So-called Substitutionary Atonement (which is what the Deeper Magic amounts to) has always been deeply problematic. [I]Penal[/I] Substitutionary Atonement, in which Jesus' fate is explicitly the appalling punishment that should have been ours for the sin we could not help committing, is even worse. Fortunately, it's not the only game in town.
(Personal theology snippet follows - please feel free to ignore.)
I am personally a proponent of a reconciliation/reunification theory of the atonement, in which Jesus' life and death serve as a bridge between the fallibility of the world and the eternity of the deity. 'Original sin' as a moral fault is a mistake (I believe this is the view in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, although I'm no expert) - our fallibility is because in order for us to evolve and possess free will, we must live in a world of change and entropy. So we're not perfectible in the Pelagian sense of being able to choose pure good without help, but we're not inevitably depraved either. The function of the incarnation is thus principally to unite the impassible divine nature and the fragile human nature in a single being. (The Council of Chalcedon was very definite on the two natures business.) Jesus' death is the working-out of this - he's not spared the worst the the world can throw at him, because he's a participant in all our sufferings: he's a refugee, a homeless person, a citizen of an occupied country, and the victim of the occupier's state violence. Redemption doesn't come from the Passion alone, but rather from the whole action of God participating in human life: God becomes like us, and thus we can become like God.
Miscellaneous. Eclectic. Random. Perhaps markedly literate, or at least suffering from the compulsion to read any text that presents itself, including cereal boxes.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-25 10:15 pm (UTC)(Personal theology snippet follows - please feel free to ignore.)
I am personally a proponent of a reconciliation/reunification theory of the atonement, in which Jesus' life and death serve as a bridge between the fallibility of the world and the eternity of the deity. 'Original sin' as a moral fault is a mistake (I believe this is the view in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, although I'm no expert) - our fallibility is because in order for us to evolve and possess free will, we must live in a world of change and entropy. So we're not perfectible in the Pelagian sense of being able to choose pure good without help, but we're not inevitably depraved either. The function of the incarnation is thus principally to unite the impassible divine nature and the fragile human nature in a single being. (The Council of Chalcedon was very definite on the two natures business.) Jesus' death is the working-out of this - he's not spared the worst the the world can throw at him, because he's a participant in all our sufferings: he's a refugee, a homeless person, a citizen of an occupied country, and the victim of the occupier's state violence. Redemption doesn't come from the Passion alone, but rather from the whole action of God participating in human life: God becomes like us, and thus we can become like God.