bossmanham has been giving it the old college try, attempting to help our EOdox friends over at the other thread understand the Substitutionary Atonement and get their heads around how God's ignoring His Law means that, you know, His Law gets ignored. Funny how that happens. Oh, but somehow, they assure us, that doesn't mean that God is unjust! Man can ignore the Law of God and that's evil and makes you a bad guy, but when God ignores it... party!!!!
Anyway, not to interrupt bossmanham's demolition of the EO position for too long, but I'd like to note a few things:
1) bossmanham is an Arminian, a pretty full one if I'm not mistaken. I am a (baby-eating) Calvinist. Yet we have the same Gospel, if this thread (which I just finished reading all the way thru) is any indication.
2) I just LOVE this exchange:
bmh: "you keep talking of Jesus as if He's not God and as if He Himself isn't laying His own life down"
John: I only do that to give you as much leeway as I can. I could point out that paying off yourself or punishing yourself to assauge your own wrath is even more absurd when put in those terms.
This is EXACTLY what Muslims, Jehovahs Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, Mormons, atheists, and liberals argue. I mean exactly. It's so funny how this makes 2 major veins in which the EOdox share major soteriological points with Islam! And John doesn't even deny it, which I find even funnier.
3) As I've noticed and mentioned many times in recent memory, this breed of EOdox clogging up my blog claim to be converts from Calvinism and/or know Calvinist theology, but they almost never get it right. Note the zillions of strawmen they've constructed, especially John. My friends - just b/c I write a blogpost extolling one important and powerful aspect of the Cross of Christ doesn't mean that's all there is to the Cross of Christ. Fail, fail, and yet more sparkly fail.
14 comments:
Yah... we share with Islam the fact that we are not Protestants. You must be wide awake today. And Islam can see the same things wrong with the arguments as us. Everybody can see the problem you've got but you. Funny that.
Now if bossmanham could quote an actual scripture instead of relying on logic like "it must be", and "it necessarily follows", then we could overlook it. But once he decided human logic was his rule of faith, he had to take the knocks of logical flaws that everyone else notices.
Do that with the Trinity, John, or a JW or Mormon won't believe it.
Hey, Rho, I'm jealous. I thought we atheists had failure covered.
John- while I don't believe your position is any more (or less) correct than Rho's, you sound like a nice guy. Look me up if you're ever in Vienna, and lunch is on me. The same goes for you other guys, as you already know.
cheers from snowy Vienna, zilch
"Error, error, error, error," the last words of the computer in destruct mode.
Whew! Captian Kirk was spared. Hooray.
Seems perfection can only be found in some infinitesimal parts of this vast universe.
Darlene,
Along those lines, see this old post of mine featuring a really funny little graphic.
Given that God's Law consists in forgiving one's enemies, and loving the ones that hate you, how exactly does He manage to break His own Law?
Lucian,
Does He indeed break His own law? Or does He provide for the full pouring out of its just penalty, somehow, someway? Maybe, like, the ransom and sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross? Maybe?
(I mean, I just picked that example out of the blue. I'm sure it could've been anything...)
I meant to say: how could God break His own law by not punishing us [as you said and implied], when His law consists in forgiving us?
How could God break His own law by simply forgiving one's enemies [as you said and implied], when His law consists in forgiving even one's own enemies?
How could God break His own law by not cursing us, when His own law consists in blessing even those that curse you?
The substitutionary view of the atonement is based on God's justice being interpreted so as to mean exactly the same as human justice (since the same term, namely justice, is used for both): but that peculiar understanding falls immediately appart when taking into consideration Isaiah 55:8-9 or James 1:20, among others: the later being especially meant for those who insist on God's "just" punishment as an expression of His "just" "wrath").
The substituionary view of the atonement is also based on the interpetation of the word "FOR" taken to mean INSTEAD OF (instead of its more proper meaning, which is simply used to denote purpose): hence the very idea or notion of substitution.
John the Baptist and Jesus Christ preached repentance, or meta-noia. Meta in Greek is the same as trans in Latin, and nous means mind: so WE have to "trans"form our "mind", or, to put it into more properly-rendered English, to have a change of heart. WE, and NOT God! The message was addressed to us, and NOT to God!! Of God, Saint James says that He is "the Father of lights, in whom there's neither shade nor alteration/change" (1:17)
Lucian- you're in Romania, right? Whereabouts? I was in Romania last summer (south of Timişoara) and I will probably be there again this year sometime. I'd love to meet you.
Rho- I hope you don't mind this use of your blog as a dating service. I might well be around your way this summer too- if we can get together, say in Oklahoma City or Tulsa, lunch is on me.
cheers from snowy Vienna, zilch
I'm north of Timisoara, so, you missed me. :-)
Lucian,
We are commanded to forgive b/c God in Christ forgave us. Did you miss that in 1 John 4, where love begins with Him?
For the 50th time, your view reduces to God just ignoring the righteous requirements of the Law - the death of the transgressor. Jesus fulfills that penalty. I can now be forgiven. Justice AND mercy. God provides the brilliant example, contrary to your blasphemous accusations against Him, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It's NOT a good example to say "you broke the Law, but hey, that is of zero importance and makes zero difference," as EOC does.
You want to take issue with the question of substitution, take it up with 2 Cor 5:21 among others.
zilch,
Yeah, I live in the OKC area and am from Tulsa originally. I'd love to get together witcha. I can't imagine what would take you from Austria to Oklahoma, however! :-D
Evil matters because it destroys the soul of him who does it... not because it's good and pleasurable, but God has nothing better to do than to declare it to be evil and invent some external punishment for us. Evil is truly evil, and good is truly good: those who think otherwise only manage to fool themselves, but they can't change the rheality of it (Isaiah 5:20).
I also don't understand what replacement or substitution have to do with 2 Cor. 5:21.
The death of the transgressor is not external: there is absolutely no other source of life (or of anything else, for that matter), other than God Himself: by cutting ourselves from Him, we naturally (and logically) die.
The punishment to death in the OT was meant to make people turn inward and see their own dreadful state, and realise their need of salvation -- this is the way Christ sees it: remember Matthew 7:1-5; Luke 6:41-42; and John 8:3-11.
The reason God didn't let Adam and Eve taste of the Tree of Life in the Garden, and the reason He urged sinners to be put to death was so that evil might not become eternal, taking root in them, and hardening their hearts up to the point where sorrow and repentance (and hence salvation) might become impossible for them...
Rho, you ask- what would take me from Austria to Oklahoma? Probably a plane, and then a train or a bus... :lol:
No, I've got friends in the area, and I've never been in the South. And I've never been anywhere in the world that didn't have something special to offer. I'll let you know.
Lvka- I was in Arad last summer briefly, changing trains. Might well be there again sometime. Lvnch?
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