John 3:61

[_CaliforniaKid]

I guess I'm a little shocked by your posts. Maybe I pictured you as someone who never would say what you've been saying.

Well, it's an issue that hits pretty close to home for me, because it was the one that changed the course of my life and belief system. But it's true that I don't talk about it much in public, because I'm not interested in convincing or offending people. I was just in a weird mood yesterday, because of the discussion I'd been having about it with my friend. Sometimes you just want people to understand where you're coming from, y'know?

[_CaliforniaKid]

The atonement of Jesus Christ is NOT a human sacrifice.

Sometime we'll have to have a discussion on the board about human sacrifice in the Bible. You might be surprised.

[_Fence Sitter]

Only if God is something less than omnipotent can the problem of evil be solved. (At least, it sure looks that way to me.)

But this is a hard pill for most God-believers to swallow. The Greek philosophical idea of God as that which nothing greater can be imagined seems to be ingrained in pretty much all three of the "monotheistic" religions.

And Mormons appear to be no exception to the rule.

From what I have seen, Mormonism has gone a long way toward jettisoning Joseph Smith in favor of the Greek ideal.

Just ask President Hinckley . . .

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

+1

"What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home"

[_Nightlion]

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner than later. Has been teased for about four hundred years now. Full on hysterical nincompooposity is now upon us.

NOTHING REALLY MATTERS
ANYONE CAN SEE
NOTHING REALLY MATTERS
TO ME

Where nincompoop is N and T is truth and Q is queered TQ=N

[_Molok]

Only if God is something less than omnipotent can the problem of evil be solved. (At least, it sure looks that way to me.)

Perhaps God just has a hands off approach to humanity? That would be the only other option I could see. And in the context of the LDS plan of salvation, I think it makes sense. Of course, a God who doesn't care about you is just as problematic for most Christians in America as a less than omnipotent God, but I don't see much in the way of other possibilities.

[_zeezrom]

Thanks for explaining, Chris. That makes sense.

[_AlmaBound]

Hey Chris. I don't know how else to ask, so just throwing it out there:

Have you ever done anything that you believe deserved punishment?

Maybe some sort of atonement is just as much for us as it is for anything else.

[_huckelberry]

this is a very biblical notion. Consider the following.

"For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." (1Ti 2:5)
"Therefore in all things it behooved him (Jesus) to be made like His brothers, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of His people." (Heb 2:17)

I have some hope that your willingness to discuss this is not just a once passing aberation. I do not have a lot of time to post right now so am making brief replies with some hope of seeing where you are coming from here.

I realize that the roles of priest and mediator are used in scripture to describe Jesus actions and have long tradition in theology. My point was that Jesus was God with us first who acted the role of mediator. That is different I think than saying that he is a mediator first with its implied barrier and distancing between us and God. In John we become friends, that is friends with God, not stuck dealing with a standin at the door keeping us out.

Adding a piece of my view, I believe the atonement adds to us so we may be closer to God by being more like him and being apart of him. It is not a hiding of us to allow God to tolerate us. Perhaps that is a subtle differnce but I am afraid this is a subject involving more subtle differences, not black and white ones.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Hey Chris. I don't know how else to ask, so just throwing it out there:

Have you ever done anything that you believe deserved punishment?

Maybe some sort of atonement is just as much for us as it is for anything else.

Sure.

My understanding of punishment, however, is that it is meant to dissuade and restrain the offender from committing further offenses. It's meant to be educational, not to balance the cosmic scales, satisfy some abstract notion of justice, or even provide some kind of revenge or emotional satisfaction to the victim.

Requiring that an offender make restitution to a victim can be a particularly fair and effective form of punishment, which takes into account the needs of victims as well as those of offenders. But restitution should not be confused with revenge.

The abstract concepts of revenge, honor, and justice were imperfect pre-modern ways of conceptualizing the need to punish and restrain offenders. They were conceptual "shortcuts", if you will, that enabled people with no understanding of game theory to successfully negotiate various kinds of social "games".

Today, we understand enough about game theory that we no longer need those shortcuts, and we can also see that each of them had a range of weaknesses and unintended side effects that might have been avoided by a more sophisticated conceptual framework.

For example, the abstract concepts of honor and revenge might suggest that a violation of the honor of an infinite being demands an infinite punishment for the honor to be restored. When the true social purposes of punishment are understood, however, we see that infinite punishment would defeat those purposes. It would leave no incentive for the offender to reform himself, because there is no getting out on good behavior.

The abstract concept of justice, meanwhile, might suggest that punishment could be transferable. But when we understand punishment's true social purposes, we see that transference of punishment defeats those purposes. If you suffer punishment in my place, then I am neither restrained nor educated. The only lesson I learn is that altruistic people make foolish decisions and seek out unnecessary suffering. It's possible I'll be appreciative of what you did, and even seek to repay you somehow. But it's also possible I'll think you're an idiot and promise never to become as dumb as you. If you want to use mercy as a carrot, there's no need for my punishment to be transferred to an innocent person. It can simply be relaxed as a reward for good behavior, without any transference at all.

[_huckelberry]

(I should add that Christ's mediatory role is actually closely related to his divinity. In the Middle Platonic theology of first century Hellenistic Judaism, the "Word" was an intermediary emanation, expression, or reflection of God that stands partway between God and the material world. God-in-Godself is passive and aloof, whereas the Word is an active, creative aspect by which he interacts with humanity. Some texts also call it Wisdom. In the New Testament, this active aspect of God has taken the unprecedented step of being incarnated as a human being to serve a sacrificial and priestly function that human priests are ultimately inadequate to perform.)

In a post before this one you spent some time pointing to scripural use of scrificial language and its connection with Old Testament sacrifice and clean unclean requiresments. That may be more the center of gravity of the discussion but being more complicated I am only acknowledging it for another time.

This above quote to my ears is another matter. I find Jewish speculation along these lines interesting but I do not think it translates well into Christian thinking about the atonement and Jesus relationship to God the Father. If Jesus is a half way between us and God, in being not in a relative adopeted role, then serious propblems in the atonement result. I think it can no longer work. It is historically reasonable the words which reflect a being less than God were used in steps in the developement of concepts and ways to talk about Jesus and the atonement.