Vicarious Atonement Through Human Sacrifice

[Sethbag]

I'd like to mention that I don't believe that the underlying basis for the Atonement of Jesus Christ is even reasonable. For a very long time the Atonement occupied a privileged status in my mind where it wasn't even questioned at all, and I accepted it wholeheartedly, with no thoughts that this was anything but reasonable. As the years since my apostasy tick on and I've removed myself intellectually from where I had been as a member, I've become able to reconsider things like the Atonement in ways I never did before, and have startled myself by realizing I think the whole idea of an Atonement by Jesus Christ is bogus.

So, I do things, think thoughts, say words, and so forth that cross some universal line and are intrinsincally "evil", ie: sinful. Now I have racked up some guilt on a cosmic ledger of some sort. This guilt requires that some suffering be experienced. I have free agency, so whatever I've done that's sinful, that is my own, personal, direct responsibility, for which I alone am accountable. The idea that someone else can suffer and thus lift my responsibility for the things I've done makes no sense. Worse than that, though, the Atonement of Jesus Christ is a doctrine which basically says that a human sacrifice of someone else, besides me, who had no part in any of the things that I've done, can absolve me of responsibility for all of the things that I have personally chosen to do. Sorry, but that no longer makes sense to me.

Just as it may no longer make sense to you that by killing a bird, or a sheep, on an altar and burning its corpse your sins are absolved, I no longer think it makes any sense for essentially the same thing to occur, but the victim of this sacrifice be another human being.

I will point out one difference between the sacrifice of an animal and the sacrifice of a human (Jesus) which some may point to as making the difference. The animal doesn't choose to be sacrificed, but Jesus did. So there's a real difference. But I still don't think that works. Just because someone chooses to take upon them the choices I made doesn't mean they made those choices. I did. Nothing can change that.

Anyhow, I probably didn't do this justice in these few brief paragraphs. I should probably write this all down and rework it and rethink it one day to clarify exactly my thoughts on the matter, whereas here I just whipped it out. I'm sure this could be argued better. But the bottom line is that I think the whole notion of vicarious atonement through human sacrifice of a 3rd party, willing or no, is repugnant. I don't think that God exists, so the Atonement is not really true as a matter of reality, but more than that, I don't think it's even a really good idea. In other words, I can't even find myself wishing that it were true.

[Sethbag]

This isn't meant to just stir things up. I'm interested in seeing whether any of you can explain how something like the sacrifice of a 3rd party can absolve someone of the choices they have made. I've explained my thinking on the matter (or a Cliffs Notes version of it), now I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

This isn't meant to just stir things up. I'm interested in seeing whether any of you can explain how something like the sacrifice of a 3rd party can absolve someone of the choices they have made. I've explained my thinking on the matter (or a Cliffs Notes version of it), now I'd like to hear your thoughts.

He is God and sinless...makes him worthy (Cliff note version). The idea being to spare you the need to suffer. Also we know you will just go back to MD and make fun of our posts, espeally anything Dan or Will might say. Edited January 18, 2013 by Bill “Papa” Lee

[thesometimesaint]

It could only be done by God. See John 3:16

[CV75]

how something like the sacrifice of a 3rd party can absolve someone of the choices they have made.

In addition to the comments above, it is like a parent or guardian paying the fine for a wayward minor, arranging to have the record expunged and then taking him under his recognizance and tutoring.

[Sethbag]

He is God and sinless...makes him worthy (Cliff note version). The idea being to spare you the need to suffer. Also we know you will just go back to MD and make fun of our posts, espeally anything Dan or Will might say.

You may not know this, but I am actually one of the least likely MDB posters to mock what Dan says. He gets a lot of that, but if you look carefully, pretty much none of it is from me. There was the one, and only one case recently where I posted a link to something Dan said on his blog, and I indicated that I probably agreed with him. It was a court decision, and after I read the decision of the court, I decided that Dan was way off base as a matter of law, and so I returned to my original post and said that I now disagreed, and explained why. I don't think that really counts as "returning to MDB to mock". As for Will posting, well, I will concede the likelihood of me mocking what he says it somewhat higher.

As to the substance of your reply, and to TheSometimeSaint's reply I can see visible underneath it, it seems that the concept doesn't make sense to you either, except that God is doing it. Can you explain why God can do it? Or is God simply the pixy dust you can sprinkle on things that otherwise don't make sense, in order to insist that they do make sense after all.

Here's the thing. We all have our free agency. We do things that we choose to do. We are culpable for these things. It doesn't change the essence of my having made these choices for someone else to say hey, this one's on me. That transfer of guilt, as it were, simply makes no sense to me. To put it in physics terms, it would be like one atom saying hey, the mass that this other atom takes upon itself by being in the state it's in now, I'll take it. Let him be massless, and I'll weigh twice as much. There are probably weaknesses to that analogy, so put on your Gaussian Blur goggles while considering it.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Sethbag

[Sethbag]

I do appreciate your comments, btw. They haven't convinced me so far, but I asked for comments, and you guys came through for me, and for that I thank you.

[Sethbag]

You've all heard the saying "you can't un-ring a bell". Likewise, you can't un-fornicate, un-lie, or un-think-bad-thoughts. You did it. There may be visible consequences, there may not be, but the fact that you did these things remains. What I'm agreeing with, or perhaps you're all right and I never just got it, is that a person, whether God or anyone else, can voluntarily assume responsibility for the thing that I chose to do, and some fundamental property of the universe recognizes this, and it's now as if that person did it and not me.

This isn't the same thing as a parent paying a kid's traffic ticket off.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

You may not know this, but I am actually one of the least likely MDB posters to mock what Dan says. He gets a lot of that, but if you look carefully, pretty much none of it is from me. There was the one, and only one case recently where I posted a link to something Dan said on his blog, and I indicated that I probably agreed with him. It was a court decision, and after I read the decision of the court, I decided that Dan was way off base as a matter of law, and so I returned to my original post and said that I now disagreed, and explained why. I don't think that really counts as "returning to MDB to mock". As for Will posting, well, I will concede the likelihood of me mocking what he says it somewhat higher.

Glad to hear this...well about Dan, but we can disagree without mocking. The point is, you may think you should pay for your own sins...the question is, do you understand the payment? The interest rate is too high!

[Sethbag]

If the coin were required as payment for sin were fungible, this wouldn't be an issue.

For instance, the debt to society for being found guilty of speeding may be $50. American dollars are fungible, in that one dollar is as good as the next, and there's no special property adhering to a dollar by virtue of its current owner. So you could incur a $50 debt to society and I can stand up and pay it for you, and, quite literally, nobody cares, other than you and I. However, you still have this ticket on your record. You still did it. You still bear the other consequences of it, such as higher insurance rates for a while. Nothing I do will remove those consequences from you, even if I paid your ticket.

So there's debt, and there's responsibility. You might pay my debt, but you cannot take upon yourself my responsibility.

We are lead to believe that Jesus not only paid the debt, but removes the responsibility as well. It's as if he committed my sins, not me. I don't believe that's possible. "Having done this" is something that belongs to me, and I don't see how anything short of a time machine can change that.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

If the coin were required as payment for sin were fungible, this wouldn't be an issue.

For instance, the debt to society for being found guilty of speeding may be $50. American dollars are fungible, in that one dollar is as good as the next, and there's no special property adhering to a dollar by virtue of its current owner. So you could incur a $50 debt to society and I can stand up and pay it for you, and, quite literally, nobody cares, other than you and I. However, you still have this ticket on your record. You still did it. You still bear the other consequences of it, such as higher insurance rates for a while. Nothing I do will remove those consequences from you, even if I paid your ticket.

So there's debt, and there's responsibility. You might pay my debt, but you cannot take upon yourself my responsibility.

We are lead to believe that Jesus not only paid the debt, but removes the responsibility as well. It's as if he committed my sins, not me. I don't believe that's possible. "Having done this" is something that belongs to me, and I don't see how anything short of a time machine can change that.

You are right "I" can't...he "Christ" can. Seth who are you trying to convince? It is not logic, it is Faith.

[Sethbag]

You're right, it's something people just have faith in. Oh well.

[DarkScythe]

I don't know which culture this comes from but I have heard of a Sin Eater. A Sin Eater takes on the group or tribes sins and does a ritual to purify himself and the group/tribe. Well I heard this from Mortal Kombat Deception. And one of the characters is a Sin Eater. Just say, Mortal Kombat Lore will incorpate a lot of ideas from Real world cultures but it is very loose in how it presented in the game itself.

[Sethbag]

Btw, as my understanding of the way things are has shifted from the more "magical" worldview of religion, spirits, and so forth to a more materialist viewpoint (not as in Modonna's "Material Girl"), I have ceased thinking of "sin" as a concept that reflects reality.

That is, things I do that people might consider sinful are more like ringing a bell, in that there may be consequences to these actions, but there's no "having been rung" property that I assume for having done so. What I would think of as "sinful" now would be things that have consequences I would consider bad, not things I've done that happen to be on someone's "do not do" list. In this way of thinking, the atonement makes even less sense than it did already, because there's no "debt" that needs to be paid, only the responsibility for the consequences of my actions. And responsibility can't be shifted to another person. At least, I don't think it can be.

[Spammer]

I don’t like the idea of the Father punishing Jesus on my behalf, either. Punishment for something Jesus didn't do! It seems so unjust. That’s one reason why I’m Orthodox. Eastern Christianity does not place as much emphasis on guilt and punishment by proxy to meet the demands of justice. The notion of vicarious atonement is predominantly a Western (Roman) Christian view associated with Augustine and it conceives salvation in juridical terms, as in a courtroom setting. In this view, God is a lawgiver, laws have been broken, and justice demands that a consequence is levied. Christ’s mercy is found in his volunteering to step in and submit to God’s justice on our behalf. The punishment must still be applied no matter what (“mercy cannot rob justice”). A variant of this view is the notion that we have incurred a debt that must be paid. Jesus steps in to pay the debt for us and God lets us off the hook. As Westerners, Protestants (and Mormons) inherited this view.

In Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, by contrast, the salvation Jesus offers through his atonement is not viewed in this punitive way, but is instead understood as if our salvation occurs in a hospital. This view is articulated in the teaching of the Cappadocian fathers (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Basil of Caesarea), Athanasius, and Maximos the Confessor. Augustine is not nearly as admired in the East as these church fathers. In Eastern Christianity, God is not a judge, but a healer. We are indeed flawed and broken as a result of the Fall (having contracted a sinful nature and being deprived of the life of grace as a result), but we have not inherited any specific guilt from the Fall, as per Augustine, nor is God offended or angry. Sin is not conceived as law-breaking, resulting in God’s anger and the invocation of the demands of justice, but is understood as hamartia (missing the mark), a reflection of an inner sickness that keeps us separate from the divine. It is turning away from God and toward the self, which is fragmented and dominated by images, concepts, and passions. This sickness needs to be healed. In this Eastern view, instead of a rite that satisfies justice and deflects punishment, the atonement offers healing and Jesus is the physician. Jesus did not come to be our proxy, but to heal. Christ emptied himself, poured himself out, lowered himself, and became one of us. By uniting his divine nature to our humanity, Jesus healed our nature and lifts it up to the Father, returning it to its primordial state. His death was not required to satisfy the demands of justice, but was required so that death itself could be ‘healed’ – destroyed once and for all, for death cannot hold back the Author of Life. By dying, Christ “destroyed death by death” (as we sing in exultation during the Paschal Liturgy every Easter). “For that which [Christ] has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.” [st. Gregory (the Theologian) of Nazienzus] Put another (more technical) way, the Divine Logos (the Word of God) becomes man and, by virtue of his divinity and his Incarnation, divinizes human nature, restoring it to its original glory (theosis). “God became man so that men might become gods.” [st. Athanasius of Alexandria] "Man is mud whom God has commanded to become god." [st. Gregory of Nyssa] Sound familiar? The means by which we commune with Christ (prayer, fasting, Eucharist) are courses of treatment that enable this healing and this outcome. In the Eastern view, this is something that can happen in this life, although we will never become as God is (i.e., God by essence or nature). God us uncreated; we are created. That is a bridge that can never be crossed, in the view of the Eastern church fathers I mentioned. I hope that helps.

Edited to add:

Here's a link to an essay that better explains what we Eastern Christians believe about the atonement. The key statement: "There is no offended justice and original sin, no theories of predetermined schemes and imputed goodness. There is the story of a movement from a rejected possibility to a realized divinity. God’s own entrance into the story is that of God become man so that man could become God."

http://glory2godfora...work-of-christ/

Edited January 18, 2013 by Spammer

[ERayR]

This isn't meant to just stir things up. I'm interested in seeing whether any of you can explain how something like the sacrifice of a 3rd party can absolve someone of the choices they have made. I've explained my thinking on the matter (or a Cliffs Notes version of it), now I'd like to hear your thoughts.

To use the vernacular you have started with: The 3rd party sacrifice does not absolve someone else s sins. The 3rd party himself does that. The 3rd party has a right to do that because he paid the penalty required of those sins and he did not commit them. In other words he was unjustly punished for something he did not do therefore he has grace to dispense as he deems suitable.

[CV75]

This isn't the same thing as a parent paying a kid's traffic ticket off.

In some ways it certainly is the same. It can be said by the unforgiving that the kid still sped—they are stuck with that problem becausse the act has been expunged; no one will listen to them; and is only half of the real problem anyway (from the kid’s perspective the fine and license revocation is the problem). The tire marks are on the street. The run-over cat is dead. The old man’s health was affected. The extra pollutants are in the air. You name it. Individuals and society at large have de facto knowingly or unknowingly absorbed these ill-effects—otherwise there would be a law and enforcement over them. So a few might gripe about it -- so what?

But your question was how something like the sacrifice of a 3rd party can absolve someone of the choices they have made. By the action of the parent, the kid has been forgiven for the only broken law that really counts for the issue at hand.

The only broken laws that really count when it comes to our sins are a) the ones we have control over; b) the ones the Lord establishes and enforces. Some can make a big deal of the ancillary effects of things that had been forgiven, but they are missing the point about the balance between freedom and control, as in, "Do they really want to worry about that?"--becase in addition, the Atonemnt repairs all the collateral damage as well.

[CV75]

I don’t like the idea of the Father punishing Jesus on my behalf, either.

The Atonement is taught in many ways to that all bases are covered. That aspect(s) of it that applies to the salvation of an infant, and to the salvation of those without the law (in their various forms), and to people in general, and to the children of israel in particular, etc.certainly differs.

[Mark Beesley]

I don't really understand how the Law of Gravity works, but apparently it does. I don't know exactly how the Law of Atonement works, but apparently it does as well.

I don't know that I would reject the existence of a law just because it makes no sense to me given my limited capacity for understanding. It's a bit universe out there and it is probably just a little arrogant to think there are not laws out there that we cannot comprehend.

[Garden Girl]

I'd like to mention that I don't believe that the underlying basis for the Atonement of Jesus Christ is even reasonable. For a very long time the Atonement occupied a privileged status in my mind where it wasn't even questioned at all, and I accepted it wholeheartedly, with no thoughts that this was anything but reasonable. As the years since my apostasy tick on and I've removed myself intellectually from where I had been as a member, I've become able to reconsider things like the Atonement in ways I never did before, and have startled myself by realizing I think the whole idea of an Atonement by Jesus Christ is bogus.

Anyhow, I probably didn't do this justice in these few brief paragraphs. I should probably write this all down and rework it and rethink it one day to clarify exactly my thoughts on the matter, whereas here I just whipped it out. I'm sure this could be argued better. But the bottom line is that I think the whole notion of vicarious atonement through human sacrifice of a 3rd party, willing or no, is repugnant. I don't think that God exists, so the Atonement is not really true as a matter of reality, but more than that, I don't think it's even a really good idea. In other words, I can't even find myself wishing that it were true.

Good morning Sethbag...

Rethink your position for clarity? Hmmm... why? I think we get what you believe, based on this post and others that followed... seems perfectly clear to me... of course I totally disagree with your understanding and feel you are wrong... clearly wrong...

GG

[Spammer]

The Atonement is taught in many ways to that all bases are covered. That aspect(s) of it that applies to the salvation of an infant, and to the salvation of those without the law (in their various forms), and to people in general, and to the children of israel in particular, etc.certainly differs.

I certainly understand this sentiment. Any theory is just that - a theory. Who am I to think I can fully understand such a mystery - an infinite action performed by the infinite God? Even so, I have a difficult time with the idea that a father would punish the good kid before he lets the prodigal back into the house. I like the idea that dad comes to me where I am (in the pig sty), gets muddy, pulls me out and cleans me off, much better.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Spammer

[Tacenda]

Heard this once, did Jesus get persecuted and thus crucified for living polygamy, or is it a Mormon myth that needs to be squashed?!?!

[thesometimesaint]

As to the substance of your reply, and to TheSometimeSaint's reply I can see visible underneath it, it seems that the concept doesn't make sense to you either, except that God is doing it. Can you explain why God can do it? Or is God simply the pixy dust you can sprinkle on things that otherwise don't make sense, in order to insist that they do make sense after all.

Here's the thing. We all have our free agency. We do things that we choose to do. We are culpable for these things. It doesn't change the essence of my having made these choices for someone else to say hey, this one's on me. That transfer of guilt, as it were, simply makes no sense to me. To put it in physics terms, it would be like one atom saying hey, the mass that this other atom takes upon itself by being in the state it's in now, I'll take it. Let him be massless, and I'll weigh twice as much. There are probably weaknesses to that analogy, so put on your Gaussian Blur goggles while considering it.

I don't know what you mean by "visible".

Say I take out a loan from my bank. I promise to pay it back with interest. Then something happens and I no longer am able to pay my obligations back. What to do? I'm faced with severe consequences for not paying. Then without merit on my part a savior comes and tells the bank he will pay all that I owe to them. The obligation is thus met. Then that savior turns to me and says: "Work for me, and I'll forgive and forget that you ever didn't pay that debt".

That is our Savior did. He paid the debt, the price of sin. All we have to do is work for him.

There is no such thing as "Free Agency". There is nothing free about it. There is however Agency. We all doomed to consequences of our actions.

There is no transfer of guilt. We are guilty of our actions. What the Savior did was pay the price for our guilt. If we work for him.

[Calm]

My view of the Atonement is that God experienced life and death in the manner he did so that he would fully understand all that mankind would have to go through in order to deal with all the natural consequences of his actions and the actions upon him PLUS how he could be healed and heal others who are injured by sin and even just mistakes with unfortunately unintended consequences. He suffered so he could teach us without us having to suffer as much. Because he is God, he had the capability to not only withstand the suffering and come out of it unharmed even though changed, but he also had the ability to learn from the experience in ways necessary but unavailable to mortal man because of our own limitations allows us to partake of his wisdom and experience through becoming one with Him and thus learn what we need to learn both about what our acts resulted in for ourselves and others, but even more so what to do and how to control the consequences of our actions in the future.

In the BoM, it describes his greatest suffering being due not to his bearing the wickedness, but to him seeing what the horrors that wickedness has caused for mankind: " Mosiah 3: 7 And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people."

I don't believe that those who refuse to accept the Atonement and end up suffering the consequences of their own sins will be able to learn the same lessons from such suffering that those who accept the Atonement will because due to the unity with Christ, they will have the additional wisdom of God to bring to bear on their problems plus the viewpoints of all those who have accepted Christ as their saviour. If we are willing to listen, we can learn more about ourselves by getting others' feedback here in mortality with our faulty communication skills, in the next life with God as our mediator of communication we will understand in much, much fuller ways not only about our sins and transgressions, but every other act in our lives and how they affect others. In exaltation, if we act with the power and authority of God, our actions could shake worlds if done carelessly...we need to learn how to know what acts will result from our choices and how to deal with them effectively.

To me this covers the suffering aspect of the Atonement, in order to learn we must be able to see the results of actions in their fullness, but as mortals we both lack the ability to process it all as well as the ability to bear the suffering in such a beneficial way...we would not be lifted up by the suffering and purified but it would overwhelm us to the point of reducing us to the animal aspects of our nature that mortality gives us. The suffering by us would therefore be purely punishment, not an opportunity to learn and progress.

As far as death goes, I think we had to have an example of how to take up our lives again after they were laid down and one from someone on our level so we could understand. For the Father to simply share with us His experiences at that point in our progression would be like a college professor trying to explain how to do quantum physics to a toddler. We need to be able to be taken by the hand of someone who shares our current nature as well as the potential of our later, exalted nature, someone we can relate to who will walk with us through the steps of death and reconciliation of our spirits with an immortal frame that will be both familiar and unfamiliar.

I am not sure I can support my views very well from scripture, save for the idea of how we are here to learn line upon line and I see learning being a global experience that continues after death (as demonstrated in my signature quote). Justice does require the world be placed into balance again by the damage done by evil being removed, but I don't see this as happening solely through the idea of punishment as is obvious to me by the results in this life of criminal punishment often having little good effect and often quite bad effect (through the punishment, the criminal does not heal the harm he has caused or even just learn how to change his behaviour, but often learns instead the opposite, his wickedness increases...his learning is learning how to be a more evil man, not a better one). And then there are the principles and research of learning demonstrating that punishment is the least effective mode for changing behaviour.

My concept of death is simply extending the concept of learning all the way through to the end...and the new beginning.

Hope this makes sense.

Edited January 18, 2013 by calmoriah

[CV75]

I certainly understand this sentiment. Any theory is just that - a theory. Who am I to think I can fully understand such a mystery - an infinite action performed by the infinite God? Even so, I have a difficult time with the idea that a father would punish the good kid before he lets the prodigal back into the house. I like the idea that dad comes to me where I am (in the pig sty), gets muddy, pulls me out and cleans me off, much better.

I think the LDS view accommodates this. Dad came to the barnyard for some, into the pigsty for you, into the bottom of the manure pit for others, and tunneled under and came up through the toxic nuclear waste dump the farm, the sty, and the pit were built over for others (D&C 88:6, 1 Nephi 11:11-34). He was more than muddy; he was just as bad off as the worst of the lot, taking all these punishments upon himself to get to each child. Yet he had the strength, through sheer love and willpower, to bring each one into the light and clean him off. Then we discover he is our oldest brother, a guardian and adoptive father, of all things. The father of all, for his own reasons, put both the good and the bad into his hands. Inasmuch as one’s precarious and helpless condition is the consequence of his own choices, “Dad” needs to pay the price of cleaning him up by obtaining the materials and exerting the time, energy, health and his entire wherewithal to do so. Does the father of us all want this? Of course, because he wants us all to be clean, his eldest son already is, and he and the eldest son are in agreement about this. The father allowed, even wanted and expected the eldest son to suffer, because of who is is and what had been given him.