Christian Logic Question

July 20, 2005 10:29 AM

Christian beliefs logical question.....

I do not want to start a flamewar, and I am not trying to be snide or point out a religious fallacy of any type. I am genuinely curious, as I have never understood the logic of sending Jesus to earth to atone for the sins of man.
Specifically, it is said that 'God so loved us, that he gave his only begotten son, to take away the sins of the world' I do not follow the logic. Why did he have to sacrifice his son? It seems like we are saying that God made people, and they were imperfect and started sinning all over the place, so he sent Jesus to earth to suffer in order to compensate for this?
Am I totally off base? If this is so, why send Jesus to be crucified: guilt at having made us imperfect? Why would God have to punish his son to bring balance for the things that humans have done to each other?

posted by TheFeatheredMullet to religion & philosophy (38 answers total)

Sunday school was many many years ago, but we were told that the gates of heaven were closed (possibly due to Adam's Original Sin, though I'm not sure of that), and Jesus was sent to become human and die, so that he could open the gates and everybody else could experience heaven. I always imagined that all of the people before Jesus were hanging out waiting around for him to die so they could get into heaven. Must have been quite a long line on that day.

I really don't know why Jesus had to suffer and die rather than just die; maybe by doing that he proved his devotion to his father and his rejection of the temptation of satan.

That's overly simplistic, but that's what this Catholic kid grew up believing.
posted by AgentRocket at 10:42 AM on July 20, 2005

I really don't know why Jesus had to suffer and die rather than just die; maybe by doing that he proved his devotion to his father and his rejection of the temptation of satan.

I know some sects believe that Jesus suffered more torment than any other human, ever, and that that's part of why the absolution of sin worked.

I have a hard time believing that, but then I don't believe in the rest of it, either.
posted by bshort at 10:47 AM on July 20, 2005

Well, soteriology is a pretty complex field of theology. But if you look at it from a perspective that's less theological and more related to the history of religion, sacrifice for atonement is a pretty common feature. The river flooded our village, so the gods must be angry -- let's cut the throat of a chicken/lamb/virgin and offer it up.

IANAT, but the Christian 'new covenant' is built upon a perfect sacrifice that makes slaughtering chickens to placate an angry God unnecessary. In the western Christian tradition, it's substitutionary atonement; in the Orthodox tradition, it's seen more in terms of remaking the world and reopening it to the divine.
posted by holgate at 10:53 AM on July 20, 2005

God made 2 perfect humans -- Adam and Eve. They lived without sin in Paradise, the Garden of Eden.

The serpent Satan induced Eve into sin, thereby bringing about the Fall of Man. Adam and Eve were evicted from Paradise, forced to live by the sweat of their own brow. Eve gave birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain killed his brother Abel, because he was jealous that Abel's offerings to God were more favored.

Because Eve was the first to Fall, Woman is seen as the source of all sin. When we are born, we are all born into Original Sin, which has been passed down through the womb from Eve. The only exception to this was the Virgin Mary, who was conceived without sin (Immaculate Conception) and was therefore pure enough to deliver the Christ child (virgin birth).

Because we are born into Original Sin, we are imperfect and prone to evil. To atone for our evil before God, we must make sacrifices (first grain harvest, blemish-free lambs) in order to cleanse our souls of sin. However, through the blood of Jesus, our souls can be washed clean without slaughtering animals upon large altars so that their smoke is pleasing unto the Lord.

It's also interesting to note that many European and mediterranean pagan cults practiced blood sacrifce (human and otherwise) as part of fertility rituals. Blood in the soil was a sacrifice to keep the crops growing and the animals multiplying for another year.

So theologically speaking, the idea is that God felt sorry for people who were being born into Original Sin and constantly struggling to purify themselves, and so He made the Ultimate Sacrifice in order to show His people how much He loved them, and gave them a fool-proof method of cleansing their souls. Jesus's death is both an affirmation of God's love as well as a way to fight sin and bring more people to God.

(Not a Christian, was raised Methodist, merely a theology buff, your mileage may vary)
posted by junkbox at 10:57 AM on July 20, 2005

My take on it is:
God's love encompasses all mankind, even the most sinful. By sacrificing His only Son to save mankind from its sins, he demonstrates the power of His love.
posted by TheManticore at 11:05 AM on July 20, 2005

But what is the sacrifice, if Jesus ended up right back where he started (with his father, in heaven)?
posted by Turd Ferguson at 11:08 AM on July 20, 2005

Well, he did go to Hell for three days...
posted by bshort at 11:12 AM on July 20, 2005

(wow, I thought junkbox was raised Catholic for a moment there)

Another element of why God sent Jesus to heaven is that we cannot get to heaven ourselves. In the time of Adam and Eve, there was no need for a savior because as already mentioned, they were without sin. However, their sinning totally threw that out of whack. The problem was now that we have sin (junkbox did a good job of covering that aspect). However, I think part of the Christian idea is that we, ourselves, are not able to 100% atone for our own sins. People of the OT didn't go to heaven not because they were unworthy or whatnot, but because our sins had not been completely washed away. It was through Jesus' sacrifice that our sins are able to be totally washed away, and thus allowed into heaven.

Also, there is the connection between the old and new covenant that holgate refers to, though I am far from knowledgeable about this aspect to make claims on it.

But what is the sacrifice, if Jesus ended up right back where he started (with his father, in heaven)?
The sacrifice is He died regardless of what happened beforehand or afterwards. Whether or not it was necessary and all that good stuff (as a testament to this thread) is another story, though.
posted by jmd82 at 11:13 AM on July 20, 2005

Turd: the sacrifice is that Jesus didn't originally end up back in heaven. Those three days he was dead were spent in Hell, which must have been interesting for someone who was sent there for crimes he didn't commit. He probably didn't spend much time in torment, since according to who you believe, he spent that time there offering the choice of salvation to everyone who'd died before him.

But yes, eventually he did ascend to heaven and all was forgiven. The suffering aspect is the only real sacrifice, and compared to an eternity of torture, three days kind of pales.
posted by staresbynight at 11:14 AM on July 20, 2005

There is a whole lot of disagreement on this.

Penal Substitutional Atonement theory (you see this a lot, especially with fundamentalists or evangelicals) says that:

-God loves humanity and wants to be reconciled with humanity.
-However, humanity is sinful. God's sense of justice is perfect, and therefore God can't just up and forgive people. A sacrifice needs to be made for them, just like Old Testament Judaism used animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.
-But what kind of sacrifice is sufficient to balance out all the sins of all of humanity, for all time? It would have to be someone innocent and totally sinless, i.e., Jesus.
-The metaphor that usually comes up in court. You're being judged, you deserve a specific penalty (death), but someone else already paid the penalty for you, so you're free to go.

Another theory:

Humans are being held captive by evil, either as a concrete entity (i.e. Satan) or by the abstract principles of sin and death. By the cross and resurrection, Jesus confronts sin and death, does battle with them, and wins--the resurrection proves that death doesn't win out, and humanity is freed from the bondage of sin and death. (We still have sin and death around, of course, but the point is that victory is assured in final end-of-the-world terms).

Another theory:

By allowing himself to be killed, Jesus shows himself as a moral exemplar of love for one's enemies, mercy, submission to the will of God, etc. There's nothing supernatural about it, necessarily, but Jesus is a good example to follow.

Another theory:

The crucifixion is God atoning for God's misdeeds towards humanity. (Not exactly mainstream Christian doctrine, this one).

Another theory:

While God is perfectly able to forgive us without demanding some sacrifice to balance out the scales, it's us who can't believe we're forgiven unless there's some evidence. God sacrificing Godself and suffering for us is evidence that we are loved and forgiven. (Trinitarian doctrine is important here--and in most atonement theories--so that it's not just a case of cosmic child abuse. Christian doctrine is that Jesus IS God, not just God's son).


On preview: Turd Ferguson, Jesus was man as well as God, and certainly went through a lot of suffering and death, which doesn't cancel out a nice happy end result. And may not have known that there WOULD be a nice happy end result, depending on what you believe.
posted by Jeanne at 11:14 AM on July 20, 2005

Jeanne: Yes, maybe Jesus didn't know the end result, but obviously God did. It seems to me that the wording is that God sacrificed his son (rather than Jesus sacrificing himself). I don't see any sacrifice by God here, since he knew that Jesus would just be taking a brief break from the friendly confines of Heaven.
posted by Turd Ferguson at 11:23 AM on July 20, 2005

I believe the idea before was people who did wrong were sent to Hell (or punished before going to Heaven), though I don't know whether Hell was actually considered a place until long after Jesus's death. Jesus suffering, dying, and going to Hell for three days then rising to Heaven was a symbolic act--instead of humans suffering and going to Hell, Jesus did it for them, and then rose to Heaven, meaning humans could now rise to Heaven as well.

The idea is forgiveness. He takes all the sins of the world upon Himself, suffers for them in our stead, and allows us to rise to Heaven without suffering if we would only believe in Him and love Him. The degree of belief and what constitutes loving Him differers from denomination to denomination (does a Buddhist monk go to Heaven? Some say yes, some say no), but that's the general idea.

God didn't have to punish His Son. It was because He loves us that He punished His Son--Jesus was a sacrificial lamb, of sorts. It's the eternal forgiveness thing. Despite the fact that humans fight each other and kill each other, God still loves us and offers us salvation in the form of His Son.

(Not a Christian, but this is what I remember from Sunday School and the like)
posted by schroedinger at 11:33 AM on July 20, 2005

Careful! The path to hell is paved with the question "Why"!

Seriously, religious faith and logical interrogation do not go well together. Faith is not logical, and no one can make it so, not even a Jesuit.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 11:35 AM on July 20, 2005

Turd, Jesus still suffered and died. That was the sacrifice--even if you end up going to Heaven, the suffering of crucifixion and three days in Hell is nothing to sniff at.
posted by schroedinger at 11:36 AM on July 20, 2005

I'll have a go, but I make no promises:

So you've got God and you've got man. God and man are completely different- God is most everything we are not. And we are some things that God is not. Like temporal. We're stuck in one place and time and we are limited in what we get to see of God's universe. God isn't. He can see the big picture and all of history all at once.

As mentioned above, man fell. We screwed up. I can't answer why God made people he knew were going to screw up; I'm still trying to figure out that one myself. This isn't what God wanted but that stupid free will got in the way. That wasn't cool with God so he made a plan.

He set one group of people aside. He created a series of covenants with them, the biggie being with Moses and crew. These people had opportunities to get right with God through sacrifices. They could get clean and stay that way by keeping up their end of the deal. It was a lot of work- many details. (Ever read Deuteronomy?) And over time, various rabbis added more to it. The whole idea was to make the people's relationship with God right.

So back to God and his plan: With a group of people in a system of sacrifices, what will be the most effective image to demonstrate permanent reconciliation? A really big sacrifice. Could there be any bigger sacrifice than your own son? Since it's being looked at from a human perspective, both in our eyes and the eyes of the people at the time, a child is about the biggest thing you can give up. (God had already demonstrated that with Abraham and Isaac.) Again, it was something that spoke to the people. Yeah, Jesus did get to go back to heaven, but we're talking symbolism here anyway. The message was what was relevant to those who were at that time God's people, the Jews. Then, once a good group of them "got it", he told them to pass it on to everyone else.

I choose not to focus on Christ's suffering. (Haven't seen Mel's Passion, probably won't.) It's a big part of many traditions, but it's not really the point. He suffered, yes, and it must have been horrible for him. But we're talking about the big picture- the sacrifice as part of the master plan. Dunno if that helps, there's a lot more to be said but it's a start.
posted by wallaby at 11:51 AM on July 20, 2005

Here are two counterarguments against the idea that Jesus, being divine, "would just be taking a brief break" from his heavenly existence.

First, most Christians stress that Jesus was "fully human" as well as fully divine. As a human, Jesus had free will, suffered the same pains and difficulties as other humans, and was subject to temptation. This difficulty is symbolized by Jesus' prayer on the Mount of Olives, Luke 22:42.

Second, and contrary to most other "monotheistic" religions, Christianity emphasizes that God exists as a Trinity with three separate and distinct aspects: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is through the second aspect, the Son, that God experiences the suffering of humanity and offers redemption.

To add to holgate: I would also want to add that substitutionary atonement is supplemented through the act of communion: a ritualistic consumption (transubstantiation) of the flesh (bread) and blood (wine) of the savior. This illustrates a principle of contagious magic: By eating one's god, one receives the characteristics of that god. Thus communion confers the benefits received by Jesus, atonement and eternal life.
posted by Scooter at 11:52 AM on July 20, 2005

Scooter: it is important to note that Transubstantiation as the actual body, blood, should & divinity of Christ is namely a Catholic doctrine. Most sects see the body as a symbol, and the original Last Supper was good enough to create the new covenant (ie, it's not necessary to receive Communion in this life to reach eternal salvation).
posted by jmd82 at 12:07 PM on July 20, 2005

A few months ago I decided that the whole "sending his son to die for us" is a way to keep humans from using the excuse "you made us but don't know what it is like to be us. that is why we sin all the time."

So the Father sends his Son to become human and then we can't say "you don't understand us" anymore.

So the whole "dying for our sins" is sort of like a character-building "for your own good" sort of thing. So now we've got to put up or shut up.

That's probably some sort of heresy, but I've not talked to my priest about it.
posted by sciurus at 12:11 PM on July 20, 2005

this exerpt (amazon.com login req'd) (see section e, 'the punishment of sin' mid-page) from wayne grudem's book, bible doctrine, provides a concise answer to your question.
posted by RockyChrysler at 12:14 PM on July 20, 2005

junkbox, the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Jesus, not his mother. The whole point is that Mary was an absolutely normal woman. Until she was chosen to bear the Son of God, there was nothing to distinguish her from any other woman. If you read the relevant passages in the New Testament, Mary explicitly agrees to be the bearer of God's child. Thus the miracle of the Virgin Birth, whilst being the will of God, is dependent upon the complicitly of one ordinary human being. Thus, mankind is given, and takes, the opportunity to redeem itself.

The doctrine of Original Sin is based on a mistranslation by Saint Augustine. It's a misunderstanding that taints the Western Christian churches, stemming as it does from the Catholic Church. Compare and contrast with the Eastern Orthdox take on Original Sin.

Satan wasn't a serpent. Again, that's based on a mistranslation. A correct reading of the Old Testament narrates Adam and Eve being tempted by The Light Bearer. Their sin wasn't one of malice (i.e. deliberately choosing to believe a snake rather than God), but of ignorance, in that they were blinded by the appearance of the tempter into believing that he was a representative of God. When you think about it, this makes the idea that an integral part of their punishment was that they lost their innocence, make a lot more sense. They were tricked into losing their innocence by a creature that appeared beautiful, and once lost, God could not give it back.

To answer the original question, Jesus's suffering and death is very much in the mold of a sin-suffering-redemption cycle drama. Mankind brought about its own Fall, and after many struggles, was finally given the opportunity to atone. The price of that atonement was death. Think of the entire sequence of the Bible as if it was happening to one person. If it was a movie, it would have more impact if the person ended up dead, rather than living happily ever after.
posted by veedubya at 12:18 PM on July 20, 2005

Er, veedubya, the Immaculate Conception is about Mary. That's how the term originated. It refers to her being born without sin. The Virgin Birth refers to Jesus's conception through a virgin.
posted by schroedinger at 12:25 PM on July 20, 2005

Paul's letters, (Like the Epistle to the Romans, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, and The Second Epistle to the Corinthians) are where these doctrines are first elaborated. They were written before the gospels, even though they come after the gospels in most versions of the New Testament.

The early church had to figure out why the Messiah, instead of ruling the world victoriously, had been crucified, a torture reserved for the most hated of criminals. Who would worship such a figure?

Paul figured out a solution. Jesus had to suffered and died for our sins --- the moral structure of the universe demanded it. A debt had to be paid for our sins.

It was the only explanation that made sense of everything that the Jesus Movement had experienced.
posted by goethean at 12:32 PM on July 20, 2005

Questions and other rambling.
Well "the trinity" finally came up. But if they, the father, the son and the holy ghost, are all one and the same, then Jesus is God, or at least part of God, so how is it that one can be both son and father/ human and God at the same time (never mind the holy ghost for now)? I mean would it not be better said that God sent himself as a sacrifice, in which case he sacrificed nothing but simply went through a ritual to more or less fix his own mistake? Its not like God faced any serious peril in his andventure on earth. As for Jesus's humanity, are we not all born into sin? Would not Jesus by being born human be sinful in nature? All the other humans are, we can not help it, we can only atone for it. So as God and man can Jesus be sinful, was'nt he suposed to be perfect? I think all this confusion stems from Christianity spending to much time talking about God, something that is by definition beyond complete human comprehension. After all you can't say what God is without saying what God isn't, and I don't think it our place to put those kind of limits on the all powerful creator of everything.
posted by iwouldificould at 12:42 PM on July 20, 2005

"A correct reading of the Old Testament..."

That's quite a claim. Any links about that "Light Bearer" translation? Sounds interesting, and my knowledge of historical theology is sketchy at best.

And Schroedinger is absolutely right, the Immaculate Conception refers to Anne's conception of Mary. Totally superscriptural. That one I do know.
posted by solotoro at 1:00 PM on July 20, 2005

I'd like to note that 1) there are a lot of different takes on this, even ignoring the major theological differences between Protestants and Catholics and 2) a lot of this is based on interpretations of interpretations of translated documents, which means there's always an agenda bias. Many protestants are taught that the Immaculate Conception refers to Christ's birth, while it's pretty obvious to Catholics that it refers to Mary (even though that is, as solotoro says, completely superscriptural). And I still haven't taken into account the fact that the Bible was itself a construct...
posted by muddgirl at 1:24 PM on July 20, 2005

Yup, solotoro and Schroedinger are right, unless my tenure at Immaculate Conception grade school was totally misguided.
posted by ontic at 2:32 PM on July 20, 2005

iwouldificould, seen from another viewpoint, you might say that god sacrificing himself [as jesus] for his children is the most profound sacrifice one could make - taking on the mistakes and sins and such inherent in being human, going through torture, etc. After all, one's self is perhaps one's most precious possession.

Regarding the nature of the Trinity: the canonical way this is described to Catholic kids is using St. Patrick's example of the shamrock. Three different leaves, same plant. Three aspects of God, but one divine being. Jesus was 'all God and all Man' - like any other human, Jesus was subject to temptation, though he resisted it. He was born without original sin, but being human and having free will, he could conceivably have chosen to sin. [New Advent link on Christology.] A lot of early heresies focused around the nature of Jesus - was he created, ex nihilo by God [Arianism]? Born human and adopted by God as His Son [Adoptionism]? Etc. The belief that Christ was totally human _and_ divine is what the Church felt, in the end, fit best with Scripture and Church tradition. It takes some mysticism, I suppose, to believe this stuff, but then again, if you're not willing to take some stuff on faith or deal with 'mysteries', you're probably not particularly inclined towards religion to begin with.

As muddgirl says, Protestants view these things differently. Not having been raised as one, I can't really present their viewpoint. Catholics don't believe in the whole sola scriptura thing - they believe that tradition and the works of various theologians are part of what goes in to the Catechism. The idea of Mary's Immaculate Conception is one of those extra-scriptural pieces of dogma.
posted by ubersturm at 2:55 PM on July 20, 2005

jmd82: true, numerically more denominations may have dropped transubstantion, but numerically more Christians belong to denominations that accept it, or something along those lines (the Orthodox 'real presence').

Anyway, soteriology is really very complicated, especially in Protestant theology which retains fewer of the, um, old ways.

It's important to distinguish between the two strands within the answers here: there's the outside-looking-in perspective that sees Pauline doctrine arising out of a synthesis of Jewish prophetic tradition (Isaiah 53) and other funky Middle Eastern stuff, especially vegetation ritual as found in Mithraism; and there's the internal theological perspective which works within the confines of doctrine and scripture.
posted by holgate at 3:15 PM on July 20, 2005

Mullet: ISTM that you fail to follow the logic simply because there's no actual logic there to follow; merely logic-chopping and complicated excuses.

The only way it makes any sense is if you totally believe it has to. That way, you can simply substitute a flood of essentially meaningless verbiage full of important-sounding abstractions for an argument in support, and hope that neither you nor anybody else will call bullshit on it. If they do, you just claim that the issue is really complicated and/or mysterious and that they haven't spent enough time studying it. Feh.

In any case, it clearly hasn't worked. In a world where the self-defined righteous and upright continue to think it's OK to bomb their neighbors, we are clearly not sin-free just yet.

I am not trying to start a flame war, and I am not trying to be snide. But there clearly is a fallacy (i.e. a failure of reasoning) deep in the guts of any faith that operates in such a way as to compel its owner to ignore the bleedin' obvious, and it would be remiss of me not to say so.
posted by flabdablet at 4:37 PM on July 20, 2005

It's pretty simple, really. In order to get rid of the kind of stupid selfish thinking we are used to (sin), you have to go through a kind of re-birth, which involves lots of suffering and a dying away of the part of your mind that's insane with ego. The Christ myth sort of describes how to do that. Or it did, before thousands of years of Christians had their way with it.

The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth, but metafilter does not see it.
posted by sfenders at 5:23 PM on July 20, 2005

Outstanding, I was just going to start a blog on this very subject. I won't self-link to it, because well I haven't really started it. I'm planning on it to be quite extensive, starting from the very beginning. I've learned quite a bit about this atonement thing in the last few years. I'm hoping it will be quite interesting. There is quite a lot to say on this subject. I'll add the link to my member page someday.
posted by Buck Eschaton at 5:50 PM on July 20, 2005

from a militant atheist: can anyone explain WHY "sacrifice" is deemed necessary, or desirable? Why couldn't "God" have simply stipulated that anyone who has sinned just say "I'm sorry" in order to be "forgiven?" Why go through the whole "you sinned, here's my son via a virgin, he will live and then die horribly and suffer, and it's all because of and for YOU, you ungrateful creations of mine" shtick?

Similarly: why couldn't (or doesn't) God simply tell humans the straight story: lay out some version of his Perfect Plan, tell us exactly - EXACTLY - what counts as sin and what doesn't, show us actual pictures of Heaven and Hell so that we can all make informed decisions, etc?

Seriously -- not trying to savage the religionists, but really - is there any reason for God shrouding all of this in archaic, arcane, mysterious bible verses? If he REALLY wanted humans to come clean and live right, then why did he make the Rules so vague and subject to interpretation?
posted by davidmsc at 7:24 PM on July 20, 2005

from a militant atheist: can anyone explain WHY "sacrifice" is deemed necessary, or desirable?

I don't want to blue up the thread, but you're presumably prepared to sacrifice yourself for an abstraction, namely an ambiguous historical document that's, um, subject to interpretation?

I don't mean to be flippant, but there's not a huge leap from 'they died for their country... for our freedoms... so that others might live'.
posted by holgate at 7:50 PM on July 20, 2005

Oh you just blued it.
posted by uni verse at 8:16 PM on July 20, 2005

It probably doesn't make sense to you because you're not a Palestinian Jew. Christianity gained popularity because it offered Jews a way to keep practicing their faith after the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. How are we going to continue making sacrifices to our God with the Temple gone? Hey, don't worry. You don't have to anymore. Jesus already made all your sacrifices for you in advance.
posted by Laugh_track at 10:32 PM on July 20, 2005

TheFeatheredMullet: You certainly have a lot of answers to what I would consider the fundamental question of Christianity. In answering it I know I run the risk of repeating a lot of what others have said, but perhaps I can provide a unique perspective (Mormon, though of course this is only my understanding of the doctrine, not an official statement of the Church's beliefs)

/*Comments are welcome, but please, no snarks -- MeFi can be pretty hostile towards Mormons, or even believers of any flavor. But we've avoided that here so far, so I'm hopeful that my answer will be helpful. Also please note Mormons are prone to cite other scripture in addition to the Bible; I'll try and provide links where necessary*/

Resources first! Most of what I understand comes from Alma 34 and Moses 6:47-62. Alma 12 and Alma 42 are also both good Book of Mormon Chapters to explain all this. For a Mormon theologian's perspective on all this, James E Talmage is the best: Jesus the Christ and Articles of Faith are classics, and should be easy to find. For a more mainstream analysis, C.S. Lewis has also written extensively on this question, and Mere Christianity is a great starting place, though any of his Christian writings are bound to be informative.

Now if you want to suffer through my explanation instead, read on...

How and why a perfect Father made an imperfect world full of sin can be a big question on it's own, but basically we believe that, as spirit children of our Heavenly Father, we lived with the Father and the Son before the world was created. This life was intended as a probationary period, to see if we could progress to be more like our Father in glory and perfection. ( Abraham 3:22-26).

We are intended to pass the test with flying colors, and return to live with God in heaven, as resurrected beings. Naturally, for the test to be meaningful, sin must be possible. So, a certain tree was planted in Eden, Adam fell, and the world became a place where sin was possible. Since we aren't perfect to begin with, sin becomes inevitable. This was always the plan -- Jesus wasn't a contingency for if Adam screwed up, rather the Fall and the Atonement are necessary for mankind to progress.

But the inevitability of sin seems to pose a problem for a loving God. Love and mercy demand that He bring back those who desire to live with Him again; justice and perfection demand that sins (and indeed all choices) have consequences, and that His kingdom be unmarred by imperfect beings.

Thus the need for an atonement. Somebody voluntarily suffering the consequences of our sin would satisfy the demands of justice and allow mercy to be extended, but there's still a problem...I could suffer for my sins, but then where is mercy? Joe Bloggs could be made to suffer for my sins, but he might not find that fair. John Doe could volunteer to suffer for my sins, and thereby extend mercy to me, but here's where the problem lies -- it's still not really justice to condemn another man for my crimes, and even if someone else is allowed to take the punishment, paying the price doesn't make me perfect enough for heaven any more than completing a sentence for drug dealing makes a person trustworthy enough to be a pharmacist.

This is why it had to be voluntary, vicarious sacrifice, and why it had to be Jesus. Only God himself, as a Man, could suffer infinitely for the sins of mankind. An infinite and eternal sacrifice allows God the Son to stand as a mediator for all mankind, and go beyond paying the price to the point where we can be actually cleansed of sin and reconciled with God.

The necessity of Christ's death and resurrection are also separate from the need for his propitiatory sacrifice; By laying down his life and taking it up again, he overcame the other part of Adam's Fall, our heritage of death, and ensured that everybody would live again, raised with incorruptible bodies. Your question focussed more on sin, so I think I'll leave it at that, other than to say that 1 Corinthians 15 (link is to KJV) seems to cover resurrection thoroughly.

I hope this is useful; if not, at least it tries to be thorough. Thanks for your patience and sorry about the size :-)
posted by rossmik at 6:36 AM on July 21, 2005

On preview: I really wish I was a more concise writer.
posted by rossmik at 6:38 AM on July 21, 2005

rossmik's answer is pretty hot, and also addresses one of the points of the Passion that tends to get lost when discussing the basics: the idea that the moment of Jesus' death on the cross is eternally recurring. That's one of the reasons that the sacrifice is not an empty gesture by an all-knowing God. In delivering his son to a human life, God is giving up his son to a moment of perpetual death. It's not that Jesus died for man's sins, but rather that he is dying for them, right now.

As to why God created a cryptic system, maybe it's like a three-dimensional being trying to explain depth to a line. You can get across some of the idea, maybe, but the line's understanding will necessarily be imperfect. Whether one takes that as an inducement to just believe as one's told or not, I leave up to the prejudice of the reader, but I think most Christian theologians would take issue with the idea of blaming God for a human inability to comprehend.
posted by Errant at 12:48 AM on July 22, 2005