Christian

Tercel,

In response to the links you posted concerning your view of the atonement ....

I'm fascinated by the Collins piece. He makes a lot of good points with solid scriptural support. I am pretty familiar with the concept of our union with Christ, but I had not really considered it much as a means of viewing the atonement. And the applications in other areas of theology make great sense. Good stuff there.

My objections to that article are
1 - clear disagreement with footnote 12
2 - his chucking the penal theory out the window. There are scriptures that plainly describe the atonement in judicial terms, and the attempts Collins makes to explain those verses using the Incarnational theory are the weakest arguments in his article.
3 - the overall impression that he is trying to scrub his theology for anything that might seem objectionable or difficult and discounting that. That is a perverse way to go about seeking truth. I'm left wondering if he even believes in such a thing as sin.

Scripture speaks of Christ's death and resurrection in judicial terms and in terms of union with Christ. I've obviously been neglecting the latter in my personal study, but I see no valid reason to discount the former as not valid. The concepts are nowhere near mutually exclusive.

Regarding your hurried statement on what the atonement means - I have no real issues with your first paragraph, but I am confused by your second paragraph. Where does conversion fit into your ideas? If you are describing the reality of Christ's death for a believer then I can see where you are coming from. If you are describing the reality of Christ's death for everyone then I would have some major disagreements with you.

On Vinnnie's ideas ... I've seen a more complete version of that somewhere on this forum. He makes a lot of good points that I agree with, but again they are not mutually exclusive. As he says: "Unfortunately, this view is not easily dismissed by Christians who hold to the authority of scripture. "

On the rant ... I've never really gotten much out of rants. Looks like the whole eastern philosophy vs. western philosophy thing, using the atonement as merely a convenient excuse to rant about it. I barely made it half way through the lengthy article. If he is making any valid points I leave it to someone else to cull through all the junk and find them.

I really appreciate the article at that first link, though. Some great insights there!

Respectfully,

Christian

Tercel

Hi Christian,
Sorry for the delay: I'm working flat out at the moment.

Cool.

Care to elaborate?

Hmm. I accept that there are scriptures that are problematic. I cannot say I entirely approve of Collins attempts to explain each and every verse, since I think his theory is not complete: It is good so far as it goes, but not the whole story. That said there are equally scriptures problematic to penal theology. To arbitrarily pick some and say "therefore penal theology is true" is no better than arbitrarily picking others and saying "the incarnational theory is true".

Yes I think that is what he's doing. I'm far from convinced it's wrong. What is the point in doctrinizing things that are objectionable or difficult unless you are very very sure they are true? All it does it turn people away from Christianity on unreasonable grounds.
As far as sin goes, I think you might be taking his rejection of Original Guilt for a bit more than what it is. Original Guilt, the idea that we are in some way guilty of Original Sin was an idea introduced by Augustine mainly due to the dubious Latin translation in use at the time. But the doctrine seems to have stuck and most Catholics and Protestants teach that we are guilty of Adam's sin. However the Orthodox (who weren't influenced by Augustine) don't have any such doctrine, and most liberals reject the doctrine too. Rejection of this teaching is in no way rejection of the idea of Sin itself or of the doctrine of Original Sin (ie that Adam/first humans sinned).

Hmm. I'm not entirely convinced that it does. Atonement theology is an area I'd love to research further... if only I had some time.

You probably have major disagreements with me. I buy the Eastern Orthodox / liberal Protestant (see CS Lewis' "The Great Divorce" for a good POV on this) ideas on salvation. These do not involve the necessity of conversion in this life as a prerequisite to salvation. The second half of Dr Kalomiros' rant explains the Orthodox view of salvation rather succiently.

phillip millar

[QUOTE]Originally posted by christ-on-a-stick
[B]This has been tumbling about in my head for some time so I thought I'd open up the query to any and all who have thoughts about it.

I've noticed that we have a handful of theists on this board who self-identify as "Christian".

Just time for one or two brief thoughts.

If I understand the NT correctly the early believers did not label themselves as anyting per se. In fact Paul appears to roundly condemn sectarianism of any kind in the first letter to Corinth.

That they were called Christians by others I have no doubt for example in Antioch because they were reconiseable as following the teachings of Jesus (including all those awkward ones about loving one's enemies etc).

I think your use of the words 'self-identify' are rightly chosen. I consider that the label of 'christian' has become a meaningless sophistry and at worst a flag of convenience to mask and justify all manner of outrages.

Hope you are well
Phillip

Fiach

[QUOTE]Originally posted by phillip millar
[B]I too, hope he is well.

Fiach