I've noticed for a while that when I hold someone in very deep contempt, what I find myself saying is some version of "God will handle them."
Their immortal soul, if such exists, isn't really my business. I don't want that responsibility.
And given that Judas was basically foreordained to betray Jesus according to a Divine Plan, punishing him for eternity for being God's pawn seems rather an injustice, does it not?
Brings up three questions:
Where is free will in this?
Where is love in this?
Where is justice in this?
Of course, there is the old cop out: Our ways are not God's way,
I've noticed for a while that when I hold someone in very deep contempt, what I find myself saying is some version of "God will handle them."
Their immortal soul, if such exists, isn't really my business. I don't want that responsibility.
And given that Judas was basically foreordained to betray Jesus according to a Divine Plan, punishing him for eternity for being God's pawn seems rather an injustice, does it not?
Brings up three questions:
Where is free will in this?
Where is love in this?
Where is justice in this?
Of course, there is the old cop out: Our ways are not God's way,
All good questions. And I'm certainly not fond of that cop out. As a human being who was raised in a theodicy-afflicted household, I feel a compulsion to grasp God's ways, if only for my own safety and sanity.
Ya know, the New Testament does not indicate what happened to Judas' soul. Augustine felt he was damned for eternity, but Origen Chrysostom and others emphasize God only knows the final state of any soul.
Mattew 27.3 indicates Judas did repent, and he returned the money. Even though he committed suicide, scripture does not interpret it as sealing his fate.
Acts 1 describes the death of Judas differently, but still does not pronounce damnation.
I think we just have to leave this in God's hands.
Judas only returned the money in Matthew. In Acts, he used it to buy a field.
I've noticed for a while that when I hold someone in very deep contempt, what I find myself saying is some version of "God will handle them."
Their immortal soul, if such exists, isn't really my business. I don't want that responsibility.
And given that Judas was basically foreordained to betray Jesus according to a Divine Plan, punishing him for eternity for being God's pawn seems rather an injustice, does it not?
I don’t think that Judas was foreordained to do so – we all still have free will – but from God’s perspective transcending time, as I understand the orthodox position on His nature, when he inspired those prophecies, he could talk about what He saw Judas doing from the point of view of His “eternal Now,” as Lewis puts it.
I do not think that Judas was in any way a hero. I do hope that he can and will be redeemed, but I do not know.
I've noticed for a while that when I hold someone in very deep contempt, what I find myself saying is some version of "God will handle them."
Their immortal soul, if such exists, isn't really my business. I don't want that responsibility.
And given that Judas was basically foreordained to betray Jesus according to a Divine Plan, punishing him for eternity for being God's pawn seems rather an injustice, does it not?
I don’t think that Judas was foreordained to do so – we all still have free will – but from God’s perspective transcending time, as I understand the orthodox position on His nature, when he inspired those prophecies, he could talk about what He saw Judas doing from the point of view of His “eternal Now,” as Lewis puts it.
I do not think that Judas was in any way a hero. I do hope that he can and will be redeemed, but I do not know.
I wouldn't say he was a hero, but there is a sense that he was set up.
Judas only returned the money in Matthew. In Acts, he used it to buy a field.
You never know with Judas, it seems.
You never know with the people who wrote about Judas, none of whom ever met the man or were present during the events. It seems.
AFF
We had that conversation in seminary, how if you look at the gospels, his character gets increasingly denigrated over the course of the texts until John outright accuses him of embezzlement.
Now, it's possible he was one, but it's interesting that of all the gospel writers, only one saw fit to put that accusation into print.
I'm aware that I'm not going to change anybody's mind about Judas. My POV weighs against centuries of scapegoating narratives that can't be undone without calling into question many of our assumptions about the inerrancy of scripture and the Gospel writers themselves.
But in my mind, Judas is completely a hero. There is no other way the story we celebrate every Easter, the victory of life over death and a Resurrection, could have happened without him. He played a necessary role in those events and even Jesus wished it could have been otherwise, (Not my will, but Thine) but it was as it had to be.
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb. I just can't with that.
I'm aware that I'm not going to change anybody's mind about Judas. My POV weighs against centuries of scapegoating narratives that can't be undone without calling into question many of our assumptions about the inerrancy of scripture and the Gospel writers themselves.
But in my mind, Judas is completely a hero. There is no other way the story we celebrate every Easter, the victory of life over death and a Resurrection, could have happened without him. He played a necessary role in those events and even Jesus wished it could have been otherwise, (Not my will, but Thine) but it was as it had to be.
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb.
AFF
I mean, there's a theological model called "fortunate fall" that basically says we should thank Adam and Eve for sinning because without their "mistake," we wouldn't have experienced redemption.
This does kind of run up against Paul's "shall we sin that grace my abound? Certainly not!"
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb.
“Everyone” does that?
That’s actually not at all my experience.
I mean, there's a theological model called "fortunate fall" that basically says we should thank Adam and Eve for sinning because without their "mistake," we wouldn't have experienced redemption.
This does kind of run up against Paul's "shall we sin that grace my abound? Certainly not!"
Interesting conversation, for sure.
I mean, turn the logic around. Imagine that Jesus didn't have to go to the cross, didn't have to suffer traumatic humiliation torture and death. Imagine that he didn't have to punch a hole in the back wall of Hades and let all the trapped souls out. Imagine that he didn't have to be resurrected and that he didn't spend forty days with the disciples after that giving them the tools to evangelize the world.
Imagine that none of that had to happen. What would we be left with? A few sayings about forgiveness from a minor prohet? Do we imagine that something greater and more compelling than THIS STORY could have somehow emerged from a few men wandering around Gallilee until they grew old and died?
This is the greatest story ever told, and to imagine that any of the people who drove these events, from Judas to Peter to Pilate to Longinus to the Marys and everyone after were not somehow great heroes supporting the greatest Hero of all time to me is just, I dunno, not really reverent or appreciative of those people's pains and sacrifices.
I'm aware that I'm not going to change anybody's mind about Judas. My POV weighs against centuries of scapegoating narratives that can't be undone without calling into question many of our assumptions about the inerrancy of scripture and the Gospel writers themselves.
But in my mind, Judas is completely a hero. There is no other way the story we celebrate every Easter, the victory of life over death and a Resurrection, could have happened without him. He played a necessary role in those events and even Jesus wished it could have been otherwise, (Not my will, but Thine) but it was as it had to be.
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb.
AFF
I mean, there's a theological model called "fortunate fall" that basically says we should thank Adam and Eve for sinning because without their "mistake," we wouldn't have experienced redemption.
"O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!" - from the Exsultet.
I'm aware that I'm not going to change anybody's mind about Judas. My POV weighs against centuries of scapegoating narratives that can't be undone without calling into question many of our assumptions about the inerrancy of scripture and the Gospel writers themselves.
But in my mind, Judas is completely a hero. There is no other way the story we celebrate every Easter, the victory of life over death and a Resurrection, could have happened without him. He played a necessary role in those events and even Jesus wished it could have been otherwise, (Not my will, but Thine) but it was as it had to be.
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb.
AFF
I mean, there's a theological model called "fortunate fall" that basically says we should thank Adam and Eve for sinning because without their "mistake," we wouldn't have experienced redemption.
The felix culpa, as expressed in the Exsultet:
O felix culpa,
quæ talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
Or as expressed in Adam lay ybounden:
Ne hadde the appil take ben,
the appil taken ben,
Ne hadde never our lady
a ben hevene quen.
Blyssid be the tyme
that appil take was!
Therfore we mown syngyn
Deo gratias.
Nor had the apple taken been,
the apple taken been,
Then had never Our Lady,
a-been heaven’s queen.
Blessed be the time
that apple taken was!
Therefore we may singen Deo gratias!
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb. I just can't with that.
I certainly don't see Him as dead and gone the rest of the year--not even on Good Friday itself.
I mean, turn the logic around. Imagine that Jesus didn't have to go to the cross, didn't have to suffer traumatic humiliation torture and death. Imagine that he didn't have to punch a hole in the back wall of Hades and let all the trapped souls out. Imagine that he didn't have to be resurrected and that he didn't spend forty days with the disciples after that giving them the tools to evangelize the world.
Imagine that none of that had to happen. What would we be left with? A few sayings about forgiveness from a minor prohet? Do we imagine that something greater and more compelling than THIS STORY could have somehow emerged from a few men wandering around Gallilee until they grew old and died?
If Jesus didn't have to go to the cross to die and rise again to save us from sin and death? So like, if we had never fallen? Would those people (as well as everyone else, including us) have even grown old and/or died? Or do you mean if He had had some other way to save us from sin and death without those specific actions? In any case, I can't see how He would have only been regarded as a minor prophet.
As for thanking the participants in Jesus' life and death, I'm certainly not thanking everyone, like (for example) Satan for tempting Him.
As Shipmates likely remember, I'm a huge BDSM enthusiast, and consider it to have very positive spiritual elements, but I don't believe in revering those who mocked and tortured and flogged Jesus, nor who crucified Him. He said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do," not "Great job, guys!"
As for Judas,
The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. (KJV)
IMO there's no point in speaking about what coulda shoulda or woulda been better or worse. The events of the story remain what they are.
Jesus did better than give his tormentors a thumbs up. He gave them forgiveness. A get out of jail free card that set them free of any karmic obligation.
The Gospel writer is entitled to his opinion on the matter. I think the only person entitled to tell us whether or not it would have been better for him not to be born is Judas himself. I feel pretty certain he's somewhere still living out the karma of that life, but I'm not certain where we might find him to ask him.
I’m sorry, but a thumbs up is not the same as forgiveness. A thumbs up is saying “hey, you did a great job.” Forgiveness is saying “hey, you did something really wrong, but I forgive you.”
I trust the Gospel writers on this matter.
I believe Judas is in the afterlife; I don’t believe in reincarnation.
Obviously we may disagree on some of these points.
The Gospel writer is entitled to his opinion on the matter. I think the only person entitled to tell us whether or not it would have been better for him not to be born is Judas himself.
I admit I wonder exactly what was meant by “it would have been better had he not been born.” I don’t think it means he’s damned, at least that’s not a necessary reading of it. I often hear it as an acknowledgment of the personal hell Judas will feel, which will lead him to suicide.
As a side note, the context for Judas being described as “better off if he had not been born” is that that’s what Jesus Himself said, which is according to the gospel writer, but it’s not like just a side comment by the gospel writer. And that’s the source telling us what Judas did in the first place.
I think Jesus is more a reliable source about Judas than Judas’ point of view, or for that matter about any of us than our own point of view.
I see Jesus' remark about it would have been better if (Judas) had not been born more as a Semitic idiom--a strong lament but not referring to eternal damnation. It is used to express horror at his action. There is grief over his choices. And there are terrible consequences he brings on himself. Simply put it means "This is a terrible, tragic path." It does not mean Judas is damned forever.
I'd certainly say that for my own life, and thus I think I'd extend it to any other. If things had gone differently, we'd all not be having this conversation, so it'd be meaningless to consider.
There's certainly a measure of scapegoating in the story. Certainly Judas wasn't solely responsible for crucifixion. Romans had already established the practice. Within the gospels, there were a whole crowd of people who were more than happy to encourage its practice. Judas as merely the one who went from being on the inside to being on the outside, a "traitor."
Funny, I recently watched a local theater to a superb musical production of Ragnarok, link here. And it's interesting that in the Christian story, most of the disciples don't really get personae the way that all of Odin's kids are given very clear archetypes that are constantly interacting with each other. Maybe it's because we are monotheists, the apostles end up becoming "just folks," so they're not allowed to become reduced or elevated into archetypes...except for Judas Iscariot.
And in the gospels, it does seem like his villainy gets embellished as the story gets retold.
Given what being crucified entails, I could imagine why Jesus might say some rather unkind words to the one who set him up. That said, if this was foreordained by his Father, the whole thing was a set up. Surely Jesus knew what was going to happen, surely he knew that if he walked into Jerusalem and raised a ruckus on a feast day, there would be consequences. You don't need divine omniscience to see that one coming.
It's always an interesting question, how much of Jesus' foreshadowing in the gospels comes out of his historical mouth and how much is authorial insertion.
Re Judas. A story I heard from a missionary. Can’t remember the community he was talking about but they were presented with the first translation of the gospels they had ever had the opportunity to read.
…
There was a long and quite complicated explanation about how they could possibly have seen it that way, given their culture. I confess I’ve completely forgotten the substance of that explanation.
You may be thinking of the Peace Child, and Don Richardson, who worked as a missionary among the Sawi people of Western New Guinea, Indonesia:
Missionary historian Ruth A. Tucker writes:
As he learned the language and lived with the people, he became more aware of the gulf that separated his Christian worldview from the worldview of the Sawi: "In their eyes, Judas, not Jesus, was the hero of the Gospels, Jesus was just the dupe to be laughed at." Eventually Richardson discovered what he referred to as a Redemptive Analogy that pointed to the Incarnate Christ far more clearly than any biblical passage alone could have done. What he discovered was the Sawi concept of the Peace Child.
Thanks very much pease.
That looks like it. I didn’t hear the story from Don Richardson, but I now remember it was about a New Guinea community. The missionary learned about it in training as a timely warning of the need to learn the world views of other communities.
It is a fascinating insight, both into the values of other communities and the indispensable need to be incarnational when sharing faith.
I’m sorry, but a thumbs up is not the same as forgiveness. A thumbs up is saying “hey, you did a great job.” Forgiveness is saying “hey, you did something really wrong, but I forgive you.”
No it isn't the same as forgiveness. Forgiveness in this case is even more important than appreciation, because it sets the wrongdoer AND the one who is wronged free from the obligation to repeat the experience in opposite roles.
You see, there are only two things that I know that are worth doing in order to discharge the negativity that comes with karma and to maintain the equilibrium of that inner harmony.
The first thing is to appreciate everything. And if I can't appreciate then I have to forgive. And I have to forgive until I can appreciate. It's a systematic approach to being the purest kind of Love I can be, and the kind of love I want to be done to me.
I see Jesus' remark about it would have been better if (Judas) had not been born more as a Semitic idiom--a strong lament but not referring to eternal damnation. It is used to express horror at his action. There is grief over his choices. And there are terrible consequences he brings on himself. Simply put it means "This is a terrible, tragic path." It does not mean Judas is damned forever.
I see it that way as well. I see the entire scene as Judas being given his assignment. In one account Jesus even tells him to hurry up and get it done. I feel like those words, if they were ever said, wou;d have been Jesus acknowledging how difficult a time Judas was going to have and saying "That poor bugger" in some equivalent language.
To me the entire setup wasn't something Jesus just walked into. It was a plan. The Christ in Jesus had the upper hand and knew what needed to happen.
I believe Jesus sets everyone free from Hell, and I also believe that the Incarnation would have been sufficient to save us even if Jesus had lived to an old age and died peacefully in his sleep. That Jesus was crucified by the Romans or something like it was not necessary, just inevitable given that we need to be saved.
In any case, I don't think the alleged necessity of an act in the economy of salvation makes it not a bad act.
I believe Jesus sets everyone free from Hell, and I also believe that the Incarnation would have been sufficient to save us even if Jesus had lived to an old age and died peacefully in his sleep. That Jesus was crucified by the Romans or something like it was not necessary, just inevitable given that we need to be saved.
In any case, I don't think the alleged necessity of an act in the economy of salvation makes it not a bad act.
I'm not saying the events weren't traumatic, harmful, "bad" or even evil.
The fact that they were all of the above and more means that the people who undertook the necessities bore, and are possibly still bearing, the weight of their energetic consequences.
Not even Pilate or Longinus, who had a direct hand in the murder of Jesus, come in for the kind of vilification that Judas comes in for even though their karma is just as weighty.
At another level, it's a kind of personal sacrifice that hardly anyone notices, reflects on, or appreciates.
I do believe that if there had been any other way for Jesus to accomplish what He accomplished, He would have done it that way. He was alone and afraid and even He wished it could have been otherwise even in the final moments before his arrest.
Surely someone with a God's eye view of all possibilities, someone who was God in the flesh, could have seen all possible outcomes and if there had been one just as effective without the intense personal cost, that would have been the story. Like Dr. Strange using the timestone to view a billion different outcomes looking for an alternative route to victory, and coming up with exactly ONE scenario in which the Avengers would prevail and that was the most painful one to endure.
I'm disinclined to second-guess Jesus, the Christ, or the One in Whom we have our being on the final decision on the matter. This is the account of events we are left with and live with.
I believe Jesus sets everyone free from Hell, and I also believe that the Incarnation would have been sufficient to save us even if Jesus had lived to an old age and died peacefully in his sleep. That Jesus was crucified by the Romans or something like it was not necessary, just inevitable given that we need to be saved.
I agree with the first part of that sentence, but I have trouble agreeing with the second part and the following sentence, not because I think the Incarnation was insufficient in some way, but because I think the Scriptural witness is that the crucifixion was necessary. But I don’t begin to understand exactly why or how it was necessary, though I sometimes tend to think it’s more that is was necessary because we needed it.
Like Barth, I view the entirety of the “Christ Event”—Incarnation to Ascension—as what saves. And like @A Feminine Force, I’m inclined not to second-guess Jesus, and to assume he meant it when he prayed “If there’s another way, let’s go for that.”
Meanwhile, blaming Judas is just foreign to my experience of church.
I must say, I've never heard or seen anyone saying anything negative about him. It comes too close to the bone, I think--"there but for the grace of God go I" and all that.
I think of the crucifixion as the pattern of martyrdom. A Christian shouldn't refuse martyrdom, but they shouldn't go out of their way to seek it either.
Martin Luther King or Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood up for what was right regardless of the cost. But they didn't stand up because of the cost.
What is inevitable is in one sense necessary. But that doesn't mean it's required.
I must say, I've never heard or seen anyone saying anything negative about him. It comes too close to the bone, I think--"there but for the grace of God go I" and all that.
Indeed, and I hear the words of “Ah, Holy Jesus”:
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.
I remember reading somewhere that there was a folk Catholic tradition somewhere or other - the Philippines perhaps? - where Judas was regarded and celebrated as a Saint for his role in bringing about Christ's atoning death upon the cross.
Elsewhere, there are popular practices where effigies or representations of Judas are ritually destroyed.
I can't verify that but can understand how such traditions could develop.
I'd be with Origen and Chrysostom on this one but then my particular Tradition doesn't tend to speculate about people's final destiny and we aren't alone in that of course.
I don’t think that Judas was foreordained to do so – we all still have free will – but from God’s perspective transcending time, as I understand the orthodox position on His nature, when he inspired those prophecies, he could talk about what He saw Judas doing from the point of view of His “eternal Now,” as Lewis puts it.
Except for the bunch o'times when we (humans) do not have free will, because God himself hardens our hearts, overriding it.
I'm aware that I'm not going to change anybody's mind about Judas. My POV weighs against centuries of scapegoating narratives that can't be undone without calling into question many of our assumptions about the inerrancy of scripture and the Gospel writers themselves.
But in my mind, Judas is completely a hero. There is no other way the story we celebrate every Easter, the victory of life over death and a Resurrection, could have happened without him. He played a necessary role in those events and even Jesus wished it could have been otherwise, (Not my will, but Thine) but it was as it had to be.
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb.
AFF
I mean, there's a theological model called "fortunate fall" that basically says we should thank Adam and Eve for sinning because without their "mistake," we wouldn't have experienced redemption.
This does kind of run up against Paul's "shall we sin that grace my abound? Certainly not!"
Interesting conversation, for sure.
Yeah, that's a BS model. God could have redeemed humankind in a myriad of different ways, but none of them were chosen. The inefficiency and directly proportional amount of human suffering, not to mention eternal torture, makes it pretty suspect as a mechanism for redemption.
The Gospel writer is entitled to his opinion on the matter. I think the only person entitled to tell us whether or not it would have been better for him not to be born is Judas himself.
I admit I wonder exactly what was meant by “it would have been better had he not been born.” I don’t think it means he’s damned, at least that’s not a necessary reading of it. I often hear it as an acknowledgment of the personal hell Judas will feel, which will lead him to suicide.
Point of Order -- Judas' suicide is only specified in Matthew. Acts tells a much more passive tale -- dude just fell down and eviscerated himself.
I must say, I've never heard or seen anyone saying anything negative about him. It comes too close to the bone, I think--"there but for the grace of God go I" and all that.
I'm not so sure. I've known more than a couple of people who never did anything as remotely harmful to another person as Judas' betrayal (to Jesus' human form). It's only the Christian mindset to assume one's awfulness.
I must say, I've never heard or seen anyone saying anything negative about him. It comes too close to the bone, I think--"there but for the grace of God go I" and all that.
I'm not so sure.
You’re not so sure of what @Lamb Chopped has never heard or seen?
I've known more than a couple of people who never did anything as remotely harmful to another person as Judas' betrayal (to Jesus' human form). It's only the Christian mindset to assume one's awfulness.
That’s a massive overgeneralization. It may be the mindset of some, even many, Christians. But the Christian mindset? Only the Christian mindset?
I must say, I've never heard or seen anyone saying anything negative about him. It comes too close to the bone, I think--"there but for the grace of God go I" and all that.
I'm not so sure. I've known more than a couple of people who never did anything as remotely harmful to another person as Judas' betrayal (to Jesus' human form). It's only the Christian mindset to assume one's awfulness.
First of all, you're misunderstanding me. "There but for the grace of God go I" means that we ourselves are not convinced that, if we had been in Judas' shoes, we would have done any better. He was tempted, and he fell. Would I have done better? I hope so, but I've got no guarantee of it.
Second, it's NOT the Christian mindset to assume one's awfulness (in addition to what Nick says above). Christians generally assume one's brokenness--or one's ability to become awful, if you will--pick the phrasing you like. But whether that potential comes to full flower is a different matter. No newborn baby is awful. And God knows that individual humans--not just Christians--tend to be terrible at estimating their own "awfulness," if we must use that term. Some overestimate while others clearly underestimate. And that's before we even come to the question of what point there is in trying to evaluate one's own "awfulness." I myself think it's of limited value.
The simplest explanation I’ve heard for Judas’ death is that after he bought the field (presumably because they wouldn’t take the money back), he hanged himself in it, and then after his body and digestive stuff… er… fermented for a while (ew!)… the rope eventually broke and when his… swollen body… fell to the ground, it burst open.
I remember a bit of discussion about it, specifically with regard to Pharaoh and the plagues I think, on the old Ship. I think it could be interesting.
As a second note, I think I should point out that at very least if one accepts Matthew’s authorship, then it certainly was written from the point of view of someone who knew Judas. I should have mentioned that earlier, I think.
As well, regarding the idea that forgiveness means that neither the perpetrator nor the victim has to be incarnated again with their roles reversed, especially in this case… that assumes (1) reincarnation, and (2) that Jesus Himself, God Incarnate, would otherwise somehow be bound to be reborn corporeally (which is odd, since He was already resurrected, and Christianity fired not teach that He lost His Body after the Ascension) and then commit some kind of horrible act against the people who crucified Him.
None of this fits with anything I recognize as Christianity.
As a second note, I think I should point out that at very least if one accepts Matthew’s authorship, then it certainly was written from the point of view of someone who knew Judas. I should have mentioned that earlier, I think.
As well, regarding the idea that forgiveness means that neither the perpetrator nor the victim has to be incarnated again with their roles reversed, especially in this case… that assumes (1) reincarnation, and (2) that Jesus Himself, God Incarnate, would otherwise somehow be bound to be reborn corporeally (which is odd, since He was already resurrected, and Christianity fired not teach that He lost His Body after the Ascension) and then commit some kind of horrible act against the people who crucified Him.
But Jesus forgave his tormentors so none of those scenarios took place. Which is why it's so important to forgive. It was His most heavily emphasized teaching for a reason.
Which is why it's so important to forgive. It was His most heavily emphasized teaching for a reason.
I don't think that reason has anything to do with reincarnation, and certainly not with the idea that both the perpetrator and the victim will be doomed to repeat one sinning against the other, only with the roles reversed, in another lifetime. (I believe it to be because forgiveness is part of love, that God's own nature is Love, and love, even of our enemies, is what we are meant to do.)
And yet, here I am and I claim the title. Oh well.
Obviously we don't agree about the theology/metaphysics involved. I am sure there are other Christians who would take my own views the same way. But that's where respectful dialogue comes in. And in this case, I'm specifically talking about the doctrines of reincarnation and of the notion that Jesus would ever be subject, if He didn't pronounce forgiveness, of being forced to sin (which--He's Jesus. He's God. He doesn't sin, ever) against someone down the line (the whole idea, even within a reincarnation worldview, of not only the perpetrator but also the victim having to go through similar motions in a future life... what if the victim just says, "No, sorry, I'm not going to hurt this person they way they hurt me" when it's "their turn"?). I understand the idea that karma will lead to someone suffering as a result of their own misdeeds in a future life (within various teachings involving karma), but the victim being punished, or being forced to commit misdeeds because someone else hurt them? What religion teaches this?
Sorry, penal substitution atonement does not do it for me. It reduces God to a legal system instead of a living relationship. When you think about it, it also divides the Trinity. There is the imagery of divine child abuse too. And it implies God cannot forgive freely.
About all I can say is in the death of Jesus God is declaring how much God loves us in that God is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. The cross is God showing God's heart--not God satisfying God's wrath. It is the place where God absorbs human violence, not where God inflicts divine violence. The cross is something we do to Jesus, and God absorbs it, forgives it, and transforms it. The cross is not God changing God's mind about us. It is God revealing God's true feeling for us. On the cross God shows us there is no limit to God's self-giving love. God goes to the very depths of human suffering and death to be with us, heal us and bring us home. This is the theology of the cross.
Did either @ChastMastr or @A Feminine Force mention Penal Substitutional Atonement?
ChastMastr was challenging AFF's views on reincarnation and saying they were incompatible with the Christian view of the atonement and AFF was defending her Christian credentials.
I didn't see either of them refer to PSA specifically or perhaps I've missed something?
I am seeing PSA implied throughout the thread. The talk about Judas as necessary to the atonement which assumes a theory where Jesus had to die in a particular way. There are the debates of divine foreknowledge, necessity and culpability, The talk about Jesus having to suffer torture and death. Then there are the arguments about whether God required the crucifixion. These are all classic pressure points in PSA debates. I am just naming the elephant in the room.
We can certainly debate PSA if you wish and my own Tradition, among others, does have issues with that particular atonement model.
It's been debated many times aboard Ship and my impression would be that very few Shipmates hold to it in its 'full-on' form and of they did then with more nuanced and caveats to how it is often presented.
I'm not convinced you are naming 'the elephant in the room' so much as tilting at a strawman and reading things into other people's posts that they don't intend.
Which is why it's so important to forgive. It was His most heavily emphasized teaching for a reason.
I don't think that reason has anything to do with reincarnation, and certainly not with the idea that both the perpetrator and the victim will be doomed to repeat one sinning against the other, only with the roles reversed, in another lifetime.
The way I see it - YMMV:
Consider that the mechanics of perpetrator and victim are played out even in a single lifetime. The victim becomes the same type of abuser - the bullied becomes the bully, the molsted becomes the molester. Even the Bible speaks of generational curses that operate like this.
This is a mechanic that is built into our human experience. It persists until someone stops the cycle, and it's not enough for the last victim to say "I'm not doing that anymore". If the last victim still carries the energy of resentment and pain, that energy can't be neutralized until forgiveness neutralizes it. And if it's carried to the grave then the victim and perpetrator are bound to wrestle with it for another incarnation.
You can't set energies like that in motion and not be responsible for them. What was wounded in life cannot be healed in death. Only life is responsible for life.
Obviously we don't agree about the theology/metaphysics involved. I am sure there are other Christians who would take my own views the same way. But that's where respectful dialogue comes in. And in this case, I'm specifically talking about the doctrines of reincarnation and of the notion that Jesus would ever be subject, if He didn't pronounce forgiveness, of being forced to sin (which--He's Jesus. He's God. He doesn't sin, ever)....
OK that's a very old conundrum, where the idea of Jesus being fully human and fully divine and what does that mean, because sin is kind of a built-in feature of being human and if Jesus can't sin then he can't be human.
I have concluded that Jesus the man and the Christ in him are two separate aspects of the same being. I can explain the mechanics of that in PM if you are interested because I have concluded we are all similarly wired.
Jesus the man was perfectly capable of sinning but elected not to on account of being overshadowed by the Christ in him. So I can't even entertain the theoretical scenario you pur forward. All I can say is that if he hadn't forgiven, then he would have been subject to the same impartial mechanism as the rest of us.
... of not only the perpetrator but also the victim having to go through similar motions in a future life... what if the victim just says, "No, sorry, I'm not going to hurt this person they way they hurt me" when it's "their turn"?). I understand the idea that karma will lead to someone suffering as a result of their own misdeeds in a future life (within various teachings involving karma), but the victim being punished, or being forced to commit misdeeds because someone else hurt them?
No religion. These are my conclusions from observing human behaviour, my own internal milieu, from my experiences, insights, study, reasoning, past life memories, thunderbolt revelations, and from questions that were answered for me by Him during my own personal "road to Damascus" experience when I was 24.
These are the things I understand because I spent my entire life asking questions and resolving cognitive dissonances.
I don't expect anybody to agree with me, but I do thank you from my heart for this very civilized and cordial exchange. I feel seen, (if not precisely understood), and that's a very rare thing in my life.
At the risk of taking this thread off tangent into Christology, the RCs tried to resolve the conundrum you've identified in your post, AFF by positing the 'Immaculate Conception' of Mary in order to remove from Christ any taint of 'original sin.'
That only makes sense if we take a very 'Western' approach to the issue. There is no 'need' for an 'Immaculate Conception of Mary' in Orthodox theology because we don't have the same view of original sin.
Protestant Christians would equally reject it on other grounds.
It might be a glib thing for me to say, but from an Orthodox perspective the Nicene-Chalcedonian formularies resolve the issue anyway. It's 'a wrap' in Orthodox terms.
That doesn't mean that there aren't questions we can't raise or debatescwe can't have. Heck, the long-standing Christological issues between the 'Oriental' and the 'Eastern' (or 'Chalcedonian') Orthodox have yet to be resolved even though it's widely acknowledged that it's more a question of semantics than outright disagreements.
However we cut it, your particular views on reincarnation are 'outliers' in mainstream Christian terms, whether Orthodox, RC or Protestant. I mean no disrespect by that. You know only too well the kind of response you've received for airing them.
I can understand how such views can obviate fear of Hell in the traditional sense but it could be argued that it only serves to replace one kind of fear with another - a repeated cycle until that cycle is broken and final redemption achieved.
Whatever our understanding, we are all in our various ways talking about grace, love and redemption here.
For my own part I see no reason to engage in speculation about repeated reincarnations, interesting though that might be, as I've got enough on my plate dealing with the Creeds and with scripture understood in the context of Tradition - and with reference to small t tradition too, of course.
The idea of Hell isn't a pleasant or palatable one in any shape or form, even if we don't adopt Augustine's grotesque stance that the torment of the damned will enhance the bliss of the saved.
Few people appear to envisage Hell in crudely medieval terms these days.
But the concept is there. It's in scripture and Tradition/tradition and we have to deal with it.
How we do so is going to be determined to a large extent by how our respective traditions deal with it. It may sound glib but I find how my own Tradition deals with it enough to be going on with.
At the risk of taking this thread off tangent into Christology, the RCs tried to resolve the conundrum you've identified in your post, AFF by positing the 'Immaculate Conception' of Mary in order to remove from Christ any taint of 'original sin.'
That only makes sense if we take a very 'Western' approach to the issue. There is no 'need' for an 'Immaculate Conception of Mary' in Orthodox theology because we don't have the same view of original sin.
Protestant Christians would equally reject it on other grounds.
It might be a glib thing for me to say, but from an Orthodox perspective the Nicene-Chalcedonian formularies resolve the issue anyway. It's 'a wrap' in Orthodox terms.
I'm embarrassed to admit I don't know what the Orthodox position entails but if you would like to enlighten me I would be most interested to find out what it is, or where I could read about it.
The RC position was never for me very satisfactory except that I think it works better for me as a metaphor for Jesus being born without karma, having been carried in the womb of a woman who was similarly without karma.
However we cut it, your particular views on reincarnation are 'outliers' in mainstream Christian terms, whether Orthodox, RC or Protestant. I mean no disrespect by that. You know only too well the kind of response you've received for airing them.
I believe that once upon a time my POV was more common. There's some evidence that this POV was not such an outlier in first century Mediterranean thought, but perhaps it fell into disuse during a period where the extermination of heretics and heretical thinking was en vogue.
I can understand how such views can obviate fear of Hell in the traditional sense but it could be argued that it only serves to replace one kind of fear with another - a repeated cycle until that cycle is broken and final redemption achieved.
It can be argued that way, but to me it's not about fear. Fear would imply an incomplete understanding of myself and my place in the world, and in the cosmos. I understand myself, I understand who I am and where I come from, and I understand how to get to where I need to be before I exit my earth suit.
It's not about being afraid of consequences at all. It's about having absolute confidence in my agency at all levels of consciousness, and taking complete responsibility for everything I have set in motion for good or ill, intentionally or unintentionally.
Whatever our understanding, we are all in our various ways talking about grace, love and redemption here.
Yes. We most certainly are. It doesn't matter what we think about it as much as it matters that we actively undertake to be agents of grace and love as God's representatives on earth.
All the best to you, dear friend, as you wrestle with those things that remain on your plate.
Comments
Brings up three questions:
Where is free will in this?
Where is love in this?
Where is justice in this?
Of course, there is the old cop out: Our ways are not God's way,
All good questions. And I'm certainly not fond of that cop out. As a human being who was raised in a theodicy-afflicted household, I feel a compulsion to grasp God's ways, if only for my own safety and sanity.
Judas only returned the money in Matthew. In Acts, he used it to buy a field.
You never know with Judas, it seems.
You never know with the people who wrote about Judas, none of whom ever met the man or were present during the events. It seems.
AFF
I don’t think that Judas was foreordained to do so – we all still have free will – but from God’s perspective transcending time, as I understand the orthodox position on His nature, when he inspired those prophecies, he could talk about what He saw Judas doing from the point of view of His “eternal Now,” as Lewis puts it.
I do not think that Judas was in any way a hero. I do hope that he can and will be redeemed, but I do not know.
I wouldn't say he was a hero, but there is a sense that he was set up.
We had that conversation in seminary, how if you look at the gospels, his character gets increasingly denigrated over the course of the texts until John outright accuses him of embezzlement.
Now, it's possible he was one, but it's interesting that of all the gospel writers, only one saw fit to put that accusation into print.
But in my mind, Judas is completely a hero. There is no other way the story we celebrate every Easter, the victory of life over death and a Resurrection, could have happened without him. He played a necessary role in those events and even Jesus wished it could have been otherwise, (Not my will, but Thine) but it was as it had to be.
What chaps my arse about present day Christianity is that everyone says "Hallelujah He is risen, death is swallowed in victory" one day a year and behaves for the other 364 days like He is dead and gone for 2000 years and we can all blame Judas for putting Him in that tomb. I just can't with that.
AFF
I mean, there's a theological model called "fortunate fall" that basically says we should thank Adam and Eve for sinning because without their "mistake," we wouldn't have experienced redemption.
This does kind of run up against Paul's "shall we sin that grace my abound? Certainly not!"
Interesting conversation, for sure.
That’s actually not at all my experience.
I mean, turn the logic around. Imagine that Jesus didn't have to go to the cross, didn't have to suffer traumatic humiliation torture and death. Imagine that he didn't have to punch a hole in the back wall of Hades and let all the trapped souls out. Imagine that he didn't have to be resurrected and that he didn't spend forty days with the disciples after that giving them the tools to evangelize the world.
Imagine that none of that had to happen. What would we be left with? A few sayings about forgiveness from a minor prohet? Do we imagine that something greater and more compelling than THIS STORY could have somehow emerged from a few men wandering around Gallilee until they grew old and died?
This is the greatest story ever told, and to imagine that any of the people who drove these events, from Judas to Peter to Pilate to Longinus to the Marys and everyone after were not somehow great heroes supporting the greatest Hero of all time to me is just, I dunno, not really reverent or appreciative of those people's pains and sacrifices.
AFF
"O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!" - from the Exsultet.
O felix culpa,
quæ talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
Or as expressed in Adam lay ybounden:
Ne hadde the appil take ben,
the appil taken ben,
Ne hadde never our lady
a ben hevene quen.
Blyssid be the tyme
that appil take was!
Therfore we mown syngyn
Deo gratias.
Nor had the apple taken been,
the apple taken been,
Then had never Our Lady,
a-been heaven’s queen.
Blessed be the time
that apple taken was!
Therefore we may singen
Deo gratias!
ETA: Cross-posted with @Arethosemyfeet
I certainly don't see Him as dead and gone the rest of the year--not even on Good Friday itself.
If Jesus didn't have to go to the cross to die and rise again to save us from sin and death? So like, if we had never fallen? Would those people (as well as everyone else, including us) have even grown old and/or died? Or do you mean if He had had some other way to save us from sin and death without those specific actions? In any case, I can't see how He would have only been regarded as a minor prophet.
As for thanking the participants in Jesus' life and death, I'm certainly not thanking everyone, like (for example) Satan for tempting Him.
As Shipmates likely remember, I'm a huge BDSM enthusiast, and consider it to have very positive spiritual elements, but I don't believe in revering those who mocked and tortured and flogged Jesus, nor who crucified Him. He said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do," not "Great job, guys!"
As for Judas,
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew 26:24
Again, I pray for his ultimate redemption.
Jesus did better than give his tormentors a thumbs up. He gave them forgiveness. A get out of jail free card that set them free of any karmic obligation.
The Gospel writer is entitled to his opinion on the matter. I think the only person entitled to tell us whether or not it would have been better for him not to be born is Judas himself. I feel pretty certain he's somewhere still living out the karma of that life, but I'm not certain where we might find him to ask him.
AFF
I trust the Gospel writers on this matter.
I believe Judas is in the afterlife; I don’t believe in reincarnation.
Obviously we may disagree on some of these points.
I think Jesus is more a reliable source about Judas than Judas’ point of view, or for that matter about any of us than our own point of view.
There's certainly a measure of scapegoating in the story. Certainly Judas wasn't solely responsible for crucifixion. Romans had already established the practice. Within the gospels, there were a whole crowd of people who were more than happy to encourage its practice. Judas as merely the one who went from being on the inside to being on the outside, a "traitor."
Funny, I recently watched a local theater to a superb musical production of Ragnarok, link here. And it's interesting that in the Christian story, most of the disciples don't really get personae the way that all of Odin's kids are given very clear archetypes that are constantly interacting with each other. Maybe it's because we are monotheists, the apostles end up becoming "just folks," so they're not allowed to become reduced or elevated into archetypes...except for Judas Iscariot.
And in the gospels, it does seem like his villainy gets embellished as the story gets retold.
Given what being crucified entails, I could imagine why Jesus might say some rather unkind words to the one who set him up. That said, if this was foreordained by his Father, the whole thing was a set up. Surely Jesus knew what was going to happen, surely he knew that if he walked into Jerusalem and raised a ruckus on a feast day, there would be consequences. You don't need divine omniscience to see that one coming.
It's always an interesting question, how much of Jesus' foreshadowing in the gospels comes out of his historical mouth and how much is authorial insertion.
Thanks very much pease.
That looks like it. I didn’t hear the story from Don Richardson, but I now remember it was about a New Guinea community. The missionary learned about it in training as a timely warning of the need to learn the world views of other communities.
It is a fascinating insight, both into the values of other communities and the indispensable need to be incarnational when sharing faith.
No it isn't the same as forgiveness. Forgiveness in this case is even more important than appreciation, because it sets the wrongdoer AND the one who is wronged free from the obligation to repeat the experience in opposite roles.
You see, there are only two things that I know that are worth doing in order to discharge the negativity that comes with karma and to maintain the equilibrium of that inner harmony.
The first thing is to appreciate everything. And if I can't appreciate then I have to forgive. And I have to forgive until I can appreciate. It's a systematic approach to being the purest kind of Love I can be, and the kind of love I want to be done to me.
AFF
I see it that way as well. I see the entire scene as Judas being given his assignment. In one account Jesus even tells him to hurry up and get it done. I feel like those words, if they were ever said, wou;d have been Jesus acknowledging how difficult a time Judas was going to have and saying "That poor bugger" in some equivalent language.
To me the entire setup wasn't something Jesus just walked into. It was a plan. The Christ in Jesus had the upper hand and knew what needed to happen.
AFF
In any case, I don't think the alleged necessity of an act in the economy of salvation makes it not a bad act.
I'm not saying the events weren't traumatic, harmful, "bad" or even evil.
The fact that they were all of the above and more means that the people who undertook the necessities bore, and are possibly still bearing, the weight of their energetic consequences.
Not even Pilate or Longinus, who had a direct hand in the murder of Jesus, come in for the kind of vilification that Judas comes in for even though their karma is just as weighty.
At another level, it's a kind of personal sacrifice that hardly anyone notices, reflects on, or appreciates.
I do believe that if there had been any other way for Jesus to accomplish what He accomplished, He would have done it that way. He was alone and afraid and even He wished it could have been otherwise even in the final moments before his arrest.
Surely someone with a God's eye view of all possibilities, someone who was God in the flesh, could have seen all possible outcomes and if there had been one just as effective without the intense personal cost, that would have been the story. Like Dr. Strange using the timestone to view a billion different outcomes looking for an alternative route to victory, and coming up with exactly ONE scenario in which the Avengers would prevail and that was the most painful one to endure.
I'm disinclined to second-guess Jesus, the Christ, or the One in Whom we have our being on the final decision on the matter. This is the account of events we are left with and live with.
AFF
I agree with the first part of that sentence, but I have trouble agreeing with the second part and the following sentence, not because I think the Incarnation was insufficient in some way, but because I think the Scriptural witness is that the crucifixion was necessary. But I don’t begin to understand exactly why or how it was necessary, though I sometimes tend to think it’s more that is was necessary because we needed it.
Like Barth, I view the entirety of the “Christ Event”—Incarnation to Ascension—as what saves. And like @A Feminine Force, I’m inclined not to second-guess Jesus, and to assume he meant it when he prayed “If there’s another way, let’s go for that.”
Meanwhile, blaming Judas is just foreign to my experience of church.
Martin Luther King or Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood up for what was right regardless of the cost. But they didn't stand up because of the cost.
What is inevitable is in one sense necessary. But that doesn't mean it's required.
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.
Elsewhere, there are popular practices where effigies or representations of Judas are ritually destroyed.
I can't verify that but can understand how such traditions could develop.
I'd be with Origen and Chrysostom on this one but then my particular Tradition doesn't tend to speculate about people's final destiny and we aren't alone in that of course.
Yeah, that's a BS model. God could have redeemed humankind in a myriad of different ways, but none of them were chosen. The inefficiency and directly proportional amount of human suffering, not to mention eternal torture, makes it pretty suspect as a mechanism for redemption. Point of Order -- Judas' suicide is only specified in Matthew. Acts tells a much more passive tale -- dude just fell down and eviscerated himself.
I'm not so sure. I've known more than a couple of people who never did anything as remotely harmful to another person as Judas' betrayal (to Jesus' human form). It's only the Christian mindset to assume one's awfulness.
That’s a massive overgeneralization. It may be the mindset of some, even many, Christians. But the Christian mindset? Only the Christian mindset?
First of all, you're misunderstanding me. "There but for the grace of God go I" means that we ourselves are not convinced that, if we had been in Judas' shoes, we would have done any better. He was tempted, and he fell. Would I have done better? I hope so, but I've got no guarantee of it.
Second, it's NOT the Christian mindset to assume one's awfulness (in addition to what Nick says above). Christians generally assume one's brokenness--or one's ability to become awful, if you will--pick the phrasing you like. But whether that potential comes to full flower is a different matter. No newborn baby is awful. And God knows that individual humans--not just Christians--tend to be terrible at estimating their own "awfulness," if we must use that term. Some overestimate while others clearly underestimate. And that's before we even come to the question of what point there is in trying to evaluate one's own "awfulness." I myself think it's of limited value.
🤮 🤮 🤮
As well, regarding the idea that forgiveness means that neither the perpetrator nor the victim has to be incarnated again with their roles reversed, especially in this case… that assumes (1) reincarnation, and (2) that Jesus Himself, God Incarnate, would otherwise somehow be bound to be reborn corporeally (which is odd, since He was already resurrected, and Christianity fired not teach that He lost His Body after the Ascension) and then commit some kind of horrible act against the people who crucified Him.
None of this fits with anything I recognize as Christianity.
That point is debated in biblical scholarship.
But Jesus forgave his tormentors so none of those scenarios took place. Which is why it's so important to forgive. It was His most heavily emphasized teaching for a reason.
And yet, here I am and I claim the title. Oh well.
AFF
I don't think that reason has anything to do with reincarnation, and certainly not with the idea that both the perpetrator and the victim will be doomed to repeat one sinning against the other, only with the roles reversed, in another lifetime. (I believe it to be because forgiveness is part of love, that God's own nature is Love, and love, even of our enemies, is what we are meant to do.)
Obviously we don't agree about the theology/metaphysics involved. I am sure there are other Christians who would take my own views the same way. But that's where respectful dialogue comes in. And in this case, I'm specifically talking about the doctrines of reincarnation and of the notion that Jesus would ever be subject, if He didn't pronounce forgiveness, of being forced to sin (which--He's Jesus. He's God. He doesn't sin, ever) against someone down the line (the whole idea, even within a reincarnation worldview, of not only the perpetrator but also the victim having to go through similar motions in a future life... what if the victim just says, "No, sorry, I'm not going to hurt this person they way they hurt me" when it's "their turn"?). I understand the idea that karma will lead to someone suffering as a result of their own misdeeds in a future life (within various teachings involving karma), but the victim being punished, or being forced to commit misdeeds because someone else hurt them? What religion teaches this?
About all I can say is in the death of Jesus God is declaring how much God loves us in that God is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for us. The cross is God showing God's heart--not God satisfying God's wrath. It is the place where God absorbs human violence, not where God inflicts divine violence. The cross is something we do to Jesus, and God absorbs it, forgives it, and transforms it. The cross is not God changing God's mind about us. It is God revealing God's true feeling for us. On the cross God shows us there is no limit to God's self-giving love. God goes to the very depths of human suffering and death to be with us, heal us and bring us home. This is the theology of the cross.
ChastMastr was challenging AFF's views on reincarnation and saying they were incompatible with the Christian view of the atonement and AFF was defending her Christian credentials.
I didn't see either of them refer to PSA specifically or perhaps I've missed something?
It's been debated many times aboard Ship and my impression would be that very few Shipmates hold to it in its 'full-on' form and of they did then with more nuanced and caveats to how it is often presented.
I'm not convinced you are naming 'the elephant in the room' so much as tilting at a strawman and reading things into other people's posts that they don't intend.
The way I see it - YMMV:
Consider that the mechanics of perpetrator and victim are played out even in a single lifetime. The victim becomes the same type of abuser - the bullied becomes the bully, the molsted becomes the molester. Even the Bible speaks of generational curses that operate like this.
This is a mechanic that is built into our human experience. It persists until someone stops the cycle, and it's not enough for the last victim to say "I'm not doing that anymore". If the last victim still carries the energy of resentment and pain, that energy can't be neutralized until forgiveness neutralizes it. And if it's carried to the grave then the victim and perpetrator are bound to wrestle with it for another incarnation.
You can't set energies like that in motion and not be responsible for them. What was wounded in life cannot be healed in death. Only life is responsible for life.
Yes. Absolutely.
OK that's a very old conundrum, where the idea of Jesus being fully human and fully divine and what does that mean, because sin is kind of a built-in feature of being human and if Jesus can't sin then he can't be human.
I have concluded that Jesus the man and the Christ in him are two separate aspects of the same being. I can explain the mechanics of that in PM if you are interested because I have concluded we are all similarly wired.
Jesus the man was perfectly capable of sinning but elected not to on account of being overshadowed by the Christ in him. So I can't even entertain the theoretical scenario you pur forward. All I can say is that if he hadn't forgiven, then he would have been subject to the same impartial mechanism as the rest of us.
See answer above.
No religion. These are my conclusions from observing human behaviour, my own internal milieu, from my experiences, insights, study, reasoning, past life memories, thunderbolt revelations, and from questions that were answered for me by Him during my own personal "road to Damascus" experience when I was 24.
These are the things I understand because I spent my entire life asking questions and resolving cognitive dissonances.
I don't expect anybody to agree with me, but I do thank you from my heart for this very civilized and cordial exchange. I feel seen, (if not precisely understood), and that's a very rare thing in my life.
AFF
That only makes sense if we take a very 'Western' approach to the issue. There is no 'need' for an 'Immaculate Conception of Mary' in Orthodox theology because we don't have the same view of original sin.
Protestant Christians would equally reject it on other grounds.
It might be a glib thing for me to say, but from an Orthodox perspective the Nicene-Chalcedonian formularies resolve the issue anyway. It's 'a wrap' in Orthodox terms.
That doesn't mean that there aren't questions we can't raise or debatescwe can't have. Heck, the long-standing Christological issues between the 'Oriental' and the 'Eastern' (or 'Chalcedonian') Orthodox have yet to be resolved even though it's widely acknowledged that it's more a question of semantics than outright disagreements.
However we cut it, your particular views on reincarnation are 'outliers' in mainstream Christian terms, whether Orthodox, RC or Protestant. I mean no disrespect by that. You know only too well the kind of response you've received for airing them.
I can understand how such views can obviate fear of Hell in the traditional sense but it could be argued that it only serves to replace one kind of fear with another - a repeated cycle until that cycle is broken and final redemption achieved.
Whatever our understanding, we are all in our various ways talking about grace, love and redemption here.
For my own part I see no reason to engage in speculation about repeated reincarnations, interesting though that might be, as I've got enough on my plate dealing with the Creeds and with scripture understood in the context of Tradition - and with reference to small t tradition too, of course.
The idea of Hell isn't a pleasant or palatable one in any shape or form, even if we don't adopt Augustine's grotesque stance that the torment of the damned will enhance the bliss of the saved.
Few people appear to envisage Hell in crudely medieval terms these days.
But the concept is there. It's in scripture and Tradition/tradition and we have to deal with it.
How we do so is going to be determined to a large extent by how our respective traditions deal with it. It may sound glib but I find how my own Tradition deals with it enough to be going on with.
I'm embarrassed to admit I don't know what the Orthodox position entails but if you would like to enlighten me I would be most interested to find out what it is, or where I could read about it.
The RC position was never for me very satisfactory except that I think it works better for me as a metaphor for Jesus being born without karma, having been carried in the womb of a woman who was similarly without karma.
I believe that once upon a time my POV was more common. There's some evidence that this POV was not such an outlier in first century Mediterranean thought, but perhaps it fell into disuse during a period where the extermination of heretics and heretical thinking was en vogue.
It can be argued that way, but to me it's not about fear. Fear would imply an incomplete understanding of myself and my place in the world, and in the cosmos. I understand myself, I understand who I am and where I come from, and I understand how to get to where I need to be before I exit my earth suit.
It's not about being afraid of consequences at all. It's about having absolute confidence in my agency at all levels of consciousness, and taking complete responsibility for everything I have set in motion for good or ill, intentionally or unintentionally.
Yes. We most certainly are. It doesn't matter what we think about it as much as it matters that we actively undertake to be agents of grace and love as God's representatives on earth.
All the best to you, dear friend, as you wrestle with those things that remain on your plate.
AFF