This is a blog to discuss philosophy, chess, politics,
C. S. Lewis, or whatever it is that I'm in the mood to discuss.
Saturday, November 28, 2020
Substitutionary atonement and intuition
It might seem counterintuitive to some people that punishing an innocent person can satisfy the demands of justice against a guilty person. It may be correct, but there is an intuitive barrier to get over.
From a strictly human perspective, it definitely makes no sense in a direct comparison.
The closest we could get would be something like financial debt, for example your child gets in heavy credit card debt and you pay it off for him. It is proper for the creditor to then declare the debt paid, despite it not being paid by the actual debtor.
The problem is that, intuitively, if one person bears the punishment, then no one else does. But we obviously die. So Jesus couldn't have substituted death.
2 comments:
From a strictly human perspective, it definitely makes no sense in a direct comparison.
The closest we could get would be something like financial debt, for example your child gets in heavy credit card debt and you pay it off for him. It is proper for the creditor to then declare the debt paid, despite it not being paid by the actual debtor.
The problem is that, intuitively, if one person bears the punishment, then no one else does. But we obviously die. So Jesus couldn't have substituted death.
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