RE: WHY was Jesus cricified?
July 31, 2014 at 3:03 pm
(This post was last modified: July 31, 2014 at 3:36 pm by frasierc.)
So, you're saying God could have chosen to simply forgive, yet didn't want to?
Yeah as I said he could have chosen to go back on his promise - and therefore compromise his integrity. I'm not sure how that would be considered a better (more moral?) response to Adam.
The Bible's solution keeps the integrity of God's promise. If humanity wants to abandon relationship with God they are given that choice. But God offers a way out by bearing that abandonment - so that humanity has a choice to come back to God.
...just like God chose to make that promise to Adam.
This still fits squarely within my original assertion of God setting up an arbitrary paradigm of unnecessary punishments. This system exists because he wants it to exist.
I don't think this is an arbitrary paradigm. This is the natural way that relationships work. You offer relationship with someone and they can choose to take up that offer or keep out your way and go in another direction.
Wouldn't we just be robots if God programmed us to unconditionally want relationship with him.
But even though we choose to turn away from him, he comes looking for us offering us a way back (see prodigal son parable). A way that is most costly to him.
I wasn't trying to prove the story is true. That wasn't Robbypants' question. His question was about the meaning of Jesus death.
I was just saying how the Bible explained it - not sure how that's bullshitting to the nth degree. Feel free to suggest alternative explanations by all means.
And before you say something about God's nature or forgiveness without atonement isn't "just": how does one person's atonement pay for the sins of other? What did God gain from it? Jesus didn't really atone for anything anyway, because he's sitting in heaven. There was no sacrifice; there was no atonement.
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Jesus isn't just one person paying for another person's sin. Though he remains divine he becomes a human to represent the whole of humanity in bearing their physical death (dying on the cross) and spiritual death (experiencing abandonment from the Father when he says ' Father why have you forsaken me'). Which should have been borne by humanity because of the choices of Adam (the first human representative).
Jesus is a sacrifice - because he died. But if he dies only our slate is wiped clean but we're not at one with God. In his resurrection he was a 'first fruits' of a new humanity so that we may share in his new humanity which is everlasting relationship with God i.e. atonement - we become one with God. So atonement requires Jesus death, resurrection and ascension.
Yeah as I said he could have chosen to go back on his promise - and therefore compromise his integrity. I'm not sure how that would be considered a better (more moral?) response to Adam.
The Bible's solution keeps the integrity of God's promise. If humanity wants to abandon relationship with God they are given that choice. But God offers a way out by bearing that abandonment - so that humanity has a choice to come back to God.
...just like God chose to make that promise to Adam.
This still fits squarely within my original assertion of God setting up an arbitrary paradigm of unnecessary punishments. This system exists because he wants it to exist.
I don't think this is an arbitrary paradigm. This is the natural way that relationships work. You offer relationship with someone and they can choose to take up that offer or keep out your way and go in another direction.
Wouldn't we just be robots if God programmed us to unconditionally want relationship with him.
But even though we choose to turn away from him, he comes looking for us offering us a way back (see prodigal son parable). A way that is most costly to him.
(July 31, 2014 at 1:33 pm)Minimalist Wrote:Quote:According to the Bible, humanity had one representative - Adam.
No, no. You don't get to prove one part of the story by quoting from another part.
That's just bullshitting to the nth degree.
I wasn't trying to prove the story is true. That wasn't Robbypants' question. His question was about the meaning of Jesus death.
I was just saying how the Bible explained it - not sure how that's bullshitting to the nth degree. Feel free to suggest alternative explanations by all means.
And before you say something about God's nature or forgiveness without atonement isn't "just": how does one person's atonement pay for the sins of other? What did God gain from it? Jesus didn't really atone for anything anyway, because he's sitting in heaven. There was no sacrifice; there was no atonement.
[/quote]
Jesus isn't just one person paying for another person's sin. Though he remains divine he becomes a human to represent the whole of humanity in bearing their physical death (dying on the cross) and spiritual death (experiencing abandonment from the Father when he says ' Father why have you forsaken me'). Which should have been borne by humanity because of the choices of Adam (the first human representative).
Jesus is a sacrifice - because he died. But if he dies only our slate is wiped clean but we're not at one with God. In his resurrection he was a 'first fruits' of a new humanity so that we may share in his new humanity which is everlasting relationship with God i.e. atonement - we become one with God. So atonement requires Jesus death, resurrection and ascension.
