Source: (consider it)
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Thread: One Atonement
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by cliffdweller: quote: Originally posted by Gamaliel: So the world falls into two neat categories:
1) The Evangelicals. 2) Everyone Else.
How do I go about changing teams? Is there a rigorous vetting process?
I'm not changing sides, I'm stocking with the Evangelicals. Not in the sense given above, but because the Evangelicals are a wide group, so any pigeon-holing will be inaccurate. Me? I'm not liberal enough to comfortably fit with the open evos but Conservative Evangelical is a term which assumes quite a lot I which I am not comfortable with.
But this is about atonement theories:
PSA: Yes I'm happy with it*. It explains a lot about what happened at the atonement. But it does not explain everything.
Christus Victor[i]: A modern theory derived from the old [i]Ransom theory: Yes I'm happy with them both*. They explain a lot about what happened at the atonement. But they do not explain everything.
I prefer, however to stand back, and look at a larger narrative, which starts with the Last Supper, and ends with the ascension. The date of the crucifixion and the upper that proceeded the passion tie it closely with the Passover, a spring festival, rather than with the autumnal Atonement.
The Passover is about bringing Gods people out from slavery to freedom. The two main themes are freedom and building a people of God, and it is not only just the Jesus died for me thing which some Evangelicals major on (and some Jesuits like as well), but also corporate, about God bringing out a people for himself.
It is also about the atonement, you'd have to rip out quite a large part of the New Testament to say otherwise, but the atonement works within a framework of God setting his people free, and not the other way around.
Those who go for PSA alone or Christus Victor alone or anything else alone have made a big mistake. What was achieved at the Passion of Jesus was far bigger than that.
Its even bigger than fitting it all into the context of freedom and calling out a people, but we all have to start somewhere: It is bigger than we can possibly imagine.
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*But not happy with the way those who are against these theories caricature them.
-------------------- Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by cliffdweller: Jay, could you include a few verbs in those sentences? I'm having trouble following your train of thought with all those "one lyric with..." fragments-- are those suggestions? observations? arguments? to what end?
Oh sorry, Jamat had asked what would be left if you took out PSA.* The first paragraph was describing that there were graduations . The remaining paragraphs alternated between increasingly wide definitions of things to be taken out (depending on what you were claiming), with a summary of what you still had.
Broadly there was a noticeable difference between the new songs and older songs (that I knew of). All (unsurprisingly) contained other content, but the newer ones almost always came through the me and the cross, whereas the older ones almost always came through god being in control.
*my broad position is that you could take any one biblical model out, and the others will still just cover the gaps, but you have to work at it and will have ugly transitions needed when looking at the area where the removed picture works best. Although that's still better than the ugliness of using a picture totally outside it's competency, it's pushing things to the limits.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by cliffdweller: quote: Originally posted by Gamaliel: So the world falls into two neat categories:
1) The Evangelicals. 2) Everyone Else.
How do I go about changing teams? Is there a rigorous vetting process?
Depends on which team you're moving to. I mean, everyone knows that Team Everyone Else has no standards at all and will take just about anyone.
-------------------- 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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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
balaam wrote quote: I prefer, however to stand back, and look at a larger narrative, which starts with the Last Supper, and ends with the ascension. The date of the crucifixion and the upper that proceeded the passion tie it closely with the Passover, a spring festival, rather than with the autumnal Atonement.
The Passover is about bringing Gods people out from slavery to freedom. The two main themes are freedom and building a people of God, and it is not only just the Jesus died for me thing which some Evangelicals major on (and some Jesuits like as well), but also corporate, about God bringing out a people for himself.
It is also about the atonement, you'd have to rip out quite a large part of the New Testament to say otherwise, but the atonement works within a framework of God setting his people free, and not the other way around.
I'm glad someone has at last addressed the need for these two things to be brought together.
"..the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" is John's way of putting it. Of course, it isn't the lamb of God who takes away sin - it is the goat of God, in the Day of Atonement ritual. John is noted for running double images and metaphors in his gospel (there are whole books on that) and here is one. The point being of course that Jesus is the one to whom the whole of the OT points, however disparate it may appear to us. Jesus is the sacrificial goat as much as the sacrificial lamb.
The day of atonement involves the call to repentance as well as the healing of the cosmos initiated by God. That describes much of Jesus's teaching. In this context, in God's kairos, Jesus's life, death and resurrection are the day of atonement. So whilst I'd put things slightly differently, I'm glad to see it expressed a bit differently.
-------------------- Anglo-Cthulhic
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by cliffdweller: Jay, could you include a few verbs in those sentences? I'm having trouble following your train of thought with all those "one lyric with..." fragments-- are those suggestions? observations? arguments? to what end?
Thank you for saying that Cliffdweller. I was having the same problem but was too polite to say so.
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
Whereas I am all too rarely polite
-------------------- "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: quote: Originally posted by Marvin the Martian: quote: Originally posted by Jamat: What I am saying is that you do not have a gospel unless you have sin sorted and that cannot happen without Jesus sorting it.
I've posted numerous times to this thread about how sin can be "sorted" without recourse to PSA.
OK, sorry, though I recall the issue was justice. You think it is not a problem? PSA is very justice oriented.
I don't agree that God choosing not to punish us (or anyone else) for our sins is a denial of justice. What's so wrong with the idea of forgiveness?
-------------------- Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Marvin the Martian: quote: Originally posted by Jamat: quote: Originally posted by Marvin the Martian: quote: Originally posted by Jamat: What I am saying is that you do not have a gospel unless you have sin sorted and that cannot happen without Jesus sorting it.
I've posted numerous times to this thread about how sin can be "sorted" without recourse to PSA.
OK, sorry, though I recall the issue was justice. You think it is not a problem? PSA is very justice oriented.
I don't agree that God choosing not to punish us (or anyone else) for our sins is a denial of justice. What's so wrong with the idea of forgiveness?
Absolutely, Marvin. Biblical justice is not punishing the guilty (much less the not guilty), but righting the wrong. Jesus does this cosmically, by breaking the power of sin and death through His death and resurrection.
I just don't get this idea of retribution. To me it seems just to multiply woes; no-one gains. To suggest this is some kind of morality seems to fly in the face of all that Jesus says about forgiveness. If someone nicks my computer, I just want it back. I have no interest in seeing the perpetrator punished. For as long as I can remember, certainly back to primary school days, I've been baffled by the idea that it's better that two people suffer than that only one does. It's just bonkers. Deter, by all means, if you must, even deprive someone of their liberty, if it's necessary for the protection of others. But punish? Why? Who gains by it, not the person punished, nor yet the person who is dehumanised by delivering the punishment. Certainly not God, who loves all who He has created, flawed though we all, without exception, are.
-------------------- To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Superb.
-------------------- Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Gamaliel: Yes, Kwesi. For all Martin's cavilling, I think PSA proponents are flagging something that needs addressing - and part of the attraction of PSA is that it addresses the 'sin and guilt issue' in a way that some of the other models don't...
What sin and guilt issue? Whose? How do Muslims sin? What is Hindu guilt? Neanderthals'? The half of born humanity that died in infancy? The three quarters of conceived humanity that wasn't born? [ 01. May 2017, 21:35: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
-------------------- Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Mudfrog: I think that all of us would agree that without the cross and the vindication of the resurrection, there can be no salvation, no Christian faith. ...
Gamaliel, mr cheesy, mousethief all answer what follows. And yeah, for sure, there's no Christianity without Christ. And no awareness of salvation. Which is the case for the vast majority of humanity. And the rest of us. Those of us who think we have an awareness. The reality will shatter that dark vision of theories' glass. We won't need theories in paradise.
-------------------- Love wins
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Joly Jape quote: I just don't get this idea of retribution. To me it seems just to multiply woes; no-one gains. To suggest this is some kind of morality seems to fly in the face of all that Jesus says about forgiveness. If someone nicks my computer, I just want it back. I have no interest in seeing the perpetrator punished.
The problem with your computer example, Jolly Jape, is that in a secular context it is not simply a question of an individual's desire to have his/ her stolen property returned because there is a societal interest in the discouragement of theft. If justice was to be satisfied simply by the return of stolen property then a thief would not be discouraged in the exercise of his/her profession. Punishment has a role to play in the discouragement of crime and anti-social behaviour. Thus, a juridical approach to sin would see the necessity of punishment for the promotion of righteous behaviour, and that while in the "corrupted currents of this world offence's guilded hand may shove by justice, 'tis not so above," as Hamlet observed. There has to be an ultimate reckoning, retribution for sinful behaviour, hence the need for penal substitution if we are to be saved from our just deserts. (Claimed ignorance of what is right by "gentiles" is no defence, Martin, see Romans 1).
To my mind the gospel presents the problem of sin not in terms of a formal legal process prompted by the requirements of justice, but of problems within a family that can only be resolved by an outpouring of grace. Thus, the father runs to embrace the prodigal stinking of pig and unprompted restores to him the symbols of sonship, which not only the elder son but also the prodigal recognises as undeserved. The parable ends with an unresolved confrontation in the farmyard between the elder son insisting on his just rights and the father just happy to get his son back. Atonement is not a matter of satisfying the terms of a contract but of human and divine reconciliation in which, as Martin might say, 'love wins'.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Martin60: We won't need theories in paradise.
But in the meantime we have several sometimes conflicting theories. all of which explain something of what God has done, and ll of which are inadequate to the task of actually explaining what God has done. Which is where faith and trust come in.
But is that greater than theories or just another theory to add to the mix?
-------------------- Last ever sig ...
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Marvin the Martian: What's so wrong with the idea of forgiveness?
Just that the reasoning is based on a category error as I posted above but no one cared to comment on.
-------------------- 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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Gamaliel: Somewhere along the line the original Evangelical message, so clear in the scriptures, was lost. It must have been those evil, wicked Catholics and Orthodox who obscured it ...
It's a fair cop. We'll come clean. We killed all the protoevangelicals and used their bones as frames around our icons.
quote: Originally posted by Marvin the Martian: I don't agree that God choosing not to punish us (or anyone else) for our sins is a denial of justice. What's so wrong with the idea of forgiveness?
Indeed, killing an innocent man for the crimes of the guilty man isn't justice on anyone's definition. It's a gross miscarriage of justice. And "it's not if God does it" doesn't change the fact.
quote: Originally posted by Mudfrog: I think that all of us would agree that without the cross and the vindication of the resurrection, there can be no salvation, no Christian faith. ...
Not sure what you mean by the "vindication of the resurrection." The resurrection doesn't vindicate. It destroys death. Here is the Orthodox atonement theory. We sing it over 100 times in our Paschal service alone, and throughout Paschatide as well.
Christ is risen from the dead, tramping down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.
-------------------- This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Gamaliel: Jamat's rather binary and dualistic world,
So lets have a few Biblical/Christian binaries. Saved/unsaved lost/found free/bound grace/law Why are you so against clarity of distinction. In the end there is going to be one big binary Enter into the joy of thy Lord vs depart from me I never knew you.
-------------------- 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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Mousethief:The resurrection doesn't vindicate.
God's vindication of Christ.
-------------------- 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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Mousethief: killing an innocent man for the crimes of the guilty man isn't justice on anyone's definition. It's a gross miscarriage of justice. And "it's not if God does it" doesn't change the fact.
Depends a lot how you frame it. You can get into the straw man as much as you like but the essential nub of it is that God took care of the sin issue without 'overlooking' or negating the seriousness of sin. Anthropocentric outrage is just the result of an analogy taken too far. [ 02. May 2017, 00:38: Message edited by: Jamat ]
-------------------- 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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: quote: Mousethief:The resurrection doesn't vindicate.
God's vindication of Christ.
God vindicated Christ at Christ's baptism.
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: You can get into the straw man as much as you like but the essential nub of it is that God took care of the sin issue without 'overlooking' or negating the seriousness of sin.
Straw man my arse. Show it to be a straw man, don't just claim it.
quote: Anthropocentric outrage is just the result of an analogy taken too far.
I'm not outraged. You mad bro?
I love how this is the iron-clad Way That It Happened, until it's inconveniently shown to be inconsistent, at which point it switches to being an analogy.
-------------------- This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Mousethief: Straw man my arse. Show it to be a straw man, don't just claim it.
It's a strawman because it is not what PSA actually teaches. It is what YOU and critics say.
What PSA actually teaches is that sin needed atonement. This goes way back to Exodus and the teaching of the 'day of atonement'.(Ex 29:36, Lev 16:26, 9,7) The concept of sin as endemic in humanity is clearly shown as incompatible with God's character. If atonement was not made, that holiness would break out on the Israelites and they would be destroyed. Your problem is that you do not grasp the huge category error involved when comparing this to human justice. It is nothing like human justice. It is more like God is fire, people are water. Fire cannot exist in the midst of water. One or the other will be destroyed. What the atonement does is enable coexistence. Carried forward to The NT, it is enabled in Christ. [QUOTE]
-------------------- 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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Mousethief:God vindicated Christ at Christ's baptism.
I do not disagree with you about that but I think the resurrection was a more definitive vindication since you could also argue that he did so at the transfiguration.
Both his baptism and transfiguration were local events with limited witnesses some of whom were not equipped to grasp what they witnessed. The resurrection on the other hand was a public and universally attested event which is actually only possible to deny by lies and rewriting of history, even after 2000 years.
-------------------- 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 don't have an issue with your 'our God is a burning fire' emphasis and as far as I know, neither has any Christian tradition other than the more liberal or milk and water ones.
Mousethief can tell us whether this is the case, but the Orthodox certainly appear to believe that we'd all be burnt to a crisp, as it were, if it weren't for God's grace and for the atonement. If we caught a glimpse of God's glory without protective clothing as it were, then we'd be toast ...
The issue isn't trying to elide the atonement or God's justice or 'The problem of sin' - the issue is whether we see that in penal terms in the sense of God the Father 'punishing' his Son in some way.
That's the problem people have with PSA, not whether sin is serious or not.
All I am saying is that whilst it is a neat solution in the way it explains how a holy God can forgive sinful humanity without compromising his holiness and justice, PSA raises equal and opposite problems ... the condemnation of an innocent man, a Good Cop / Bad Cop view of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son - and yes, I know that's a caricature but it is one that is thrown up if we stretch the juridical emphasis towards breaking point ...
As for the ultimate binary division between the saved and the lost - yes, I'm with you there but we're not there yet ...
On the resurrection, yes, I can see it as a stamp of approval if you like, a vindication of the 'finished work of Christ - but it is much more than that - t is the despoiling of Death and Hell, the triumph over the grave - the way open to eternal life ...
-------------------- Let us with a gladsome mind Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat:
Both his baptism and transfiguration were local events with limited witnesses some of whom were not equipped to grasp what they witnessed. The resurrection on the other hand was a public and universally attested event which is actually only possible to deny by lies and rewriting of history, even after 2000 years.
You have a very odd definition of "universally attested" there, given that denial of the reality of the resurrection has been going on since the beginning.
-------------------- arse
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Kwesi, I'm confused. I agree with your second paragraph, but it seems completely at odds with your first.
I see that society has an interest in trying to limit criminal and antisocial behaviour. Thus we need, for now, a legal system. I'm not, however, convinced we need a penal system, in the literal sense, one based on punishment. Thus, we need to incarcerate people on public safety grounds. But if the purpose of such incarceration focusses on punishment, then we skew the system in such a way as to produce all sorts of undesirable side effects, put basically, we incarcerate far too many people who shouldn't be incarcerated.
Laying all that aside, though, it seems obvious to me that this is an accommodation to the fallenness of creation, and to apply its logic to the escaton is, I suggest, inappropriate. The fact that we have punitive systems here and now does not force upon us a belief that there must be such a system in God's mind. He has many more options than we do.
-------------------- To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Jamat, you are incorrect in saying that sin needs atonement. We need atonement, to be put at one with God. God is not constrained by any one, any thing, any law. He is above all. He shows mercy on whom he will show mercy. In doing so He violates no aspect of His Personality. The quandary he is in, if I can put it like that, is not how does he forgive, but how does he save. We are under the curse of sin and death. Yes, we are forgiven, but we are not saved from the ontological state of dying, day by day. We need to be joined to the risen life of Christ, and in order for that to happen, Christ needed to share our humanity, to go through death and to rise again. That is the atonement. it's not about sin, or even the forgiveness of sin. It's about Life! [ 02. May 2017, 07:31: Message edited by: Jolly Jape ]
-------------------- To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
In the resurrection it will not matter a damn what Bronze-Iron Age texts said about atonement. To the gaggle of little Kashmiri women who passed us by six months ago. To my a-rational 'believing' mother. To the North Koreans. To my atheist dad who died obscenely nearly 40 years ago. To anybody and everybody of the trillions of us. We will all be newly metamorphosed in paradise. For real. The inertia of maggot weakness and ignorance, of stories, will not shackle us.
I know this because of Jesus.
-------------------- Love wins
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: quote: Marvin the Martian: What's so wrong with the idea of forgiveness?
Just that the reasoning is based on a category error as I posted above but no one cared to comment on.
Do you mean this "category error"?
-------------------- Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Marvin the Martian: quote: Originally posted by Jamat: quote: Marvin the Martian: What's so wrong with the idea of forgiveness?
Just that the reasoning is based on a category error as I posted above but no one cared to comment on.
Do you mean this "category error"?
quote: No, this one...the big issue at the heart of this is whether God can just forgive as we are enjoined to forgive each other?
The standard answer is that forgive is used in 2 senses. If you wrong me and seek forgiveness then the Christian thing to do is to offer what is sought.
But when Jesus said to the man lying on the stretcher "your sins are forgiven" this was not forgiveness of the same nature and he incensed the Pharisees by assuming the authority of God. It was not human to human interaction that was at issue. The word forgive assumes a meaning in the second case, of a reconciliation of man and God.
Pretty well all of Paul's letters are dedicated to aspects and out workings of this reconciliation. In Romans, the word 'propitiation' is used to describe what Jesus did and the word 'reconciliation' or atonement was its outcome. So the present discussion follows. What was this propitiation, how does it work and what is its outcome?
-------------------- 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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jolly Jape: Jamat, you are incorrect in saying that sin needs atonement. We need atonement, to be put at one with God. God is not constrained by any one, any thing, any law. He is above all. He shows mercy on whom he will show mercy. In doing so He violates no aspect of His Personality. The quandary he is in, if I can put it like that, is not how does he forgive, but how does he save. We are under the curse of sin and death. Yes, we are forgiven, but we are not saved from the ontological state of dying, day by day. We need to be joined to the risen life of Christ, and in order for that to happen, Christ needed to share our humanity, to go through death and to rise again. That is the atonement. it's not about sin, or even the forgiveness of sin. It's about Life!
We obviously need forgiveness. We live lives where we miss the mark at every turn. But I think you have a chicken and egg problem. We can only be joined with Christ in his resurrection AFTER we are justified and that occurs because God chooses to see us as righteous because of our choice to accept Christ's atoning sacrifice.
I think Watchman Née nailed it in 'The Normal Christian Life' in his exposition of Romans 6. 1.Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Christ 2.we reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive to God which in turn enables us to 3. yield our members to God as instruments of righteousness.
Each step builds on the one before.
-------------------- 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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: No, this one...the big issue at the heart of this is whether God can just forgive as we are enjoined to forgive each other?
And as I said, the Lord's Prayer indicates that He can.
quote: The standard answer is that forgive is used in 2 senses. If you wrong me and seek forgiveness then the Christian thing to do is to offer what is sought.
But when Jesus said to the man lying on the stretcher "your sins are forgiven" this was not forgiveness of the same nature and he incensed the Pharisees by assuming the authority of God. It was not human to human interaction that was at issue. The word forgive assumes a meaning in the second case, of a reconciliation of man and God.
Yes it does. That doesn't require punishment though, only forgiveness.
You seem to be saying that God is less able to simply forgive someone's transgressions than we are. That doesn't sound like much of a God to me.
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: It is more like God is fire, people are water. Fire cannot exist in the midst of water. One or the other will be destroyed.
If the "fire" of God cannot coexist with the "water" of humanity, then how do you explain Jesus? He was fully God and fully human. "Fire" and "water" coexisting.
Also, fire can totally exist in the midst of water.
-------------------- Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
No, what Watchman Nee was saying was more about our response rather than God's initiative - our response to God's initiative if you like ...
We are to reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus ...
It doesn't say that God 'reckons' us that way - although he may well do, depending on how we understand other verses that deal with this particular issue - but that we are to 'reckon ourselves' that way ...
Of course, a biblical case can be made for the emphasis you are highlighting here - which is why the Reformers made such a case, because they interpreted the scriptures that way ...
What some of us have been trying to say is that there are other ways of understanding those verses and passages - and not just in the way the Reformers and the way Protestantism has tended to do ever since ...
The Apostle Paul in his epistles was addressing the issue of how Gentiles could be included in the Covenant alongside believing Jews ... that's what Romans is all about, that's what Galatians is about.
That's the context. 'Hang on a minute ... we have a problem here ... how can God justify these Gentile converts when they don't have the Mosaic Law ... here's how ...' And hence the Epistle to the Romans and the elaborations on that theme in Galatians.
The Gentiles can't possibly be justified by observing the Law because they don't have it. There must be some other way - by the grace of God and through faith in Christ ... and while we're at it, it's always been that way because Abraham was justified by faith ...
That's the core of Paul's argument.
He was dealing with a particular first century issue and in so doing exploring some pretty cosmic /universal territory ...
The 16th Reformers emphasised themes they detected in Romans and applied them to their own 16th century set of issues - how we are justified before God without the whole medieval panoply of Indulgences, private masses, chantry chapels for prayers for the souls of the dead, Purgatory and so on and so forth ...
'Aha! Bingo! We are justified by faith just like Abraham was ...'
I'm not knocking any of that, but what I am saying is that other Christian traditions - notably that of the East, haven't interpreted things in that same way - they've tended to take a view similar or parallel to that expounded here by Jolly Jape - that God forgives because he is God and that's his prerogative - and that what the atonement does is to 'include' us in Christ's death and resurrection.
Through the grace of God, Christ 'tasted death for everyone'.
It's all there in 1 Corinthians 15.
Christ shared our likeness, he shared our humanity, he shared our death ... as he has shared in our death and broken its power, we can now - with our sins forgiven, share in his resurrection ...
'I am the Resurrection and the Life.'
In 'The Cross of Christ', John Stott makes the pertinent point that the message we find the Apostles declaring in Acts is 'Jesus and the Resurrection ...'
Yes, 'we preach Christ crucified' - but not the crucifixion without the resurrection.
It's a both/and thing.
As I've said before, for all I know the Western and Eastern 'takes' on the atonement might be complementary. They might both be true.
Or, it could be, that one side or t'other has to make adjustments ...
But however we cut it, both of the twin strands - if you like - of Christian theology - Western and Eastern - have developed views of the atonement that differ in some significant ways.
Can we make them 'fit'? or does one side or the other (or both?) have to make adjustments for that to happen?
The kind of view of the atonement that Jolly Jape is putting forward - if I understand him correctly - isn't the kind of 'legal fiction' model favoured in some Western traditions - God chooses to 'reckon' us as righteous even though we aren't - but all about our being 'united' with Christ in his life, death and glorious resurrection - we are made righteous by Christ - yes - but not in a kind of legal title-deed type of way but in a more dynamic 'new and living way' where we participate in the divine nature ...
Sure, the Reformed tradition emphases that too - it doesn't leave us with a cold set of legal propositions ... but in a different kind of way.
-------------------- 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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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Yes, Gameliel, that's spot on what I was trying to express.
-------------------- To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: What PSA actually teaches is that sin needed atonement. This goes way back to Exodus and the teaching of the 'day of atonement'.(Ex 29:36, Lev 16:26, 9,7) The concept of sin as endemic in humanity is clearly shown as incompatible with God's character. If atonement was not made, that holiness would break out on the Israelites and they would be destroyed. Your problem is that you do not grasp the huge category error involved when comparing this to human justice. It is nothing like human justice. It is more like God is fire, people are water. Fire cannot exist in the midst of water. One or the other will be destroyed. What the atonement does is enable coexistence. Carried forward to The NT, it is enabled in Christ.
Amazing how you can purport to describe what PSA means without ever mentioning punishment. Basically, all you have said is "PSA means atonement," albeit with a nod to "justice" of some sort in there—though where the idea that divine justice is in a category different to human justice is beyond me. It certainly doesn't seem to be consistent with anything Jesus said.
What PSA actually teaches is that in order for atonement to happen, there must be punishment for sin—that sin has consequences and those consequences, as a matter of justice, cannot be avoided—but that Jesus voluntarily took that punishment/bore those consequences on our behalf so that we can be reconciled to God. In the original formulations of PSA, this was not so much an appeasement of divine wrath as it was an act of divine love. "For God so loved the world...."
Without the specific component of the inevitability of punishment for sin, PSA is just SA, or maybe even just A.
-------------------- 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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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Don't thank me, I need to thank you, Jolly Jape, you've help to crystalise my thinking on the issue.
-------------------- 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
Jolly Jape: I just don't get this idea of retribution. To me it seems just to multiply woes; no-one gains. To suggest this is some kind of morality seems to fly in the face of all that Jesus says about forgiveness. If someone nicks my computer, I just want it back. I have no interest in seeing the perpetrator punished.
Kwesi :The problem with your computer example, Jolly Jape, is that in a secular context it is not simply a question of an individual's desire to have his/ her stolen property returned because there is a societal interest in the discouragement of theft. If justice was to be satisfied simply by the return of stolen property then a thief would not be discouraged in the exercise of his/her profession. Punishment has a role to play in the discouragement of crime and anti-social behaviour. Thus, a juridical approach to sin would see the necessity of punishment for the promotion of righteous behaviour, and that while in the "corrupted currents of this world offence's guilded hand may shove by justice, 'tis not so above," as Hamlet observed. There has to be an ultimate reckoning, retribution for sinful behaviour, hence the need for penal substitution if we are to be saved from our just deserts. (Claimed ignorance of what is right by "gentiles" is no defence, Martin, see Romans 1).
To my mind the gospel presents the problem of sin not in terms of a formal legal process prompted by the requirements of justice, but of problems within a family that can only be resolved by an outpouring of grace. Thus, the father runs to embrace the prodigal stinking of pig and unprompted restores to him the symbols of sonship, which not only the elder son but also the prodigal recognises as undeserved. The parable ends with an unresolved confrontation in the farmyard between the elder son insisting on his just rights and the father just happy to get his son back. Atonement is not a matter of satisfying the terms of a contract but of human and divine reconciliation in which, as Martin might say, 'love wins'.
Jolly Jape: Kwesi, I'm confused. I agree with your second paragraph, but it seems completely at odds with your first.
I see that society has an interest in trying to limit criminal and antisocial behaviour. Thus we need, for now, a legal system. I'm not, however, convinced we need a penal system, in the literal sense, one based on punishment. Thus, we need to incarcerate people on public safety grounds. But if the purpose of such incarceration focusses on punishment, then we skew the system in such a way as to produce all sorts of undesirable side effects, put basically, we incarcerate far too many people who shouldn't be incarcerated.
Laying all that aside, though, it seems obvious to me that this is an accommodation to the fallenness of creation, and to apply its logic to the escaton is, I suggest, inappropriate. The fact that we have punitive systems here and now does not force upon us a belief that there must be such a system in God's mind. He has many more options than we do.
Jolly Jape, I don’t think that you and I are too far apart. I agree with you that penal systems incarcerate too many people. On the other hand there are penalties other than gaoling and I don’t think an element of punishment in sentencing in inappropriate. Do I need to elaborate further?
The point I was trying to make is that there is a danger of being sucked into the judicial paradigm as a way of understanding the atonement. IMO your allusion to the theft of your computer leads you exposed to a line of reasoning that ends up as a case for penal substitution, as I tried to demonstrate in the first paragraph of my post. Apart from any problems with the logic of PSA, the fundamental criticism of it lies in the basic assumptions from which its flawed understandings flow.
Just laws, whether they relate to inter-personal relations, the conduct of business, the treatment of the fatherless, widows and strangers, the restraint of vice and so on are designed to ensure that rewards, financial, social esteem and so on are fairly distributed. Rewards have to be merited, and infractions penalised by the denial of privileges. When applied to the material world they sustain a sense of personal and social justice that is seen as right, fair, and desirable. When applied to the religious sphere and the question of atonement, however, law only serves to highlight our weaknesses and condemn us to whatever penalty a righteous judge might impose. In the context of atonement it can only lead literally to a dead end: “none is righteous, no not one” , “the wages of sin is death” and so on.
The New Testament solves the problem with a paradigm based on grace in which God is “our father” rather than a righteous judge, we are his children rather than prisoners in the dock facing a charge sheet, (as the apostle writes: “God does not keep a record of wrongs”), and rewards are a function of our needs and not our deserts. As Jesus remarked “If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heavenly give good gifts to those who ask.”. The problem of effecting atonement lies not with an offended God unable to accept his sinful children, but of sinful children unwilling to be reconciled: the prodigal delaying his return home, the tenants of the vineyard taking their opportunity to remove the influence of the owner.
To my mind, Jolly Jape, PSA has simply got the wrong end of the stick, and we should not oblige its proponents by grasping it with them. Otherwise we shall end up like the frustrated elder brother arguing the toss with our gracious creator and saviour in the farmyard.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Jolly Jape
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# 3296
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Posted
Kwesi, I think that we are saying the same thing, really, it's just that I was wanting to engage with Jamat on his own terms, that of a basically (indeed, essentially) penal understanding of the atonement and show, not only is this mistaken, but also counter intuitive. I think we possibly do differ in the usefulness of penal ideas in the secular realm, but are in complete agreement about its lack of appropriateness in the Kingdom of God. I don't think that, in arguing against Jamat's premises we are in any way supporting the schema that emerges from such premises. Rather, we are subverting them by seeking to demolish the flawed foundations on which PSA has been built.
-------------------- To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Jolly Jape, I agree we are really on the same page, and completely understand your point of view. I just wanted to clear up the confusion of my earlier post.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Thanks Kwesi
-------------------- To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: The concept of sin as endemic in humanity is clearly shown as incompatible with God's character. If atonement was not made, that holiness would break out on the Israelites and they would be destroyed. Your problem is that you do not grasp the huge category error involved when comparing this to human justice. It is nothing like human justice. It is more like God is fire, people are water. Fire cannot exist in the midst of water. One or the other will be destroyed. What the atonement does is enable coexistence. Carried forward to The NT, it is enabled in Christ.
Look, I realize this is an analogy, and the point I and others have been striving for here is that all analogies break down so let's not push it too hard-- but seriously, dude, this particular analogy just demonstrates everything that is wrong with PSA-- at least when pushed as anything more than simply one among many metaphors.
Think about what you're saying about God's stance toward humanity if God is "fire" and we are "water". You are saying God does not, cannot, will not, have anything to do with us unredeemed humanity. That he is disgusted, repulsed-- completely incompatible-- with our sinful selves.
Yes, I get the connection there to the OT concept of holiness and the Day of Atonement. But the OT also gives us Hosea and the Psalms and the post-exilic prophets and all sorts of places that show God not as repulsed and turning away from our sinful selves but instead as sorrowful and brokenhearted by the devastation of human sin-- places that foreshadow the NT picture of God as a loving, heartbroken father anxiously watching out the window day after day longing for the day he catches us simply turn toward him before he runs madly towards us. That sort of stance toward us-- compassionate, loving-- and what it says both about US and about sin-- is completely different than what you are portraying. Sin is not a problem because it "dirties" us or because it "breaks the rules". Sin is a problem because it bears with it enormous suffering-- for us and for others and even for the planet. That is why God needs to "do something" about sin-- not because he's a stern rule-keeper who must make sure everything's right and proper. But because he is a loving, heartbroken father who can't bear what we're doing to ourselves.
Most of all, God's stance is not one of turning away from us but rather always of turning towards us. Coming to us. That's what the incarnation is all about.
Again, if PSA is only one among many metaphors the limitations of the above are not so problematic-- we can use what is helpful in the image (the seriousness of sin, the holiness of God, God's willingness to pay the price) without pressing the parts that don't work too far. It's only when PSA becomes the be-all and end-all or is treated not as metaphor but as transaction that it becomes truly toxic. [ 02. May 2017, 20:22: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
-------------------- "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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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by mousethief: quote: Originally posted by Mudfrog: I think that all of us would agree that without the cross and the vindication of the resurrection, there can be no salvation, no Christian faith. ...
Not sure what you mean by the "vindication of the resurrection."
Try This
-------------------- "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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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by cliffdweller: quote: It is more like God is fire, people are water. Fire cannot exist in the midst of water. One or the other will be destroyed. What the atonement does is enable coexistence. Carried forward to The NT, it is enabled in Christ.
Look, I realize this is an analogy, and the point I and others have been striving for here is that all analogies break down so let's not push it too hard-- but seriously, dude, this particular analogy just demonstrates everything that is wrong with PSA-- at least when pushed as anything more than simply one among many metaphors.
To be fair fairly rapidly even in the harshest formulations it's generally acknowledged that even the father takes the initiative in sending Jesus. On the other hand it shows God can and will make his dwelling within us. Even though sin is clearly still a problem that needs dealing with (which sits much happier with the Orthodox view, that sin mars us than mars God-IIUC) I'm pretty sure when Jesus asked 'if there is another way', God answered there isn't rather than I won't.
(At the other end of the church it's why I'd bet a few years in Purgatory on the Immaculate Conception being nobly protective but likely incorrect)
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Mudfrog: quote: Originally posted by mousethief: quote: Originally posted by Mudfrog: I think that all of us would agree that without the cross and the vindication of the resurrection, there can be no salvation, no Christian faith. ...
Not sure what you mean by the "vindication of the resurrection."
Try This
That is one of the most confused things I have read in a month of Fridays. As a vindication of resurrection as vindication, it leaves clarity and logical straightforwardness to be desired.
-------------------- This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Cliffdweller and Kwesi,
-------------------- This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I like that link, Mudfrog and would also be interested in Mousethief's 'take' on it. My guess would be that he'd either agree, with some caveats about the somewhat 'Protestant' sounding language, or else he may consider it to be an example of unwelcome Western convert emphases entering the Orthodox Church.
FWIW I think it's certainly right to see the Resurrection in those terms - but it is much more than that.
-------------------- 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
I find it quite different from any Orthodox teaching I've heard, and I'm suspicious as to why he even decided to go there. It strikes me very much as trying to suck up to evangelicals, like he's applied to teach at some seminary who thought he was insufficiently western. Although given his name and affiliation that seems unlikely.
-------------------- This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Clffdweller: It's only when PSA becomes the be-all and end-all or is treated not as metaphor but as transaction that it becomes truly toxic.
There is a lot in your post that I agree with but I would argue that rightly grasped it, PSA, is clear in scripture. Here This guy covers most of the ground pretty succinctly. His basic view is probably softer than mine as it is hard for me to see ANY gospel without it..rightly understood of course.
-------------------- 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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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jamat: quote: Clffdweller: It's only when PSA becomes the be-all and end-all or is treated not as metaphor but as transaction that it becomes truly toxic.
There is a lot in your post that I agree with but I would argue that rightly grasped it, PSA, is clear in scripture. Here This guy covers most of the ground pretty succinctly. His basic view is probably softer than mine as it is hard for me to see ANY gospel without it..rightly understood of course.
I'm not disputing that PSA is in Scripture. Very few here are. But it is clearly not the only image for the atonement found in Scripture or the early church. And the way multiple images are interwoven throughout the NT often even within a book or even chapter demonstrates that it is a metaphor-- not a transaction-- and must be treated as such
-------------------- "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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cliffdweller
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# 13338
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Posted
Re the blog you linked, the author begins by making the same point as me re PSA being one metaphor among many so I gotta love that. And props must be given to the author for identifying and naming clearly all the primary objections commonly raised with PSA. But I am disappointed with how very often his answer is simply "because it's not".
-------------------- "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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by cliffdweller: Re the blog you linked, the author begins by making the same point as me re PSA being one metaphor among many so I gotta love that. And props must be given to the author for identifying and naming clearly all the primary objections commonly raised with PSA. But I am disappointed with how very often his answer is simply "because it's not".
His answer generally, is 'It just is', only because he argues that it is clearly Biblical. He makes the point that while PSA is not particularly emphasised by the NT fathers, there is a lot in their writings that accords with it, but goes on to say that theology must be based directly on scripture. He also exposes the straw men and the category errors of critics. He would not say this, but the way I see the Bible metanarrative, you cannot have the others, ransom, CV and moral influence, without the foundation of PSA . However, I do agree that these models, are just that and that when using theoretical constructs you only approximate the reality. If you come back and say, but you cannot show how PSA does completely explain atonement, I would agree..but what could?
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