worldling

One of the main difficulities many people have with the Christian religion is the apparent absurdity of the crucifixion story. The idea of an omni-everything creator faking his own suicide in order to pay back a debt owed to him by a third party (us) seems not only logically incoherent, but also immoral.

OK, that summary may not be the way most Christians see it. But how do you make sense of it? One way to prove it does actually make sense is to construct a real-world analogy to explain it. Any ideas, Christians?

And skeptics, if the crucifixion story really is logically coherent, and I have simply been unable to understand it thus far, please don't hesitate to put me right.

Thanks in advance.

Worldling

Marduk

I guess you could look at it like he's showing you that if you follow me you can beat the reaper. "to conquer death you only have to die" sort of thing. But the other stuff is pretty odd, blood sacrifice and all.

JoyJuice

What other options did they have? I mean here is this guy that's being touted as the messiah of the Jews, and low and behold he's put to death by of all people, those lowly pagans.

How do you reconcile that?

There are many cultural motifs where the person of greatness is brought back from the dead because they are divine. And anyone thought to be divine was refered to as the "Son of God." Jesus wasn't the only one in this regard.

Why did he have to die?

That's where the post-prophecy of the "Suffering servant" and the other inferences of the suffering Israel by it's prophets are used, but in this case to explain why a individual as Jesus suffered and eventually dies. The sacrifice, the blood sacrifice, is simply a ritual that was used by many to pay homage to whatever God, so the death of Jesus becomes a sacrifice used neatly by Paul to, in my opinion, give Christianity it's answers to many questions raised in these times.

IMHO alkech

worldling

I think you are both correct.

But what I meant was, is there a complete covering-all-bases analogy for the crucifixion story? For example, Josh McDowel said something like this:

A young woman is up before a judge for a driving offence. The judge is her father, who has to follow the law, so he fines her. But, being her father, he pays her fine for her.

This analogy fails because in the crucifixion story, the "judge" is also the omniscient lawmaker and the state. So,
1) he is responsible for creating the law which he knew all along his daughter was going to break
2) he has no capital other than his own/the state's with which to pay the fine. We have the absurd situation of him removing the sum from the state coffers in order to put it straight back in (a big problem with the crucifixion model).

Plus, of course, McDowel has made the story much more anodyne and cute than the real one is. To tweak his analogy:

The daughter is not just fined, but sentenced to death (that's the law the judge/god made). The judge, because he loves his daughter, decides to die for her. So he pulls a pistol from behind his desk and blows his own brains out. Then he picks himself up off the floor, dusts himself down, and tells his daughter that he hopes she appreciates what he just did for her because if she doesn't he's going to send her down to the dungeons to be tortured for eternity.

This, I think, is a fairly accurate analogy of the crucifixion story in that it reflects the absurdity and horror of the original.

Asha'man

Not bad. However, it leaves out the fact that the Judge is the supreme justice, and would never allow the wrong person to be punished for a crime. Therefore, he is not only breaking his own rules, he is re-defining injustice as justice.

malookiemaloo

I think the story of the judge who fined the prisoner the maximim amount then got out of the dock and paid the fine himself quite good. This illustrates God's justice but paying the penalty Himself

Also the little boy who bought a model yacht he saw in a shop window. It then blew out to sea and he lost it.

However it turned up again later in the same shop window. He then bought it again. In other , he bought it twice. This is an illustration of Christ's redemptive work on the cross.

The above are used a lot in childrens' addresses.

Hope this helps.


m

worldling

Hi malookie As I said, I don't think this analogy works because if god is the judge he is also the state, and the state cannot pay itself a fine. Where does the money come from? The state. So the state's funds are not increased.

Imagine I lent you a fiver, then decided I liked you so much that I didn't want you to pay it back. I would simply say, "that's okay, malook, you don't have to pay me back". But I would not - logically could not - pay myself back on your behalf, because any funds I have to do so I already have.

This is a central illogicallity of the crucifixion story. God logically cannot settle with himself a debt which he himself is owed.

Grumpy

It seems to me that Hindus would be more likely to use this parable.

LeftCoast

It also leaves out the fact that the Judge knows, even as he pulls the trigger to allegedly kill himself, that he will not in fact be dead when it is all over and will only be out the cost of having his robes dry-cleaned. In other words it is a non-sacrifice. Even animal sacrifices were deemed significant to the ancients because the animals sacrificed were usually the ones that you also needed to produce useful materials (Sacrifice a sheep and you get no more wool. Sacrifice a Goat and you get no more milk). The substitutive sacrifice as offered by the Christian religion is nothing more than a shell game.

Porky Houton

How about this one from Mormon Church leader Boyd Packer:
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There once was a man who wanted something very much. It seemed more important than anything else in his life. In order for him to have his desire, he incurred a great debt.

He had been warned about going into that much debt, and particularly about his creditor. But it seemed so important for him to do what he wanted to do and to have what he wanted right now. He was sure he could pay for it later.

So he signed a contract. He would pay it off some time along the way. He didn’t worry too much about it, for the due date seemed such a long time away. He had what he wanted now, and that was what seemed important.

The creditor was always somewhere in the back of his mind, and he made token payments now and again, thinking somehow that the day of reckoning really would never come.

But as it always does, the day came, and the contract fell due. The debt had not been fully paid. His creditor appeared and demanded payment in full.

Only then did he realize that his creditor not only had the power to repossess all that he owned, but the power to cast him into prison as well.

“I cannot pay you, for I have not the power to do so,” he confessed.

“Then,” said the creditor, “we will exercise the contract, take your possessions, and you shall go to prison. You agreed to that. It was your choice. You signed the contract, and now it must be enforced.”

“Can you not extend the time or forgive the debt?” the debtor begged. “Arrange some way for me to keep what I have and not go to prison. Surely you believe in mercy? Will you not show mercy?”

The creditor replied, “Mercy is always so one-sided. It would serve only you. If I show mercy to you, it will leave me unpaid. It is justice I demand. Do you believe in justice?”

“I believed in justice when I signed the contract,” the debtor said. “It was on my side then, for I thought it would protect me. I did not need mercy then, nor think I should need it ever. Justice, I thought, would serve both of us equally as well.”

“It is justice that demands that you pay the contract or suffer the penalty,” the creditor replied. “That is the law. You have agreed to it and that is the way it must be. Mercy cannot rob justice.”

There they were: One meting out justice, the other pleading for mercy. Neither could prevail except at the expense of the other.

“If you do not forgive the debt there will be no mercy,” the debtor pleaded.

“If I do, there will be no justice,” was the reply.

Both laws, it seemed, could not be served. They are two eternal ideals that appear to contradict one another. Is there no way for justice to be fully served, and mercy also?

There is a way! The law of justice can be fully satisfied and mercy can be fully extended—but it takes someone else. And so it happened this time.

The debtor had a friend. He came to help. He knew the debtor well. He knew him to be shortsighted. He thought him foolish to have gotten himself into such a predicament. Nevertheless, he wanted to help because he loved him. He stepped between them, faced the creditor, and made this offer.

“I will pay the debt if you will free the debtor from his contract so that he may keep his possessions and not go to prison.”

As the creditor was pondering the offer, the mediator added, “You demanded justice. Though he cannot pay you, I will do so. You will have been justly dealt with and can ask no more. It would not be just.”

And so the creditor agreed.

The mediator turned then to the debtor. “If I pay your debt, will you accept me as your creditor?”

“Oh yes, yes,” cried the debtor. “You save me from prison and show mercy to me.”

“Then,” said the benefactor, “you will pay the debt to me and I will set the terms. It will not be easy, but it will be possible. I will provide a way. You need not go to prison.”

And so it was that the creditor was paid in full. He had been justly dealt with. No contract had been broken. The debtor, in turn, had been extended mercy. Both laws stood fulfilled. Because there was a mediator, justice had claimed its full share, and mercy was fully satisfied.
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