Thread: PSA vs. the rest Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=028827

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
Interesting argument from Richard Beck over at Experimental Theology: "When God became The Devil"

He argues that, in effect, Christus Victor made the Devil our slave-keeper, and that Christ had freed us from that slavery.

But PSA proposes that :
quote:
The problem--the evil, violent and diabolical forces arrayed against us--had been internalized, absorbed into God's character.
This, in turn leads to his closing statement:
quote:
We are no longer saved from the Devil. We are saved from God.

With penal substitutionary atonement God had become the Devil.

Any comments on this? I prefer CV for my own view, but am not really qualified to deal with the depth of this argument.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Interesting argument from Richard Beck over at Experimental Theology: "When God became The Devil"

He argues that, in effect, Christus Victor made the Devil our slave-keeper, and that Christ had freed us from that slavery.

But PSA proposes that :
quote:
The problem--the evil, violent and diabolical forces arrayed against us--had been internalized, absorbed into God's character.
This, in turn leads to his closing statement:
quote:
We are no longer saved from the Devil. We are saved from God.

With penal substitutionary atonement God had become the Devil.

Any comments on this? I prefer CV for my own view, but am not really qualified to deal with the depth of this argument.

It's a weird way to frame a common understanding of the differences between the atonement theories-- so weird in fact that it feels like it's deliberately trying to stack the deck.

The standard way of articulating the same point is to talk about the underlying question each of the 5 major theories is addressing-- their answer to the standard worldview question: What's wrong with us?-- as well as the direction of the theory in terms of who is impacted or moved by it.

Substitution and Satisfaction are both "Godward" theories because they posit that the atonement is addressing the problem that "God’s wrath or God's justice against human sinfulness puts us in danger of eternal punishment". So the force or impact of the atonement is directed Godward to "move" God or change God in relation to humanity, by "satisfying" God's wrath or justice.

Moral influence is a "humanward" theory, because it posits that the atonement is addressing the problem that "humans need to know God’s love for us on a deep level otherwise incomprehensible". So it's "humanward" because we are the ones being moved or impacted by the atonement (we can finally understand what we were unable to comprehend before).

Christus victor and ransom are "Godward" theories because they suggest the underlying problem being addressed is that "humanity is trapped and oppressed by spiritual forces beyond our control." So it's "Satanward" because Satan is the one being moved or impacted by the atonement (by being forced in some way to release us from bondage).

I think the article overstates the historical case in terms of the shift from CV to PSA-- CV was not the "sole" theory in early church history, nor is PSA the sole theory today, even among evangelicals (although many don't realize that). Note that evangelical fav C.S. Lewis frames the atonement as ransom (a "Satanward" theory) in LWW.

With those caveats though, I find myself mostly in agreement with the author in terms of the implications of PSA vs. CV.

*tangent alert*: The notion of the atonement being directed "Satanward" is key to the systematic theology of may Open Theologies, especially Greg Boyd's.

[ 04. December 2014, 22:24: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
The weird thing to me about the article is the assertion that the problem is either the Devil, or God. It appears to regard humans as entirely innocent victims of supernatural forces. There is no mention that evil might have a foothold in us, perish the thought!
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
agh... too late to correct my typo. Instead of
quote:
Christus victor and ransom are "Godward" theories
I intended to say the reverse
quote:
Christus victor and ransom are "Satanward" theories
Hopefully the context made apparent what my typing did not.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
The weird thing to me about the article is the assertion that the problem is either the Devil, or God. It appears to regard humans as entirely innocent victims of supernatural forces. There is no mention that evil might have a foothold in us, perish the thought!

That's not really true. All of the theories-- particularly the "Godward" theories-- are explicitly acknowledging the presence of evil in humanity. The question isn't really about WHY we are evil/sin, it's about what is the atonement doing ABOUT the presence of evil. Why is our sin/evil a danger to us-- are we in danger from God or from Satan?

[ 04. December 2014, 22:44: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 


[ 04. December 2014, 23:22: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
I very much agree, itsarumdo. Although, again, I'm not sure that point is relevant to what either the OP or the linked article are talking about.
 
Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
I agree that all the atonement theories acknowledge the evil within us. But the article linked to seems to gloss over it entirely.

It is all very well to picture us as being held captive by sin and the Devil. But we are not simply innocent hostages. Indeed perhaps the most horrible feature of evil is its power to corrupt. The victim of evil can be co-opted by evil, can become evil, truly guilty. So even in CV the rescue is not a simple matter of "bop the bad guy on the head, little victims escape throw flowers everywhere cheers cheers".

The presentation of PSA is even more unfair because some rhetorical sleight-of-hand has been performed. The argument goes:

* In CV the Devil is evil
* In CV the problem is that the Devil is enslaving us
* In CV the atonement deals with this problem
* Whereas in PSA the atonement deals with the wrath of God
* Therefore in PSA the problem is God
* Therefore in PSA God is evil

But this does not follow because the two "problems" are not the same. In PSA (as the writer surely must know) the problem is not the wrath of God but our evil. The wrath of God is a good thing in PSA. Whereas the attacks of the Devil are not a good thing in CV (or in any other orthodox atonement theory, of course).

Now I can understand objections to PSA along the lines of "wrath is never an appropriate response to anything". But to say that it makes God's character absorb the diabolic aspects of salvation seems incorrect. We are worried about the devil's activity because he's evil and will seek to attack the good things in us. But we are worried about the wrath of God because he's good and will seek to attack the evil things in us. It does not seem a very fine distinction.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Within the personal sphere of our influence and within the limits of our pre-agreed lifespan, and possibly a few other caveats to do with incarnation, it's only a danger to us if we agree to it - either consciously or by default. We have free will- we are expected to use it.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Within the personal sphere of our influence and within the limits of our pre-agreed lifespan, and possibly a few other caveats to do with incarnation, it's only a danger to us if we agree to it - either consciously or by default. We have free will- we are expected to use it.

Well, but again, the question at hand is not whether or not we have free will. The question at hand is what precisely IS the danger. Is the danger God's wrath-- or Satan's captivity? That's the key question behind CV v. PSA.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
As I see none of this unholy trinity - freewill, God's wrath, Satan's captivity - I find I need Jesus more than ever.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Within the personal sphere of our influence and within the limits of our pre-agreed lifespan, and possibly a few other caveats to do with incarnation, it's only a danger to us if we agree to it - either consciously or by default. We have free will- we are expected to use it.

Well, but again, the question at hand is not whether or not we have free will. The question at hand is what precisely IS the danger. Is the danger God's wrath-- or Satan's captivity? That's the key question behind CV v. PSA.
But it DOES come down to free will. As long as we are prepared to look towards God as spirits (rather than being determined to look away) I don't believe that God punishes us as individuals - we punish ourselves.

I think this world has been in danger of God's wrath a few times in history - at least twice - and although we receive a constant supply of helpers, each time this has become a serious problem, a more powerful helper has come with specific intent. Trying to work out the spiritual world is not straightforward - things don't play out in just one human lifetime. There are larger agendas. Although there are rules, the judgements humans place on it all are related to how their personal life has been affected, and do not necessarily reflect what we might see if we were looking down as observers. This life is just a transition - we metamorphose, take on a body, then remetamorphose.

The danger is Satan's captivity. On all levels - this is the constant danger, by direct threat or by trickery. CS Lerwis's Screwtape Letters got it absolutely right that the biggest victory of evil is to convince us through any means that God is not loving. We need to have friends in high places to deal with this - it is not able to be resisted by human will alone.

It's always important to know that whatever we focus on becomes greater, and dwelling on the problem of evil is not usually useful - in one sense it gives it more power that we even pay it attention. If we have to pay it attention, we should be also to our best ability giving away the fear and other negative feelings so that we are still connected to God. Hence meditation, hence the Daoist transformation of the five emotions sadness, anger, worry, fear, hysteria into the higher states of compassion, empowerment, care for all life, awe, joy ... hence Christ's message of Love and compassion.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I embrace that itsarumdo. Evil is real, whatever else it is. It is emergent of sapience and synergistically so in relationship. At least. (Although I do not see why it is necessary to invent Satan if he does not exist - but Jesus pre-resurrection said he did, so that has to be mysteriously - unhelpfully! [Smile] - good enough.) We lose innocence and we oppress each other with social systems that are worse than us as individuals. And yes we need all the help we can get and there is NONE greater than that afforded through Jesus. The truth that God is kind.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Is the danger God's wrath-- or Satan's captivity?

To me, neither. I don't believe in either.

I believe the danger is our own selfishness, our giving in to our animal instincts too often, our failure to love our neighbour or even follow the golden rule.

If we could all be saved from these three things then life on Earth would be close to heaven imo.
 
Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Is the danger God's wrath-- or Satan's captivity?

To me, neither. I don't believe in either.

I believe the danger is our own selfishness, our giving in to our animal instincts too often, our failure to love our neighbour or even follow the golden rule.

If we could all be saved from these three things then life on Earth would be close to heaven imo.

The point is that humankind is simply not capable of that.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Pomona: The point is that humankind is simply not capable of that.
Sometimes we are.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
We have to be. For God can't make us.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Pomona: The point is that humankind is simply not capable of that.
Sometimes we are.
Which is where the Grace and the individual salvationism are rather over emphasized. It's so great to get the free, undeserved and no strings attached salvation that making token efforts toward being good are deemed sufficient.

I am not convinced of what our capabilities are. I am convinced that most of us don't really try.

Could you and I be Christians if there's no salvation and no heaven? Do it right because it is right to try to do so?
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
no prophet's flag is set so...: Could you and I be Christians if there's no salvation and no heaven? Do it right because it is right to try to do so?
I can't say that I always do it right, but salvation or heaven aren't the motivation for me to be a Christian or to try to do it right.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Pomona: The point is that humankind is simply not capable of that.
Sometimes we are.
Which is where the Grace and the individual salvationism are rather over emphasized. It's so great to get the free, undeserved and no strings attached salvation that making token efforts toward being good are deemed sufficient.

I am not convinced of what our capabilities are. I am convinced that most of us don't really try.

Could you and I be Christians if there's no salvation and no heaven? Do it right because it is right to try to do so?

Agreed. But I don't think the problem is over-emphasizing grace. I think the problem is incorrectly framing the problem of sin.

The advantage of the "Satanward" theories of the atonement is that they don't frame sin as "rule-breaking" and obedience as something necessary to appease a tyrant. Rather, the Satanward theories (CV & ransom) frame sin somewhat similarly to addiction-- something that begins with our choice, but quickly and subversively (often w/o our realizing how or when) ensnares us in ways that we find difficult if not impossible to extricate ourselves from-- i.e. "slavery to sin" (John 8).

The atonement helps us to break the bondage not just of the penalty from sin but also from the power of sin. And that is good news because we have come to realize that sin is ultimately destructive. That, like addiction, the sin that once seemed harmless or pleasurable is now seen to be destructive-- of relationships, of freedom, sometimes even of life itself. So we freely grow in our obedience, in holiness, not because we fear the punishment of some stern taskmaster, but because we now see that God's ways really are the way of life-- the best possible life for us.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

Could you and I be Christians if there's no salvation and no heaven? Do it right because it is right to try to do so?

Yes - of course we could.

Plenty of atheists do.

I believe they do so with God's help as all good is from God. Of course, they don't! But willingness to care and to find and do what's right is what matters imo.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Pomona: The point is that humankind is simply not capable of that.
Sometimes we are.
Which is where the Grace and the individual salvationism are rather over emphasized. It's so great to get the free, undeserved and no strings attached salvation that making token efforts toward being good are deemed sufficient.

I am not convinced of what our capabilities are. I am convinced that most of us don't really try.

Could you and I be Christians if there's no salvation and no heaven? Do it right because it is right to try to do so?

Agreed. But I don't think the problem is over-emphasizing grace. I think the problem is incorrectly framing the problem of sin.

The advantage of the "Satanward" theories of the atonement is that they don't frame sin as "rule-breaking" and obedience as something necessary to appease a tyrant. Rather, the Satanward theories (CV & ransom) frame sin somewhat similarly to addiction-- something that begins with our choice, but quickly and subversively (often w/o our realizing how or when) ensnares us in ways that we find difficult if not impossible to extricate ourselves from-- i.e. "slavery to sin" (John 8).

The atonement helps us to break the bondage not just of the penalty from sin but also from the power of sin. And that is good news because we have come to realize that sin is ultimately destructive. That, like addiction, the sin that once seemed harmless or pleasurable is now seen to be destructive-- of relationships, of freedom, sometimes even of life itself. So we freely grow in our obedience, in holiness, not because we fear the punishment of some stern taskmaster, but because we now see that God's ways really are the way of life-- the best possible life for us.

Yes - nicely put. We have many many chances to make this decision. If God were not loving, we would only have one, or a few.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
I am perhaps reacting to a particular view of sin and atonement as several of you helpfully point out. I should ask if atonement (a word not really in my vocabulary due to its associations) is an ongoing thing, daily, in all action and thought, and second, if we can dump the association of atonement with the conversion and one-time idea?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I am perhaps reacting to a particular view of sin and atonement as several of you helpfully point out. I should ask if atonement (a word not really in my vocabulary due to its associations) is an ongoing thing, daily, in all action and thought, and second, if we can dump the association of atonement with the conversion and one-time idea?

That's a good question, and very apt.

In one sense atonement is a one-time only thing-- Christ died but once, for all.

But the Bible definitely posits "salvation" as a lifelong thing. We are "saved" not just from hell, but from hell-on-earth. As above, from the "addiction" or power of sin. From sin as a "fruitless way of life". From the destructive effects of bitterness, hatred, contempt, etc. And that very much is a work-in-progress-- and ongoing, daily activity (as my own sometimes snarky posts demonstrate).

IMHO.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
So with this view, I might be saved from my anger this morning at a careless driver as an aspect of atonement? Or from a situation which dishonesty might be easier for me than honesty?

I am less comfortable with the "died for you one time" aspect. This is the aspect that troubles my sense of a god who would require such a thing and has sentenced all to be born under a dark cloud of collective badness.
 
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on :
 
Humans as irredeemable sinners - I've never seen the point in buying that one - if it's true, it makes not a blind bit of difference what I do. Either there is no forgiveness anyway, or there is no benchmark to aim for - nothing is ever good enough.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I embrace that itsarumdo. Evil is real, whatever else it is. It is emergent of sapience and synergistically so in relationship. At least. (Although I do not see why it is necessary to invent Satan if he does not exist - but Jesus pre-resurrection said he did, so that has to be mysteriously - unhelpfully! [Smile] - good enough.) We lose innocence and we oppress each other with social systems that are worse than us as individuals. And yes we need all the help we can get and there is NONE greater than that afforded through Jesus. The truth that God is kind.

Evil is real,but what is real evil?
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

Could you and I be Christians if there's no salvation and no heaven? Do it right because it is right to try to do so?

I dunno about "being Christian" without there being salvation and heaven, since Christianity would not exist in the first place.

OTOH there are as many atheists who are just as good at being good as there are Christians, but who do it because it is The Right Thing To Do, not because of a promise of some sort of reward some vague time in the future. I tend to think that God approves of these atheists (as the Pope has said, BTW)

According to The Lord's Prayer, we are to hope (and presumably act on that hope) that His Kingdom will come on Earth, not just sit on our Salvation Badge expecting that God or someone else will do the heavy lifting. There are way too many Christians who have said the Sinner's Prayer and then stopped, doing nothing further, whatever Matthew may have reported.

Seems to me that the reward/punishment thing related to what you do as much as it does to anything the Devil or God does.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
So with this view, I might be saved from my anger this morning at a careless driver as an aspect of atonement? Or from a situation which dishonesty might be easier for me than honesty?

Yes-- I think so. You are now free to live the abundant life-- the best possible life for you-- a life free from the burden of anger, bitterness, and untruth.


quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
So with this view, I might be saved from my anger this mor
I am less comfortable with the "died for you one time" aspect. This is the aspect that troubles my sense of a god who would require such a thing and has sentenced all to be born under a dark cloud of collective badness.

This is the advantage of CV vs. PSA IMHO. CV emphasizes the unity of the Godhead more than PSA, so that we don't talk as much about "Jesus dying for your sins" as "God entering into human sin and death". Self-sacrifice rather than child sacrifice. And again, in CV it's not so much about us bad "rule-breakers" pissing off some distant and angry tyrant as it is God rescuing us from the imprisonment of sin-- the captivity (both self-imposed and Satanic) of a "futile way of life".
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
That's a strawman
PSA is not about Any anger at rulebeakers or any anger as we understand anger.
PSA is juridical. It is about an inevitable consenquence called judgement that falls on sin which is a disease all of us carry. It falls vicariously on Christ for our benefit.

PSA is not the one among many theories of atonement. Every insight brought by the others is merely an aspect of it as the foundation of the gospel.

God will not turn up to any atonement party not based on PSA,not because he is angry, not because he is disinclined and not because he is discriminatory or prejudiced,he won't turn up because he cannot. The disconnect between his holiness and our sin would consume us. It would be like trying to land on the sun.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

PSA is not the one among many theories of atonement. Every insight brought by the others is merely an aspect of it as the foundation of the gospel.

God will not turn up to any atonement party not based on PSA,not because he is angry, not because he is disinclined and not because he is discriminatory or prejudiced,he won't turn up because he cannot. The disconnect between his holiness and our sin would consume us. It would be like trying to land on the sun.

I think you're argument here is with the NT, which bears witness to all five of the primary theories of the atonement:

• satisfaction: Rom. 3:22-25; John 1:29; pretty much the entire book of Hebrews, especially ch. 9

• substitution (not that you need this): 2 Cor. 5:21, much of Romans, especially 5:16

• Moral-Influence: 1 John 3:16, Eph. 3:17-19, 2 Cor. 3:18

• ransom: Matt. 20:28, John 8:34, Heb. 9:15

• Christus victor: 2 Cor. 5:19; Heb. 2:14-18, 2 Tim. 1:9-10, 1Pet. 3:18-20

The fact that the NT speaks pretty powerfully to all five, sometimes even within the same book, demonstrates that each of the five has something to teach us about the meaning and significance of the atonement and that none can really explain it alone. Which is pretty much true of all metaphors.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
Not even sure CV is required. Jesus showed us the way to live. We do that and the rest, including any afterlife, takes care of itself. The only conversion (another word not really in my vocabulary) is saying yes to following. With possibly the payoff limited to comfort whilst alive. The afterlife will take care of itself. Needn't consider it much if at all. Nice idea, no preoccupation with it, and ethical living becomes the key issue.

In Tolstoy's words ( approx ) "a life serving others is the only one worth living". Which has profound implications. I must believe it because I have been living it, and much more clearly these past few years as life experiences forced me to drop the salvation-preoccupied views. (Which I say with the utmost respect for thosr who adhere to such beliefs.)
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
"No explanation of the atonement is as relevant of the fact of the atonement" CSLewis.
The way I see it Cliffdweller, is that all the models add value but they are models predicated on the fact and efficacy of the cross. The scripture is clear on the following points:
1. Jesus came to die.
2. His death benefited us men through holding out the hope of restored unity with God.
3. The cross was predicted.(Dan 9 and Is 53)
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
"No explanation of the atonement is as relevant of the fact of the atonement" CSLewis.

Who, as noted above, seemed partial to Ransom (one of those "Satanward" theories) as opposed to PSA.

Is this your way of retracting your earlier statement about PSA? Because Lewis seems to be explicitly addressing the PSA-only crowd here.


quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The way I see it Cliffdweller, is that all the models add value but they are models predicated on the fact and efficacy of the cross. The scripture is clear on the following points:
1. Jesus came to die.
2. His death benefited us men through holding out the hope of restored unity with God.
3. The cross was predicted.(Dan 9 and Is 53)
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

All of the 5 major theories of the atonement include the "fact and efficacy of the cross"-- in fact, that's the whole point of a "theory of atonement", that's what they're about. There's nothing about PSA that makes it superior to the other four in affirming your points. They are just five different ways or metaphors for understanding all of those things-- for affirming them and grasping them. Surely that's our goal? To marvel at the wonder of it?

Or are you just looking for an opportunity to preach to the choir? It kinda sounds like that...
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
As Shakespeare puts it "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

The fact of the benefit is more important than its description.

However, that very fact is called into question by the likes of the Chalkes of this world. It is the transformative power of the transaction and the experiential nature of God's forgiveness on the basis of repentance that is vital.

In other atonement threads on SOF, people have vilified PSA which is not that different from Ransom theory because they feel it puts God in a bad light. My point is only that it doesn't. If you take the OT roots of atonement it was about covering sin rather than dealing with it fully. In Hebrews we have that described . The sacrifice needed to die for forgiveness to flow and the effects were temporary. Now in this age, Christ is indisputably God's lamb to take away the world's sin and scripture seems very clear that he did this by allowing sin's penalty to fall on himself at God's behest. The benefit can only flow if this is grasped because only then are we in a position to repent.

Make of that what you will but it is not preaching to the choir as most here do not accept it.
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Doesn't PSA essentially say that God's wrath had to be satisfied by punishing his only begotten son, having him put to death in our stead? Something seems wrong there. One might argue that this has its roots in typical western legalism and rationalism. Of course there is an element of substitution involved but not in order to appease God's wrath. It kind of misses the point of the Incarnation.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
God will not turn up to any atonement party not based on PSA,not because he is angry, not because he is disinclined and not because he is discriminatory or prejudiced,he won't turn up because he cannot. The disconnect between his holiness and our sin would consume us. It would be like trying to land on the sun.

But he DID turn up - in Christ - and WE consumed him.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

I fail to see how a god who has a 'problem' is God.

If atonement is 'contingent' on us, then salvation becomes a work, not grace.
 
Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

I fail to see how a god who has a 'problem' is God.

I fail to see how a god who has no problem with sin is God.
quote:

If atonement is 'contingent' on us, then salvation becomes a work, not grace.

On the other hand that I think I can agree with.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Nice one twice over leo.

PSA is one of our memes. Juridicality is. We make ALL of this stuff up.

Just like Jesus - inevitably, faithfully - did.

And I fear to write that.

But I know it's true.

Just like I was the first to write that in Jesus we have the apology of God. It's a zeitgeist thing.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

I fail to see how a god who has a 'problem' is God.

I fail to see how a god who has no problem with sin is God.
quote:

If atonement is 'contingent' on us, then salvation becomes a work, not grace.

On the other hand that I think I can agree with.

I fail to see how a God with a problem with sin needs that problem to be solved by PSA.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jamat:
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

I fail to see how a god who has a 'problem' is God.

I fail to see how a god who has no problem with sin is God.
quote:

If God is omnipotent, He can't have 'problems'.
 
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :
 
I have little sympathy with atonement theories which involve substitution, satisfaction or ransom to the devil. Though all theories are or necessity metaphorical, Recapitulation comes closest to my understanding. It sees the atonement of Christ as reversing the course of mankind from disobedience to obedience. It believes that Christ’s life recapitulated all the stages of human life and in doing so reversed the course of disobedience initiated by Adam. It originates with Irenaeus(125-202) and, as said by William Barclay:

quote:
Through man’s disobedience the process of the evolution of the human race went wrong, and the course of its wrongness could neither be halted nor reversed by any human means. But in Jesus Christ the whole course of human evolution was perfectly carried out and realised in obedience to the purpose of God.


St Athanasius(298-373) wrote in "On the Incarnation," "God became man that man might become God." The Athanasian Creed, though unlikely to originate with him says that Christ's human and divine natures are united in one, " not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood by God."

So the purpose of the Incarnation was to unite human nature to God by lifting it up into the divine. This is closely bound with the Orthodox concept of Theosis which is the purpose of human life, which can start in this life, and continue after death. One of my favourite Christian writings is the 14th century Theologia Germanica which puts it thus:

"All that in Adam fell and died, was raised again and made alive in Christ, and all that rose up and
was made alive in Adam, fell and died in Christ. But what was that? I answer, true obedience and
disobedience."

I see this as tied up with Moral Influence, but trying to appease a God who can't tolerate sin makes no sense to me at all. He put us here in this place with our sinful nature. Why does anyone need to be punished for that? In evolutionary terms, the human race is steadily growing from our animal origins, through a knowledge of good and evil, and Christ came to show us how to live as a child of God, and to lift our corruptible human nature into the divine.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

In other atonement threads on SOF, people have vilified PSA which is not that different from Ransom theory because they feel it puts God in a bad light.

Substitution and Satisfaction are quite similar, in that they are both "Godward" theories dealing with a similar understanding both of God's nature and the purpose of the atonement (to appease God's wrath). Ransom (and CV) both being "Satanward" theories, are really quite different particularly in the way they configure God, in that they posit the problem is humanity has been oppressed and held captive to sin (John 8).


quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

I. If you take the OT roots of atonement it was about covering sin rather than dealing with it fully. In Hebrews we have that described . The sacrifice needed to die for forgiveness to flow and the effects were temporary. Now in this age, Christ is indisputably God's lamb to take away the world's sin and scripture seems very clear that he did this by allowing sin's penalty to fall on himself at God's behest. The benefit can only flow if this is grasped because only then are we in a position to repent.

Make of that what you will but it is not preaching to the choir as most here do not accept it.

You ARE preaching to the choir. Again, the points re the atonement you asserted are found not just in PSA, but in all five of the theories. All five of the theories, as I have demonstrated, are biblical. Most (though yes, not all) of the posters on this thread and I suspect on the Ship in general would affirm the purpose and meaning and significance of the atonement, it is just PSA as a particular metaphor for the atonement they eschew, in favor of one or more of the other four biblical metaphors.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Jesus obviously believed in PSA. As a human of His culture how could He not? He believed that His death was necessary for our salvation. Not just in OUR juridical sense. In all the senses the NT writers extracted - made up - and more. Not in a divine juridical sense at all. There can be no such divine requirement. God does NOT need bloody sacrifice. BUT nonetheless He HAD to die - badly - for our salvation. NOTHING else would get through to us. God becoming a man was not enough.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think you're argument here is with the NT, which bears witness to all five of the primary theories of the atonement:

• satisfaction: Rom. 3:22-25; John 1:29; pretty much the entire book of Hebrews, especially ch. 9

• substitution (not that you need this): 2 Cor. 5:21, much of Romans, especially 5:16

• Moral-Influence: 1 John 3:16, Eph. 3:17-19, 2 Cor. 3:18

• ransom: Matt. 20:28, John 8:34, Heb. 9:15

• Christus victor: 2 Cor. 5:19; Heb. 2:14-18, 2 Tim. 1:9-10, 1Pet. 3:18-20

How interesting that your list has only Western theories of atonement. Then again, that can't be terribly surprising as western Christianity has been pretty hermetically sealed against heresy from the east for 1500 years or so.

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
If atonement is 'contingent' on us, then salvation becomes a work, not grace.

B.S. You might as well say that if my lights coming on is contingent upon me throwing a switch, then the power doesn't come from the hydroelectric dam but from me.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think you're argument here is with the NT, which bears witness to all five of the primary theories of the atonement:

• satisfaction: Rom. 3:22-25; John 1:29; pretty much the entire book of Hebrews, especially ch. 9

• substitution (not that you need this): 2 Cor. 5:21, much of Romans, especially 5:16

• Moral-Influence: 1 John 3:16, Eph. 3:17-19, 2 Cor. 3:18

• ransom: Matt. 20:28, John 8:34, Heb. 9:15

• Christus victor: 2 Cor. 5:19; Heb. 2:14-18, 2 Tim. 1:9-10, 1Pet. 3:18-20

How interesting that your list has only Western theories of atonement. Then again, that can't be terribly surprising as western Christianity has been pretty hermetically sealed against heresy from the east for 1500 years or so.
Interesting-- I had always understood that Christus victor was the primary metaphor for the atonement in the Eastern church. But, as you suspect, this is a huge gap in my ecclesiological education. So what are the other theories that I left out?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
He saved us by destroying death -- by going into death and bursting out. As we sing at Pascha,

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

But our salvation is also effected by the incarnation itself, which united the divine and human natures, and the ascension, which lifted human nature into the heavenly realm. When he died, human nature died; when he rose, human nature rose; when he ascended, human nature ascended. This saves us.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
He saved us by destroying death -- by going into death and bursting out. As we sing at Pascha,

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

But our salvation is also effected by the incarnation itself, which united the divine and human natures, and the ascension, which lifted human nature into the heavenly realm. When he died, human nature died; when he rose, human nature rose; when he ascended, human nature ascended. This saves us.

So, what is your commitment, just to believe that ? ie what do you have to do to actually receive the benefit of this victory over death?
The Copeland/Hagin/Meyer lot believe Jesus won the victory in Hell. Is that the Orthodox position as well? I think the victory was won on the cross as it is there he said "It is finished."
Also, how did human nature rise when he rose? My understanding is that through believers Baptism we bury the old nature and enter into resurrection life.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

I fail to see how a god who has a 'problem' is God.

I fail to see how a god who has no problem with sin is God.
quote:

If atonement is 'contingent' on us, then salvation becomes a work, not grace.

On the other hand that I think I can agree with.

I fail to see how a God with a problem with sin needs that problem to be solved by PSA.
Because his problem is the Juridical one of how to deal with our sin and not destroy us or compromise his character. Human sin was dealt with through sacrifice ie death and if we weren't to die who was? Him, which is why he became human.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
I

But PSA proposes that :
quote:
The problem--the evil, violent and diabolical forces arrayed against us--had been internalized, absorbed into God's character.
This, in turn leads to his closing statement:
quote:
We are no longer saved from the Devil. We are saved from God.

With penal substitutionary atonement God had become the Devil.

Any comments on this? I prefer CV for my own view, but am not really qualified to deal with the depth of this argument.

In PSA God doesn't become the literal devil, mainly that which must be feared more than the devil.

Salvation does indeed become about being saved from God's wrath at human sin. The devil doesn't really come into it in PSA.

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:


PSA is not the one among many theories of atonement. Every insight brought by the others is merely an aspect of it as the foundation of the gospel.

Not so. All aspects of major atonement theories bring in self sacrifice. Only PSA includes the aspect of punishment upon Jesus by God.

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

God will not turn up to any atonement party not based on PSA,not because he is angry, not because he is disinclined and not because he is discriminatory or prejudiced,he won't turn up because he cannot. The disconnect between his holiness and our sin would consume us. It would be like trying to land on the sun.

Haven't heard such bullshit in a long while. You're disregarding the entire OT and the incarnation besides. That's a very unbiblical position. But that's no surprise. PSA is mostly unbiblical.

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

The way I see it Cliffdweller, is that all the models add value but they are models predicated on the fact and efficacy of the cross. The scripture is clear on the following points:
1. Jesus came to die.
2. His death benefited us men through holding out the hope of restored unity with God.
3. The cross was predicted.(Dan 9 and Is 53)
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

No the scriptures are not clear on those points.

1. Jesus came to show us the way the truth and the life. If he had been born and died at birth, none would have been the wiser.
2. No it wasn't his death. It was his birth, life, death and resurrection.
3. Those scriptures describe the exile but have been applied to Jesus. There are many other ways to understand them. The straightforward understanding for the context is that Israel has been punished enough in the exile and now a new life begins in the restoration of the temple after the exile.
4. Sin still exists. The problem remains.
5. True. We have a choice to accept God's grace and vision or not.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
He saved us by destroying death -- by going into death and bursting out. As we sing at Pascha,

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

That's Christus victor. Does it go by a different name in the Eastern church? Or is there some nuance I'm not getting that separates it from my Western understanding of CV?


quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

But our salvation is also effected by the incarnation itself, which united the divine and human natures, and the ascension, which lifted human nature into the heavenly realm. When he died, human nature died; when he rose, human nature rose; when he ascended, human nature ascended. This saves us.

This sounds a bit like CV as well, but deeper and more nuanced, more fully developed. I like it. Where can I read more?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
fwiw, theopedia reports what I had always heard: that the Eastern Orthodox church affirms both Christus victor and Ransom (the two "Satanward" theories).
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Because his problem is the Juridical one of how to deal with our sin and not destroy us or compromise his character. Human sin was dealt with through sacrifice ie death and if we weren't to die who was? Him, which is why he became human.

Many of the early fathers suggest that he would have become human anyway - part of the plan of creation rather than a mopping up operation.

If God has a problem balancing the juridical with the merciful, he sounds a bit schizophrenic.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Jesus obviously believed in PSA. As a human of His culture how could He not? He believed that His death was necessary for our salvation. Not just in OUR juridical sense. In all the senses the NT writers extracted - made up - and more. Not in a divine juridical sense at all. There can be no such divine requirement. God does NOT need bloody sacrifice. BUT nonetheless He HAD to die - badly - for our salvation. NOTHING else would get through to us. God becoming a man was not enough.

Judaism then didn't see sacrifices as vicarious deaths and they certainly rejected any notion of human sacrifice.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Indeed. Despite the Chief Priest. Your point?
 
Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

But our salvation is also effected by the incarnation itself, which united the divine and human natures, and the ascension, which lifted human nature into the heavenly realm. When he died, human nature died; when he rose, human nature rose; when he ascended, human nature ascended. This saves us.

This sounds a bit like CV as well, but deeper and more nuanced, more fully developed. I like it. Where can I read more?
Yes, please tell us more. And/ or point us in the direction of some good reading material.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
I

But PSA proposes that :
quote:
The problem--the evil, violent and diabolical forces arrayed against us--had been internalized, absorbed into God's character.
This, in turn leads to his closing statement:
quote:
We are no longer saved from the Devil. We are saved from God.

With penal substitutionary atonement God had become the Devil.

Any comments on this? I prefer CV for my own view, but am not really qualified to deal with the depth of this argument.

In PSA God doesn't become the literal devil, mainly that which must be feared more than the devil.

Salvation does indeed become about being saved from God's wrath at human sin. The devil doesn't really come into it in PSA.

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:


PSA is not the one among many theories of atonement. Every insight brought by the others is merely an aspect of it as the foundation of the gospel.

Not so. All aspects of major atonement theories bring in self sacrifice. Only PSA includes the aspect of punishment upon Jesus by God.

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

God will not turn up to any atonement party not based on PSA,not because he is angry, not because he is disinclined and not because he is discriminatory or prejudiced,he won't turn up because he cannot. The disconnect between his holiness and our sin would consume us. It would be like trying to land on the sun.

Haven't heard such bullshit in a long while. You're disregarding the entire OT and the incarnation besides. That's a very unbiblical position. But that's no surprise. PSA is mostly unbiblical.

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

The way I see it Cliffdweller, is that all the models add value but they are models predicated on the fact and efficacy of the cross. The scripture is clear on the following points:
1. Jesus came to die.
2. His death benefited us men through holding out the hope of restored unity with God.
3. The cross was predicted.(Dan 9 and Is 53)
4. The cross solved the problem of sin for God.
5. The available benefits are contingent for us on our choice to accept them.

No the scriptures are not clear on those points.

1. Jesus came to show us the way the truth and the life. If he had been born and died at birth, none would have been the wiser.
2. No it wasn't his death. It was his birth, life, death and resurrection.
3. Those scriptures describe the exile but have been applied to Jesus. There are many other ways to understand them. The straightforward understanding for the context is that Israel has been punished enough in the exile and now a new life begins in the restoration of the temple after the exile.
4. Sin still exists. The problem remains.
5. True. We have a choice to accept God's grace and vision or not.

I was doing the layman' version. Re 4 didn't suggest sin no longer existed. Skip the pedantry and pass the mashed potatoes
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So, what is your commitment, just to believe that ? ie what do you have to do to actually receive the benefit of this victory over death?

Cooperate with the Holy Spirit in your own healing.

quote:
The Copeland/Hagin/Meyer lot believe Jesus won the victory in Hell. Is that the Orthodox position as well?
No. He won the victory by breaking out of Hell.

quote:
I think the victory was won on the cross as it is there he said "It is finished."
I have heard of this interpretation of this saying. It makes a mockery of the resurrection.

quote:
Also, how did human nature rise when he rose?
He was The Human Being (remember his title The Son of Man which means "The Human Being"). When He rose, human nature rose.

quote:
My understanding is that through believers Baptism we bury the old nature and enter into resurrection life.
That's not my understanding. Horses for courses, I guess.
 
Posted by Callan (# 525) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
My understanding is that through believers Baptism we bury the old nature and enter into resurrection life.
That's not my understanding. Horses for courses, I guess. [/QB]
Interested to hear how you do understand it? (Obviously realise that Orthodox don't practice believers Baptism!)
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
2. No it wasn't his death. It was his birth, life, death and resurrection.

Once again you state something very Orthodox. I'm verklempt.


quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
This sounds a bit like CV as well, but deeper and more nuanced, more fully developed. I like it. Where can I read more?

I am not sure exactly where to send you, but I'm asking my Onion Dome readers, and one of them will know.

I also want to say that the Orthodox metaphor for salvation is medical rather than juridical. Sin is a sickness to be healed. Which removes the adversarialness between God and man. God is on our side; She wants to heal us, and no part of her wants to destroy us. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how long I have wanted to take you under my wing.

Moving away from the juridical/blame game, by the way, also makes it possible to talk about sins committed unknowingly or unintentionally. This very idea can't exist in a system in which sins are crimes, because in such a framework we can only be blamed for things we do on purpose, and anything we don't do on purpose therefore can't be a sin.

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Many of the early fathers suggest that he would have become human anyway - part of the plan of creation rather than a mopping up operation.

This is the Orthodox understanding. Adam and Eve were innocent but not mature. Christ would have come to unite the divine and human natures and complete their theosis.

quote:
If God has a problem balancing the juridical with the merciful, he sounds a bit schizophrenic.
PSA has always struck me as the soteriology of the God of Multiple Personality Disorder.

[ 07. December 2014, 23:49: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:


quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
This sounds a bit like CV as well, but deeper and more nuanced, more fully developed. I like it. Where can I read more?

I am not sure exactly where to send you, but I'm asking my Onion Dome readers, and one of them will know.

I also want to say that the Orthodox metaphor for salvation is medical rather than juridical. Sin is a sickness to be healed. Which removes the adversarialness between God and man. God is on our side; She wants to heal us, and no part of her wants to destroy us. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how long I have wanted to take you under my wing.

Yes, I'm familiar, and appreciative of, the "cure of souls". Which aligns nicely with CV. Can you explain how CV differs from the Orthodox view? All the sources I can find (which, of course, are all Westerners describing Orthodoxy for Westerners-- so very much "buyer beware"...) are listing CV (and ransom to a lesser degree) as the Orthodox pov. In fact, I was under the impression CV came to us (the Western church) from the Eastern church. Can you say more about how the Orthodox view differs from CV? I'm not seeing any differences so far, although you are as I said, adding lovely layers of depth and meaning.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
The biggest differences I see are:

1. It's Christ's resurrection, not death, that seals our salvation; and

2. God does not pay ransom to the Devil; God despoils the devil by entering his Kingdom and bursting out, taking the dead with him. It was a raid into enemy territory. Think of the playground game "Capture the Flag." You go into enemy territory and bring back all of your teammates that were captured by the other side.

There is an excellent Take 6 song which explores this understanding of the Resurrection. But I seem to have lost track of the CD. Meanwhile I suggest Chrysostom's Pascal Homily. (You can also read my geeky flowchart version of it.)
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The biggest differences I see are:

1. It's Christ's resurrection, not death, that seals our salvation; and

2. God does not pay ransom to the Devil; God despoils the devil by entering his Kingdom and bursting out, taking the dead with him. It was a raid into enemy territory. Think of the playground game "Capture the Flag." You go into enemy territory and bring back all of your teammates that were captured by the other side.

There is an excellent Take 6 song which explores this understanding of the Resurrection. But I seem to have lost track of the CD. Meanwhile I suggest Chrysostom's Pascal Homily. (You can also read my geeky flowchart version of it.)

um... did you happen to notice at the bottom of your link where it says:

quote:
This sermon is a fine example of the "Christ Victorious" model of the atonement that was the dominant image of the work of Christ among early Christians and among the Orthodox today. Orthodoxy sees chiefly Christ the Victor and interprets the Crucifixion primarily as an act of triumphant victory over the powers of evil.
Similarly Bishop Ware identifies CV as the Orthodox model for the atonement.

I've actually used Capture the Flag many times myself in explaining CV to my (mostly Western, mostly evangelical or Catholic) students.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Okay here's what my peeps came up with:

How Are We Saved? by Kallistos Ware

and

Are You Saved? by Barbara Pappas.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Okay here's what my peeps came up with:

How Are We Saved? by Kallistos Ware.

Pretty sure he's gonna say Christus victor! See my link above.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
from your link:

quote:
As it is often expressed: "Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is".
Um, no. That's not what Athanasius said. He said, "God became man that man might become God." Watering down. Tsk.

I know the article name-drops all those fathers, but the description of the CV position just doesn't feel right for some reason. It's like he found a soteriology that's a lot like Orthodox soteriology, and read it into the Fathers because what they said is very much like what he thinks he found.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
from your link:

quote:
As it is often expressed: "Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is".
Um, no. That's not what Athanasius said. He said, "God became man that man might become God." Watering down. Tsk.

I know the article name-drops all those fathers, but the description of the CV position just doesn't feel right for some reason. It's like he found a soteriology that's a lot like Orthodox soteriology, and read it into the Fathers because what they said is very much like what he thinks he found.

Sure, I think that's probably true of the theopedia article. But surely your own link got it right (see the quote at the bottom of your link)-- as well as the interview I linked with Bishop Ware (where he identifies CV as the Orthodox position)?

It sounds rather like both your sources and mine are correct-- that CV is the position of the ancient church and of the Orthodox today. But the name Christus victor itself comes from a Westerner (Aulen) which might be why it's "not sounding right" to your ears. And of course, as we Westerners "rediscover" this Eastern pov we're apt to miss a few of the finer points and some of the deeper nuance. We're new to the game, after all-- you'll have to bear with us, we've got a millennia or so to catch up on.

[ 08. December 2014, 00:58: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Great minds. (oops that referred to something you deleted for some reason)

Maybe it's just because it's (ack spit) Latin. Unlike, say, "Lex orendi, lex credendi," which we also say.

The other thing that Westerners need to catch up on is theosis. The West tends to chop salvation up into separable chunks -- sanctification, justification, etc. There is a more holistic view in Orthodoxy. "I have been saved, I am being saved, I will be saved."

[ 08. December 2014, 01:41: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

Maybe it's just because it's (ack spit) Latin. Unlike, say, "Lex orendi, lex credendi," which we also say.

Hey, that's our thing. "Discover" something Eastern Christians have been doing/teaching for centuries, give it our own fancy Latin name, write a book and be considered the "author" of this new theory.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Hey, that's our thing. "Discover" something Eastern Christians have been doing/teaching for centuries, give it our own fancy Latin name, write a book and be considered the "author" of this new theory.

Kinda like folksong collectors of the 1930s, except Aulén didn't then try to sue us for singing about salvation in the Liturgy.
 
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The biggest differences I see are:

1. It's Christ's resurrection, not death, that seals our salvation; and

2. God does not pay ransom to the Devil; God despoils the devil by entering his Kingdom and bursting out, taking the dead with him. It was a raid into enemy territory. Think of the playground game "Capture the Flag." You go into enemy territory and bring back all of your teammates that were captured by the other side.

I certainly agree with your second point, but am not so sure about the first. What role would you give to His ascension, the reconciling of the creation with the Creator? I see the death, resurrection and ascension as 3 parts of the whole, but welcome your comments.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I see the death, resurrection and ascension as 3 parts of the whole

Should that not be the incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension as 4 parts of the whole?
 
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Cliffdweller:
It sounds rather like both your sources and mine are correct-- that CV is the position of the ancient church and of the Orthodox today .

Doesn't this tell us something? IE that PSA is a 16th century invention with no support from Scripture nor the Christianity of the Church Fathers.

quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
The other thing that Westerners need to catch up on is theosis.

I quite agree. Growing ever closer to God is part of the evolutionary process God intended for us. In Phillipians 3:12-13, Paul writes :

12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal;[g] but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved,[h] I do not consider that I have made it my own;[i] but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.

It's preposterous for anyone to consider themselves saved because of a decision made at a revivalist meeting! It's something we work towards, into eternity.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
2. No it wasn't his death. It was his birth, life, death and resurrection.

Once again you state something very Orthodox. I'm verklempt.
You Orthodox aren't all that very far away from us orthodox Anglicans. [Razz]

Tho I was remiss. Forgot the ascension.
 
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I see the death, resurrection and ascension as 3 parts of the whole

Should that not be the incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension as 4 parts of the whole?
Yes, I agree with you totally. There is no point in any of what follows if there is no incarnation. I omitted it because the thread is concerned with an analysis of the death and Mousethief had said that the death itself was irrelevant, it was the resurrection.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by Cliffdweller:
It sounds rather like both your sources and mine are correct-- that CV is the position of the ancient church and of the Orthodox today .

Doesn't this tell us something? IE that PSA is a 16th century invention with no support from Scripture nor the Christianity of the Church Fathers.

I wouldn't say no biblical support-- see my prior post where I lay out the biblical support for all five major theories. But certainly the notion of PSA as the one and only, or even best, explanation is a relatively modern (and Western) invention. Again, the nature of metaphors is that they can be helpful and enlightening only when treated precisely as a metaphor-- something with some helpful analogies but not to be pressed too far. They are particularly helpful when dealing with large, transcendent realities like the nature of God that are beyond our finite ability to explain. Often with these sorts of transcendent realities multiple metaphors are needed to explain the entirety of the concept-- which is why we have a dozen or more metaphors for God in the Bible. All of which will break down big time if pressed too far, but are helpful in demonstrating one aspect of God's character.

The same is true IMHO of metaphors of the atonement. They all have something helpful and useful to say. Some of them are directed to a particular people group, coming out of their own cultural expression, and may not fit as well outside that cultural context.

The problem with PSA is not that it's unbiblical-- it is. The problem is that for the last few centuries we've been treating it not as a metaphor but as a proposition. Suggesting that it is not an image to explain some transcendent cosmic reality, but that it is the actual description of a legal transaction. Coupled with the eschewing of other, more helpful and ancient metaphors like CV, this has led to a very skewed understanding of the atonement and of the nature of God.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Indeed. Despite the Chief Priest. Your point?

My point is that vicarious sacrificial death is not part of Judaism.
The bit about the chief priest - dying 'for the people' was to avenge the Romans, not God.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
No.
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
Thank you, thank you, thank you (all) Although this thread will probably continue anyway, I wanted to interpolate that I am finally getting a clearer understanding as to why I favour CV as a guiding principle.

PSA is too demanding of God. She doesn't live in a box.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
On second thoughts, yes. But what's that got to do with what Jesus obviously believed?

[ 08. December 2014, 22:20: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:


The other thing that Westerners need to catch up on is theosis.

Evangelicals are quite happy to acknowledge Athanasian theosis as a valid theory of the atonement, along with PSA, CV and other ingredients in the soteriological alphabet soup.

On Sunday we sang Charles Wesley’s Advent hymn Let Earth And Heaven Combine, which contains the lines:-

He deigns in flesh t’appear,
Widest extremes to join,
To bring our vileness near,
And MAKE US ALL DIVINE.

Since this is grounded firmly in II Peter !:4, the Orthodox are being commendably scriptural in teaching it.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:


The other thing that Westerners need to catch up on is theosis.

Evangelicals are quite happy to acknowledge Athanasian theosis as a valid theory of the atonement, along with PSA, CV and other ingredients in the soteriological alphabet soup.
Theological dilettantes, eh? A soupçon of this, a soupçon of that, and soon, soup's on!

Are you sure this is ALL Evangelicals, however?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:


The other thing that Westerners need to catch up on is theosis.

Evangelicals are quite happy to acknowledge Athanasian theosis as a valid theory of the atonement, along with PSA, CV and other ingredients in the soteriological alphabet soup.
Theological dilettantes, eh? A soupçon of this, a soupçon of that, and soon, soup's on!

Are you sure this is ALL Evangelicals, however?

NOTHING is ALL evangelicals. We are nothing if not diverse. (Some might say contentious, but hey, potato/ potato).

But I would say that yes, more and more evangelicals, and particularly younger evangelicals, are willing to look outside the fold and rediscover ancient truths from unexpected (to us) sources. Of course, the average evangelical layperson wouldn't know Athanasius from a hole in the ground, but they'll have almost as much trouble describing the roles Wesley or Calvin or heck, Darby, have played in our own theology. But there are threads that are making their way into our conversations, under various names (that whole "repackage it and make it your own" thing we do so well).
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller
The problem with PSA is not that it's unbiblical-- it is.

Your post here doesn't have references to support penal substitution; just substitution. Which is what you title the references yourself.

In Romans 5 Jesus does not achieve reconciliation through punishment, but by obedience.

Romans 5:19
For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous


The only biblical reference to penal substitution is derived from the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 and it is applied to Jesus in one of the epistles (Petrine I think). That's it.

But in it's context, the servant in Isaiah is Israel, not Jesus.

Isaiah 44:21-22
Remember these things, O Jacob,
and Israel, for you are my servant;
I formed you, you are my servant;
O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud,
and your sins like mist;
return to me, for I have redeemed you


Isaiah speaks of Israel being punished sufficiently during the exile to restore relationship with God. The time of punishment is up. The exiles are allowed to return and rebuild the temple.

So the whole idea of punishment in the penal substitution is a creative midrash on the exile and applied to Jesus. Besides the one reference in the epistle, it has no New Testament biblical support.

Which is why people that espouse PSA as the most important atonement theory through which all others can be viewed have almost no biblical evidence to support that view. Which is doubly hilarious because they usually claim to have a very high view of scripture.

[ 09. December 2014, 09:34: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :
 
Welp, this thread has been most helpful in getting me to see that my position is the Orthodox one, and that PSA is incredibly anti-Incarnation. God did not pitch up his tent among us and share in the pain and joy of human existence just because that was the only way in which He could be brutally murdered, ffs.

In most churches that teach PSA, it's taught as the default atonement method and a lot of evangelicals aren't even aware that there are other atonement theories. That's the truly underhand and dishonest thing about PSA-only churches.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
The only good thing about PSA is that it enables some people that harbour an enormous amount of psychological guilt to get over it and learn to live the good news free from a terrible burden that confines and restricts them.

IMO however, the collateral damage is too high.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The only biblical reference to penal substitution is derived from the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 and it is applied to Jesus in one of the epistles (Petrine I think). That's it.

There's also the Ethiopian Eunach, who's reading from Isaiah and asks Philip whether the servant is the prophet or someone else. From which Philip tells him about Jesus. Though it's not stated explicitely, the implication is that Philip says "the suffering servant is Jesus".
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Jesus believed that.

It's so obvious I wonder why everyone ignores that particular pachyderm in the lounge?
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The only biblical reference to penal substitution is derived from the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 and it is applied to Jesus in one of the epistles (Petrine I think). That's it.

There's also the Ethiopian Eunach, who's reading from Isaiah and asks Philip whether the servant is the prophet or someone else. From which Philip tells him about Jesus. Though it's not stated explicitely, the implication is that Philip says "the suffering servant is Jesus".
Quite right. But that's not a penal reference. There are numerous NT quotations to Isaiah and Jesus as the suffering servant but they do not include the punishment aspect (from God). None of the quotations from scripture include those specifically penal verses.

E.g. the Ethiopian eunuch doesn't.

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.’


[ 09. December 2014, 11:08: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Jesus believed that.

It's so obvious I wonder why everyone ignores that particular pachyderm in the lounge?

He is a suffering servant. But he is not a servant punished by God as Israel was. That's why the scripture quotes in the NT stop there.

OT allusions do not refer to the entirety of the experience of the allusion.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller
The problem with PSA is not that it's unbiblical-- it is.

Your post here doesn't have references to support penal substitution; just substitution. Which is what you title the references yourself.

...So the whole idea of punishment in the penal substitution is a creative midrash on the exile and applied to Jesus. Besides the one reference in the epistle, it has no New Testament biblical support.

Which is why people that espouse PSA as the most important atonement theory through which all others can be viewed have almost no biblical evidence to support that view. Which is doubly hilarious because they usually claim to have a very high view of scripture.

Yes-- good point.

For me the biggest problem with advocating PSA-- or even just substitution-- as the only metaphor for the atonement is the way it skews everything else-- your view of sin, your view of God, your view of humanity, your view of Christ.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Who's talking OT?
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
not a servant punished by God as Israel was.

Nor was Israel - the Hebrew of Isaiah conveys the notion that Israel was punished BY other nations.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Yeah right.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
A soupçon of this, a soupçon of that, and soon, soup's on!


Better a soupcon/soup which attempts to acknowledge all facets of soteriology, than a crusty bread/procrustean bed which distorts scripture by forcing it to fit one prescribed theory.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Judaism then didn't see sacrifices as vicarious deaths and they certainly rejected any notion of human sacrifice.

Still, it doesn't make the notion untrue.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Nice one twice over leo.

PSA is one of our memes. Juridicality is. We make ALL of this stuff up.

Just like Jesus - inevitably, faithfully - did.

And I fear to write that.

But I know it's true.

Just like I was the first to write that in Jesus we have the apology of God. It's a zeitgeist thing.

You make up what you know?And you know what you make up is true? I wish I could do that.
Make up/ know= oxymoron.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What, you are the exception to every other human being bar None?
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
Evensong, The word 'bullshit' used with regards to an opinion you dispute is best left to your cups when there might be an excuse for the ignorance displayed.

Using your reasoning one could also dispute the the trinity

The whole atonement argument is contextual. The Jewish concept of atonement is covering. Sin was covered by sacrifice in the mosaic law. You have to do mental flips to not see sacrifice as penal. Death was the penalty for the animal right? If someone killed me for whatever reason they are penalising me brutally. Well Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many as he said so. The NT writers see his death in sacrificial terms. He was the sacrifice for sin and so he paid the penalty for it. Thank God he did so the likes of you and me don't have to.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What, you are the exception to every other human being bar None?

Not me bro, you
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What, I'm not making it up like everyone else bar None?
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What, I'm not making it up like everyone else bar None?

Well you say you are..and you seem to think this gives the right to tell everyone else they are. Personally I'm happy with what God says he's made up. I think he called it creation in the first instance and revelation in the second.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
A soupçon of this, a soupçon of that, and soon, soup's on!


Better a soupcon/soup which attempts to acknowledge all facets of soteriology, than a crusty bread/procrustean bed which distorts scripture by forcing it to fit one prescribed theory.
Your problem is wanting a theory.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
A soupçon of this, a soupçon of that, and soon, soup's on!


Better a soupcon/soup which attempts to acknowledge all facets of soteriology, than a crusty bread/procrustean bed which distorts scripture by forcing it to fit one prescribed theory.
Your problem is wanting a theory.
The "problem" is for anyone to imagine that there is a single definitive theory of the atonement when the NT presents a number of them.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
That's your story Jamat. That's what you are responsible for making up. There are No exceptions - or should that be no Exceptions? - to this.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Who's talking OT?

You are. You're importing punishment texts from the OT that are simply not present in the NT (bar the one epistle - but he's not directly quoting scripture ).
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
not a servant punished by God as Israel was.

Nor was Israel - the Hebrew of Isaiah conveys the notion that Israel was punished BY other nations.
No. God used other nations to punish them but it was God's work. Just as God uses Cyrus to bring about redemption.

28 Therefore I profaned the princes of the sanctuary,
I delivered Jacob to utter destruction,
and Israel to reviling.


The book of Lamentations also places the blame for the exile on God's punishment.

But the good news is of course that God is about to do a "new thing" in redeeming and ransoming Israel so they might rebuild Jerusalem.


isaiah 45:7


I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe;
I the Lord do all these things


[ 10. December 2014, 09:19: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I'm doing neither.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Evensong, The word 'bullshit' used with regards to an opinion you dispute is best left to your cups when there might be an excuse for the ignorance displayed..

Dude. I like you. I just think your theology is misguided and misplaced. [Razz]

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

Using your reasoning one could also dispute the the trinity

No. Plenty of biblical references to Christ's divinity in the NT. Not so with Jesus being punished by God.

quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

The whole atonement argument is contextual. The Jewish concept of atonement is covering. Sin was covered by sacrifice in the mosaic law. You have to do mental flips to not see sacrifice as penal. Death was the penalty for the animal right? If someone killed me for whatever reason they are penalising me brutally. Well Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many as he said so. The NT writers see his death in sacrificial terms. He was the sacrifice for sin and so he paid the penalty for it. Thank God he did so the likes of you and me don't have to.

You have to do mental flips to see sacrifice as penal. Was the Levitical grain offering punishing grain? If I sacrifice part of my needs and desires and personality for the sake of my marriage and family is that punishment? Hell no. It's recognising something greater and working towards it for the benefit of more than myself. It is communion with something larger. That is the meaning of sacrifice.

Of course the NT writers see Jesus' death in sacrificial terms. It is. But it's not a punishment.

Also, ransom denotes liberation, not punishment.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I'm doing neither.

Certainly appears that way.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
It certainly appeared that way to Jesus, yes.

How could it not?

And Junia as you allude.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
No it didn't appear that way to Jesus.
 
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:


No. Plenty of biblical references to Christ's divinity in the NT. Not so with Jesus being punished by God.

I think you are over-reaching yourself here. For example (and I could choose many) Mark 13:27 - Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7 with regard to his death.
"I will strike the shepherd." Who is doing the striking in this verse? And why?
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
How couldn't it?

By your disposition that is.

To transform the raging bull African elephant in to a domesticated painted Indian cow.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:


No. Plenty of biblical references to Christ's divinity in the NT. Not so with Jesus being punished by God.

I think you are over-reaching yourself here. For example (and I could choose many) Mark 13:27 - Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7 with regard to his death.
"I will strike the shepherd." Who is doing the striking in this verse? And why?

I'm not familiar with the Zechariah allusion off the top of my head. What's the context?
 
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:


No. Plenty of biblical references to Christ's divinity in the NT. Not so with Jesus being punished by God.

I think you are over-reaching yourself here. For example (and I could choose many) Mark 13:27 - Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7 with regard to his death.
"I will strike the shepherd." Who is doing the striking in this verse? And why?

I'm not familiar with the Zechariah allusion off the top of my head. What's the context?
Zechariah 13

You can read for yourself. Seems to me that God is punishing whoever the "shepherd" is for the idolatry of the people.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Jesus own (alleged, purported) proof texts:

"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28)

"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28)

“Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he MUST go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he MUST be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matthew 16:21).

“Why then is it written that the Son of Man MUST suffer much and be rejected?” (Mark 9:12; 9:31; 10:33-34)

“Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself…. ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day’” (Luke 24:26-27, 46).

“It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this MUST be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment” (Luke 22:37).

Isaiah 53: Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
For the transgression of my people he was stricken.... Though he had done no violence ... it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer ... the Lord makes his life a guilt offering.... He will bear their iniquities....
He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (verses 4-12).

Which interpretation is forbidden? The African or the Indian?
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The only good thing about PSA is that it enables some people that harbour an enormous amount of psychological guilt to get over it and learn to live the good news free from a terrible burden that confines and restricts them.

IMO however, the collateral damage is too high.

This is a good point, and I have long thought it about the atonement in general. From a pragmatic point of view, it may or may not be 'true', but it probably has helped people to get over their guilt, as you say. Who can forget that great exclamation in the eucharist - 'this is the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world'.

I think this form of worship externalizes and collectivizes guilt, so that one's own shameful and dirty stuff is somehow neutralized in the public space and the great theatrical spectacle.

I am not sure what people do without this.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
not a servant punished by God as Israel was.

Nor was Israel - the Hebrew of Isaiah conveys the notion that Israel was punished BY other nations.
No. God used other nations to punish them but it was God's work. Just as God uses Cyrus to bring about redemption.
Yes, but..... scroll down to Who is speaking? the Gentile political and spiritual leaders of the world then on to Isaiah 53:8

The kings of the earth are saying that Israel suffered as a result of their (ie. The kings) transgressions.

The notion that Israel was being punished for its own transgressions comes from a mistranslation of the Hebrew by Christians wanting it to fit their atonement theory.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The only good thing about PSA is that it enables some people that harbour an enormous amount of psychological guilt to get over it and learn to live the good news free from a terrible burden that confines and restricts them.

IMO however, the collateral damage is too high.

This is a good point, and I have long thought it about the atonement in general. From a pragmatic point of view, it may or may not be 'true', but it probably has helped people to get over their guilt, as you say. Who can forget that great exclamation in the eucharist - 'this is the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world'.
Although that declaration-- "this is the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world"-- would be satisfaction, not substitution.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Both. Why not both?
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The only good thing about PSA is that it enables some people that harbour an enormous amount of psychological guilt to get over it and learn to live the good news free from a terrible burden that confines and restricts them.

IMO however, the collateral damage is too high.

This is a good point, and I have long thought it about the atonement in general. From a pragmatic point of view, it may or may not be 'true', but it probably has helped people to get over their guilt, as you say. Who can forget that great exclamation in the eucharist - 'this is the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world'.
Although that declaration-- "this is the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world"-- would be satisfaction, not substitution.
Did he take them away by:
1. Paying off the debt of sin (God's just requirement that sin be punished)
2. Absorbing the penalty for the moral law broken.
3. Becoming the sacrificial lamb whose blood was acceptable as sufficient to deflect the consequence of sin ie death as in Passover.
4. Defeating the claim of Satan to ownership of humanity.
5. Ensuring the potential for the new birth, the new start for people who commit to him as the way,truth and life and the exclusive way to the father.
6. All of the above?
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Oh, and leo, as is the great majority of times with you, but not all. Bollocks.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
4 & 5 only from that most incomplete yet repetitive list.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Both. Why not both?

Well, it's not both. Satisfaction is the temple imagery, substitution is the legal imagery. "Lamb of God" is quite obviously a Temple image, not a Law Court image. But both are "Godward" theories with the same presumed problem (human sin puts in danger of God's wrath) so in that sense quite similar (just as CV and ransom are similar, being both "Satanward" theories).

[ 11. December 2014, 00:15: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Although that declaration-- "this is the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world"-- would be satisfaction, not substitution.

Did he take them away by:
1. Paying off the debt of sin (God's just requirement that sin be punished)
2. Absorbing the penalty for the moral law broken.
3. Becoming the sacrificial lamb whose blood was acceptable as sufficient to deflect the consequence of sin ie death as in Passover.
4. Defeating the claim of Satan to ownership of humanity.
5. Ensuring the potential for the new birth, the new start for people who commit to him as the way,truth and life and the exclusive way to the father.
6. All of the above?

Is there any particular reason why you're pretty much repeating my earlier list here?

As per my prior post when I listed the options, I choose #6. But the particular text in question is #3.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
So there's only one valid Atonement theory? And it is ... anything except PSA.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:


No. Plenty of biblical references to Christ's divinity in the NT. Not so with Jesus being punished by God.

I think you are over-reaching yourself here. For example (and I could choose many) Mark 13:27 - Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7 with regard to his death.
"I will strike the shepherd." Who is doing the striking in this verse? And why?

I'm not familiar with the Zechariah allusion off the top of my head. What's the context?
Zechariah 13

You can read for yourself. Seems to me that God is punishing whoever the "shepherd" is for the idolatry of the people.

Well he's striking the shepherd but is it a good shepherd or the bad shepherd alluded to in Zech 11:4-17? My NEB study bible seems to think the latter.. 11:17 speaks of the sword poised to strike. Other allusions speak of the foreign nations besieging Jerusalem being struck down so that God might redeem Israel.

If it 's the bad shepherd (false community leaders is another allusion referred to in my NEB) then that doesn't apply to Jesus.

But even if it is Jesus, In the context the important thing seems to be the "scattering". The disciples will scatter after Jesus is betrayed into the hands of sinners. The verse appears in the context of Peter's denial.

Is the "striking" a punishment on the shepherd? The rest of the original Zechariah allusion describes the wiping out of two thirds of the population of Israel. God will turn his hands against the "little ones".

But you raise a good point. The verse does allow for an interpretation of God being involved in jesus' death even tho the context seems to blame it on betrayal as the instrument of arrest. Was it part of God's plan that Judas betray Jesus? If so, why does he say to Judas that it would have been better if he had never been born?

Another interesting connection with Zechariah is the thirty pieces of silver. Not sure how that fits in.
 
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:


No. Plenty of biblical references to Christ's divinity in the NT. Not so with Jesus being punished by God.

I think you are over-reaching yourself here. For example (and I could choose many) Mark 13:27 - Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7 with regard to his death.
"I will strike the shepherd." Who is doing the striking in this verse? And why?

I'm not familiar with the Zechariah allusion off the top of my head. What's the context?
Zechariah 13

You can read for yourself. Seems to me that God is punishing whoever the "shepherd" is for the idolatry of the people.

Well he's striking the shepherd but is it a good shepherd or the bad shepherd alluded to in Zech 11:4-17? My NEB study bible seems to think the latter.. 11:17 speaks of the sword poised to strike. Other allusions speak of the foreign nations besieging Jerusalem being struck down so that God might redeem Israel.

If it 's the bad shepherd (false community leaders is another allusion referred to in my NEB) then that doesn't apply to Jesus.


I don't know who it refers to in Zechariah. In Mark Jesus clearly means himself if the disciples are the sheep.
Your questions are all good ones. I don't know the answers, and I don't think the verse proves PSA. Like any doctrinal formulation, one is finding the best fit for a range of textual evidence. I DO think this verse means you can't make the huge sweeping statement re Jesus not having any idea relating to PSA in his head totally confidently.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Or that 30 pieces of silver were thrown to the potter. That's two Judas echoes.

Jesus knew who, what He was. An entire culture was inspired to poetically, apocalyptically pave the way for Him for two millennia.

His understanding wasn't tainted by modernism.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
Well, I see Zechariah a talking of Jesus here. He is quoting from Isaiah re the scattering of the sheep and Jesus was certainly struck and the disciples scattered. Ch11-13 of Zechariah refer also It seems to the 2nd coming which is in response to Jewish repentance at having rejected him the first time.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
not a servant punished by God as Israel was.

Nor was Israel - the Hebrew of Isaiah conveys the notion that Israel was punished BY other nations.
No. God used other nations to punish them but it was God's work. Just as God uses Cyrus to bring about redemption.
Yes, but..... scroll down to Who is speaking? the Gentile political and spiritual leaders of the world then on to Isaiah 53:8

The kings of the earth are saying that Israel suffered as a result of their (ie. The kings) transgressions.

Couldn't find the who is speaking bit in that very long post. Where does it say the Israel suffered from the King's transgressions? How do you know it is Kings speaking and not God?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So there's only one valid Atonement theory? And it is ... anything except PSA.

Works for me. Late innovations are perforce suspect.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
not a servant punished by God as Israel was.

Nor was Israel - the Hebrew of Isaiah conveys the notion that Israel was punished BY other nations.
No. God used other nations to punish them but it was God's work. Just as God uses Cyrus to bring about redemption.
Yes, but..... scroll down to Who is speaking? the Gentile political and spiritual leaders of the world then on to Isaiah 53:8

The kings of the earth are saying that Israel suffered as a result of their (ie. The kings) transgressions.

Couldn't find the who is speaking bit in that very long post. Where does it say the Israel suffered from the King's transgressions? How do you know it is Kings speaking and not God?
Put '53:8 into search/find until you get to “We,” being the gentile narrators, are telling how they had killed Jews over time, and burdened the Jews with the sins of the gentiles.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
So, Jesus didn't believe in PSA despite all He said to NOTHING BUT that effect time after time?

He didn't mean it?

He was being 'poetic'. Meeting the culture where it lived but not part of it? Not fully human?
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So there's only one valid Atonement theory? And it is ... anything except PSA.

Works for me. Late innovations are perforce suspect.
Interesting twist on the "chronological snobbery" fallacy.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So, Jesus didn't believe in PSA despite all He said to NOTHING BUT that effect time after time?

If we stick just to Jesus' words and not Paul's, you're going to have a hard time finding much of anything that suggests PSA. Satisfaction, yes, ransom, yes, but not substitution.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So, Jesus didn't believe in PSA despite all He said to NOTHING BUT that effect time after time?

He didn't mean it?

He was being 'poetic'. Meeting the culture where it lived but not part of it? Not fully human?

WHERE is Jesus supposed to have expressed a belief in PSA?
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
20 up
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
No. No, it's not.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So there's only one valid Atonement theory? And it is ... anything except PSA.

Works for me. Late innovations are perforce suspect.
Interesting twist on the "chronological snobbery" fallacy.
Don't blame me; talk to St. Vincent of Lerins. He asked himself how he could cut through the clutter of competing claims of Christian truth. The rule he came up with is Antiquity, universality, and consensus. What has been believed always, everywhere, by everyone? Nothing, perhaps, is perfect on his scale, but Anselm's heresy fails all three in a pretty big way.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Yes. Yes it is.
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Mousetheif says
quote:

What has been believed always, everywhere, by everyone?

So nihilism! There is nothing that fulfills that criteria. Indeed everyone does not agree on what it means "to believe". Yet alone get into the substance of what that should be.

If you get to define who "everyone" is then it is not a neutral criteria.

Jengie
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
If you get to define who "everyone" is then it is not a neutral criteria.

"Everyone" here refers to the Church.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Oh and that's a plethora of uniformity. [Killing me] [Killing me]
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Oh and that's a plethora of uniformity. [Killing me] [Killing me]

That rather depends upon how one defines the Church, innit.
 
Posted by daronmedway (# 3012) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
When he died, human nature died; when he rose, human nature rose; when he ascended, human nature ascended. This saves us.

How? And why?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
There is nothing that fulfills that criteria.

Golly, did I admit that in my post? Let me see, let me see. Why yes! I did admit that in my post! Why did you even say this, then?

quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
When he died, human nature died; when he rose, human nature rose; when he ascended, human nature ascended. This saves us.

How? And why?
Because what we're saved from is death, and its flipside, sin. His resurrection destroyed the power of death to hold us captive, and therewith, the power of sin likewise (since they are flip sides of the same coin).

Why? Why did he save us? John 3:16 answers that.

[ 13. December 2014, 16:19: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What coin?
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
And leo, He MUST have done.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So there's only one valid Atonement theory? And it is ... anything except PSA.

Works for me. Late innovations are perforce suspect.
Interesting twist on the "chronological snobbery" fallacy.
Don't blame me; talk to St. Vincent of Lerins. He asked himself how he could cut through the clutter of competing claims of Christian truth. The rule he came up with is Antiquity, universality, and consensus. What has been believed always, everywhere, by everyone? Nothing, perhaps, is perfect on his scale, but Anselm's heresy fails all three in a pretty big way.
I am quite familiar with the Vincentian Canon, thank you, and also with its limitations.

I'm not sure why you cite Anselm's Satisfaction Theory, since the thread is about PSA, but if you are trying to make the point that Athanasian theosis is the original, and only valid, theory of the atonement, on the basis of its antiquity, you are still stuck with the Ransom Theory, which also has patristic (not to mention scriptural) attestation.

[ 13. December 2014, 20:38: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
]When he died, human nature died; when he rose, human nature rose; when he ascended, human nature ascended. This saves us.
quote:
How? And why?

Because what we're saved from is death, and its flipside, sin. His resurrection destroyed the power of death to hold us captive, and therewith, the power of sin likewise (since they are flip sides of the same coin).

Why? Why did he save us? John 3:16 answers that.

You're evading the question. The question at hand-- the underlying question behind EVERY "theory" (really metaphor is a better word) of the atonement is, indeed, "why"-- as in, what is it about the death of Jesus that destroys the power of sin and death?

[ 13. December 2014, 23:28: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What coin?

Jumping persimmon 82.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
That's TOO silly.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
That's TOO silly.

Balderdash 4.0
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Close but no cigar. But if sustained it does work by downing the ante where I won't go. I might be an idiot but I'm no fool after all.

And Jesus OBVIOUSLY believed - and how could He not? - that He had to fulfil PSA.

Unless your disposition is otherwise. If you won't see it, you won't.

Fine.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I'm not sure why you cite Anselm's Satisfaction Theory, since the thread is about PSA, but if you are trying to make the point that Athanasian theosis is the original, and only valid, theory of the atonement, on the basis of its antiquity, you are still stuck with the Ransom Theory, which also has patristic (not to mention scriptural) attestation.

No, I'm not trying to tout one theory as the only one true theory. I'm not trying to divide the truth up into theories at all. That's the Protestants' job, and they're very good at it. It's not a game I play.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

And Jesus OBVIOUSLY believed - and how could He not? - that He had to fulfil PSA.

Again, I can think of no verse in the NT which shows Jesus saying anything that could be considered an allusion to PSA. He alludes to both satisfaction and ransom, but not PSA. If you think otherwise, please give us the reference.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
All the ones given.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Put '53:8 into search/find until you get to “We,” being the gentile narrators, are telling how they had killed Jews over time, and burdened the Jews with the sins of the gentiles.

Found it. But I'm afraid it doesn't make any sense. Even within that chapter Isaiah 53:6 and 53:10 indicate it is the Lord's doing.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I know we're not allowed to invoke the earliest explicit Christian teaching, by Paul and Junia, but without a sense summed up in the natural, human, implicit penal substitutionary atonement in Jesus thoughts and feelings, edges of broken glass embedded in horror in His and our minds are softened for modern tastes.

Matthew 20:22
"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" "We can," they answered.

Matthew 26:39
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

Matthew 26:42
He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

Mark 14:36
"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Luke 22:41
He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed,

Luke 22:42
"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

John 18:11
Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Eh? None of that implies penal substitution.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Eh? None of that implies penal substitution.

Exactly.

The clearest most direct statement Jesus gives on the method by which the atonement is accomplished would conform to ransom theory:

Matt. 20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And leo, He MUST have done.

done what?
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Put '53:8 into search/find until you get to “We,” being the gentile narrators, are telling how they had killed Jews over time, and burdened the Jews with the sins of the gentiles.

Found it. But I'm afraid it doesn't make any sense. Even within that chapter Isaiah 53:6 and 53:10 indicate it is the Lord's doing.
Ultimately, everything is the Lord's doing but the Isaiah passage is saying that the gentile kings projected their own failures on Israel. So it's the gentile kings who should be punished, not Israel.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Of course it does.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
He MUST have thought it, MUST have believed it, MUST have understood it, MUST have felt it.

No? (That's rhetorical).

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And leo, He MUST have done.

done what?
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So, Jesus didn't believe in PSA despite all He said to NOTHING BUT that effect time after time?

He didn't mean it?

He was being 'poetic'. Meeting the culture where it lived but not part of it? Not fully human?

WHERE is Jesus supposed to have expressed a belief in PSA?
Jesus own (alleged, purported) proof texts:

"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28)

He came to die instead of us. That's substitution. In the punishment of death. If we hadn't been ransomed what would have happened to us? Do I REALLY have to ask that?

"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28)

He had to die, to be bled to death or sin would not be forgiven but punished with death. That's substitution. That's instead of.

“Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he MUST go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he MUST be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matthew 16:21).

He had to suffer and He had to die. Be punished. Instead of us. To death.

“Why then is it written that the Son of Man MUST suffer much and be rejected?” (Mark 9:12; 9:31; 10:33-34)

Yeah, why?

“Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself…. ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day’” (Luke 24:26-27, 46).

“It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this MUST be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment” (Luke 22:37).

Ohhhhhh the punishment was by us?

Isaiah 53: Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

WE projected that on God. Yep. We did. We do. YOU do. But you CAN'T! Therefore ... look at the painted cow elephant. That's not red is it?

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;

Despite that He WAS tortured to death instead of us.

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

The WHAT?

and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

WHO did what?

For the transgression of my people he was stricken....

Punished. For OUR sin. INSTEAD of us.

Though he had done no violence ... it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer ...

Who again? Had Him tortured to death?

the Lord makes his life a guilt offering....

Who?

He will bear their iniquities....

As a SUBSTITUTE?

He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (verses 4-12).

INSTEAD of many for their sin?

No? Again please don't bother.

Matthew 20:22
"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" "We can," they answered.

Matthew 26:39
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

Whose will?

Matthew 26:42
He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

Whose?

Mark 14:36
"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Whose?

Luke 22:42
"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

Whose?

John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

Whose?

John 18:11
Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"

Who?

No?

Anything and everything but the plain and obvious inference that Jesus HUMANLY drew from His culture of two thousand years? That even He couldn't transcend?

I think you are all so frightened of the inescapable meaning of the time, the raging African bull elephant in the WORDS. Superstitious. That like all allegations in Stalin's Russia: say them and they are true.

As they say in Germany: "Mann soll den Teufel nicht an die wand malen, ..." One should not paint the Devil on the wall.

Warum? (Why?)

"sonst kommt er." - otherwise he comes (Wilhelm Hauff)

Somehow saying the obvious about what Jews believed of their Messiah including in the person, the mind, the thoughts and feelings of the Messiah and His immediate followers makes it so of God?

How ... woodenly literal. How fundamentalist. How frightfully modern.
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Still not penal substitution.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Not for you. Fine. For the Jews, for Jesus, for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, for Junia, for the vast majority of Christians for two thousand years.

Not for me of course. I don't believe in PSA for a moment.

But Jesus obviously did. It's impossible that he didn't.

[ 14. December 2014, 20:11: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
Obviously, you say. Yet you still haven't demonstrated it.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Sorry, He.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
It cannot be to you or any here I'm sure. That's OK. So is it that it's obvious only to me I'm also sure. That's disposition for you.

As ever, we must include those who exclude.
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
[Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I'm not sure why you cite Anselm's Satisfaction Theory, since the thread is about PSA, but if you are trying to make the point that Athanasian theosis is the original, and only valid, theory of the atonement, on the basis of its antiquity, you are still stuck with the Ransom Theory, which also has patristic (not to mention scriptural) attestation.

No, I'm not trying to tout one theory as the only one true theory. I'm not trying to divide the truth up into theories at all. That's the Protestants' job, and they're very good at it. It's not a game I play.
It’s not a game, and it’s not restricted to Protestants.

It’s called exegesis, and it’s a grown-ups’ activity which involves taking seriously the complexities of the doctrine contained in Christianity’s foundation text – in this case, the many theories (call them metaphors, or facets of truth if you prefer) which are used in expressing the broad teaching of the atonement.

As Oscar Wilde said, “the truth is rarely pure and never simple”, however much we would like to pretend that it were otherwise
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28)

He came to die instead of us. That's substitution. In the punishment of death. If we hadn't been ransomed what would have happened to us? Do I REALLY have to ask that?

But this doesn't say "instead of us." It says FOR us. It says as a RANSOM. But "ransom" does not mean "substitution." The two words are not synonymous. If I pay kidnappers a ransom to get my son back, you wouldn't say my money was a substitute for my son. If I worked a shift instead of you at the Co-op, you wouldn't say I ransomed your shift. The two words are just not interchangeable.

quote:
"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28)

He had to die, to be bled to death or sin would not be forgiven but punished with death. That's substitution.

No, it isn't. To give someone something is not to substitute. He gave his life for our salvation. There's nothing of "instead of" in there.

quote:
“Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he MUST go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he MUST be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matthew 16:21).

He had to suffer and He had to die.

Absolutely.

quote:
Be punished.
Well, yes.

quote:
Instead of us.
Does not follow. You are reading PSA into these passages. They all make perfect sense without PSA, and PSA is by no means a necessary consequence of them.

quote:
To death.
True.

quote:
“Why then is it written that the Son of Man MUST suffer much and be rejected?” (Mark 9:12; 9:31; 10:33-34)

Yeah, why?

“Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself…. ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day’” (Luke 24:26-27, 46).

This says nothing about substitution or even punishment. Nothing. It's simply not there.

quote:
“It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this MUST be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment” (Luke 22:37).

Ohhhhhh the punishment was by us?

This verse doesn't mention punishment. It's not there.

quote:
Isaiah 53: Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

WE projected that on God. Yep. We did. We do. YOU do. But you CAN'T! Therefore ... look at the painted cow elephant. That's not red is it?

Now this is the old Martin we knew and loved. Completely inscrutable.

quote:
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;

Despite that He WAS tortured to death instead of us.

This does not say instead of. It says for. The two are not interchangeable. Instead <> For. Two different words, two different concepts. They may overlap but they are not synonymous, and there is nothing in this verse that says anything about "instead of."

quote:
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

The WHAT?

Ah, now this verse does say punishment! It still doesn't say "instead of" though.

quote:
and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

WHO did what?

For the transgression of my people he was stricken....

Punished. For OUR sin. INSTEAD of us.

It simply does not say "instead of." You are reading that in. You are equating "for" with "instead of" and they are two different concepts.

I'll let somebody else handle the rest of these. I can only reiterate "instead of and for are two different concepts" so many times.

[ 14. December 2014, 22:56: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :
 
No one has satisfactorily explained how the Church got by for 1500 years without PSA.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
No one has satisfactorily explained how the Church got by for 1500 years without PSA.

Which was what I was trying to say by bringing up Vincent of Lerins. Maybe I should have gone for this simpler approach. Thank you.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
(to the queston: "WHERE is Jesus supposed to have expressed a belief in PSA?") Jesus own (alleged, purported) proof texts.

You seem to be confusing PSA with atonement theories. ALL atonement theories contain the notion of "Jesus dying for us" and "Jesus setting us right with God." The texts you noted are not PSA, but, as noted up thread, indicative of the other theories:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28)

He came to die instead of us. That's substitution. In the punishment of death. If we hadn't been ransomed what would have happened to us? Do I REALLY have to ask that?

No, that's ransom. Clearly. He ransomed us from Satan's power-- i.e. the force or impact of the atonement was not towards God, but towards Satan. The core, essential "problem of humanity" was not that God's wrath puts us in danger of eternal punishment-- but that we are "trapped and oppressed by spiritual powers beyond our control" (i.e. Satan). Quite a bit different than PSA, actually.


quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." (Matthew 26:28)

He had to die, to be bled to death or sin would not be forgiven but punished with death. That's substitution. That's instead of.

No, it's satisfaction. Which, again, is quite similar to substitution, but not the same as it. Both are "Godward" theories-- both do posit the core problem is that God's wrath or God's justice puts us in danger of eternal punishment. But substitution (found in Paul's writings, most likely to relate to Gentile audiences) uses judicial imagery whereas satisfaction (used by Jesus, in the book of Hebrews, and occasionally by Paul, probably to relate to Jewish audiences) uses the imagery of the Temple. That is clearly the imagery used here.


quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

“Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he MUST go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he MUST be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Matthew 16:21).

He had to suffer and He had to die. Be punished. Instead of us. To death.

“Why then is it written that the Son of Man MUST suffer much and be rejected?” (Mark 9:12; 9:31; 10:33-34)

Yeah, why?

“Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself…. ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day’” (Luke 24:26-27, 46).

“It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’; and I tell you that this MUST be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment” (Luke 22:37).

Ohhhhhh the punishment was by us?

Isaiah 53: Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;

and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He will bear their iniquities....

As a SUBSTITUTE?

He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (verses 4-12).

Those are all references to the atonement and to the necessity of the atonement. But none of them specify a theory of the atonement-- they answer the (most important) "Why?" question (i.e. Why do we need a Savior?) but none of these texts happens to address the "how" question (as in "how does Jesus' life, death & resurrection accomplish this?). So you can't put any of these texts into any of the columns.


quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (verses 4-12).

INSTEAD of many for their sin?

No? Again please don't bother.

Matthew 20:22
"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" "We can," they answered.

Matthew 26:39
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

Matthew 26:42
He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

Whose?

Mark 14:36
"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

Luke 22:42
"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

John 18:11
Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"

Again, these are all references to the atonement in general but not to any particular theory of the atonement-- i.e. any particular theory of the "how" of it all.

You seem to want to stress the fact that it is God's will in all these verses. Well, yes. The atonement was very much God's will. God wanted it. God became incarnate for it. That's one of several things that all five theories have in common. The fact that it was "in our place"-- again, something all five have in common. You seem to be confusing the common attributes that all five theories of the atonement affirm with PSA, which is a more specific imagery that goes beyond those common elements to suggest a specific method by which the atonement accomplishes that end.

[ 15. December 2014, 04:06: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Not for you. Fine. For the Jews, for Jesus, for Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, for Junia, for the vast majority of Christians for two thousand years.

quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
No one has satisfactorily explained how the Church got by for 1500 years without PSA.

Again, I think we have demonstrated that other theories-- particularly the two Satanward theories (ransom and Christus victor) were the dominant images for most of that 2000 year history in both the Western and Eastern churches (although by different name/nuances in the East).

[ 15. December 2014, 04:10: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I'm confusing nothing.

And none of the theories can diminish from the emotional reality felt by Jesus and the vast majority of Christians regardless of 'theory'.

To insist on a late modernist projection does the text disservice. As always.

PSA is the dominant perichoretic, inseperable 'theory' in the text. In the mind of Jesus. Obviously.

A HUMAN one. THE human one. Not divine. The divine transcends it. Obviously.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
To insist on a late modernist projection does the text disservice. As always.

Sorry, but Christus Victor is not a late modernist projection. It's the ancient faith of the church. PSA is an early modernist projection, however. It does not go back 2000 years, or anything like. It's an innovation.

quote:
PSA is the dominant perichoretic, inseperable 'theory' in the text. In the mind of Jesus. Obviously.
It's evident you think so. You have not demonstrated it from the text. Because it's not there, as has been shown by both myself and cliffdweller.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I didn't say CV was modern. I said that insistence that PSA isn't the obvious meaning of the text is. Just like acceptance of slavery and patriarchal heterosexual sexism is. And military service.

[ 15. December 2014, 14:07: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I didn't say CV was modern. I said that insistence that PSA isn't the obvious meaning of the text is.

Nothing you have listed so far indicates PSA. Again, you can find references to substitution in Paul's writings, but none that I'm aware of in Jesus' words, and certainly not in any of the verses you cited.

Again, you really don't seem to understand what atonement theories are about or the distinctions between the different theories. The verses you cited are primary allusions to the elements that all five theories have in common. Things like the fact that the atonement is dealing with the problem of sin, was planned and purposed by God, involves Jesus suffering in our place, and the fact that the atonement changes our relationship with God-- these are all things that are common to all the theories of the atonement, not just PSA. But the specific distinctive elements of PSA-- the things that separate it from the other four theories-- are not found in any of the verses you cited.

It is funny how we see what we expect to see, though. The emphasis on PSA is so pervasive in so many churches, it can be hard to read these familiar verses w/o seeing that they don't say what we think we say.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
No one has satisfactorily explained how the Church got by for 1500 years without PSA.

There's nothing to explain.

As the Puritan John Robinson famously said, "I am verily persuaded that the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of his Holy Word".

You can find the same idea in Roman Catholicism, in John Henry Newman's concept of the development of doctrine.

The fact that the church had the doctrine of atonement, including the idea of substitution, for one and a half millennia prior to the emergence of the understanding of PSA as one of its aspects, says nothing one way or the other about the validity of PSA.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I didn't say CV was modern. I said that insistence that PSA isn't the obvious meaning of the text is.

And several posters here have presented evidence that that is not the case. So far the only evidence you have supplied is your own passionate insistence that the texts "obviously" mean what you think they mean-- even though it is obvious only to you.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Indeed. And Jesus.
 
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
Martin, you are right in one respect. Religious first century Jews would have been familiar with the idea of placating an angry deity. But they would have been familiar with it as a pagan, not a Jewish, concept. The prophets, and especially Isaiah, were decidedly scathing about pagan understandings of sacrifice, which centred on appeasement rather than covenantal faith. Yes, you can find anthropomorphic understandings of sacrifice in the OT (though these fall short of penal notions), but if you want to find an example of PSA-like concepts in the OT, you must look to the worship of Molech, Not YHWH.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Indeed. And Jesus.

Not so much.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Martin, you are right in one respect. Religious first century Jews would have been familiar with the idea of placating an angry deity. But they would have been familiar with it as a pagan, not a Jewish, concept. The prophets, and especially Isaiah, were decidedly scathing about pagan understandings of sacrifice, which centred on appeasement rather than covenantal faith. Yes, you can find anthropomorphic understandings of sacrifice in the OT (though these fall short of penal notions), but if you want to find an example of PSA-like concepts in the OT, you must look to the worship of Molech, Not YHWH.

And even that would fit with satisfaction theory, not substitution.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Thanks JJ, I need look no further than the thoughts of Jesus. He knew what he was doing. What it felt like. What it looked like. As He said. But only to me of course. That paying a ransom with your life bled out in a long day of penalization for the lives of others is NOT as substitute for them. It's every other form of, metaphor for atonement EXCEPT that.

Despite it seemed that way to the Jew Caiaphas.

And me.

Just the three of us.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
That paying a ransom with your life bled out in a long day of penalization for the lives of others is NOT as substitute for them. It's every other form of, metaphor for atonement EXCEPT that.

No, that particular allusion would be toward-- surprise, surprise-- ransom theory.

For someone who claims to be looking for the "obvious" meaning of the text, what is there about that that is unclear? Not meaning to be snarky, I'm really just having a very hard time figuring out what you're not getting-- or if you're just yanking our collective chains.
 
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
quote:
originally posted by Martin60

Thanks JJ, I need look no further than the thoughts of Jesus. He knew what he was doing. What it felt like. What it looked like. As He said. But only to me of course. That paying a ransom with your life bled out in a long day of penalization for the lives of others is NOT as substitute for them. It's every other form of, metaphor for atonement EXCEPT that.

Despite it seemed that way to the Jew Caiaphas.

And me.

Just the three of us.

My italics.

Why penalization? It just isn't there in the text. And it's inconceivable that a pious 1st century Jew would have thought in that way. And, of course, as cliffdweller has adequately demonstrated, to die for the sake of of a person, or a nation, or the whole of humankind, is not the same as to die in their place.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Yeah sure JJ. He paid the PENALTY of our sins. He HAD to suffer greatly for them. He was PUNISHED instead of us. But yeah, every other word in the thesaurus is allowed EXCEPT substitution.

Will penal satisfaction atonement do?

What do you call His realizing on the cross that He was utterly separated from His Father? From God? Tormented in existential horror.

Anything and everything except being punished? Paying a penalty? In our stead? It didn't feel like that?

OK.

Not for anyone but Jesus and me.

I'm fine with that.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
Even the notion of dying "in our place" is not unique to PSA. Many of the other theories can contain that aspect.

For the metaphor to point specifically to PSA you need first off the "Godward" orientation-- that the problem is specifically appeasing the wrath or justice of God. Whereas Martin's example, with it's clear reference to "ransom", is clearly a "Satanward" orientation-- the problem is a slavery to sin/Satan.

Then you need to go further to distinguish PSA from the other "Godward" theory, satisfaction. Several of the verses Martin cited earlier are clearly satisfaction-- having the Godward direction and the "in our place" aspect, but with the image of sacrifice rather than the judicial imagery.

Again, you can find this image in Romans and other Pauline writings but I can't think of anyplace you see Jesus using that image.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Yeah sure JJ. He paid the PENALTY of our sins. He HAD to suffer greatly for them. He was PUNISHED instead of us. But yeah, every other word in the thesaurus is allowed EXCEPT substitution.

Will penal satisfaction atonement do?

What do you call His realizing on the cross that He was utterly separated from His Father? From God? Tormented in existential horror.

Anything and everything except being punished? Paying a penalty? In our stead? It didn't feel like that?

OK.

Not for anyone but Jesus and me.

I'm fine with that.

Again, you are confusing things that are common to ALL or MOST understandings of the atonement with PSA in particular. It's not that we don't believe/affirm most or all of those things, it's that those particular aspects are not the aspects that are distinctive to PSA.
 
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
@Martin.

But, of course, Jesus was not, in actuality, separated from the Father on the cross. As Psalm 137 points out, we can never be separated from the Father. He is everywhere, physically and metaphorically. But He certainly experienced alienation, was unable to experience the presence of God in a way that, heretofore, had been his whole life.

Actually, this idea, that God turns His back on sin, and by extension of sinners, that the only way of dealing with sin is by punishment, is the central heresy at the heart of PSA.
 
Posted by Jude (# 3033) on :
 
Quoted by Jolly Jape:

quote:
But, of course, Jesus was not, in actuality, separated from the Father on the cross. As Psalm 137 points out, we can never be separated from the Father. He is everywhere, physically and metaphorically. But He certainly experienced alienation, was unable to experience the presence of God in a way that, heretofore, had been his whole life.

Actually, this idea, that God turns His back on sin, and by extension of sinners, that the only way of dealing with sin is by punishment, is the central heresy at the heart of PSA.

I wonder how a loving God can be this same vengeful God. I believe in a God who is perfect and hates sin and one who loves his creation more than we can ever know, but His love is infinite and overcomes everything else.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
All nice modern rhetoric. How did it FEEL? How DOES it feel?

It's got NOTHING to do with 'theology', with what God required. Of course God isn't vengeful.

We are.

Of course He didn't require an act of penal substitutionary atonement.

We did.

It's what a - the - pre-modern man with a divine person's nature experienced.

That was the story. Prophesied and lived and felt.

How could it possibly not have been?
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
Martin60, I don't believe there is any evidence that Jesus believed in PSA, in fact, far from it. That is not to say it did not become increasingly clear to him that to persist in his ministry would almost certainly lead to his death. As I have mentioned on other occasions, the parable of the vineyard (Luke 20: 9-19) makes it clear that the owner of the vineyard (God) does not desire the death of his son (Jesus). The death of the son, though inevitable, is demanded by the tenants and not the owner. Jesus himself makes clear in the parable that his death is to be one of martyrdom, the culmination of a long line of persecution of the prophets. It is, incidentally, a theme continued by Stephen at his trial, presumably indicating a view current in the early church. None of this has the remotest connection to PSA or Satisfaction, rather the contrary.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
"How could it not have been?" is not an argument for anything. It is just a registration of your emotions. As such it has no place in an argument.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
How frightfully 'modern'. Is that the best you got?

It's how Jesus PACHYDERMALLY felt.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
No, countering people who are reading things in Scripture that aren't there isn't particularly modern; it's been going on since at least 2 Peter 3:16.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jude:
Quoted by Jolly Jape:

quote:
But, of course, Jesus was not, in actuality, separated from the Father on the cross. As Psalm 137 points out, we can never be separated from the Father. He is everywhere, physically and metaphorically. But He certainly experienced alienation, was unable to experience the presence of God in a way that, heretofore, had been his whole life.

Actually, this idea, that God turns His back on sin, and by extension of sinners, that the only way of dealing with sin is by punishment, is the central heresy at the heart of PSA.

I wonder how a loving God can be this same vengeful God. I believe in a God who is perfect and hates sin and one who loves his creation more than we can ever know, but His love is infinite and overcomes everything else.
Exactly. Whence comes my "twist" if you will on PSA. I can and do assert substitution in atonement, but the penal bit is I think unhelpful.

You cannot satisfy justice by punishing X for Y's sins. Y remains unpunished. Justice is not served. However, you can satisfy a creditor by X paying Y's debt. And this is how I see it. God foregoes the debt we owe him, effectively paying it himself. But if he does that, then it costs him, just as if you owe me a fiver and I say "don't bother", I'm a fiver down. In the atonement I see God's loss in paying our debt played out - there is God's loss, there is the cost to him. Christ on our behalf pays the debt, but the money comes from the Bank of God.

Atonement theories are models rather than attempts to explain the reality in full, or ought to be, anyway. As such they can be partially evaluated on the basis of their usefulness. I find that twist on substitution more useful than the penal one, which I don't find useful at all.
 
Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on :
 
Interesting thread. Thanks Cliffdweller for the clear explanations. But also I think I understand what Martin is getting at.

Must admit I seem to be particularly liberal on this issue. Further out than Karl - who I often agree with. Kwesi is pretty close to my position - I think.

Whilst others are right to point out to Martin, that paying a ransom is not the same as a penal requirement, nevertheless the cross looked pretty punishing and if it was God that needed it to happen then the difference between PSA and most of the others (except Moral Influence) is just not significant enough for me.

I have a problem with any atonement theories which basically state that something went wrong with God's creation (some humans did something that ruined everything) and the only way that God could solve this problem was by getting the mob to do what was necessary - kill his son.

Some emphasise the Trinity at this point, as if a a 'suicide pack' would be better than the old 'child abuse' claim. But it still doesn't work for me.

The problem is that whilst PSA may be the most obviously abhorrent, most of the other Atonement theories are just different ways of justifying the necessity of this particular human execution.

Deeply problematic. (I am aware of all those texts that imply Jesus death was necessary, but still can't buy it.)

[ 17. December 2014, 12:57: Message edited by: Luigi ]
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Jude:
Quoted by Jolly Jape:

quote:
But, of course, Jesus was not, in actuality, separated from the Father on the cross. As Psalm 137 points out, we can never be separated from the Father. He is everywhere, physically and metaphorically. But He certainly experienced alienation, was unable to experience the presence of God in a way that, heretofore, had been his whole life.

Actually, this idea, that God turns His back on sin, and by extension of sinners, that the only way of dealing with sin is by punishment, is the central heresy at the heart of PSA.

I wonder how a loving God can be this same vengeful God. I believe in a God who is perfect and hates sin and one who loves his creation more than we can ever know, but His love is infinite and overcomes everything else.
Exactly. Whence comes my "twist" if you will on PSA. I can and do assert substitution in atonement, but the penal bit is I think unhelpful.

You cannot satisfy justice by punishing X for Y's sins. Y remains unpunished. Justice is not served. However, you can satisfy a creditor by X paying Y's debt. And this is how I see it. God foregoes the debt we owe him, effectively paying it himself. But if he does that, then it costs him, just as if you owe me a fiver and I say "don't bother", I'm a fiver down. In the atonement I see God's loss in paying our debt played out - there is God's loss, there is the cost to him. Christ on our behalf pays the debt, but the money comes from the Bank of God.

Atonement theories are models rather than attempts to explain the reality in full, or ought to be, anyway. As such they can be partially evaluated on the basis of their usefulness. I find that twist on substitution more useful than the penal one, which I don't find useful at all.

For once I think I agree with you.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Interesting thread. Thanks Cliffdweller for the clear explanations. But also I think I understand what Martin is getting at.

Must admit I seem to be particularly liberal on this issue. Further out than Karl - who I often agree with. Kwesi is pretty close to my position - I think.

Whilst others are right to point out to Martin, that paying a ransom is not the same as a penal requirement, nevertheless the cross looked pretty punishing and if it was God that needed it to happen then the difference between PSA and most of the others (except Moral Influence) is just not significant enough for me.

I have a problem with any atonement theories which basically state that something went wrong with God's creation (some humans did something that ruined everything) and the only way that God could solve this problem was by getting the mob to do what was necessary - kill his son.

Some emphasise the Trinity at this point, as if a a 'suicide pack' would be better than the old 'child abuse' claim. But it still doesn't work for me.

The problem is that whilst PSA may be the most obviously abhorrent, most of the other Atonement theories are just different ways of justifying the necessity of this particular human execution.

Deeply problematic. (I am aware of all those texts that imply Jesus death was necessary, but still can't buy it.)

To me there's a huge difference between the two "Godward" theories (substitution and satisfaction) and the two "Satanward" theories (ransom and CV). Your concerns seem quite apt in regards to the Godward theories-- in both it is God who is offended, needs to be placated, and demanding the sacrifice. The difference is really only the imagery.

But I don't see how your concerns apply to the Satanward theories. In ransom and CV it's not that God is demanding payment, it is that God is entering into what NT Wright calls "a great rescue plan." He is actively rescuing us and bringing us back from the futility and horror of sin and death. Not out of a need to appease justice, but out of love and compassion for the suffering our own sin causes us.
 
Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on :
 
Cliffdweller said
quote:
To me there's a huge difference between the two "Godward" theories (substitution and satisfaction) and the two "Satanward" theories (ransom and CV). Your concerns seem quite apt in regards to the Godward theories-- in both it is God who is offended, needs to be placated, and demanding the sacrifice. The difference is really only the imagery.

But I don't see how your concerns apply to the Satanward theories. In ransom and CV it's not that God is demanding payment, it is that God is entering into what NT Wright calls "a great rescue plan." He is actively rescuing us and bringing us back from the futility and horror of sin and death. Not out of a need to appease justice, but out of love and compassion for the suffering our own sin causes us.

Well for me I think Satan is an interesting metaphor but almost certainly doesn't exist. After all if God is omnipotent any freedom that Satan has is allowed by him. Indeed the power of sin and death should surely be something he can deal with, without getting his son to be killed by the mob. The problem is that you have a God where his creation seems to have more power than he does.

So whilst superficially the Satanward theories seem to get God off the hook, his omnipotence puts him back on that hook.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Well for me I think Satan is an interesting metaphor but almost certainly doesn't exist. After all if God is omnipotent any freedom that Satan has is allowed by him. Indeed the power of sin and death should surely be something he can deal with, without getting his son to be killed by the mob. The problem is that you have a God where his creation seems to have more power than he does.

So whilst superficially the Satanward theories seem to get God off the hook, his omnipotence puts him back on that hook.

Regular shipmates are cursing you for provoking yet another of my pedantic Open Theism tangents... Open Theism would posit that the possibility sin and evil was a logical necessity of creating a truly free universe that was open to the possibility of genuine love. What you are saying would essentially strip all creatures of any vestiges of free will, making any sort of real reciprocal relationship with God or one another impossible.
 
Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on :
 
I have no problem with freewill. You are just giving Satan and / or death so much power that it requires God's Son to die.

Do you believe that there are meaningful relationships in heaven? Is there free-will there?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
I have no problem with freewill. You are just giving Satan and / or death so much power that it requires God's Son to die.

You can't have it both ways. If you want to be free, you have to be free to choose sin/evil-- whether you configure "evil" as a force or concept (as per Walter Wink) or as a personal created being w/ free will (as per Greg Boyd). The degree to which you (or any other created being, e.g. angels/demons) are free to choose good (love) is proportionally the same degree to which you are free to choose evil.


quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:

Do you believe that there are meaningful relationships in heaven? Is there free-will there?

Yes.

I believe that purpose of this life is to demonstrate to us (created free beings) through trial and error (e.g. sin) that God's ways are superior to our (or anyone else's ways) so that ultimately we will freely choose to participate in the Kingdom of God-- the place where God reigns.
 
Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on :
 
Well it seems to me your first paragraph does not necessitate God having to have his son killed. That would be nothing more than assertion.

I am not clear whether you are arguing that there was some sort of a 'fall' at some stage. Are you?
 
Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on :
 
Actually perhaps this answers your points better. So in heaven we have meaningful choice but we will voluntarily choose the right thing on an ongoing basis?

Why can't we have that as the basis for life on earth?

When I was a good little evangelical I was taught that to have meaningful choice we had to have the world as it is, with all its pain and struggle because otherwise there'd be no meaningful relationship. However, most takes on heaven suggest that we can have a meaningful relationship with God without all the in-built error prone-ness and pain.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Well it seems to me your first paragraph does not necessitate God having to have his son killed. That would be nothing more than assertion.

Yes, I've been following the sub-topic launched by your question. The question of the need for Christ's sacrifice is obviously the topic at hand. Back to your original post that started the tangent, my point was that in the two "Satanward" theories it's not about God killing his son, but rather about God rescuing us from our captivity to sin, a captivity caused not by God but by the free choices of his creatures (us and/or Satan).


quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:

I am not clear whether you are arguing that there was some sort of a 'fall' at some stage. Are you?

Metaphorically, yes. I don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I am a theistic evolutionist.

Greg Boyd posits a sort of "fall"-- a Satanic corruption of creation-- that occurs in the second nanosecond (not the right measurement of time-- I'm not a physicist) of creation that accounts for much of the natural evil in our world, including in the process of evolution itself (all that "red of tooth & claw" stuff). I find that notion helpful in understanding natural evil, an aspect of theodicy not many theologians of any system are addressing. (See parallel thread re theodicy).
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Actually perhaps this answers your points better. So in heaven we have meaningful choice but we will voluntarily choose the right thing on an ongoing basis?

Why can't we have that as the basis for life on earth?

We will. My understanding of the end times is precisely that-- not an other-worldly existence "up there somewhere" but a real life on this earth, a resurrection life, in the New Creation.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Denying the plain meaning, staring you in the face for two thousand years is nothing new either.

K: LS, not bad, but what debt do we owe God?

Luigi, your first post above is, I'm afraid, most encouraging. Of course ransom is just one metaphor WE draw out. A good one. Extremely limited like Karl's accounting one. Nonetheless a piece of the rhetorical jigsaw. As for PSA I don't buy it either. At all. But it's there. Staring us in the face in the pre-modern enculturated mind of Jesus.

We're free to ignore it according to disposition. What there is to be afraid of, I don't understand. Seeing isn't believing.

Jesus. The perfect man. Perfect in the pre-modern timing and Bronze-Iron Age multicultural placing of His hypostatic union.

Perfect in His humanity. In His weakness and ignorance. Perfect in His selfless courage despite and because of that. Jesus who had to believe in the God of the Flood, Sodom, Gomorrah, Egypt, Canaan, Amalek.

God the Killer.

Was He right?

God the Killer who easily requires PSA.

And aye Luigi, I don't see it necessary to invent the Devil if he did not exist. But Jesus remembered him from before he was born. How that fits in with possibly millions of years of hominid sapience I don't know.

What a mystery.

[ 17. December 2014, 21:21: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
Martin, you make much of the fact that Jesus was a product of the culture of his time. That does not, however, point to his belief in Penal Substitution. However brutal the Jewish concept of God might have been, (though I suspect less so by the time of Jesus than earlier), there is nothing in its religion to suggest it believed in human sacrifice as an atonement for sin or anything else. Human sacrifice had been ruled out as early as Abraham and Isaac i.e. from the beginning.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Martin, you make much of the fact that Jesus was a product of the culture of his time. That does not, however, point to his belief in Penal Substitution.

Indeed because penal substitution is not of his time, but of the 16th century.
 
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Cliffdweller said
quote:
To me there's a huge difference between the two "Godward" theories (substitution and satisfaction) and the two "Satanward" theories (ransom and CV). Your concerns seem quite apt in regards to the Godward theories-- in both it is God who is offended, needs to be placated, and demanding the sacrifice. The difference is really only the imagery.

But I don't see how your concerns apply to the Satanward theories. In ransom and CV it's not that God is demanding payment, it is that God is entering into what NT Wright calls "a great rescue plan." He is actively rescuing us and bringing us back from the futility and horror of sin and death. Not out of a need to appease justice, but out of love and compassion for the suffering our own sin causes us.

Well for me I think Satan is an interesting metaphor but almost certainly doesn't exist. After all if God is omnipotent any freedom that Satan has is allowed by him. Indeed the power of sin and death should surely be something he can deal with, without getting his son to be killed by the mob. The problem is that you have a God where his creation seems to have more power than he does.

So whilst superficially the Satanward theories seem to get God off the hook, his omnipotence puts him back on that hook.

With CV, it's not that Satan's power was threatening to overwhelm's God's power, Satan's power was only threatening to overwhelm the free will of others. And it wasn't that God's power was so limited that it necessitated his getting his son killed to deal with Satan.

Allowing the crucifixion was a tactic that allowed God to conquer Satan's power without doing any violence to Satan himself, and without even attacking or being aggressive toward Satan. The whole of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as God Incarnate was a way to allow Satan to do his worst and defeat himself without any collateral damage, and without even any damage to Satan himself.

And Satan doesn't have to be a real individual for that to work - Satan could just be a name given to the influence of evil and those who espouse it. (I happen to believe the latter myself.) As long as Satan represents some one or some group of created beings whom God loves, the crucifixion becomes a way to deal with Satan's power while still treating Satan in a manner consistent with infinite love and infinite mercy.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Kwesi. We all know that. So? Jesus was human. He was sacrificed. He sacrificed Himself. He was a human sacrifice. That's what He saw prophesied, that He must fulfil. That's how it looked, seemed, felt to Him. Why do you think that God ring fenced the concept?

He was condignly, officially, legally punished, penalized as a sinner and furthermore He BELIEVED it to be cosmically necessary.

Which it was of course. But NOT for the projection of our perverted - Satanic - sense of justice on God.

mousethief. Pure legalism. Read the words. Jesus'. FEEL the words. Empathize with Him. Put yourself in His Bronze-Iron Age pre-modern time and place.

Just as a posit, you know?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Denying the plain meaning, staring you in the face for two thousand years is nothing new either.

Except it's NOT the plain meaning and it's NOT staring me in the face. As has been demonstrated. Repeatedly. You see it in the scriptures because you read with PSA-tinted glasses. I do not.

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
mousethief. Pure legalism. Read the words. Jesus'. FEEL the words. Empathize with Him. Put yourself in His Bronze-Iron Age pre-modern time and place.

Just as a posit, you know?

I have read the words. I have felt them. How dare you tell me I haven't. It's. Just. Not. There.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Denying the plain meaning, staring you in the face for two thousand years is nothing new either.

Except it's NOT the plain meaning and it's NOT staring me in the face. As has been demonstrated. Repeatedly. You see it in the scriptures because you read with PSA-tinted glasses. I do not.

Yes. It is ironic, given that Martin is arguing for a historically contextualized reading, that he seems so incapable of seeing beyond his own cultural context. I suppose it happens to the best of us. *shrug*
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
Kwesi
quote:
Martin, you make much of the fact that Jesus was a product of the culture of his time. That does not, however, point to his belief in Penal Substitution. However brutal the Jewish concept of God might have been, (though I suspect less so by the time of Jesus than earlier), there is nothing in its religion to suggest it believed in human sacrifice as an atonement for sin or anything else. Human sacrifice had been ruled out as early as Abraham and Isaac i.e. from the beginning.
Martin
quote:
Kwesi. We all know that. So? Jesus was human. He was sacrificed. He sacrificed Himself. He was a human sacrifice. That's what He saw prophesied, that He must fulfil. That's how it looked, seemed, felt to Him. Why do you think that God ring fenced the concept?
He was condignly, officially, legally punished, penalized as a sinner and furthermore He BELIEVED it to be cosmically necessary.

So If "we all know that" then it would appear you agree that PSA was unlikely to have been part of the mind-set of Jesus.

I think you need to be more precise as to what you understand by "Jesus sacrificed himself". Do you mean it in the sense that we often refer to individuals as sacrificing themselves for a cause? Or do you mean it within the terms of a particular sacrificial system that required human sacrifice? If the latter, then I think you need to make the point clearer. You also need to show that Jesus' sacrificing of himself demonstrated his belief in PSA.

As for why God "ring-fenced" human sacrifice I can't pretend to have access to his mind. All I'm saying is that for whatever reason he restrained Abraham's hand, did not introduce it when dictating (or whatever) the Torah, or give any other indication of a desire for its introduction. So why Jesus, as a product of that culture, should have believed in PSA I'm at a loss to understand. Furthermore, the punishment he received had nothing to do with God, it had nothing to do with satisfying his wrath or justice, which is what PSA is all about. The ball, Martin, is clearly in your court.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
We have access to His mind through His words. Denying that PSA was in His thinking is like denying the Trinity because it wasn't formulated for 300 years.
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We have access to His mind through His words. Denying that PSA was in His thinking is like denying the Trinity because it wasn't formulated for 300 years.

With respect, Martin60, this is a feeble argument. Most Christians stick with the Trinity concept because we see it in the Bible. You've singularly failed to convince the doubters here (of whom I'm one) that PSA is actually in the Bible, or certainly that PSA is the dominant / only atonement theory in the Bible.

You've quoted many Bible passages in this thread, saying 'Look, PSA!'. Folks have explained why they don't see PSA in those verses and you've come back at them... to say 'Look, PSA!' again.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We have access to His mind through His words. Denying that PSA was in His thinking is like denying the Trinity because it wasn't formulated for 300 years.

With respect, Martin60, this is a feeble argument. Most Christians stick with the Trinity concept because we see it in the Bible. You've singularly failed to convince the doubters here (of whom I'm one) that PSA is actually in the Bible, or certainly that PSA is the dominant / only atonement theory in the Bible.

You've quoted many Bible passages in this thread, saying 'Look, PSA!'. Folks have explained why they don't see PSA in those verses and you've come back at them... to say 'Look, PSA!' again.

That's because in this case, Martin is absolutely right and it is also in Paul's thinking. You just have to read Romans without your Tom Wright glasses or your Roman or Orthodox, Catholic ,Liberal Anglican heterodox mindset to realise that to a Jew, any Jew, God's wrath was and is not academic, it was experiential and to be avoided and appeased. The word 'propitiation' as the AV uses it carries the meaning of appeasing sacrifice, covering, and Paul could not have made it clearer that it was through the atoning sacrifice of Christ that we are spared God's anger and able to access his love. Ro 3:25 "whom God publicly displayed as a propitiation in his blood through faith" Take that out of the atonement and you do not have access to the Father through faith.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
Most Christians stick with the Trinity concept because we see it in the Bible.

The reason most of us see the Trinity in the Bible is the same reason why most of see orthodox Christology in the Bible - because these dogmas were formulated over the first four ecumenical councils 325-451, and we have inherited them, and grown up with nothing else..

To many, then and since, they have not been self-evidently scriptural at all, and it was, and is, impossible to force these dissidents to “see” them.

In the same way, it is impossible to force anyone who doesn’t “get” the later formulation of PSA to accept it.

I think Monophysite Copts and Nestorian Assyrians/Chaldeans are wrong, as was the Arian John Milton, but I still regard them all as my brothers in Christ, just as I do those who reject PSA, as long as they are accessing God’s grace through some sort of apprehension of the atonement.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We have access to His mind through His words. Denying that PSA was in His thinking is like denying the Trinity because it wasn't formulated for 300 years.

With respect, Martin60, this is a feeble argument. Most Christians stick with the Trinity concept because we see it in the Bible. You've singularly failed to convince the doubters here (of whom I'm one) that PSA is actually in the Bible, or certainly that PSA is the dominant / only atonement theory in the Bible.

You've quoted many Bible passages in this thread, saying 'Look, PSA!'. Folks have explained why they don't see PSA in those verses and you've come back at them... to say 'Look, PSA!' again.

That's because in this case, Martin is absolutely right and it is also in Paul's thinking.
Actually, I and several others acknowledged all along that substitution is found in Paul's writings, particularly in Romans. It was the claim that PSA was the only metaphor offered and the one offered by Jesus that we were disputing. Neither Martin nor you has yet to offer a single verse that shows Jesus articulating PSA.


quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You just have to read Romans without your Tom Wright glasses or your Roman or Orthodox, Catholic ,Liberal Anglican heterodox mindset to realise that to a Jew, any Jew, God's wrath was and is not academic, it was experiential and to be avoided and appeased. The word 'propitiation' as the AV uses it carries the meaning of appeasing sacrifice, covering, and Paul could not have made it clearer that it was through the atoning sacrifice of Christ that we are spared God's anger and able to access his love. Ro 3:25 "whom God publicly displayed as a propitiation in his blood through faith" Take that out of the atonement and you do not have access to the Father through faith.

Once again, that would be satisfaction, not substitution.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You just have to read Romans without your Tom Wright glasses or your Roman or Orthodox, Catholic ,Liberal Anglican heterodox mindset to realise <etc etc>

In other words you just have to be a conservative Protestant. Before there were conservative Protestants, how did we ever get along? How did we ever understand the atonement? O! O! We were lost and adrift in a Roman or Orthodox or Anglican liberal heterodox mindset. Clearly.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
that to a Jew, any Jew, God's wrath was and is not academic, it was experiential and to be avoided and appeased. The word 'propitiation' as the AV uses it carries the meaning of appeasing sacrifice, covering, and Paul could not have made it clearer that it was through the atoning sacrifice of Christ that we are spared God's anger and able to access his love.

I'm going to answer this as someone who accepts PSA as a (but not the only) useful, Biblically founded model of how the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ saves us.

As you've correctly identified, the wrath of God is something that is real and without somehow addressing that we are damned. And, that Christ took our place so that the wrath of God can be turned aside onto Him rather than us. Which I would say could be accurately described as Substitutionary Atonement.

What we (ie those of us who accept PSA) have real difficulty doing is establishing Scriptural support for the Penal part of PSA. There is not very much in Scripture supporting a view of sin as crime and God as a judge in a court of law. God as Judge often comes across more like an architect judging whether the labourers have built something properly such that it's structurally sound, a farmer judging the quality of the produce of his trees, etc.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What a wonderful semantic minefield!

Cliffdweller, I don't believe in PSA. Period. Even in Alan's terms. Especially in Alan's terms! The wrath of God is penal. His damning us is penal. And metaphoric.

He damned us by creating us.

And He doesn't believe that.

WE need the metaphors. He doesn't.

And what is also weak SCK (you've been missed), is that Jesus was obviously wrong by modern criteria in inescapably believing His culture's myths as literal.

He believed in Adam, Eve, the Flood, Sodom, Gomorrah, the Exodus, Samuel's Amalekite genocide: He believed in God the Killer.

He believed, as Alan is legalistically on the cusp of, in the SPIRIT of PSA.

Obviously.

How could He not?

He didn't believe in gay marriage however.

How could He?

The overall weakness is in trying to force God in a pre-modern Jewish Bronze-Iron Age man in to far more confining modern Christians. Left and right.

Something, despite my utter rhetorical inadequacy, I refuse to do any more.
 
Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
Martin, that is a totally respectable wagon in which to ride, but, unfortunately, you've hitched it to the wrong horse. I don't see anyone here arguing that Jesus was other than a fully human first century Jew, with all that implies. However, one of those implications was definitely not PSA, which, even in conceptual terms, would not appear for another thousand or so years. And this thread is about PSA, not gay marriage or the fate of the Amalekites. First century Jews simply did not think that way, so, if Jesus really did believe anything analagous, He would have to have come up with it Himself. And, since the only evidence we have for Jesus beliefs is the Scriptural record, we would expect to see it there. It.simply.is.not.there.
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
Cliffdweller
quote:
All five of the theories, as I have demonstrated, are biblical.
They may be biblically based, but what strikes me is that the references are so short, and disparate and their contextual links of such doubtful provenance that they are very weak foundations on which to construct convincing models or theories. Matthew 20:28, for example, does not seem to me to constitute support for the ransom theory of the atonement, though it may have some force as a metaphor for Christ's sacrificial life of obedient service. Such texts are being asked to do far more than intended.

What comes through to me from this and other discussions is not that theories of the atonement are biblically based so much as attempts by theologians in different historical and cultural contexts to articulate atonement in a way their societies could understand. One can see how Christus Victor made sense to a world dominated by Roman Imperialism, Satisfaction to the mediaeval world, and PSA to an emerging Protestant bourgeoisie. Atonement may be an eternal truth but theories as to how it works less so. I think the reason why PSA is so often in the firing line is that many of its supporters wish it to have creedal status and belief in it necessary for salvation.
 
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Cliffdweller
quote:
All five of the theories, as I have demonstrated, are biblical.
They may be biblically based, but what strikes me is that the references are so short, and disparate and their contextual links of such doubtful provenance that they are very weak foundations on which to construct convincing models or theories. Matthew 20:28, for example, does not seem to me to constitute support for the ransom theory of the atonement, though it may have some force as a metaphor for Christ's sacrificial life of obedient service. Such texts are being asked to do far more than intended.

What comes through to me from this and other discussions is not that theories of the atonement are biblically based so much as attempts by theologians in different historical and cultural contexts to articulate atonement in a way their societies could understand. One can see how Christus Victor made sense to a world dominated by Roman Imperialism, Satisfaction to the mediaeval world, and PSA to an emerging Protestant bourgeoisie. Atonement may be an eternal truth but theories as to how it works less so. I think the reason why PSA is so often in the firing line is that many of its supporters wish it to have creedal status and belief in it necessary for salvation.

This. I've mentioned on the Faith Free board that my guiding theological principle is "who knows, eh?" and that applies here. We can use these various models but to imagine they're any more definitive of the reality than an illustration of little soldiers fighting germs in our bloodstream is an illustration of how the immune system works is probably to overstate them.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
I think the reason why PSA is so often in the firing line is that many of its supporters wish it to have creedal status and belief in it necessary for salvation.

That, and it makes God out to be a schizophrenic ogre.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We have access to His mind through His words.

We have access to the writers of the gospels, then, because they selected the words they wrote.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Cliffdweller
quote:
All five of the theories, as I have demonstrated, are biblical.
They may be biblically based, but what strikes me is that the references are so short, and disparate and their contextual links of such doubtful provenance that they are very weak foundations on which to construct convincing models or theories.
Which is also true of large parts of Christian theology and ethics. God has chosen not to provide us with a systematic theology laid out in Scripture, nor a detailed rule book for behaviour. What we have are collections of stories, some bits of advice given in particular circumstances (which may not have direct modern counterparts), hymns, prayers, poems ... and the collective intelligence of the church to try and make sense of all of that.

The early church had a belief in Jesus Christ as Saviour. Which is great, but raises all sorts of questions like "who is Jesus?" (which ultimately leads us to things like the doctrine of the Trinity, for which "the references are so short, and disparate and their contextual links of such doubtful provenance that they are very weak foundations on which to construct convincing models or theories."). And, of relevance to this discussion "what are we saved from?" and "how does Jesus save us?". It probably shouldn't surprise us that the Biblical texts that address those questions don't provide a strong logical foundations for any of the models proposed when the Bible doesn't even really do the same if we try to get answers to questions on the nature and person of Christ.
 
Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Well it seems to me your first paragraph does not necessitate God having to have his son killed. That would be nothing more than assertion.

Yes, I've been following the sub-topic launched by your question. The question of the need for Christ's sacrifice is obviously the topic at hand. Back to your original post that started the tangent, my point was that in the two "Satanward" theories it's not about God killing his son, but rather about God rescuing us from our captivity to sin, a captivity caused not by God but by the free choices of his creatures (us and/or Satan).



And this last sentence pinpoints exactly why this is so problematic. In trying to get God off the hook you have a 'captivity' that is caused by our freewill (us or Satan) that is so powerful it requires some sort of death. You have to have God's creation getting away from him and becoming so powerful that for some reason, God has to ensure his son is killed, to rescue us from ourselves.

This is a deeply unsatisfactory narrative and is probably the reason you have to go on to Boyd's imaginative improvisation...


quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:

I am not clear whether you are arguing that there was some sort of a 'fall' at some stage. Are you?

Metaphorically, yes. I don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I am a theistic evolutionist.

Greg Boyd posits a sort of "fall"-- a Satanic corruption of creation-- that occurs in the second nanosecond (not the right measurement of time-- I'm not a physicist) of creation that accounts for much of the natural evil in our world, including in the process of evolution itself (all that "red of tooth & claw" stuff). I find that notion helpful in understanding natural evil, an aspect of theodicy not many theologians of any system are addressing. (See parallel thread re theodicy).

Exactly! The whole: God 'just giving us freewill' somehow necessitated the cross, is a very unsatisfactory narrative. Consequently you imply that you accept there must be some sort of 'a fall' - where God's creation mysteriously gets away from him and acquires a power (or corruption), that cannot be tamed (or healed) apart from with the death of his Son.

Boyd's 'corruption of creation' just after the big bang strikes me as exactly the sort of fanciful flight of the imagination that is 'necessary' to make this take even vaguely credible.

Sadly this is partly the reason, I find it so lacking plausibility. It is a metanarrative that require a great deal of 'lets make things up as we go along'.

Come on, as far as I can see, you have no reason to believe any of this 'corruption of creation stuff', other than it somehow squares this rather inconvenient circle for you. Is there any evidence anywhere that would back any of this post 'big bang' stuff up?

[ 19. December 2014, 14:31: Message edited by: Luigi ]
 
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
I think the reason why PSA is so often in the firing line is that many of its supporters wish it to have creedal status and belief in it necessary for salvation.

That, and it makes God out to be a schizophrenic ogre.
As you probably know, I disagree with your point here. However, I also really disagree with your use of the word schizophrenic - which is actually a very complex mental illness, rarely involving split personalities.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Luigi wrote:

And this last sentence pinpoints exactly why this is so problematic. In trying to get God off the hook you have a 'captivity' that is caused by our freewill (us or Satan) that is so powerful it requires some sort of death. You have to have God's creation getting away from him and becoming so powerful that for some reason, God has to ensure his son is killed, to rescue us from ourselves.

But there are other interpretations here. For example, you can see the atonement as the at-one-ment, that is, that the individual ego is sacrificed in order to bring about reconciliation with God.

You still have the issue of us 'getting away from' God, but I am not sure that that is all that problematic.

But many religions talk about an ego-annihilation which produces union, or reunion - the problem then, is why is the Christian version the special one?
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
Alan Cresswell
quote:
The early church had a belief in Jesus Christ as Saviour. Which is great, but raises all sorts of questions like "who is Jesus?" (which ultimately leads us to things like the doctrine of the Trinity, for which "the references are so short, and disparate and their contextual links of such doubtful provenance that they are very weak foundations on which to construct convincing models or theories."). And, of relevance to this discussion "what are we saved from?" and "how does Jesus save us?". It probably shouldn't surprise us that the Biblical texts that address those questions don't provide a strong logical foundations for any of the models proposed when the Bible doesn't even really do the same if we try to get answers to questions on the nature and person of Christ.
So, is your argument that the biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity is just as flimsy as that supporting the various atonement theories? Do you consider some theological positions better supported by scripture than others, or are they all equally insecure? Is the Trinity no better supported than the Immaculate Conception, for example?

Clearly, you raise a very interesting question as to the relationship between biblical evidence and theological insights. Is theology detached from scripture?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What a wonderful semantic minefield!

Cliffdweller, I don't believe in PSA. Period. Even in Alan's terms. Especially in Alan's terms! The wrath of God is penal. His damning us is penal. And metaphoric.

Yes, I caught that early on. You don't believe in PSA, and therefore it's become your excuse for rejecting orthodox Christianity. The irony is that you read the Bible exactly like a fundamentalist-- woodenly, literally, and (as we've seen here) reading into the text what you expect it to say, even when it obviously says something quite differently. This is how fundamentalists read the Bible. The only difference is that while this wooden, literalistic, non reflective reading causes a fundamentalist to embrace a narrow version of Christianity, in your case it causes you to reject orthodoxy (or a part of orthodoxy-- not sure exactly how far you're wanting to go here).

We see this quite a lot. Two sides of the same coin.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:

What comes through to me from this and other discussions is not that theories of the atonement are biblically based so much as attempts by theologians in different historical and cultural contexts to articulate atonement in a way their societies could understand. One can see how Christus Victor made sense to a world dominated by Roman Imperialism, Satisfaction to the mediaeval world, and PSA to an emerging Protestant bourgeoisie. Atonement may be an eternal truth but theories as to how it works less so. I think the reason why PSA is so often in the firing line is that many of its supporters wish it to have creedal status and belief in it necessary for salvation.

I agree. I think that intent is found in the biblical texts as well. The authors are writing to different audiences, using imagery that appeals to that particular group. Sometimes you'll find multiple images within the same text (e.g. Romans & Hebrews).

Again, that happens with metaphors. You have multiple metaphors, sometimes coming one after another or intertwined, all trying to describe the same thing-- because what you're trying to explain is so big, so cosmic, so transcendent, that it defies simple explanation.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:

Boyd's 'corruption of creation' just after the big bang strikes me as exactly the sort of fanciful flight of the imagination that is 'necessary' to make this take even vaguely credible.

Sadly this is partly the reason, I find it so lacking plausibility. It is a metanarrative that require a great deal of 'lets make things up as we go along'.

Come on, as far as I can see, you have no reason to believe any of this 'corruption of creation stuff', other than it somehow squares this rather inconvenient circle for you. Is there any evidence anywhere that would back any of this post 'big bang' stuff up?

Not sure what kind of "evidence" you're looking for. There's quite a bit of biblical evidence for the notion of "the corruption of creation"-- I'd quote verses but I'm not sure that's what you're looking for. When that "corruption" occurs is of course, a matter of debate. So yes, Boyd is going beyond revelation to offer a (quite debatable) hypothesis here.

It sounds more like you're looking for scientific "evidence" though. Which seems rather odd, since we're discussing something that's outside the realm of natural history. What would scientific "evidence" for ANY of these theories, or for the atonement itself, look like???

Wm. James suggested, and I would agree, that sin is the only empirically verifiable theological doctrine. And to some degree that's relevant here. The evidence for the "corruption of creation"-- that things are not as they should be-- is as close as your front door. Pretty much indisputable, which is why James suggests that that one precept-- "things aren't as they should be"-- is the one common element of every religious/ philosophical system.

Anything beyond that-- Why are things so messed up? Is there a God and does he care that things are messed up? If there's a God, why did he let it get so messed up? Is God going to do anything about it?-- that's all the conjecture that is the stuff from which religious belief is composed.

[ 19. December 2014, 15:34: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
On the contrary. You are reading me woodenly and literally. As you are generally prey to as you have to make the fall, whatever that is metaphoric for, work, or rather get Boyd to for you. Which it doesn't of course.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
On the contrary. You are reading me woodenly and literally. As you are generally prey to as you have to make the fall, whatever that is metaphoric for, work, or rather get Boyd to for you. Which it doesn't of course.

Of course. Persimmon wipe cheese-whiz.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
And you reckon you're orthodox eh old girl?
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And you reckon you're orthodox eh old girl?

Hi Martin just to clarify: Jesus saw himself as the lamb of God that takes our sin on himself and appeased the wrath so it doesn't fall on us. You believe he believed this but you don't believe he actually did it; but
you believe in him. Just hope your head faces frontwards when it finishes turning. [Yipee]

[ 19. December 2014, 22:26: Message edited by: Jamat ]
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell: There is not very much in Scripture supporting a view of sin as crime and God as a judge in a court of law. [/QB]
Maybe start with Abraham; "shall not the judge of all thy earth do right?"
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You just have to read Romans without your Tom Wright glasses or your Roman or Orthodox, Catholic ,Liberal Anglican heterodox mindset to realise <etc etc>

In other words you just have to be a conservative Protestant.
No, a Jewish mindset would do it.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I'm glad you understand Jamat.

What a strange war we're in.

What He did and what He thought He was doing are not the same thing.

What He did was far bigger and better than PSA or any other theory of atonement.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

What He did was far bigger and better than PSA or any other theory of atonement.

Profoundly true. And a big familiar-- where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah, pretty much every other poster on this thread.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
There you go. You got there in the end.
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell: There is not very much in Scripture supporting a view of sin as crime and God as a judge in a court of law.
Maybe start with Abraham; "shall not the judge of all thy earth do right?"
But, as Alan said, what sense of the English word 'judge' is meant in this reference? Judge as in one who decides on innocence or guilt, or judge as (Alan's words) 'an architect judging whether the labourers have built something properly such that it's structurally sound, a farmer judging the quality of the produce of his trees etc.'

I don't know enough about the ancient Hebrew language to say, but the latter sense is surely feasible?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
There you go. You got there in the end.

Or rather, the reverse. But that's OK-- we were waiting for you.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
There you go. You got there in the end.

No, we started there. YOU got there in the end.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell: There is not very much in Scripture supporting a view of sin as crime and God as a judge in a court of law.
Maybe start with Abraham; "shall not the judge of all thy earth do right?"
But, as Alan said, what sense of the English word 'judge' is meant in this reference?
Good question. Contextually, this concerns the prospective destruction of Sodom and the 'theophany' who appears to Abraham says 2 things. One is that Abraham should be informed. The second is that the wickedness of Sodom has drawn the Lord's attention. The nature of the judgement is therefore contingent on human action so I guess as in other divine interventions in the book of Genesis it is corrective, such as in the way Cain is driven away from God's presence or Adam is expelled from Eden. Somehow, for the good of humanity God had to intervene at that point.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What He did was far bigger and better than PSA or any other theory of atonement.

So what actually was that?
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
It won't work for you mate. Which is fine.

He broke through to us.

In EVERY sense He delivered us from sin and death.

You see, we're all different.

Forgiveness isn't contingent on anything. Like kindness. It isn't conditional. And I'm found wanting in kindness right here with you and mousethief and cliffdweller aren't I?

And forgiveness is just the beginning. It's the certainty - in Christ - that all will be well despite looking and being irreparably, unhealably unwell now.

You?
 
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on :
 
Jamat
quote:
No, a Jewish mindset would do it.
Errr, no. To the Jews the manner of Christ's death indicated he was cursed by God.
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Jamat
quote:
No, a Jewish mindset would do it.
Errr, no. To the Jews the manner of Christ's death indicated he was cursed by God.
You need to be a bit Pauline.

[UBB code vs the rest]

[ 20. December 2014, 10:27: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Wrong mousethief. Completely and utterly wrong. You completely misunderstand. I can't understand it for you and I don't know why you won't understand.

But you won't.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Wrong mousethief. Completely and utterly wrong. You completely misunderstand. I can't understand it for you and I don't know why you won't understand.

But you won't.

Ah, Martin, you're adorable. There's a good boy, I think there's a treat for you in the kitchen, dear. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Parent-child eh? Matching me. Don't worry, I don't get angry at you as I do at mousethief. Or rather do worry ... he is at least a truly liberal Orthodox Christian.

Why he appears to deliberately misunderstand and misrepresent me I don't know. My paranoia I'm sure.

Just like I don't know why you have to believe in Boyd's dualism.

Although I feel that I do ...

There's something going on here which isn't amenable to even open Hellish discourse, let alone within the rules of purgatory. One would have to get openly ad hominem and I don't think either of you are up for it.

Happy to pop down to Hades if you call.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Parent-child eh? Matching me. Don't worry, I don't get angry at you as I do at mousethief. Or rather do worry ... he is at least a truly liberal Orthodox Christian.

Why he appears to deliberately misunderstand and misrepresent me I don't know.

What a coincidence.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Parent-child eh? Matching me. Don't worry, I don't get angry at you as I do at mousethief. Or rather do worry ... he is at least a truly liberal Orthodox Christian.

Why he appears to deliberately misunderstand and misrepresent me I don't know.

What a coincidence.
Pretty much this has been the goal all along:

quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

Happy to pop down to Hades if you call.


 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hosting/

Will you all please stop bickering in a Hellish manner about Hell-calls? Either go there, in the festive spirit of the season, or put a sock in it.

/hosting
 
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It won't work for you mate. Which is fine.

He broke through to us.

In EVERY sense He delivered us from sin and death.

You see, we're all different.

Forgiveness isn't contingent on anything. Like kindness. It isn't conditional. And I'm found wanting in kindness right here with you and mousethief and cliffdweller aren't I?

And forgiveness is just the beginning. It's the certainty - in Christ - that all will be well despite looking and being irreparably, unhealably unwell now.

You?

Most of that works for me.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Eutychus. Sir.

Jamat. YOU never cease to amaze me.

mousethief. Sorry. May we start again again? Again ...

As I'm the one proposing a postmodern antithesis, I MUST do the work.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
mousethief: Please, in the name of all that is holy, say no.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
So, as Jesus had to faithfully believe all manner of pre-modern stuff, He had to believe He had to suffer and die for our sins.

Good job He came when He did.
 


© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0