That’s my experience of Love, as Martin calls him. Someone who cares too much to allow me to get away with behavior that is harmful to myself or others. Ouch! (Says she, ruefully, who recently came in for some minor divine discipline, and won’t forget it in a hurry.)
Er ... with respect .... it's the way to live. We find out by doing.
No respect necessary. Yes, it's the way to live, as we find out by doing. Be kind, and grateful even when you can't be, which is often, unto death. Ha! For what else is there?
Martin, in my last post on this thread I did not mean to suggest that this is an ideal world. Rather, I was offering an alternative to the usual completion of the phrase such as we might find on the Ship. I imagine there are many possible continuations to "For God so loved the world".
So, here we go again. The atonement. What think ye?
A few points to lob onto the pile.
(1) For a decent while now I've taken the view that Jesus' life should be viewed through the lens of an "anti-atonement" theory. The way that Jesus taught and healed people was deeply subversive of the Temple system of atonement sacrifices. He taught a way of directly communing with God and directly instructing people to live in the way that had been created to live, without priestly mediation. He healed the 'unclean' so they could re-enter society without the requirement of sacrifice.
(2) By living this way, Jesus continued an interpretation of the biblical narrative where God 'resists' the formal and permanent establishment of such a system and the prophetic critique of worship-without-justice. John the Baptist's alternative and challenging form of "cleansing" through metanoia rather than sacrifice culminated this strand of Jewish thought and practice. Jesus' ministry can be seen as taking John the Baptist's movement and its critique of the Temple from the wilderness to the villages, towns and ultimately the city of Jerusalem itself. Jesus therefore converted John the Baptist's central idea into a form that could be taken to the masses - and particularly the poor and marginalised who could not access John's ministry. Jesus was therefore perhaps the first to popularise anti-atonement sentiment.
(2) The New Testament witness to "anti-atonement" is not simple. On the one hand, the practice of baptism, the teaching around metanoia and grace, the emphasis on love-in-praxis as the outworking of faith, are largely consistent with this reading of Jesus' life. None of these concepts intrinsically requires the logic of atoning sacrifice. On the other hand, there are significant passages that argue that rather than refusing the logic of atonement through Temple sacrifices, Jesus 'fulfills' this logic. Thus, Jesus is the 'true' Temple, priest, lamb, mercy seat, etc. My own view is that, because Jesus' life cannot be read reasonably as a 'atoning sacrifice', we should read these as Christian arguments within the inter-Jewish debates at the time, particularly after the destruction of the Temple, about whether the sacrifice of animals is still a necessary element of Jewish practice. They can be read as saying: "Even if atoning sacrifice is still necessary, surely what Jesus has done has gone far above and beyond what the sacrifice of animals was able to achieve." In other words, while animal sacrifice achieved "atonement" through mediation, Jesus revealed that forgiveness, cleansing and healing was always directly available. The way he loved God and neighbour demonstrated that a life of love has always been available.
(3) I think it is essential to interpret Jesus' death (and resurrection) in the light of Jesus' life, and not the other way around. A huge problem in debates around atonement theory is a hyper-focus on the crucifixion as a kind of singular event, disconnected and dislocated from the rest of the Gospel narratives. I believe we should instead interpret the crucifixion as the culmination of his inevitable contest with the authorities of his day. Jesus was crucified because he initiated, mobilised and led a social movement that refused the political, economic, social and cultic functions of the Temple. As soon as his movement entered Jerusalem, and his (nonviolent, anti-militaristic) threat to the priestly and Roman authorities became apparent, he had to be removed. His resurrection was interpreted by his followers as "proof" that his subversive movement lived on.
I can't remember which of the Fathers said it, bit one opined that the Incarnation would have taken place even if humanity had never sinned. Such would have been God's desire to identify with and 'be among' his creatures.
This was Duns Scotus - so, a bit later than the Church Fathers (so-called). It is known as the "Franciscan Thesis" in opposition to the then-dominant Anselmian (and then, Thomistic) views of the Incarnation. If "atonement" is about "at-one-ment" as so often suggested, then the Franciscan Thesis says: God has always been at one with us, right down to our embodied materiality. It is us who have not been at one with God (often through putting the acceptance of atonement theories and any other hurdles of theological belief in the way of this reality).
This is where Julian of Norwich gets to, possibly in parallel with Duns Scotus. I forget the timing, to be honest, but I have a feeling they are not that far apart. She does it by attributing the wrath which triggers the whole process not to God but to humanity. Christ asks Julian if she is satisfied by his death and ongoing suffering - "he was three days dried", and various other references to ongoing suffering. And if she is satisfied, then so is he. Christ suffers with and for us, but not in an atonement-like way. Purely in a way of "well, if that's the only way I can show them what love is and how it works, then I will, because the suffering isn't the end of the story - the resurrection and restored relationship are."
As for horrible things that are depicted as stuff God told the Israelites to do in the Old Testament, I don't personally know how to sort it out with what Jesus told us to do. I do trust the OT to be a sacred book, or collection of books, to be read and digested. As for the details of difficult matters like this, I trust I will find out the answer, maybe even talking with some of those involved as well as knowing from God, in about 20 years or maybe more (or less), depending on how well I take care of my health, and other factors. Maybe a meteorite will hit me tonight and I'll find out sooner than that. I do believe we (everyone, including the current state of Israel, whatever happened millennia ago) are not supposed to go doing that stuff currently to groups of people.
I'm pretty sure the idea that God would have become Incarnate even if humanity hadn't sinned, goes way back beyond Duns Scotus.
It may well have been meant hyperbolically.
I'll have to do some digging but I'm pretty sure it was there, even if only as a 'thought experiment' in some Patristic sources.
I'll get to everyone on this one.
Meanwhile, for reasons I don't quite understand, Scotus and other Franciscan figures tend to be regarded with some suspicion by the Orthodox.
St Francis of Assisi is seen to be OK in terms of his emphasis on poverty and asceticism but somewhat disturbing in terms of the stigmata and so on.
Be that as it may, I'm reasonably comfortable with much of what @Green as a Leaf has outlined in terms of a shift away from The Temple system towards the emphasis on metanoia etc and the idea of Christ himself as 'The Temple.'
All these facets can be held alongside what we might see as more 'traditional' readings or interpretations, it seems to me.
And he treats the Scriptures, including Joshua, with the highest level of respect. Let's not downgrade the problem here.
And yet.
And yet, when someone I trust with more than my life--that is, someone I've tested and watched for 50 years, and never yet found anything wrong or bad in them, and on the contrary, found every reason in their words and behavior to know them as sane, loving, kind and good--when such a person says or does something that seems off, and I can't immediately ask them what's going on, I treat it the same way I treat a bone in a pork chop. I set it on the side of my plate to deal with later. It may be quite a bit later, depending on when new information or evidence arises. But he's earned that level of trust.
I might do differently with someone who had a spotted record, or whom I hadn't known very long. But this is Jesus. After all the years we've had together, and knowing him so long, it's hard to imagine what would shatter that trust at this point.
You see his behavior in the Gospels, which is the clearest lens we have on him. What do you think of him there?
It appears that some theologians hold that Iranaeus held that God would have become Incarnate even if humanity hadn't sinned.
There's nothing new under the sun, and I don't see why Duns Scotus and Aquinas too if some sites are to be believed, drew on earlier Patristic sources for a belief - or suggestion - of this kind.
@Martin54 - what would humanity look like if it hadn't sinned? What, like Jesus I suppose.
I don't know what this has to do with 'fundamentalist theology." You're the one who comes from the most fundamentalist background on this thread it seems to me.
I'm pretty sure the idea that God would have become Incarnate even if humanity hadn't sinned, goes way back beyond Duns Scotus.
It may well have been meant hyperbolically.
I'll have to do some digging but I'm pretty sure it was there, even if only as a 'thought experiment' in some Patristic sources.
I'll get to everyone on this one.
Duns Scotus certainly used Patristic sources to arrive at this position - particularly Augustine - but as far as I know he was the first to ask the question in this way. The seeds of it are certainly there in the Logos theology of the Eastern tradition but I think it is only Scotus's voluntarism that enables him to ask the conditional question of "what would God have done if..." and I would have thought such an understanding of God's will is foreign to the patristic period. But I could well be wrong. Be interested so see what you find.
Iranaeus is thought by some to have postulated this, as I mentioned. I'll dig further. Like you, I wouldn't have expected him to have come up with something as 'developed' - if that's the right word - as the later medieval Scholastics.
As I've said, the Orthodox tend to be suspicious of them anyway, although you do hear a good word put in for Aquinas here and there.
But by and large I'm tending to find that the late medieval Western theologians are blamed for all manner of ills. How fair or unfair this is, I can't say.
And he treats the Scriptures, including Joshua, with the highest level of respect. Let's not downgrade the problem here.
And yet.
And yet, when someone I trust with more than my life--that is, someone I've tested and watched for 50 years, and never yet found anything wrong or bad in them, and on the contrary, found every reason in their words and behavior to know them as sane, loving, kind and good--when such a person says or does something that seems off, and I can't immediately ask them what's going on, I treat it the same way I treat a bone in a pork chop. I set it on the side of my plate to deal with later. It may be quite a bit later, depending on when new information or evidence arises. But he's earned that level of trust.
I might do differently with someone who had a spotted record, or whom I hadn't known very long. But this is Jesus. After all the years we've had together, and knowing him so long, it's hard to imagine what would shatter that trust at this point.
You see his behavior in the Gospels, which is the clearest lens we have on him. What do you think of him there?
I have no problem with the idea that the incarnation would have happened even in an unfallen world. As Lewis says, the divine humility would not have been a humiliation.
And he treats the Scriptures, including Joshua, with the highest level of respect. Let's not downgrade the problem here.
And yet.
And yet, when someone I trust with more than my life--that is, someone I've tested and watched for 50 years, and never yet found anything wrong or bad in them, and on the contrary, found every reason in their words and behavior to know them as sane, loving, kind and good--when such a person says or does something that seems off, and I can't immediately ask them what's going on, I treat it the same way I treat a bone in a pork chop. I set it on the side of my plate to deal with later. It may be quite a bit later, depending on when new information or evidence arises. But he's earned that level of trust.
I might do differently with someone who had a spotted record, or whom I hadn't known very long. But this is Jesus. After all the years we've had together, and knowing him so long, it's hard to imagine what would shatter that trust at this point.
You see his behavior in the Gospels, which is the clearest lens we have on him. What do you think of him there?
I love your intellectual honesty. And, believe it or not, I agree. I keep thinking I should use more neutral terms, like I resonate, but no. And it's not a problem for my theology. I see exactly where you're coming from and that's why it hurts. I've had that too. For half a century too. Not as seemingly seamless as you, as I bring so much brokenness to the party. He was revealed as Love on that long exponential curve. I reread you and tears. Yes, I miss him so. His behaviour is perfect. All of it. Yes, I have that superpositioned layer. I'm all in. If he were Love incarnate, I would have to go back to the Passion, to his hard sayings, to him struggling to emerge from his feet, legs encased in ancient Jewish clay. The bone in the pork chop. It would be easy to forgive his enculturated humanity. If he were. Tears : )
Dangerous territory for me here. Where we meet.
I would trust him. I would have faith in him. But first I'd have to believe. I . can . not.
And he treats the Scriptures, including Joshua, with the highest level of respect. Let's not downgrade the problem here.
And yet.
And yet, when someone I trust with more than my life--that is, someone I've tested and watched for 50 years, and never yet found anything wrong or bad in them, and on the contrary, found every reason in their words and behavior to know them as sane, loving, kind and good--when such a person says or does something that seems off, and I can't immediately ask them what's going on, I treat it the same way I treat a bone in a pork chop. I set it on the side of my plate to deal with later. It may be quite a bit later, depending on when new information or evidence arises. But he's earned that level of trust.
I might do differently with someone who had a spotted record, or whom I hadn't known very long. But this is Jesus. After all the years we've had together, and knowing him so long, it's hard to imagine what would shatter that trust at this point.
You see his behavior in the Gospels, which is the clearest lens we have on him. What do you think of him there?
I love your intellectual honesty. And, believe it or not, I agree. I keep thinking I should use more neutral terms, like I resonate, but no. And it's not a problem for my theology. I see exactly where you're coming from and that's why it hurts. I've had that too. For half a century too. Not as seemingly seamless as you, as I bring so much brokenness to the party. He was revealed as Love on that long exponential curve. I reread you and tears. Yes, I miss him so. His behaviour is perfect. All of it. Yes, I have that superpositioned layer. I'm all in. If he were Love incarnate, I would have to go back to the Passion, to his hard sayings, to him struggling to emerge from his feet, legs encased in ancient Jewish clay. The bone in the pork chop. It would be easy to forgive his enculturated humanity. If he were. Tears : )
Dangerous territory for me here. Where we meet.
I would trust him. I would have faith in him. But first I'd have to believe. I . can . not.
@Martin54
This is searingly honest and moving.
Did you ever reconnect with your former spiritual director?
If not, this would probably be a really good thing to bring to direction if you felt you could face that at this time.
Either way, you're going to feature massively in my thoughts today!
Please take care of yourself.
That's the nicest, best possible comment @ChastMastr. Thank you. Here, with you and @Lamb Chopped, at this juncture, I am inside the tent. We have infinitely more in common in our humanity, creating each other, than otherwise.
But : ) the pendulum swings. As I can not believe, the overlaying layer above the one above hardens and darkens. The layer which finds Jesus all too natural, even with the very best of good will to him as the greatest peak of waves of culture in positive interference. Like a spike of water rearing up from focused, synchronized sound waves in phase.
I would trust him. I would have faith in him. But first I'd have to believe. I . can . not.
If I look inside, I too can't find this thing labelled, 'Belief', either. But (CS Lewis is good on this mistake). Im not looking at Him, but something else, and of course, there's nothing much there. So I just do and let the feelings, whatever they are, take care of themselves.
I love playing table tennis, but if I become too introspective about why, I can't play my shots!
And he treats the Scriptures, including Joshua, with the highest level of respect. Let's not downgrade the problem here.
And yet.
And yet, when someone I trust with more than my life--that is, someone I've tested and watched for 50 years, and never yet found anything wrong or bad in them, and on the contrary, found every reason in their words and behavior to know them as sane, loving, kind and good--when such a person says or does something that seems off, and I can't immediately ask them what's going on, I treat it the same way I treat a bone in a pork chop. I set it on the side of my plate to deal with later. It may be quite a bit later, depending on when new information or evidence arises. But he's earned that level of trust.
I might do differently with someone who had a spotted record, or whom I hadn't known very long. But this is Jesus. After all the years we've had together, and knowing him so long, it's hard to imagine what would shatter that trust at this point.
You see his behavior in the Gospels, which is the clearest lens we have on him. What do you think of him there?
I love your intellectual honesty. And, believe it or not, I agree. I keep thinking I should use more neutral terms, like I resonate, but no. And it's not a problem for my theology. I see exactly where you're coming from and that's why it hurts. I've had that too. For half a century too. Not as seemingly seamless as you, as I bring so much brokenness to the party. He was revealed as Love on that long exponential curve. I reread you and tears. Yes, I miss him so. His behaviour is perfect. All of it. Yes, I have that superpositioned layer. I'm all in. If he were Love incarnate, I would have to go back to the Passion, to his hard sayings, to him struggling to emerge from his feet, legs encased in ancient Jewish clay. The bone in the pork chop. It would be easy to forgive his enculturated humanity. If he were. Tears : )
Dangerous territory for me here. Where we meet.
I would trust him. I would have faith in him. But first I'd have to believe. I . can . not.
@Martin54
This is searingly honest and moving.
Did you ever reconnect with your former spiritual director?
If not, this would probably be a really good thing to bring to direction if you felt you could face that at this time.
Either way, you're going to feature massively in my thoughts today!
Please take care of yourself.
Don't worry, I do @MrsBeaky : ) Superficiality is a great blessing : ) I plunge in to my job, walking, good TV (The Little Drummer Girl; book, film and now series, done them all) , reading (The Goldfinch and The Beginning of Everything). And I'm awaiting a response from my spiritual director, his successor I believe, after summer, about now. I suspect the contact won't work. It might follow him.
I would trust him. I would have faith in him. But first I'd have to believe. I . can . not.
If I look inside, I too can't find this thing labelled, 'Belief', either. But (CS Lewis is good on this mistake). Im not looking at Him, but something else, and of course, there's nothing much there. So I just do and let the feelings, whatever they are, take care of themselves.
I love playing table tennis, but if I become too introspective about why, I can't play my shots!
: ) never wonder how you're doing it when you're running down stairs.
My problem with all atonement theories is that none of them makes any real sense to me. The NT frequently says that Jesus died an atoning sacrifice but the how it works was left to later theologians. St Paul goes to great lengths to emphasise the poured out blood, linking his sacrifice to the sacrificial cult of the Temple. But I think we have every reason to believe that Jesus despised that system. Twice, in Matthew 9.7, and in Matthew 12.13, he quotes Hosea 6.6, "I desire mercy not sacrifice." In his conversation with a scribe in Mark 12.28-34, it emerges that love of God and neighbour outweigh sacrifice manifoldly.
The biggest problem I have is that I just can't see any need for atonement. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is nigh, nearer than hands and feet, within you, or in your midst. That repentance is what God requires, and if it's sincere, He grants unlimited forgiveness, and that a radical love of God and neighbour are our way to the kingdom. Why would he be the fulfillment of a sacrificial system he clearly didn't believe in, and why dies he need to atone for sins for which God is willing to grant forgiveness to those who earnestly seek it?
I don't think there is a need for atonement theory or indeed atonement either. I think it's part of the distaste of the disciples after they realised the implications of the incarnation, and in particular of the resurrection and ascension, and the gift of the holy spirit. and just how intimate and painful life in God is. So they created a system in which only Christ had to live in God and we benefit by a form of association. All subsequent arguments have been about the form of that association, rather than the existence and working of life in God for all. Direct participation for all in the incarnation of God.
"Only Christ had to live in God", (Thunderbunk), is that the orthodox Christian position? I can see how that is distinct from many forms of mysticism, where "I am That", or many paraphrases. In fact, at-one-ment seems to say otherwise. It's a big distinction.
Even that @pablito1954, doesn't work as theodicy. Forgiveness? Who is God, what is Love, to forgive? Forgive what? It is for us to forgive. Them for their complete and total and utter absence, except as mirage, projected idealization, in our yearning, for a start. Along with each other and ourselves. Repentance? Of what? From what, to what? Change of mind? Metanoia? In what regard? To gratitude for sure. For being alive. To kindness. To making amends. They are their own reward. In enlightened self-interest. I don't want or need Their forgiveness; They, absent present Love, can't be offended in the first place. Let alone something even less with conditionality. I must sincerely repent of being weak and ignorant - which is THEIR responsibility - and then They will forgive me? They can foxtrot oscar, in military parlance. If Theywould earnestly seekmy forgiveness, I would immediately grant it.
"Only Christ had to live in God", (Thunderbunk), is that the orthodox Christian position? I can see how that is distinct from many forms of mysticism, where "I am That", or many paraphrases. In fact, at-one-ment seems to say otherwise. It's a big distinction.
Yes I think it is the implied orthodox position. Look how the liturgy of good Friday and indeed the Eucharist work. He does the hard work so we don't have to. We just have to worship him rather than going to the bother of following him. His cross, not ours.
"Only Christ had to live in God", (Thunderbunk), is that the orthodox Christian position? I can see how that is distinct from many forms of mysticism, where "I am That", or many paraphrases. In fact, at-one-ment seems to say otherwise. It's a big distinction.
Yes I think it is the implied orthodox position. Look how the liturgy of good Friday and indeed the Eucharist work. He does the hard work so we don't have to. We just have to worship him rather than going to the bother of following him. His cross, not ours.
OK, but it creates an awful dualism, doesn't it? I had to get away from Christianity, because of that. I think God is closer.
I wouldn’t say so. He walks that path first, and makes the way for us; but “where i am, my servant must also be,” and none of us escapes the consequences of that union with him — whether it means being with him in God, or Gethsemane. (The experiences can be very similar.)
"Only Christ had to live in God", (Thunderbunk), is that the orthodox Christian position? I can see how that is distinct from many forms of mysticism, where "I am That", or many paraphrases. In fact, at-one-ment seems to say otherwise. It's a big distinction.
Yes I think it is the implied orthodox position. Look how the liturgy of good Friday and indeed the Eucharist work. He does the hard work so we don't have to. We just have to worship him rather than going to the bother of following him. His cross, not ours.
OK, but it creates an awful dualism, doesn't it? I had to get away from Christianity, because of that. I think God is closer.
It creates terrible dualism, which to my mind denies the central point of the incarnation and everything that goes with it. We seem to want to be children of God whilst simultaneously keeping a safe distance from the mad deity who seems to want to get intimately close to us in death and in life.
I wouldn’t say so. He walks that path first, and makes the way for us; but “where i am, my servant must also be,” and none of us escapes the consequences of that union with him — whether it means being with him in God, or Gethsemane. (The experiences can be very similar.)
Not sure if that's a reply to me. Fair enough, that makes sense.
"Only Christ had to live in God", (Thunderbunk), is that the orthodox Christian position? I can see how that is distinct from many forms of mysticism, where "I am That", or many paraphrases. In fact, at-one-ment seems to say otherwise. It's a big distinction.
Yes I think it is the implied orthodox position. Look how the liturgy of good Friday and indeed the Eucharist work. He does the hard work so we don't have to. We just have to worship him rather than going to the bother of following him. His cross, not ours.
OK, but it creates an awful dualism, doesn't it? I had to get away from Christianity, because of that. I think God is closer.
It creates terrible dualism, which to my mind denies the central point of the incarnation and everything that goes with it. We seem to want to be children of God whilst simultaneously keeping a safe distance from the mad deity who seems to want to get intimately close to us in death and in life.
Yes, the safe distance is found in religion and theology!
I wouldn’t say so. He walks that path first, and makes the way for us; but “where i am, my servant must also be,” and none of us escapes the consequences of that union with him — whether it means being with him in God, or Gethsemane. (The experiences can be very similar.)
Not sure if that's a reply to me. Fair enough, that makes sense.
I was responding to the way the thread was developing, which of course includes your posts. And I’ll say in turn that there are doubtless people who would like to make Christianity painless, at least for us as Jesus’ followers—but it’s not possible. The cross is part of our experience just as the resurrection is. He warned us it would be that way. But at least we don’t have to go through it alone.
The biggest problem I have is that I just can't see any need for atonement. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is nigh, nearer than hands and feet, within you, or in your midst. That repentance is what God requires, and if it's sincere, He grants unlimited forgiveness, and that a radical love of God and neighbour are our way to the kingdom. Why would he be the fulfillment of a sacrificial system he clearly didn't believe in, and why dies he need to atone for sins for which God is willing to grant forgiveness to those who earnestly seek it?
This sort of makes me wonder if different definitions or connotations of “atonement” are at play in this thread. For example, I wouldn’t say repentance is required rather than atonement because I think the two are connected.
But then, I don’t really buy the suggestion that Jesus didn’t “believe in” the sacrificial system (whatever “believe in” means in that context.) I don’t see quoting Hosea or talking about love of neighbor being more important than sacrifices as rejecting the sacrificial system, but rather as seeing that system as part of a bigger picture, and as being about the attitude that must be behind everything, including sacrifices. I mean, Jesus also said he came not to do away with but to fulfill the Law, and the sacrificial system is unquestionably part of the Law. (As is the Day of Atonement.) And I have trouble seeing the “greater love” statement as having any real meaning outside the sacrificial context. Ditto what Jesus says, per Matthew, just before the crucifixion about the cup being the blood of the covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. (Compare Exodus 24:4-8.)
It seems to me that rather than rejecting the sacrificial system, Jesus is saying and showing what the sacrifices are really about.
St Paul goes to great lengths to emphasise the poured out blood, linking his sacrifice to the sacrificial cult of the Temple.
Do you mean Paul, or do you mean the anonymous author of the Epistle to the Hebrews?
Paul mentions blood and sacrifice imagery, but I don't think he ever dwells on it. (I think it's something that he's inherited as being the gospel but not something that speaks to him.)
I think the sacrifice imagery is bound up with the Eucharist. It seems to me difficult to deny that Jesus said something about his body and blood at the last supper - because it's a frankly weird thing for anyone who didn't have Jesus's authority to successfully introduce into the tradition.
I think in Christian cultures in which many of us don't know anyone who has ever killed an animal we have a wrong understanding of what sacrifice means to people who do it. We think of it as destroying something or at best giving something up. But the root idea of sacrifice I think is sharing what you have with the gods. The sacrificer is humbly inviting the gods or God to be their honoured guest and join their community.
You kill an animal because that's what you give an honoured guest to eat. (Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures don't sacrifice horses or other non-food animals as far as I'm aware.)
(The above may not be applicable to the Celts, and definitely isn't applicable to the Aztecs. But I think the Babylonians are a better comparator than the Celts and much better than the Aztecs.)
"Only Christ had to live in God", (Thunderbunk), is that the orthodox Christian position? I can see how that is distinct from many forms of mysticism, where "I am That", or many paraphrases. In fact, at-one-ment seems to say otherwise. It's a big distinction.
Yes I think it is the implied orthodox position. Look how the liturgy of good Friday and indeed the Eucharist work. He does the hard work so we don't have to. We just have to worship him rather than going to the bother of following him. His cross, not ours.
We are to take up our cross and follow him, as I understand it.
The biggest problem I have is that I just can't see any need for atonement. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is nigh, nearer than hands and feet, within you, or in your midst. That repentance is what God requires, and if it's sincere, He grants unlimited forgiveness, and that a radical love of God and neighbour are our way to the kingdom. Why would he be the fulfillment of a sacrificial system he clearly didn't believe in, and why dies he need to atone for sins for which God is willing to grant forgiveness to those who earnestly seek it?
This sort of makes me wonder if different definitions or connotations of “atonement” are at play in this thread. For example, I wouldn’t say repentance is required rather than atonement because I think the two are connected.
But then, I don’t really buy the suggestion that Jesus didn’t “believe in” the sacrificial system (whatever “believe in” means in that context.) I don’t see quoting Hosea or talking about love of neighbor being more important than sacrifices as rejecting the sacrificial system, but rather as seeing that system as part of a bigger picture, and as being about the attitude that must be behind everything, including sacrifices. I mean, Jesus also said he came not to do away with but to fulfill the Law, and the sacrificial system is unquestionably part of the Law. (As is the Day of Atonement.) And I have trouble seeing the “greater love” statement as having any real meaning outside the sacrificial context. Ditto what Jesus says, per Matthew, just before the crucifixion about the cup being the blood of the covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. (Compare Exodus 24:4-8.)
It seems to me that rather than rejecting the sacrificial system, Jesus is saying and showing what the sacrifices are really about.
I’d be grateful for a citation if you have it for Julian being asked if she were satisfied—because i just finished reading her, and can’t recall it.
It is the beginning of Chapter 12 of the Short Text or Chapter 22 of the Long Text.
"Then our good Lord Jesus Christ spoke, asking, 'Are you well pleased that I suffered for you?' I said, "Yes, my good Lord, thank you. Yes, my good Lord, blessed may you be!' Then Jesus, our kind Lord, said, "If you are pleased I am pleased. It is a joy, a delight and an endless happiness to me that I ever endured suffering for you, and if I could suffer more, I would suffer more.'"
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love translated by Elizabeth Spearing, Penguin Classics 1998.
In an old translation that I wrote down years ago but didn't make a note of exactly where it was from it goes like this:
'Then said our good Lord Jesus Christ: Art thou well pleased that I suffered for thee? I said: Yea, good Lord, I thank Thee; Yea, good Lord, blessed mayst Thou be. Then said Jesus, our kind Lord: If thou art pleased, I am pleased: it is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me that ever suffered I Passion for thee; and if I might suffer more, I would suffer more."
My problem with all atonement theories is that none of them makes any real sense to me. The NT frequently says that Jesus died an atoning sacrifice but the how it works was left to later theologians. St Paul goes to great lengths to emphasise the poured out blood, linking his sacrifice to the sacrificial cult of the Temple. But I think we have every reason to believe that Jesus despised that system. Twice, in Matthew 9.7, and in Matthew 12.13, he quotes Hosea 6.6, "I desire mercy not sacrifice." In his conversation with a scribe in Mark 12.28-34, it emerges that love of God and neighbour outweigh sacrifice manifoldly.
The biggest problem I have is that I just can't see any need for atonement. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is nigh, nearer than hands and feet, within you, or in your midst. That repentance is what God requires, and if it's sincere, He grants unlimited forgiveness, and that a radical love of God and neighbour are our way to the kingdom. Why would he be the fulfillment of a sacrificial system he clearly didn't believe in, and why does he need to atone for sins for which God is willing to grant forgiveness to those who earnestly seek it?
Thanks for reminding me of the Hosea 6.6 quote - very much a key summary of the prophetic tradition I referred to in my earlier post.
But then, I don’t really buy the suggestion that Jesus didn’t “believe in” the sacrificial system (whatever “believe in” means in that context.) I don’t see quoting Hosea or talking about love of neighbor being more important than sacrifices as rejecting the sacrificial system, but rather as seeing that system as part of a bigger picture, and as being about the attitude that must be behind everything, including sacrifices. I mean, Jesus also said he came not to do away with but to fulfill the Law, and the sacrificial system is unquestionably part of the Law. (As is the Day of Atonement.) And I have trouble seeing the “greater love” statement as having any real meaning outside the sacrificial context. Ditto what Jesus says, per Matthew, just before the crucifixion about the cup being the blood of the covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. (Compare Exodus 24:4-8.)
It seems to me that rather than rejecting the sacrificial system, Jesus is saying and showing what the sacrifices are really about.
I fully appreciate that there is plenty of textual evidence (at least read a certain way) to back up this reading, and I have no doubt that plenty of Christians in the first couple of centuries after Jesus' death interpreted the crucifixion, Lord's Supper, etc, something like this. Acts (as imaginative a telling of the 'history' of the early church as it is) states that Christians continued going to the Temple after the resurrection, and presumably some did so until it was destroyed in 70 CE. (Though, acknowledging this means also accepting it as evidence that early Christians did not see Jesus' death as "atoning" in the sense of fulfilling the function of Temple sacrifices.)
The question for me is whether this is a good interpretation of how Jesus lived, and especially of why he was crucified. Clearly Jesus' demonstration in the Temple and his critiques of the scribal and priestly elites suggest a deep antagonism between his teaching and practice and the religious authorities of his day. We do not see Jesus directing those in need of healing or forgiveness towards the Temple (except in one instance after they had been healed and therefore 'made clean'). We must ask why that is.
There is plenty of scholarship arguing that movements like that of John the Baptist, the Essenes (of which John may or may not have associated with) and the Zealots (many of whom seem to have been drawn to Jesus' rhetoric) were anti-Temple and offered alternative rituals and routes to the salvation/liberation of the Jewish people from Roman occupation. It seems to me that Jesus' movement had precisely these qualities, with a particular emphasis that the mediating function of the Temple was not required. Time and again we see Jesus offering direct healing and forgiveness, without any reference to a supplementary atoning sacrifice. It seems to me he is always saying, not that people should keep making sacrifices but with the right intention "behind" it, but that sacrifice is not (and perhaps never was) necessary.
If it is not the case that Jesus was an anti-Temple movement leader, it is not at all clear to me why Jesus was perceived as such a threat to the existing religio-political order. I would argue that it was because Jesus did indeed claim to 'fulfill' the Law. But he did this not by condensing and thereby continuing all of its myriad functions in and through his own person and action, but by 'completing it' and in a sense 'bringing it to a conclusion', revealing and living out the central meanings of love, justice and mercy that the Law (and the Temple system) imperfectly symbolised. In doing so, he entirely undermines the scribes and priests as mediating authorities of the Law and the Temple, along with their political arrangement with the Roman occupiers. No wonder, on this view, they conspire with the Romans to make a shameful, humiliating example of him on the Cross.
Beyond this historical argument, there is the simple theological question of what the crucifixion-as-atoning-sacrifice is actually supposed to have accomplished that was not possible without it. The plethora of competing atonement theories suggest to me that it has always been a stretch to interpret what is in historical terms the capital punishment of a revolutionary leader by an oppressive political regime and to claim instead that it is an essential, cosmic, mediating event in the relationship between God and all human beings throughout all time and space, regardless of culture and religious identity. I consider this idea to be an absurd denial of our human condition and a belief that has been a barrier so many from living lives of simple love and joy with others and before God.
Comments
Of course. I'm simplisticity itself after all.
Er ... with respect .... it's the way to live. We find out by doing.
❤️ That’s genuine love. Bless you @Lamb Chopped
Love is God. God is love=Jesus is love=The Holy Spirit is love.
Love is all we need.
No respect necessary. Yes, it's the way to live, as we find out by doing. Be kind, and grateful even when you can't be, which is often, unto death. Ha! For what else is there?
A few points to lob onto the pile.
(1) For a decent while now I've taken the view that Jesus' life should be viewed through the lens of an "anti-atonement" theory. The way that Jesus taught and healed people was deeply subversive of the Temple system of atonement sacrifices. He taught a way of directly communing with God and directly instructing people to live in the way that had been created to live, without priestly mediation. He healed the 'unclean' so they could re-enter society without the requirement of sacrifice.
(2) By living this way, Jesus continued an interpretation of the biblical narrative where God 'resists' the formal and permanent establishment of such a system and the prophetic critique of worship-without-justice. John the Baptist's alternative and challenging form of "cleansing" through metanoia rather than sacrifice culminated this strand of Jewish thought and practice. Jesus' ministry can be seen as taking John the Baptist's movement and its critique of the Temple from the wilderness to the villages, towns and ultimately the city of Jerusalem itself. Jesus therefore converted John the Baptist's central idea into a form that could be taken to the masses - and particularly the poor and marginalised who could not access John's ministry. Jesus was therefore perhaps the first to popularise anti-atonement sentiment.
(2) The New Testament witness to "anti-atonement" is not simple. On the one hand, the practice of baptism, the teaching around metanoia and grace, the emphasis on love-in-praxis as the outworking of faith, are largely consistent with this reading of Jesus' life. None of these concepts intrinsically requires the logic of atoning sacrifice. On the other hand, there are significant passages that argue that rather than refusing the logic of atonement through Temple sacrifices, Jesus 'fulfills' this logic. Thus, Jesus is the 'true' Temple, priest, lamb, mercy seat, etc. My own view is that, because Jesus' life cannot be read reasonably as a 'atoning sacrifice', we should read these as Christian arguments within the inter-Jewish debates at the time, particularly after the destruction of the Temple, about whether the sacrifice of animals is still a necessary element of Jewish practice. They can be read as saying: "Even if atoning sacrifice is still necessary, surely what Jesus has done has gone far above and beyond what the sacrifice of animals was able to achieve." In other words, while animal sacrifice achieved "atonement" through mediation, Jesus revealed that forgiveness, cleansing and healing was always directly available. The way he loved God and neighbour demonstrated that a life of love has always been available.
(3) I think it is essential to interpret Jesus' death (and resurrection) in the light of Jesus' life, and not the other way around. A huge problem in debates around atonement theory is a hyper-focus on the crucifixion as a kind of singular event, disconnected and dislocated from the rest of the Gospel narratives. I believe we should instead interpret the crucifixion as the culmination of his inevitable contest with the authorities of his day. Jesus was crucified because he initiated, mobilised and led a social movement that refused the political, economic, social and cultic functions of the Temple. As soon as his movement entered Jerusalem, and his (nonviolent, anti-militaristic) threat to the priestly and Roman authorities became apparent, he had to be removed. His resurrection was interpreted by his followers as "proof" that his subversive movement lived on.
This was Duns Scotus - so, a bit later than the Church Fathers (so-called). It is known as the "Franciscan Thesis" in opposition to the then-dominant Anselmian (and then, Thomistic) views of the Incarnation. If "atonement" is about "at-one-ment" as so often suggested, then the Franciscan Thesis says: God has always been at one with us, right down to our embodied materiality. It is us who have not been at one with God (often through putting the acceptance of atonement theories and any other hurdles of theological belief in the way of this reality).
And mine cannot come up with anything in nature, history, the text. Or beyond! We'd know it if Love did it.
I need to read her. I think I got a copy of her work for Cubby for Christmas or a birthday and so I have it around here somewhere...
It may well have been meant hyperbolically.
I'll have to do some digging but I'm pretty sure it was there, even if only as a 'thought experiment' in some Patristic sources.
I'll get to everyone on this one.
Meanwhile, for reasons I don't quite understand, Scotus and other Franciscan figures tend to be regarded with some suspicion by the Orthodox.
St Francis of Assisi is seen to be OK in terms of his emphasis on poverty and asceticism but somewhat disturbing in terms of the stigmata and so on.
Be that as it may, I'm reasonably comfortable with much of what @Green as a Leaf has outlined in terms of a shift away from The Temple system towards the emphasis on metanoia etc and the idea of Christ himself as 'The Temple.'
All these facets can be held alongside what we might see as more 'traditional' readings or interpretations, it seems to me.
And he treats the Scriptures, including Joshua, with the highest level of respect. Let's not downgrade the problem here.
And yet.
And yet, when someone I trust with more than my life--that is, someone I've tested and watched for 50 years, and never yet found anything wrong or bad in them, and on the contrary, found every reason in their words and behavior to know them as sane, loving, kind and good--when such a person says or does something that seems off, and I can't immediately ask them what's going on, I treat it the same way I treat a bone in a pork chop. I set it on the side of my plate to deal with later. It may be quite a bit later, depending on when new information or evidence arises. But he's earned that level of trust.
I might do differently with someone who had a spotted record, or whom I hadn't known very long. But this is Jesus. After all the years we've had together, and knowing him so long, it's hard to imagine what would shatter that trust at this point.
You see his behavior in the Gospels, which is the clearest lens we have on him. What do you think of him there?
It appears that some theologians hold that Iranaeus held that God would have become Incarnate even if humanity hadn't sinned.
There's nothing new under the sun, and I don't see why Duns Scotus and Aquinas too if some sites are to be believed, drew on earlier Patristic sources for a belief - or suggestion - of this kind.
@Martin54 - what would humanity look like if it hadn't sinned? What, like Jesus I suppose.
I don't know what this has to do with 'fundamentalist theology." You're the one who comes from the most fundamentalist background on this thread it seems to me.
Duns Scotus certainly used Patristic sources to arrive at this position - particularly Augustine - but as far as I know he was the first to ask the question in this way. The seeds of it are certainly there in the Logos theology of the Eastern tradition but I think it is only Scotus's voluntarism that enables him to ask the conditional question of "what would God have done if..." and I would have thought such an understanding of God's will is foreign to the patristic period. But I could well be wrong. Be interested so see what you find.
As I've said, the Orthodox tend to be suspicious of them anyway, although you do hear a good word put in for Aquinas here and there.
But by and large I'm tending to find that the late medieval Western theologians are blamed for all manner of ills. How fair or unfair this is, I can't say.
But yes, I'll look into this one further.
This.
In the Old Testament God gets blamed for lots of things. God ordered us to do it. Very convenient.
A bit like the Nuremberg defence
I love your intellectual honesty. And, believe it or not, I agree. I keep thinking I should use more neutral terms, like I resonate, but no. And it's not a problem for my theology. I see exactly where you're coming from and that's why it hurts. I've had that too. For half a century too. Not as seemingly seamless as you, as I bring so much brokenness to the party. He was revealed as Love on that long exponential curve. I reread you and tears. Yes, I miss him so. His behaviour is perfect. All of it. Yes, I have that superpositioned layer. I'm all in. If he were Love incarnate, I would have to go back to the Passion, to his hard sayings, to him struggling to emerge from his feet, legs encased in ancient Jewish clay. The bone in the pork chop. It would be easy to forgive his enculturated humanity. If he were. Tears : )
Dangerous territory for me here. Where we meet.
I would trust him. I would have faith in him. But first I'd have to believe. I . can . not.
@Martin54
This is searingly honest and moving.
Did you ever reconnect with your former spiritual director?
If not, this would probably be a really good thing to bring to direction if you felt you could face that at this time.
Either way, you're going to feature massively in my thoughts today!
Please take care of yourself.
But : ) the pendulum swings. As I can not believe, the overlaying layer above the one above hardens and darkens. The layer which finds Jesus all too natural, even with the very best of good will to him as the greatest peak of waves of culture in positive interference. Like a spike of water rearing up from focused, synchronized sound waves in phase.
If I look inside, I too can't find this thing labelled, 'Belief', either. But (CS Lewis is good on this mistake). Im not looking at Him, but something else, and of course, there's nothing much there. So I just do and let the feelings, whatever they are, take care of themselves.
I love playing table tennis, but if I become too introspective about why, I can't play my shots!
Don't worry, I do @MrsBeaky : ) Superficiality is a great blessing : ) I plunge in to my job, walking, good TV (The Little Drummer Girl; book, film and now series, done them all) , reading (The Goldfinch and The Beginning of Everything). And I'm awaiting a response from my spiritual director, his successor I believe, after summer, about now. I suspect the contact won't work. It might follow him.
You have a good day.
: ) never wonder how you're doing it when you're running down stairs.
The biggest problem I have is that I just can't see any need for atonement. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is nigh, nearer than hands and feet, within you, or in your midst. That repentance is what God requires, and if it's sincere, He grants unlimited forgiveness, and that a radical love of God and neighbour are our way to the kingdom. Why would he be the fulfillment of a sacrificial system he clearly didn't believe in, and why dies he need to atone for sins for which God is willing to grant forgiveness to those who earnestly seek it?
Yes I think it is the implied orthodox position. Look how the liturgy of good Friday and indeed the Eucharist work. He does the hard work so we don't have to. We just have to worship him rather than going to the bother of following him. His cross, not ours.
OK, but it creates an awful dualism, doesn't it? I had to get away from Christianity, because of that. I think God is closer.
It creates terrible dualism, which to my mind denies the central point of the incarnation and everything that goes with it. We seem to want to be children of God whilst simultaneously keeping a safe distance from the mad deity who seems to want to get intimately close to us in death and in life.
Not sure if that's a reply to me. Fair enough, that makes sense.
Yes, the safe distance is found in religion and theology!
I was responding to the way the thread was developing, which of course includes your posts. And I’ll say in turn that there are doubtless people who would like to make Christianity painless, at least for us as Jesus’ followers—but it’s not possible. The cross is part of our experience just as the resurrection is. He warned us it would be that way. But at least we don’t have to go through it alone.
But then, I don’t really buy the suggestion that Jesus didn’t “believe in” the sacrificial system (whatever “believe in” means in that context.) I don’t see quoting Hosea or talking about love of neighbor being more important than sacrifices as rejecting the sacrificial system, but rather as seeing that system as part of a bigger picture, and as being about the attitude that must be behind everything, including sacrifices. I mean, Jesus also said he came not to do away with but to fulfill the Law, and the sacrificial system is unquestionably part of the Law. (As is the Day of Atonement.) And I have trouble seeing the “greater love” statement as having any real meaning outside the sacrificial context. Ditto what Jesus says, per Matthew, just before the crucifixion about the cup being the blood of the covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. (Compare Exodus 24:4-8.)
It seems to me that rather than rejecting the sacrificial system, Jesus is saying and showing what the sacrifices are really about.
Paul mentions blood and sacrifice imagery, but I don't think he ever dwells on it. (I think it's something that he's inherited as being the gospel but not something that speaks to him.)
I think the sacrifice imagery is bound up with the Eucharist. It seems to me difficult to deny that Jesus said something about his body and blood at the last supper - because it's a frankly weird thing for anyone who didn't have Jesus's authority to successfully introduce into the tradition.
I think in Christian cultures in which many of us don't know anyone who has ever killed an animal we have a wrong understanding of what sacrifice means to people who do it. We think of it as destroying something or at best giving something up. But the root idea of sacrifice I think is sharing what you have with the gods. The sacrificer is humbly inviting the gods or God to be their honoured guest and join their community.
You kill an animal because that's what you give an honoured guest to eat. (Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures don't sacrifice horses or other non-food animals as far as I'm aware.)
(The above may not be applicable to the Celts, and definitely isn't applicable to the Aztecs. But I think the Babylonians are a better comparator than the Celts and much better than the Aztecs.)
We are to take up our cross and follow him, as I understand it.
Amen.
It is the beginning of Chapter 12 of the Short Text or Chapter 22 of the Long Text.
"Then our good Lord Jesus Christ spoke, asking, 'Are you well pleased that I suffered for you?' I said, "Yes, my good Lord, thank you. Yes, my good Lord, blessed may you be!' Then Jesus, our kind Lord, said, "If you are pleased I am pleased. It is a joy, a delight and an endless happiness to me that I ever endured suffering for you, and if I could suffer more, I would suffer more.'"
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love translated by Elizabeth Spearing, Penguin Classics 1998.
In an old translation that I wrote down years ago but didn't make a note of exactly where it was from it goes like this:
'Then said our good Lord Jesus Christ: Art thou well pleased that I suffered for thee? I said: Yea, good Lord, I thank Thee; Yea, good Lord, blessed mayst Thou be. Then said Jesus, our kind Lord: If thou art pleased, I am pleased: it is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me that ever suffered I Passion for thee; and if I might suffer more, I would suffer more."
Thanks for reminding me of the Hosea 6.6 quote - very much a key summary of the prophetic tradition I referred to in my earlier post.
I fully appreciate that there is plenty of textual evidence (at least read a certain way) to back up this reading, and I have no doubt that plenty of Christians in the first couple of centuries after Jesus' death interpreted the crucifixion, Lord's Supper, etc, something like this. Acts (as imaginative a telling of the 'history' of the early church as it is) states that Christians continued going to the Temple after the resurrection, and presumably some did so until it was destroyed in 70 CE. (Though, acknowledging this means also accepting it as evidence that early Christians did not see Jesus' death as "atoning" in the sense of fulfilling the function of Temple sacrifices.)
The question for me is whether this is a good interpretation of how Jesus lived, and especially of why he was crucified. Clearly Jesus' demonstration in the Temple and his critiques of the scribal and priestly elites suggest a deep antagonism between his teaching and practice and the religious authorities of his day. We do not see Jesus directing those in need of healing or forgiveness towards the Temple (except in one instance after they had been healed and therefore 'made clean'). We must ask why that is.
There is plenty of scholarship arguing that movements like that of John the Baptist, the Essenes (of which John may or may not have associated with) and the Zealots (many of whom seem to have been drawn to Jesus' rhetoric) were anti-Temple and offered alternative rituals and routes to the salvation/liberation of the Jewish people from Roman occupation. It seems to me that Jesus' movement had precisely these qualities, with a particular emphasis that the mediating function of the Temple was not required. Time and again we see Jesus offering direct healing and forgiveness, without any reference to a supplementary atoning sacrifice. It seems to me he is always saying, not that people should keep making sacrifices but with the right intention "behind" it, but that sacrifice is not (and perhaps never was) necessary.
If it is not the case that Jesus was an anti-Temple movement leader, it is not at all clear to me why Jesus was perceived as such a threat to the existing religio-political order. I would argue that it was because Jesus did indeed claim to 'fulfill' the Law. But he did this not by condensing and thereby continuing all of its myriad functions in and through his own person and action, but by 'completing it' and in a sense 'bringing it to a conclusion', revealing and living out the central meanings of love, justice and mercy that the Law (and the Temple system) imperfectly symbolised. In doing so, he entirely undermines the scribes and priests as mediating authorities of the Law and the Temple, along with their political arrangement with the Roman occupiers. No wonder, on this view, they conspire with the Romans to make a shameful, humiliating example of him on the Cross.
Beyond this historical argument, there is the simple theological question of what the crucifixion-as-atoning-sacrifice is actually supposed to have accomplished that was not possible without it. The plethora of competing atonement theories suggest to me that it has always been a stretch to interpret what is in historical terms the capital punishment of a revolutionary leader by an oppressive political regime and to claim instead that it is an essential, cosmic, mediating event in the relationship between God and all human beings throughout all time and space, regardless of culture and religious identity. I consider this idea to be an absurd denial of our human condition and a belief that has been a barrier so many from living lives of simple love and joy with others and before God.