BITNET: JLOUX@UCONNVM INTERNET: JLOUX@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU
Mail: Jonathan H. Loux 104 Kinne Road Canterbury, Conn. USA 06331
I agree with you that the forensic, or so called Anselmic, view of the Atoning work of Our Lord is barbaric, at best. I cannot understand how people would be willing to give their lives, their property, their bodies, even in death, to a Lord whose only claim upon them is that he placated a Cosmic Joe McCarthy. I believe it was Napolean who said something to the effect that Christianity must be correct, since no other person, no government, no commanding general, no ruling body, no institution, not even a spouse can command such loyalty, devotion, and personal sacrifice from adherents as this one man: Jesus. It is passing strange to me to understand how this Man can command such undying devotion if his only accomplishment was to take the rap on my behalf.
Some of your other ideas are interesting, and undoubtedly encompass some of what God was doing in Christ on the Cross. I know it was C.S. Lewis, but I don't know where, who said that the Angels know some of the significance of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection that we will never understand, and that we understand some aspects of them that they will never be able to comprehend. I am sure that God, from his third person, forth dimensional, perspective, was doing quite a lot 'all at once'.
In each and every one of our lives, Christ comes as a personal Tom Sawyer or Oscar, gladly willing to take the rap or suffer the broken nose if it will succeed in getting our attention. You may have read an essay of mine earlier (it's in the library, if not) where I talk about one aspect of my relationship with my daughter. I said that sometimes my daughter is upset, angry, or hurt. There are times when I have taken her on my own lap and let her tell me how upset she is. Sometimes she is mad at me. Sometimes I deserve it, at which times I apologize and other, family dynamics have to occur.
But sometimes it's not my fault. At these times I try to sit still and let her tell me how hurt she is. I don't interrupt her, correct her, or tell her that she mustn't say things like that. I try not to get mad at her or reprimand her (sometimes a reprimand is in order, but I am here talking about those times when she just needs to get something off her chest). Instead, I just listen to her and give her the opportunity to release her hurt and get it out of her mind and soul. In some little way that I can't understand, I am able to actually take away her hurt. I, who am better able to bear it, can take her sorrow and carry her burdens. In return, she is able, in some little way that I can't understand, to receive healing from me. We effect an exchange exactly at the point where I suspend my need to be 'right'. It wouldn't work the same way if I was truly at fault. In that case, she would get mad at me and I would apologize. We'd talk and then we would both feel better. But this is something entirely different. It is an exchange where I take her hurt and she takes my health. Only, I succeed in taking it away and don't loose any of my own health in the process.
I can see God doing the same thing through Christ. In him, God was sitting patiently with his own little girl sitting on his lap. He was listening to her giving full vent to her anger, hurt, and fury without so much as raising an objection. Jesus willingly allowed himself to suffer and die without ever raising a single objection or turning once aside. He who reprimanded the Pharisees and drove the money changers from the Temple now submissively allowed himself to be tortured, mocked, and killed. That's out of character for Jesus. He usually had a pretty slick way of getting out of a jam. Witness the coins to Caesar or Who is John the Baptist? debates. Jesus knew how to confound his adversaries. But here he seemed to do the exact opposite and even encouraged his own execution, much as I will encourage my daughter to tell me exactly what it is that is bothering her. Once she starts and realizes that I won't stop her or fight back, she is able to let it all out. We did the same to God.
On a different note....
Some aspects of the Christian walk which I find most baffling, which are many, I find less so if I change my own perspective. One perspective which I find most helpful, although it has its own problems, is to view the human race as one person. One woman, as a matter of fact. The female seems appropriate only since God frequently refers to his people as his beloved, his bride, his (unfaithful) wife, and Christ refers to his Church as his bride.
If we refer to man as a single woman, the theology about, Oh, say, predestination, for instance, becomes more clear. God has predestined a people to redemption. The entire human race, as promised to Adam, and again to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In them would all the nations of the earth be blessed. Of course, how this applies to any individual person is another matter. For the sake of brevity, let us neglect that question for now.
In Christ, then, God was redeeming the woman named man. She was created by God through whatever means (Creation? Evolution?) and it was intended by God that she develop into a creature of equal stature to God. She was to be a bride for God's Son, Jesus. In other words, God's intention was to make a nice Jewish girl for his Son.
Unfortunately, in order for the nice Jewish girl to be totally free, independent, and in some sense of the word equal to God, it had to be possible for her to fall away. God had to take a risk, which he did. When man fell, which was an inherent possibility (one which, actually, God already knew would happen), God was morally obligated to provide for her redemption. After all, he created us with the ability to sin and turn down the path of decay and death instead of following the path of deification and life. I am not saying that the Fall was God's fault, but I feel that he was certainly obligated to provide for our redemption when it happened. Which he did, having planned our redemption 'from the foundation of the world'.
The Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, then, can be viewed more as a consummation. It is the same wedding feast of the Lamb described in the end of the Book of Revelation, only viewed from a different angle. Christ entered the world in very much the same way that a sperm enters a womb. I realize that this is a very sexual way of perceiving the Incarnation, one which most Westerners, at least, would probably find even more reprehensible that the Last Temptation of Christ. However, I have often read Christian mystics who describe their experiences with God in almost sexual terminology. St. John of the Cross comes to mind, although his imagery is more on the female, Mothering side of God. One woman I know has described her experience with Christ as a penetration. She was almost embarrassed about it, adding that it was almost sexual, but without any Freudian style fantasies.
I think that the atoning work of Christ is that central, Godly act, of which human sexuality is a copy. When the apostle Paul speaks about a man's love for his wife, he uses as a model Christ's love for his Church. And all of the Old Testament imagery about God and his people, his wife, completely looses any sense whatsoever if you deny that what is being compared is highly sexual in nature. Why use a marriage? Why not a pact or a business contract? God made a covenant with Abraham, but he married his People.
So in the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, God, through Christ, joined himself to his people, his Church, in the most intimate kind of relationship, a relationship which, to our terminology and experience, can only be compared to sex. This also explains why the fall might be viewed in sexual terms, as well. The fall was a marring of that relationship between man and God, man and his neighbor, and man and himself. That marring would become most noticeable in sexual relationships.
Now, you will notice that this theory of the atonement, which I will label the Marital View, for lack of a better name, does not include any concept of sin whatsoever. Had there been no Fall, no Original Sin, no failed test in the Garden of Eden, the consummation of the marriage of God with his people would still have taken place in some form. However, you will still notice that the love affair of God with his people now, due to the Fall, has a rather fairy tale ring to it. I recently wrote to another list member that all good love stories have to have a trial. Maybe that's because The Love Story involves a trial and sacrifice. J.R.R. Tolkein's works come to mind. He has several love stories where the two parties struggle and sacrifice, and sometimes die, to prove their love. In the love story of Yahweh and his people, his bride turned away from him, but he pursued her and brought her back.
Had there been no sin, the love affair would still have occurred, but undoubtedly in a different form.
To better illustrate this idea, I have written a devotional piece (surprised?) about God creating the world. It is basically a meditation on the book of Genesis. I am including it for your consideration.
Please feel free to comment, however, I should add that this meditation is part of a series of 52 meditations that I intend to attempt to publish once they are all finished.
Jon.
Essay Follows:
Creation A Meditation on Genesis by J.H.Loux August, 1991
In the still, cool, darkness beyond space and time, there is a ring of light. Around this ring are four chairs. In two chairs, facing each other, a man and a woman sit. In one other chair, to the right side of the man, sits a young man. The forth chair is unoccupied. The man and the woman are looking at each other. The young man is looking into the ring of light.
"I will to make man in our image," said the man to his wife. "What say you?"
"In our image?"
"Yes. She will be a forth to our three, to sit beside us here in the circle of eternity."
"Then she will be like us."
"Yes."
"She will know sweetness and joy, wisdom and peace."
"She will know all that is within us, sharing in our divinity even as we share in each other. She shall become a part of us and we of her. Together we shall be One."
"To be like us, she must be truly free."
"Yes."
"Free to choose."
"Yes."
"Free to accept."
"Yes."
"Free to reject."
The man looked down into the circle of light.
"Free to reject?" repeated his wife.
"Free to reject."
The woman also looked into the light. After a while she continued.
"If we make man in our image, she will need guidance. She will need a full womb to hold her, rich breasts to nurse her, a strong arm to guide her, a steady hand to support her."
"She will need all of that and more."
"She will need all of this just to grow and develop. To live and prosper. Even if she follows closely and does not fall, she will need nurturing and testing, struggling and trials. She will need an adversary to challenge her. Temptations to prove her. She must be born in determinant matter, offspring of your will, but then step into the light of self awareness and self will. She must be her own creature to choose us willingly. But if she strays?"
"When she strays."
"What then? Will she die on the vine or shrivel into a withered shell? An empty, hollow vapor to mock us with our own image? Will she be lost?"
"No. Not lost. Not for ever."
"Then again I ask; what then?"
The man's eyes rose into those of his wife. "When she strays, we will bring her back."
"How?"
"I will plan her salvation from the foundation of the world. Even as I plan her creation and cause her inception, I will deliver her, direct her growth, and provide her with a means of redemption. I will be the foundation of being for her. The very definition of existence. The ground of all truth. I will be a constant presence to all of her sons and daughters that all may see me, for I will not hide."
"There will be sorrow and pain, and not for us alone."
"There will be strife within your womb. Brother fighting against brother."
"They will mock our world, pervert our truth, revile our name. They will author their own destruction then hurl the hell of their own dark hearts into our faces."
"We will provide them with a foundation of being in which to exist. Theirs will be a world of order. Disorder will be of their own making."
"They will mistake the Creature for the Creator."
"They will worship the thing instead of she who bears it; the idea instead of he who begets it."
"They will hurt my little girls."
"Nations will turn away from us in flocks. Some will never hear of us at all."
"They will want to be like us without even knowing us."
"Everything that we make, everything that we do, everything that we know and feel and are, we will put into our creation. And everything in her will know suffering. Everything will be perverted and turned around. Everything good will be twisted into everything evil."
"For every truth of yours, they will devise a lie of their own."
"From every bounty of yours, they will forge a perversion in their own image."
"And how will we make it different? How can we create a world knowing that it will decay? Shall we conceive a child only to have it suffer and die?"
"Death shall be a door. And for every evil that man can create, we shall provide a redemption. For every loped branch, we will provide a Vine. For every blind eye, we will send a Light. For every sin, there will be grace."
"In your name they will practice hate."
"Then you shall give them our love."
"There will be sorrow."
"Then you shall give them our joy."
"There will be turmoil, within and without."
"Then you shall give them our peace."
"They will stumble and fall."
"Then you shall give them our patience."
"They will be brutal."
"Then you shall give them our kindness."
"They will be evil."
"Then you shall give them our goodness."
"They will be faint hearted."
"Then you shall give them our faith."
"They will be haughty."
"Then you shall give them our gentleness."
"They will be selfish."
"Then you shall give them our self control.
"And we will command them to love us, to love each other, and to love themselves. That is the highest good to which they can attain."
"Then I will carry her. She will be to me a second child. I will hold her in my womb. Deliver her and nurse her. I will provide her with a universe of color and motion, time and space. I will be Nature to your Order. Substance to your Essence. Being to your Form. I will set in motion that which you perceive in thought. All that it is in your will to do, I will do it. Together, we will create all that is: seen and unseen.
"I will guide her in all that you say. I will bring her up and hold her. I will instruct her in all that is wise. I will be a Mother to her, even as you are her Father. I will let her be, to live and decide and choose for herself who she shall follow. In me she shall live and move and have her being, undeterred. I will speak through her prophets. I will be the wind in her mind, her heart, and her body. And if she chooses to follow, follow she will. And if she chooses to stray, stray she will.
"But how? How will you forge an equal to us here? How create her, let her walk on her own feet, fall, then raise her up again? To be truly like us she must be capable of becoming truly unlike us. To be truly free, it must be possible for her to become truly enslaved. To share in our divinity, we must risk her ultimate and utter destruction. How shall we do this and still succeed? How can God create God?"
There was silence.
"I will redeem her," a new voice said. It belonged to the third figure around the ring of light. "As I am begotten of you beyond time so also I will be with you in the begetting of time. I will have my hand in her birth. I will sustain her and lift her up. She will be to me creature and bride, brother and sister, mother and father, lover and wife. She will be my body, and I her head. She will be my bride, and I her groom. As you inspire her, my Father, and you give birth to her, my Mother, so I will find her and enliven her, my bride."
"She will resist."
"I will not force."
"She will be lonely and in pain.
"Then I will empty myself and become like her."
"She will be sick and revolting."
"Then I will take her sickness into myself. I will carry her sorrows and bear her burdens."
"She will be angry."
"Then I will raise no objections, but take the full load of her fury into my own body."
"She will kill you."
"I will give myself freely to her and die. Then, having encompassed death, I will have victory over death."
"She will crush you down."
"Then I will rise again on the third day by your power."
"She will run away from you."
"Then I will pursue her. I will find her, naked, filthy, and cold, abandoned in a ditch, drowning in the blood of her own consuming passions. When she is old and rejected, I will come to her. When she is sick and diseased, I will heal her. When she is weak and dying, I will give my blood for her. When she is filled with loathing, I will love her. When she is filled with despair, I will be her hope. When she is faint hearted, I will be her faith. I will be her High Priest, standing forever before your presence on her behalf. She will be to me my People, my Beloved, my Love.
"I will marry her, take her into my arms, smooth back her hair, look into her eyes, and press her body to mine. I will empty myself into her. And in so doing, I will make her like us. All that is me, which I have been given from you, I will in turn give to her."
"Son, you will do this for your bride, my daughter?"
"As I live, I shall."
"Then this I decree, from the foundation of the world. We are determined in this matter to create a world in our image. I, myself, predestine her to sit at this table eternally sharing in our bliss: Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter. You shall create her, penetrate her, and redeem her. You shall be for her a lifeline from me to her. In this you shall do my will. I will send you into the world that none should perish, but that all may have eternal life. What I say to you, you shall declare to her. What you see me doing, so also you shall do in her. You shall be my Word. And you shall declare my love to all people."
Then joining together with his wife he spoke again.
"Let there be light."