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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
I think PSA makes far more sense if Jesus wasn't God.
But then wouldn't the Ransom theory also work?
The only theory I can think of which is unambiguously trinitarian is CV. Even there, I suppose it wouldn't be too tricky to bend a model of greater-and-lesser god(s) into Christ being the Victor (although it would appear to lose something of its power if Christ was just one of many gods).
[ 18. January 2017, 17:56: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
I'm not persuaded that PSA is compatible with Arianism. Nor would I be persuaded that an angel could have died in stead. Indeed, the only one of the regularly encountered theories that just might be compatible with Arianism is Moral Influence.
If we go to the key statement, which I think comes from St Athanasius and St Gregory of Nazianzus,
"What has not been assumed has not been redeemed".
redemption itself is possible, and only possible, if Christ is fully Son of God and if in Christ, God became fully Man.
If God did not become fully Man, as in heresies like Docetism, most Gnosticism and the Cathars, he descends, but does not fully reach us. So our nature cannot be redeemed.
If the Christ is not fully God, as in Arianism and many modern heresies, the same thing happens, but for the opposite reason. Jesus has our identity but not God's and so God is not in Christ, reconciling us to God. Through Christ, we cannot reach God and so cannot be redeemed.
I'm no expert on their doctrines, but I think that is why the ultimate aspiration the JWs is not heaven, but to live on a new earth.
Moral example on its own, might say that an Arian version of Jesus can show us how to live, but there is still the fatal weakness of Moral Influence as an understanding on its own. It can inspire. It cannot deal with the profounder human anxieties. It has nothing to say to them.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@Enoch.
I apologize, I read what I was loaded to see in "The death and resurrection of Christ saves us, really, ontologically, and cosmologically.".
If that means the fact of Jesus' resurrection from death proves we have eternal life and all other meanings are secondary to that. ...
Not quite Martin. I'm not saying that it proves anything. I'm saying that it causes it to happen, in, and of itself. Ontoloically, it is the deed that brings about salvation. It does not speak of something else. Nor does it demonstrate anything. It does it.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm not persuaded that PSA is compatible with Arianism. Nor would I be persuaded that an angel could have died in stead. Indeed, the only one of the regularly encountered theories that just might be compatible with Arianism is Moral Influence.
OK, but that's not really an explanation, Enoch. PSA says that someone must pay the price of sin by death. So why couldn't that someone be a sacrificial human being, after the model of Abraham and Isaac? Isaac wasn't perfect yet (presumably) he was good enough to pay for the sins of Abraham.
quote:
If we go to the key statement, which I think comes from St Athanasius and St Gregory of Nazianzus,
"What has not been assumed has not been redeemed".
redemption itself is possible, and only possible, if Christ is fully Son of God and if in Christ, God became fully Man.
Right, but without wanting to rain on your parade, this isn't anything about PSA is it.
quote:
If God did not become fully Man, as in heresies like Docetism, most Gnosticism and the Cathars, he descends, but does not fully reach us. So our nature cannot be redeemed.
Again, not really anything about PSA in isolation.
quote:
If the Christ is not fully God, as in Arianism and many modern heresies, the same thing happens, but for the opposite reason. Jesus has our identity but not God's and so God is not in Christ, reconciling us to God. Through Christ, we cannot reach God and so cannot be redeemed.
I'm no expert on their doctrines, but I think that is why the ultimate aspiration the JWs is not heaven, but to live on a new earth.
I'm no expert either, but I understood that the JWs (and, I think, various other non-trinitarians) have a rather vicious form of PSA as standard. Am I wrong to think that?
quote:
Moral example on its own, might say that an Arian version of Jesus can show us how to live, but there is still the fatal weakness of Moral Influence as an understanding on its own. It can inspire. It cannot deal with the profounder human anxieties. It has nothing to say to them.
Do you mean that the Moral Influence theory has nothing to say about human sin? If so, how do you figure that Jesus could tell people that their sins were forgiven (before the crucifixion, when, presumably they weren't according to PSA)?
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arse
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@Enoch.
I apologize, I read what I was loaded to see in "The death and resurrection of Christ saves us, really, ontologically, and cosmologically.".
If that means the fact of Jesus' resurrection from death proves we have eternal life and all other meanings are secondary to that. ...
Not quite Martin. I'm not saying that it proves anything. I'm saying that it causes it to happen, in, and of itself. Ontoloically, it is the deed that brings about salvation. It does not speak of something else. Nor does it demonstrate anything. It does it.
Ah hah ![[Smile]](smile.gif) thought so. That makes it transactional.
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Love wins
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm not persuaded that PSA is compatible with Arianism. Nor would I be persuaded that an angel could have died in stead. Indeed, the only one of the regularly encountered theories that just might be compatible with Arianism is Moral Influence.
OK, but that's not really an explanation, Enoch. PSA says that someone must pay the price of sin by death. So why couldn't that someone be a sacrificial human being, after the model of Abraham and Isaac? Isaac wasn't perfect yet (presumably) he was good enough to pay for the sins of Abraham.
Every PSAist I've ever met has taken it as axiomatic that
There was no other good enough
to pay the price of sin.
He only could unlock the gates
of heav'n and let us in
PSA is dependent on Jesus being without sin. Only by being divine could he be that.
quote:
quote:
If we go to the key statement, which I think comes from St Athanasius and St Gregory of Nazianzus,
"What has not been assumed has not been redeemed".
redemption itself is possible, and only possible, if Christ is fully Son of God and if in Christ, God became fully Man.
Right, but without wanting to rain on your parade, this isn't anything about PSA is it.
I've not said it was. You may have noticed on this thread that I've not been advocating PSA, neither as the only true understanding nor even the real pukka one with the others hanging round its edges. All I've been doing is trying to wean you and others away from the view that there had to be either one only true understanding or even that any of them is more pukka than the others, to which the others are merely subsidiary. The only thing that is the core is the event. Jesus was crucified and on the third day he rose from the dead. The explanations all hang round the edge of that. quote:
quote:
If God did not become fully Man, as in heresies like Docetism, most Gnosticism and the Cathars, he descends, but does not fully reach us. So our nature cannot be redeemed.
Again, not really anything about PSA in isolation.
So?
I'm not talking about PSA. quote:
quote:
If the Christ is not fully God, as in Arianism and many modern heresies, the same thing happens, but for the opposite reason. Jesus has our identity but not God's and so God is not in Christ, reconciling us to God. Through Christ, we cannot reach God and so cannot be redeemed.
I'm no expert on their doctrines, but I think that is why the ultimate aspiration the JWs is not heaven, but to live on a new earth.
I'm no expert either, but I understood that the JWs (and, I think, various other non-trinitarians) have a rather vicious form of PSA as standard. Am I wrong to think that?
No idea. You'd be better off asking them. For all I know, they may have a website that would tell you. quote:
quote:
Moral example on its own, might say that an Arian version of Jesus can show us how to live, but there is still the fatal weakness of Moral Influence as an understanding on its own. It can inspire. It cannot deal with the profounder human anxieties. It has nothing to say to them.
Do you mean that the Moral Influence theory has nothing to say about human sin? If so, how do you figure that Jesus could tell people that their sins were forgiven (before the crucifixion, when, presumably they weren't according to PSA)?
Nor, on that argument does Moral Influence, or any other explanation. The chronological problem is the same irrespective of which explanation you happen to prefer. The usual explanation is that this was because the crucifixion is a temporal event that is simultaneously outside time.
However, since Jesus also says, 'so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins', it also could be read that he just need to say the word and they would be forgiven. If so, though, why did Jesus need to go to the cross at all? When his enemies challenged him 'if you say you are the Son of Man, come down from the cross', why didn't he just do that and at the same time say 'all right, all of you. I forgive your sins'.
He didn't. We have to assume this means that there is something about the structure of reality as the Father created it, that precluded this easy answer. That we may not be able answer the question, doesn't mean we are wrong or that God is. It just means that there things that are bigger than we are. It is healthier to accept this gratefully with fear and trembling than to whittle about it. We are the created. We are better off accepting what the Father has created for us.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Ah hah thought so. That makes it transactional.
If you wish to say so, that is up to you, but I think you are using 'transactional' in a different way from how I understand it
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
As a footnote, it is rather annoying what when we're talking about PSA people keep talking tangentially about something else, then when challenged say "ah, but I wasn't talking about PSA, I was talking about my own private understanding of the atonement".
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arse
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Honest Ron Bacardi
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# 38
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Posted
I don't think so Martin. A transaction requires a counterparty, and I don't think Enoch's formulation does.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
All I've been doing is trying to wean you and others away from the view that there had to be either one only true understanding or even that any of them is more pukka than the others, to which the others are merely subsidiary. The only thing that is the core is the event. Jesus was crucified and on the third day he rose from the dead. The explanations all hang round the edge of that.
Thanks for your concern, but I don't need "weaning". I think some theology is bunk, and I put PSA in that pile. No matter how often you say it is but one of a bunch of useful ways to look at the atonement, I still think it is bunk.
And, to be honest, the fact that you don't actually want to defend it when faced with the logical impossibilities it throws up just shows that you don't think much of it as an idea either.
quote:
No idea. You'd be better off asking them. For all I know, they may have a website that would tell you.
I see. So despite saying that PSA doesn't seem very arian to you, you don't actually know if or how non-trinitarians use it. So on what basis are you determining that PSA isn't arian?
quote:
Nor, on that argument does Moral Influence, or any other explanation. The chronological problem is the same irrespective of which explanation you happen to prefer. The usual explanation is that this was because the crucifixion is a temporal event that is simultaneously outside time.
Absolutely wrong.
If Christ (his life, death and resurrection) was part of the project of redeeming the world, then there is no chronological problem with CV.
The crucifixion and resurrection then become part of the whole package rather than - somehow - uniquely atoning in-and-of-themselves.
quote:
However, since Jesus also says, 'so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins', it also could be read that he just need to say the word and they would be forgiven. If so, though, why did Jesus need to go to the cross at all? When his enemies challenged him 'if you say you are the Son of Man, come down from the cross', why didn't he just do that and at the same time say 'all right, all of you. I forgive your sins'.
Quite so. Another problem for PSA, one might think.
quote:
He didn't. We have to assume this means that there is something about the structure of reality as the Father created it, that precluded this easy answer. That we may not be able answer the question, doesn't mean we are wrong or that God is. It just means that there things that are bigger than we are. It is healthier to accept this gratefully with fear and trembling than to whittle about it. We are the created. We are better off accepting what the Father has created for us.
Or it might even mean that the Cross - in isolation as opposed to Christ's life, death and resurrection - wasn't atoning.
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arse
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Milton was muddled. As I understand it, he was more Binitarian than Arian or possibly One Point Five-ian ...
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Enoch, Honest Ron Bacardi (you a broker?).
If Christ's sacrifice ontologically is the deed that brings about salvation, then without the former we're not saved. We don't have eternal life. Oblivion are us. No?
Unless, by salvation, we mean the awareness, through Christ, of assured eternal life that we'd have been otherwise surprised by, and the hope and transformation that brings.
Which seems a bit strained.
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Love wins
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
Mr Cheesy, I'm not keen to get involved in a long argument about this. I don't think it will be very profitable for either of us. Besides, I'm going to be quite busy over the next 48 hours, with little time to sit in front of a computer. Suffice to say, that I think you may be treating what you think I'm saying as a straw man. In some ways, I'm actually more interested in why you are so heated about the subject, when I've made it very clear, and you have recognised, that I don't think that PSA is the gold standard explanation. Nor for that matter, do I think any of the others is.
Nor have I ever suggested that I think the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension are each different events with different salvific freight. I've read people who have argued something of the sort. I'm not convinced it's even a helpful approach. After all, these things all happened. I'm not sure there is even any need to speculate on what would be missing if one of them had somehow got left out.
Anyway, I'm off to bed.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Miss any one out and nothing else follows.
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Love wins
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
by mr cheesy;
quote:
I see. So despite saying that PSA doesn't seem very arian to you, you don't actually know if or how non-trinitarians use it. So on what basis are you determining that PSA isn't arian?
Arians/Unitarians generally have problems with most Biblical representations of the Atonement. In their view Jesus is either simply human, in which case even if he's a perfect human how can he possibly have the 'resources' to pay for the sins of everybody else; or he is some kind of angelic third party brought in to do the paying in a way that can't appear just precisely because he is an innocent third party, however willing. Most Unitarians prefer the Jesus as simply - though unusually saintly - human.
Most Unitarians therefore have effectively given up on most ideas of the Atonement and are left with little but a rather vague 'Moral Influence' or 'example' idea. And increasingly they also give up on taking the Bible very seriously, and tend to become somewhat 'syncretistic' with other religions - humanism with a God rather than distinctively Christian. So to most Arians/Unitarians PSA is decidedly off the menu.
As I mentioned earlier, the Jehovah's Witnesses who are 'fundamentalist' and Bible-committed rather than liberal, and so can't with any credibility follow the liberal unitarian route, have had to come up with a way in which a non-divine Jesus can die for our sins.
They interpret him as an incarnation of an archangel (I think Michael) and they have adopted what amounts to a variant of PSA in which somebody must die to satisfy the divinely mandated death penalty for sin, but at the same time it seems more to save the divine honour if He forgives, than to pay a debt-style price.
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
you do not turn nonsense into sense by putting the words 'God can' in front of it.
Nonsense in this context is claiming that Christ's death is soteriologically efficacious while simultaneously rejecting the penal and substitutionary elements which, the Bible teaches, makes it efficacious.
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Conclusion: while PSA may not force Arianism, it nevertheless is entirely compatible with Arianism.
So, let's get this straight:
Milton had odd ideas about PSA.
Milton was an Arian.
Ergo,, a belief in PSA implies a susceptibility to Arianism.
Well at least it has the merit of driving us back to Paradise Lost, where we reacquaint ourselves with lines such as "Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy" in BkII (the vision of Hell).
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Conclusion: while PSA may not force Arianism, it nevertheless is entirely compatible with Arianism.
So, let's get this straight:
Milton had odd ideas about PSA.
Milton was an Arian.
Ergo,, a belief in PSA implies a susceptibility to Arianism.
Not what he said, though, is it?
I don't think it is anything about "susceptibility", it is entirely about what makes sense to people. And I still believe that PSA makes more sense in the context of Arianism.
Nobody is trying to suggest that one can't be a Trinitarian can't be a believer in PSA because that's silly. As discussed above, Trinitarians (together with others, of course) are fully able to believe contradictory things if their end position is to get all angry and frustrated and say "because this is what God did. Ask him".
quote:
Well at least it has the merit of driving us back to Paradise Lost, where we reacquaint ourselves with lines such as "Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy" in BkII (the vision of Hell).
How trite.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
As I mentioned earlier, the Jehovah's Witnesses who are 'fundamentalist' and Bible-committed rather than liberal, and so can't with any credibility follow the liberal unitarian route, have had to come up with a way in which a non-divine Jesus can die for our sins.
They interpret him as an incarnation of an archangel (I think Michael) and they have adopted what amounts to a variant of PSA in which somebody must die to satisfy the divinely mandated death penalty for sin, but at the same time it seems more to save the divine honour if He forgives, than to pay a debt-style price.
Which is more-or-less what I said; some non-Trinitarians believe in a form of PSA. Therefore it can't the the case that PSA is incompatible with some non-Trinitarian beliefs (whether we can call some of these formally Arian might be a different discussion. But clearly there exist a significant group of people who do not believe in Jesus-as-person-of-the-trinity who nethertheless are able to square it with the atonement via PSA).
Of course, there are various types of non-Trinitarian beliefs. So therefore no great surprise that some of them don't have a concept of the atonement at all and don't therefore need to explain how it works.
Err yuh.
[ 19. January 2017, 07:23: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Nobody is trying to suggest that one can't be a Trinitarian can't be a believer in PSA because that's silly.
Sorry, I meant nobody is suggesting that a Trinitarian can't really believe in PSA and that they're a closet Arian.
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arse
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Conclusion: while PSA may not force Arianism, it nevertheless is entirely compatible with Arianism.
So, let's get this straight:
Milton had odd ideas about PSA.
Milton's ideas about PSA were not as far as I can tell in any way odd. They were entirely standard. If you think Milton's version of PSA is odd, please explain where his exposition of PSA gets PSA wrong.
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
you do not turn nonsense into sense by putting the words 'God can' in front of it.
Nonsense in this context is claiming that Christ's death is soteriologically efficacious while simultaneously rejecting the penal and substitutionary elements which, the Bible teaches, makes it efficacious.
That saw him and raised him! Well played.
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Love wins
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
you do not turn nonsense into sense by putting the words 'God can' in front of it.
Nonsense in this context is claiming that Christ's death is soteriologically efficacious while simultaneously rejecting the penal and substitutionary elements which, the Bible teaches, makes it efficacious.
You keep saying this. If you say it three times, that doesn't mean it's true.
You've told us a lot about what the Bible teaches, but you haven't actually produced any passage from the Bible teaching it.
Romans 6:4-5:
'Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin.'
There's little that's penal there, and nothing substitutionary. If we are united with Christ in a death like his, then we will be united with him in a resurrection like his. From which it follows: if Christ dies instead of us, then Christ is raised instead of us. If Christ is crucified as a substitute for our old self, then the body of sin is not destroyed and we are still enslaved to sin.
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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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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Deuce.
(It's more tennis than poker after all.)
It's dispositional.
I see it, always have, like all ordinary people, including the High Priest and Jesus, of any denomination since the day it happened.
It just can't be true.
[ 19. January 2017, 09:54: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I've heard it said that the Orthodox emphasise union with Christ rather substitution - our identification with him in his death and resurrection.
This emphasis isn't unknown I'm the West, far from it - but it tends to be more the preserve of the mystic or those with a more Holiness form of spirituality.
I'm not saying it's absent from the Big R Reformed traditions, but they do tend to more juridical and propositional in tone.
At the extreme this can reduce the Gospel to a set of 'sound doctrines' to which one gives assent, rather than a mystery to be embraced and embodied ...
At any rate, I'm waiting for Kaplan to engage with what people are saying, not what he thinks they are saying.
No-one has said that Milton was Arian because of PSA ...
However, it is a common charge that PSA bifurcates the Trinity and I've heard Orthodox accuse Calvinists and other Protestants of Nestorianism, modalism and lots of other things besides.ind you, some of these are Hyperdox converts from Protestantism and so keen to distance themselves from their former affiliation that they accuse it of anything and everything.
Let's have some proper listening,from whichever perspective we come from.
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
you do not turn nonsense into sense by putting the words 'God can' in front of it.
Nonsense in this context is claiming that Christ's death is soteriologically efficacious while simultaneously rejecting the penal and substitutionary elements which, the Bible teaches, makes it efficacious.
You keep assuming your interpretation of the Bible is the only possible interpretation. The Bible teaches a lot of things, depending on who's reading it. Yours is not the only reading.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You keep assuming your interpretation of the Bible is the only possible interpretation. The Bible teaches a lot of things, depending on who's reading it. Yours is not the only reading.
I was half wondering whether it was possible to read the bible* without other input and come up with PSA. I don't think it is possible.
* and yes, I also don't think it is possible to read the bible without context. But just as a mental exercise I was wondering if a quote unquote "straight" reading would give PSA.
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arse
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
mt will respond I'm sure.
I don't see how it could be avoided from virtually any point of view apart from an enlightened one. It wasn't at the time by the Jews and Jesus Himself. I can't see how anybody actually familiar with the text, even just read to them in liturgy, East and West, could avoid it, would have had the impetus to.
PSA is no worse than damnationism and a host of other unenlightened beliefs of the vast majority of Christians.
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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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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
mt will respond I'm sure.
I don't see how it could be avoided from virtually any point of view apart from an enlightened one. It wasn't at the time by the Jews and Jesus Himself. I can't see how anybody actually familiar with the text, even just read to them in liturgy, East and West, could avoid it, would have had the impetus to.
That simply doesn't work, Martin, given that Orthodoxy doesn't have a notion of PSA. Simply repeating that it is the only possible reading is no better than me saying I don't think it is a possible reading.
As I see it, there are actually diverse voices in the gospels about the atonement which do not speak with one voice about it all. Picking a few verses at random seems to give PSA, picking other ones give Ransom or CV.
An person reading it alone wouldn't get PSA - why would you think that they would. And stop just saying that they would man, give some reasons.
quote:
PSA is no worse than damnationism and a host of other unenlightened beliefs of the vast majority of Christians.
Not even starting on that tangent.
I don't even really see an argument that the gospel Jesus saw the world in terms of PSA. Why do you think that?
[ 19. January 2017, 14:40: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Isaiah 53. It was unavoidable. Is that not in Orthodox liturgy?
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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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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Isaiah 53. It was unavoidable. Is that not in Orthodox liturgy?
I'm guessing it is, but then clearly there are a group of Christians who don't see this as unavoidably pointing to PSA - otherwise it'd be part of Orthodox theology.
It is a strange thing to claim something is unavoidable when clearly the "obvious" implications have been avoided for a very long time.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I'm in no sense vouching for this, but according to this link the Orthodox position (that satisfaction is "blasphemous") differs from the Western reading of Isaiah 53 because of differences in the biblical texts East uses verses West.
I've no idea if this is a loadofcrap, but it would certainly explain a lot of stuff.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Trinitarians (together with others, of course) are fully able to believe contradictory things
They have no choice, given that the doctrine of the Trinity transcends human powers of conceptualisation.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Milton's ideas about PSA were not as far as I can tell in any way odd.
If you don't find what you describe as Milton's implication that "Raphael, or Gabriel or any other angel could have freely assumed the guilt" as odd, then you have a very idiosyncratic conception of oddness.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Romans 6:4-5:
'Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin.'
There's little that's penal there, and nothing substitutionary.
We have already dealt with this.
It is not the sort of "either/or" intolerance of ambiguity demanded by the authoritarian personality.
The fact that Christ's death represents PSA does not preclude its being used to teach or illustrate other spiritual lessons.
For example, Jesus himself in Mark 10:45 tells the disciples that "even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many".
The verse contains PSA, but in context Jesus is employing it not to teach PSA, but instead using his death as a useful picture of the humility he requires from disciples.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Kaplan Corday quote:
The fact that Christ's death represents PSA does not preclude its being used to teach or illustrate other spiritual lessons.
For example, Jesus himself in Mark 10:45 tells the disciples that "even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many".
The verse contains PSA, but in context Jesus is employing it not to teach PSA, but instead using his death as a useful picture of the humility he requires from disciples.
I'm not sure what you are arguing, but clearly the verse refers to ransom theory, which is not related to PSA, is it?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Kaplan, you seem to be seeing PSA in every reference to the atonement in the scriptures, even those that are more than capable of being interpreted differently.
Why does the 'ransom' in that reference have to be understood in a penal way? It's not implicit nor inherent in the text. I'm not saying that it is impossible to construct a PSA understanding of the atonement from the scriptures, that's one thing ...
But to start reading it into each and every reference seems to be taking things too far.
Also, you still haven't dealt with the issue of how and why various Christian traditions have come to different conclusions to those you have come to, from the same scriptural data.
Who says your interpretation or my interpretation is THE definitive one?
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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
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Isaiah 53. It was unavoidable. Is that not in Orthodox liturgy?
I'm guessing it is, but then clearly there are a group of Christians who don't see this as unavoidably pointing to PSA - otherwise it'd be part of Orthodox theology.
It is a strange thing to claim something is unavoidable when clearly the "obvious" implications have been avoided for a very long time.
They weren't avoided by Jesus. As KC pointed out. And regardless of any theology, they weren't and aren't avoided by the vast majority of Christians. Or is it only since Calvin that Protestants alone have believed that He died for, suffered for our sins? I'm not being snotty. Just the bloke on the bus.
Ordinary Christians, in the very main, believe all manner of conservative stuff that stares them in the face when they open or hear the bible. So PSA by any other name wasn't in that until C17th Switzerland?
Are Catholics and Orthodox in particular excluded from that?
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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
Kaplan, you seem to be seeing PSA in every reference to the atonement in the scriptures, even those that are more than capable of being interpreted differently.
Why does the 'ransom' in that reference have to be understood in a penal way? It's not implicit nor inherent in the text. I'm not saying that it is impossible to construct a PSA understanding of the atonement from the scriptures, that's one thing ...
But to start reading it into each and every reference seems to be taking things too far.
Also, you still haven't dealt with the issue of how and why various Christian traditions have come to different conclusions to those you have come to, from the same scriptural data.
Who says your interpretation or my interpretation is THE definitive one?
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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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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Milton's ideas about PSA were not as far as I can tell in any way odd.
If you don't find what you describe as Milton's implication that "Raphael, or Gabriel or any other angel could have freely assumed the guilt" as odd, then you have a very idiosyncratic conception of oddness.
Milton has God expound PSA. Premise.
In the exposition, God states that the one who assumes humanity's guilt must be sinless.
This premise is part of the standard exposition of PSA.
Angels are sinless. This is uncontroversial (assuming the literal existence of angels).
Therefore, angels could have assumed humanity's guilt. Conclusion.
The conclusion may be odd, but it is validly drawn from the standard exposition of PSA and a statement about angels.
The only way to avoid the conclusion is to bolt on a special additional premise that only God can freely assume sin. But that, given the standard presentation of PSA, is an entirely ad hoc premise: the only reason to adopt it is to avoid the conclusion.
(Also, I've never seen or heard a presentation of PSA that states such a premise.)
Of course, you could step back a step and acknowledge that nobody can freely assume someone else's sin and guilt. (*) (Not that I've ever seen or heard a presentation of PSA that does that.) Then add as a special premise that God is an exception to that and can. But again that's an entirely ad hoc exception: you're only introducing because you need it for the theory to work. You're not giving any reason why God is a special case here. (It's not because God is omnipotent because if that allows God to assume guilt it also allow God to enable any sinless being to freely assume guilt.)
In short, either Milton is correct, or else he isn't for reasons amounting effectively to 'because I say so'. Which when God is invoked as the reason one says so counts as pseudo-mystical waffle if anything does.
(*) Because it's nonsense. Guilt is the state of having performed a sinful action. The only thing 'A assumes my guilt' can mean is that the past has changed so that A performed the action and I didn't. Which again is nonsense. Otherwise, the statement is treating guilt as if it is some substance generated by wrongdoing which can be transferred from agent to agent - which qualifies as pseudo-mystical waffle if any theory of the atonement does.
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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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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
Personally, I think when it says "ransom" we're supposed to think of, well, a ransom.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Romans 6:4-5:
There's little that's penal there, and nothing substitutionary.
We have already dealt with this.
No. We haven't. You said: quote:
This passage is not remotely incompatible with PSA
which satisfied you sufficiently that you didn't bother to respond to the reasons I gave for thinking it was incompatible.
You also used the phrase: quote:
Paul's other teachings which he draws from the crucifixion which don't make central its penal or substitutionary elements
which is true in the sense that Tolstoy's Anna Karenina doesn't make central dressing up as a bat to fight crime.
quote:
For example, Jesus himself in Mark 10:45 tells the disciples that "even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many".
The verse contains PSA, but in context Jesus is employing it not to teach PSA, but instead using his death as a useful picture of the humility he requires from disciples.
The verse does not contain PSA.
I repeat:
quote:
You've told us a lot about what the Bible teaches, but you haven't actually produced any passage from the Bible teaching it.
The closest you've got to responding to this is that you've asserted with no supporting argument that a verse containing a reference to a ransom is somehow a reference not to a ransom theory but to penal substitution.
[ 19. January 2017, 22:27: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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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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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Come on, Kaplan, you can do better than this ...
Or is it a case of of the only item in your toolbox is a hammer then everything looks like a nail?
The verses quoted in recent posts strike me as capable of being interpreted in various ways and according to various models of the atonement.
That doesn't obviate PSA, but it is to say that we shouldn't automatically read PSA into every single scriptural reference to the atonement purely because PSA happens to be the predominant model in our own particular tradition.
'It has to fit because I say so ...' or 'It has to fit because I'm an evangelical and my evangelical tradition says so ...'
How does that differ from, 'I don't see PSA in those verses because I'm a liberal / Orthodox / an evangelical with a broader view of the atonement [delete as appropriate] because my tradition says so?'
It's one thing to assert how biblical a particular view is, quite another to demonstrate as much in a water-tight way.
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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
Ransom paid in sacrifice of life to God and/or death and/or Satan sure as Hell looks like the exacting of punishment. For sin. That's how ordinary people have always seen it, Jews, Greeks, Leicesterites, Papuans. Dress it up how you like, substitution is for punishment. That Gregory of Nazianzus rightly denied all of this is wonderful. Nobody else from Augustine onwards clearly, effectively, simply did in the West.
I still bet you the average Orthodox, Syriac, Nestorian, Copt believed and believes that Jesus had to die for us to be forgiven, for the wages of sin to be paid.
I'm prepared to be astounded that that isn't so, but they'd have to tell me. Their privileged, enlightened peers here cannot. I need the voices of the common, typical, Eastern Christian.
That's how badly enculturated I am by Western thinking culminating in Calvin. I can't not see PSA by any name in the bible, in the human mind of Jesus and in virtually every ordinary Christian mind.
And as in so many things, I want to be not even wrong.
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Gamaliel, all we can see is hammer and nail, yes. And I don't believe it at all any more whereas KC, and even Enoch to me still, does. Ransom is penal. Substitution is penal.
I am that consistently dumb. Like most people.
[ 19. January 2017, 23:13: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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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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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Martin quote:
Ransom is penal. Substitution is penal.
Ransom is not penal. It's not a penalty imposed on by a judge in court. It's something extorted by a kidnapper!
Substitution is not penal. It just means "instead of", as, for example, the use of an understudy in a play or replacement in a game of football. It's only penal substitution when the suffix 'penal' is applied.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
What Kwesi said.
The argument is ridiculously circular, Martin, when you say "The Orthodox must believe in PSA or else they can't believe Jesus died for our sins."
News flash. People can and do think Jesus died for our sins without believing in PSA. Because the two are not coterminous.
Imagine I believed that there was a firmament between the earth and the upper regions, and that rain was water falling through holes in this firmament, and the stars were pinpricks of light shining through these same holes. It would be absurd to say, "Ah, you believe it rains, right? So how can you not believe in my firmament?" Nor would it make any sense to say, "I don't know how the Orthodox can not believe in my firmament. Don't they believe it rains?"
So with PSA and the atonement. It's not the only explanation of the atonement. So someone can believe Christ atoned for our sins without believing in PSA. Because the two are not identical. Because the atonement can stand without PSA.
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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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
and as in so many things, I want to be not even wrong.
Out of interest, what is the measure of wrong as applied to yourself; how could you possibly know if you were wrong?
Just read a scripture this morning in John. " My sheep hear my voice".. another they will not follow. Logic in this chapter suggests that if you don't hear it,you don't want to. On the topic, I agree with you totally, no atonement concept has any meaning if you take out the penal content.
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Martin quote:
Ransom is penal. Substitution is penal.
Ransom is not penal. It's not a penalty imposed on by a judge in court. It's something extorted by a kidnapper!
Substitution is not penal. It just means "instead of", as, for example, the use of an understudy in a play or replacement in a game of football. It's only penal substitution when the suffix 'penal' is applied.
Exactly.
And, again: both ransom and PSA suggest that sin is costly. It cannot simply be waved away, it has consequences. And both ransom and PSA suggest that Jesus paid that price-- for us. But they differ, among other things, in who that price is paid to (the "direction" or impact of the atonement). And that difference is very very significant, because the two theories present very very different views of God's disposition toward sinners:
1. ransom: God is a rescuer who frees us from our (to some degree self-imposed) bondage to the enemy through our traitorous sin. God's primary disposition towards us is one of compassion and grief for the deep destructive consequences of sin.
2. PSA: God the Father is a stern judge who condemns us to death for our sin. Jesus the Son is a compassionate brother who pays the price for our sin. As mentioned before, this suggests a biforcation within the persons of the trinity: Jesus' disposition towards us is compassion, but the disposition of the Father towards us is one of wrath that must be appeased.
Those are two very, very different views of God. That's no small difference.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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