commandant is an important part of the whole story, but as far as the illustration of solidarity is concerned, he's 'not in there' at all. I was simply showing how Jesus was part of the guilty crowd.
[ 11. February 2017, 20:34: 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
Mudfrog quote:
He may have been sinless, but our sin was laid upon him. When do you think that happened?
I believe that was in the Incarnation, not half way down the Via Dolorosa.
Is your point that Christ was infected by the original sin of the Old Adam?
If Christ from his Incarnation bore the sins of the world, past, present and future, how could he be a perfect unblemished sacrifice?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Mudfrog quote:
He may have been sinless, but our sin was laid upon him. When do you think that happened?
I believe that was in the Incarnation, not half way down the Via Dolorosa.
Is your point that Christ was infected by the original sin of the Old Adam?
If Christ from his Incarnation bore the sins of the world, past, present and future, how could he be a perfect unblemished sacrifice?
I wouldn't use the word infected at all.
However, I would say that Jesus shared our human nature and he identified with us in that. However, he was born of a virgin and so didn't share our fallen nature.
However, he was in solidarity with us.
He was unblemished but he could have sinned - he could have yielded to the temptation of the devil.
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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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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Dafyd, you said,
quote:
Your analogy does not show that Jesus was involved with us or voluntarily identified with us in any way that makes punishing him for our sins just.
But that is exactly the point I was making.
But your illustration doesn't make that point. Yes, it describes Jesus as taking on our sin voluntarily and identifying with us. But he does so to satisfy justice only if the commendant's punishment is just. If the commendant's punishment is not just, then the innocent soldier acts like to save others from unjust punishment
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
However, he was born of a virgin and so didn't share our fallen nature.
Because our fallen nature is inherited through our fathers?
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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
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Because our fallen nature is inherited through our fathers?
<sings>
Every sperm is evil, every sperm is base.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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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?
A few Thoughts on this:
First the word penal is about the need for reparation. It is wired into us and expressed in human justice systems viz you do the crime, you do the time.
Biblically God communicates to us via this reparation metaphor where sin is the crime and it is universal. Humanity is guilty and must pay for sin.
Enter Jesus as humanity's representative and enter a few other metaphors like the Passover lamb that was a picture of purity, and perfection.
Now comes the supernatural bit, God the father speaks at Jesus' baptism. "This IS my beloved son in whom I am well pleased". Now Paul writes "Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us", conflating the two.
Now theology takes root and theories start happening and YOU start asking "How this can happen, how this can be justice?"
The answer is, that no one knows HOW it can happen, how it can be just but scripture clearly and cogently has said that in Christ, the wages of sin, which are always death, are paid, reparation is made.
Now to your question "But How can this be justice?"
The answer is we do not know. The mystery is way to deep for us but what we do know is that God says it can and really the key question is not HOW it can but WILL YOU, (human man or woman), let it happen? Will you allow Jesus to be sin in your place. The fact that he can is the essence of the Gospel and why it is such good news.
[ 12. February 2017, 03:59: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
First the word penal is about the need for reparation. It is wired into us and expressed in human justice systems viz you do the crime, you do the time.
You've made this claim twice now without defending. Mere assertion does not a convincing case make.
quote:
Biblically God communicates to us via this reparation metaphor where sin is the crime and it is universal. Humanity is guilty and must pay for sin.
I don't understand the "reparation" part here. Being guilty and having to be punished is one thing. Reparation is something wholly different from that. A reparational system of justice would be where you steal something and then you have to pay to replace it. It has nothing to do with punishment.
quote:
Enter Jesus as humanity's representative and enter a few other metaphors like the Passover lamb that was a picture of purity, and perfection.
Stringing thoughts together by ordering them on the page, but not showing how they connect or indeed whether they connect does not make an argument.
quote:
Now comes the supernatural bit, God the father speaks at Jesus' baptism. "This IS my beloved son in whom I am well pleased". Now Paul writes "Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us", conflating the two.
What does Paul's sentence have to do with the baptism? You haven't shown connection this at all.
I won't even touch the "it must be this way and if you don't like it take it up with God" aspect of your post. I'll leave that to someone else.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
@Mousethief:
So..out of interest, you consider that 'penal' is not defined in justice as the need for reparation? That is an unjustified assertion according to you? Perhaps if you could define penal for me it might save some trouble. Really though it is hard to see the need to justify something so basic it is observable in every criminal court.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
@Mousethief:
So..out of interest, you consider that 'penal' is not defined in justice as the need for reparation? That is an unjustified assertion according to you? Perhaps if you could define penal for me it might save some trouble. Really though it is hard to see the need to justify something so basic it is observable in every criminal court.
Tell you what you answer my questions going back to the beginning of this thread that you've ignored, and maybe I"ll answer yours.
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Jamat: quote:
Now to your question "But How can this be justice?"
The answer is we do not know. The mystery is way to deep for us but what we do know is that God says it can and really the key question is not HOW it can but WILL YOU, (human man or woman), let it happen? Will you allow Jesus to be sin in your place. The fact that he can is the essence of the Gospel and why it is such good news.
Still don't get how any of this has to do with justice. In order to call killing the innocent justice, the word needs a definition totally separated from any human understanding of the word. Personally, I don't try much to unravel it but cut through salvation's Gordian knot, trusting that the Godhead has taken care of things in whatever way it had to be taken care of. I put it all into his hands. It's above my pay grade.
If we all have to get our understanding of salvation perfected in order to be saved, I think most of us are screwed.
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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
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Jamat: quote:
Now to your question "But How can this be justice?"
The answer is we do not know. The mystery is way to deep for us but what we do know is that God says it can and really the key question is not HOW it can but WILL YOU, (human man or woman), let it happen? Will you allow Jesus to be sin in your place. The fact that he can is the essence of the Gospel and why it is such good news.
Still don't get how any of this has to do with justice. In order to call killing the innocent justice, the word needs a definition totally separated from any human understanding of the word. Personally, I don't try much to unravel it but cut through salvation's Gordian knot, trusting that the Godhead has taken care of things in whatever way it had to be taken care of. I put it all into his hands. It's above my pay grade.
If we all have to get our understanding of salvation perfected in order to be saved, I think most of us are screwed.
Totally agree with you. Mystery mystery....etc. It is all Jesus said to Nicodemus. How is this possible? ....not answered but evidenced in the results.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
@Mousethief:
So..out of interest, you consider that 'penal' is not defined in justice as the need for reparation? That is an unjustified assertion according to you? Perhaps if you could define penal for me it might save some trouble. Really though it is hard to see the need to justify something so basic it is observable in every criminal court.
Tell you what you answer my questions going back to the beginning of this thread that you've ignored, and maybe I"ll answer yours.
Sorry, can't remember any unanswered questions from you. Normally, that means I answered them but as always, not to your satisfaction. I find discussion with you a totally pointless excercise so perhaps let's just drop it.
You know The Hamlet gravedigger scene?
They are burying Ophelia and Hamlet appears having returned from a shipwreck not knowing she had died and says to the grave digger:
Hamlet: Who is this grave for, a man or a woman?"
Gravedigger : Neither sir.
Hamlet :Wot?
Gravedigger : One that was a woman sir but rest her soul,she's dead.
That's what discussing definitions is like with you. Every clarification is unsatisfactory and results in a further question. Frankly, mate, there is no point.
Justice is a universal concept wired into humanity where wrongdoing demands reparation. How much clearer can it be?
[ 12. February 2017, 06:15: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Jamat,I find certain Shipmates frustrating at times - probably most at one time or another - but in this instance I side with Mousethief because he seems to be pressing you to define your ideas properly rather than saying, 'Look, it's obvious ... Everybody knows that ...'
No, it isn't obvious and no, not everyone sees things the same way.
I happen to come from a background that strongly emphasised PSA and which also gave more than lip-service to the other atonement models, and yet I don't find your particular approach very convincing. You seem to pile up references and assert the same thing over and over without examining whether those references do in fact reinforce your case. Sometimes they do, other times they don't - and you seem to use legal concepts loosely and interchangeably ...
Just sayin'
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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
Meanwhile, I agree with Nick - Mudfrog's POW film analogy is flawed. The analogy does serve to express Christ's identification with us as fallen humanity but that's as far as it goes - and any analogy can only be stretched so far.
The problems I have with it are the portrayal of God the Father as a Kommandant - and it's hard to elide that - and the rather emotional laying it on thick style of presentation - that made my flesh creep - for all the wrong reasons.
John Stott warned of the dangers of court-room analogies when discussing or defending PSA as they invariably slip over into grotesque territory. As Mudfrog's does. In spades.
Stott, if I remember rightly, does use an Auschwitz analogy - one taken from rabbis and camp survivors. In it, God himself descends into the abyss and shares it with us.
One could argue that this is more a solidarity and identification thing rather than a penal one or some kind of act of appeasement - but Stott argues that it combines both as it were.
However we cut it, the atonement 'deals' with the human condition and covers all bases. That applies whether we take Mudfrog's highly Augustinian view or the Eastern one which is more to do with identification and union - not that this is absent in Mudfrog's presentation, far from it - than with juridical issues.
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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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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
@Mousethief:
So..out of interest, you consider that 'penal' is not defined in justice as the need for reparation? That is an unjustified assertion according to you? Perhaps if you could define penal for me it might save some trouble. Really though it is hard to see the need to justify something so basic it is observable in every criminal court.
Not sure about Mousethief, but yes it's not (or at least reparations used in 2 ways, one where they repay, one where everyone loses).
You have Weregold, community service and compensation, indebted servitude (in theory), where the penal aspect is reparation. (NB when it comes to using as a metaphor, the reparations are all constructive in their own right).
Then you have 'ang em, prison and deportation. Where the victim gains nothing. And is purely penal (though payment language is also used).
For what it's worth MW define Penal Code as "A set of laws regarding crimes and the punishment for the crimes"
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Sorry for being biblical, but I thought the whole eye-for-an-eye thing was so that one just got back what was taken and no reparations.
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arse
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Jamat,I find certain Shipmates frustrating at times - probably most at one time or another - but in this instance I side with Mousethief because he seems to be pressing you to define your ideas properly rather than saying, 'Look, it's obvious ... Everybody knows that ...'
No, it isn't obvious and no, not everyone sees things the same way.
I happen to come from a background that strongly emphasised PSA and which also gave more than lip-service to the other atonement models, and yet I don't find your particular approach very convincing. You seem to pile up references and assert the same thing over and over without examining whether those references do in fact reinforce your case. Sometimes they do, other times they don't - and you seem to use legal concepts loosely and interchangeably ...
Just sayin'
Just sayin and just not true. The issue is over whether a concept of justice involves penalty. How is that even remotely controversial or requiring definition? If there is any other issue please be specific.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
It isn't controversial, but it does require definition. You have used terms like 'reparation' rather loosely, it seems to me.
Other posters, such as Jay-Emm are doing the hard work for you.
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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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It isn't controversial, but it does require definition. You have used terms like 'reparation' rather loosely, it seems to me
MakeReparation? It means 'make up for, right?
Another version of 'pay the price'?
Picky, pedantic, captious, are words that come to mind here. We all know what we are talking about. Extreme semantic nailing is an attempt to obfuscate, a failed attempt to be clever, to score the point, to turn an eternal issue into a semantic debate. Not impressed.
[ 12. February 2017, 11:17: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The ultimate penalty of autonomy, in helpless ignorance and weakness, is evolutionarily unavoidable opportunity cost. While we're going down every possible cul-de-sac we aren't going down the 'right' road. If we survive our dead ends we might come back and we might learn a little from the suffering we cause ourselves and others before trying another turn. As individuals, groups; ethne. But the losses are enormous. The survivors stand on mountains of corpses. And senesce and die anyway.
This is the best of all possible worlds. This is the only road.
There is no ontological Grimm's fairytail, no Lovecraftian, arbitrary, extra 'penalty' horror. If only Stephen King would use his vast talents to write a redemptive dialectical antithesis to his appalling Revival. Rob Bell actually has refuted the Chthulu Mythos (effect) of Bronze-Iron age religion (cause) clearly, faithfully, in our time, for the first time, in the long trajectory from Jesus.
The sacrifice of Christ is the pivot of Him living up to His name.
Jesus. Saves.
[ 12. February 2017, 11:22: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Meanwhile, I agree with Nick - Mudfrog's POW film analogy is flawed. The analogy does serve to express Christ's identification with us as fallen humanity but that's as far as it goes - and any analogy can only be stretched so far.
And that is all I was doing - making that one single point.
I only told the whole thing because that was the scene in the film and I just wanted to pout the whole thing in context.
I merely wanted to give an illustration of Christ being one of and with us and not being some uninvolved third party from stage left who had nothing to do with humanity except a skeleton and skin.
Forget the commandant.
I should have left him out.
[ 12. February 2017, 11:41: 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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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It isn't controversial, but it does require definition. You have used terms like 'reparation' rather loosely, it seems to me
MakeReparation? It means 'make up for, right?
Another version of 'pay the price'?
Picky, pedantic, captious, are words that come to mind here. We all know what we are talking about. Extreme semantic nailing is an attempt to obfuscate, a failed attempt to be clever, to score the point, to turn an eternal issue into a semantic debate. Not impressed.
Apparently, we don't all know what we're talking about. "Reparation," in a court of law or in general usage, means "to make amends; to repair the damage done." It may be penal (a form of imposed punishment), it may not.
I don't see any obfuscation here on the part of people trying to make sure we're all using specific words in the same way. You seem to be taking what, in criminal law contexts, would be called retributive justice and restorative justice and conflating the two.
And having typed that, I wonder if concepts of restorative justice have any light to shed on understanding the role of justice in the atonement.
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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
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The atonement is LIKE the Kingdom of God which is LIKE a grain of mustard seed, the smallest seed, which grows to a cedar of Lebanon.
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Love wins
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Fair enough, Mudfrog. I can see the point you were making.
It does illustrate though, how careful we have to be with any of these analogies - they all topple over if we stretch them too far ...
Meanwhile, @Jamat - no, I am not obfuscating not trying to be clever - nor am I trying to trivialise 'eternal truths' as you put it.
I am simply trying to clarify things. Bandying legal and juridical concepts around in a somewhat glib manner doesn't help us here.
We have to examine each instance and ask ourselves whether a juridical interpretation fits the data or whether other analogies or models serve better to aid our understanding.
This has got nothing to do with dismantling or challenging eternal truths but asking ourselves questions about how best to understand these things.
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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
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# 368
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Posted
The Bible's - and only the Bible's - Bronze-Iron Age metaphors ARE eternal, ontological, absolute, literal, Ptolemaic, wooden hat peg truth you can hang your hat on Gamaliel!
When will you EVER learn?
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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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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Dafyd, you said,
quote:
Your analogy does not show that Jesus was involved with us or voluntarily identified with us in any way that makes punishing him for our sins just.
But that is exactly the point I was making.
the 'innocent' soldier, along with all the other soldiers who were innocent, raised his hand in confession, in solidarity with the true offender.
Every soldier 'became' guilty.
When the commandant selected him from the ranks, he had him shot as a 'guilty' man because he confessed to it.
Nick Tamen has already responded to this.
I do not think you successfully made the point you were trying to make
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You need to illustrate how Jesus can become guilty - not merely 'become' 'guilty' - in such a way that: a) it is just for God to punish Jesus for our sins; b) justice no longer requires that we are punished for our sins.
When the soldiers put up their hands, they only 'become' 'guilty' because 'guilt' and 'innocence' in the camp are a travesty of true guilt and innocence, and the Commandant's rules are a travesty of true justice.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Justice is a universal concept wired into humanity where wrongdoing demands reparation.
Prove it. How much simpler can I put it?
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Mousethief quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:Justice is a universal concept wired into humanity where wrongdoing demands reparation.
Mouse thief: Prove it. How much simpler can I put it?
Might it also be pointed out that "reparation" is not punitive but restorative?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It isn't controversial, but it does require definition. You have used terms like 'reparation' rather loosely, it seems to me
MakeReparation? It means 'make up for, right?
Another version of 'pay the price'?
Picky, pedantic, captious, are words that come to mind here. We all know what we are talking about. Extreme semantic nailing is an attempt to obfuscate, a failed attempt to be clever, to score the point, to turn an eternal issue into a semantic debate. Not impressed.
What utter bullshit. If some careless twat knocks me off my bike, with a small degree of luck the criminal justuce system will impose a punishment - a fine, licence endorsement, a driving ban. If I want reparation then I need to go to the Civil Law and sue for a new bike and compensation for pain and injury. Punishment and Reparation are two quite different things, governed in the legal system by separate procedures and courts. Mere semantics indeed!
[ 12. February 2017, 16:05: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
For this to be restorative justice, mankind would have to pay God back for the offence caused to him by sin. If it was punative punishment then mankind would somehow need to pay more back to God than the actual cost of the crime.
Neither seems to me to cover a situation whereby someone does something temporal which results in an eternal consequence. By any standard, that's an overreaction and not justice.
Sin is a strange thing and it seems to be that it isn't possible to describe the atonement as restorative justice. Jesus did not give something that somehow restored things back to the way they were before - unless you see the atonement as a form of inexplicable magic.
In most forms of PSA, the justice is punative, there is a punishment accrued for sin. One is not trying to go restore things and make them right but pay the punishment owed for sin. Then we are back to the atonement being transactional. And a long way from any sense of justice that we've ever heard of.
And if God doesn't even meet the standards of human justice, then it is very hard to accept him as any deity worth following; given he is supposed to be the author of justuce and doesn't even meet the lowly human sense of the term. What is the point in following a deity that doesn't even meet the standards he has set for everyone else?
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
This is one of the reasons why the whole 'justice' thing doesn't 'work' very well ...
We either end up accusing God of being unjust - which he clearly can't be ...
Or we jump through hoops trying to argue that what looks unjust from a purely human perspective must actually be just from God's perspective - because he operates on a different plane and with different standards of justice to ours ...
Which is rather like the TULIP argument for Limited Atonement - which many, if not most, posters on this thread would reject.
I can see the potential of Mudfrog's POW film analogy for illustrating Christ's identification with fallen humanity - but as far as the justice point goes, it's an analogy that is fundamentally flawed and which falls down at the first hurdle.
If the blokes in the analogy were all capital offenders of some kind and justly deserving of death under the laws of the particular land the film was set in, the argument might hold more water ...
As it is, it's like a sieve.
I can certainly see what Mudfrog is getting at. If Christ took on our humanity, the argument runs, then he also took on the 'guilt' of our Original Sin.
That's a neat solution, but it doesn't work if, like the Eastern Churches, the Augustinian concept of Original Sin doesn't apply.
As far as I understand it, the Orthodox have a concept of 'Ancestral Sin' and of sin tainting everything there is to taint - but they don't see us sharing in the 'guilt' of Adam in the same way that Western post-Augustinian theology has tended to.
If we are to be punished, we are to be punished for our own sins and not anyone else's.
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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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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Gamaliel quote:
If Christ took on our humanity, the argument runs, then he also took on the 'guilt' of our Original Sin.
Whatever the East thinks about these matters, how can anyone but Adam and Eve be guilty of Original Sin?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
This is one of the reasons why the whole 'justice' thing doesn't 'work' very well ...
We either end up accusing God of being unjust - which he clearly can't be ...
But you know full well that the point is not that we think God is unjust. Rather that if a theory necessarily implies that God is unjust, there is something wrong with the theory. It's a reductio ad absurdum. The conclusion is false therefore the reasoning and/or (at least) one of the premises must be false.
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Gamaliel quote:
If Christ took on our humanity, the argument runs, then he also took on the 'guilt' of our Original Sin.
Whatever the East thinks about these matters, how can anyone but Adam and Eve be guilty of Original Sin?
Let alone accountable for it.
[ 12. February 2017, 19:11: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As far as I understand it, the Orthodox have a concept of 'Ancestral Sin' and of sin tainting everything there is to taint - but they don't see us sharing in the 'guilt' of Adam in the same way that Western post-Augustinian theology has tended to.
This is the difference between seeing sin as a crime and God as both victim and judge, and sin as a disease and God as the healer.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
It occurs to me that on the human plane, if the same person is victim AND judge, that's called revenge. Just throwing that out there.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
There is that silly story of a judge - I've heard several times in church - trying a friend, finding him guilty and then reaching into his pocket and paying the fine. That, to me, is not justice but corruption.
A better story is the one where the judge finds an old woman guilty of stealing bread to feed her family. He then fines everyone in the room for living in a world where an old woman has to steal bread to feed her children.
If the penal sense of the atonement means anything at all (which I struggle to see how it can), it is more like the second story than the first.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Which is why court-room analogies don't work and are best avoided even if one does believe in PSA.
Of course, PSA isn't the only atonement model that snaps when you stretch it too far. The Ransom Theory can be expressed in equally grotesque terms.
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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
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Which is why court-room analogies don't work and are best avoided even if one does believe in PSA.
Of course, PSA isn't the only atonement model that snaps when you stretch it too far. The Ransom Theory can be expressed in equally grotesque terms.
Which is why they need to be taken as metaphors, and not literal descriptions of what is actually happening.
ETA: Or, better, similes. Our Lord's parables are presented as similes. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a woman who put some yeast in some dough..." and so forth. We'd do better to follow his example when describing such things as the atonement.
[ 12. February 2017, 21:37: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Which then leads to inevitable questions as to how far to go with metaphorical treatments ...
I know liberals who'd see the Resurrection as a metaphor.
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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
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Which then leads to inevitable questions as to how far to go with metaphorical treatments ...
I know liberals who'd see the Resurrection as a metaphor.
Well since the resurrection is well attested in Scripture, and the theological specifics and nature of the atonement are not, that's a hard stretch.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
if I want reparation then I need to go to the Civil Law and sue for a new bike and compensation for pain and injury. Punishment and Reparation are two quite different things, governed in the legal system by separate procedures and courts. Mere semantics indeed!
Fair enough. The term reparation can nevertheless be construed as making a wrong right. IOW it can sometimes include punishment but I accept your point that it need not. I obviously used the term too loosely. Personally, I like the term restitution a bit better. I scratched my neighbour's car and paid for his repair. I made restitution but somehow it also seemed to penalise me for my carelessness. I think the atonement includes all of those concepts, including penalty. The fact that the concept of justice includes a penal element,I regard as self-evident. To define it to the nth degree is a waste of time a semantical magical mystery tour that you can buy a ticket for if you want to.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Justice is a universal concept wired into humanity where wrongdoing demands reparation.
Prove it. How much simpler can I put it?
It is a priori true. A wrong happens and someone has to pay. Justice requires a redressing of the balance. One could ask ones grand kids, see if they agree.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Justice is a universal concept wired into humanity where wrongdoing demands reparation.
Prove it. How much simpler can I put it?
It is a priori true.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) Then it should be REAAALLLL easy to prove. I'll wait here.
quote:
A wrong happens and someone has to pay. Justice requires a redressing of the balance.
I know what it means. I want proof that everybody knows it and believes it.
quote:
One could ask ones grand kids, see if they agree.
(a) one's grandkid is 6 months old, and
(b) since when do we do theology by taking opinion polls of children?
[ 13. February 2017, 02:21: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
I know what it means. I want proof that everybody knows it and believes
You are seeking the kind of 'proof' that probably could never exist which seems a bit inane. But I could point you to The following found after a moment's googling. Must show something. Look at the final sentence.University of British Columbia
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
I know what it means. I want proof that everybody knows it and believes
You are seeking the kind of 'proof' that probably could never exist which seems a bit inane. But I could point you to The following found after a moment's googling. Must show something. Look at the final sentence.University of British Columbia
Again I refer you to my point above about polling children to do theology. Read some Piaget. People grow out of what they think when they're babies.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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