Stephen
Kershnar
The Philosophy of Easter
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March
29, 2016
Most of this paper’s readers
celebrated Easter this past Sunday. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead in 30 AD. It occurred on the third day of burial after the
Romans crucified him in 30 AD. The resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of
the Christian faith (1 Corinthians 15: 12-20). The holiday is linked to atonement theory. Atonement theory asserts that Jesus’
suffering and death explains why God forgives or pardons people for their sins.
The Bible repeatedly asserts this. See, for example, 1 Peter 2:24 and 1 Peter
3:18. Let’s consider whether atonement theory is true and, also, whether its
truth should matter to us.
The
philosophical issue surrounding atonement theory is why God would cause or
allow Jesus to suffer horribly and die as a way to forgive ordinary people for
their sins. Here I will leave aside historical theories such as ransom theory
(Jesus gave his own life as a sacrifice to buy mankind from Satan) and focus on
more plausible theories.
First,
consider penal substitution theory. This theory was defended by Protestant
luminaries such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley. This theory
holds that God punished Jesus, who didn’t sin, instead of punishing people who
did and that this substitution justifies his forgiving our sins. The problem is
that penal substitution is unjust. If a young man commits a brutal battery and
rape, it is unjust for the state to punish someone else for what he did. For
example, it would be wrong to punish his mother, even if she volunteers to be
punished in his place.
The best
theories of punishment assert that the right to be punished is held by the
victim or her agent (consider, for example, her government). A third party does
not have a right to punish a wrongdoer because the wrongdoer did not wrong her.
God is not the victim of most, if not all, of people’s sins. In the above
example, he was not the one who was beaten and raped. Thus God has no more right
to punish sinners than a random Chinese man has a right to punish an American
who murdered someone in Detroit.
God
would have a right to punish sinners who victimize others if he owned people similar
to how farmers own livestock. It is a loathsome theory, though, that one person
can own a second in this way. Things might get murky if the second consents to
being owned, but we can ignore this technicality because many people have not
consented to God owning them.
Worse, many
instances of sins (consider, for example, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath,
envy, and pride) do not victimize anyone and hence do not justify punishment. Even
if they did justify punishment, they surely do not justify eternal torment in
hell. It is incredibly harsh to impose an infinite punishment on someone for a finite
wrong. This would be analogous to sending someone to prison for fifty years for
stealing a candy bar (and not even a good one, just a Peppermint Patty).
If we
assume the trinity is true, then in some sense God punished himself in order to
forgive or pardon others. It is hard to see how this is any different from his
just forgiving or pardoning them and thus, on this account, Jesus’ suffering
would be irrelevant to God’s forgiveness.
Second,
consider debt theory. Catholic luminaries St. Anselm and St. Aquinas held this
view (Satisfaction Theory). This theory holds that human beings are so full of
evil that they owe a debt to God that they cannot pay. Jesus’ suffering and
death pays off their debt and allows them to go to heaven.
The
problem with this theory is that it is unclear why Jesus’ suffering pays off
people’s debts. Compensation in law (consider, for example, damages in tort
law) aims to restore a victim to as good a position as she would have been in
had she not be victimized. It is unclear how Jesus’ suffering and death could
compensate God in this way for humanity’s sinful ways. It is not like the
payment of money or services that are ordinarily used to compensate victims.
Also, it is hard to see why God doesn’t just forgive
everyone’s debt. Creditors forgive debtors all the time. Consider, for example,
how often fathers forgive their children’s debts.
Moreover,
as in the punishment case, wrongdoers do not victimize God. Rather they victimize
each other. The rapist mentioned above should be made to pay compensatory
damages to his victim, but not the victim’s father, sister, or aunt. Similarly,
wrongdoers didn’t victimize God so they don’t owe him a debt.
Again,
the doctrine of the trinity makes debt theory mysterious. It is hard to see why
God would sacrifice himself to pay off someone’s debt. Again, it is also hard
to see how this is any different from his just forgiving their debt and thus,
on this account, Jesus’ suffering would be irrelevant to God’s forgiveness.
Other
theories of Jesus’ sacrifice make less sense than do the punishment and debt theories.
The notion that Jesus died to teach people to refrain from sin, love God, or
become virtuous is strange in that this is an inefficient way to present such a
message. Why not do it directly? Alternatively, why not change people’s hearts?
In any case, hell or annihilation would be an appropriate response to people’s failure
to learn only if this failure warranted punishment or a debt and so we return
to the above theories.
Given
the joy of Easter, chock full of family, friends, church, brunch, and chocolate
Easter bunnies, it seems churlish to ask whether the holiday makes sense.
Still, we want our holidays to make sense or, if they don’t, we might want to
keep that in the back of our mind so that we emphasize the family, friends, and
laughter and deemphasize the theory leading people to get together.
No comments:
Post a Comment