Re: bribery or justice?
Re: bribery or justice?
Originally posted by LightSon
The “sacrifice” of Christ is foundational to my understanding of Christianity. I struggle with how much of this system needs to be “reasonable” in my view.
Understood, and as I said, I did not intend disrespect to those who would see this differently than I do. It's just that I DO need things to be "reasonable" in order to accept them. And I find the nature of the "salvation" plan as described by conventional Christian theology to be at odds with what I would expect of a God, so I am forced to question it.
Is it possible bmyers, that you do not fully understand it? I appreciate that you hedge your assertions, tending to leave a back door should your current understanding be obscured.
Obviously it is possible. And yes, I tend to "hedge" (I would prefer "qualify"
) my assertions as I do try to be an "honest researcher" (at least when I'm dealing with those that I also believe are coming to the discussion in the same way). I think that certainty in one's beliefs, at least when such certainty gets in the way of giving contrary propositions a fair hearing, is the death of the search for truth. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't also some things that I won't stop believing without a very, VERY strong argument.
Suppose you were an all powerful being who wanted to fellowship with another. What would you do? The problem facing you is that nobody else exists. No problem. Because you are all powerful, you create someone. So far so good. We like to be around people with whom we have something in common. Actions are not amoral. I doubt an avid drinker would enjoy hanging with a teetotaler – and vice versa. Would a righteous God want to create beings that behaved in ways that violated His integrity? Doubtful.
This is where the first question pops into my head - what does "righteous" mean in this context? What is "righteous" - what is "good" or "bad" - if we are talking about a being that, at the point we're concerned with here,
is completely isolated and is in fact the totality of his universe? The second problem with this is a temporal one; the above scenario implies that God himself had no beginning, and yet there was a definite point in the past at which this act of creation of a companion entity/group/species/universe took place. This means that while God exists literally for an infinite time into the past, the universe and mankind does not. But if this is true, then God got along for literally an infinite period of time without anyone else. Why would the supposed need for "fellowship" then come up? Something is wrong with this scenario, obviously. It may be that the God we're trying to describe is
not infinitely old - but then, this has some pretty serious implications of its own. But let's continue:
So God could have created beings which only behave the way He wants. Of course such people wouldn’t have free will. Would not you prefer to be with people that wanted to be with you? Or would caged “loving” pets suffice?
It makes sense that God would want to create beings with free will. But then suppose they chose to use that free will to violate your principles of “right” behavior?
Again, two problems with the above. First, we are again talking about a being who is presumed to be the creator of the entire universe; his power, knowledge, etc., must therefore be at a far, far higher level than our own, if not truly infinite. If this is the case, then we
are in fact the equivalent of "pets", at least in terms of our ability to relate to and to
truly "fellowship" with this higher entity in a manner that would be significant
from his perspective. The main difference I see here is that the gap between such a being and mankind is far, far greater than that between, say, people and their dogs. And even with that latter relationship - no matter how much the dogs get out of it (and they no doubt see
us as something like "gods" from their limited perspective), a dog really isn't someone that a human will find very satisfying in terms of "fellowship." So if the reason for our existence is simply to provide God with company, you'd think he would have made something a bit closer to himself in nature.
The second problem is again this one of "free will." If we assume that God has free will, then there is at least one example of a being with free will and yet does not violate God's principles of "right" behavior - God himself. So it should be possible for God to create a lesser being (for fellowship, since we're still under that assumption) which has free will and yet will not violate these same principles. If God creates a being with free will which
can and does violate these principles, and God is knowledgeable enough to know that this is a possibility, then God himself is ultimately responsible for these principles being violated. So again, something is wrong with this line of thought. It may be that God is
not sufficiently knowledgeable to know what would happen if he created a race with "free will". It may also be that God himself does
not have free will, and so the above argument does not hold. Again, though, either of these have rather profound implications vs. the traditional model of God.
If a free will person violates God law, that person doesn’t get to come into heaven. Is God mean? Does this sound petty? Just try communicating to my wife that a little mud is okay and see how petty she purports to be. Because we live in the mud of sin, we simply cannot relate to how inexorable God is on his righteous standards. We can only relate as our personal sensibilities are offended.
One problem here is that the analogy is strained too far. Your wife does not permit muddy shoes in the house because it's a significant problem for her if the carpet is dirtied. But your wife isn't God; again, if God is all-powerful, then all tasks require the same amount of effort - none! God won't object to "muddy shoes on the carpet," simply because He can always arrange it so that the mud in effect never hits the carpet in the first place!
But more serious is this notion of "violating God's law". This gets us back to the very basic question of the origin of "good" and "bad", and whether God decides what is "good" and "bad" or whether God is constrained to be "always good." If the former, then God's law IS arbitrary; it depends solely on the whim of God, and what is good could just as easily be bad and vice-versa (also, see the above re the problem of just what "good" means
from God's perspective. If, on the other hand, God is constrained to be "good," then there must be a standard of "good" and "bad" which exists separate from God. If this is true, though, we're faced with new problems - what IS this standard, and where did IT come from?
It is possible, though, that what we mean by "God's law" are simply a set of rules that God set down for human beings to follow, but they don't really apply to him (i.e., God's own code is beyond/"above" us, and what we've been given as a moral code is for our own use only.) This moral code might exist for at least two reasons - the principles it provides are the optimum way for human beings to live together on Earth, or they are more arbitrary than that. If the former, though, then we should ask what the point of this would be, again
from God's perspective. A human's existence on earth is, on the time scale of God, less than an instant, which is then followed (we are told) by either an eternity in the presence of God (i.e., existing "in the same place" as he does), or at least a very long time of suffering. That instant, then, would be the deciding factor in determining how a given "soul" spends this much, much longer period. So what is its point? Is it merely a test? And if so, then ultimately it IS arbitrary.
By the way, this raises yet another point. We again assume that God exists "for eternity." God existed for an infinite period of time prior to the creation of the universe, and will exist - presumably along with the "saved" - for an infinite time after its end. If this is true, then the time that God spends with the "saved" souls is again infinitely longer than the entire physical existence of the universe. If this is true, then do those souls, after their "salvation," continue to exhibit "free will"? If so, then the time spent in the whole existence of the physical universe is meaningless - God is still faced with the problem of having "companion" beings who could violate his principles, or else he has created beings now that have free will and yet will not violate his principles. If the latter, then why not simply do this in the first place? To go through the process we've described just to wind up with a set of acceptable fellows achieved nothing else that could not have been done directly, except to create a very large number of OTHER souls and then condemn them to suffering. This again does not seem to be in line with what we are assuming about the nature of God.
Please allow me to use a base example which I hope will offend average sensibilities. If somebody raped and eviscerated my spouse, how might I feel? Well I will tell you how I would feel. I would want blood. In fact, if the government doesn’t intervene, I will personally disembowel the offender. I will be angry. I will be wrathful. I will not be appeased with anything but the blood of the perpetrator. PureX calls this concept “bribery”. Sorry, I’m sure you will protest, but that is my perception of your mis-rendering of the sacrifice of Christ.
In the analogy, I am the offender. I have raped and mutilated that which God cherishes and God’s wrath will not be assuaged by anything but blood. God will not be appeased with bribery. God will only be appeased with my death and my blood spilt. That is the nature of divine justice.
No, I don't protest your feelings as described in this hypothetical - but what I think you miss here is that you're describing the feelings and motivations of a normal human, and, I believe, comparing God to this. This, to me, makes the error commonly made in many religions: God is drawn as effectively nothing more than a very human ruler, writ large. A very powerful, very wise king, but also very human, and behaving just as we would expect a human to behave. I think that such a model completely ignores the implications of an entity who is truly "Godlike" in scope and power. After all, what is "death and blood spilt" to God? Humans crave such for revenge, primarily because we know what they would mean
were they inflicted on us. If God inflicts such things, it cannot be for his own "appeasement," but perhaps rather (just to give one possible alternative) as a learning experience for the lesser entity involved.
Now consider that I am not only the offender, but I am the one God created in the first place with whom God wants to share. What will God do? What would you do? If the one you loved so much committed the atrocity I described above? Here is what God did. He devised a plan whereby His own inexorable sense of justice could be satisfied AND whereby He could allow His love for me to be given expression. God offered Himself. God offered His Son as a substitute. Christ willingly offered Himself to receive God’s wrath for crimes I did. This is the undisputable theme of both Old and New Testaments. It is the solution to loving a free-will creature that has chosen to behave badly.
And now we come to the crux of the problems I have, no pun intended. While the sacrifice of Jesus appears to be significant from a human perspective, what really is it to God? If Jesus is literally God (or at the least a being equivalent to God in nature), then Jesus existed both from an infinite time prior to his physical death, and will exist for an infinite time afterwards - and further, even in human form (since he would have to maintain perfect faith in God even in that form), knew that this would be so. So what, exactly, is the significance
to God of this punishment? Were I to be flippant about this, I might describe one possible reason for it as "putting on a good show for the crowd" - i.e., it is not truly significant to God, but rather was primarily meant to impress humans. But if this is the case, it again seems to be a very elaborate and arbitrary show, put on for no particularly good reason. From the perspective of God, nothing really changes. From the perspective of humanity, we get what is in effect good drama, apparently intended to encourage proper behavior. It simply doesn't seem to hold together as a Godlike act, no matter how you look at it.
I am therefore again left with PureX's conclusion - that the Christian salvation plan is actually something added to the teachings of Jesus after the fact, by very human leaders of the church, and unfortunately it has obscured Jesus' true message - which was not "believe in me" but rather "love one another and live in peace."
I understand that you will disagree with this conclusion, and again it is not my intention to either convince you of its correctness or to disrespect your (or others) beliefs. But hopefully now I have made my perspective on this a bit clearer. Perhaps not; I'm writing this very late (insomnia tonight!
), and I am afraid that this might not be as clear as I had hoped. But it's a start...