{"id":1829,"date":"2013-10-22T23:06:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T06:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2015-04-26T19:22:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T02:22:58","slug":"does-the-atonement-make-ethical-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/does-the-atonement-make-ethical-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the Atonement make ethical sense?"},"content":{"rendered":"

…and so, the Judge sentenced the murderer to go to the electric chair.\u00a0 But just then, the Judge’s only Son piped up.\u00a0 “Please punish me instead!\u00a0 That way, he won’t have to die.”\u00a0 Out of his compassion for the criminal, the Judge agreed.\u00a0 The Judge’s Son was executed, and the criminal went free.\u00a0 Tears pouring down his face, the killer vowed to be a new man from that day forward…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This parable is found nowhere in the Bible, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some version of it preached from the pulpit once or twice, as an analogy for what Jesus did for us on the Cross.\u00a0 Here’s the problem: the story is ethically outrageous.\u00a0 How could punishing an innocent person instead of a guilty person possibly be just?\u00a0 In the story, the Son volunteers to die; it’s not as though the judge just ordered the execution of some random person.\u00a0 But how could the guilt of punishment possibly be “transferred” from one person to another?\u00a0 The basic responsibility of the Judge to judge correctly is violated:<\/p>\n

Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent\u2014
\nthe Lord detests them both. \u00a0 (Prov 17:15)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Admittedly, the story I began with was just meant to be an illustration, not the actuality.\u00a0 There are many different metaphors in the Bible to describe the Atonement, and most of them don’t have to do with the justice system.<\/em>\u00a0 The Bible talks about ransoming slaves, healing diseases, growing new life, being adopted as sons, and so on.\u00a0 But the criminal justice metaphor is one of the most common analogies in Western Christianity, so let’s try to run with it for a moment.<\/p>\n

Metaphors do not need to accord with the reality in every single way.\u00a0 It is even possible to illustrate righteous behavior by means of a person who, in the fictional story, behaves immorally.\u00a0 (For example, in Jesus’ parable of the Dishonest Steward<\/a>, the steward’s clever way of enriching his master’s debtors by fraud, to get special treatment from them later, is an analogy<\/em> for how Christians should give away their “worldly” possessions to the poor in order to gain something more valuable.\u00a0 One is a sin and the other isn’t, but Jesus’ point is that they are <\/em>similarly clever.)<\/p>\n

However, in the (nonbiblical) story of the Judge’s Son, the ethics of the story is so anomalous that it seems to render suspect any meaning which can reasonably be obtained from the story.\u00a0 The motivations of the characters don’t make any sense, either from an altruistic or a selfish perspective, so it’s unclear how we should react, other than with horror at the perversion of justice.<\/p>\n

But now let’s change the setting a little bit.\u00a0 We’ll replace the criminal trial with a civil trial, and the death penalty with a fine:<\/p>\n

A man breaks his neighbor’s window.\u00a0 The neighbor sues, and the Judge orders the man to pay $200 to repair the broken window.\u00a0 However, the man is unable to pay, due to his poverty.\u00a0 So his friend kindly agrees to pay the fine instead.\u00a0\u00a0 The friend pays $200 to the neighbor, and the windowbreaker goes free.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Suddenly, most of the ethical problems seem to evaporate.\u00a0 Most of us would have no problem with a Judge allowing this.\u00a0 In certain cases, we might feel like it is was a little unfair for a perpetrator to get off scott-free, because someone else paid the fine.\u00a0 But here, the windowbreaker\u00a0couldn’t\u00a0<\/em>pay.\u00a0 In light of the circumstances, the resolution of the case seems reasonable.\u00a0 What is the difference?<\/p>\n

Part of it, presumably, is that we are more used to thinking of money as fungible than life. \u00a0<\/em>The concept of transferring debts is in accordance with our culture’s common sense, while paying an innocent life for a guilty life is not (and rightly so)!<\/p>\n

But I think the bigger issue here is the question of what the punishment is expected to accomplish.\u00a0 In the case of the fine, the main issue is that the window is broken<\/em>!\u00a0 The fact that the windowbreaker is guilty comes in only secondarily.\u00a0 Given that the new window needs to be paid for, it seems fair to assign the liability to the man who\u2014whether accidentally, or in a fit of rage\u2014broke the first one.\u00a0 But if someone else wants to repair the window, that solves the problem: (1) The neighbor is compensated for the damage to his building, so he has no right to object, (2) The friend is allowed to do whatever he likes with his own money, and (3) the windowbreaker is enabled to pay the fine.\u00a0 No more problem!<\/p>\n

Things are quite different in the case of a murderer, who pushes someone out the window and breaks their skull instead of the glass.\u00a0 The main problem is not the same.<\/p>\n

One might be tempted to say that the main problem in the criminal case is that the victim is dead.\u00a0 But that isn’t so!\u00a0 The death of the victim is the most tragic part of the situation, but it is not what the criminal trial is there to fix!\u00a0 <\/em>Sentencing murders to death does not bring back their victims.\u00a0\u00a0 Last I checked, not even a sentence of life-without-possibility-of-parole does that.\u00a0 No, in the criminal trial, punishing the criminal is the entire point<\/em> of the proceedings (although there are multiple goals<\/a> which this punishment might accomplish).<\/p>\n

Another way to see this, is to compare to a situation where the victim dies accidentally.\u00a0 In this case, the death of the victim<\/em> part is exactly the same.\u00a0 That they were murdered <\/em>is the crucial difference.\u00a0 This fact is not located in the victim (who may not have known whether or not the fall was an accident), rather it is located in the mind and heart of the murderer.\u00a0 The murderer kills the body of the victim, but it is their own soul which they are doing violence to.\u00a0 <\/em>If you murder someone, in the next moment you become the<\/em> sort of person who would <\/em>murder someone.<\/p>\n

So then, this is the stain which the criminal punishment is supposed to fix.\u00a0 As Socrates says in the Gorgias<\/a>, having wickedness in the soul is the worst thing that can possibly happen to you, and the guilty who are punished are benefited by it, since the punishment is a medicine for their wickedness.<\/p>\n

It then becomes clear why it is impossible for an innocent person to justly take on the punishment of a murderer.\u00a0 Because it would not in fact fix the problem.\u00a0 In the criminal case, it is the murderer <\/em>who is the broken window.\u00a0 Punishing the guilty party through the judicial system is our (usually very inadequate) way of trying to restore the window: to patch over the cracks with tape, or at least to sweep up the broken glass by taking away their power to hurt anyone else.\u00a0 Punishing an innocent person does no good at all.\u00a0 Unless…<\/p>\n

Unless things were so arranged, so that the death of the innocent person actually did <\/em>fix the broken window\u2014or to drop the analogy, what if Jesus’ death actually causes the stain in the murder’s soul to be cleansed and purified?\u00a0 Suppose that, by accepting Jesus’ death, the soul of the murderer is <\/em>put to death (Romans 6:6-11<\/a>) and then restored, so that the person who once hated his victim is now is full of love and compassion.\u00a0 In that case, <\/em>justice would be done (but in a way invisible to the justice system, and perhaps even to society).\u00a0 The murderer would be simultaneously punished and forgiven by one and the same act of God.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>How is that even possible?\u00a0 Well, I assume it has something to do with the divinity of Jesus; that when God assumed a human nature, this affected his relationship with every human being who ever lived.\u00a0 I suppose it has something to do with the Holy Spirit tampering with the neural network of our brain, after we give him permission to do so.\u00a0 I believe it has something to do with the omnipotent Father wanting to express his forgiveness through a tangible, observable event taking place in spacetime history.<\/p>\n

But now we are asking a different question: does the Atonement make metaphysical sense?\u00a0 That is, is it the sort of thing which could happen in the real world, given the most basic structure of existence (whatever that is).\u00a0 The original question was whether the Atonement makes ethical<\/em> sense.\u00a0 That is, supposing it to be possible, would it be desirable?<\/p>\n

Assuming it is possible, it seems clear that offering the possibility of moral redemption to every person on Earth, no matter how wicked, is a very great benefit.\u00a0 One might still ask (if one is inclined to second-guess the Creator) whether we really need such a desperate remedy, and why God did not provide forgiveness in some less bloody way.\u00a0 This does not change the fact that it works.<\/p>\n

At the Cross, we see God’s solidarity with human beings.\u00a0 He suffers with the innocent, and for the guilty (and we have all been both at times).\u00a0 The Cross shows up the depths of human depravity, and reveals that the primary victim of our sin has always been God.\u00a0 But it is also the triumph of God’s mercy, because it shows us that no matter what suffering we cause to ourselves and others, God is there accepting the pain, refusing to retaliate and offering continual forgiveness.\u00a0 I cannot imagine any more graphic way for God to show this, than the way he did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…and so, the Judge sentenced the murderer to go to the electric chair.\u00a0 But just then, the Judge’s only Son piped up.\u00a0 “Please punish me instead!\u00a0 That way, he won’t have to die.”\u00a0 Out of his compassion for the criminal, the Judge agreed.\u00a0 The Judge’s Son was executed, and the criminal went free.\u00a0 Tears pouring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1829"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1858,"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions\/1858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wall.org\/~aron\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}