To ParaTed2k:
| As far as the idea that He is still on the cross? That one I'll leave up to theologeons to tackle, but for me, I thought the whole point was that, the cross and the crypt are empty. Jesus wasn't on the cross when he appeared to Mary, nor when he appeared to the Apostles... Interesting article. Always interested to hear what others think |
From Romans 8:
| 18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we
ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. |
Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Yes indeed. The whole thrust of your first response is simply this - that God must conform to what you think is just (hence the notion of balance, of which you make such a point). To whom does sin cause pain (this being the point at which you begin)? To God? If God is limitless, omnipotent, omniscient, and resides in eternal light beyond the reach of Man, if his thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways, then how is it that you can imply that 'sin' is a kind of 'pain' which our activities cause God?
Balance, in the way you use the term, is to my mind of no meaning or importance to God. If God punishes 'sin' then it's because, for whatever reason, certain acts are designated as 'sinful' and for no other reason. Similarly, mercy is not part of some cosmic balance but the remission of sin by direct fiat, by the decision of God to remit sin for his own inscrutable purpose.
The moment you admit that God is entirely alien and Other to humanity then you lose any purchase whatsoever you might have had by which you
can judge the actions of God. The principle from which you start is this: that the actions of God in relation to sin and suffering, pain, mercy, death - are comprehensible within a framework dictated by purely human frames of reference This has the consequence that any conclusion you may come to that satisfies you is just that - a conclusion that you find satisfying, which has no merit beyond the confines of your own view of the universe.
It was thinking of this kind,
this realisation, that overturned whatever confidence I once had in the teachings of prophets and pastors, popes, vicars and priests. They are all thieves, thieves of the believer's privilege of concluding peace with God on his own terms, and I'd put them all against a wall and blow their brains out if I could, simply because the hubris of their position appalls me.
| There is no reason to think that there can be perfection without balance. |
Really. So not only do you establish conditions for the justice and mercy of God, you are also in the business of telling God how he is to administer the universe that he and not you created. I think it's this that most incenses me against the common-or-garden variety of Christian. The arrogance with which they assert that their particular shibboleth, their particular sacred cow (I am an eater of sacred cows, there's no sauce better for beef than the arrogance of those who believe they understand the world) is the sole correct means of viewing God's creation and his purposes in it.
You'd do well to think of what God said to the friends of Job, after Job had been vindicated before their faces. You really would. "
I am angry with you... because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has."
Let me explain things to you in ways that your teachers would not, in ways of which they would not approve. Let's suppose for a moment that the common Christian narrative of Christ's life and death is correct. He was born a man (setting aside for a moment any question of how God may appear in the world while being divorced from divinity). He lived and died, his death being a sacrifice for our sins. We are forced immediately (at least, I was so forced) to consider the above passage quoted from Romans, as well as that declaration found in the beginning of the Gospel of John - "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him were all things made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness,
but the darkness has not understood it."
As I pointed out in the original article, in essence this means that God the Father afflicted God the Son, the point of mediation for God's creative impulse, the instrument by which creation came to be and by which it is maintained (since such creation is not a once-only intervention but a continuous process - unless you'd like to suppose that the universe is self-subsistent and independent of God, in which case any talk of sin and redemption becomes unmitigated nonsense) with a kind of cancer. The cancer of a perpetual disappointment, paid for by the perpetual crucifixion of the Son, since he alone is perpetually innocent and therefore a perpetual sacrifice before God for the failings of humanity.
It
does not matter that tomb and cross are alike both empty. If sin persists then sin was not done away with by Christ's sacrifice. If it was not done away with then it must constantly be paid for (or that balance you are so fond of would swing wildly against Man), and there is no one to pay for it
but Christ. So that I am proved right in my contention that God, so far from being merciful, is a child-killing
motherfucker who'd consign his kid to perpetual slaughter to prove a point.
