(September 23, 2014 at 8:29 am)Michael B Wrote:According to what logic is the consequence for "our sins" i.e. every non-religious thought and action that's ever occurred on the planet tantamount to the single Roman execution of a Jewish peasant? On what or who's account does one demand the other? God's? That makes it both completely unjust and gratuitous by any reasonable standard or sensible conception.(September 22, 2014 at 5:36 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I take it you would agree--using Nietzsche's formulation--that the following utterly fails to make sense?
"God's sacrifice of himself for the guilt of human beings, God paying himself back with himself, God as the only one who can redeem man from what for human beings has become impossible to redeem - the creditor sacrifices himself for the debtor, out of love (can people believe that?), out of love for his debtor!"
Personally I wouldn't hold to a view of God paying a debt to himself (either through 'satisfaction' or 'penal substitution'), no. I don't hold to a 'forensic' view of the cross. But I would still hold to Christ's sacrifice being for our transgressions; that is that he bore the suffering that is a consequence of our sin. He freely took that sin on himself on the cross, and returned that sin with blessing ('Father, forgive them for they know not what they do').
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza