No movies again this weekend. My buddy had to work and I have a surprise!cousin visit going on so I couldn't go later in the evening. :(
Short, rambling post tonight.
The hardest thing I find, personally, to understand about Christianity is the entire...Jesus died for my sins portion. So, you know, a large chunk of it.
1. The Bible is of two minds about the whole 'sins of the father' being visited on his children bit. There are more verses that point to sin being 'inheritable' than not, but it makes no sense to me. If we're to be held responsible for the sins of everyone who came before us in our family line, then what good is free will? Even if we choose the right path again and again, we're still burdened by the smudge of *their* choices. I can understand if it's a way of saying that the *consequences* of those choices affect the descendants of the people who made them - that's just common sense. But it's taken to mean (at least when we're talking about 'original sin') that we are actually, literally responsible for the sin that someone made thousands/millions of years ago.
2. The concept of 'original sin' is a 2nd century construct that was made popular (and worse) by Augustine. It's not found in Judaism, where the story of the 'fall' originates. (I am aware that not all Christian denominations believe in the concept of original sin as it is commonly understood in Western Christianity.)
3. We have God rejecting human sacrifice in the Old Testament, in the story of Abraham and Isaac. That has long been taken as a complete repudiation of human sacrifice to God, as opposed to the gods of the people that surrounded and conquered the Jews who did accept human sacrifices. Then we come to the New Testament which is based on God accepting a human sacrifice as payment for all the sins of those who believe that the sacrifice paid for their sins.
4. If Jesus was God, then how could he leave himself at the cross? How can God withdraw His presence from Himself? In Matthew he cries out, asking why God has forsaken him? I've seen some people argue that God, because He is unable to look at wickedness (which makes no sense to me either - He's God. Are you telling me that if we're bad enough then God just can't look at us any more? Then He's not omniscient, is He? And how does He have a conversation with the devil in Job? How?) that God 'spiritually' turned His back on Jesus at that point.
Okay. How do you turn your back on yourself? If the Trinity is not, in fact, some form of polytheism, then all three Persons are *one* in a way that we don't quite get. I am failing to grasp how one being can turn its back on itself in any sense of the term.
Those ARE tough things!
ReplyDeleteYes, they are. Feel free to share any thoughts or insights you have, Big Sis. :)
DeleteUm...yep. :) I don't really have much to add, the only one I can really comment on is the human sacrifice one. There are some theologians who argue that the sacrifice of Christ was also seen as wrong and tragic by God, that it's not supposed to be that Jesus' death was accepted as a sacrifice for sin but rather that it was an end to sacrifice. Rene Girard is one that I know talks about that, I think he says the tendency towards violence and sacrifice is something humans invented and wanted and that religion exists to minimize and control it, with the Bible finally condemning that desire. But he's kind of hard to read and I'm not really sure I've got that right. Anyway. There are other ways to look at Jesus' death, and the New Testament really isn't as clear on what it's supposed to mean as we tend to think it is since the sin and forgiveness aspect of Christianity is preached the most.
ReplyDeleteThere are some theologians who argue that the sacrifice of Christ was also seen as wrong and tragic by God, that it's not supposed to be that Jesus' death was accepted as a sacrifice for sin but rather that it was an end to sacrifice.
DeleteI guess what I've always heard makes it a combination of those two. It's a sacrifice to 'pay' for our sins, making it the culmination of the Temple sacrifice system that was implemented under Mosaic Law. And Jesus' sacrifice was the end of that system since his death paid for all believers' sins.
I think he says the tendency towards violence and sacrifice is something humans invented and wanted and that religion exists to minimize and control it, with the Bible finally condemning that desire.
If that's religions' purpose then it's failed. Spectacularly in many cases.
1/2. It doesn't make sense to me why we would have to make retribution for someone else's sins, either. To my understanding, that's why Catholics baptize their infants: we all have to pay the price for Adam and Eve sinning. Yes, we all have to live with the consequences, but to me, you can only be forgiven for the sins you decide to make.
ReplyDelete3. A lot of people see the animal sacrifices called for under the Law of Moses as symbolic of God sacrificing His son, Jesus Christ. Once the sacrifice of Jesus was complete, there was no longer a need to sacrifice animals symbolically.
4. Yeah, this never made sense to me, either. On the cross, it's reported that Jesus asked why God had forsaken him. How do you forget yourself? Mormons tend to reconcile this discrepancy with the belief that God the Father and his son Jesus Christ are two separate personages with the same purpose, much like business partners. That's one of the reasons people have a hard time accepting the first vision that Joseph Smith had: in his account of the event, he told of one personage pointing to the other, saying, "This my beloved Son," and that contradicts the traditional Christian concept of the Trinity.
To my understanding, that's why Catholics baptize their infants: we all have to pay the price for Adam and Eve sinning.
Delete*waggles hand* Kind of sort of. Baptism is believed to be necessary for salvation and because of the Catholic understanding of original sin the belief is that infants who die without baptism are left 'trusting to the Mercy of God' in order to get into heaven. But there's also the aspect of baptism = circumcision as a mark of the Christian faith.
I personally prefer the Orthodox reasoning behind infant baptism - they lack the Catholic concept of original sin and so saving infants from purgatory/limbo isn't the goal.
3. A lot of people see the animal sacrifices called for under the Law of Moses as symbolic of God sacrificing His son, Jesus Christ. Once the sacrifice of Jesus was complete, there was no longer a need to sacrifice animals symbolically.
And that's the understanding I had as well. However that still doesn't, at least for me, mesh God's rejection of human sacrifice in the Old Testament with his demand for a human sacrifice in order to save all believers in the New.
in his account of the event, he told of one personage pointing to the other, saying, "This my beloved Son," and that contradicts the traditional Christian concept of the Trinity.
And in Matthew we have the voice from the clouds saying that Jesus is His son. Assuming that the Trinity is one being, there's clearly some manner of separation that we don't get. I remember listening to a radio program where they tried to explain that the 'persons' of the Trinity were more like mantles that God 'wore' in specific instances but that doesn't sit right with me. If that's the case then it reminds me too much of the way the pagan gods would go around in disguises or *be* different gods.