Tercel

I thought as much. In which case, he and I disagree.

BTW, I've just realised I attributed the Penal theory to Anselm in an earlier post. It's close enough to Anselm's Satisfaction theory, but still a boo-boo to say that the "Penal" version is Anselm's. See the first link below for more details.

Woah, huge question. In short I don't know for sure what the exact answer is. I have seen a huge number of theories which sounded to me to be on the right track.

Perhaps the best explanation I have seen on the subject can be found here. (This should be compulsory reading for all Christians) Though I believe that is still a very narrow representation compared to a full understanding.

A while back I was asked to lay out my own view, and with a very limited amount of time and very little thought I wrote this. Think of it as supplementary to the above link rather than my full view on the subject. I meant to try to merge the incarnational model with the participatory model with CS Lewis' thoughts in the first paragraph. In the second section I attempt to merge the ransom model with a recognition of Christ's dealing with our shame (I can't remember where I got that part from). All of which probably failed miserably due to lack of time and space.

Ilgwamh/Vinnie is currently working on an article on the atonement for his website, and some very promising hints of what it might contain can be found here.


And of course if you haven't already read the rant I linked to earlier by an Orthodox theologian, then I suggest you do.
(From which comes the following gems: )
"What is salvation for Western theology? Is it not salvation from the wrath of God?
Do you see, then, that Western theology teaches that our real danger and our real enemy is our Creator and God? Salvation, for Westerners, is to be saved from the hands of God!....

....It was [according to Western teaching] necessary for God to punish man's disobedience. It was impossible for Him to pardon; a superior Necessity demanded vengeance. Even if God was in reality good and loving, He was not able to act lovingly. He was obliged to act contrary to His love; the only thing He could do, in order to save humanity, was to punish His Son in the place of men, and by this means was Necessity satisfied." - Kalomiros


Sorry about the number of links. But it really is impossible for me to reasonably repeat all this in my own words.

Tercel

Actually it probably originates from a combination of Luke 16:19-31 and Revelation.

As much as I'd like that to be true, it's not. Tertullian (c200AD) is infamous for his depiction of a hell where the righteous can watch "happily" from heaven as the evil guys burn forever getting their "just" desserts.

So am I. I'm inclined to think that a belief in inerrancy makes them think they have the full content of Truth in the Bible so they don't really see any need to know any Christian history or theology. (Or for many of them: even read their Bibles :banghead: )

Tercel

Constantine ruled in the 4th century, so 3 centuries after Christ. Constantine never made any sort of ruling about the Bible: The first ruling of any sort on the Bible was made by the Synod of Laodicea in 360, almost quarter of a century after Constantine's death.

Assigning motives to the doers of non-events seems somewhat fanciful to me. What have you been reading?

"Heretics" put to the sword? My memory's drawing a blank on that one. Which heretics would these be precisely?

That's nice to know.

I get upset when Christians do these things too.
The trouble is: How do you change this? In my experience of trying to get other Christians to change in this way, I am almost inevitably met with the response (be it explicit or implied) along the lines of "You don't seem to be a True Christian. I'm going to pray for you."

Agreed.

-RRH-

Well, it's similar to punishing a king. For a peasant such as yourself, you may be beheaded for stealing a goat. But if a king is guilty of stealing a goat, then he should pay a fine to the victim. All aspects of a king's life are more important than your own, including his punishments. While you, not having the prestige of the king, must give up your life to match the degree of punishment the king faces with paying a fine.

Christian

That doesn't make sense. "Scripture may or may not be truthful, roll the dice." is a different concept than "Scripture is definitely wrong on this issue."

No. If God allowed sin to go unpunished, then He would not be "perfectly just." Christ's death is the only solution that enables God to be both merciful and just without contradiction.

The basic concepts of Mercy and Justice are mutually exclusive. If a judge renders perfectly just decisions, then he is not being merciful. If a judge renders merciful decisions, then justice is cheated.

However, in Christ's death there is an infinite amount of "punishment for wrongs accomplished" added on top of the cosmic scales of justice. Jesus was not required by justice to die for sinners, but since He did choose to die for sinners God is able to suffer the just punishment of sinners on their behalf. Thus, God can be merciful and justice is not cheated.

Because Jesus is God. Jesus was the omipotent, omniscient, soveriegn creator God become man. The life of such a man is of infinite intrensic worth. In short, Jesus' life is infinitely more intrensically valuable than mine is, therefore His death was infinitely greater payment for sin in God's eyes than my death would be.

I would say "faith", but in that word I would be implying a hundred other things that might not be obvious. Suffice it to say that you are either "in Christ" or you are not. And there are scriptural tests to tell you your true spiritual condition.

If you have any specific questions on the doctrine of the Trinity, I'll take a shot at answering them for you.

Respectfully,

Christian

Marduk

"No. If God allowed sin to go unpunished, then He would not be "perfectly just." Christ's death is the only solution that enables God to be both merciful and just without contradiction. "

No, God doles out the same punishment for all crimes in the same amount:

steal a bagel, eternal damnation
kill 6 million jews, eternal damnation
think about your girlfirend naked, eternal damnation
commit adultry with 500 men and women, eternal damnation

most rational people lose the 'justice' concept here.
Which is why the Catholics came up with purgatory I guess.
At least it offers both justice and mercy.

Magus55

They all deserve the same punishment ( death) because all sins are equal in God's eyes. While to us here on earth, stealing a bagel certaintly doesn't compare to genocide by Hitler - both are capitol crimes to God because they are an insult and offense against him who is perfect and infinite. The problem people have is that they are looking at crimes and "sin" from a mortal, corrupted, small-understanding view point. To a perfect, infinite being - ANY crime that goes against Him is a capitol, infinite crime no matter how humans look at it.

Of course on the other side, despite how bad these crimes are - God provided an equal way to pay the price for all those crimes, big and small. Obviously we wouldn't consider a perfectly innocent human, even by God's standards, to be executed to redeem someone who stole a bagel, but Jesus did so his sacrifice covers all those crimes.

Its like a justice scale. You have sin on one side and humans on the other. Sin is against God so that side crashes on to the table and completely dwarfs the humans side of the scale in weight. Then Jesus came and joined on the humans side scale and weighed it completely in humans favor. Because of Jesus, sin is weightless compared to his sacrifice for humans and the scale falls in favor of whoever accepts His gift.

Spaz

Ya know, I really thought about that last time you said it, and I still don't get it, why does a crime towards an infinite being require infinite punishment no matter the crime?

Christian

Marduck,

Not true. Luke 12:47-48 teaches that there are differing degrees of punishment involved in eternal damnation. This is consistent with all the verses which speak of some sins being worse than others (such as John 19:11) and with all the verses that speak of God's perfect justice (such as Rev 19:2).

Yes, I really mean perfect justice. The punishment will fit the specific crimes. No overkill. No getting off the hook. Perfect justice.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Tercel,

Thanks for the references. I will check them out, although probably later this week. I've thought and debated a lot about the details of the atonement, but always from within the general substitutionary concept. I'll let you know my impressions.

Respectfully,

Christian