A Theory of Atonement (Or so it seems to me...)

I've been trying to make sense of the atonement in my own mind for many years, wrestling with two very difficult intellectual hurdles, both of which I believe I am on the way to overcoming. As far as theology is concerned, I am only a moderately educated layman. With that in mind, I submit to you some ideas I've been working on which are now, I believe, developed to the point of peer review. If I have wandered into heterodoxy, please rebuke me kindly.

The problems are these:

1.) How can substitution be truly just? I've heard many times the story of the wise judge whose own son's case is brought before his bench. The judge rules his son guilty and then takes off the robe to pay the penalty on the behalf of the guilty. Fine. But payment with a federal reserve note and payment with blood are hardly comparable. The former can transfer hands easily and the latter can not. It does not appear fair that a guilty life can be replaced with an innocent one. If one's reply is that it's grace, then why require payment at all?

2.) How is one death satisfactory payment for many errors? Even in cases when a serial killer is put to death, justice is not completely served. It's only as close as we can get unless the condemned is a cat who has killed less than ten people.

The responses are these:

1.) My response to the first problem comes from the idea of corporate culpability. Many Old Testament examples come to mind of individual sins meriting corporate condemnation. God seems to view people in perhaps less of an individual sense than the average Westerner does. It seems to me that if one man's sin can be in some ways another man's condemnation, then the reverse must be true. Christ can fairly pay for a man's sin if He, as a member of mankind, is victim to its consequences. Thus, corporate culpability makes subsititutionary atonement logical. Or so it seems to me.

2.) My response to the second problem comes from the idea of infinite personhood. One finite person dies a finite death. But one infinite person would die an infinite death. An infinite death could theoretically be a more than sufficient replacement for any possible number of capital offenses. Thus, infinite personhood makes a single act of atonement satisfactory. Or so it seems to me.

I foresee some objections, but I'll let someone else bring them up instead of battling straw men of my own creation...

An Excersise in Situational Ethics

Prompted by my annoyingly intelligent friend Jon Vowell's prodding regarding my thought in a previous post, I have a few questions.

1.) Is it better:

• a.) that a man thoughtfully holds a door open for a senior citizen out of compassion because he sees that the elder is disabled, or

• b.) that a man thoughtlessly holds a door open for the same senior citizen because he has trained within himself a general respect for his elders?

2.) If one is better than the other, is the lesser wrong? (If you say no, I win)

3.) If yes, is it possible to live within what is popularly called God's "perfect will?" (If you say yes, I seriously question your grasp on reality.)

4.) If no, why do we even talk about it?

Loathing No Country

Here, I will give a poor attempt at explaining my distaste for the Coen Brothers' highly acclaimed film, "No Country for Old Men."

Several years ago, I had a conversation with my then-roommate about the movie he had just made me watch, entitled "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." He asked me what I thought, and I told him point blank and unequivocally, "I hated it." He then kindly attempted to correct my obvious ignorance, because clearly I had not understood the film. He explained to me that it was an uncanny reflection of the downward spiral of licentiousness. He assured me that this was a very accurate representation of how each of these drugs alters a man's consciousness. I took his word for it.

I'm sure that the same kind of thing could be said for "No Country." A very compelling and well-crafted account of the apparent blind forces that bring fortune and misfortune into one's life, shot with a keen eye for southwestern sense and sensibility. Masterfully and subtly acted. Etcetera. I will not argue this point.

I will, however, ask myself what the point of a story is when evaluating a piece of fiction. Not that individual story, but stories in general. Why are they told? Why should they be told? C.S. Lewis mentioned in his essay "On Stories," his astonishment at the sheer volume of work regarding style, order, and the delineation of characters in stories when there was scarce written regarding the ontology of stories themselves.

A story (in my opinion, to which I am entitled), should give us a fair glimpse into the eternal so that we may be better worshippers of God. It should not be merely a nearsighted snapshot of a single aspect of reality separated from the whole. Even if the snapshot is a very accurate one. The Bible would be the penultimate example of a story. Our culture has a way of celebrating the individual, the special case, and the deviant with no regard to the part they play as members of the whole. Altered states of consciousness and sociopathic homicide may be facts, but they are not truths when disconnected from judgment and/or redemption. Case studies are not stories. They are rarely worth mentioning, and never masquerading as entertainment or in any way a helpful social commentary when separated from their ultimate and inevitable ends.

Unfortunately for the Coen brothers' souls, missing the telos from the outset made No Country for Old Men a very well-crafted waste of time.