If Christianity ....

[Adrift]

Christianity became a Roman religion by 300 BC.

I believe Paul had a significant influence on this.

Meddling time travelers.

[headheart]

Meddling time travelers.

[Adrift]

Sidebar: Vicarious redemption according to bertaberts (Theology 201)
Update:

Post 2: FarEastBird wrote: "The issues can be resolved in a hyper-Calvinist’s view." (read more)
Post 4: Jedediah wrote: "I do not try to understand it, I just choose to trust His word."
Post 5: Adrift wrote: "William Lane Craig has a beginners series of teachings on the Atonement...." (read more)
Post 8: RBerman wrote: "What a strange post. ....' (READ MORE)

Peace,
Eric.

I don't understand these sidebars. Are you attempting to tie all of your threads together or something?

[headheart]

I don't understand these sidebars. Are you attempting to tie all of your threads together or something?

No just the laces. We don't want anyone "tripping" around here.

Peace,
Eric

[Adrift]

No just the laces. We don't want anyone "tripping" around here.

Peace,
Eric

Not sure I know what that means, can you explain?

[headheart]

Not sure I know what that means, can you explain?

Awgee___ here we go again. No.

[headheart]

Sidebar: Vicarious redemption according to bertaberts (Theology 201)
Update:

Post 2: FarEastBird wrote: "The issues can be resolved in a hyper-Calvinist’s view." (read more)
Post 4: Jedediah wrote: "I do not try to understand it, I just choose to trust His word."
Post 5: Adrift wrote: "William Lane Craig has a beginners series of teachings on the Atonement...." (read more)
Post 8: RBerman wrote: "What a strange post. ....' (READ MORE)

Continued: 15 May 2012 (17:42)
Post 10: Zack Martin - "For myself, I could never understand penal substitutionary atonement and I still can't." (read more)
Post 11: Adrift - "I don't have a problem with the Penal Substitution theory, but ...." (read more)
Post 12: RBerman - "They are certainly complementary, notwithstanding the Manichean dualism of full-blown Ransom theory."
Post 13: robrecht - "Anselm's theology was especially pertinent in a medieval context, but ...." (read more)

Stay tuned.
Peace,
Eric

[bertatberts]

All the theory's surrounding Jesus death I.E, penal substitutionary atonement theory, moral influence theory, ransom theory, Christus Victor, recapitulation theory, etc... all require Jesus being divine. all we can actually go on is the fact the Jesus was a mere man. nothing else can be established, therefore. Whether it is Vicarious redemption (atonement) or any kind of atonement the fact that a person was allowed to die for your sins regardless of whether it was his choice or not. does not change the fact that to allow it would be an immoral act.

[Chrawnus]

All the theory's surrounding Jesus death I.E, penal substitutionary atonement theory, moral influence theory, ransom theory, Christus Victor, recapitulation theory, etc... all require Jesus being divine. all we can actually go on is the fact the Jesus was a mere man. nothing else can be established, therefore. Whether it is Vicarious redemption (atonement) or any kind of atonement the fact that a person was allowed to die for your sins regardless of whether it was his choice or not. does not change the fact that to allow it would be an immoral act.

So, for the sake of the argument of showing that vicarious redemption is immoral you're allowing the existence of God, which you no doubt claim cannot be established, but you won't allow the possibility that Jesus was divine, because it cannot be established.

You're priceless.

[robrecht]

All the theory's surrounding Jesus death I.E, penal substitutionary atonement theory, moral influence theory, ransom theory, Christus Victor, recapitulation theory, etc... all require Jesus being divine. all we can actually go on is the fact the Jesus was a mere man. nothing else can be established, therefore. Whether it is Vicarious redemption (atonement) or any kind of atonement the fact that a person was allowed to die for your sins regardless of whether it was his choice or not. does not change the fact that to allow it would be an immoral act.

You are mistaken. The moral influence theory and even some versions of the atonement, eg, characterizations of the Ebionite atonement, certainly do not require belief in the divinity of Jesus. Likewise, some versions of evolutionary recapitulation do not require this but might point toward the divinization of all humanity or all creation.

[bertatberts]

So, for the sake of the argument of showing that vicarious redemption is immoral you're allowing the existence of God,

How so. All I'm doing is referring to your holy book. Vicarious redemption is immoral regardless of whether you think a god exists or not.

which you no doubt claim cannot be established, but you won't allow the possibility that Jesus was divine, because it cannot be established.

You're priceless.

A god/gods existence does not need to to be presupposed for vicarious redemption to be immoral.

You are mistaken. The moral influence theory and even some versions of the atonement, eg, characterizations of the Ebionite atonement, certainly do not require belief in the divinity of Jesus.

Wrong! The ebonites believed that Jesus was the son of god. Moral influence theory is partly based on the effect of his martyrdom and resurrection.

Likewise, some versions of evolutionary recapitulation do not require this but might point toward the divinization of all humanity or all creation.

Again you're wrong! Recapitulation theorist believe that because of Jesus' union with humanity, it leads to eternal life for humanity. Which I think makes him divine.
What if I were wrong, in stating they required Jesus' divinity, Vicarious redemption would still remain immoral.

[ZackMartin]

The ebonites believed that Jesus was the son of god.

You can believe that Jesus is the "Son of God" without necessarily believing that he is "God". While usually the two beliefs go together, they don't strictly have to, and there are various groups (e.g. Jehovahs Witnesses) who believe that he was "Son of God", but not God. From my (admittedly brief) reading, it appears that JWs believe that Jesus and Adam were both "Son of God", but Adam lost that title through sin, while Jesus retained it through faithfulness. (This lines up with the recapitulation theory, Christ as the "Second Adam", etc.) Consider also adoptionists (who saw themselves as Christian, but which mainstream Christianity sees as a heresy) - they believed Jesus was God's Son, but not God, they believed that Jesus was God's adopted Son, and prior to his adoption (generally suggested to have been at his baptism), he was not the Son of God.

[robrecht]

Wrong! The ebonites believed that Jesus was the son of god.

Notice, I said some characterizations of Ebionite atonement, as we do not have much in the way of reliable information about the specifics of Ebionite belief. Belief in Jesus as a son of God need not be understood as divinity, per se, but merely holiness or godliness. This is common Hebrew and Aramaic idiom. If we want to speculate about adoptionist views of the Ebionites, it is typically understood that the earliest form would be God's adoption of a human Jesus at the resurrection. This form of adoptionist belief in heavenly sonship would be subsequent to an atoning death and therefore quite irrelevant.

Moral influence theory is partly based on the effect of his martyrdom and resurrection. Again you're wrong!

Maybe for some proponents of moral influence theory, but this is certainly not necessary. And God's resurrection of the just need not imply divinity, as this was the common hope of the Pharisees for all the just.

Recapitulation theorist believe that because of Jesus' union with humanity, it leads to eternal life for humanity. Which I think makes him divine.

Again, maybe for some forms of recapitulation, but this would not apply to the evolutionary vision of recapitulation that I referred to above.

What if I were wrong, in stating they required Jesus' divinity, Vicarious redemption would still remain immoral.

I think this depends on how you understand the idea of vicarious redemption. Take a look at the actual Jewish practice of redemption as an expression of love of neighbor. I can give you some references if you like.

[headheart]

So, for the sake of the argument of showing that vicarious redemption is immoral you're allowing the existence of God, which you no doubt claim cannot be established, but you won't allow the possibility that Jesus was divine, because it cannot be established.

You're priceless.

Approaching an understanding of what Christianity is, is seldom achieved through arguing peripheries. Though few agree on this matter I do believe that when one strips off all the peripheral garments or form consisting loosely of creeds, codes and ceremonies we are left with the content given by Jesus in all its plenitude, form being added by man. Jesus founded His church without dogmas, solely upon the basis of the majestic force of love He created in his disciples. That force of compelling love of the disciples for the Master was the beginning of the Christian Church.

You tang dat ting my bru!
Peace,
Eric.

[headheart]

What if I were wrong, in stating they required Jesus' divinity, Vicarious redemption would still remain immoral.

It boggles my mind too bertaberts as it boggled the mind of robertb and UrbanMonk as I'm sure it boggles many of our minds, this is something I posted up to Theology 201 (seeing as you are unable to participate there, I thought it might be of some benefit to you) :

In fact though some found UrbanMonk's thinking to be a little too weird for them, he seemed to struggle with this same problem as did robertb (from his very first post to TWC) where no-one has actually been able to answer him directly on the issue of the Atonement. (based on my own read of all his posts) Though I might have missed one, I cannot remember reading that anyone had actually provided a biblical explanation of the atonement which removed his disgust for it. I'd appreciate and answer about this as I'm sure he would too?

Here are three of the discussion I had with UrbanMonk with respect to major Bible doctrines and even JB participated sharing some of his learned insights.

Here are the three discussions which eventually led to Theology Web and a discussion about the atonement fired by my discussion with UrbanMonk:

a. February 25th 2010, 06:39 PM = St. Paul vs Adviata VendAnta
b. March 13th 2010, 01:14 AM = "overlaps" - headheart and urban monk only.
c. March 11th 2010, 02:08 PM = What is "Adviata VedAnta" ? ( JB post 3 & post 8 )

After which I brought his argument to this forum (Theology 201)

d. June 2nd 2010, 04:10 PM = Modern Theology 101 - The Doctrine of Atonement

No doubt, I have had my own difficulties about this, but this is not about my struggles but the struggles of not only bertaberts but many who find very little comfort in the rounds of arguments with so many variations and this final discussion (d) Modern Theology 101 - The Doctrine of Atonement - where bling's argument is responded to by hendrik and left to hibernate since September 30th 2010, 12:00 AM :

bling's challenge: (post 55)

'The idea of God needing “Blood” is belittling God. We needed to have blood sacrifices in the Old Testament to see the symbolic representation of Christ. God does not need or want blood, but allows this cruel bloody sacrifice to help us understand the debt of sin, to allow us be punished (disciplined) without being destroyed, and to provide us all the benefits that come from being disciplined.'

Hendrik wrote the following: (Post 63)

'I agree that the idea of God needing blood is wrong. I think however that one can view penal substitution from the other end. It's not that God needed blood to forgive us. He did not. He can and does forgive us freely. However he considers it right to take responsibility for our sin on himself, and to accept some of the punishment we would deserve. See Rom 3:25.

Penal substitution is not the only thing going on in the crucifixion. Maybe not even the primary one. But the NT is full of images pointing at the OT sacrificial system. And Jesus used Is 53 to understand what he was doing. I don't think we can get away from the idea of Jesus dying in our place.

I think it makes moral sense, but only if you go beyond legalistic views of justice and look at the ways people are actually connected to each other. From a legal point of view, it does not make sense to punish someone who is innocent for what someone else did. I would consider a legal system that did this unjust. But in interpersonal relationships it does sometimes make sense for some to take responsibility for some else's actions, including accepting punishment for them.

Here's an example I used in another group: Suppose a kid damages a neighbor's house. The damage is too large for the kid to do anything about. But the neighbor is rich, and a family friend. He won't notice the expense, and he wouldn't ask for repayment anyway. But the parent may still believe that it wouldn't be good for the child if he simply ignores the offense. He might choose to pay the neighbor, not just because he owes his friend, but because it's not good for the child's action to have no consequences. Perhaps the example is contrived, but I do think there are situations where a parent or friend will in fact take responsibility for someone else's action. Does this involve accepting guilt? Not always. In this example, no one would consider the parent to be actually guilty. But the OT has this concept of guilt as an almost physical force, which has to come to roost somewhere, and parents and children are part of each other and can end up getting the guilt. While we don't formally accept this concept today, it does still affect us. Families, friends, and members of larger groups do feel involved when one of their members does something. Christianity is based on a concept of exchange. The prototype is our relationship with Christ, where he accepts our sin and we get new life from him. But even in interpersonal relationships, we bear each other's burdens, and I think that may include to some extent even guilt.

Now it is a matter of judgement when and how to apply this. There are many cases where I would actively counsel someone not to feel guilty because of someone else's actions. And neither Jesus nor I would want to see the full "eye for an eye" type of punishment done all the time, even to the actual perpetrator. Yet offenses do create a "debt" – they merit punishment, even if in many cases we don't want to carry out the full punishment (or indeed any of it). And people are involved in each other. In such a context, I think it makes sense for God to judge that it's not good for us if he simply ignores our offenses, but to accept responsibility for them himself, and suffer some punishment. I say "some" because there's a lot of overblown rhetoric about Jesus' crucifixion. It wasn't the worst possible torture than can be imagined. And it certainly wasn't an eternity in hell, although it probably felt like it at the time, and Mark 15:34 suggests that Jesus experienced the alienation from God that is a large part of the actual punishment of Hell. But God is not demanding that in order to forgive us someone has to serve the full sentence that we deserve. Yet I think his judgement that it is in our interest for him to accept responsibility, some measure of guilt, and consequences for our sin is consistent with his character and with the demands of justice.'

Is this the best answer?

Peace,
Eric