Omnipotent and dickless? 
Well, I guess if he wanted to have a penis, he could. The question is, would he be circumcised?
He’s omnimpotent. 
And thereby through suicide God killed love 
I understand how Jesus dying keeps us from hell, but I’ve never understood why it was necessary for him to die in the first place. God makes the rules, so why couldn’t he just have said “new rule: you really have to screw up to be damned now.” And since revelations suggests that no one is yet in hell (as judgment day hasn’t happened yet) it wouldn’t even be unfair to people who died before Jesus since they’re not yet damned pre-rule change…
You see, to me, if Jesus were not an Aspect of Deity, then the Atonement is just God beating up on another being to fix His Creation gone wrong. Whereas if Jesus is God- either in Modalistic or Trinitarian way, then the Atonement is truly a work of EmmanuEl- God With Us in our sinfulness, our pain, our alienation, and even our punishment- so that God Himself takes the pain of Sin, Death & Hades/Gehenna into Himself.
But still, if I held that Jesus was The First-Created, The Unique Son of God, and The Word through whom God the Father created all else, then I would still say that only The Son could be the sufficient Ransom for the following reasons…
The Father creates through The Son, therefore how can The Father re-create/restore His fallen creatures except through The Son;
As Adam is the root of all humanity and his fallenness permeates we the branches, The Son is the Root of all creation and only his righteousness & ransoming work can permeate all creation;
The Ransom Price for one sinful human life may be one perfect human life, but the Ransom Price for one sinful human life spreading out into the whole human race HAD TO BE a perfect human life whose worth was also that of the entire human race- Who else could that be but The Son who is the Co-Creator with The Father?
[quote=“FriarTed, post:65, topic:552768”]
An excellent point and one I hadn’t considered. Thank you. As I perceive this comment, it would have been God [essentially] beating up on another [innocent] human to pay for the sins of another human. (Although saving the lives of all human along the way…)
Still, that argument doesn’t make the case that the ‘redemptor’ be God, but rather the redemptor be a willing participant. (and a volunteer even better…)
Who better than the Son of God to show that love?
I think that is a compelling argument, and I think there are many reasons that the Son was the perfect candidate, and you’ve articulated them well.
And…I agree with the reasoning. I think we are in much more agreement than it appears. My only distinction is this: from a technical POV, a perfect life for a perfect life. From a symbolic POV, it had to be Jesus, for who else could show the love and concern that God/Jesus had for mankind?
A couple of points:
-
Lots of people have given their lives for others; I think it would be even easier to find somebody willing to give their life for everyone (as that would necessarily include the people they like best). So I don’t see that there’s any reason for it to be Jesus for that. The way I heard it, he was unique in being able to manage to live a sinless life, apparently through technical chicanery to get him around original sin and/or having divine knowledge in his head allowing him to know and avoid sin. Is that not right? (And doesn’t that mean he’s at least a little divine?)
-
My bigger question here has always been, why is a horrific human blood sacrifice necessary at all? It makes sense in terms of ancient bloodthirsty gods and feeding virgins to dragons as protection money, but it doesn’t really make functional sense for any diety or entity that doesn’t see value (or flavor) in the death of the sacrifice itself. And suffering/privation as punitive punishment doesn’t make any logical sense when the punishment is by proxy, unless (again) the suffering itself is valued currency to the entity, independent of all justice or sin or anything.
Is the notion that God is evil and bloodthirsty, and Jesus is throwing himself in God’s jaws to slake his mighty hunger and let us pass unmolested? It would explain the sacrifice thing as few explanations do, but it’s a hair different from the usual modern descriptions of the diety in question.
This gets even starker when you have Jesus forgiving people left and right, with just words. I suppose you could argue that all those forgiveness incidents were bought ‘on credit’ to be paid back to God in blood later (with interest?), but that seems pretty odd too, in my opinion. Especially as many of those forgiveness events were accompanied by healings - God was clearly actively aiding his future lunch, especially if you posit that Jesus himself was not divine and lacked the power to do healings by himself.
Why? Why should his fallenness permeate through our branches? I never, ever, understood that.
Let me first say I am not a believer; I just happen to be very familiar with the theology from the time I wasted on it decades ago…
Basic Christian theology does not consider Jesus’ sacrifice as equivalent to one person willingly sacrificing their own life so that others may live. In substitutional atonement, there is an intrinsic value to Jesus’ death that balances the offense of Adam, one that no finite human is capable of paying. Moreover, most of the value in “laying down one’s life” is situational, like the value of food to a starving man vs. one whose just had a big meal. By definition, an eternal God is not affected by temporal situations, so this type of value cannot be applied to the divine debt. A better analogy might be “Lots of people have paid off someone else’s debt, but it’s impossible to find somebody able to pay the debts of everyone.”
This is exactly right, and the consensus position of most modern Christian theology. It is, in fact, the root idea behind the “moral influence” theory of the Passion: The illustrative and educational value of the story itself required this style of sacrifice.
I make this point only because–after reading numerous posts in this thread–many folks seem to be arguing against an antiquated version of the atonement. This is somewhat like arguing against modern chemistry by citing the ridiculous conclusions of medieval alchemy. I’m not saying their arguments are as solid as modern science, and there are plenty of good reasons to reject Christianity. But believe me: Great minds have gone over these apparent contradictions pretty thoroughly, and their arguments deserve to be approached more seriously.
Because god said so. See how internally consistent it all is?
This is absolutely a weak point in Christian theology, a classic case of how theological “truths” are often adopted from cultural norms and then rationalized, rather than arrived at thru logical inference. The starting point is, of course, Romans 5:12-21; St. Paul is pretty clear that Adam’s sin brought damnation to humanity and that Christ was instrumental in correcting that situation, so if you accept Paul’s letter as scripture there’s no avoiding the question.
St. Augustine–re-interpreting his Greek originals–givens the basic explanation against which all other theologians react. Augustine thought original sin was a natural result of the pride that develops in creatures of free will, and since the sex act recreates the same type of free-willed human, the same sin is recreated generation after generation.
Most commentators (myself included) see this as another example of Christianity’s infantile interpretation of sex (even if you think sex is dirty, what nut would actually think it’s responsible for eternal damnation?). To be fair, there is an entire historic/theological dissertation in my glib paragraph. Augustine–a man quite familiar with the irresistable temptations of the flesh–did try to mollify the obvious interpretation. He originally preferrred to think of Adam as a stand-in for all humanity–i.e. that any human would have acted the same way in the same situation, and in this sense we all “participated” in the sin–and he said that Satan’s temptation was a “necessary” ingredient–i.e. it wouldn’t have happened without a little prodding. However, I tend to agree with Peter Brown that Augustine’s theological positions hardened in his old age (as a way to counteract the secular crumbling of the now-Christian Roman empire), and certainly his arguments against the Pelagians (who denied original sin and exhalted human free will in the salvation process) are the ones that were remembered by later Christian figures, particularly Martin Luther.
Organized Christianity IMO made a bad decision in following the later Augustine’s theory on original sin so closely. The Catholic Church has tried to back out of it since Aquinas, but then they go and make ridiculous pronouncements like the Immaculate Conception, which is more an example of their eternal problems with human sexuality and the interpretive path they’ve chosen.
That is the believing part of Christian faith. If you missed that, you could be a Jew or a Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist or Atheist. There is nothing more for you to know, except have faith. It makes perfect sense if you are not perfect yourself - forgiving.
I really need a SD support group - I can’t stop answering these questions. Or at least another account - An Alter Ego for these late night messages.
Girl Next Door, I suggest that if you want a serious, thoughtful, informative answer to questions about theology, that you avoid taking as gospel* the answers you will get from a messageboard dominated by snarky atheists and agnostics (God love 'em).
The Wiki article on Atonement is pretty good at explaining the actual theology (or theologies). As you see here though, the snark begins with post #2 – although some answers have been more helpful.
I’m guessing durian.
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. I’m totally serious here; do *not *crack one of those things open. Let’s just say it was a prototype that didn’t turn out as planned.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Aw, come on; how bad could it possibly be?
IANAC but this is the way I understand mainstream Christian theology. Had Jesus not offered himself as a sacrifice each human on being judged would have had to answer not only for his or her own sins but for the original transgression of Adam, and the latter alone would have been sufficient to consign him to damnation. Jesus removed that taint and now we simply have to account for our own misdoings (probably enough to damn us anyway, certainly in my case!)
The only human born without the taint of Original Sin prior to Jesus was Mary, owing to the Immaculate Conception, ie she was conceived by her parents without sin, whatever that means.
I don’t quite get your point here. Can you elaborate?
MARY, THE HANDMAIDEN OF GOD: You’re tellin’ me! :mad:
Thanks, Skammer, but I think I’m good. Though my screen name may imply a certain innocence, I’ve been a Doper for a long time and pretty good at discernment. 
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. 