Saving Jesus

[OutwiththeOutCrowd]

The more I think about the story of the death of Jesus on the cross, the more I feel I want to go back in a time machine and beg him not to go through with it. From what I understand, and assuming for the moment that the story is true, Jesus could have found a way out, but felt it was the will of God and his destiny to allow events to play out without his resistance.

I just wonder, though, if Jesus (and God?) could, in principle, have been persuaded to change his mind on the matter if enough people had understood in advance the fatalism of his thinking and pleaded with him not to do it on their account?

Would there have been a way to convince him that he didn’t have to fulfil prophecies, nor save us from our sins?

You see, my personal feeling is that, if I am intrinsically unworthy of heaven, and ‘boosted’ into the possibility of experiencing it only through the sacrifice of Jesus, I would rather accept that death is the end and have Jesus escape crucifixion. If suffering of an innocent being is the price to be paid for heaven, then I would prefer to give up on such a heaven and take the rap for my own sins.

Am I alone in feeling this way? I really don't think I can be.

Had Jesus lived longer, he would probably have found time to write his memoirs, providing a record of his teachings in a form we could be confident he was happy with. We would not have to worry about the inerrancy, or otherwise, of the New Testament. If he had wanted to start a church, he could have been specific about his intentions for it.

Moreover, there would have been more time for his influence as a teacher to spread and for his life to be documented by the writers of the day in such a way that his very existence wouldn’t be in question. While we wouldn’t have an afterlife in heaven to look forward to, the writings of Jesus would illuminate our path in the life we do have. (I am assuming no afterlife, but if it had to be hell, at least it would be hell with a conscience unburdened by the thought of having been complicit in the suffering of Jesus.)

I know it’s not really possible to change the past, and many will think me bonkers and/or naive for thinking about changing the history of Christianity, but who would come with me in my time machine to try to save Jesus?

In which case it was showing how illogical a parent who behaved like God would be.

So apart from all that how is God like an earthly father?

Patent = parent

He died because he wanted to. It's that simple.

When Peter tried to stop him being arrested, he called Peter satan.

He agonised in the garden yes, but he went forth willingly.

But your missing the whole point.......that he rose again. Lol.

I'm really glad he died, really glad....and I believe.

Yes, that was the bit I meant.

I'm saying: there's no strong reason why any of the common analogies that have helped people to understand God in human terms, should work for you or me, because all they are, are analogies. They say more about us as humans than anything else, I think.

jeanne you said you were able to liken him to a human parent. How?

Oh, me personally?

It's the language I grew up with, and it works for me - it's emotive. But if it doesn't work for you, that's fine.

Where it's unlikely to work, is if you're trying to think about causality, because then you will come back up against this problem that humans can't really think outside time, so God's actions come across as vindictive and odd.

(Though, got to say, I'm with Julian of Norwich on the Christ/mother side of things. )

So in what way is god like a good earthly parent. And in what way is a good earthly parent seemingly vindictive and odd?

I have never seen anything that leads me to believe that god behaves like a good parent. It is one of the things that, if I wasn't already an atheist, would make me one. How can anyone believe in a God that makes such promises and never keeps them? Who condemns his own creation, who imposes guilt on future generations- who simply ignores his children when they cry out for mercy and for help? Oh, and who creates billions of people and only reveals himself to a tiny minority- denying the rest the salvation he promises.

I don't think a good earthly parent is vindictive and odd!

You've said the opposite of what I was explaining.

I was saying, if you try to understand divine causality by comparison to an earthly parent, it'll make no sense.

God exists outside time. If you try to imagine God within time, making decisions as if within a chronological structure (eg., 'shall I let my child die in pain?'), then it is absurd.

But, because God is outside time, these are not really 'decisions' in our sense.

Oh gosh my mistake Jeanne sorry! I'm not particularly good at making myself clear and tend to use too many words. Let me put it another way, is there any analogy we can make between God and a good dad?

For arguments sake, what is the 'beyond space and time' reasoning for watching a child being raped and doing nothing (and expecting humans to act if they knew of it).

What is to stop me doing nothing to prevent any action that would hurt people? From you reasoning I could justifiably hold my hands up and say 'Hey, God will sort it out and all will be revealed".

No - it's me, I'm not being terribly coherent because I'm marking essays and I keep getting distracted. I'm not very good at talking about theology anyway.

Basically, I think the analogy thing is separate to the OP's point. You can make an analogy between God and a good dad if you are already convinced that God is loving and/or you love God, in order to give some sense of how you feel, or how you imagine God feels. So, it is a side issue if the main question is not to do with emotion - and I think it isn't.

You're locating the argument about 'watching a child being raped and doing nothing' in time. It's as if you're imagining that God is (for want of a better word) watching, sees the rape about to happen, and decides - as a human onlooker might 'oh, no, I won't intervene this time'.

I agree with you that if humans did that, it would be morally wrong and unspeakably cruel. We have free will to try to stop these things. And I admit I judge very harshly those people who do use religion as a justification not to intervene.

But, in terms of theology, evil is something God knows already - the child being raped doesn't happen at a specific moment in time, at which God could choose to intervene or not intervene. It just is. Human beings try to understand why inexplicably evil things happen, but I don't think anyone has an answer.

I'm trying to think of a better way to explain this, sorry! I can't.

I think, if I can butt in, that God does indeed see the rape and act on it. But because we are inside time, it can feel to us like he doesn't act on things. He has a plan to restore all things to new. That day is coming. Jesus said 'blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted'.

I think maybe we see his untimely death as such a tragedy, and are really quite happy, culturally, to accept death as the final end, partly because we are so removed from death in our culture. We live longer and more prosperous lives in the West than anyone at any other point in history. If we lived in a culture in which illness and violence were more prevalent and in which the state felt more unjust, perhaps we would feel more need for it. if we lived at a time when it was more common to die young and unfairly (as has been the case in every other society throughout history) then we would see how he came and joined the mass of humanity, the poor and the vulnerable. As it is, we are the rich and privileged, globally speaking, so we struggle to empathise with it and feel guilty.

I don't know what God thinks or sees and what I'm saying may be a load of old bullocks.

Surely it's far more likely that God doesn't intervene because he does not exist than because he is somehow in a different bit of the space/time continuum?

Well, obviously it's easier to argue God doesn't exist.

But, I'm not saying he's in a different bit of the space time continuum. Tempting as the thought is, he's not Dr Who.

Anyway, to be serious - poodles, I think I get what you're saying, but I always feel uncomfortable with that somehow. I don't know if that is fair, as it isn't very different from what I'm saying.

And that it is more likely that he doesn't exist than that he does exist and is reneging on all the promises about "ask and ye shall receive" and "faith moving mountains" and "if your child asks for bread do you give him a stone"?

"the child being raped doesn't happen at a specific moment in time, at which God could choose to intervene or not intervene. It just is" I'm sorry- that sounds pretty space/time continuum to me.

I agree with Jeanne. Regarding intervention, if you start from a position that God is outside time and knows all possible consequences of all possible actions in advance, what is the point where God should intervene in this hypothetical case?

Before the deed is done; or before the rapist enters the room, or before they meet the child, or before the child is born, or before the rapist is born? At each point there are other possibilities, possibilities for good as well as evil. If God intervenes to change the course of events he has interfered with the operation of free will, and changed all the possibilities - possibilities that always include choices to do good rather than evil things, possibilities for repentance - which means not just being sorry, but turning away from your actions and desires.

God knows about all the possibilities but what he doesn't know is which ones we will choose. And he won't stop us choosing evil because this would rob us of our capacity to choose good. What he does is to show us a way to follow (that's yet another understanding of atonement), and a way back to him.

So why did he specifically say in the Bible that he would intervene? Why do people pray? What about the Saints?

No, because God exists outside space and time, Bertrand. I said God does not exist within any specific moment where he could choose to intervene/not intervene.

It's not space/time continuum, because God is not an entity within the cosmos and therefore is not subject to its laws of space-time. We have to use words like 'outside' and 'before' because we are subject to those laws and we can't think outside them. But in relation to God they are only metaphors.

Sorry, cross post.

bert, in this kind of theology, the Bible is pretty much like analogy: it's a way of putting God into human terms. As I think prayer/saints are.

And niminy put it better than me while I was posting.