The Cross

[Guest Wench]

Hi, um. I saw this tidbit in the Q&A forum, and it did not seem quite correct to me, although 'tis possible I may be wrong in my view:

Yes, it's true that we cannot say that the crucifixion of Jesus is absolutely necessary. To say that is to say God's power is limited. God could easily have forgiven us and redeemed us by merely saying the word. The Son did not have to become a man, strictly speaking . - Adeodatus

Specifically, the bit about God saying the word, thereby forgiving us and redeeming us. Forgiveness necessitates repentance on the part of man, and St. Athanasius says in "On the Incarnation," that God could not merely demand that humanity repent of their sin(s), because our nature had been corrupted and repentance does not repair the harm, but prevents us from sinning - ceasing to sin and renewing the image of God in man are different things. Also, where does free will come in, for your words leave unclear whether or not forgiving + redeeming would have anything to do with that.

God certainly was not coerced into sending His only son, but wasn't that the only way that man could be redeemed in keeping with God's nature and man's?

FYI, I'm not seeking to a fight, but some clarification on this issue.

Thanks!

In Christ,

-M

[M.SIGGA]

I agree that maybe I'm reading this wrong. I thought Christ had to die and shed his blood to become the perfect and most pure sacrifice for humanity's salvation. I remember this from high school so I might be wrong, but I think my professor taught it from Isaiah 53. From the prophecy in Isaiah I would argue that it was necessary that Christ be lead to the slaughter like the unblemished lambs used in the temple sacrifices for the atonement and forgiveness of sins of the Jewish people - please correct me if I'm wrong. Holla back.

Isaiah

Chapter 53

1

Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2

He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.

3

He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

4

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted.

5

But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.

6

We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all.

7

Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth.

8

Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny? When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of his people,

9

A grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, Though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood.

10

(But the LORD was pleased to crush him in infirmity.) If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.

11

Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.

12

Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, Because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; And he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.

[Aloysius]

no offense to adeodatus, but i think his A to the Q needs some clarification.... :unsure:

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

I think he meant that God could have accomplished this without the death of his Son, but since man sinned in Eden, man had to redeem the sin. But man could not, only God could, so God became man and did it for us.

Make sense?

[cmotherofpirl]

THe Dude is right.

God could have done it anyway He wanted to, simply because He is God. He choose to have Jesus redeem us the way He did, but it was chioce on his part, and certainly not the only way it could have been done.

[Guest Wench]

I'm inquisitive - how could God have saved mankind in any other way?

[M.SIGGA]

I'm inquisitive - how could God have saved mankind in any other way?

Moi Aussi!

How do we know this as humans - where does it say this in the Bible that God could have done it another way? If not has the Church ever spoken in favor of A's statement?

I thought the connection with the Cross (a tree) coincides with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. On a tree he shed his blood which saves and destroys evil. I can't remember if I was taught this at my Protestant Elementary School Bible Class or from my Source Criticism Class at my Catholic high school. Please correct/instruct me if I'm wrong.

[Adeodatus]

Let me start at the beginning.......

Forgiveness necessitates repentance on the part of man,   -  Wench

Does forgiveness really need repentance? Imagine Fred and Bob have a quarrel. Fred forgives Bob before Bob has repented. Is this not forgiveness? God's forgiveness is like this. In His eternal will God forgives us all, but here we have to make a distinction. When we repent, then we experience that forgiveness and mercy of God, and He can start to heal us.

So forgiveness does not require repentance, but healing and being forgiven do require repentance.

Also, where does free will come in, for your words leave unclear whether or not forgiving + redeeming would have anything to do with that.  -  Wench

Free will comes in when we repent and receive the forgiveness of God. God's grace is helping us to repent, but it is also an act of our free will.

God certainly was not coerced into sending His only son, but wasn't that the only way that man could be redeemed in keeping with God's nature and man's?  -  Wench

I'm not sure that's the only way. We can certainly say with St Anselm and St Thomas that it is a "fitting" way for us to be saved, but "fittingness" does not imply that it is the only way.

Imagine I want to get from Baltimore to Anchorage. I could take a plane, or I could hitch a ride, or I could walk. Many ways are open to me to get there, and this is true even though I'm a finite human being. God is infinite, unlimited. He can do what He wants to do in any number of ways, an infinite number of ways.

Sending the Son to become incarnate is "fitting", but if we say that God couldn't do it any other way, then it's like saying, "Oh, I walked from Baltimore to Anchorage. Obviously there's no other way to get there, or I can't imagine another way to get there." Just because we can't imagine another way for God to save us doesn't mean that God doesn't know such another way.

I thought Christ had to die and shed his blood to become the perfect and most pure sacrifice for humanity's salvation. -  M.SIGGA

Yes, that's absolutely true. But remember, earlier we'd been talking about whether God was limited to any one way of saving us. Here you are considering the way He did use to save us. So you're right in seeing these prophecies as relating to the sacrifice of Christ. This whole "economy of salvation" is the one we know from the Scruiptures---of God drawing the Israelites into a covenant with Himself, in order to bring all mankind in. In the end all the covenants are fulfilled in the New Covenant sealed with the Precious Blood of Christ.

I will come back to this, M.Sigga, but for now let's go back to speaking hypothetically...

I think he meant that God could have accomplished this without the death of his Son, -  thedude

God could have done it anyway He wanted to, simply because He is God. He choose to have Jesus redeem us the way He did, but it was chioce on his part, and certainly not the only way it could have been done.

thedude and Cmom are spot on. God chose to redeem us this way. He could have chosen another way.

At the heart of everything I want to say here is this: God is utterly free. God is omnipotent and can do anything. God is not limited by any of His creatures.

What does this imply? Think about the sacraments. Could Jesus, if He had come in the 21st century, have used burger and a coke as the matter for the Eucharist? You might say it's unseemly (i.e. "unfitting"), and one of my late brothers would have said that a burger and a coke aren't "real food and real drink", but could Jesus have done this? I think our Faith implies that we have to say 'yes'. But we don't consecrate burgers and coke because we have to go with what Jesus actually did do.

Did the Son have to become Incarnate? I mean, was there no other choice? Or let's put it another way. Could another person of the Trinity have become a human being? St Thomas Aquinas says that any person of the Trinity could have become a man or a woman, or that all 3 could have become incarnate in the one human being!

What we're trying to defend here is the omnipotent power of God. God could have saved us in any number of ways, unknown to us but known to Him.

Which leads us back to what God did in fact do...

I'm inquisitive - how could God have saved mankind in any other way?  - Wench

How do we know this as humans - where does it say this in the Bible that God could have done it another way? If not has the Church ever spoken in favor of A's statement?  -  M.SIGGA

Wench and M.SIGGA are right in focusing on the Scriptures and what God actually did do. But I indulged in all this hypothetical 'what ifs...' because I want to maintain that we cannot sacrifice the omnipotence of God.

Looking in my copy of Ludwig Ott (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pp. 178-9), the following 3 statements appear:

(1) God was not compelled to redeem mankind by either an internal or external compulsion. (Sent. certa.)

(2) Even on the presupposition of the Divine Resolve of Redemption, the Incarnation was not absolutely necessary. (Sent. communis.)

(3) If God demanded a full atonement the Incarnation of a Divine Person was necessary. (Sent. communis.)

No. 3 requires a little explanation, because it uses the word "necessary". Ott explains that this is a "hypothetical, conditioned necessity", and that it can also be called a "necessitas congruentiae", which he explains as "the most appropriate means of Redemption". So even here, we can't say that God had to become Incarnate, but that it was most appropriate or fitting.

How could God have saved man in another way? I don't know. But I bet God does... ;)

[cmotherofpirl]

Excellent explanation Adeodatus!

I love Ott. :)

[Adeodatus]

I'm glad you think so Cmom!

I love Ott too. What I'm really waiting for is the translation of the latest edition (38th? 40th?) of Denzinger's Enchiridion (Treasury of Creeds, Definitions and Declarations on things of Faith and Morals...). Ignatius Press told me 2-3 years ago that they were working on a translation. I hope they haven't given up!

[Jake Huether]

I believe that there was no other way. Not because God is limited. But because God chose this way. Since God chose this way, it had to be the ONLY way, otherwise He would not have chosen it.

[Dave]

Allow me to add that Jesus is the true Lamb that was sacrificed. If God required lambs to be sacrificed under the Old Covenant, then, although He could've done anything He wanted to redeem mankind, doesn't it make sense that He'd do what closely parallels the sacrificing of lambs?

[PedroX]

Dave, and Jake:

You are both right, in that once God ordained the method, it "had" to happen. However, God could have chosen any other way. In that case, lambs may not have had to be sacrificed in the Old Testament. God might have honored Cain's sacrifice of vegetables. However, since He chose the shedding of blood for the remission of sins (Epistle to the Hebrews), He needed to follow through. This does not in any way diminsh God's ability to have chosen another way.

peace...

[Adeodatus]

PedroX, you put it very well.

However, since He chose the shedding of blood for the remission of sins (Epistle to the Hebrews), He needed to follow through. This does not in any way diminsh God's ability to have chosen another way.

God could have chosen anyway He wanted to save us. In fact, (and I hope this comment doesn't make things worse!) He could have freely chosen not to save us. What it boils down to is that God is not obligated to us. God is love, and He created us out of love, but He doesn't have to save us once we messed up. I think we should see this as all the more proof to us how much God really does love us. "For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Jake and Dave, I appreciate you want to stress that God has entered into covenants with His people, and that the New Covenant in Jesus's Blood is the fulfillment and perfection of all other covenants. But I would shy away from using words (not that the two of you used them) that suggest God "had to" do something in this way, etc.

If God "had to", then God's grace is not free, is not gratuitous. If God's grace is not gratuitous, then it is not grace. It isn't freely given out of love. It means God has no choice but to save us, which means He isn't really a free and all-powerful God, and His salvation isn't real salvation because it's bound up with the way things are in the cosmos.

Instead, because the Living God is utterly free and unconstrained (except in the sense of the free choice of love He himself makes which 'constrains' Him to His covenants), we can know that God truly loves us, that our salvation is utter free gift. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5.8).

Peace be with you all....

[phatcatholic]

adeodatus,

i'm stuck on this sentence of urs:

"So forgiveness does not require repentance, but healing and being forgiven do require repentance."

can u explain this, b/c offhand i'm not sure how we can be forgiven if we don't ask for it. i thought the only unforgivable sin was the one we didn't confess.

but, then again, maybe i'm missing something blatantly obvious.

thanks and pax christi,

phatcatholic