How does Jesus's death work? In this episode, Randy, Kyle, and Elliot discuss atonement, the theological issue of how Jesus saves humans. It's a deep dive, and a bit nerdy, but we think it's important.
The whiskey featured in this episode is Bulleit Rye.
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/apastorandaphilosopher)
How does Jesus's death work? In this episode, Randy, Kyle, and Elliot discuss atonement, the theological issue of how Jesus saves humans. It's a deep dive, and a bit nerdy, but we think it's important.
The whiskey featured in this episode is Bulleit Rye.
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/apastorandaphilosopher)
00:00
[Music]
00:14
welcome to
00:14
a pastor and a philosopher walk into a
00:16
bar the podcast where we mix a sometimes
00:19
weird but always delicious cocktail of
00:21
theology
00:22
philosophy and spirituality
00:28
well welcome everyone on this episode of
00:31
a pastor and a philosopher walking to a
00:33
bar
00:33
we're discussing atonement that is the
00:36
question of how it is that jesus's death
00:39
and resurrection actually saves humans
00:42
how is it that that's the thing that
00:44
fixes the problem that we have with god
00:46
and randy and i have thought about this
00:48
both of us independently for quite a
00:49
while
00:50
and probably have some different views
00:52
on it so i look forward to maybe hashing
00:54
some of that out
00:55
and there's a possibility that we might
00:57
just deflate somebody's faith
00:59
and in this episode we're not aiming to
01:00
do that but it very well may happen
01:03
so hang on uh
01:06
and you know what better to have next to
01:09
you when you're deflating faith
01:10
than a good drama whiskey so
01:14
kind of a must it is we're doing things
01:16
a little bit differently in this episode
01:19
uh our producer my night tonight
01:21
producer bartender
01:23
i like it our producer has uh selected
01:26
for us
01:27
something that we don't know what it is
01:29
so ellie yeah this is a blind tasting
01:32
so there's no bottle in sight yeah all
01:34
you have is a unmarked glass with
01:36
some goldish colored liquid in it and
01:39
yeah i thought it'd be fun if you could
01:41
tell me if if not exactly what you're
01:43
tasting
01:44
uh give me some notes that uh make me
01:47
think you know what you're talking about
01:49
i love i love blind taste tests we've
01:51
done
01:52
blind blind cheap beer taste tests
01:55
which you'd be interested it'd be it's
01:57
interesting what comes out
01:58
you know close to the top hams hams is
02:01
pretty good by the way
02:02
um done many whiskey plantain cysts this
02:06
is fun here we go
02:07
yeah and i'm usually in fact every time
02:09
we do it i'm surprised at what my
02:10
favorite thing is so
02:12
i really like the nose it's uh not very
02:15
oaky actually it's kind of sweet got a
02:17
honey
02:18
but yet not like new makey it doesn't
02:20
have that vibe to it it's
02:22
very so my first question is
02:25
did i get this off the top shelf or the
02:27
bottom shelf like did i go
02:28
find the 10 bottle from the nose i'm
02:31
saying
02:32
definitely middle shelf not bottom i
02:34
would say
02:35
the bottom half of the middle
02:38
all right have you tasted it yes
02:42
it's very sweet it tastes a little young
02:44
okay
02:46
yeah now that we're yep all the
02:48
complexity is in the nose
02:50
and then none of it on the palate it's a
02:52
little hot yeah but not so much that i
02:54
think it's
02:54
you know cask strength against again
02:57
that that sweetness doesn't translate to
02:59
tasting new makey because that's my
03:00
least favorite
03:01
flavor in a whiskey but it's just not
03:04
very complex
03:05
it tastes young in that it it doesn't
03:08
taste oaked
03:08
very well yeah like not much barrel
03:10
presents have you ever had
03:12
uh just uncut uh just moonshine just
03:15
uncut like corn whiskey yes yes
03:18
this has that it's very a very strong
03:21
young
03:22
sweet corn flavor that kind of dominates
03:25
but yet it's not
03:26
bad any guesses
03:31
how how household of his innate of like
03:34
so
03:34
i i'm actually a little disappointed
03:35
because i really like the
03:37
the bourbon from this brand this is not
03:41
that
03:42
um oh so this isn't bourbon no oh
03:44
interesting
03:45
interesting is it a it's not a rye it's
03:48
a rye
03:48
this is a rye okay that explains that
03:50
you've got the heat yes
03:52
okay yep i'll go with bullet
03:56
that's a good that's a good guess
03:57
actually that is a good guess yeah
04:00
that's the correctness
04:03
this is bullet 95 rye so so yeah
04:06
i love uh bullet uh the bourbon but
04:10
i hadn't tried this i know i like rye's
04:13
hadn't tried this before
04:14
and um this is so funny so couple things
04:17
one
04:18
now that it's awry i'm able to like
04:21
appreciate it a little bit more because
04:23
when you're thinking that it's bourbon
04:24
it's not that
04:25
impressive really absolutely and b this
04:28
is the crappiest beer i've ever had
04:29
right right and b when you guys tasted
04:32
before me and kyle you particularly
04:34
started saying that you didn't like it
04:35
it's about near the bottom of the
04:37
you know middle shelf that immediately
04:40
took my mind to
04:41
oh it's not that good and then i heard
04:43
it's bullet ride and then i was like
04:44
actually i like it more than i think it
04:46
did
04:46
yeah you know what i mean i mean again
04:48
if you would have told me this is rye i
04:49
would have
04:50
i think i would have approached it
04:51
differently but i would say yeah
04:53
this is this is clearly the lower end of
04:55
what we've had so far yeah
04:57
for sure but i still enjoy it and
04:59
there's room for it there's room for all
05:01
all whiskeys yeah well not really not
05:04
really
05:04
i take that back i retract that
05:06
statement only so
05:07
only so much sin can be covered exactly
05:10
exactly
05:12
that's your segway yeah yeah jesus death
05:14
did not atone for old crow
05:16
[Laughter]
05:17
[Music]
05:19
well now that we're fully hydrated how
05:20
about we uh talk about the atonement a
05:22
little bit huh
05:23
sounds good so why don't you set this up
05:26
for us randy what uh
05:28
what is it we're going to be talking
05:29
about why is it important
05:31
why is it an episode on our podcast yeah
05:34
the atonement is one of many christian
05:36
doctrines and
05:38
i know it's you know trendy to
05:42
say doctrine is lame but doctrine is
05:45
really really important
05:46
um if we're christians or maybe you're
05:48
on the outside looking in maybe you're
05:50
an atheist and
05:52
i would still say doctrine is very
05:54
important what we believe about god what
05:57
we believe about the world what we
05:58
believe about humanity what we believe
06:00
about all sorts of things
06:02
matter it influences the way we see god
06:04
it influences the way we see one another
06:06
it influences the way we
06:09
act with one another and act in the
06:10
world and in
06:12
and engage with humanity in the world
06:14
around us so i would say doctrine
06:16
matters an awful lot and
06:18
what i've noticed and observed is
06:21
people will say they're a certain
06:22
doctrine or not a certain doctrine
06:25
they'll say that but the way they talk
06:28
the way they
06:28
act is one thing but the way they talk
06:31
that totally doesn't make sense actually
06:33
i don't know if you've i'm sure you've
06:34
had this kyle because we both are
06:36
we're at one time very passionate about
06:38
being non-calvinistic and i still
06:39
am quite passionate about it right yeah
06:41
i mean i used to care more than i do now
06:43
but i'm still
06:44
exactly so yeah love all you reformed
06:47
guys and gals out there but um
06:49
mostly guys let's be honest
06:51
[Laughter]
06:53
don't write us yeah yeah um
06:57
many people will say this for instance
06:58
they'll say no i'm not a calvinist at
07:00
all i don't believe
07:01
in in predestination i'm like okay
07:03
that's great and then you'll be in
07:04
conversation with them and all of a
07:06
sudden they'll say
07:07
oh yeah this happened to us the other
07:08
day it was really it really sucked but
07:11
you know god has a purpose in everything
07:13
yeah and i'll just stop and be like did
07:16
you hear yourself
07:18
because you told me a couple weeks ago
07:20
that you're not a calvinist and that you
07:21
don't
07:21
believe in predestination but now you
07:23
just told me that you did and you didn't
07:25
even know it
07:25
right there's millions of times like
07:27
that i think the atonement is one of
07:29
those
07:30
one of those things where if we're not
07:32
cautious about what we think about it
07:34
in what we believe about it it's
07:35
actually going to
07:37
to season and spice the way we think
07:40
about god and how we look at god and how
07:42
we look at
07:42
that there's all sorts of wrong
07:44
approaches to god because of
07:46
our belief in what we think about the
07:49
atonement so even if we've never thought
07:50
about the atonement right it's one of
07:52
those lenses that you don't realize
07:54
you're looking through until you look
07:55
through a different one
07:56
and think oh wow my whole view of god
07:59
and religion was kind of
08:00
colored by that one position that i'd
08:02
never really even considered
08:04
exactly exactly so because it's so
08:07
important we're excited to talk about it
08:09
and
08:10
in be in conversation with you listeners
08:12
and
08:13
really love to hear from you about what
08:15
your thoughts about the atonement have
08:16
been and how that's been constructive or
08:18
destructive in your faith journey
08:20
we'd love to hear from you about um how
08:22
maybe this
08:23
maybe this is old news or maybe this is
08:25
really the first time you've really
08:26
considered this so let's talk kyle can
08:29
you
08:30
give us an example of how to think about
08:32
what the atonement is what do we mean
08:34
when we say the word
08:35
atonement yeah good in regard not not in
08:38
british you know literature but in
08:41
theology yeah well so the word
08:45
this is it's kind of an interesting word
08:47
um it
08:49
you might have heard it set up like you
08:52
separate
08:52
out the parts of the word and you have
08:54
at and then one
08:56
and then mint exactly the explanation is
08:59
uh it's it's the explanation of how
09:02
humans
09:02
and god are at one with each other
09:06
and it sounds like something a sunday
09:08
school teacher made up when you put it
09:09
there probably did
09:10
probably did but well no that's the
09:11
interesting thing about it i mean it's a
09:13
translation of an old latin word
09:15
but they chose this english word
09:17
precisely for that reason that literally
09:19
is what it means yeah it's not like
09:22
cobble you know it's just
09:23
that's just what it is originally that's
09:25
what the word means
09:26
interesting so this is a very vivid kind
09:29
of visual word
09:30
automatically so maybe a fun way to
09:33
think about this
09:33
would be let's imagine the conversation
09:36
that might happen
09:37
if a pastor and a philosopher actually
09:40
did
09:40
walk into a bar together hey yo and
09:43
start and start thinking about
09:46
god and theology because this might be
09:47
one of the very first things
09:49
that comes up right so you're a pastor
09:52
right let's say we went into a bar
09:54
and let's say i was the typical
09:55
philosopher which means i'm skeptical of
09:57
everything
09:59
and you know i find out you're a pastor
10:01
and i say well
10:02
tell me about that whole jesus thing
10:04
what's that about
10:06
what kind of answer might you give well
10:08
i'll i'll be a stereotypical
10:10
evangelical pastor and say well i mean
10:14
you know jesus means everything to me
10:16
jesus is salvation
10:18
and you would probably ask if i said
10:20
jesus means salvation
10:21
i'd say what is that what does that mean
10:24
yeah and i would say well
10:26
humanity has a sin problem we in the in
10:28
the beginning
10:30
sinned and mistrusted god and when we
10:33
did that
10:34
we broke something we broke a
10:35
relationship with god and therefore we
10:37
can't be with god anymore
10:38
sin is a barrier from being with god and
10:42
that's a that's a problem that humanity
10:44
is incapable of fixing ourselves we are
10:46
powerless against
10:48
the power sin and the death and the
10:49
isolation in the punishment
10:52
that is justly coming to us because of
10:54
our sin
10:55
however jesus is such a big deal to me
10:58
because
10:58
jesus saved me god sent his son into the
11:01
world
11:02
to to die to die on a cross and when he
11:05
died on that cross
11:06
he actually gave us salvation there's
11:09
imagine this
11:09
imagine there's there's two cliffs
11:11
you're standing in the grand
11:12
canyon i'm on one side god's in the
11:15
other the reason that we're on two
11:16
different sides is because of our sin
11:17
we've been separated from god and we
11:19
can't get across
11:21
jesus comes and he dies on the cross and
11:23
it's as if that cross
11:25
is a bridge over the grand canyon and
11:27
now we can go and be with god because
11:29
jesus
11:29
died for us in our place that's
11:32
why i believe in jesus i bet you got an
11:36
a
11:36
in your homiletics class that was really
11:38
good
11:40
well done pastor thank you thank you
11:42
thank you so at this point the
11:43
philosopher would say something like the
11:45
following
11:46
uh okay well explain to me in a little
11:48
more detail it's a nice story
11:49
that you know with the chasm and the
11:51
cross across the world thank you thanks
11:53
very you know vivid metaphor but why was
11:56
that
11:57
necessary to begin with why why is it
12:00
that we need the cross in order to fix
12:03
this sin problem or for that matter why
12:06
is there a sin
12:07
problem if god set up the world
12:09
intending to love humans and everything
12:11
why did he set it up in such a way that
12:13
there would be this problem that would
12:14
then need to be solved
12:16
by this cross across the chasm thing and
12:18
how does that cross work anyhow
12:21
so you know for example if if i did a
12:23
wrong thing
12:25
and jesus is stepping in to take
12:28
the consequences of the wrong thing that
12:30
i did and god is
12:32
you know pleased by that well that seems
12:34
unfair
12:35
doesn't it i mean that's not how we do
12:38
things in in our normal life if
12:40
if i got in trouble for a crime that i
12:42
committed
12:43
and some really kind person came in and
12:45
said hey judge i'm going to take the
12:47
punishment for that crime so that person
12:49
doesn't have to
12:50
if the judge said yeah that seems fair
12:53
we would impeach that judge that's not
12:56
fair that's not how that works so
13:00
tell me a story that explains precisely
13:02
how it is that the cross fixes all these
13:04
problems
13:05
in a fair and logical way
13:09
and instantly aya's said pastor would
13:12
get very insecure very defensive
13:15
and offended mostly by the fact that you
13:18
don't just take it as a given
13:19
that it makes perfect sense yeah so
13:23
that whole conversation and just this
13:26
this question of
13:27
how do we get salvation from the cross
13:31
most christians would say from the cross
13:32
i would say from the life death and
13:34
resurrection of jesus
13:35
um how does that work what happened
13:37
what's what
13:38
what needed to happen and what happened
13:40
in order to affect salvation and life
13:42
for humanity right yeah that's what
13:44
we're talking about when we talk about
13:45
the atonement
13:47
yeah there have been a plethora of
13:49
theories of
13:50
on atonement throughout church history
13:53
and
13:53
there are several main ones that i think
13:55
we should mention so let's just do a
13:57
quick overview of the main theories of
13:59
atonement kyle
14:01
so the moral influence theory basically
14:04
says that jesus dies to save humanity
14:06
show us how to live and show us what god
14:08
is like christus victor was probably the
14:11
widest held theory of atonement for the
14:13
first
14:14
thousand years of the church and that
14:15
just basically says that jesus died and
14:17
rose again
14:18
to defeat the powers of sin death and
14:20
satan then there's the
14:21
ransom theory this is the idea that god
14:25
and satan are in a kind of economic
14:27
relationship
14:28
and that god somehow owes satan a ransom
14:32
for the ownership of humans satisfaction
14:34
theory then comes along in about the
14:36
11th century and says that
14:37
the problem isn't with satan the problem
14:39
isn't with sin and death the problem was
14:41
with
14:41
our position with god satisfaction
14:43
theory says that god's justice must be
14:45
satisfied
14:46
in order for us to have life god is just
14:48
and so therefore he would be unjust to
14:50
let us sin
14:52
and come into his eternal glory so god's
14:55
justice must be satisfied jesus death
14:57
is the satisfaction of god's justice and
15:00
then a later development
15:02
of the satisfaction theory is a very
15:04
influential one
15:05
these days and in the modern period and
15:07
that is penal substitution
15:09
theory so it's very similar to
15:12
satisfaction
15:13
or sometimes also called substitution
15:14
theory but it adds to it
15:17
this idea of this metaphor of kind of a
15:20
courtroom
15:20
situation so that god is a judge and
15:23
he's a just
15:24
judge and we are kind of defendants
15:27
trying to defend ourselves for our sin
15:29
and something about our sin triggers
15:32
god's wrath
15:33
god's wrath must be poured out on sin
15:35
and therefore it must be poured out on
15:37
us and because we are guilty and we
15:40
cannot pay the punishment for our guilt
15:42
ourselves we can't pay that price god
15:44
sends jesus to do it for us and so
15:46
god's punishment is poured out his wrath
15:48
is poured out on jesus
15:50
instead of us the scapegoat theory is
15:52
probably the main non-violent
15:54
theory of atonement that just says jesus
15:55
is not a sacrifice
15:57
but rather a victim of the violence of
15:59
humanity and of sin
16:01
and when he actually willingly
16:04
participates
16:05
and becomes that victim he actually
16:07
overcomes the whole system
16:08
and we get to enjoy life because
16:12
jesus was our scapegoat it has
16:15
hints back to the old testament but
16:16
really is this non-violent theory of
16:18
atonement that a lot of philosophers
16:20
like you kyle
16:21
tend to prefer so let's dig into
16:25
to some of these theories then the maybe
16:27
most liberal one
16:28
if i can use that word the one that's
16:31
probably going to make our conservative
16:32
listeners the most uncomfortable
16:34
would be the moral influence theory
16:36
absolutely now sometimes this is also
16:38
called subjective because the focus is
16:40
on humans
16:41
so there was a guy a 20th century
16:44
theologian who was pretty
16:45
influential on the atonement question
16:48
and he divided up all of the various
16:49
theories of atonement into three
16:51
categories he called them subjective
16:53
objective
16:54
and then classical subjective because
16:56
they focus on human beings the whole
16:58
thing is about how things appear
17:00
from our perspective and that's
17:02
definitely what the moral influence
17:03
theory
17:04
focuses on the whole point of jesus
17:06
coming and dying
17:08
and being resurrected all of it was to
17:10
teach us to be good people
17:12
to give us an example maybe or even to
17:14
influence us in a more material way
17:16
to become the best kind of human that we
17:18
can be yep
17:20
and good evangelicals would say why did
17:23
jesus
17:23
even have to die if it was just to show
17:25
us how to live and be good people that's
17:27
ridiculous why would jesus have sweat
17:29
bullets in the garden
17:30
of gethsemane just to show us a cool way
17:33
of living
17:35
that's not necessary and that doesn't
17:36
sound biblical yeah
17:38
and even worse than that if you're a
17:39
kind of traditionalist conservative
17:41
christian nothing after the death of
17:43
jesus is actually necessary
17:45
for this view jesus might not have been
17:47
resurrected and he still could have been
17:49
just as good of a moral influence as if
17:51
he was
17:51
as a matter of fact god god doesn't even
17:53
need to exist on this view
17:55
all we really need is a story about
17:58
jesus
17:59
being a moral example of story it could
18:01
have just been a nice philosophical tale
18:04
yeah and while i don't hold to the moral
18:05
influence theory i really think there's
18:08
beautiful truth in it where part of the
18:11
cross see the cross for me and the
18:13
well the whole of it the incarnation the
18:15
cross and the resurrection
18:16
it's like a diamond right there's
18:18
there's an endless amount of facets to
18:20
it
18:20
that you can learn from that you can be
18:22
inspired by that you can fall in love
18:24
with
18:24
and that's completely true with the
18:26
moral influence a huge part of the cross
18:28
is showing us what god is like that that
18:31
right there in and of itself
18:32
is bomb dropping material god actually
18:36
hangs on a cross is executed by the
18:39
empire
18:40
god in our world sits in the electric
18:43
chair
18:44
and lets the man flip the switch
18:47
that is cataclysmic earthquake
18:50
level stuff for me and one thing we're
18:52
going to see as we go through these
18:53
theories is that there's something
18:55
beautiful and good and right about all
18:56
of them
18:57
there's definitely something biblical
18:58
about all of them but they also all have
19:00
a kernel of truth
19:01
it's just how they've been received
19:03
historically the kinds of metaphors that
19:05
have been used
19:06
to promote each one correct this
19:08
particular theory
19:10
is is associated with some people who
19:11
are excommunicated
19:13
who are deemed heretical and so because
19:16
of that it's viewed as pretty liberal
19:18
so then the christus victor theory of
19:20
atonement again
19:22
is seen as one of those what kyle
19:26
just described as classical it was held
19:28
through the church
19:29
for the first 11 centuries really with
19:31
the ransom theory but
19:33
the christus victor theory of atonement
19:35
says that our
19:36
problem is with sin death
19:39
and satan that those three things add up
19:42
to giving us
19:43
eternal death and separation from
19:46
the life that we were created to have
19:48
they actually have power over us that we
19:50
are powerless
19:51
to address only god can do that and so
19:54
jesus in his incarnation comes and lives
19:57
the
19:58
perfect life shows us what that looks
20:00
like who god is but also he lives this
20:02
perfect life and he
20:04
he in his death and in his resurrection
20:07
overcomes the power of the grave
20:09
overcomes the power of sin
20:11
paul says in in romans 6 you are no
20:13
longer slaves to sin
20:15
the christus victor theory would say
20:17
that's because jesus
20:19
broke that chain you are no longer slave
20:21
to sin now you can walk in freedom
20:23
and you are no longer enslaved to satan
20:25
and death you no longer have to
20:27
fear it this is colossians 2 material
20:29
coming out where it says that jesus
20:31
while you were still dead in your sin
20:33
came and and died for your sins and
20:35
conquered
20:36
the power of hell and the power of death
20:38
and and made a public spectacle of them
20:40
that's the christus victor theory of
20:42
atonement which again
20:43
was the by far the most commonly held
20:44
theory of atonement for the first
20:46
millennia of the church
20:47
yeah and then a kind of twist on that a
20:51
riff on that that was
20:52
uh became popular around the third
20:54
century with an eastern
20:56
father named origen is known as the
20:58
ransom
20:59
theory and this would be sort of adding
21:01
to that whole crisis victor story
21:03
this idea that humans are somehow held
21:06
captive by satan
21:08
and the powers how that happened is open
21:11
to interpretation and debate
21:12
but he's like the ruler of the world in
21:14
fact you see
21:16
language and paul and even jesus himself
21:17
referring to satan as
21:19
the ruler of the world like he owns us
21:21
somehow
21:23
and then god sends jesus as a ransom
21:27
as a payment to satan and the powers
21:30
to redeem humanity so you have this kind
21:32
of economic language
21:33
in this view and in this view the ransom
21:35
theory it's
21:37
there is a reality that that god kind of
21:39
pulled a fast one on satan right he's
21:41
like here you can have my son
21:42
here as a ransom and satan didn't
21:45
realize he got fooled because he didn't
21:46
realize that jesus actually can't be
21:48
killed and stay dead
21:49
yeah and and god got the last laugh when
21:52
jesus came back to life right there's
21:54
that
21:54
picture in there when i think of the
21:56
ransom theory in the best way possible
21:58
it's the lion the witch in the wardrobe
22:00
you know i think what's which kid in the
22:03
line which in the wardrobe is the one
22:04
who the
22:05
white witch has power over because he
22:06
said was it edmund
22:08
edmund uh edmund is the witch's
22:11
possession
22:12
because he did this that or the other
22:14
it's been too long since i've read those
22:15
books but
22:16
aslan does that slow march whenever i
22:19
read that part it just gives me the
22:21
chills
22:21
aslan does that slow march to the stone
22:23
table and
22:24
this in this awful scene aslan is
22:28
shaved and tortured and shamed
22:31
and then finally killed and then all of
22:33
a sudden the stone
22:34
the stone table splits in half and aslan
22:37
is alive
22:38
that's the ransom theory yeah and then
22:40
later you get this
22:41
uh this interesting explanation that you
22:43
know the white witch
22:44
her knowledge of magic only went back to
22:47
her beginning
22:48
yep and she didn't realize there was an
22:50
older or deeper
22:51
deeper magic having to do with sacrifice
22:54
so this yeah this motif is picked up in
22:56
a lot of english literature you see a
22:58
very similar thing in harry potter
23:00
actually i'm a huge harry potter fan so
23:02
uh the idea that
23:04
that evil contains the seeds of its own
23:06
destruction
23:08
that to be evil is also somehow to be
23:11
ignorant
23:12
so you see you know voldemort who is
23:14
this consummately evil character
23:16
he doesn't understand what lewis would
23:18
call the deep magic
23:19
about love and so he thinks it's foolish
23:23
and silly and weak
23:24
and so he just grasped after power not
23:26
realizing that the more he grasps after
23:28
power
23:28
he's setting up the tools for his own
23:30
downfall eventually
23:32
so the ransom theory is the idea that
23:34
god does that to satan he sets up a
23:36
story in which satan thinks he's winning
23:38
only to find out he's destroying himself
23:41
[Music]
23:42
you know cheers to c.s lewis and jk
23:44
rowling
23:45
i mean come on funnily enough
23:49
rowling one time in an interview uh
23:52
they were asking her about the christian
23:55
themes in harry potter and
23:57
you know a lot of people think it's
23:58
demonic or witchcraft or whatever
24:02
evil and uh she was like yeah actually i
24:05
didn't talk about
24:06
anything related to christianity about
24:07
it for a long time before the seventh
24:09
book came out because i didn't want to
24:10
give away the ending
24:12
like if you if you put it in connection
24:14
with christianity you kind of figure out
24:16
what's going to happen
24:17
if she had just said something i
24:18
probably would have been allowed to read
24:19
them as a kid
24:23
absolutely that still wouldn't make it
24:26
okay with my parents though
24:29
all right next we have the satisfaction
24:32
theory of atonement
24:34
this one is where a big divide a big
24:38
shift happened in the way we think of
24:40
the atonement
24:42
before this for the first thousand years
24:44
of the church of church history
24:46
the problem was with either satan or
24:47
satan death and sin
24:49
that was our problem and some came along
24:52
in the 11th or 12th century and came
24:55
along and said
24:56
that's actually not our problem our
24:57
problem was with god
24:59
god is the one who we have a problem
25:01
with and who we have to
25:02
have that problem fixed and that is that
25:05
god is a just god
25:07
it says that in the scriptures that god
25:08
is a god of justice god is god who loves
25:10
loves justice he's just and
25:14
god's justice cannot be compromised
25:16
god's justice has to be satisfied
25:18
and so we can't satisfy god's justice
25:21
therefore jesus god sent jesus to
25:24
satisfy
25:25
god's own justice and in jesus death
25:28
vicariously and in substitutionary
25:32
substitutionarily is that a word i'm
25:35
looking at you phd why not
25:37
all right substitutionarily jesus dies
25:40
in our place to satisfy the justice of
25:42
god and boom
25:43
we get in yeah yeah and sometimes this
25:46
view
25:46
is uh it's part of a class of theories
25:49
called
25:49
objective so whereas the moral influence
25:52
theory was subjective because it focuses
25:54
on humans and how things are from
25:56
our perspective and making us better
25:58
this kind of theory is objective because
25:59
it's not about humans it's not about
26:01
how things look from our subjective
26:03
point of view it's all about god
26:05
the the need for sin to be fixed
26:08
is all about god's justice and the
26:10
solution for fixing it
26:11
is entirely on god which kind of helps
26:14
us understand why this point of view is
26:16
so popular
26:17
among reformed christians
26:20
christians who want to place a whole lot
26:22
of emphasis on
26:24
god's point of view and everything
26:26
happens in order to glorify god
26:29
christians like that tend to also be
26:31
some version of objective atonement
26:33
theorists
26:34
usually correct yep because what humans
26:37
do is kind of incidental it's really
26:39
god's gonna do what god's gonna do yep
26:41
and this
26:42
has its roots in paul correct yeah well
26:45
yeah so
26:46
you know to be because we're about to
26:48
pick on a version of this theory
26:50
a little bit later but to be fair to it
26:52
i mean paul talks this way sometimes so
26:54
he says in romans and it's important to
26:57
point out that it's in romans because a
26:59
lot of people take romans a lot of
27:00
theologians take romans to be
27:02
kind of paul's summary statement of
27:05
christianity i mean it's
27:06
probably the most in-depth theology that
27:08
you find in the bible
27:10
absolutely and in romans when when paul
27:13
is talking about sin and death he says
27:15
is chapter 3
27:16
god presented christ as a sacrifice of
27:18
atonement
27:19
through the shedding of his blood to be
27:21
received by faith
27:23
he did this to demonstrate his
27:24
righteousness because in his forbearance
27:26
he had left the sins committed before
27:29
unpunished he did it to demonstrate his
27:31
righteousness
27:32
at the present time so as to be just and
27:34
the one who justifies
27:36
those who have faith so a lot of the
27:38
ideas
27:39
of of this um satisfaction view of
27:42
atonement
27:43
are in that passage yeah i'll i'll just
27:46
like turn off my
27:48
the thing that's screaming in the back
27:50
of my head to talk about what paul
27:51
actually means when he talks about
27:53
righteousness there
27:54
or when he talks about faith what that
27:56
wasn't
27:57
what that was in the greek and what paul
27:59
was really trying to get across
28:00
as opposed to how we've interpreted it
28:02
but i'm going to turn that off
28:04
we don't need to go there yeah maybe
28:06
when we when we uh
28:08
revisit some of the more problematic
28:09
versions of this theory we can come back
28:11
to that if we want
28:12
it's worth pointing out here so because
28:13
i'm a philosopher i love anselm and this
28:16
is not my view of the atonement i just
28:17
love anselm independently because
28:19
he is the creator of the ontological
28:22
argument for god's existence
28:24
which is one of yeah which is one of the
28:26
oldest topics in
28:27
in philosophy uh well at least since the
28:29
11th century when he came up with it
28:31
and it's fascinating and i won't go into
28:33
all details here but it's really
28:34
interesting so i admire anselm as a
28:36
philosopher
28:38
and so it's interesting to see how he
28:39
gets to this
28:41
view of atonement it's all logical he
28:44
he doesn't actually use the bible or
28:47
what he knows about jesus
28:49
to build this theory of atonement he he
28:51
does it from
28:52
purely philosophical foundations
28:55
so he defines god in a particular way
28:58
and then because of the way he defines
28:59
god
29:00
it turns out on his view that jesus
29:03
coming and dying
29:04
for us was actually necessary it was
29:07
logically
29:07
necessary required god had to do it this
29:10
way
29:11
and it's really interesting how he gets
29:12
to that so he says that
29:14
here's his definition of god he says god
29:16
is that then which
29:18
nothing greater can be conceived so
29:21
modern philosophers rephrase that as
29:23
god is the greatest possible being okay
29:26
where god is a maximally great being
29:29
is the greatest possible thing there
29:30
could be and if you could think of
29:32
something greater than that thing would
29:33
be god
29:34
so just wherever your greatness meter
29:36
stops that's what god is
29:38
and because of that because god is the
29:40
greatest conceivable thing
29:42
when i as a human dishonor
29:46
god when i sin and therefore i i say you
29:49
know i know better i'm going to do this
29:50
thing that you didn't want me to do
29:53
i am dishonoring the greatest possible
29:55
thing
29:56
i am i'm devaluing the source of all
29:59
value
30:00
literally and so for ansem that means
30:03
i've done the worst possible thing i can
30:04
do i've said to the source of value
30:07
i'm going to go my own way and so
30:11
i owe god now a kind of debt i need to
30:14
make this right
30:15
i've dishonored the most valuable thing
30:17
in creation and yet
30:19
i'm a puny little human and so i can't
30:22
make it right literally cannot it's not
30:24
within my power
30:25
to repay the kind of wrong that i have
30:27
done
30:28
it's not just a a simple little wrong
30:30
that i've done it's the worst possible
30:32
thing i could have done
30:33
and so god god is now in a position
30:36
where he can go a couple of ways
30:38
he can say i'm going to leave you in
30:39
your sin and you deserve it
30:42
and that would be just right because
30:44
i've dishonored the most valuable thing
30:47
that could be but god also loves me
30:50
and is infinitely kind and so instead of
30:53
that
30:55
he's going to come up with another way
30:56
for that debt to be repaid
30:58
i can't repay it but a human has to
31:00
repay it because a human caused it
31:03
but there aren't any other humans that
31:05
can do it so what is god left to do well
31:07
he has to become a human because only
31:10
god can repay the debt
31:11
and only a human can repay the debt and
31:14
so the incarnation according to ensem
31:16
is absolutely necessary it had to happen
31:19
so he's got it all worked out in this
31:21
really rigorous logical fashion which
31:24
to a philosopher is kind of appealing at
31:26
the end of the day i don't buy it but
31:27
that's that's how he went about that i
31:29
like how you chose to geek out on
31:31
anselm's theory of atonement because
31:33
he's a philosopher
31:34
it's fun yeah so the next one penal
31:37
substitutionary
31:38
penal substitution theory of atonement
31:41
um it
31:42
riffs on anselm's satisfaction theory
31:45
but it's born in the reformation right
31:47
that this is the
31:48
of the major sub atonement theories
31:52
this is the youngest it's born in the
31:53
reformation with calvin primarily but
31:55
also luther
31:56
and it basically just says not only do
31:59
we need
32:00
a substitute or not only does god's
32:02
justice need to be satisfied
32:05
but the wrath of god needs to be
32:07
satisfied and they would
32:09
take the wrath of god as being the anger
32:11
the the
32:12
the just punishment for sin this is the
32:15
one that works in
32:16
punishment it's penal god has to
32:19
punish somebody if god is if god is good
32:22
and sin is sin
32:24
god has to punish somebody so we've got
32:26
this giant i'm going to be cross here
32:27
we've got this giant weapon coming to us
32:29
because of sin
32:30
we've got this eternal nonstop weapon
32:33
coming to us
32:34
and it's this courtroom theory is this
32:37
courtroom picture that we've been given
32:39
that says
32:40
god is the judge we're on trial and
32:42
jesus is the
32:43
defense attorney and satan is the is the
32:47
prosecutor right and satan comes to us
32:50
comes to the judge and he says to god
32:52
he's guilty she's guilty look at all
32:54
that she's done wrong
32:55
and on this day she did this on this day
32:58
she said did that
32:59
you guys have heard this thing right
33:01
yeah yeah and
33:02
the case is closed it's it's obviously
33:04
true and god
33:05
the father just says well all right and
33:08
he's about to
33:08
bring his gavel down jesus goes father
33:11
father father
33:12
don't do it how about this
33:15
you punish me you kill me instead of
33:18
them let them go free yeah and the
33:21
father looks he thinks
33:24
actually yeah that'll work douche
33:27
case closed jesus dies we live
33:30
we need a gavel sound maybe we can put
33:33
in a
33:33
gavel sound you asked for reverb last
33:36
week again
33:39
i'm gonna give you some coupons for your
33:40
birthday and you can use them like
33:42
throughout the year
33:44
sound effects coupons no you should just
33:47
we now we we have a producer we have a
33:50
plaster if we have a philosopher
33:51
we also need a sound effects guy that
33:53
could do it like police academy style
33:55
with his mouth you know what i'm talking
33:56
about
33:59
that's so cheap that's a missing piece
34:02
that's a missing piece
34:03
once we've got some patreon supporters
34:04
we'll give you some buttons you can push
34:06
with sound effects
34:06
there you go how about that nice i will
34:09
abuse that
34:10
man so a
34:13
kind of a twist a maybe a less angry
34:16
twist
34:17
on this kind of substitution view
34:20
would be the wesleyan version of it
34:21
sometimes this is called the moral
34:23
government view
34:24
very much the same idea the the whole
34:26
focus is on god's justice
34:28
he he is the moral governor of the
34:30
universe
34:32
he's the source of all goodness he's
34:33
he's the he's the metric that by which
34:36
we determine what's right and wrong
34:37
and so he can't just let sin slide but
34:40
he's also not mean
34:43
you know he's not he maybe he's not
34:44
necessarily angry he just has to uphold
34:47
a really tough standard so that gives it
34:50
a slight twist maybe makes it a
34:52
little bit more palatable for you know
34:54
still very evangelical but more in the
34:56
wesleyan side of things than the
34:57
calvinist side of things
34:58
absolutely when in doubt about the
35:00
evangelicals look to the wesleyans look
35:02
to the methodists
35:03
their their theology is usually a little
35:05
bit better than the random average run
35:06
of the mill
35:07
evangelical they went there and then
35:09
finally we have the scapegoat theory of
35:11
atonement and this is within this larger
35:13
umbrella of
35:14
new theories of atonement because we
35:17
haven't liked what we've gotten before
35:19
we haven't liked the violence of them we
35:21
haven't liked the penal
35:23
part of them we haven't liked what it's
35:24
done to god we haven't liked all sorts
35:26
of things about
35:27
atonement theories and so recently and
35:30
the most prominent
35:31
people who have been advocates or even
35:33
kind of uh where this originated
35:35
would be and don't quote me on that
35:37
because i'm not positive but rene gerard
35:38
is a
35:40
is a you know flag bearer for the
35:42
scapegoat theory
35:43
a man named james allison is big on
35:46
scapegoat theory and
35:47
really this is the biggest one that
35:48
falls under the non-violent theories of
35:50
atonement
35:51
and that being that god would never use
35:53
violence in order to bring about life
35:56
he couldn't do it that's just that just
35:59
incompatible it doesn't work and so
36:01
when we think about this non-violent
36:03
theory of atonement
36:04
jesus becomes the victim of our violence
36:08
so he and this is another one of those
36:10
that's more subjective
36:12
there's not like it's hard to get the
36:14
scriptures around it
36:15
but jesus basically is a victim of the
36:18
empire
36:19
which is us in their violence and he
36:22
instead of becoming a sacrifice
36:23
he's a victim and in that he opens us up
36:26
to the
36:27
you know fullness of creation as if
36:29
death were not a thing
36:31
yeah these non-violent theories of
36:33
atonement are more and more
36:35
appealing i would say to the younger
36:37
church to the more liberal church to the
36:38
ones that just say
36:40
i can't deal with that idea of god being
36:43
that angry being that
36:44
you know cranky fill in the blank yeah
36:47
this really appeals to me so i don't
36:49
know anything about it this is uh
36:51
you know just prepping for this is my
36:52
first introduction to it i've not read
36:54
any of these guys
36:55
but it you don't know where nature
36:56
gerard i've heard of him but i've never
36:58
read him
36:59
and i've not never read anything about
37:01
this particular theory of atonement
37:03
but already it seems kind of promising
37:05
because
37:06
i'm a pacifist and uh i think i'm a
37:09
pacifist because i think jesus was a
37:10
pacifist which means i think god is
37:12
pacifist and so
37:13
uh in these other views i mean they're
37:15
all very bloody
37:16
they're all warfare-like you know
37:18
they're all very much
37:19
uh god is battling someone else maybe
37:21
even battling us
37:23
and somehow we need to make a blood
37:25
sacrifice to atone for
37:27
the sins and whatever and it just does
37:29
it's hard to square that
37:30
with the kind of self-sacrificial
37:34
other focused violence denying
37:37
teachings and activity of jesus that you
37:39
see in the new testament so
37:41
this sounds promising to me yeah in i
37:43
would say non-violent
37:45
the scapegoat theory and then also the
37:46
just these non-violent theories of
37:48
atonement
37:49
they would say scripturally my guess is
37:50
they would say the book of revelation
37:52
is is our scriptural foundation
37:56
that the lamb of god right like you look
37:59
in revelation 4 john looks and he sees
38:02
he hears a lion and then he looks and he
38:03
sees a lamb and
38:04
it's this lamb of god who had been
38:06
slayed before the foundations of the
38:07
world who actually
38:08
is able to open the book of book of life
38:11
and open its seals and read it out loud
38:12
and so the idea behind that is that the
38:15
empire the roman empire
38:17
the most powerful violent empire in the
38:20
world
38:21
at that moment ex exacts all of its
38:24
violence
38:25
onto god himself who takes it as a lamb
38:28
led to the slaughter and that's how he
38:31
wins the lamb
38:32
overcomes by the by his shedding of his
38:35
own blood
38:35
by the empire's violence and in that act
38:39
s takes all that violence and makes it
38:41
completely useless
38:43
which is beautiful and that is scripture
38:45
it is it is yeah this
38:47
is making me want to read more about it
38:49
there was a there's an obscure passage
38:51
of nietzsche
38:52
and i'm going to butcher it because i
38:53
don't remember exactly where it is but
38:55
uh he
38:56
says something like um you can you can
38:58
measure the power of a being by how much
39:00
violence it can absorb without having to
39:03
fight back
39:04
um and that seems right to me it seems
39:07
like
39:08
god needing to exact vengeance in some
39:10
way
39:12
is inconsistent with the character that
39:13
you see in jesus or god requiring that
39:16
the payment be
39:18
crucifixion yeah some off about that so
39:22
i'm liking this framework the more we
39:24
talk about it the more it appeals to me
39:25
yeah and i like how you sound more
39:27
southern when you you get a little
39:29
you know off the cuff and there's
39:30
there's some off about that
39:33
some just something about it um let's
39:35
let's hone in a little bit on
39:37
the one that we really get a little
39:38
cranky about kyle and that's the penal
39:40
substitution theory of atonement
39:42
yeah so why is it that we get cranky
39:44
about this randy
39:45
well i would agree with you that
39:46
basically it's what
39:49
what this what we said in the beginning
39:51
about our doctrine matters because what
39:52
we believe
39:54
these doctrines that we believe it
39:56
actually frames up
39:57
in and paints a picture of who our god
40:00
is and
40:01
with the penal substitutionary theory of
40:03
atonement
40:04
it does a number of things it creates an
40:06
angry god
40:07
whose wrath must be satisfied right and
40:10
i know
40:11
many of you out there are quoting
40:13
excluding scriptures
40:14
you're going to email them to us that's
40:16
fine i know them all
40:17
but it basically creates this angry god
40:21
whose wrath and whose who whose wrath
40:23
must be satisfied
40:24
and that is inconsistent with the god
40:26
that jesus came to show us
40:28
another thing it does is it promotes
40:31
this dissonance between the father and
40:33
the son and that's what i grew up in i
40:34
don't know about you guys
40:35
but when i was growing up i felt like
40:37
jesus was my buddy and
40:38
i'm scared of the father and this theory
40:41
of atonement
40:42
really doubles down on that that the
40:43
father has to be satisfied the father
40:45
has to punish someone and he's satisfied
40:49
with if he punishes jesus he's just got
40:51
a
40:51
big whooping in him and if you can get
40:53
it out on someone we're going to be okay
40:55
now that's being crass in in in kind of
40:58
unfair in some ways to that theory of
41:00
atonement but there is that to it right
41:02
well to try to to try to represent in a
41:06
in the way that that i can knowing this
41:08
is this is my whole context this my
41:10
tradition and so
41:11
you know to kind of channel that that
41:13
voice if i were to argue for this this
41:15
is
41:16
uh it goes back to the holiness of god
41:18
and it's not that there's this this
41:19
angry father but
41:21
it's a father who can't can't actually
41:23
be exposed to sin and so there's kind of
41:25
this
41:26
this logical maze that has to be
41:29
navigated as you know father okay so
41:31
father can't touch sin uh
41:34
we we are sin only jesus can take sin
41:37
and so therefore jesus takes sin and now
41:38
okay so now
41:39
father can be with us and and it all
41:41
works out and so it's kind of like this
41:44
you know it's not that that god is
41:46
inherently
41:47
violent or anything like that but in the
41:49
presence of
41:50
this you know this enemy that kind of
41:52
twisted twisted things and then there's
41:54
this
41:55
fall that puts us on the side of the
41:57
enemy it's like there's this
41:58
this kind of necessary like the
42:01
bloodshed it's not something that god
42:03
wanted but because he's holy and because
42:05
there's an enemy there's this
42:06
this battle that commences or this you
42:09
know
42:09
god outsmarts the devil and finally
42:11
we're able to be reunited
42:13
with a holy god as we're made holy like
42:15
he is yep yeah
42:17
now let me remind us thank you for
42:20
playing devil's advocate of bringing to
42:22
to you know the conversation that
42:24
perspective elliot but
42:26
we have to remember when we're talking
42:27
about really any of these atonement
42:29
theories
42:30
particularly penal substitution we're
42:33
talk we're drawing from the scriptures
42:35
where
42:35
the writers of the scriptures and
42:36
primarily that primarily the apostle
42:39
paul
42:39
is speaking in metaphorical language we
42:42
take this
42:43
as just fact and real
42:46
like i don't know what the word would be
42:48
kyle but but
42:49
we take this as just like this is the
42:51
truth when paul is painting pictures
42:53
trying to explain to his audience who
42:55
our first century jewish
42:56
audience primarily and with some
42:58
gentiles mixed in there but they've also
43:00
been given this kind of
43:01
jewish upgrade he's a jewish man and
43:04
he's making
43:05
he's making he's creating metaphors like
43:07
a jewish man would which is
43:09
drawing from the old testament the
43:10
sacrificial system and saying hey you
43:12
know how that lamb would go into the
43:13
wilderness once a year as a scapegoat
43:15
and
43:15
all the sins would be put on that lamb
43:17
of the sins of the community and then
43:18
we're okay before god on the day of
43:20
atonement
43:21
that's what happened in jesus paul is
43:22
painting pictures to try to get his
43:24
audience to understand
43:26
so this is just a metaphor we need to
43:28
remember
43:29
in particularly a metaphor from 2000
43:32
years ago
43:33
for people who lived on the other side
43:34
of the world who had a very different
43:36
belief system than we do
43:38
and we're still using this metaphor
43:40
today i understand it's scriptures
43:42
but we have to remember it's paul
43:44
painting a picture to try to get this
43:46
particular people to understand what
43:48
happened in the cross
43:50
yeah and what you just described elliott
43:53
is it's a different take but it seems to
43:56
me no less
43:56
problematic of a take on this view
43:59
because
44:00
while we might be getting rid of the
44:03
violent or abusive kind of
44:07
problem that's inherent in this theory
44:09
we're replacing it with a kind of purity
44:11
idea
44:12
that god can't be tainted by sin and
44:15
that we are sin
44:16
and therefore god must distance himself
44:18
from us because we're unclean
44:20
or something like that and so we still
44:22
end up having the same dissonance
44:24
problem that randy talked about it's not
44:26
a it's not a problem of god is angry and
44:28
jesus
44:28
isn't anymore it's a problem of god is
44:30
holy and jesus apparently isn't
44:32
or is apparently less concerned about
44:34
that because he's happy getting down in
44:36
the muck
44:36
with us the incarnation kind of does
44:39
away with that yeah yeah i mean he was
44:40
rumored to be a drunkard and criminal
44:42
himself because that's the people that
44:44
he hung out with so we still have this
44:45
problem of why
44:46
a lot of us are more liberal than our
44:48
parents so
44:49
it kind of makes sense right well not
44:52
not jesus
44:52
right we can't we can't we can't just
44:54
say yeah well you know he
44:56
he just uh hung out with the wrong crowd
44:59
for a little while he's still the second
45:01
person of the trinity i mean there's
45:03
there's literal identity happening here
45:05
so yes
45:06
you know the new testament's fairly
45:07
clear what goes for jesus goes for the
45:09
father
45:10
uh so the father shouldn't have more
45:12
exacting purity standards than the son
45:14
does
45:14
yep so here's another problem that i
45:17
have with
45:18
the penal substitution theory of
45:20
atonement it's that
45:21
i'm i'm pretty certain there's no actual
45:25
forgiveness
45:26
in the penal substitution theory of
45:28
atonement
45:30
do you know what i mean where that's a
45:32
strong strong claim unpack that
45:34
okay god it seems like
45:38
people would say god can't forgive our
45:40
sins unless he punishes
45:42
us which is actually not forgiving
45:45
he's punishing he he's actually like
45:48
none unable or doesn't want to
45:52
forgive us our sins he wants to punish
45:54
us for them and he has to actually
45:56
punish
45:57
us for them in order to be for us to be
46:00
punished somebody right yeah
46:01
yeah i think has to fly somewhere like
46:03
it's coming
46:04
it's just a matter right and so is that
46:07
actual forgiveness
46:08
forgiveness is you wronged me but i'm
46:11
gonna choose to not
46:12
hold that against you we're okay we're
46:14
good that like i'm going to forgive you
46:16
for that offense
46:17
and not hold on let's be clear that's
46:19
not to say there's no consequences
46:21
sure after forgiveness happens right
46:23
forgiveness
46:25
especially in a christian context
46:26
implies that you expect
46:29
the good of the other person so we could
46:32
talk more about that if you want but
46:34
so it's not as though me forgiving you
46:36
means you're off the hook and you never
46:38
have to improve
46:39
or anything like that and we just ignore
46:40
what happened that's not
46:42
the idea of forgiveness but there is
46:44
something
46:45
i think i see what you're saying there
46:46
is something here that seems a little
46:48
contradictory like
46:50
if i've forgiven you but then also
46:53
expect to be able to take vengeance on
46:55
you in some way
46:56
or expect you to pay a price that i set
46:59
is that really forgiveness right well i
47:01
mean let's go to the lord's prayer
47:03
we say forgive us in the old school way
47:05
we say forgive us our debts
47:08
as we you know if we forgive others is
47:11
it really forgiveness if you say well
47:13
sure i can forgive you your debt when
47:14
you pay the your debt
47:15
like when you actually have paid it then
47:18
i'll forgive it that's not forgiveness
47:19
actually and
47:21
jesus then comes along god in the flesh
47:24
comes along and tells his
47:25
disciples hey i want you to be forgiving
47:27
people and they're like
47:28
hey jesus what if we forgave seven times
47:31
that'd be awesome wouldn't it he'd be
47:33
like
47:34
um how about 77 times seven
47:38
which is jesus way in that culture of
47:40
saying
47:41
an infinite amount of times i'm asking
47:43
you to forgive your brother who sins
47:44
against you
47:46
that is strong that is beautiful and it
47:49
seems to me
47:50
that if we hold to the penal
47:51
substitution theory of atonement
47:53
jesus is actually expecting us to be
47:55
more forgiving
47:56
than god himself because jesus doesn't
47:59
say
48:01
well here's what forgiveness looks like
48:03
make sure they are punished for their
48:04
sins for what they did against you and
48:06
then forgive them an endless amount of
48:08
times but every time they have to be
48:09
punished for their sins
48:10
he just says forgive them that's a
48:12
problem for me
48:16
me too
48:17
[Music]
48:19
you've convinced me
48:22
here's another problem i have with the
48:24
penal substitution
48:26
theory of atonement or with the
48:27
satisfaction theory of atonement
48:30
is it scriptural to say that the justice
48:31
of god has to be satisfied
48:34
would you say that well
48:40
it's scriptural in the sense that paul
48:42
says things that seem to imply that
48:46
is it is it consistent with you know the
48:48
whole
48:49
narrative of scripture taken as a whole
48:53
that's more complicated um i just want
48:55
to be careful that you know the people
48:57
that take this view
48:58
take themselves to be honoring scripture
49:00
that's why they take the view
49:02
absolutely but what about where
49:05
in the psalms and jesus quotes this to
49:08
the pharisees
49:10
david is saying david basically has
49:13
sinned
49:14
and god god comes to him and says i
49:16
delight in mercy not
49:17
sacrifice what is that saying there
49:20
sacrifice being
49:22
the sacrificial system that god gave his
49:24
people to make them right before god
49:26
really was it doing that or was it god
49:27
god give that to them so that they could
49:29
actually
49:30
change their hearts that's what i would
49:31
say but david's saying i'm doing all the
49:34
things
49:35
and god's saying actually i just desire
49:37
mercy rather than sacrifice that's
49:39
that i think is an example of god saying
49:42
my justice is
49:43
secondary to my mercy fast forward now
49:45
to james
49:46
the book of james james says
49:49
you desire mercy or mercy triumphs over
49:52
judgment
49:52
right you know what i'm talking about
49:54
yeah mercy triumphs over judgment
49:57
does that not say that the heart of god
49:59
is a heart of
50:00
mercy over judgment judgment the heart
50:02
of god
50:03
in the heart of god the atmosphere of
50:06
god
50:07
grace and mercy triumph over are greater
50:10
than
50:11
are held higher than judgment and
50:13
justice god
50:14
is willing to suspend his justice for
50:17
the sake of having mercy on the ones he
50:18
loves i would say that's scriptural
50:22
so devil's advocate here yep so we
50:26
we could read passages like that as
50:28
saying that
50:29
when god has like direct interactions
50:31
with humans or
50:32
or when humans have direct interactions
50:34
with each other
50:35
we should privilege mercy over judgment
50:38
and god gives us an example of doing
50:40
that in jesus because that's what he
50:42
wants us to do
50:43
and you maybe you'd add to that that the
50:45
reason for that is that humans are not
50:47
good at judgment
50:48
we're we're we don't know enough to be
50:51
good at judgment we're really frail and
50:53
weak and limited
50:54
and so we end up judging wrongly but god
50:57
is perfect he doesn't have the
50:58
limitations that we do
51:00
and as we already said he is the the
51:02
moral governor of the universe he's
51:03
where the buck stops he has to ensure
51:05
that everything turns out to be good
51:08
and right so judgment is his job
51:11
i mean sure if you know if the heaven we
51:14
all look forward to is going to be a
51:16
reality it's going to be the result of
51:17
god's judgment
51:18
so in some sense his mercy and his
51:21
exhortations to us to be merciful
51:24
has to be consistent with him serving
51:26
the role as
51:27
a moral judge does that make sense
51:30
it does i would just say a couple
51:32
caveats one
51:33
um again far be it from god to ask us to
51:37
be
51:37
something better and more than he is in
51:39
other words just like
51:41
jesus saying forgive an infinite amount
51:43
of times when god has to be
51:45
you know be the punisher in order to
51:46
forgive there's there's dissonance there
51:48
also if god is telling us choose mercy
51:52
over
51:52
over judgment but i'm not going to do
51:54
that for you that's that's that's a
51:56
problem for me but also when we talk
51:57
about judgment
51:58
i think we need to remember we're not
52:00
when we're talking about judgment
52:01
especially in the book of revelation but
52:03
just final judgment
52:04
it's not talking purely about punishment
52:07
judging things is setting things to
52:09
right right balancing the scales for
52:12
once and for all
52:14
god setting things to right for all of
52:16
those who have had injustice and
52:17
oppression
52:19
thrust upon them that's what we're
52:20
talking about when we talk about
52:21
judgment
52:22
setting the world to rights so let's be
52:25
careful there
52:26
so if justice is making everything right
52:31
could it not be then that that a perfect
52:33
god
52:34
he he fulfills his his justice by the
52:37
make the making it right even even the
52:40
the mercy the way he's not asking us to
52:42
be better than him is by
52:43
making uh us perfect in the way that he
52:46
is perfect you know it's so it's through
52:48
that alignment to jesus like all of the
52:50
shenanigans we just talked about
52:51
but but those are the it's it's the
52:54
provision of that that that equals that
52:57
mercy
52:58
and and that justice that justice then
53:01
is served without
53:02
uh us having to perish forever
53:05
sure i can see the mercy in that but i
53:07
don't see the justice in it
53:09
because as kyle said as the philosopher
53:12
the hypothetical philosopher
53:14
who walked into a bar the philosopher
53:16
would
53:17
listen to that and say there's no
53:19
justice in punishing an
53:21
innocent man for instead of a guilty
53:23
person
53:24
there's no justice in that if if jesus
53:27
is going to say hey kill me and god says
53:29
okay that's fine you that works as long
53:33
as you
53:33
say that god needs to punish someone the
53:35
wrath of god needs to be you know
53:37
satisfied but that doesn't work if
53:39
you're saying god is a god of justice
53:41
and he has to
53:42
punish it's not just to punish an
53:44
innocent person for a guilty person
53:46
that's actually
53:47
injustice now it would
53:52
mitigate that problem if we recognize
53:54
that god and jesus are the same
53:56
character in this story right god is
53:58
taking the pun
53:59
it would mitigate it but not solve it
54:01
because god is taking the punishment
54:02
on himself but god is still the innocent
54:04
party
54:06
in this okay now he's the you know
54:08
governor of the universe and do what he
54:09
wants
54:10
uh and some would go as far as to say
54:12
that whatever god does is right
54:14
i'm i think that's a problematic view
54:16
but
54:17
is it we solve the question is it really
54:19
just is it really moral is it really
54:21
right
54:22
for an innocent person to take the
54:24
punishment of the
54:25
i mean isn't this where we get back to
54:27
the like this is the you know greater
54:29
love
54:29
has no man than this part like this is
54:32
the
54:34
no there's nothing really good about
54:37
dying for somebody who
54:39
who you love for you know for for your
54:41
friend for your family for a good man
54:43
whatever this is this is that greater
54:45
love
54:46
uh that it seems like only god can kind
54:48
of set that standard of
54:50
of love or at least exemplify that
54:52
standard of love
54:54
i wonder if this is related to that i
54:57
believe all of what you just said i
54:58
don't think that
55:00
i don't know if that has a whole lot to
55:02
do with the
55:04
the justice of god though well so it's
55:06
interesting that if we take that route
55:09
yeah we're we're no longer focusing on
55:11
justice we're focusing on love
55:13
right we're defining the nature of what
55:15
agape is like not the nature of justice
55:18
which raises a deeper harder question of
55:22
is there a tension between
55:24
self-sacrificial love
55:26
and doing what's right correct
55:29
meeting our justice yeah and that's a
55:32
hard hard question
55:34
yeah and now where if we even then
55:37
like to think about what we think about
55:39
the atonement i mean i
55:41
i love talking about the atonement and i
55:44
love it because
55:45
it magnifies the beauty and the love of
55:47
god to me in
55:48
incredible ways i have a lot of problems
55:51
with
55:52
any theory of atonement that says that
55:54
we have to satisfy god's wrath we have
55:56
to satisfy god's
55:57
god's justice i'm very uncomfortable
55:59
with that because i don't see
56:00
any of that in christ and in and if you
56:03
look at colossians 2 there's
56:04
there's many scriptures that contradict
56:07
that but what
56:08
the the theories of atonement that i
56:09
love and i would hold more to the
56:10
christus victor it's not perfect
56:12
i have some moral influence in there but
56:14
really i think the christmas victor
56:15
boils it down for me scripturally
56:18
in a much better way that says we
56:20
humanity brought this on ourselves
56:22
we have a problem and it's called sin
56:24
death and satan we're powerless against
56:26
that enemy we're powerless against that
56:28
problem
56:29
god isn't though and god becomes a human
56:32
being in the incarnation
56:34
to to live that life that we are
56:36
powerless to
56:38
then gives himself dies killed
56:41
slaughtered by the empire
56:42
in all of the beautiful imagery that
56:44
comes through with that with the
56:46
scapegoating theory of the non-violent
56:47
theory of atonement that
56:48
that god himself takes all the violence
56:50
the empire could ever throw at him
56:52
and he kills it in romans 8 in romans 8
56:55
it says that god condemned sin
56:57
in his fl in in christ he actually
57:00
condemned it
57:01
in himself all that violence all that we
57:03
could throw at god
57:04
he took it and he absorbed it and he
57:06
healed it all
57:08
and when he rose again he gave us that
57:10
life
57:11
that's the theory of atonement that i
57:13
can buy into that i see in the
57:14
scriptures and
57:15
that i think makes me fall in love with
57:17
jesus and the father
57:19
and the spirit more and more and more so
57:22
i want to make a distinction here
57:24
between because we're
57:26
picking on the penal substitution view
57:27
pretty hard we should distinguish a
57:29
little bit i think between
57:31
the the version of that view that's held
57:34
by
57:34
theologians and scholars and the version
57:37
of that view
57:39
that you're likely to encounter at your
57:41
average evangelical church
57:43
so so most of what we've just been
57:46
discussing and all the problems we've
57:47
just
57:48
laid out those mostly
57:51
apply to the version of this theory that
57:54
you're probably going to encounter in
57:55
church
57:56
now now sometimes those those problems
57:58
are endemic to the theory itself
58:00
as it's presented by various theologians
58:03
but
58:04
i personally know some some theologians
58:06
have some friends
58:08
who are reformed theologians who their
58:10
version of penal substitutionary
58:12
atonement would be able to avoid
58:15
most of these problems so that they
58:16
could definitely if they wanted to
58:18
explain
58:19
explain the view in such a way that god
58:21
and jesus don't end up being different
58:23
characters there doesn't
58:24
need to be that kind of radical break
58:26
between them god doesn't actually hate
58:27
us he's not
58:28
out to get us or vengeful or anything
58:30
like that but it is important to say
58:33
that that kind of view of god you know
58:36
the good theology doesn't always trickle
58:38
down
58:38
so i have lots and lots of friends and
58:40
i'm sure you do as well
58:42
who grew up in a kind of reformed faith
58:44
tradition and that very much was
58:46
the view of god that they got maybe
58:48
because their pastors didn't read the
58:49
theology carefully enough maybe they
58:51
just read the
58:52
wrong theologians who knows but that is
58:54
an extremely common view to encounter in
58:56
a church
58:56
itself whether or not it's it's uh
58:59
theologically defensible
59:01
so why do you think it is that
59:04
so many christians particularly
59:05
evangelical christians are still
59:07
so committed to that really problematic
59:09
version of this theory
59:12
i mean i think part of it is that many
59:14
christians
59:15
particularly evangelical christians or
59:17
their parents
59:18
were brought into the camp based on that
59:21
tract that they were given or that idea
59:24
they were sold
59:26
the whole thing began on this theory of
59:28
atonement that they didn't even
59:29
wouldn't even be able to say that but
59:32
they were brought into the the chris
59:34
to christendom based on this picture and
59:36
it makes it
59:38
sense to them and it's everything for
59:40
them it's this key that unlocks
59:42
everything and so if you lose that key
59:44
and all that goes with it everything
59:46
seems to fall apart right
59:47
i mean that's whether it's the evolution
59:50
or the penal substitutionary theory of
59:51
atonement there's a number of things
59:53
that it seems like
59:54
this kind of christian says if one thing
59:57
if you pull this out
59:58
you're a heretic you don't have the
60:00
traditional face there was uh
60:02
i wonder if you've heard of this guy
60:03
there's a guy named ray comfort do you
60:05
know who that is
60:06
sure he uh he he's
60:09
a street preacher evangelist and
60:13
he also i know right runs an
60:15
organization that makes tracts
60:17
uh to hand out on the street so if
60:19
you've ever been involved in doing that
60:20
you probably came across some of his
60:22
tracks
60:23
some of them are really deceptive like
60:24
they look like hundred dollar bills and
60:26
they don't pick it up and you see a
60:27
gospel message on the inside that's
60:29
that's right comfort
60:30
my one of my kids had that happened we
60:32
were walking downtown and they're like
60:33
oh check it out now they go the worst
60:36
the worst thing and i've had
60:37
i've had pastors recommend this to me is
60:40
they say you should leave that
60:42
as a tip imagine that
60:46
now the better ones will also say but
60:48
also leave real money but
60:49
yeah it's definitely a bait and switch i
60:51
mean what's what's worth more than the
60:52
gospel right
60:53
yeah yeah yeah for real they'll say
60:56
treasure
60:57
a 20 or 25 tip
61:01
tip your wait steph please absolutely um
61:03
so
61:04
the reason i bring him up is if you
61:06
watch him engage in his kind of street
61:08
ministry
61:10
what he does usually or did i don't know
61:12
if he's still doing it
61:13
is he'll he'll use the ten commandments
61:16
and he'll ask people uh he'll go through
61:19
the list and
61:20
say have you ever told a lie and of
61:22
course everybody's total loss they'll
61:23
say yes and they'll say what does that
61:24
make you
61:25
and the right answer is a liar and
61:28
they'll say uh
61:29
have you ever you know thought about
61:31
anybody that you weren't married to
61:32
sexually
61:33
and then he'll you know use jesus to say
61:35
well that's just as bad as doing it what
61:36
does that make you oh it makes you an
61:37
adulterer and he'll go through all this
61:39
list of things and then he says well
61:40
you're clearly a sinner
61:43
at the end of that right and then that
61:45
sets up the gospel message for him this
61:47
is how he does it he
61:48
he it's judgment first you've got to
61:51
recognize the gravity of your sin
61:52
first so that you realize how broken and
61:54
devastated and hopeless you are
61:56
so that we can then present the cure
61:58
because if you're not going to care
61:59
about the cure
62:00
in his view unless you're convinced of
62:04
your need for it and if that's if that's
62:06
how you come into christianity
62:08
and that is how many many evangelicals
62:10
come into christianity
62:12
then the suggestion that maybe the whole
62:16
sin plus cure equals salvation
62:20
that maybe that's not necessarily the
62:22
best way to read christianity
62:24
well that's the whole thing if you give
62:26
that up what's left
62:28
uh you know i've had this conversation
62:30
with friends before
62:32
if i'm not being saved from my sin then
62:34
what is it what is the whole thing
62:36
and so there's this um this theological
62:39
conversation about
62:40
well maybe salvation can make sense as
62:44
becoming a certain kind of human
62:48
even if we subtract from that you know
62:51
the necessary
62:52
sin and death component as a way to
62:54
start the whole thing maybe we can still
62:55
think of salvation as being saved to
62:57
some kind of higher uh existence rather
63:00
than
63:01
from some kind of sin that automatically
63:04
damns us all
63:05
now i don't want to necessarily remove
63:07
sin from the whole story at all i'm just
63:09
agreeing with your point here that if if
63:11
you know if that's how you came into
63:12
christianity then
63:14
tipping that apple card over is going to
63:17
be very difficult
63:17
very scary very scary yeah and
63:22
again i would just say the apostle paul
63:25
didn't say the wrath of god compels us
63:28
or he didn't paul didn't say the anger
63:31
of god
63:32
compels us paul didn't say the judgment
63:34
of god compels us he said the love
63:36
of god compels us he said in romans 5
63:39
god demonstrated his love for us that
63:42
while we were still sinners are still
63:43
his
63:44
enemy in some translations christ died
63:46
for us
63:48
there's dissonance there with the penal
63:51
substitutionary view of atonement that
63:54
jesus the action of jesus life death and
63:57
resurrection
63:58
isn't actually to save us from wrath
64:00
it's actually to express the love of god
64:02
towards us
64:03
yeah in john 3 16
64:06
the thing you may read on one of those
64:08
tracks i mean that's what it's all about
64:09
i mean
64:10
also says it was for the joy set before
64:13
jesus that he endured the cross not for
64:14
the
64:15
satisfaction not for the appeasement of
64:17
his anger
64:18
yeah but there is a there's some nuance
64:20
some tension to be held because
64:22
you know right after romans 5 we're in
64:24
romans 7 and it's wretched man
64:26
that i am who can save me and then and
64:28
then we move on and there's kind of this
64:30
you know it's that judgment and then
64:33
oh the answer the salvation uh that that
64:36
immediately follows and
64:39
and this is especially
64:42
especially in a in a culture where we're
64:45
where we're all told that we're like
64:47
we're okay we're
64:48
we're all doing the right thing we're
64:50
all we're worthy of acceptance just as
64:52
we are
64:53
i i don't know if this is me speaking or
64:56
if this is my fundy background speaking
64:58
but there's a
64:59
there's a comfort level i i need to know
65:02
that i'm okay just how i am
65:04
and i think the looking into certain
65:07
parts of the scripture we see
65:08
actually there's a really deep
65:10
fundamental problem
65:12
with well there's a deep problem the
65:14
question is is it really fundamental
65:16
the the fundamental language is going to
65:18
be problematic that that's what becomes
65:20
controversial is it part of
65:22
my nature my essential nature to be
65:24
sinful
65:26
the view that it is comports really well
65:28
with
65:29
the substitutionary atonement view
65:31
because on that view humans are
65:33
in that broader theological view humans
65:36
are
65:37
damned by their sin they are
65:40
uh lifeless dead in sin literally and i
65:43
would agree with that
65:44
personally i mean doesn't sound like you
65:46
do kyle but i do
65:47
i don't think that's the whole story uh
65:49
because that's difficult to square with
65:51
genesis
65:52
where humans are essentially good and
65:55
have the image of god on them
65:57
yeah and they are life isn't the fall
66:00
the entire
66:02
like that's the entire thing though it
66:04
was good yeah creation fell
66:06
everybody you know it's that mark of
66:08
atom that's then on all of us until the
66:10
new atom comes
66:11
so the question then is how far did we
66:13
fall
66:14
did we fall to the point of losing the
66:16
essential goodness
66:18
such that it requires another creative
66:20
act of god to give it
66:22
or did we just kind of mar it such that
66:25
we can still
66:26
be brought back and this is
66:28
fundamentally the disagreement between
66:30
reformed theology and
66:32
a more you could call it armenian if you
66:34
want but
66:35
a different theological strand that says
66:39
that didn't that didn't do away with the
66:41
human essence it was a later accretion
66:43
it was unfortunate but it's fixable and
66:46
it's we're not
66:47
killing a thing and then creating a
66:49
brand new thing we're fixing a thing
66:51
and i mean to your roman 7 citation
66:54
elliot
66:55
i would just say paul isn't talking
66:57
about his eternal
66:59
self there he's talking about the
67:02
struggle against
67:03
his flesh he's talking about the
67:04
struggle against his
67:06
deep innate desire to sin to you know
67:09
where he's going through this like the
67:10
stuff
67:11
the exact stuff that i don't want to do
67:12
i do wretched man that i am and when he
67:15
says that it's not like
67:16
god's wrath is resting upon me he's
67:18
frustrated by his own
67:20
self by his own sin it's not making any
67:23
pronouncements on him like how god sees
67:25
me it's just like this
67:26
sucks brokenness which every human being
67:29
carries
67:30
really sucks like it hurt it sucks to
67:32
hurt people
67:33
when i don't mean to it sucks to to
67:36
violate
67:37
things with my wife when i don't mean to
67:39
that sucks and it feels like it's almost
67:41
inevitable
67:42
but then he comes and brings and here's
67:44
the beauty of it
67:45
god in christ condemns sin and sinful
67:48
man so that it's over
67:49
for once and for all and he did that and
67:52
he just said it in romans 5
67:53
because he was motivated it was
67:55
motivated by his love not his wrath
67:57
i hate myself when i look at myself god
67:59
that's the miracle actually god doesn't
68:02
god doesn't hate me even though i might
68:04
hate myself and my sin god sees me in my
68:06
sin
68:06
it's real it's broken but he still loves
68:09
me
68:09
and he still made a way for me to be
68:12
with him so i would say
68:14
yeah you can have that but don't don't
68:16
put that on god
68:17
don't don't let don't put that view of
68:20
yourself on god because that is
68:21
far from god's view of you yeah part of
68:24
what we're running into here is the fact
68:26
that all of these theories have their
68:28
roots in the same text
68:30
that they're all represented in the
68:32
bible and our need to make them all
68:34
consistent
68:36
is and this might be a little bit
68:37
controversial statement here
68:39
our our need to make them consistent
68:41
might itself be
68:43
expecting the bible to be something that
68:45
it's not
68:46
so we we need to ask the question i'm
68:49
stealing this from peter ends
68:51
we need to ask the question of
68:55
what what right do i have to expect the
68:58
bible to
68:59
to live up to what i want it to be what
69:02
can i really expect from it given the
69:03
kind of document that it is and the fact
69:06
is it's written by a lot of different
69:07
people
69:08
who sometimes contradict each other and
69:11
sometimes contradict themselves
69:13
and so we do find these various motifs
69:16
in there and some of these motifs
69:18
seem to be in tension with each other
69:20
and part of the reason for that is
69:21
because
69:22
the authors of scripture were sometimes
69:24
in tension with each other
69:25
so i don't want i think the project of
69:28
trying to make a consistent
69:29
atonement theory is a really good and
69:31
worthwhile project
69:33
but what you see a lot of times in these
69:35
debates between these theologians is
69:37
they're all trying to show how their
69:39
theory makes all the texts consistent
69:42
yeah instead of admitting that the texts
69:44
aren't consistent
69:45
uh and when when we pick our favorite
69:48
theory that's what we're doing we're
69:49
picking the part of the text that
69:51
seems to best explain how we understand
69:54
god from an extra biblical perspective
69:56
yeah and as much as i would like to
69:58
think that my
70:00
favorite theory of atonement again shout
70:02
out christus victor
70:04
is the best and the only one in the game
70:07
the
70:07
when we talk about the atonement we're
70:08
not talking about a portrait we're
70:10
talking about a mosaic we're talking
70:12
about
70:12
something that is all-encompassing and
70:15
you
70:16
it the fat again the diamond has a
70:19
never-ending amount of facets to it so
70:21
we can actually enjoy
70:23
and glean from all of these many really
70:25
in many ways
70:27
and we can actually let the the rough
70:29
stuff the
70:30
in untrue the the stuff that paints god
70:33
in a really ugly way
70:35
we can let that fall off and feel really
70:37
okay with that and that's
70:38
that's good and scriptural how about you
70:41
kyle where do you land
70:42
on this on these theories of atonement
70:45
how do you look at it yeah so
70:49
i wouldn't i wouldn't be totally happy
70:50
with any of these views on their own i
70:52
mean they all have
70:53
issues that kind of make me a little bit
70:55
uncomfortable the way i
70:56
i've sort of sorted it out in my mind is
70:59
uh
70:59
we can we can distinguish all of the
71:02
important aspects of all of these
71:04
theories and we can kind of classify
71:07
them
71:08
by asking three main questions or these
71:10
questions
71:11
help to explain how these theories have
71:13
been classified
71:15
so we can ask these three questions who
71:18
what
71:18
and how who would be the question of who
71:21
are the main characters
71:22
in this story and for objective theories
71:26
the answer is god god is the main
71:28
character he's who matters
71:29
and uh for crisis victor theories
71:32
it's also god but plus satan god plus
71:35
satan or god plus the powers
71:37
or something like that satan is a main
71:39
character in the christ the classical
71:41
views and in the subjective view the
71:43
answer is humans
71:44
humans are at center stage they're the
71:46
so you know asking the
71:48
the who question helps us to sort of
71:50
understand the classifications of these
71:51
theories
71:52
similarly we can ask what meaning what
71:55
is the problem
71:56
what is the main problem for the and
71:57
each one gives their own little
71:59
kind of answer to what the problem is
72:01
and most of them have something to do
72:02
with human sinfulness or human weakness
72:04
or something like that
72:06
and then most of the meat of the
72:08
discussion between
72:09
theologians about atonement is the how
72:12
question
72:13
how do we fix the problem how is it that
72:16
the main characters what do they do
72:19
to solve the answer to the what question
72:21
and that's where
72:22
most of the conversation that i've
72:24
encountered about atonement that's kind
72:26
of
72:26
the whole thing less common
72:30
is the question why and what i mean here
72:33
is why did this have to happen at all
72:37
why did jesus need to die was that
72:40
necessary
72:41
why did god need to become incarnate and
72:43
some gives a kind answer to that but if
72:45
you don't accept his first principles
72:46
you're not going to accept the rest of
72:48
it
72:48
and most theologians today would not
72:50
accept his first principles
72:51
i'd like personally to see more
72:54
conversation debate
72:55
about that question because it seems to
72:57
me that
72:58
and this pushes me a little bit towards
73:00
the subjective
73:01
point of view or the moral influence
73:03
point of view
73:04
it seems to me the answer to that
73:06
question if i want to avoid a really
73:08
problematic view of god's providence
73:11
and his control of nature then the
73:14
answer to the why
73:14
question needs to be something like
73:18
because humans decided that it
73:22
for me and there's some other
73:23
theological reasons for this
73:26
the answer cannot be god planned it that
73:28
way
73:30
god demanded that kind of sacrifice
73:35
because i have a hard time worshiping a
73:38
god who would set things up to play out
73:39
in that way intentionally
73:41
so the why question for me is really
73:43
primary
73:44
it seems to me that jesus didn't need to
73:46
die the
73:48
the god used this hateful
73:51
violent thing that humans did to save
73:54
them
73:55
and that he did that as a reaction to
73:56
our violence and this is why i really
73:58
like the
73:59
the scapegoat thing it really kind of
74:00
resonates with how i was already
74:02
thinking about this
74:03
so i would maybe gravitate towards the
74:05
non-violent points of view but also kind
74:07
of the subjective points of view
74:08
you know all the stuff we talked about
74:10
with substitution those are all real
74:12
problems i have with it
74:13
the crisis victor seems a little too
74:15
warfare-like for me
74:17
it seems to give a whole lot of power
74:19
and authority to satan
74:21
which i have a hard time with because i
74:24
don't really believe in demons anyways
74:26
you know there's all this stuff all this
74:28
baggage attached to all those so
74:30
at the end of the day i would kind of
74:31
gravitate towards the subjective views
74:33
got it i like it yep
74:36
the fun thing is that we get a lot of
74:39
conversations in places like this
74:42
proverbial bars to be able to noodle
74:44
over this stuff for a long long time
74:46
but yeah talking about things like the
74:47
atonement is good good fun
74:50
and i should say that if we were
74:51
actually having this conversation in a
74:53
bar we'd both probably be a lot more
74:54
drunk
74:55
than we are so we it's heavy stuff and
74:58
we've talked about it for quite a while
74:59
now so
75:01
i'm obsession might have taken a look
75:02
[Laughter]
75:06
well thanks everyone for following us
75:08
through what is a pretty
75:10
geeky topic we've really taken a deep
75:12
dive here and we hope that it was
75:13
valuable to you
75:14
we've had a whole lot of fun so thanks
75:17
for listening
75:27
thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed
75:29
this conversation you can find us on
75:31
social media
75:32
like and share and subscribe wherever
75:34
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75:35
if you're inclined to leave a review we
75:37
read through all of those and we love
75:39
the feedback
75:39
till next time this has been a pastor
75:42
and a philosopher
75:42
walking to a bar
75:53
[Music]
76:09
well i hope this prompts some thought in
76:11
some conversation
76:13
uh for you listening community uh we'd
76:16
love to hear from you love to hear what
76:18
your
76:18
your thoughts are and what what this is
76:21
prompting and pricking and
76:22
or if this is just old news to you but
76:24
we love
76:25
processing and journeying together with
76:27
you so
76:30
i didn't say i i was like i don't want
76:32
to say like good night and good luck
76:34
in god's speed i felt like that's that
76:37
was like inevitable coming up there
76:40
yeah um how do we should we bring it
76:42
home like that
76:43
yeah that was great just just give it
76:45
one more time
76:46
whenever you're done saying what you
76:48
mean to say then just stop talking yeah
76:50
well i know i know i love talking about
76:52
stuff like this with friends
76:54
um i love talking about stuff like this
76:56
with friends in bars even
76:58
or in kitchens or in living rooms but
77:00
this is fun stuff hopefully
77:02
we've given you some fodders for some
77:04
conversation and for some reflection
77:07
and if not there's always a skip button
77:09
so
77:11
let's maybe not offer that yeah yeah
77:14
they would have skipped
77:18
here we go well i love conversations
77:22
like this
77:22
particularly about the atonement but
77:24
just about things that we can look at
77:25
the complexity of something and turn it
77:27
inside out
77:29
hopefully this prompts some conversation
77:31
some thought
77:32
in your listeners we love thinking with
77:34
you we love hearing from you so let us
77:35
know what you're thinking what your what
77:37
your reflections are where you land
77:39
and where your faith is maybe your faith
77:41
journey has changed in
77:42
and been dynamic and you're maybe you're
77:46
in
77:46
the course of one of those points now
77:48
that's fun stuff we love hearing about
77:49
that
77:52
[ __ ] man i don't know what do i say to
77:55
landon like yeah if you have your last
77:57
sentence
77:57
everything else is gonna be good what's
77:58
the last sentence yeah what's the last
78:00
sentence
78:01
uh it might just be thanks for listening
78:05
like all right yep
78:08
well thanks for geeking out with us dear
78:10
listeners we
78:12
had a whole lot of fun i hope you did we
78:14
hope you did
78:15
and we're excited to geek out with you
78:24
again
78:27
you do it you do it