It seems odd to me as well... and since xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, and related stuff are issues we're now having to deal with again in overt full force, remembering how easy it is for those to take hold seems to me like something we don't want to cover up, especially when talking about human depravity.
It's not about covering these things up, it's about remembering that "having to deal with" them means something very different depending on whether you're a victim, someone who has to live with the threat, or someone who gets to watch these events happening to other people.
It's also about remembering that victims often have little choice or control over reliving traumatic events.
We’re literally talking about referencing N-z- G-rm-ny here. It’s a really basic relatively recent historical situation. It just pops up in all kinds of places.
To be clear, I'm talking about references to the Holocaust, which you appeared to accept in your initial response to my post:
I'm sorry, but is a casual comparison with a specific instance of genocide really necessary to make your point?
Is there a better example of “pure horror” from our own age to point to? When we think of “evil from the 20th century,” they’re kind of the default example, surely?
Either way, I find the idea that references to specific people and events "just pop up in all kinds of places" profoundly trivialising and an evasion of personal responsibility. On this forum, all the words that appear in a post are a direct consequence of a conscious decision by a human being to write or copy text and press the "Post Comment" button. Nothing "just pops up".
As a sidenote, I’m talking about references to Nazi Germany or even the Holocaust showing up basically all the time in places that aren’t the ship. I would argue that there is a massive difference between going into any kind of detail about specific atrocities committed in that situation and just referencing the name of the regime at all or a major historical event that people do in fact talk about quite a lot. I find the idea of censoring those fairly general words and references to be baffling.
(a) I think @Martin54's issue is with what he calls 'damnationism' per se rather than simply PSA in particular.
(b) So much so that he projects it - as far as I can see - onto each and every Christian tradition we can think of, even those where it may be understood in a different way or where it isn't presented in the terms he is familiar with.
(a) It is, he see's them as perichoretic.
(b) He does. No matter how it's dressed up.
Which seems to me awfully close to claiming that you understand the teachings of traditions that you are not and never have been part of, and perhaps have little actual experience with, better than people in and very familiar with those traditions.
Yes. This.
It also tells me that @Martin54 either doesn't read or understand the Wipedia stubs he provides links for. There's no mention of PSA in the piece about Orthodox views of the atonement.
Meanwhile, @Kendel, I've certainly come across material written by liberal and 'emergent' US Baptists. They do exist. Perhaps not near you.
(a) I think @Martin54's issue is with what he calls 'damnationism' per se rather than simply PSA in particular.
(b) So much so that he projects it - as far as I can see - onto each and every Christian tradition we can think of, even those where it may be understood in a different way or where it isn't presented in the terms he is familiar with.
(a) It is, he see's them as perichoretic.
(b) He does. No matter how it's dressed up.
Which seems to me awfully close to claiming that you understand the teachings of traditions that you are not and never have been part of, and perhaps have little actual experience with, better than people in and very familiar with those traditions.
Yes, well claiming one’s convictions as a priori truth is a discussion stopper for sure.
Re atonement theory, there are possibly ‘both and’ views. Does a belief in PSA mean that the Christus Victor view cannot be held as well?
When Jesus was in gethsemane he prayed..
“ If it is possible let this cup pass..”
It was not possible though..so why? @Gammagammaliel might have a go at answering that. The Orthodox take might be enlightening.
The zeitgeist of our age and the site in particular finds punishment as a concept incompatible with what is required of a God one is willing to believe in. My issue with that is that we do not get to choose the nature of God. He is revealed by himself not constructed by us. If not then he is just another idol.
He is..’ipsum esse subsistens’ as Aquinas says. The God who contains and sustains all being. He is outside of creation not within it.
I found Bishop Robert Barron’s lecture on this interesting though I am not sure I fully understood it. (Findable on you tube.)
Just my tuppence before retreating into radio silence again.
@Kendel, I know many Baptists in North Carolina who are liberal, both theologically and politically. Whether they can be labeled as “emergent” I’m not sure, as “emergent” always strikes me as a pretty squishy word that can mean different things to different people.
(a) I think @Martin54's issue is with what he calls 'damnationism' per se rather than simply PSA in particular.
(b) So much so that he projects it - as far as I can see - onto each and every Christian tradition we can think of, even those where it may be understood in a different way or where it isn't presented in the terms he is familiar with.
(a) It is, he see's them as perichoretic.
(b) He does. No matter how it's dressed up.
Which seems to me awfully close to claiming that you understand the teachings of traditions that you are not and never have been part of, and perhaps have little actual experience with, better than people in and very familiar with those traditions.
Yes. This.
It also tells me that @Martin54 either doesn't read or understand the Wipedia stubs he provides links for. There's no mention of PSA in the piece about Orthodox views of the atonement.
Meanwhile, @Kendel, I've certainly come across material written by liberal and 'emergent' US Baptists. They do exist. Perhaps not near you.
Of course he reads them. And he understands them differently to you. Atonement is PS. Now matter how you dress it up. It's all there, a seamless continuum in the stubs and their context. The ultimate context being the Jesus novel. Christianity is PSA, unless one can somehow deconstruct the story of his self martyrdom for his grandiose toxic cause, and reconstruct something alien to that. Which I had done due to the impact of Rob Bell et al. And even then System of a Down's 2001 Chop Suey from their Toxicity album intruded repellently on the surface of my consciousness with its reference to 'self righteous suicide'. There's no way that Christianity didn't at least subconsciously influence that.
While I understand the details of the "mechanics" of various Christian views of the relationship between Jesus' death and the relation of humans to God varies, isn't the rock bottom concept the same?
Something like this:
Humans have a problem they can't fix that damages their relationship with God. God loves humans very much and wants that relationship restored. God can fix it at great cost to Himself through the death of his son.
1) Are my strokes broad enough to include the lowest common factors and remain accurate?
2) Assuming 1, what is the relationship between the Son's death and humans' problem that damages their relationship with God?
3) How is your answer to 2) similar to or different from the concept of "atonement"?
4) If similar (or different), how do @Martin54's objections to concepts of atonement not apply?
5) Assuming my description is not accurate, what should it be, how does Jesus' death fit with it?
Humans have a problem they can't fix that damages their relationship with God. God loves humans very much and wants that relationship restored. God can fix it at great cost to Himself through the death of his son.
3) How is your answer to 2) similar to or different from the concept of "atonement"?
Atonement just means doing something that restores relationship.
4) If similar (or different), how do @Martin54's objections to concepts of atonement not apply?
As far as I can tell Martin54 is saying that all conceptions of atonement are penal substitution (Jesus is punished for our sins instead of us). This is not true: any non-sectarian account of the atonement in Christian theology will give a wide range of theories, most of which do not say that Jesus is punished or taking our punishment. Penal theories of the atonement go back to Anselm in the eleventh century (*); penalty substitution I believe goes back to Luther (who I think proffered it as something that made no literal sense) and to Calvin (who I believe was the first to mean it literally).
It's a mark of conservative evangelical theology to insist that all valid theories of the atonement are really variations on penal substitution.
(*) Anselm I think came from a society in which blood feuds between families still happened. For Anselm, the whole of humanity is one family who are jointly liable for the actions of the families' members. Jesus can atone for the families' actions because he is human and therefore is part of the family. He isn't a substitute. Anselm's theory makes sense in the justice system of Norman France and England, unlike penal substitution which makes sense in no justice system whatever.
Martin is saying, in his beholder's share of religion (texts, theology, beliefs, especially mass, folk, creeds, iconography, culture) as art, that Christianity is is penal through and through, as is all Abrahamic religion. Notwithstanding emergent atonement theories that metaphorize and transcend that.
I'm sure there is every theory under the sun, just as I am that going forward, not back (as to Anselm), from the Second Temple Judaism Jesus clothed himself with, Messiah had to suffer. Jesus made sure he did.
Martin is saying, in his beholder's share of religion (texts, theology, beliefs, especially mass, folk, creeds, iconography, culture) as art, that Christianity is is penal through and through, as is all Abrahamic religion. Notwithstanding emergent atonement theories that metaphorize and transcend that.
Martin repeatedly says that, but Martin has never backed that assertion up with anything more than what is essentially “because I said so.”
Martin is simply wrong, and is tilting at windmills of his own imagination.
Kendal, your number 1 is… Not wrong but misleading. For western cultures especially you need to phrase it “God can fix it at great cost to himself through his own death and resurrection.” To people raised in cultures with a very strong bent toward individualism, “through the death of his son” sounds like we’re discussing a separate person here (not in the Trinitarian sense, but in the child abuse sense). And that’s not accurate at all. The only real way to counter the inevitable cultural misunderstandings is to put your emphasis on the unity of God instead of the “tri-“ aspect. And so when I write for Western ears, I use the formula “God … became incarnate, suffered, died, roses again” rather than the other, which misleads those who imagine someone other than God is doing the suffering and dying. It’s really more suited for Asian or middle eastern ears, like the original readers.
“Atonement” as a word literally comes from the words “at” and “one” put together (yeah, I looked it up, I thought this was a fake sermon cleverness, but no, it’s true). When someone makes atonement with God, they are unifying the two parties—making them “at one” again. See Julian of Norwich, who uses the word in its original ways to startling effect— saying things like “Jesus at-oned us to God,” “while he was at-oneing us” and so forth.
(a) I think @Martin54's issue is with what he calls 'damnationism' per se rather than simply PSA in particular.
(b) So much so that he projects it - as far as I can see - onto each and every Christian tradition we can think of, even those where it may be understood in a different way or where it isn't presented in the terms he is familiar with.
(a) It is, he see's them as perichoretic.
(b) He does. No matter how it's dressed up.
Which seems to me awfully close to claiming that you understand the teachings of traditions that you are not and never have been part of, and perhaps have little actual experience with, better than people in and very familiar with those traditions.
Yes, well claiming one’s convictions as a priori truth is a discussion stopper for sure.
Re atonement theory, there are possibly ‘both and’ views. Does a belief in PSA mean that the Christus Victor view cannot be held as well?
When Jesus was in gethsemane he prayed..
“ If it is possible let this cup pass..”
It was not possible though..so why? @Gammagammaliel might have a go at answering that. The Orthodox take might be enlightening.
The zeitgeist of our age and the site in particular finds punishment as a concept incompatible with what is required of a God one is willing to believe in. My issue with that is that we do not get to choose the nature of God. He is revealed by himself not constructed by us. If not then he is just another idol.
He is..’ipsum esse subsistens’ as Aquinas says. The God who contains and sustains all being. He is outside of creation not within it.
I found Bishop Robert Barron’s lecture on this interesting though I am not sure I fully understood it. (Findable on you tube.)
Just my tuppence before retreating into radio silence again.
I think what most of us critical of PSA rather take exception to the ideas that:
(1) the punishment for every and all sin is apparently the same - take your pick between eternal torment and some kind of non-existence. We're currently debating in the UK the problem of indeterminate sentences (which have since been abolished) that have seen people serving long sentences for things like nicking a mobile phone. That's peanuts compared to the alleged "justice" of God some people propose
(2) that this alleged need for punishment can somehow be satisfied by someone else taking that punishment. That model is vaguely workable for a civil debt, but not for (to continue the legal metaphor) a criminal penalty. If someone is injured by a drunk driver, it doesn't matter that much how the victim is compensated - the important thing is that he has the costs incurred by the driver compensated for. However, there's no way justice is served on the criminal side if someone other than the driver gets five years inside and a ten year driving ban - rather injustice is compounded upon injustice.
(3) that the "way out" of this horrific prospect is to believe in something for which the evidence base is less than convincing, and which people cannot make themselves believe by any effort of will - indeed, it's mostly an accident of birth because IME the majority of believers were brought up as believers so effectively inherited it.
Yeah, I mean, God could be this irrational, capricious and draconian, but you can't also go on about him being loving, forgiving and overflowing with mercy, in the same way as a ball isn't also a cube. - you have to make your mind up there.
Martin is saying, in his beholder's share of religion (texts, theology, beliefs, especially mass, folk, creeds, iconography, culture) as art, that Christianity is is penal through and through, as is all Abrahamic religion. Notwithstanding emergent atonement theories that metaphorize and transcend that.
Martin repeatedly says that, but Martin has never backed that assertion up with anything more than what is essentially “because I said so.”
Martin is simply wrong, and is tilting at windmills of his own imagination.
If you say so. He backs it up all the time with his beholder's share, with his critique, with his take, with his view. Of the plain reading of scripture and lived experience among many hundreds of Christians in multiple congregations. With his reading and viewing of the lives of countless Christians either side of the pond, and of millennia. The vast mass of whom are damnationists and believe that Jesus died for their sins. Some windmill.
Martin is saying, in his beholder's share of religion (texts, theology, beliefs, especially mass, folk, creeds, iconography, culture) as art, that Christianity is is penal through and through, as is all Abrahamic religion. Notwithstanding emergent atonement theories that metaphorize and transcend that.
Martin repeatedly says that, but Martin has never backed that assertion up with anything more than what is essentially “because I said so.”
Martin is simply wrong, and is tilting at windmills of his own imagination.
If you say so. He backs it up all the time with his beholder's share, with his critique, with his take, with his view. Of the plain reading of scripture and lived experience among many hundreds of Christians in multiple congregations. With his reading and viewing of the lives of countless Christians either side of the pond, and of millennia. The vast mass of whom are damnationists and believe that Jesus died for their sins. Some windmill.
It’s like trying to have a discussion with Humpty-Dumpty—“Words mean what I say they mean.”
Sorry Martin, but you give no reason to see your “beholder’s share” as reliable or accurate.
Martin is saying, in his beholder's share of religion (texts, theology, beliefs, especially mass, folk, creeds, iconography, culture) as art, that Christianity is is penal through and through, as is all Abrahamic religion. Notwithstanding emergent atonement theories that metaphorize and transcend that.
Martin repeatedly says that, but Martin has never backed that assertion up with anything more than what is essentially “because I said so.”
Martin is simply wrong, and is tilting at windmills of his own imagination.
If you say so. He backs it up all the time with his beholder's share, with his critique, with his take, with his view. Of the plain reading of scripture and lived experience among many hundreds of Christians in multiple congregations. With his reading and viewing of the lives of countless Christians either side of the pond, and of millennia. The vast mass of whom are damnationists and believe that Jesus died for their sins. Some windmill.
It’s like trying to have a discussion with Humpty-Dumpty—“Words mean what I say they mean.”
Sorry Martin, but you give no reason to see your “beholder’s share” as reliable or accurate.
Is there any particular reason why Martin has started talking about himself in the third person like Caesar?
I was thinking Victor Von Doom. Or Galactus. Maybe Darkseid. I didn’t know Caesar did that, actually. I think we’re okay, unless Martin starts saying things like, “FOOLS! For that, you shall suffer my wrath! All shall know the power of,” etc.
@MPaul - why does Christ's prayer in Gethsemane imply PSA?
The Apostle Peter's Pentecost sermon is apposite of course. Christ was crucified by 'God's set purpose and foreknowledge' by 'the hands of wicked men.'
So, yes, a 'both/and' thing.
But it doesn't necessarily imply PSA.
It is, course, possible to hold a PSA and Christus Victor understanding of the atonement. I did so in my evangelical days. Plenty of evangelicals do, I'd imagine.
The Orthodox take is that PSA stretches the juridical and forensic imagery in the NT too far.
@Kendel - I've not been a member of a Baptist church since 2006, so I can't cite sources as I don’t remember them. What I do remember is that there were certainly more liberal US Baptists around back then and some were contributing to what were loosely referred to as 'emergent' ideas at that time.
My understanding is that National Baptists and American Baptists tend to be far less conservative than Southern Baptists and independent Baptists in the US.
The Baptist church I was in could probably best be described as 'liberal evangelical' with a charismatic-lite tinge. It's become more liberal since.
America's a big place. I'm sure there'll be more liberal Baptists around but perhaps less so in the Mid-West and the South, although @Nick Tamen testifies - 'Can I get a witness?' - that they do exist in The Carolinas.
I'm given to understand that the Southern States are far from monolithic. I daresay the same applies to the 'Flyover States' - although I have my doubts about Iowa and Idaho. 😉 Purely by hearsay of course.
@Martin54 - we can't base our impressions of any Christian tradition or theological position on a Wikipedia stub. I recognise the description of the Orthodox view of the atonement in broad terms but would say, 'It's not as simple as that.'
Besides, there's still no PSA referenced in that section.
I think @Kendel is right that all Christian traditions have a 'for us' aspect - 'Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures.'
That can involve a PSA aspect of course but that isn't the only possible way to understand these verses.
As is often the case, I agree with @Nick Tamen. You are insisting that all Christian traditions including those you are less familiar with, have the same take on this and are either being disingenuous about it or else are unable to see what you can see from your exalted and all-knowing position which places you far above everyone else.
One explanation I have heard that makes sense to me is not so much that God tacks on a punishment to us, but that the experience of rejecting God (and thus, as He is the source of it all, joy, love, peace, and more), and that experience is what we call Hell. And not “whoops, you didn’t know what you were doing on Earth, sucks to be you,” but eternally rejecting Him. Even the possibility, as I hear some big-O Orthodox believe, that the fires of Hell are the fiery love of God, experienced negatively by those who are eternally rejecting it, because once the earthly binders are off, we’re conscious that there is nowhere to go where God isn’t there. Our redemption/ transformation/ healing/ etc. is indeed made possible through Christ, whether it’s some sort of PSA or very different. Or something beyond our comprehension, that doesn’t fit completely into any of our categories, that we can only marginally understand via the symbolic but real action of His sacrificial death and resurrection.
Thanks for enduring my questions. I asked too many, really. The ONE that I really hoped to hear answers to has barely been acknowledged. I asked it twice:
(*) Anselm I think came from a society in which blood feuds between families still happened. ... Jesus can atone for the families' actions because he is human and therefore is part of the family.
Interesting. I will set this aside for now, unless you can explain how this model makes sense of Jesus' death.
“Atonement” as a word literally comes from the words “at” and “one” put together (yeah, I looked it up, I thought this was a fake sermon cleverness, but no, it’s true). When someone makes atonement with God, they are unifying the two parties—making them “at one” again. See Julian of Norwich, who uses the word in its original ways to startling effect— saying things like “Jesus at-oned us to God,” “while he was at-oneing us” and so forth.
Yes. I think that's a valid way to describe the result of the process. How does Jesus' death bring about at-one-ment?
...
Yeah, I mean, God could be this irrational, capricious and draconian, but you can't also go on about him being loving, forgiving and overflowing with mercy, in the same way as a ball isn't also a cube. - you have to make your mind up there.
So, another vote against penal-type atonement concepts.
Can you explain the purpose of Jesus' death? If it has a connection to improving our relationship with God, what is it? How does it work?
The Apostle Peter's Pentecost sermon is apposite of course. Christ was crucified by 'God's set purpose and foreknowledge' by 'the hands of wicked men.'
I think @Kendel is right that all Christian traditions have a 'for us' aspect - 'Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures.'
You are starting to talk about the foundational question. What do you see as the relationship between Jesus' death and our improved relationship with God?
Our redemption/ transformation/ healing/ etc. is indeed made possible through Christ, whether it’s some sort of PSA or very different. Or something beyond our comprehension, that doesn’t fit completely into any of our categories, that we can only marginally understand via the symbolic but real action of His sacrificial death and resurrection.
Sacrificial death.....
How does this sacrificial death redeem/transform/heal, etc? If it is symbolic only, what exactly does the symbolism mean, and what benefit does it provide?
Is there any particular reason why Martin has started talking about himself in the third person like Caesar?
My impression is that @Martin54 is following the convention established by the community in this thread. Everyone else has been speaking of him as if he's a ghost in the corner who can neither hear nor speak for himself.
Perhaps best to ask the man himself his reasons? In the second person.
The exact “how” of what Jesus’ suffering death and resurrection (don’t forget that last one, it’s pre-eminent in the New Testament) has never been definitively explained by the only one who could give us an answer, God himself. He just says, trust me, it works,” and then he gives us passages in the Scriptures that hint at how it works, giving birth to the seven or eight different atonement models out there. But based on what we’re given, there’s no way of ruling out all but one model as true. The same act that gets spoken of as a ransom (from slavery out prison) in a certain set of passages gets spoken of as a champion saving his people elsewhere, as a seed falling into ground and producing a huge harvest yet elsewhere, or as a sacrifice yet elsewhere.
It’s rather like the behavior of light. We’re forced to use both the wave model and the particle model to fully cover how light behaves, and the fact that neither model is sufficient and both models have bits that contradict each other is just a fact we have to put up with. Unless someone brighter is able to come up with a better, all-inclusive model. But given that God himself doesn’t seem to have felt the need to lay it all out for us in that level of detail, we are left to theorize—or choose one or more favorite models.
It’s annoying, but it’s not the first time people have been forced to deal with evidence that way.
Our redemption/ transformation/ healing/ etc. is indeed made possible through Christ, whether it’s some sort of PSA or very different. Or something beyond our comprehension, that doesn’t fit completely into any of our categories, that we can only marginally understand via the symbolic but real action of His sacrificial death and resurrection.
Sacrificial death.....
How does this sacrificial death redeem/transform/heal, etc? If it is symbolic only, what exactly does the symbolism mean, and what benefit does it provide?
Well, as I did say above that it might be something beyond our comprehension that we can only marginally understand… “how it works” would be part of that. One of the Holy Mysteries, perhaps. I would definitely not say that it is symbolic only – there doesn’t appear to be anything in Christian tradition that I’m aware of that that. And of course I also say “symbolic but real.”
I don’t quite know what you mean by “what benefit does it provide” if you’re just referring to the symbolism. It would simply be there, an “outward and visible sign.” In my understanding of the Eucharist, we are genuinely eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood. So too with His Death and Resurrection doing something mystical, transcendent, symbolic, and real.
As for symbolism, I may not have quite used the right word. It might even be that many things are symbolic/ foreshadowing/ reverberations through time, including backwards/ etc. of His Death and Resurrection. There’s also how much of this is a very powerful incarnation (lowercase I, but also involving God’s Own Incarnation as Jesus) of a principle or principles in the universe God has made, of death and rebirth, of sacrifice, of feeding one’s young from oneself, and many other things.
I suspect some of this will sound weird or even magical (or wyrd and magickal) to some, to which I reply, well, yes, of course. It is.
Ok. @Kendel has asked the $64,000 question. How does Christ's sacrificial and atoning death (and let's not forget the Resurrection - he writes getting into Orthodox capitalisation mode) affect us and 'deals' with the problem of human sin.
I used to go out 'witnessing' with members of the American missionary organisation 'Campus Crusade For Christ' - later rebounded as 'Agape.'
They tried to recruit me to become one of their evangelists after graduation but I resisted that and am I glad I did. I would have become even more unemployable than I was at that time.
For those unfamiliar with the organisation, they used to send you out with a convenient'sound-bite' leaflet/presentation known as 'The 4 Spiritual Laws' a kind of reductionist elevator-pitch for a kind of 'decisionism' pray-the-sinner's pray' form of fundamentalist Protestant Christianity.
I soon found that we had far better conversations with those prepared to listen when we ditched the silly booklet and engaged in normal conversation doing our best to answer the questions people had - or listening to what they had to say rather than sticking to our sales-pitch.
The point I'm making, of course, is that none of this can be reduced to a simple set of soundbites and propositions. Christ saves us. How? By his Incarnation, life, teachings, example, sacrificial and atoning death, his glorious Resurrection, Ascension his continuing intercession for us and his ultimate coming again in glory so that God will be all in all.
We are not saved by 'models', concepts or symbols. We are saved by Christ. 'He has become our salvation.'
This is what I mean by a 'maximalist' approach.
We are saved through the entire 'Christ-event' - not a legal transaction (although there are some echoes of that) or a legal fiction or court-room drama but by entering into the life of God himself - the life of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
How does Christ's death (and Resurrection, don't forget the Resurrection) make that possible? 'Beyond all question the mystery of godliness is great. He (God) appeared in a body ...' etc. You know the verse.
Where to start? The fulfilment of the Law. The setting aside of the written code, the 'curse of the Law' as it were, the 'tasting death for everyone,' the identification with our humanity, a Resurrection body ... and on and on we could go.
'He who knew no sin became sin fir us ...' yikes!
Where to start? How to begin to unpack all this? As @Lamb Chopped has said, there are at least 8 or 9 'atonement models'. How do 'fit' them all together?
On one level I suggest that we don't. We aren't dealing with flat-pack furniture.
What we begin with and end with is Christ himself.
Not concepts. Not atonement models. Not the 5 Points of This or the 16.532 Points of That. Not a Westminster Catechism (sorry guys) nor The 39 Articles or the Augsburg Confession, Savoy Declaration or even any of the Ecumenical Councils taken in isolation (and we can argue whether there were 7, 21 or whether we only need to pay attention to the first 3 or 4) ...
When I have more time I'll dig deeper into particular aspects or features of Orthodox approaches to these mighty and most wondrous things. @ChastMastr has already alluded to some Big O understandings of Hell, for instance.
Some of it will ring bells and overlap or accord with understandings found across Christendom as a whole. Other aspects may sound odd to people more accustomed to particular Western juridical takes on these issues - but even that requires qualifying as it's not as if 'the West' is monolithic or monochrome in its approach to these issues.
I'm sorry to have written such a long answer. I've not had time to write a short one.
I'll try to get back with more 'unpacking' if I can.
Theories of atonement are usually divided into penal (Anselm and Reformed/Evangelical PSA), moral influence theories (Christ demonstrates God's love for us and so motivates us to do better - or else shows us an example to follow or both), and Christos Victor theories (a grab bag of everything else that involve something like Jesus dying and destroying death or overcoming the devil - they generally say that they're metaphorical representations of some metaphysical transaction we don't understand). I think they can also be divided into theories in which the crucifixion is the essential operative element, and theories in which the Incarnation or Jesus's faithful life does the work and the crucifixion is the representative moment in that life, a synecdoche for the whole.
For what it's worth, I'm Christus Victor and think the Incarnation as a whole does the work.
To my mind, the various models of the atonement are like the story of the blind men trying to describe the elephant—picking up on pieces, but not the complete picture. I like the way the Confession of 1967 (PC(USA)) puts it:
God’s reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery which the Scriptures describe in various ways. It is called the sacrifice of a lamb, a shepherd’s life given for his sheep, atonement by a priest; again it is ransom of a slave, payment of debt, vicarious satisfaction of a legal penalty, and victory over the powers of evil. These are expressions of a truth which remains beyond the reach of all theory in the depths of God’s love for humankind. They reveal the gravity, cost, and sure achievement of God’s reconciling work.
To me the keystone is Paul’s affirmation that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” The “how,” to my mind, is interesting, but is not the important thing; the important thing is the “what.”
Theories of atonement are usually divided into penal (Anselm and Reformed/Evangelical PSA), moral influence theories (Christ demonstrates God's love for us and so motivates us to do better - or else shows us an example to follow or both), and Christos Victor theories (a grab bag of everything else that involve something like Jesus dying and destroying death or overcoming the devil - they generally say that they're metaphorical representations of some metaphysical transaction we don't understand). I think they can also be divided into theories in which the crucifixion is the essential operative element, and theories in which the Incarnation or Jesus's faithful life does the work and the crucifixion is the representative moment in that life, a synecdoche for the whole.
For what it's worth, I'm Christus Victor and think the Incarnation as a whole does the work.
And the Resurrection? The Ascension?
I know you aren't saying this, but we can't have the Cross without the Resurrection and vice versa.
We can't fillet the 'Christ Event' into bite-size chunks.
On the Incarnation, yes, of course. Christ assumed our humanity. 'That which is not assumed cannot be healed,' as the famous Patristic saying goes.
But can we have the Incarnation 'alone'? Any more than we can have faith 'alone'? Sorry Herr Luther ...
What if Christ had lived to a ripe old age and enjoyed retirement in a fisherman's cottage beside The Sea of Galilee?
Would that have been 'sufficient' to save humanity?
No, we can't go separating out the bits we like and ignore the rest.
We have to look at the Gospel in its entirety. 'Peace on earth and mercy mild / God and sinners reconciled.'
Yes, there is legal and juridical imagery in the NT. Yes there's 'ransom' imagery and this was very prevalent in the first few centuries of Christianity, of course. But it begs a lot of questions. To whom is the 'ransom' payable to? God? The Devil?
All atonement 'theories' will only take us so far. However we cut it, though, we are talking about dealing with death and sin - however we understand the 'mechanics' of that.
'Christ is Risen from the Dead.
Trampling down Death by Death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!'
Please, please, please, don't ignore the Resurrection, people.
Well, that makes at least three of us concerned about the Resurrection. Really, if you look at early Christian preaching, the resurrection gets more airtime than the cross, I believe. We simply can't leave it out, or give it less significance than the passion.
Well, that makes at least three of us concerned about the Resurrection. Really, if you look at early Christian preaching, the resurrection gets more airtime than the cross, I believe. We simply can't leave it out, or give it less significance than the passion.
Don’t know if I’m among the three, but if not, at least four of us.
Well, that makes at least three of us concerned about the Resurrection. Really, if you look at early Christian preaching, the resurrection gets more airtime than the cross, I believe. We simply can't leave it out, or give it less significance than the passion.
Don’t know if I’m among the three, but if not, at least four of us.
@Lambchopped: "But given that God himself doesn’t seem to have felt the need to lay it all out for us"
If you are able to look at the Bible as purposefully coherent, he has laid it out. The book of Leviticus gives us a fair back story about what he has in mind. You might also reference Hebrews which tells us that according to the law, 'Without the shedding of blood, no forgiveness is possible.' and Paul clearly states Christ's death on the cross was also a propitiatory (covering) sacrifice. (Ro 3:24,5)
Martin 54 is absolutely correct IMV. The 'blood sacrifice element' never ceases to be front of stage. An explanation one does not find tasteful is nonetheless an explanation.
@gammagammaliel: why does Christ's prayer in Gethsemane imply PSA?
The Apostle Peter's Pentecost sermon is apposite of course. Christ was crucified by 'God's set purpose and foreknowledge' by 'the hands of wicked men.'
So, yes, a 'both/and' thing.
But it doesn't necessarily imply PSA.
But what is Orthoxen reason regarding why could Jesus not bypass the cup..IE the cross?
@MPaul, I look at the Bible as purposely coherent, and I’m with @Lamb Chopped. Shedding of blood and propitiary/covering sacrifice are certainly there, but it is simply wrong, in my view, to equate those to PSA. Shedding of blood and propitiary/covering sacrifice can include PSA, but they do not have to.
I think @Gamma Gamaliel has it right when he says PSA is something of an Evangelical shibboleth, and seeing it as the the sine qua non is, in my view, a very impoverished and unscriptural view. Recognizing that Scripture presents more than one way way of understanding God’s reconciling work in Christ is not in the least inconsistent with viewing Scripture as purposefully coherent.
@Lambchopped: "But given that God himself doesn’t seem to have felt the need to lay it all out for us"
If you are able to look at the Bible as purposefully coherent, he has laid it out. The book of Leviticus gives us a fair back story about what he has in mind. You might also reference Hebrews which tells us that according to the law, 'Without the shedding of blood, no forgiveness is possible.' and Paul clearly states Christ's death on the cross was also a propitiatory (covering) sacrifice. (Ro 3:24,5)
Martin 54 is absolutely correct IMV. The 'blood sacrifice element' never ceases to be front of stage. An explanation one does not find tasteful is nonetheless an explanation.
@gammagammaliel: why does Christ's prayer in Gethsemane imply PSA?
The Apostle Peter's Pentecost sermon is apposite of course. Christ was crucified by 'God's set purpose and foreknowledge' by 'the hands of wicked men.'
So, yes, a 'both/and' thing.
But it doesn't necessarily imply PSA.
But what is Orthoxen reason regarding why could Jesus not bypass the cup..IE the cross?
Yes.
Which is pretty much the same as small o orthodox understandings if I follow your drift and understand your question directly.
The cross is central within Orthodoxy. We are always crossing ourselves and there are icons of the crucifixion in prominent places within our church buildings. We wear one round our necks, often a string necklace but not as a form of decoration in the bald sense.
That doesn't imply the kind of lurid fixation with Christ's sufferings that can be found in some RC settings. We find those as repugnant as many of our Protestant brothers and sisters do. Apologies to RC friends. Many of you, I know, share similar reservations.
Nor does it imply a PSA understanding of the atonement.
I've had to make a huge adjustment in my thinking on this one. PSA was such a shibboleth as @Nick Tamen notes, that I hung onto it until the bitter end fearing that by abandoning it I was reneging on a central facet of the Gospel.
As if everything would unravel without it.
@MPaul mentions the book of Hebrews. That's a key text in our understanding of the atonement of course.
Shipmates may remember an Orthodox poster some years back who had a singularly unorthodox, not to say heretical, take on these things. If I remember rightly she tried to air-brush the cross out completely.
She stressed the Incarnation, which is only right and proper, but to the exclusion of almost anything else.
The key thing though, is that we don't look at the cross in isolation but always in the context of the Resurrection (and the Incarnation, moral teachings, example etc etc etc).
It's not a 'proof-texting' thing in the way it can become in some conservative forms of evangelical Protestantism. It's more holistic than that.
(Who keeps seeing PSA and thinking “public service announcement”?)
For me it's Prostate Specific Antigen too. My condolences @North East Quine.
penal substitution theory is a specific interpretation of vicarious (substitutionary) atonement, which in turn goes back to Second Temple Judaism
Vicarious atonement
The idea of vicarious atonement * flows from Judaism. Isaiah 53:4–6, 10, 11 refers to the "suffering servant":
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all ... It was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin ... By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities."
aspects to Christ's atonement according to the early Church: vicarious atonement [substitutionary atonement]
New Testament
Key New Testament references which can be interpreted to reflect a vicarious atonement of Jesus' death and resurrection include:
Romans 3:23–26—"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus." (NRSV)
2 Corinthians 5:21—"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (RSV)
Galatians 3:10, 13—"All who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.' ... Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.'" (RSV)
Colossians 2:13–15—"And you, who were dead in trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him." (RSV)
1 Peter 2:24—"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness."(RSV)
1 Peter 3:18—"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." (RSV)
On the basis of Romans 3:23–26, N. T. Wright has argued that there are, in fact, different models of penal substitution in which ideas of justification work together with redemption and sacrifice
Of course the vast mass of Christians were... illiterate and/or unlearned and only knew what they were told. So if it is insisted that they weren't told any of the bold stuff, especially east of the Drina, ever, fine. That the vast mass of Christians to this day do not know that Jesus had to die for their sins, is the correct perception. That one has to work at, make it up from the text that nobody knew. Is that right?
The PSA gospel,
Christian theology describes the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ [by PSA, the omission, the elephant in the room, is noteworthy] not as a new concept, but one that has been foretold throughout the Hebrew scripture (known as the Old Testament in Christian Bibles) and was prophetically preached even at the time of the fall of man as contained in Genesis 3:14–15, which has been called the "Proto-Evangelion" or "Proto-Gospel".
is not true.
To nature, history, fact, let alone Love.
But's it's true to belief.
*
Substitutionary atonement, also called vicarious atonement... asserts that Jesus died for humanity... Jesus as dying as a substitute for others... the idea that Jesus died "for us".
**
In Matthew 20:28, Jesus says "the Son of Man...came...to give his life as a ransom for many." 1 Timothy 2:6 states that Jesus "gave himself as ransom for all."... Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine of Hippo taught views in line with the standard Ransom theory and the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great (celebrated ten times annually in the Byzantine Rite) speaks of Christ as a ransom unto death, other Church Fathers such as Gregory the Theologian vigorously denied that Christ was ransomed to Satan or any evil power, though he does not by any means deny that Christ was a ransom. In his Catechetical Orations, Cyril of Jerusalem suggests Christ's ransom was in fact paid to God the Father.
and on and on.
Did Jesus not freely, knowingly play his part in the extreme realisation of being the Paschal lamb at the hands of the baying mob and conquering sadists? It his delusion of his divine father's behest?
And lest anyone think this is ChatGPT, in contravention of the recent ruling, not one bit of it. Not in any way. Pure @Martin54, in all natural good will, and the equally disparaged wiki. Even though I've known a local philosopher use it.
(Who keeps seeing PSA and thinking “public service announcement”?)
For me it's Prostate Specific Antigen too. My condolences @North East Quine.
penal substitution theory is a specific interpretation of vicarious (substitutionary) atonement, which in turn goes back to Second Temple Judaism
Vicarious atonement
The idea of vicarious atonement * flows from Judaism. Isaiah 53:4–6, 10, 11 refers to the "suffering servant":
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all ... It was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin ... By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities."
aspects to Christ's atonement according to the early Church: vicarious atonement [substitutionary atonement]
New Testament
Key New Testament references which can be interpreted to reflect a vicarious atonement of Jesus' death and resurrection include:
Romans 3:23–26—"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus." (NRSV)
2 Corinthians 5:21—"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (RSV)
Galatians 3:10, 13—"All who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.' ... Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.'" (RSV)
Colossians 2:13–15—"And you, who were dead in trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him." (RSV)
1 Peter 2:24—"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness."(RSV)
1 Peter 3:18—"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." (RSV)
On the basis of Romans 3:23–26, N. T. Wright has argued that there are, in fact, different models of penal substitution in which ideas of justification work together with redemption and sacrifice
Of course the vast mass of Christians were... illiterate and/or unlearned and only knew what they were told. So if it is insisted that they weren't told any of the bold stuff, especially east of the Drina, ever, fine. That the vast mass of Christians to this day do not know that Jesus had to die for their sins, is the correct perception. That one has to work at, make it up from the text that nobody knew. Is that right?
The PSA gospel,
Christian theology describes the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ [by PSA, the omission, the elephant in the room, is noteworthy] not as a new concept, but one that has been foretold throughout the Hebrew scripture (known as the Old Testament in Christian Bibles) and was prophetically preached even at the time of the fall of man as contained in Genesis 3:14–15, which has been called the "Proto-Evangelion" or "Proto-Gospel".
is not true.
To nature, history, fact, let alone Love.
But's it's true to belief.
wiki throughout.
*
Substitutionary atonement, also called vicarious atonement... asserts that Jesus died for humanity... Jesus as dying as a substitute for others... the idea that Jesus died "for us".
**
In Matthew 20:28, Jesus says "the Son of Man...came...to give his life as a ransom for many." 1 Timothy 2:6 states that Jesus "gave himself as ransom for all."... Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine of Hippo taught views in line with the standard Ransom theory and the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great (celebrated ten times annually in the Byzantine Rite) speaks of Christ as a ransom unto death, other Church Fathers such as Gregory the Theologian vigorously denied that Christ was ransomed to Satan or any evil power, though he does not by any means deny that Christ was a ransom. In his Catechetical Orations, Cyril of Jerusalem suggests Christ's ransom was in fact paid to God the Father.
and on and on.
Did Jesus not freely, knowingly play his part in the extreme realisation of being the Paschal lamb at the hands of the baying mob and conquering sadists? It his delusion of his divine father's behest?
(Admins, please delete the previous version if you wish).
And lest anyone think this is ChatGPT, in contravention of the recent ruling, not one bit of it. Not in any way. Pure @Martin54, in all natural good will, and the equally disparaged wiki.
Then why is it quotation format? Why do you put text in quotation format and not bother to say what you’re quoting?
And lest anyone think this is ChatGPT, in contravention of the recent ruling, not one bit of it. Not in any way. Pure @Martin54, in all natural good will, and the equally disparaged wiki.
Then why is it quotation format? Why do you put text in quotation format and not bother to say what you’re quoting?
It's just me an' wiki. Where, what else? As I said after. But bad form I suppose.
I think I get the gist of your recent posts @Martin54 but am not quite sure. Consequently, I'm not sure what to say next but if I understand you correctly, you are saying that the 'for us' element - the vicarious element - can't be understood in anything other than penal or juridical terms.
I think I get the gist of your recent posts @Martin54 but am not quite sure. Consequently, I'm not sure what to say next but if I understand you correctly, you are saying that the 'for us' element - the vicarious element - can't be understood in anything other than penal or juridical terms.
Is that what you are saying?
Probably. It's the programming from some parts of popular evangelicalism. Everything is expressed as PSA. Blood sacrifices are portrayed as PSA. The scapegoat - PSA. Once they've finished you see PSA running through scripture like a stick of rock.
I went for years thinking that was the only interpretation of those passages. You don't get told there are other interpretations. Besides, God had to punish someone. He can't just forgive because Justice, apparently. And it's damned hard to break.
Comments
As a sidenote, I’m talking about references to Nazi Germany or even the Holocaust showing up basically all the time in places that aren’t the ship. I would argue that there is a massive difference between going into any kind of detail about specific atrocities committed in that situation and just referencing the name of the regime at all or a major historical event that people do in fact talk about quite a lot. I find the idea of censoring those fairly general words and references to be baffling.
Yes. This.
It also tells me that @Martin54 either doesn't read or understand the Wipedia stubs he provides links for. There's no mention of PSA in the piece about Orthodox views of the atonement.
Meanwhile, @Kendel, I've certainly come across material written by liberal and 'emergent' US Baptists. They do exist. Perhaps not near you.
Yes, well claiming one’s convictions as a priori truth is a discussion stopper for sure.
Re atonement theory, there are possibly ‘both and’ views. Does a belief in PSA mean that the Christus Victor view cannot be held as well?
When Jesus was in gethsemane he prayed..
“ If it is possible let this cup pass..”
It was not possible though..so why?
@Gammagammaliel might have a go at answering that. The Orthodox take might be enlightening.
The zeitgeist of our age and the site in particular finds punishment as a concept incompatible with what is required of a God one is willing to believe in. My issue with that is that we do not get to choose the nature of God. He is revealed by himself not constructed by us. If not then he is just another idol.
He is..’ipsum esse subsistens’ as Aquinas says. The God who contains and sustains all being. He is outside of creation not within it.
I found Bishop Robert Barron’s lecture on this interesting though I am not sure I fully understood it. (Findable on you tube.)
Just my tuppence before retreating into radio silence again.
Thanks, @Gamma Gamaliel . Could you provide names or anything. I'd be interested in getting acquainted with some of their work.
Of course he reads them. And he understands them differently to you. Atonement is PS. Now matter how you dress it up. It's all there, a seamless continuum in the stubs and their context. The ultimate context being the Jesus novel. Christianity is PSA, unless one can somehow deconstruct the story of his self martyrdom for his grandiose toxic cause, and reconstruct something alien to that. Which I had done due to the impact of Rob Bell et al. And even then System of a Down's 2001 Chop Suey from their Toxicity album intruded repellently on the surface of my consciousness with its reference to 'self righteous suicide'. There's no way that Christianity didn't at least subconsciously influence that.
Something like this:
Humans have a problem they can't fix that damages their relationship with God. God loves humans very much and wants that relationship restored. God can fix it at great cost to Himself through the death of his son.
1) Are my strokes broad enough to include the lowest common factors and remain accurate?
2) Assuming 1, what is the relationship between the Son's death and humans' problem that damages their relationship with God?
3) How is your answer to 2) similar to or different from the concept of "atonement"?
4) If similar (or different), how do @Martin54's objections to concepts of atonement not apply?
5) Assuming my description is not accurate, what should it be, how does Jesus' death fit with it?
@Nick Tamen thanks. Interesting.
@Martin54 thanks for more music. And yes, Christian themes, particularly this one, flow through all kinds of rock formations. Thanks for more music.
@Gamma Gamaliel names, please.
As far as I can tell Martin54 is saying that all conceptions of atonement are penal substitution (Jesus is punished for our sins instead of us). This is not true: any non-sectarian account of the atonement in Christian theology will give a wide range of theories, most of which do not say that Jesus is punished or taking our punishment. Penal theories of the atonement go back to Anselm in the eleventh century (*); penalty substitution I believe goes back to Luther (who I think proffered it as something that made no literal sense) and to Calvin (who I believe was the first to mean it literally).
It's a mark of conservative evangelical theology to insist that all valid theories of the atonement are really variations on penal substitution.
(*) Anselm I think came from a society in which blood feuds between families still happened. For Anselm, the whole of humanity is one family who are jointly liable for the actions of the families' members. Jesus can atone for the families' actions because he is human and therefore is part of the family. He isn't a substitute. Anselm's theory makes sense in the justice system of Norman France and England, unlike penal substitution which makes sense in no justice system whatever.
I'm sure there is every theory under the sun, just as I am that going forward, not back (as to Anselm), from the Second Temple Judaism Jesus clothed himself with, Messiah had to suffer. Jesus made sure he did.
Martin is simply wrong, and is tilting at windmills of his own imagination.
I think what most of us critical of PSA rather take exception to the ideas that:
(1) the punishment for every and all sin is apparently the same - take your pick between eternal torment and some kind of non-existence. We're currently debating in the UK the problem of indeterminate sentences (which have since been abolished) that have seen people serving long sentences for things like nicking a mobile phone. That's peanuts compared to the alleged "justice" of God some people propose
(2) that this alleged need for punishment can somehow be satisfied by someone else taking that punishment. That model is vaguely workable for a civil debt, but not for (to continue the legal metaphor) a criminal penalty. If someone is injured by a drunk driver, it doesn't matter that much how the victim is compensated - the important thing is that he has the costs incurred by the driver compensated for. However, there's no way justice is served on the criminal side if someone other than the driver gets five years inside and a ten year driving ban - rather injustice is compounded upon injustice.
(3) that the "way out" of this horrific prospect is to believe in something for which the evidence base is less than convincing, and which people cannot make themselves believe by any effort of will - indeed, it's mostly an accident of birth because IME the majority of believers were brought up as believers so effectively inherited it.
Yeah, I mean, God could be this irrational, capricious and draconian, but you can't also go on about him being loving, forgiving and overflowing with mercy, in the same way as a ball isn't also a cube. - you have to make your mind up there.
If you say so. He backs it up all the time with his beholder's share, with his critique, with his take, with his view. Of the plain reading of scripture and lived experience among many hundreds of Christians in multiple congregations. With his reading and viewing of the lives of countless Christians either side of the pond, and of millennia. The vast mass of whom are damnationists and believe that Jesus died for their sins. Some windmill.
Sorry Martin, but you give no reason to see your “beholder’s share” as reliable or accurate.
I am astounded at how perception works.
I was thinking Victor Von Doom. Or Galactus. Maybe Darkseid. I didn’t know Caesar did that, actually. I think we’re okay, unless Martin starts saying things like, “FOOLS! For that, you shall suffer my wrath! All shall know the power of,” etc.
@MPaul - why does Christ's prayer in Gethsemane imply PSA?
The Apostle Peter's Pentecost sermon is apposite of course. Christ was crucified by 'God's set purpose and foreknowledge' by 'the hands of wicked men.'
So, yes, a 'both/and' thing.
But it doesn't necessarily imply PSA.
It is, course, possible to hold a PSA and Christus Victor understanding of the atonement. I did so in my evangelical days. Plenty of evangelicals do, I'd imagine.
The Orthodox take is that PSA stretches the juridical and forensic imagery in the NT too far.
@Kendel - I've not been a member of a Baptist church since 2006, so I can't cite sources as I don’t remember them. What I do remember is that there were certainly more liberal US Baptists around back then and some were contributing to what were loosely referred to as 'emergent' ideas at that time.
My understanding is that National Baptists and American Baptists tend to be far less conservative than Southern Baptists and independent Baptists in the US.
The Baptist church I was in could probably best be described as 'liberal evangelical' with a charismatic-lite tinge. It's become more liberal since.
America's a big place. I'm sure there'll be more liberal Baptists around but perhaps less so in the Mid-West and the South, although @Nick Tamen testifies - 'Can I get a witness?' - that they do exist in The Carolinas.
I'm given to understand that the Southern States are far from monolithic. I daresay the same applies to the 'Flyover States' - although I have my doubts about Iowa and Idaho. 😉 Purely by hearsay of course.
@Martin54 - we can't base our impressions of any Christian tradition or theological position on a Wikipedia stub. I recognise the description of the Orthodox view of the atonement in broad terms but would say, 'It's not as simple as that.'
Besides, there's still no PSA referenced in that section.
I think @Kendel is right that all Christian traditions have a 'for us' aspect - 'Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures.'
That can involve a PSA aspect of course but that isn't the only possible way to understand these verses.
As is often the case, I agree with @Nick Tamen. You are insisting that all Christian traditions including those you are less familiar with, have the same take on this and are either being disingenuous about it or else are unable to see what you can see from your exalted and all-knowing position which places you far above everyone else.
LOL!
Segments from Dafyd's post: Yes. How does Jesus' death go about restoring humanity's relationship to God? Interesting. I will set this aside for now, unless you can explain how this model makes sense of Jesus' death.
Segments from @Lamb Chop's posts: @Lamb Chop, I will set this aside for now as well. Could be interesting, though, to return to as well. Yes. I think that's a valid way to describe the result of the process. How does Jesus' death bring about at-one-ment?
From KarlLB's post: So, another vote against penal-type atonement concepts.
Can you explain the purpose of Jesus' death? If it has a connection to improving our relationship with God, what is it? How does it work?
Segments from Gamma Gamaliel's post: and You are starting to talk about the foundational question. What do you see as the relationship between Jesus' death and our improved relationship with God?
Segments from Chastmastr 's posts Sacrificial death.....
How does this sacrificial death redeem/transform/heal, etc? If it is symbolic only, what exactly does the symbolism mean, and what benefit does it provide? Every . single . time.
My impression is that @Martin54 is following the convention established by the community in this thread. Everyone else has been speaking of him as if he's a ghost in the corner who can neither hear nor speak for himself.
Perhaps best to ask the man himself his reasons? In the second person.
It’s rather like the behavior of light. We’re forced to use both the wave model and the particle model to fully cover how light behaves, and the fact that neither model is sufficient and both models have bits that contradict each other is just a fact we have to put up with. Unless someone brighter is able to come up with a better, all-inclusive model. But given that God himself doesn’t seem to have felt the need to lay it all out for us in that level of detail, we are left to theorize—or choose one or more favorite models.
It’s annoying, but it’s not the first time people have been forced to deal with evidence that way.
Well, as I did say above that it might be something beyond our comprehension that we can only marginally understand… “how it works” would be part of that. One of the Holy Mysteries, perhaps. I would definitely not say that it is symbolic only – there doesn’t appear to be anything in Christian tradition that I’m aware of that that. And of course I also say “symbolic but real.”
I don’t quite know what you mean by “what benefit does it provide” if you’re just referring to the symbolism. It would simply be there, an “outward and visible sign.” In my understanding of the Eucharist, we are genuinely eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood. So too with His Death and Resurrection doing something mystical, transcendent, symbolic, and real.
As for symbolism, I may not have quite used the right word. It might even be that many things are symbolic/ foreshadowing/ reverberations through time, including backwards/ etc. of His Death and Resurrection. There’s also how much of this is a very powerful incarnation (lowercase I, but also involving God’s Own Incarnation as Jesus) of a principle or principles in the universe God has made, of death and rebirth, of sacrifice, of feeding one’s young from oneself, and many other things.
I suspect some of this will sound weird or even magical (or wyrd and magickal) to some, to which I reply, well, yes, of course. It is.
I used to go out 'witnessing' with members of the American missionary organisation 'Campus Crusade For Christ' - later rebounded as 'Agape.'
They tried to recruit me to become one of their evangelists after graduation but I resisted that and am I glad I did. I would have become even more unemployable than I was at that time.
For those unfamiliar with the organisation, they used to send you out with a convenient'sound-bite' leaflet/presentation known as 'The 4 Spiritual Laws' a kind of reductionist elevator-pitch for a kind of 'decisionism' pray-the-sinner's pray' form of fundamentalist Protestant Christianity.
I soon found that we had far better conversations with those prepared to listen when we ditched the silly booklet and engaged in normal conversation doing our best to answer the questions people had - or listening to what they had to say rather than sticking to our sales-pitch.
The point I'm making, of course, is that none of this can be reduced to a simple set of soundbites and propositions. Christ saves us. How? By his Incarnation, life, teachings, example, sacrificial and atoning death, his glorious Resurrection, Ascension his continuing intercession for us and his ultimate coming again in glory so that God will be all in all.
We are not saved by 'models', concepts or symbols. We are saved by Christ. 'He has become our salvation.'
This is what I mean by a 'maximalist' approach.
We are saved through the entire 'Christ-event' - not a legal transaction (although there are some echoes of that) or a legal fiction or court-room drama but by entering into the life of God himself - the life of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
How does Christ's death (and Resurrection, don't forget the Resurrection) make that possible? 'Beyond all question the mystery of godliness is great. He (God) appeared in a body ...' etc. You know the verse.
Where to start? The fulfilment of the Law. The setting aside of the written code, the 'curse of the Law' as it were, the 'tasting death for everyone,' the identification with our humanity, a Resurrection body ... and on and on we could go.
'He who knew no sin became sin fir us ...' yikes!
Where to start? How to begin to unpack all this? As @Lamb Chopped has said, there are at least 8 or 9 'atonement models'. How do 'fit' them all together?
On one level I suggest that we don't. We aren't dealing with flat-pack furniture.
What we begin with and end with is Christ himself.
Not concepts. Not atonement models. Not the 5 Points of This or the 16.532 Points of That. Not a Westminster Catechism (sorry guys) nor The 39 Articles or the Augsburg Confession, Savoy Declaration or even any of the Ecumenical Councils taken in isolation (and we can argue whether there were 7, 21 or whether we only need to pay attention to the first 3 or 4) ...
When I have more time I'll dig deeper into particular aspects or features of Orthodox approaches to these mighty and most wondrous things. @ChastMastr has already alluded to some Big O understandings of Hell, for instance.
Some of it will ring bells and overlap or accord with understandings found across Christendom as a whole. Other aspects may sound odd to people more accustomed to particular Western juridical takes on these issues - but even that requires qualifying as it's not as if 'the West' is monolithic or monochrome in its approach to these issues.
I'm sorry to have written such a long answer. I've not had time to write a short one.
I'll try to get back with more 'unpacking' if I can.
For what it's worth, I'm Christus Victor and think the Incarnation as a whole does the work.
To my mind, the various models of the atonement are like the story of the blind men trying to describe the elephant—picking up on pieces, but not the complete picture. I like the way the Confession of 1967 (PC(USA)) puts it:
To me the keystone is Paul’s affirmation that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” The “how,” to my mind, is interesting, but is not the important thing; the important thing is the “what.”
Given my late father's health issues, I see it first as "prostate specific antigen"
And the Resurrection? The Ascension?
I know you aren't saying this, but we can't have the Cross without the Resurrection and vice versa.
We can't fillet the 'Christ Event' into bite-size chunks.
On the Incarnation, yes, of course. Christ assumed our humanity. 'That which is not assumed cannot be healed,' as the famous Patristic saying goes.
But can we have the Incarnation 'alone'? Any more than we can have faith 'alone'? Sorry Herr Luther ...
What if Christ had lived to a ripe old age and enjoyed retirement in a fisherman's cottage beside The Sea of Galilee?
Would that have been 'sufficient' to save humanity?
No, we can't go separating out the bits we like and ignore the rest.
We have to look at the Gospel in its entirety. 'Peace on earth and mercy mild / God and sinners reconciled.'
Yes, there is legal and juridical imagery in the NT. Yes there's 'ransom' imagery and this was very prevalent in the first few centuries of Christianity, of course. But it begs a lot of questions. To whom is the 'ransom' payable to? God? The Devil?
All atonement 'theories' will only take us so far. However we cut it, though, we are talking about dealing with death and sin - however we understand the 'mechanics' of that.
'Christ is Risen from the Dead.
Trampling down Death by Death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!'
Please, please, please, don't ignore the Resurrection, people.
It's often said that Western Christianity emphasises the Cross and Eastern Christianity the Resurrection.
I'm going to annoy everyone by saying it's a both/and thing.
And as often you are totally right to
Ditto!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
With apologies to Emily Dickinson
https://poets.org/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260
Let's hear it for the Resurrection!
If you are able to look at the Bible as purposefully coherent, he has laid it out. The book of Leviticus gives us a fair back story about what he has in mind. You might also reference Hebrews which tells us that according to the law, 'Without the shedding of blood, no forgiveness is possible.' and Paul clearly states Christ's death on the cross was also a propitiatory (covering) sacrifice. (Ro 3:24,5)
Martin 54 is absolutely correct IMV. The 'blood sacrifice element' never ceases to be front of stage. An explanation one does not find tasteful is nonetheless an explanation.
But what is Orthoxen reason regarding why could Jesus not bypass the cup..IE the cross?
I think @Gamma Gamaliel has it right when he says PSA is something of an Evangelical shibboleth, and seeing it as the the sine qua non is, in my view, a very impoverished and unscriptural view. Recognizing that Scripture presents more than one way way of understanding God’s reconciling work in Christ is not in the least inconsistent with viewing Scripture as purposefully coherent.
Yes.
Which is pretty much the same as small o orthodox understandings if I follow your drift and understand your question directly.
The cross is central within Orthodoxy. We are always crossing ourselves and there are icons of the crucifixion in prominent places within our church buildings. We wear one round our necks, often a string necklace but not as a form of decoration in the bald sense.
That doesn't imply the kind of lurid fixation with Christ's sufferings that can be found in some RC settings. We find those as repugnant as many of our Protestant brothers and sisters do. Apologies to RC friends. Many of you, I know, share similar reservations.
Nor does it imply a PSA understanding of the atonement.
I've had to make a huge adjustment in my thinking on this one. PSA was such a shibboleth as @Nick Tamen notes, that I hung onto it until the bitter end fearing that by abandoning it I was reneging on a central facet of the Gospel.
As if everything would unravel without it.
@MPaul mentions the book of Hebrews. That's a key text in our understanding of the atonement of course.
Shipmates may remember an Orthodox poster some years back who had a singularly unorthodox, not to say heretical, take on these things. If I remember rightly she tried to air-brush the cross out completely.
She stressed the Incarnation, which is only right and proper, but to the exclusion of almost anything else.
The key thing though, is that we don't look at the cross in isolation but always in the context of the Resurrection (and the Incarnation, moral teachings, example etc etc etc).
It's not a 'proof-texting' thing in the way it can become in some conservative forms of evangelical Protestantism. It's more holistic than that.
For me it's Prostate Specific Antigen too. My condolences @North East Quine.
penal substitution theory is a specific interpretation of vicarious (substitutionary) atonement, which in turn goes back to Second Temple Judaism
Vicarious atonement
The idea of vicarious atonement * flows from Judaism. Isaiah 53:4–6, 10, 11 refers to the "suffering servant":
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all ... It was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin ... By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities."
aspects to Christ's atonement according to the early Church: vicarious atonement [substitutionary atonement]
New Testament
Key New Testament references which can be interpreted to reflect a vicarious atonement of Jesus' death and resurrection include:
Romans 3:23–26—"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus." (NRSV)
2 Corinthians 5:21—"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (RSV)
Galatians 3:10, 13—"All who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.' ... Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.'" (RSV)
Colossians 2:13–15—"And you, who were dead in trespasses and uncircumcision of your flesh having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him." (RSV)
1 Peter 2:24—"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness."(RSV)
1 Peter 3:18—"For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." (RSV)
On the basis of Romans 3:23–26, N. T. Wright has argued that there are, in fact, different models of penal substitution in which ideas of justification work together with redemption and sacrifice
Early Church
The ransom theory of atonement * * was the nearly predominant view accepted in the period of the Early Church Fathers.
Of course the vast mass of Christians were... illiterate and/or unlearned and only knew what they were told. So if it is insisted that they weren't told any of the bold stuff, especially east of the Drina, ever, fine. That the vast mass of Christians to this day do not know that Jesus had to die for their sins, is the correct perception. That one has to work at, make it up from the text that nobody knew. Is that right?
The PSA gospel,
is not true.
To nature, history, fact, let alone Love.
But's it's true to belief.
*
**
and on and on.
Did Jesus not freely, knowingly play his part in the extreme realisation of being the Paschal lamb at the hands of the baying mob and conquering sadists? It his delusion of his divine father's behest?
For me it's Prostate Specific Antigen too. My condolences @North East Quine.
penal substitution theory is a specific interpretation of vicarious (substitutionary) atonement, which in turn goes back to Second Temple Judaism
Of course the vast mass of Christians were... illiterate and/or unlearned and only knew what they were told. So if it is insisted that they weren't told any of the bold stuff, especially east of the Drina, ever, fine. That the vast mass of Christians to this day do not know that Jesus had to die for their sins, is the correct perception. That one has to work at, make it up from the text that nobody knew. Is that right?
The PSA gospel,
is not true.
To nature, history, fact, let alone Love.
But's it's true to belief.
wiki throughout.
*
**
and on and on.
Did Jesus not freely, knowingly play his part in the extreme realisation of being the Paschal lamb at the hands of the baying mob and conquering sadists? It his delusion of his divine father's behest?
(Admins, please delete the previous version if you wish).
It's just me an' wiki. Where, what else? As I said after. But bad form I suppose.
Is that all you've got?
Is that what you are saying?
Probably. It's the programming from some parts of popular evangelicalism. Everything is expressed as PSA. Blood sacrifices are portrayed as PSA. The scapegoat - PSA. Once they've finished you see PSA running through scripture like a stick of rock.
I went for years thinking that was the only interpretation of those passages. You don't get told there are other interpretations. Besides, God had to punish someone. He can't just forgive because Justice, apparently. And it's damned hard to break.