Saturday, August 21, 2010

Forgiving and forgiven

JD Walters said...

"I'm not sure about 25 words or less, but very briefly: the death part of the Incarnational narrative was necessary so that Christ could truly claim to be the one sinned against in all our transgressions against each other, and thus the one who can genuinely forgive us for our crimes against each other. Remember the principle that only the victim of an injustice can truly offer forgiveness to the perpetrator. In order for Christ to be the true victim of all that injustice, he actually had to have that injustice inflicted upon him. To use the rape analogy, he had to make it so that whenever anyone is raped, he's actually the one being raped."

http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2010/08/christ-our-righteousness.html#comment-1788808063949886354

i) I don't see how that follows, even in terms of Mosaic penology. If, under the Mosaic law, you committed murder, the murder victim wasn’t the only wronged party. The surviving family members were also wrong by that action.

ii) But even if the survivors forgave the murderer, that doesn’t mean he was thereby acquitted in the eyes of the law. He was still liable to capital punishment.

iii) God can forgive those whom we refuse to forgive.

iv) God can still judge those whom we forgive.

Say a woman who suffers from battered-wife syndrome forgives her abusive husband (or boyfriend). Does God thereby forgive him? Does he rubberstamp her action?

Conversely, if an atheist can’t his son for becoming a Christian, does God withhold forgiveness as well? Are his hands tied?

32 comments:

  1. The Mosaic law, and retributive justice more generally, are accommodations to the hardness of our hearts. It's true that if it were possible for the wronged parties to completely forgive the offender without the latter needing to be punished by society, societal cohesion would break down and the unrepentant would take advantage of it.

    But true forgiveness is just that, forgiveness: no more debt, no more obligation, no more punishment. That's what Jesus offered the adulterous woman, the repentant tax collector, even the brigand on the cross. That's what the father of the prodigal son offered him, even though dishonoring the father by demanding one's inheritance before the time was one of the most offensive things imaginable. That's what the master of the slave who owed him 10,000 talents offered to the slave. No "yes, I forgive you, but the law must be satisfied somehow."

    And you're stacking the deck with your example. Obviously a woman with battered-wife syndrome doesn't have sound moral judgment, and you're assuming that the abusive husband is not repentant. In this case of course forgiveness is invalid.

    But it worries me that you are so zealous for upholding some retributive standard of punishment that you seem unable to fathom the idea that forgiveness and reconciliation could take place without any kind of law being satisfied. You thereby basically scoff at the many people throughout history who have indeed forgiven heinous crimes against themselves and who did not wish for any punishment to fall upon the perpetrators. You dismiss the martyr Stephen who begged the Lord not to lay his murder to the charge of his adversaries. You dismiss Nelson Mandela who emerged from a long and brutal imprisonment ready to offer pardon and amnesty to his captors. You dismiss Martin Luther King, Jr. in his eagerness to bring the white oppressors back into community with his people in forgiveness and love.

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  2. I'll have more to say on this later, but for now I'll simply note that when you attack penal substitution, you are driving a stake through the heart of Christian faith and piety.

    I know it serves your polemical purposes to cast me as the stereotypical firebrand in your little morality play, but you've taken on far more than my own particular views.

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  3. ''But it worries me that you are so zealous for upholding some retributive standard of punishment that you seem unable to fathom the idea that forgiveness and reconciliation could take place without any kind of law being satisfied," yada yada yada.

    You don't need to keep reminding everybody that I'm the Devil Incarnate. You've already established that proposition.

    Every time you blow my cover I have to ditch my current vessel and find a new host. My last vessel was a waitress working a double shift to support three young kids after her no-good husband dumped for some exotic dancer named Tina. Do you really want to have all that on your conscience?

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  4. Steve,

    Just answer me this: was Steven wrong to pray for the Lord not to credit the murder to the Jews' charge? Was Martin Luther King wrong to want reconciliation with his oppressors? Was Gandhi wrong to want to be friends with the British after their occupation ended?

    "I'll simply note that when you attack penal substitution, you are driving a stake through the heart of Christian faith and piety."

    Then I guess there were no true Christians until approximately the time of Anselm and more likely the time of the Reformers, which was when penal substitution became such a prominent understanding of the atonement. Sorry, Athanasius, you may have formulated the doctrine of the Trinity but it was all for naught because you held to a recapitulation model of the atonement.

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  5. Millions upon millions of Christians have had a pretheoretical belief in penal substitution.

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  6. "Stephen who begged the Lord not to lay his murder to the charge of his adversaries." JD

    Stephen is like the rest of us, a rebel and under God's wrath. Only the self-righteous could say any different.

    " He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”"
    The Father crushed His Son for blasphemers and proud filthy sinners like us.
    What a Savior!

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  7. Wrong. Stephen had become a Christian, and as such was no longer under God's wrath (according to the penal substitution scheme). He had been reconciled to God, no longer counted a rebel. Just like the martyrs in Revelation, he had every right to ask God to avenge his death. Instead, he prayed that God would not lay the sin to their charge.

    And as you brought up that parable: notice how all it took for the tax collector to be justified was true repentance. No mention of having to offer sacrifices, or wait for a substitute to come to take the punishment he deserved.

    And if you respond that Jesus knew all along that repentance would bring forgiveness because of the penal substitution he was about to make, then he misled those who were listening by leading them to think that repentance was enough for forgiveness. Just as he misled people with the parable of the master who just forgives the 10,000 talent debt without having a substitute pay in his place.

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  8. "Stephen had become a Christian, and as such was no longer under God's wrath (according to the penal substitution scheme)." JD

    Amen.

    And Paul, who was quite glad that Stephen was stoned to death, who may be the most righteous man in the Bible, says that he is the least of all the saints, and he also said this:

    "...and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I AM the foremost."-Paul
    he was the chief sinner, even near his end.

    That's how genuine Christians feel.
    We are all chief sinners really, aren't we.

    It's Christ's becoming sin for us sinners. It's Christ being made a curse on a tree, for us cursed proud scoundrels.

    There's no doubt that Christ was my substitute.
    He was the holy Lamb of God, and was nailed to the Cross, by His Father.
    Yes, the Jews murdered Him, but it was not in their power to do this. The Father took His Son to Calvary. His Son, whom He valued infinitely above us rebels with a perfect holy love, and the Son loved the Father with the same love. What a God!

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  9. JD Walters said...
    And if you respond that Jesus knew all along that repentance would bring forgiveness because of the penal substitution he was about to make, then he misled those who were listening by leading them to think that repentance was enough for forgiveness. Just as he misled people with the parable of the master who just forgives the 10,000 talent debt without having a substitute pay in his place.


    Actually in forgiving a debt the king would have been taking on the penalty, at least in some form, for the loss of the capital on himself. When you are owed a certain amount and that amount is not replaced, the consequences of not having that money to use, however it would be used, falls upon you. So in a very real sense, the king would have been suffering in place of his servant.

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  10. J.D.,

    Have you ever read Athanasius, or are you just projecting?

    If not, you really should sometime. Try "On the Incarnation of the Word", chapter 4, for a start.

    -Matt

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  11. Justin,

    You really think that was the point of the story? And you really think Jesus' audience would think that a king who could loan out 10,000 talents would 'suffer' if the amount wasn't repaid?

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  12. JD

    When you loan out billions of dollars and suddenly just turn the other cheek and forgive the debt, come and tell me you have not suffered very much. Not to mention what the fallout from the instant loss of billions of dollars from the national treasury would cause to your kingdom. I mean, Solomon only brought in a piddling 660 some odd talents per year. A loss of 10,000 talents would easily cripple a kingdom. Lets just say he would easily lose the ability to pay his army, keep the walls of his cities in repair, and likely be able to defend, to any real extent, his kingdom from outside invasion. And how long does a king with no means of defending his kingdom keep his throne? I think they certainly would have taken away some measure of suffering for the king from the story. It may not have been the central message, but it would have been one element that would have been inherent to the story.

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  13. Matt,

    Yes I did read Athanasius' De Incarnatione in theology class. Maybe you should read the chapters preceding chapter 4 to see why it was that the Word had to die. He speaks of death, not as the punishment externally inflicted upon humans because of their sins, but as the inevitable result of human beings' loss of their share of the being of the Word when they turned to the corruption of sin.

    The Word took on a human body and allowed it to be killed so that he could destroy death in it. There is no talk of the Father punishing the Word with death, and then because of that death he is satisfied. Yes, it was a due that had to be paid to release human beings from bondage to death, but not in a legal sense: the death was necessary so that the Word could overcome it and 'infect' human flesh with new life.

    You might think of Athanasius' view as one in which a healthy person deliberately infects himself with a sickness, knowing that he is strong enough to neutralize it and develop an antidote. The Word's body bore all the consequences of sin, including death, but the Life in the Word then completely destroyed them.

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  14. Justin,

    There is not even the slightest hint in the story that the forgiveness put the king out at all. The king doesn't come out and say, "OK, I'll forgive you, but you better realize how much this cost me." The king just forgives. The point of the story is that those who have been forgiven much should also just as freely forgive others. It's all about the radical nature of forgiveness.

    And besides, if the king symbolizes God it would be blasphemous to imply that He is of limited resources. God forgives at no loss to himself. His mercy and love are poured bountifully upon all who will receive it.

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  15. JD

    You are just being needlessly obtuse and only highlighting the portions of the parable you want to be highlighted. However lets go with your emphases.

    And no need to go over the top with accusations of blasphemy...sure sign you have cornered yourself and are trying to bully yourself out of it by putting me on the defensive. Tried and failed.

    Answer me this, did it cost God to award us our forgiveness, and if so how great was that cost? Whether pr not God would pay it willingly with both hands open is not all that pertinent to the question as we both would obviously agree He would do so. The real question is whether paying the price to award that forgiveness was of any cost, and if so how great was the loss, and whether in paying the cost, God suffered anything in the paying?

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  16. Justin,

    I do not feel cornered at all. The shortcomings of the penal substitution theory are very clear to me. I said it seemed blasphemous to suppose that God should be imagined as having limited resources because it does, indeed, seem blasphemous to me. When other Triabloggers accused me of infidelity to the biblical witness, I don't imagine that they felt cornered and are resorting to such language as a last resort, but because they do indeed think I am being unfaithful to the biblical witness.

    "Answer me this, did it cost God to award us our forgiveness, and if so how great was that cost? Whether pr not God would pay it willingly with both hands open is not all that pertinent to the question as we both would obviously agree He would do so. The real question is whether paying the price to award that forgiveness was of any cost, and if so how great was the loss, and whether in paying the cost, God suffered anything in the paying?"

    I don't think forgiveness cost God anything. That's not what the Incarnation was about. What was costly was redeeming human nature from the consequences of sin. God may forgive us our sins freely, but the damage caused by those sins still has to be dealt with. See my analogy above from Athanasius. In order to destroy the works of the Devil, Jesus had to 'absorb' them in full intensity in his person, so that the Life of the Word could then snuff them out.

    God allowed the Son to be 'attacked' by our sins (Isaiah 53:6, NET) precisely so that he could neutralize them. God did not punish the Son in our place, but he did expose the Son to death so that the Son might overcome it for us.

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  17. Why does the author of Hebrews say that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22)? Why must blood be shed for sin?

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  18. Justin,

    The author is writing to a Jewish audience to convince them that Jesus did away with the old sacrificial system once and for all through his perfect sacrifice. I doubt he intended that statement as a universal one about the metaphysics of forgiveness. A few lines earlier he compares the new situation to a will, which can only take effect after the compiler of the will has died! I'd say he's using whatever imagery he can to get across the point that Jesus' death inaugurates a new understanding of how we have access to God.

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  19. JD WALTERS SAID:

    “The Mosaic law, and retributive justice more generally, are accommodations to the hardness of our hearts.”

    i) The sacrificial system wasn’t an accommodation to the hardness of our hearts. Rather, it was a series of preparatory object lessons that set the stage for the Christ-Event.

    ii) Why should anyone accept your assertion that retributive justice is merely an accommodation to the hardness of our hearts?

    “But true forgiveness is just that, forgiveness: no more debt, no more obligation, no more punishment.”

    That depends on who’s forgiving whom. If one Aztec forgives another, that doesn’t obligate God to forgive him as well.

    “That's what Jesus offered the adulterous woman…”

    If you’re alluding to the Pericope Adulterae, that’s spurious.

    “The repentant tax collector, even the brigand on the cross. That's what the father of the prodigal son offered him, even though dishonoring the father by demanding one's inheritance before the time was one of the most offensive things imaginable. That's what the master of the slave who owed him 10,000 talents offered to the slave.”

    You’re isolating various stories and incidents from Gospels that are top heavy with a passion narrative. These were never meant to be a substitute for the Cross.

    “No ‘yes, I forgive you, but the law must be satisfied somehow."

    You willfully fail to draw an elementary distinction: God forgives Christians by punishing Christ. So there’s no tension between forgiveness and punishment, as if mercy and justice are applied to the very same individual.

    “But it worries me that you are so zealous for upholding some retributive standard of punishment that you seem unable to fathom the idea that forgiveness and reconciliation could take place without any kind of law being satisfied. You thereby basically scoff at the many people throughout history who have indeed forgiven heinous crimes against themselves and who did not wish for any punishment to fall upon the perpetrators. You dismiss the martyr Stephen who begged the Lord not to lay his murder to the charge of his adversaries. You dismiss Nelson Mandela who emerged from a long and brutal imprisonment ready to offer pardon and amnesty to his captors. You dismiss Martin Luther King, Jr. in his eagerness to bring the white oppressors back into community with his people in forgiveness and love.”

    I scoff at efforts to evade the Cross. I scoff at efforts to squeeze Jesus out of the transaction.

    “Just answer me this: was Steven wrong to pray for the Lord not to credit the murder to the Jews' charge?”

    That’s a petition, not a dictate. His prayer alone doesn’t save his murders from hell. They must come to Christ to find forgiveness.

    “Was Martin Luther King wrong to want reconciliation with his oppressors? Was Gandhi wrong to want to be friends with the British after their occupation ended?”

    Human beings are free to forgive and pursue reconciliation. That sometimes works out in human relationships. But that doesn’t answer for God.

    Moreover, it doesn’t even answer for the injured parties. If British soldiers murdered East Indians, Gandhi can’t take it upon himself to absolve them for they did to other Indians.

    And since you ask, I think Gandhi was a softheaded fool. Let’s also remember that Gandhi was not a Christian. He doesn’t set the standard.

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  20. Cont. Since you bring up the parable of the prodigal son, let’s say about things about that parable.

    i) In context, Jesus is responding to observant Jews who took offense at the fact that Jesus befriended notorious sinners (15:1-2).

    ii) Let’s remember who is telling this story: Jesus. Jesus wasn’t telling this story to cut himself out of the salvation process–as if you don’t have to go through Jesus to be forgiven. The same Jesus who told this story will be going to the cross to redeem his people.

    And Jesus is telling this story to and for observant Jews who’d like nothing better than to cut Jesus out of the salvation process.

    Let’s not isolate the parable from its larger setting in the Gospel of Luke, as well as the sequel (Acts).

    iii) In this story, the father represents Jesus’ divine mission, the younger son represents the notorious sinners who embrace Jesus’ ministry, while the older son represents the observant Jews who took umbrage at his ministry.

    In the context of Luke’s Gentilic audience, I also expect that the younger son not only represents Jewish backsliders, but gentiles who would be coming to Jesus in faith, without observing the Mosaic law (much to the chagrin of scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers.)

    iv) The parable has basically two lessons:

    a) God has an open-door policy for repentant sinners. The older son’s hostility forms the counterpoint to the father’s hospitality.

    b) Observant Jews who rankle at the gospel should be forewarned. They are currently insiders who will find themselves on the outside if they allow their pride, envy and resentment to blind them to their equal need for the Savior. The parable is both an invitation and a reproof to such as these.

    iv) This parable is hardly the sum total of the gospel. For instance, the character of the father is a rather passive, reactive figure. He watches and waits.

    That stands in striking contrast to the parable of the lost sheep, where the shepherd searches for the lost sheep, keeps on looking until he finds the lost sheep, then brings the lost sheep back to the flock.

    Each parable has its particular accents and corresponding limitations. Each parable teaches part of the truth.

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  21. JD WALTERS SAID:

    "The author is writing to a Jewish audience to convince them that Jesus did away with the old sacrificial system once and for all through his perfect sacrifice. I doubt he intended that statement as a universal one about the metaphysics of forgiveness. A few lines earlier he compares the new situation to a will, which can only take effect after the compiler of the will has died! I'd say he's using whatever imagery he can to get across the point that Jesus' death inaugurates a new understanding of how we have access to God."

    That completely misses the point. The Jewish audience is fatally deluded if it imagines that it has access to God apart from Jesus' bloody atonement.

    The new covenant doesn't replace a bloody atonement with a bloodless atonement. Rather, it accentuates a contrast between the blood of sacrificial animals and the blood of Christ. From the lesser to the greater.

    You keep hacking away at the heart and soul of the gospel.

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  22. "You willfully fail to draw an elementary distinction: God forgives Christians by punishing Christ. So there’s no tension between forgiveness and punishment, as if mercy and justice are applied to the very same individual."

    And you willfully fail to draw the elementary distinction between paying off a debt and forgiving it. Sins aren't forgiven if the punishment that was due for them is taken by someone else.

    "I scoff at efforts to evade the Cross. I scoff at efforts to squeeze Jesus out of the transaction."

    I'm not evading the Cross, and neither are those who hold to a non-penal understanding of the atonement. You'd like to think so obviously because you think PSA is the heart of the Gospel. But we all agree that what Jesus did could not have been done by anyone else.

    "That’s a petition, not a dictate. His prayer alone doesn’t save his murders from hell. They must come to Christ to find forgiveness."

    Obviously. True reconciliation involves both the willingness of the victim to forgive, and the willingness of the offender to repent. And they have to come to Jesus, since He is the one primarily sinned against in all of our inhumanity to each other.

    "Human beings are free to forgive and pursue reconciliation. That sometimes works out in human relationships. But that doesn’t answer for God."

    What happened to "whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven?" King was a Christian.

    And again this attempt to restrict God's forgiveness. You think God is less willing to forgive than human beings are?

    "And since you ask, I think Gandhi was a softheaded fool."

    Of course. So is theologian Miroslav Volf, who endured interrogations and beatings by Serbs and watched his country fall apart in raids and rape camps, but who found the courage to forgive and absolve his captors and embrace them as brothers. So is Nelson Mandela. So is Desmond Tutu.

    All those soft-headed fools who thought reconciliation could be achieved without the punishment of the perpetrators, because they believed God's love is bigger and wider than hate and violence. When will they snap out of it?

    Obviously you know something they don't, having yourself of course been the victim of all the injustices they endured and more.

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  23. "Moreover, it doesn’t even answer for the injured parties. If British soldiers murdered East Indians, Gandhi can’t take it upon himself to absolve them for they did to other Indians."

    You can't use examples like these to support your case, because you believe that regardless of the specific atrocities, a number of those who suffer them are reprobates and will never be compensated for having gone through them, much less achieve reconciliation.

    The primary moral distinction in your system is not between oppressors and victims, but between elect and reprobate, whose fate was decreed by God before the foundation of the world, no matter what they go through in this life. And these categories include both oppressing elect, and reprobate victims.

    So spare us your high-handed appeals to the need for retribution in case of human atrocity.

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  24. "i) The sacrificial system wasn’t an accommodation to the hardness of our hearts. Rather, it was a series of preparatory object lessons that set the stage for the Christ-Event."

    I didn't say anything about sacrifice, I was talking about retributive justice more generally. Unless you read retributive punishment into the significance of the sacrifices, in which case you're engaging in eisegesis.

    "ii) Why should anyone accept your assertion that retributive justice is merely an accommodation to the hardness of our hearts?"

    See my forthcoming post. Retributive justice only makes sense in a world where some wrongs cannot be undone by the perpetrators (and so their punishment and suffering is the only compensation, however partial, that can be had for the loss of a loved one for example) , when we cannot know whether a perpetrator is truly repentant, and in which the state has to consistently punish in order to maintain its authority. But in God's eschatological kingdom, where wrongs can truly be made right, He can ensure that "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain" and in which God will read the thoughts and intents of every heart, there will be no need for retributive justice anymore. As to those who don't accept mercy and reconciliation, well that's another story.

    "If you’re alluding to the Pericope Adulterae, that’s spurious."

    Are you referring to the text itself? You've used that before to answer Vic Reppert on why Jesus asked God to forgive his enemies for crucifying him. And Abraham's plea that God not punish the righteous with the wicked because He's a just judge is just his subjective opinion...are there no limits to how far you will go to explain away evidence that doesn't fit your tidy little understanding of the Gospel?

    "You’re isolating various stories and incidents from Gospels that are top heavy with a passion narrative. These were never meant to be a substitute for the Cross."

    I can't see how they're 'top heavy' with the Passion narrative. And I don't see what your point is about being a 'substitute' for the passion narrative. Who ever said they were?

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  25. JD,

    The biblical arguments presented here are enough to entirely dismantle the shaky ground you're standing on, but out of deep respect for a great father of the faith, I let Athanasius speak for himself:

    On the Incarnation of the Word- Ch. 2 The Divine Dilemma and its Solution in the Incarnation
    "Yet, true though this is, it is not the whole matter. As we have already noted, it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify Himself; what, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. What—or rather Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father."

    Clearly here death is in view as the retributive punishment of God for the Transgression. Whose word can God not go back on? What "consistency of character" would Athanasius be talking about, if not the consistency of God's character in the punishment for sin being death (Gen. 2:16-17)? What suffering is the Word "worthy to suffer on behalf of all" if not this punishment inflicted by God, being death? Notice that it is God's Word regarding death that Athanasius mentions. There is no "inevitable end" of death that God is restricted to enact, it is within His own character that the justice of death must be dealt out. His Word makes it so. His Word is not subject to the whims of inevitability, but is that which defines what nature is: thus the "inevitable" punishment of death for sin is a retributive result of God's decree.

    Don't claim to eat the entire cake when you've only taken a tiny sliver.

    Death is the inevitable result of mankind's sin because of God's declaration concerning it's result, and the retributive nature of His justice. Athanasius mentions it in the first chapter as well: "...it was the penalty of which God had forewarned them for transgressing the commandment." Death is a penalty. God being consistent with his character brought it about. To save us from it, God's Son interceded on our behalf, taking that penalty for us.

    It's anachronistic to demand reformation language from a 4th century father.

    You have an unfortunate tendency toward reductionism. All that you've said about Athanasius concerning the loss of the human share in the fall and the corruption that comes from that fall is true, but there are many "ands" that your theology class has apparently left out.

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  26. "Sins aren't forgiven if the punishment that was due for them is taken by someone else." JD

    They're not?

    "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and JUST to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9

    "..the Greek text says that God effectively forgives and purifies once for all. The first verb to forgive describes the act of canceling a debt and the restoration of the debtor. And the second verb to cleanse refers to making the forgiven sinner holy so that he is able to have fellowship with God. God takes the initiative..." -Simon J. Kistemaker

    Jesus was a ransome for His beloved, who were under God's wrath.
    He was made a curse for the cursed ones.
    He became sin, for sinners.

    Our sin was imputed to Jesus, and He drank the cup that He detested to drink, because He loved the Father, and He loved His children.

    Jesus prayed, "If there is any other way Father, please make it. Nevertheless, Your will be done, not mine."

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  27. JD WALTERS SAID:

    “And you willfully fail to draw the elementary distinction between paying off a debt and forgiving it. Sins aren't forgiven if the punishment that was due for them is taken by someone else.”

    You’re reducing a 3-party transaction to a 2-party transaction:

    i) God is the “lender.”

    ii) God “forgives” the debt of the debtor (i.e. sinner) by

    iii) “Collecting” the debt from the Redeemer.

    You also engage in a bait-and-switch where you begin with the figurative imagery of the debt forgiveness, then abruptly shift to the literal category of remission from sin–but woodenly carry over the incidental features of the metaphor.

    However, God literally forgives the sinner. And he does so by exacting retribution on the Redeemer.

    To assert that “sins aren't forgiven if the punishment that was due for them is taken by someone else” simply defies the way in which Scripture unpacks its own picturesque metaphors.

    “I'm not evading the Cross, and neither are those who hold to a non-penal understanding of the atonement.”

    You’re evading what the Cross stands for.

    “Obviously. True reconciliation involves both the willingness of the victim to forgive, and the willingness of the offender to repent. And they have to come to Jesus, since He is the one primarily sinned against in all of our inhumanity to each other.”

    That piggybacks on your ludicrous notion that if a woman is raped, then Jesus is the real rape victim.

    “What happened to "whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven?"

    You could start by properly exegeting your prooftext. R. T. France has a good section in Matthew: Evangelist & Teacher.

    “King was a Christian.”

    Not from what I’ve read. For instance:

    http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/nov_dec_09_scofield

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  28. Cont. “And again this attempt to restrict God's forgiveness.”

    God’s forgiveness is self-restricted. He forgives penitent sinners who live by faith in Jesus.

    “You think God is less willing to forgive than human beings are?”

    There’s no direct correlation between what God does and what humans do in that respect. If a mother forgives her son for murdering a coed in a date-rape gone bad, does God forgive her son?

    “Of course. So is theologian Miroslav Volf, who endured interrogations and beatings by Serbs and watched his country fall apart in raids and rape camps, but who found the courage to forgive and absolve his captors and embrace them as brothers. So is Nelson Mandela. So is Desmond Tutu. All those soft-headed fools who thought reconciliation could be achieved without the punishment of the perpetrators, because they believed God's love is bigger and wider than hate and violence. When will they snap out of it?”

    i) Fallible, uninspired men don’t dictate the terms or the scope of divine forgiveness.

    ii) And since you bring it up, Tutu is an arrogant, presumptuous prig who denied justice to the victims by substituting his confessional TRC. He had no right to take that from them. They were entitled to justice.

    iii) Oh and btw, to rob victims of just remedies is a recipe for irreconcilables. They are cheated twice over: they suffered the original crime, then saw their assailants get amnesty.

    “Obviously you know something they don't, having yourself of course been the victim of all the injustices they endured and more.”

    That is not for you and me to decide on behalf of second parties without their consent.

    “You can't use examples like these to support your case, because you believe that regardless of the specific atrocities, a number of those who suffer them are reprobates and will never be compensated for having gone through them, much less achieve reconciliation.”

    I can certainly answer you on your own terms.

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  29. Cont. “The primary moral distinction in your system is not between oppressors and victims, but between elect and reprobate, whose fate was decreed by God before the foundation of the world, no matter what they go through in this life. And these categories include both oppressing elect, and reprobate victims. So spare us your high-handed appeals to the need for retribution in case of human atrocity.”

    God has prerogatives that you and I don’t.

    “See my forthcoming post. Retributive justice only makes sense in a world where some wrongs cannot be undone by the perpetrators (and so their punishment and suffering is the only compensation, however partial, that can be had for the loss of a loved one for example) , when we cannot know whether a perpetrator is truly repentant, and in which the state has to consistently punish in order to maintain its authority.”

    How does a murderer undo the wrong of killing a woman’s daughter? Does he turn the clock back?

    “Are you referring to the text itself? You've used that before to answer Vic Reppert on why Jesus asked God to forgive his enemies for crucifying him. And Abraham's plea that God not punish the righteous with the wicked because He's a just judge is just his subjective opinion...are there no limits to how far you will go to explain away evidence that doesn't fit your tidy little understanding of the Gospel?”

    i) It’s revealing to see your inability to make an honest case for your position. If you quote a statement of Jesus to prove your position when Jesus never said that (because your prooftext is spurious), then it’s not as if I’m “explaining away the evidence.” Your “evidence” was planted evidence.

    ii) What about Abraham? I notice that you don’t attempt to actually go back and show the flaw in my argument.

    So what does all this say about the limits to which you are prepared to go?

    “I can't see how they're 'top heavy' with the Passion narrative. And I don't see what your point is about being a 'substitute' for the passion narrative. Who ever said they were?”

    Due to the disproportionate length of the passion narratives, end-stress emphasis, and predictions leading up to the event, the preceding material is a build-up to the climatic event of Jesus vicarious atonement at Calvary.

    And you substitute your Christless, crossless gospel of mere forgiveness (epitomized by your lopsided appeal to the Prodigal Son) for his vicarious atonement.

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  30. Matt,

    I think you're trying too hard to read retributive language into Athanasius. He argues that human beings were not naturally immortal, but God gave them the grace to become that way if they would keep all his laws, and only if they would keep all his laws. When they fell into disobedience, they lost that grace, not as a matter of retribution, but simply a matter of cause and effect. Don't let the word penalty mislead you here into reading back the language of the reformers into Athanasius. It's more analogous to the 'law of health', whereby the only way to stay healthy and strong is to eat the right kind of food and get plenty of exercise. Poor health may be a 'penalty' for poor eating habits in the sense that you suffer for them, but no one would say that someone is imposing poor health on us as a punishment.

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  31. JD,

    The cause and effect, in Athanasius's theology (as in the Scriptures) is rooted in God's decree.

    Furthermore, your conflation of penalty and suffering undermines the entire "law of health" scheme.

    Either way, I find Athanasius's words plain to see. If they are not convincing for you, so be it.

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  32. JD WALTERS SAID:

    "But true forgiveness is just that, forgiveness: no more debt, no more obligation, no more punishment. That's what Jesus offered the adulterous woman, the repentant tax collector, even the brigand on the cross."

    Which overlooks the fact that Jesus, as God Incarnate, has prerogatives which you and I do not.

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