From: mmcgreg@uswnvg.com (Mark McGregor)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Jesus & the Sin of the World
Date: 9 Sep 92 02:42:34 GMT
Organization: U S WEST NewVector Group, Inc.
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hartigan@ac.dal.ca wrote:
: 
:  <2667@uswnvg.uswnvg.com> mmcgreg@uswnvg.com (Mark McGregor) writes:
: >> THE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION/DAMNATION IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE DOCTRINE OF
: >> A LOVING GOD.
: >>
: > From a Christian perspective, based on the Bible (as I read it of course),
: > there is a tension here.  And this tension is maintained throughout the
: > scriptures.  The tension is that of the complex nature of God.  From a 
: > Biblical basis, yes, God is loving.  
: >                                     But that does not say enough.  That is
: >>simply one aspect of God.  The Bible also portrays God as the just judge.
: > 
: 
: Here's what I think: this "justice" is incompatible with any meaningful
: definition of loving. HE creates us as the miserable sinning creatures we
: supposedly are - then he "justly" condemns us for being miserable
: sinning creatures.  

From a Biblical perspective I must disagree with this statement.

1)  Humankind was not originally created as "miserable sinning creatures".
    The Genesis narratives indicate that it was a humankind's own choice
    which put humankind in this position.

2)  Love meets Justice in God's act of redemption, through which humankind
    is offered the way out of their position.

Some additional thoughts on "condemnation" which might be helpful.  From
my perspective, condemnation is the current state of man, and is best 
described as eternal separation from God.  Thus redemption is seen as
restoring the broken relationship between God and humankind, which results
in the cancellation of the "condemned" state of the person.

: a) that is not justice, except in the most circular sense ("God is just,
: so whatever he does is just by definition")

Some semantic disagreement here.  

God acts justly, according to a constant "guideline" (I can't think of a 
better word) for justice.  I would hold that God does not by whim change
the definition of justice to encompass His actions.  Rather His actions
fall within a constant.  I would reword your statement as follows

"Because God acts in a just manner, what He does is just"

See the difference between the two?  In yours, the actions make the
definition, in mine, the definition guides the actions.

: b) it is ruthless in the extreme. In fact, it goes beyond ruthless to 
: cruel, infinitely cruel, and by definition, infinitely heartless.

Perhaps it may seem so, but since the key theme of the Bible (as I see
it), is God restoring relationship with man (i.e. offering a way out),
then this must be compared with the above.  Cruel and heartless is 
offering no hope and no help.

: c) and don't start talking about his "sacrifice" of his son...come on -
: the guy suffered for a few hours and then was resurrected to eternal
: glory.  And he KNEW he wasn't really going to die permanently. Pauline
: theology is a mess - but no one will admit it! Well - almost no one...you
: know who you are...:)

OK, I won't start talking about it.  (However, I might disagree with 
your use of KNEW, how about trusted/believed the Father?)

: > But, Jesus is god.  And Jesus isn't dead, is he?  If he is god and he
: > didn't die, then what did he sacrifice?  Sounds like the old cosmic shell
: > game to me - "Let's see, I'll set up this situation where my 'creations'
: > cannot possibly live up to my expectations.  Then I'll kill them for it,
: > or at the least punish them a lot.  But, just to keep them interested in
: > me, I'll send 'part of me' down there to 'die' so that I'll be satisfied
: > for these mortals sinning.  If they fall for all this then I won't kill
: > kill them <maniacal laughter fades into the background...>
:
: I have yet to see a satisfactory answer to this challenge. Go for it,
: lads...

(again, arguing from a Biblical basis) 

The sacrifice was that Jesus gave up His deity, assumed the form of a
man, lived the life of a man (except without sin), and then gave up what
he had -- his life -- in order to offer what was required to redeem man.

Where I would disagree with the above paragraph is (on a Biblical basis):

1)  "he didn't die".  The Bible says He did die, but was resurrected.
2)  As I said above, humankind made a choice which resulted in their
    present situation, not God.
3)  God did offer an alternative to deal with sin.  The blood sacrifice.
    However, the initial "implementation" did not offer a permenant
    solution since the sacrifices had to be continually offered.  The
    blood sacrifice of Christ did offer a permenant solution because
    Christ was the perfect sacrifice, because Christ was blameless
    and without sin.
4)  The goal of God is not to punish humankind.  It is to redeem 
    humankind from their state of separation from God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark McGregor -- mmcgreg@uswnvg.com

UW 31 - ASU 7

It appears that the Sun Devils are off to a stellar start.  Last year 
UW scored 40+ points against them, so things are looking a lot better.
Hope springs eternal...
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