Arising from the aforegoing

[avevale_intelligencer]

Quote from a comment to the previous post, by catsittingstill:

"For my part, as best I understand it, the unifying point and central mystery of Christianity is that a powerful, knowledgeable entity deliberately had its own child tortured to death to right wrong(s) committed by somebody else."

Put that way, it does seem a trifle odd, as if one might suggest that a powerful, knowledgeable being, a peaceful man of science, would level a Japanese city and condemn the survivors to horrible and lingering illness and death for the betterment of humanity. Albert Einstein did not drop the bomb on Hiroshima, any more than God crucified Christ, but one can see an inevitability, with hindsight (which is the other side of the coin of prophecy) which implies foreknowledge and therefore responsibility. He made it possible, and therefore it happened, and its results were, in some measure, salutary; actual images of the consequences of nuclear bombing, actual experiential knowledge, has resulted in an increased determination in some people to prevent such a thing happening again. So in its way, the crucifixion may have had a similar effect on some people. Maybe even a few more.

But Einstein is not God, and God is not Einstein, and the mystery is still a mystery. Here's Father Brown again:

"Real mystics don't hide mysteries, they reveal 'em. They set a thing up in broad daylight, and when you've seen it, it's still a mystery. But the mystagogues hide a thing in darkness and secrecy, and when you find it, it's a platitude."

"He died for our sins" is not a platitude, though constant repetition may make it seem so. Its meaning is not obvious. Why would God create a being, acknowledged as his child, in order to have him killed, and in what way would that have any effect on the sins of mankind past, present or future? Surely if God can forgive, then God can forgive. Why doesn't he just do it? Why go through this ritual?

Well, I don't know. It's a mystery. But I can think about it, from my premise of a God who is potent but not omnipotent, scient but not omniscient, and desperately concerned for the success of his experiment on this one small world.

Free will is the key. It was never foreordained by God (though it was prophesied) that we would crucify Christ. All participants in the story must have had free will, or the story itself is worthless, just a puppet play. Christ, therefore, was a volunteer, if not prior to his incarnation then certainly when he went to be baptised. He went into it knowing what could happen, and as the time grew closer, what was bound to happen. And like many volunteers, he had his moment of "what the hell have I done?", and if he had persisted in his plea that "the cup pass from him," perhaps it would have. And maybe it was as agonising for God as it was for Christ.

But how does his death save us?

Well, let's suppose an authority over God. (Why not?) Let's suppose that God has to justify his funding every so often or the project will be closed down. He has to prove that we are turning out well, according to whatever guidelines he's been given, or that grinning idiot on the next star system over will win the science fair again, maybe. I don't know. So this time he tries something new. He injects a human into the system, gifted with abilities and knowledge that are bound to bring him, and not in a good way, to the attention of the authorities in the region where he lives, and waits to see what happens.

It's actually win-win for God, if you think about it. If we spare him, acknowledge the truth of his teachings, then we're obviously doing all right. If, as seems more likely, we kill him, then the fact of his self-sacrifice (because he had the choice) proves that there's good stuff in humanity somewhere. Either way, he can parlay it into another millennium's funding or whatever. Our sins are forgiven us. We go on.

I'm not saying this is how it is. I don't know. I'm just putting forward one possible explanation of why it had to be the way it was. Why a powerful, intelligent being might deliberately have his child tortured to death to right wrongs committed by somebody else. Why one life might be sacrificed to save many. There may be other possible explanations, better ones.

See the cut tag for comment guidelines. Part three of Breaking Down The Walls Of Time is still coming, honest.

Comments

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Albert Einstein did not drop the bomb on Hiroshima, any more than God crucified Christ, but one can see an inevitability,

Albert was neither powerful enough to stop a war in some other way, nor knowledgeable enough to be able to predict the future. Which makes him so qualitatively different from God-as-she-are-spoken that I don't think this analogy is useful in analyzing the situation.

"God knowingly committed evil but good came of it" is like arguing "a mugger beat you up and permanently paralyzed you, but you met the love of your life in the emergency room, therefore it is appropriate that I not only forgive the mugger, but celebrate--indeed, worship--him and follow his commands."

I don't find this a compelling argument to forgive someone who hurts somebody else. For me to use it to forgive someone who hurt *me* would at least be ethically defensible. But I am not the injured party here.

And the whole argument, as I understand it, is that God intended from the beginning for Jesus to be tortured to death--that was Jesus's *destiny*. So, while there is plenty of blame to go around, excusing God by blaming human free will seems...unjustified. It's a very common move in these sorts of arguments, but I don't think it's right.

If I abandoned a drunk friend when I saw a rapist moving in on her--*intending* that she should be raped, I would be blameworthy even though I didn't commit the rape with my own..err...hands. And *I* am not all powerful or all knowing--I can be hurt or killed and I have good reason to be afraid; I have evil impulses and sometimes I give in to them. Yet people still (and rightly) expect better behavior from me than they would--*do*, apparently-- from God, who abandoned his own child, *intending* that he should be crucified.

As for supposing there is an evil Authority over God, that he didn't *want* to commit this cruel act but he *had* to because a more powerful entity forced him--again we have departed so far from God-as-she-are-spoke that I don't think this is a useful argument for analyzing the mystery. If there were an evil Authority that had the power to push God around, the Evil Authority would be God, by definition, and the original God becomes a sort of Angel--someone under the thumb of God.

Yes, why not forgive people their sins--since both the sins and the human nature that makes people commit them were handed down by God-- without this cruel play of having his own child tortured to death? Why NOT? WHY not?

I think you dismiss the question too soon.

I think what is going on here is that originally Jewish culture called for gaining forgiveness for your sins by "paying a fine to God" in the form of valuable livestock, traditionally a lamb. This makes perfect sense (I mean, presupposing a belief in God, of course), and is moral if you think of the lamb as property.

Jesus got mixed up in people's minds with that lamb. The lamb is put to death for something it didn't do--Jesus is put to death for something he didn't do; it seems kind of equivalent if you don't think too hard about Jesus being a human being and not a possession. But the lamb was a possession and thus a fine and Jesus was an innocent human being--and the moral ramifications of that are considerable.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

The free will part is good. But you could look at little closer at the saves us from sin part. It's a lot more that platitude, What if justice and mercy both have to be kept in balance. What if Jesus volunteered to pay that price because he was going to be also be able to pay the price our our sins. So that Justice was satisfied. God can forgive, but Justice to come to play as well. SO it's kids of a Twofer. Gethemane first, where the price of the sins was paid then Calvary where the actual Physical death came. And free will still comes into it, Jesus Still vounteered, and we still have the free will to say no not interested. In the first part any way. The Second part was a gift. As to Why Jesus Volunteered? He loved, sorry Loves us.

My head is a little wibbily this morning, I tried a new sleeping combo last night, And it worked. I hope the above a reasonably clear. Yes I'm a Christian, I hope I can be awake enough to participate in this one.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

For my part, as best I understand it, the unifying point and central mystery of Christianity is that a powerful, knowledgeable entity deliberately had its own child tortured to death to right wrong(s) committed by somebody else."


Why don't I try from my beginning. This is what I believe,

Imagine if you will that we existed before we were born. As souls. Our souls were born to our parents. Lets call them Heavenly Father (God) and Heavenly Mother. Eventually we had progressed as far as we could as souls. We wanted more, we wanted to become more like our parents. Eventually we were presented with a plan, yes we could do that we could go on to the next step. This mean getting a body and learning all about looking after it, it also meant leaving "home" we were told of all the problems we would find along the way, we would not be able to see Mother and Father at all we would have to learn to walk by faith. Some of us would be lost. Some us would never return home. Father and Mother were pained by this. We knew that no unclean thing, that is anything that had sinned, could live with them. We were worried about never seeing them. One person stepped forward. it was Jesus. he had been the first born of all of us. He said that he would go down and that he would pay for the price of all of our sins, so that if we repented, justice and mercy would be satisfied and also through his death all who lived would be resurrected. And that all the glory for this plan would go to his father, At this point another Man stepped forward, he said, I have a better plan, under my plan, no one would be lost, because he would make every one do the right thing, and that he wanted all the glory. A battle of wills followed. 1/3 of the souls followed the second man, they were cast out and roam free on earth today, we call the leader Lucifer, son of the Evening. The rest of us, finished our first estate and came to earth, we have a body and we learn to be human.

Why did Jesus's parents allow him to do that? Because they loved all of their children. Why did Jesus offer his life? Because he loves us. Trust me on this one I have don't think I will ever truly understand the depth of that love, I talk in the beginning about a Heavenly Mother, because in our church we believe she exists, it's not something many people talk about for a number of reasons. Mostly because a lot of people don't really "get it" And secondly It's bad enough sitting on the train or the bus listening to people take the Lords name in vain we'd rather not add to the that list.

about at your comment above, yes. Jesus came to fulfill the law. After him there was no need for further sacrifices, because before him those sacrifices were actually a representation of Jesus.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

I think it falls back to Genesis 22. Abraham was called to sacrifice his then only son to prove that he loved God more. On the way up the mountain, Isaac asked, "where is the lamb for the sacrifice" and was answered by his father, "God will provide one for us". In those times, the act of slaughtering of a prized animal was believed to be the one way to channel God's attention to gain God's blessing.
Suppose God was watching this going on as Abraham and Isaac were walking up the slope, and gets an Idea. Up until that moment, God was going to let Abraham go through with it, but now the notion of providing a lamb for man in the same way man provided for It seemed absolutely brilliant.

And so God provided his then only son up for sacrifice and went through with it to prove that It loved man more than It loved Itself in a way that man could understand at the time. Much like Quetzalcoaltl as I mentioned in a previous rant, "after this, no more". Man no longer needed to make barbaric sacrifices to get God's attention. God proved we already have it.

Your viewpoint as God-as-Scientist is interesting, though. Suppose there is a multiverse of competing Gods for the Big Ribbon of Ultimate Enlightenment or whatever the divine prize is. I could then see a god that was detached but concerned in a way that a tropical fish enthusiast frets over his aquarium and introduces an ultra-rare specimen to see what happens. It would make the idea of sacrifice a question of valuable data, and to an analytical mind that gives it a sense of worth.

[howeird]

The Einstein-God analogy does not work on several levels. For one, Einstein *did* try to stop the bomb from being dropped while AFAIK God never said anything to anyone about not killing Jesus. Also, God is supposed to be omnipotent, so anything He doesn't do to stop a murder is all His fault. And then there's the fact that Jesus was being killed for personally committing a crime, while the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were mostly innocent civilians being punished for the crimes their Emperor was committing.

I think a major part of what drives what you're talking about is the confusion which Christianity has created by asserting that a mortal man is/was a deity. The Son of God thing is an artifact of the old Greek/Roman/Norse legends, and really has no place in a Judaic-based religion. It turns monotheism into something else.

As for the "he died for your sins" line of talk here, I think there is a human nature aspect to it. The Noble Sacrifice goes back as far as writing does. As far as oral histories do. Christianity just blows it up all out of proportion.