tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post5339050365452282669..comments2024-03-15T17:06:31.642-05:00Comments on The Piety That Lies Between: A Progressive Christian Perspective: Third New Book Excerpt: Atonement-Based Theories of Universal SalvationEric Reitanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-74207761666459192472011-01-08T22:11:25.118-06:002011-01-08T22:11:25.118-06:00Christ saves us in the following manner:
1)He l...Christ saves us in the following manner: <br /><br />1)He lives the perfect life- perfectly obedient and faithful even in the midst of great personal suffering and loss.<br /><br />2)The obedience of the Son is a great delight to the Father, a sweet aroma.<br /><br />3) The Father rewards the Son for His obedience by giving Him all power and authority in heaven and earth.<br /><br />4) The Son uses that power and authrority to save, redeem, abolish death, subject all of creation to Himself, etc.<br /><br />Consider Phil 2:5-11 in this light.<br /><br />Consider the story of Joseph. His faithfulness in the midst of trials, his exaltation to the right hand of Pharoah, and the way he used his power and authority to save all of Egypt from famine/death.Charles Rhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17352210467517173028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-1472627595798478112010-04-26T05:11:19.383-05:002010-04-26T05:11:19.383-05:00[1] Having said that, I find that the idea of God ...[1] Having said that, I find that the idea of God first considering all possible worlds and then creating the best one of them, is at best a rough first approximation of the truth, and that one must be careful not to overdo it. For example, in Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder’s “How an Unsurpassable Being Can Create a Surpassable World” I read the following: “<i>Possible worlds are necessarily existing abstract entities that have their being independent of anyone’s creative activity.</i>” This can’t be right under any reasonable understanding of what “existing” means. Moreover all good possible worlds contain freedom, both divine and human, as well as the creativity such freedom entails, so in any sense that possible worlds “exist” it can’t be an existence that is “independent of anyone’s creative activity”. In general I suggest that the paradigm of God as some kind of a mathematician moved by love to carefully consider all logical options before actualizing the best one, is further from the truth than the paradigm of God as some kind of an artist moved by love to create a space propitious for greater love to grow. <br /><br />[2] Which reminds me of your idea about what a saintly thing it would be if Pope Benedict were to accept punishment for the evils committed by others in his church. Sacrificial atonement is an action not only open to God.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-1479920933622059992010-04-26T05:09:20.709-05:002010-04-26T05:09:20.709-05:00The concept of hell moves people into forming some...The concept of hell moves people into forming some shockingly wrong ideas. So, for example, in Al-Ghazali’s “Best of All Possible Worlds” one reads the following: “<i>Were it not for hell, the blessed in paradise would not know the extent of their blessedness</i>”. And: “<i>Indeed, giving precedence to the perfect over the imperfect is justice itself. So too is heaping favors on the inhabitants of paradise by increasing the punishment of the inhabitants of hell.</i>” <br /><br />As theists we are committed[1] to the idea that the actual world is the best possible world. Which is really what the problem of evil is about, for it is difficult to understand how a world with so much evil as ours, can be the best possible world. In a recent interview I have heard Alvin Plantinga propose the idea that the Christian story of Christ’s atonement is so great, that a world that does not include it cannot be the best possible world; but for Christ’s atonement to obtain the presence of evil is necessary, and not just the presence of some peccadillos, but the presence of huge and destructive evil. Now I see the logic of the idea, but where is the beauty of it? The idea that people should do evil and suffer evil in order to make place for God to atone for them, strikes me as kind of incongruent. On the other hand I think the following better idea can be built on the same foundations: <br /><br />One starts by noting that, if anything, Christ’s atonement is about forgiveness, and indeed it is in the unconditional, universal, and loving forgiveness of Christ where the greatness of His life lies. Now consider a possible world where in the end every victim forgives her slayer, where in the end the slayer repents, where in the end the victim and the slayer love each other as themselves. Such a world is greater than a world where the victims are rewarded in paradise and the slayers punished in hell. And, similarly, such a world is greater than a world in which there are no slayers and no victims at all, but where all persons since always love and do only good to each other. My point is that the greatest love of all, is the love which unconditionally forgives, the love which loves those who are imperfect and do evil, the self-transcending the self-sacrificing love in the embrace of which evil is extinguished. The greatest possible world then is the world in which such atoning love, both divine and human [2], can obtain. The best possible world is one where evil is overcome by love, and not a world in which no evil but just love exists. And hence the best possible world is one of universal salvation, and not one or retributive justice. <br /><br />It is then perhaps in the value of atoning love where we find the justification for the presence of evil. What I find especially striking in this theodicy though is that it not only *solves* the problem of evil, but in a way actually *dissolves* it. For evil exists in the degree that it remains in existence as evil. If the world is such that all evil will serve as the ground for forgiveness and hence for universal salvation, if all evil will serve as the ground for atonement (in the original sense of being as one, as you explained in the previous post), then each evil will be seen as a source of a greater good and hence as being good itself, the way that dirt is one source of a flower and is hence considered good. But then in then end evil will have stopped to exist, and evil qua evil will be seen to never have existed.<br /><br />[Notes to be found in the next post]Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-69062060520606808682010-04-15T10:08:56.877-05:002010-04-15T10:08:56.877-05:00Eric:
So your idea is to show that universalism ...Eric: <br /><br />So your idea is to show that universalism is compatible with official Christian dogma, such as the penal-substitution understanding of redemption, even if it is the case that the latter dogma is in fact false. I can see why you say this is important, and I can see how interesting and indeed plausible the solution you suggest is. Perhaps it is the case that the universality of God’s savific love is such a deep theistic principle that even false dogmas point to it. <br /><br />On the other hand, considering how common the affirming the consequent fallacy is, your idea may also be kind of counterproductive: Your readers may get the impression that your argument actually strengthens the idea of penal-substitution atonement. But I am nit-picking; the traditional idea of hell is probably the single most damaging theistic idea there is, and anything one can do to remove it is probably worthwhile. Perhaps you could add a bit in your book indicating how a positive understanding of redemption also points to universal salvation. As does the positive understanding of the origin of evil which the Irenaean theodicy expounds.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-37428962584089405192010-04-14T16:52:58.300-05:002010-04-14T16:52:58.300-05:00Dianelos--Thanks again for the thoughtful comments...Dianelos--Thanks again for the thoughtful comments. I think they highlight the extent to which the term "atonement" has drifted from its etymological roots--"at-onen," meaning "at one" or in accord. <br /><br />To atone is to bring into accord or harmony that which was not so before. But in modern usage, the term generally refers strictly to expiation of past sins or crimes through payment, punishment, or acts of penance.<br /><br />I suspect that a key reason for this narrowing of meaning is precisely the fact that the term has become deeply wedded to Christian theology, and because the dominant Christian theory of Christ's Atonement in the west has been the penal-substitutionary theory that has its roots in Anselm.<br /><br />But broadly speaking, a Theory of the Atonement in Christian theology refers to ANY theory of how Christ's life and work makes humanity "at one" with God. As such, the theories you mention first--in which the incarnation plays the crucial role of forging a pathway between humanity and God--are Atonement Theories in the broad sense. <br /><br />In this sense, to say that Atonement is a foundational Christian belief is to say that it is a foundational Christian belief that Christ somehow plays an instrumental role in bringing humanity into union with God. The question then becomes HOW. <br /><br />Here is where one finds substantial divergence within the Christian tradition. But insofar as variants on the Anselmian theory have become dominant in Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, devoting attention to whether this theory is compatible with universalism is important.Eric Reitanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06135739290199272992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-5819168867361816812010-04-13T14:09:09.111-05:002010-04-13T14:09:09.111-05:00Eric,
You speak of Atonement as if it is a found...Eric, <br /><br />You speak of Atonement as if it is a foundational Christian belief, but I wonder if that is so. The dictionary definition of “atonement” is “compensation for a wrong”, but I wonder if the idea of a mercantilist God who in a sense signs contracts with clauses about debts and about penalties, even if finally willing to cover himself the penalties the other party has incurred, isn’t really a crude and misleading image. Why not use instead the dogma of redemption, according to which God’s incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth serves several salvidic meanings, including that God came down to us in order to open the way for us to go up to God? That the Divine became human so that the human could become divine? That the limitless became limited so as to raise the limitations of our condition? Why not see in God’s incarnation and suffering in Jesus of Nazareth, an act of humiliation and love and companionship – rather than an act of “paying the ransom of sin”? And what about the notion that through the incarnation and suffering God achieved knowledge and virtue S/He couldn’t otherwise achieve?<br /><br />How is one to interpret God’s actions, not from the point of view of the traditional solutions of our cognitive past, which is flawed as all creation is flawed, but from the point of view of our living sense of personal perfection? That the doctrine of hell is a false interpretation of God’s justice is more or less obvious, but isn’t the dogma of the fall (without which the doctrine of atonement would not make any sense whatsoever) equally false, and for basically the same reason, namely that it does not comport with God’s perfection? After all the doctrine that God’s creation suffered a catastrophic failure right at its beginning is akin to believing that an excellent engineer would build a house which would immediately collapse. The story of the fall in Genesis strikes me as particularly incoherent. I have always wondered how Adam and Eve should know that it was evil to disobey God before having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? <br /><br />My larger point is that for natural theology to become a science (in the traditional sense of the word), theists must stop behaving as if theistic beliefs are not based on the sense of the divine all people possess. It is a sense that gives us access to the objective reality of God, and on which one can reason about the truth value of propositions such as the doctrine of hell. Our sense of the divine may not be as sharp as our optical sense of physical phenomena on which the physical sciences depend on, but is no less veridical. It is as if we are all born seriously shortsighted in our sensus divinitatis. But the acuity of this sense can improve in various ways, such as increasing in virtue (“the pure in heart shall see God”), or through prayer even in the form of just persistently thinking about God. Perhaps the reason for this state of affairs is that, given the nature of the divine, one’s knowledge of it comes fundamentally by acquaintance. In theism the question is not so much “what is the truth?” but “who is the truth?”, or even “how is it like to be the truth?”<br /><br />I have one final observation on your list of the IUs. I would like to suggest that God’s motivation for universal salvation is entailed in God’s motivation for creation itself. And the latter motivation strikes me as almost tautological: God’s motivation for creation is to bring new value into existence, and as the nature of God is the greatest value there is, the goal of creation is to create new persons in God’s image, who freely choose to realize that image and transform their nature into becoming as perfect as God’s is.Dianelos Georgoudishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09925591703967774000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6215077578479252542.post-71231995369607971512010-04-08T23:17:15.587-05:002010-04-08T23:17:15.587-05:00Eric, I'll be picking up a copy of this book...Eric, I'll be picking up a copy of this book when it comes out. Your essay "Human Freedom and the Impossibility of Eternal Damnation" is still on of my favorites.Steven Starkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07677314285938844360noreply@blogger.com