Does belief in Afterlife Disvalue This Life?

The original question that spawned my recent thoughts on afterlife was this: "If there is no  life after this one, then what we do here matters more than ever." This was on Victor Reppert's blog [1] One answer comes from an atheist friend,Hugo Pelland, "However, if we take a kind of 'mathematical' approach combined with one of the Christian version of salvation, then our lives are completely meaningless as it's just about accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. Nothing else matters, and our lives are infinitely short compared to the infinitely long afterlives." In all fairness it is important to point out this is 'Jesus is my savior and will forgive everything so nothing else matters', thankfully." He goes on: "I clarified, it was just an hypothetical example, one nobody follows that way .... The point is to illustrate that views regarding the ides behind the original post can be stretched in any directions." [2] So logically our belief implies this but no one lives that way,  got it. 

In Hugo's description of Christian belief "the Christian version of salvation, then our lives are completely meaningless as it's just about accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. Nothing else matters,..a' that is how he describes the belief even if he thinks no one lives up to it.I think the assumption behind that statement is that accepting Jesus is both the beginning and the end of Christian life. So that there is nothing beyond accepting. That is fallacious. Accepting Jesus is not the end neither chronologically nor teleologically. it's the beginning only in either sense,The end technically (there is no chronological end) is to know God. That is not merely acceptance but entails what we do after accepting. It involves a lot of things, an unending reality. I discussed knowing God last time. Today I will discuss what kind of valuation does the belief in afterlife place upon this life.

Eternal life is infinite and material life is only for the moment, but that doesn't mean we really place no value on the here and now. In fact the opposite is true.What we do with our lives and our hearts predicates our situation in eternity and thus this life has theological significance. In traditional terms the choice is between pleasure or torment predicated upon obedience to God. I don't believe  those are the  real choices.But the real choice is eternal life verses ceasing to exist. That is predicated upon knowing or seeking God. That is because I don't believe that hell is eternal  conscious torment, i will discuss this at another time.

What does it mean to say this life has theological significance? It means that here and now matters in the theological scheme of things, not only because it determines  our  eternal destiny but also because we are here now and we can only live here and now even with a view to the future, This life is not diminished by belief in after life. What we do with our time in terms of the choices we make determines the outcome, not to form a works standpoint but in terns of receiving the grace of God, and choosing to seek God..

I'm not trying to best Hugo but he does help move the topic,His answer to me was: 

Joe, of course your version is the best ;)And the fact that you say in your next comment that you "disagree that belief in after life means degrading this life. At least shouldn't and doesn't have to." goes to support it.

However, you have to admit that a blissful afterlife, conditional on how we behave in this one, necessarily means that the 'how' we behave matters more than the general well being of all humans. It's the same as me, as an Atheist, admitting that if there's no afterlife, there's no punishment for horrible crimes committed by people who don't get caught.

Is salvation in Christian theology predicated upon our behavior in this life? Only in the sense that acceptance of Christ is part of behavior. Not in the sense of earning reward or punishment, We don't earn salvation through good works "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--" (Eph 2:8)

10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”[e] 11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”[f] 12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”[g] 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”[h] 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.(Gal 3)[3]

What would this life be without theological significance? The atheist will assume it doesn't matter since life is here and now we can only live in the here and now  with no theological significance that only matters if there is something more which they don't believe in. One can only ask this question if one has a concept of what it means to have theological  significance, Having never known Joy and meaning who knows what it matters not to have joy and meaning?  

We are dealing with different orders of meaning, here I am comparing a wide veg verity of concepts under the label "belief." They don't necessarily have to mean God in the conventional sense, This vs. no belief, just "me" and stark reality with no wider meaning than my own interest due to my own consciousness, I'm alive ,I'm here, whatever I come across is meaningful to me in someway given what I make of it.. Belief offers meaning on a broader and more complex and more lasting level. Ask yourself given the things I find meaningful  would they they be meaningful had I never existed? If the world actually had a larger run than it's beginning on June 20th 1956, and it's end the moment I cease to be, would it alter as meaningful had I never been  born? With belief in God we can say yes, Without belief the best we can say is maybe someone would find it so in his or her own way whatever that means.

That reality  does not make what happens in this life less important it makes it more important because it matters in a theological sense, it matters on a larger scale,  for all time, It is meaningless to pit one aspect of life off against another and make as though one phase matters more than another. We are here now we can know God here and now. Here and now predicates eternity, We can live now and look to future nurtured by the past,

Come back to the point where Hugo says: "However, you have to admit that a blissful afterlife, conditional on how we behave in this one, necessarily means that the 'how' we behave matters more than the general well being of all humans. " But since life has theological significance securing the well being of all people, in so far as it is an expression of God's love is of great importance in the the here and now  for theological reasons. Expression of God;s love alienable our own love and expressing itself in acts of compassion and social justice is part of knowing God.It;s an avenue to know God more.

[1]  Victor Reppert, "If there is no  life after this one, then what we do here matters more than ever." Dangerous Idea Blog, (November 20, 2018)

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/

[2] Hugo Pelland Comment Section, "If there is no  life after this one, then what we do here matters more than ever." Dangerous Idea Blog, (November 20, 2018)

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=10584495&postID=1712353443393799889

 [3] Bible Gateway, Galatians 3:10-14, New International Version, 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+3&version=NIV

Avoiding Hell is not the Point of Being a Christian,

A discussion on Victor Repppert's Dangerous Idea Blog [1] led to this exchange:

Blogger Hugo Pelland said...

Joe, of course your version is the best ;)And the fact that you say in your next comment that you "disagree that belief in after life means degrading this life. At least shouldn't and doesn't have to." goes to support it.

 my response:

 Hugo I appreciate your discussion. I've been seeking to do a blog piece for weeks on an idea I got while watching a thing by N.T. Wright on Youtube, The basic statement he made that first stimulated me was "being a Christian is not about avoiding hell." I guess I'm having a hard time starting for two reasons: first because to me it's very obvious. Secondly it's too big as a  subject, the meaning of religious faith particularly my own, so I guess you are helping me break it down.

Blogger Hugo Pelland 

However, you have to admit that a blissful afterlife, conditional on how we behave in this one, necessarily means that the 'how' we behave matters more than the general wellbeing of all humans. It's the same as me, as an Atheist, admitting that if there's no afterlife, there's no punishment for horrible crimes committed by people who don't get caught.

Notice he doesn't even question the premise that eternal security is the point of being a Christian. He continues to argue about the effect of that belief. I will deal with that in the next issue, in this one I will talk about the basic issue   eternal security is a side effect not the point of being saved.

Me again:

I would not say after life is about how we behave; that's a works oriented view. I wouldn't say being   a Christian is about securing for oneself a good  afterlife. I know a lot of Christian piety has been based upon that assumption but not much real theology has been.

Hugo's comment implies an exclusivity understanding of Christian faith. That would require a protracted discussion and I know a lot of Christians disagree with me but I think there is an escape clause in Romans 2:7-16."Their hearts may excuse them."

7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.[2]

Rather than saying that being a Christian  is about avoiding hell I would say it's about knowing God.Avoiding hell is a beneficial side effect that comes with Christian faith but it's not the point.

I can't find the video of N.T. Wright that started me thinking on this topic so here is a quote from him in written form:

We should remember especially that the use of the word ‘heaven’ to denote the ultimate goal of the * redeemed, though hugely emphasized by medieval piety, mystery plays, and the like, and still almost universal at a popular level, is severely misleading and does not begin to do justice to the Christian hope. I am repeatedly frustrated by how hard it is to get this point through the thick wall of traditional thought and language that most Christians put up. ‘Going to heaven when you die’ is The main goal is to be bodily raised into the transformed, glorious likeness of Jesus Christ. [3]

For Wright the point is to achieve Christ-likeness, I say it's to know God, is there really a contradiction there? It may be a difference in focus, but I don't think it's a real difference. God renovates our spirits by pouring  into our hearts (Rm 5:1) his own Holy Spirit and growing in us fruit of peace, righteousness, joy, love and so on. That is all about growing Christ-like but the point of doing that is to know God. The final result is we know for entirety and we spend eternity with God and not in  hell so it all ties in, I think the real point of all of it is knowing God.


When I speak of knowing God I do not mean that as a euphemistic way of saying we will be with God in heaven although of course I think we will be.  I refer to a process in this life that begins with a born again experience and contuse  along  lines of personal growth and spiritual understanding; these are gained both from intellectual study of scripture and theological writings,  and actual experiential encounter with  the power and presence of God in prayer, O think sensing the presence of god is a very important and real part of this process.

From time to time one finds even Christian commentators rejecting this sort of experiential based Knowledge as not Biblical but it is is Biblical, the Bible places this sort of personal knowledge of God at the heart of Christianity (no pun intended). The prophet Jeremiah tells us:

“I will put my law in their minds    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,    and they will be my people.34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’because they will all know me,    from the least of them to the greatest,”declares the Lord. [Jer 31:33-34][4]

The new covenant is predicated upon personal (in heart = experiential) knowledge. The author of the Johannine epistles tells us "whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."(1 John 4:8). The wrod for "to Know" here is  ginosko"  

Strong's Greek: 1097. γινώσκω 

1097 ginṓskō – properly, to know, especially through personal experience (first-hand acquaintance). 1097 /ginṓskō("experientially know") is used for example in Lk 1:34, "And Mary [a virgin] said to the angel, 'How will this be since I do not know(1097 /ginṓskō = sexual intimacy) a man?'"[5]

I once did an extensive study of that word I know from that study there is a strong implication of personal experiential basis for the word. If  it is  reasonable to assume that the author of the Epistle (Elder John?) had an understanding of Jeremiah and would not have contradicted the passage sighted above then we can assume that the two two passages fit together, Thus the basis for the new convenient is personal experience and knowledge of God. Now does that mean one has to have been a drug addict and God came down in a could of light and worked a miracle that converted us? No. What does personal mean? Does it mean  dramatic?,Entertaining? No it means meaningful  to me.

J,P. Holding, internet apologist is my friend and a fellow member of the Cadre the little apologetic group I started years ago. He doesn't like the dramatic testimony  thing,He wrote a thing against it I told him he had a dramatic testimony. He said "I do?"  "all I did was read books." I said  "that's dramatic and exciting to me," It's not entertainment value I'm getting at here but the experiential aspect  of realization: the extent to which one "get's real" with God so to speak.

In this life we can;t just sit back and experience our relationship with God in an ivory tower unaffected by our relationships with others. How we treat others is an expression of the love God puts in our hearts. If we are not motivated to share that love with others it must be because we are not allowing it to touch us experimentally. That might indicate that the extent to which we are willing to seek social justice and work for pace and the welfare of others is indicative of the state of our own depth of spirit or shallowness thereof.

[1] Hugo Pelland,  Comment, "If There is No Life After This One, Does Our Life Here Matter More?" Dangerous Idea Blog November 20, 2018)
https://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2018/11/if-there-is-no-life-after-this-one-does.html


[2] Romans 2:7-16, New International Version


[3] N.T. Wright, "Rethinkig The Tradition" NTWrightPage, 2018
http://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/rethinking-the-tradition/


*This article was originally published  in For All the Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed.  London: SPCK; Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse. 2003, 20-46. for N.T. Wrioght video of similar content see:NT Wright "is not the Christian hope:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwch0FTLYSA


[4] NIV
[5] Definition is from Strong's concordance. The sexual connotation is just an example of personal experience the word is not exclusively sexual in nature,

Moltmann on the Cross as God's Statement of Solidarity

Jergen Moltmann, April 8, 1926 
(age 92 years)



Every Christmas I used to read this book, The Crucified God (Jurgan Motlmann*). I haven't read it in a few years because in 2007 we had an apartment foold and I haven't seen my copy since. Last a mentioned this and a good friend sent me a new copy! I'm reading it again now. It's one of the best books to read for Christmas because it sets the atonement in context with the incarnation and orients it in Hegelian fashion toward the resurrection as a synthesis of incarnation by the father and rejection by the father.. This book has it all, moving passages that reflect for of and for Christ, and abstruse theological and philosophical points that only a seminarian could love, and a German cultural bias. Hot dog (Wienerschnitzel) it's just made for Christmas.

Christmas is about the baby Jesus and celebrating his birth. Yet lurking behind this innocent facade is the brunt of Christian Trinitarian theology. The whole point of baby Jesus is the cross and the empty tomb. Why did he manifest in hsitory as a man (beginning as baby) but to die on the cross for the sin of the world and raise from the dead. Why do that anyway? what's it all about. That's the true point of Christmas. The holiday is the hopeful side of it all because it starts with unffulled potential of the baby Jesus and looks forward to what he will do in the future when he grows up. The resurrection is positive but not hopeful because it's the fruition of the thing. It' not hoping in something its obtaining it. The Christmas story is hope becuase it looks to the future.

I am going to do at least two if not more summaries of Moltmann's book and I hope the reader will get hold of a copy. There is an online copy on Google books the reader can use now. It's not complete and I hope the reader will buy a copy or at least go to the library and get a copy.

The time I was leaving Perkins (school of theology SMU--1990) Moltmann was being called "the greatest living Protestant theologian." I don't know who get's that title today, as far as I know Moltmann is still alive. He was born in Hamberg in 1926. His family was secular. He grew up interested in German Idealism and philosophy. He was drafted at 18 in 1944 and taken prisoner at the end of the war. Those experienced started him on a theological search. He studied at Göttingen University under Barthian influenced teachers. Something of a rarity he is a Calvinist not a Lutheran. The kind of Calvinist he is I have only encountered in seminary. I would call thm "liberal." Predestination is not important to them. I guess they are neo-orthodox that's what Barth was. He was not a Calvinist.

Moltmann first gained recognition in the mid 60s with his ground breaking work Theology of Hope.(on line text). The Crucified God came out in 68 it coincided with the times. 1968 was a seminal year for the coutner culture and the political movements from Parish (May 68) to Mexico (the massacre of the students at the university in Mexico City), the the riots at Columbia (in New York). Not to mention the police riot at the Dem's convention in Chicago. The Crucified God served as a justification theologically for taking part in the protests. It served as a lunching pad for the liberation theology and the struggles of Latin America. Moltmann was no sooner hailed as a liberation theologian than he was denounced by those wishing to lead such movements and feeling their third world origins deprived them of leadership. They disparaged his contribution. Moltmann was undaunted because he didn't care about leading he cared about the struggle.

The reason the book serves in this way was a liberation is becuase of the new light it sheds on the atonement. Motlmann changes the focus on the meaning of atonement from the efficacy of the act itself to the meaning of the act and it's wider implications due to that meaning. This is not a spoiler.It is the crux of the book. You get this concept here you know what the book says it's still well worth reading in my opinion. This is no more a spoiler than revealing that the allies win in the movie The Longest Day. It's a concept I have called participatory atonement. I've talked about it on this blog I have a page about on Doxa, it's my view of the atonement.

The basic idea is that the atonement is not a commercial transaction or a work of magic. It's not because Jesus shed blood that it atones but because the act itself is a statement of solidarity. It is in creating a mutual solidarity between us and God that the ground for forgiveness is created. That means if we are in solidarity, we signify this by acceptance of God's statement of solidarity, that is by placing faith in Jesus act of atonement, we are in solidarity with God and we can't be held in condemnation.

To get to this point Moltmann begins by talking about Christian identity. He asks where should we find a Christian on Sunday morning? Should we find one in the pew doing the religoius thing? Or should we find one on the barricades fighting the government? He concludes we should find a Christian on the barricades (very 60s you see). This is more than just a sense of identification "I am a Christian and I feel good about it." But the question of "what makes one a Christian?" Doctrine alone doesn't do it, he finds. Of course we know just taking part in ceremony and being present in chruch doesn't' do it. Just touting a doctrine is not personal it doesn't engage one's life. Moltmann finds that living God's love engages our lives in the sense of identity. We live that by taking God's act of solidarity into the world. So having solidarity with the poor ourselves is an expression of God's act of solidarity for all humanity.

There's a lot more going on here than just "live out your faith by being a protester." In this coming I'll try to unpack it. I hope as the reader reads all of this that he/she will think about it in relation to Christmas as the celebration of all of Christ's work not just his birth. WE embrace the hope of the infant in the manger becasue we know how the story wound up.


Moltmann has no mockish sentiments comparing bogus stories about kings sacrificing their sons, nor does he communicate the meaning of cross by multiplying examples of the physical torment a crucifixion victim undergoes. Those are all third rate apologetic and they have no place in Moltmann's thinking. Moltmann talks about the eschatological meaning of the cross. He had already laid down the most sophisticated eschatology in his first groundbreaking work Theology of Hope. He goes on to talk about the meaning of the cross in terms of the solidarity statement.

The participation of Christ in the life of humanity creates the basis for God's solidarity. Other martyr figures died for their noble causes but Jesus did not die for a noble cause. No one understood that he was making a statement of God's solidarity. He was tagged as a blasphemer by the religious authorities and he was being crucified as a criminal with criminals. It was understood that his cause was political power and he was labeled as such. Thus he was not sen as atoning for the sins of the world but as another misguided terrorist who tried to take power and didn't make it. He was crucified among thieves which to the masses "this guy is no better than a thief."

Atheists on message boards sometimes go through gyrations trying to deny that the atonement meant anything. They will say "that was no sweat for God. He was invulnerable like superman and so he didn't feel a thing." Motlmann doesn't mention atheists but that kind of response, which carries all the subtly and sensitivity of a lynch mob, is totally inapplicable. Even though Moltmann doesn't talk about the physical torturer of the cross he illustrates the devastating nature of its meaning in the abandonment by God. This is not an attempt to say "see Jesus really suffered after all." The God haters who long to think of God as suffering will have to be disappointed. The issue of solidarity is not an issue of "did he really suffer?" Instead it's an issue abandonment.

Jesus was abandoned by God. Moltmann makes that point in showing that only one evangelist records that cry "my God, my God why have you forsaken me?" The others all soften it up (Luke, Matt, John). They change it to "into thy hands I commend my spirit," or "it is finished." Mark records the original abandonment cry and Jesus life ends there. Jesus dies abandoned by God. He has no noble cause to die for, he's labeled and classed at the lowest level of society, and dies misunderstood and alone. Moltmann is not wallowing in how much he suffered because the abandonment plays a much more important role in the drama of salvation. It's not that it gives Jesus "street cred" as suffering. It links him to humanity. It establishes the solidarity because he died as a man at the lowest level of humanity, tragically and alone, as we die. He was a man and he died as men die. He felt abandoned by God as we all feel and as some of us feel in extreme measure.

Of cousre that sets up the hope of the resurrection.
As Paul says:

...all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were Baptized into his death.? We were therefore buried with him in baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the death through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection.For we know that the old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.Now if we have died with Christ we believe that we will also live with him, for we know that since Christ was raised from the dead he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him; the death he died to sin he died once for all; but the life he lives he lives to God. In the same way count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Chrsit Jesus.(Romans 6:1-5)

As I express it on my website doxa:

Jurgen Moltmann's notion of Solidarity (see The Crucified God) is based upon the notion of Political solidarity. Christ died in Solidarity with victims. He took upon himself a political death by purposely angering the powers of the day. Thus in his death he identifies with victims of oppression. But we are all vitims of oppression. Sin has a social dimension, the injustice we experience as the hands of society and social and governmental institutions is primarily and at a very basic level the result of the social aspects of sin. Power, and political machinations begin in the sinful heart, the ego, the desire for power, and they manifest themselves through institutions built by the will to power over the other. But in a more fundamental sense we are all victims of our own sinful natures. We scheme against others on some level to build ourselve up and secure our conditions in life. IN this sense we cannot help but do injustice to others. In return injustice is done to us.Jesus died in solidarity with us, he underwent the ultimate consequences of living in a sinful world, in order to demonstrate the depths of God's love and God's desire to save us. Take an analogy from political organizing. IN Central America governments often send "death squads" to murder labor unionists and political dissenter. IN Guatemala there were some American organizations which organized for college students to go to Guatemala and escourt the leaders of dissenting groups so that they would not be murdered.

The logic was that the death squads wouldn't hurt an American Student because it would bring bad press and shut off U.S. government funds to their military. As disturbing as these political implications are, let's stay focused on the Gospel. Jesus is like those students, and like some of them, he was actually killed. But unlike them he went out of his way to be killed, to be victimized by the the rage of the sinful and power seeking so that he could illustrate to us the desire of God; that God is on our side, God is on the side of the poor, the victimized, the marginalized, and the lost. Jesus said "a physician is not sent to the well but to the sick."The key to salvation is to accept God's statement of solidarity, to express our solidarity with God by placing ourselves into the death of Christ (by identification with it, by trust in it's efficacy for our salvation).

When we put ourselves into Christ's death and reckon ourselves dead with him then we are in solidarity with God and that puts in the stream of the hope of resurrection which is real and truly had through Christ's actual resurrection. That is the real meaning of Christmas.

Models of Atonement

I've seen atheists make an argument that goes like this: So what if Jesus was crucified? what's the big deal? There re much worse ways to suffer. Crucifixion is bad but it is far from the worst thing that can happen to you. So why was it a sacrifice, I mean after all he is God, what would it matter to him if he dies? And he got to come back."


Now this is incredibly ignorant, but it occurs to me there re some resins for this kind of chaotic thinking, but also one big hidden premise. Before launching into that analysis, however, I would like to comment on the inadequacy of Christian understanding.

First, most Christians try to answer this out of a need for piety. They do not give a theological answer, they give a pious one. The pious answer can't be undestood by modern people, they lack pious feelings, so it just makes it worse. The pious answer of course is to try and mount up the pain and make it seem so very much worse. O. Jesus suffered in hell and he suffers every minute and he's still suffering and he felt all the agony in the world. Of course it doesn't' really say that anywhere in the Bible. While I think this is true, and while my pious side feels the prier sense of reversions Dan gratitude to our savior for this work, we can't use this to answer the question because modern impiety can't understand the answer. They just hear us reiterating their hidden primes.

The other Christian answers are Propitiatory atonement, Substitutionary, or Moral government. These are the tree major ways of looking at the atonement. Propitiation means to turn away anger. This answer is also incomprehensible t moderns. God is so very angry with us that he can't stand the sight of us, he hats o stick Jesus between himself and us so he will see Jesus and turn away his anger. This just makes God seem like a red faced historical parent who couldn't comprehend the consequences of his creation when he decided to make it. Substitutionary atonement says Jesus took our place, he received the penalty our sins deserved. This comes in two verities. One is financial translation, Jesus paid the debt. the other is closer to moral government, Jesus was executed because he stepped in and took the place of the guilty party. Both of these are also problematic, because they really allow the guilty to get off Scott free and persecute an innocent person. The thing is in real Fe you could not go down to the jail and talk them into letting you take another prisoners place. WE can harp on how this is a grace so fine we can't undersigned it in the natural mind, and relapse into piety again singing the praises to God for doing this wonderful act, but it wont answer the atheists questions.

I realize that the view I hold to is a little known minority view. I know I'm bucking the mainstream. But I think it makes a lot more sense and actually why there was an atonement. Before getting into it, however, I want to comment upon the atheist hidden premise. The explicit premise of the atheist argument is that atonement works by Jesus suffering a whole lot. If Jesus suffers enough then restitution is made. But wait, restitution for what? For our sins? Then why should Jesus suffer more than we do or more than our victims do? Why do antes seem to think, as was argued on CRAM tonight, that Jesus must suffer more than anyone ever has for the atonement to work? It's because the hidden premise is that God is guilty and the atonement is the time God pays for his own mistakes. Jesus has to suffer more than anyone to make up for what God has done, inconveniencing us by creating us.

The sickness of the modern mind can scarcely comprehend Christian theology now. I wonder if it isn't too late and we are just past the day when people in the West can really be saved?

I mean consider the idea that usually accompanies this argument: well he is God after all, a little torture death cant' hurt him. In the old days, when we had a culture that ran on Christian memories, people said how great that God would do this for us when he didn't have to! Now the argument is "Of course he had to, it's the least he can do, after all I didn't asked to be born, so I'm entitled to whatever goodies can get in compensation." That's why I think the hidden premise is to blame God; its as though they are saying God has to suffer more than anyone to make up for the suffering he caused as creator. This sort of attitude is very troubling.

In any case, my view is the Participatory atonement. It was embraced by several church fathers and modern theologians supporting it are mentioned below:

I.The Atonement: God's Solidarity With Humanity.

A. The inadequacy of Financial Transactions

Many ministers, and therefore, many Christians speak of and think of Jesus' death on the cross as analogues to a financial transaction. Usually this idea goes something like this: we are in hock to the devil because we sinned. God pays the debt we owe by sending Jesus to die for us, and that pays off the devil. The problem with this view is the Bible never says we owe the devil anything. We owe God. The financial transaction model is inadequate. Matters of the soul are much more important than any monetary arrangement and business transactions and banking do not do justice to the import of the issue. Moreover, there is a more sophisticated model; that of the sacrifice for sin. In this model Jesus is like a sacrificial lamb who is murdered in our place. This model is also inadequate because it is based on a primitive notion of sacrifice. The one making the sacrifice pays over something valuable to him to appease an angry God. In this case God is paying himself. This view is also called the "propitiation view" becuase it is based upon propitiation, which means to turn away wrath. The more meaningful notion is that of Solidarity. The Solidarity or "participatory" view says that Jesus entered human history to participate in our lot as finite humans, and he died as a means of identifying with us. We are under the law of sin and death, we are under curse of the law (we sin, we die, we are not capable in our own human strength of being good enough to merit salvation). IN taking on the penalty of sin (while remaining sinless) Jesus died in our stead; not in the manner of a primitive animal sacrifice (that is just a metaphor) but as one of us, so that through identification with us, we might identify with him and therefore, partake of his newness of life.

B. Christ the Perfect Revelation of God to Humanity

In the book of Hebrews it says "in former times God spoke in many and various ways through the prophets, but in these latter times he has spoken more perfectly through his son." Jesus is the perfect revelation of God to humanity. The prophets were speaking for God, but their words were limited in how much they could tell us about God. Jesus was God in the flesh and as such, we can see clearly by his character, his actions, and his teachings what God wants of us and how much God cares about us. God is for humanity, God is on our side! The greatest sign of God's support of our cause as needy humans is Jesus death on the cross, a death in solidarity with us as victims of our own sinful hearts and societies. Thus we can see the lengths God is will to go to to point us toward himself. There are many verses in the Bible that seem to contradict this view. These are the verses which seem to say that Atonement is propitiatory.

C. Death in Solidarity with Victims

1) Support from Modern Theologians

Three Major Modern Theologians support the solidarity notion of atonement: Jurgen Moltmann (The Crucified God), Matthew L. Lamb (Solidarity With Victims), and D.E.H. Whiteley (The Theology of St. Paul).In the 1980s Moltmann (German Calvinist) was called the greatest living protestant theologian, and made his name in laying the groundwork for what became liberation theology. Lamb (Catholic Priest) was big name in political theology, and Whiteley (scholar at Oxford) was a major Pauline scholar in the 1960s.In his work The Crucified God Moltmann interprets the cry of Jesus on the cross, "my God my God why have you forsaken me" as a statement of solidarity, placing him in identification with all who feel abandoned by God.Whiteley: "If St. Paul can be said to hold a theory of the modus operandi [of the atonement] it is best described as one of salvation through participation [the 'solidarity' view]: Christ shared all of our experience, sin alone excepted, including death in order that we, by virtue of our solidarity with him, might share his life...Paul does not hold a theory of substitution..." (The Theology of St. Paul, 130)An example of one of the great classical theologians of the early chruch who held to a similar view is St. Irenaeus (according to Whiteley, 133).

2) Scriptural

...all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were Baptized into his death.? We were therefore burried with him in baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the death through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection.For we know that the old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.Now if we have died with Christ we believe that we will also live with him, for we know that since Christ was raised from the dead he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him; the death he died to sin he died once for all; but the life he lives he lives to God. In the same way count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Chrsit Jesus.(Romans 6:1-5)

In Short, if we have united ourselves to Christ, entered his death and been raised to life, we participate in his death and resurrection thourgh our act of solidarity, united with Christ in his death, than it stands to reason that his death is an act of solidarity with us, that he expresses his solidarity with humanity in his death.

This is why Jesus cries out on the cross "why have you forsaken me?" According to Moltmann this is an expression of Solidarity with all who feel abandoned by God.Jesus death in solidarity creates the grounds for forgiveness, since it is through his death that we express our solidarity, and through that, share in his life in union with Christ. Many verses seem to suggest a propitiatory view. But these are actually speaking of the affects of the solidarity. "Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath thorugh him! For if when we were considered God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! What appears to be saying that the shedding of blood is what creates forgiveness is actually saying that the death in solidarity creates the grounds for reconciliation. IT says we were enemies then we were reconciled to him thorugh the death, his expression of solidarity changes the ground, when we express our solidarity and enter into the death we are giving up to God, we move from enemy to friend, and in that sense the shedding of blood, the death in solidarity, creates the conditions through which we can be and are forgiven. He goes on to talk about sharing in his life, which is participation, solidarity, unity.

D. Meaning of Solidarity and Salvation.

Jurgen Moltmann's notion of Solidarity (see The Crucified God) is based upon the notion of Political solidarity. Christ died in Solidarity with victims. He took upon himself a political death by purposely angering the powers of the day. Thus in his death he identifies with victims of oppression. But we are all victims of oppression. Sin has a social dimension, the injustice we experience as the hands of society and social and governmental institutions is primarily and at a very basic level the result of the social aspects of sin. Power, and political machinations begin in the sinful heart, the ego, the desire for power, and they manifest themselves through institutions built by the will to power over the other. But in a more fundamental sense we are all victims of our own sinful natures. We scheme against others on some level to build ourselves up and secure our conditions in life. IN this sense we cannot help but do injustice to others. In return injustice is done to us.Jesus died in solidarity with us, he underwent the ultimate consequences of living in a sinful world, in order to demonstrate the depths of God's love and God's desire to save us. Take an analogy from political organizing. IN Central America governments often send "death squads" to murder labor unionists and political dissenter. IN Guatemala there were some American organizations which organized for college students to go to Guatemala and escort the leaders of dissenting groups so that they would not be murdered.

The logic was that the death squads wouldn't hurt an American Student because it would bring bad press and shut off U.S. government funds to their military. As disturbing as these political implications are, let's stay focused on the Gospel. Jesus is like those students, and like some of them, he was actually killed. But unlike them he went out of his way to be killed, to be victimized by the the rage of the sinful and power seeking so that he could illustrate to us the desire of God; that God is on our side, God is on the side of the poor, the victimized, the marginalized, and the lost. Jesus said "a physician is not sent to the well but to the sick."The key to salvation is to accept God's statement of solidarity, to express our solidarity with God by placing ourselves into the death of Christ (by identification with it, by trust in it's efficacy for our salvation).

E. Atonement is a Primitive Concept?

This charge is made quite often by internet-skeptics, especially Jewish anti-missionaries who confuse the concept with the notion of Human sacrifice. But the charge rests on the idea that sacrifice itself is a primitive notion. If one commits a crime, someone else should not pay for it. This attack can be put forward in many forms but the basic notion revolves around the idea that one person dying for the sins of another, taking the penalty or sacrificing to remove the guilt of another is a primitive concept. None of this applies with the Participatory view of the atonement (solidarity) since the workings of Christ's death, the manner in which it secures salvation, is neither through turning away of wrath nor taking upon himself others sins, but the creation of the grounds through which one declares one's own solidarity with God and the grounds through which God accepts that solidarity and extends his own; the identification of God himself with the needs and crays of his own creation.