Why Orthodox do not believe in the penal satifaction theory...

[Schultz]

My only question is what are this Orthodox gentleman's credentials/experience in translating from Hebrew and Koine Greek?  Where did he get these translations from?  Are they his own?

 

[Tamara]

I will read it but I do think the terms used in English convey a very different meaning than what the original Greek and Hebrew words conveyed. That was the point of the post. Look at how we translate the Greek word eleison in English:


mer

 

[Tamara]

I will read it but I do think the terms used in English convey a very different meaning than what the original Greek and Hebrew words conveyed. That was the point of the post. Look at how we translate the Greek word eleison in English:


mer

 

[Tamara]

My full message is not coming through. I will try to send it later.

 

[lubeltri]

My only question is what are this Orthodox gentleman's credentials/experience in translating from Hebrew and Koine Greek?  Where did he get these translations from?  Are they his own?

Perhaps he cut and pasted them from somewhere else.

Who knows. I've been looking at his blog. On his profile, I found a link to what is supposed to be his website: http://www.thememoryhole.org/.

 

[Demetrios G.]

Makes absolutely no sense.

You want to know why it makes no sense to you. Because you don't see the whole picture. You have to start at the fall of man. See why he fell. It's not just a moral issue. It's an ontological one as well. After Adam fell even if he asked for forgiveness from god he couldn't return to Paradise. Because the link between uncreated and created was severed. Christ became the new Adam to correct what had gone wrong. Man was not immortal on his own even in Paradise. He had to be in communion with god to be immortal. That is why you don't understand those terms posted above. The reason why Christ came is to save us and creation from death.
1 Corinthians 15:53
For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
1 Corinthians 15:54
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
Christ united human nature with the divine.
As created beings we are susceptible to death. For us to be saved from death we have to be in communion with Christ. Christ is the one that repairs the fall by uniting us with the father again.

 

[BrotherAidan]

lubeltri, I can't say I blame you.  I don't know what I would have done if I had run across this kind of nonsense before I converted.  Luckily it was a while after that I gradually became aware of it. 

NOTE: The quote ends above. I don't know how this post all got in the blue box. My response to the quote is below:

I came across it before I converted, near the end of my catechumenate during the debates about Mel Gibson's Passion movie. It was a stumbling block but I chocked it up to an Othodox allergy to the substitutionary atonement. There were too many other wonderful things about Orthodoxy to keep me away over this one point. But peridodically, I want to throw my hands up and scream over what seems to be a deliberate obtuseness when it comes to this subject. Some people just WILL not listen to any argument put forth and stubbornly will not accept any subtlety to the substitutionary view and insist on throwing up strawman after strawman.

The good thing is that I generally only find it here at OC.net and not in my parish.

 

[BrotherAidan]

Demetrios G

I would not at all disagree with you. But I also do not see how Christ paying for our sins as part of the purpose of his death on the cross is at odds with what you have written.

 

[welkodox]

My issue was with the ransom view put forward.  In place of "makes no sense", I should have said "faulty".

 

[ozgeorge]

My issue was with the ransom view put forward.  In place of "makes no sense", I should have said "faulty".

The question it asks is: "To whom is the ransom paid?"
It cannot be paid to God, since God was not holding us to ransom because of our sins. We were enslaved to Death and the Devil by our sins, and to say that Christ paid a ransom to death and the Devil to liberate us is ludicrous.

 

[welkodox]

The question it asks is: "To whom is the ransom paid?"

Yes, that is the question.

It cannot be paid to God, since God was not holding us to ransom because of our sins. We were enslaved to Death and the Devil by our sins, and to say that Christ paid a ransom to death and the Devil to liberate us is ludicrous.

Yet, if what you say is true, there is no ransom.  Yet, clearly there is a ransom that was paid by Christ on our behalf.  But to whom?

It seems to me there is only one possibility.

 

[ozgeorge]

Yet, if what you say is true, there is no ransom.  Yet, clearly there is a ransom that was paid by Christ on our behalf.  But to whom?

Or, another possibility is that "ransom" is a metaphor, and is not to be taken literally.

 

[welkodox]

Or, another possibility is that "ransom" is a metaphor, and is not to be taken literally.

I can't see how that wouldn't radically vitiate the meaning of the Atonement though, just as saying for instance that the words "bodily resurrection" are not to be understood literally.

In the actions surrounding the Atonement, it seems like there is a literal offering for man's sin, a literal propitiation and a literal satisfaction of divine justice.  It is in everything I have read that I have posted.  To give some examples again:

Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ. (Book 4, Section 4).

The commission of sin involves injury to God Himself...  there is need of virtue great than is found in man to be able to cancel the indictment. For the lowest it is particularly easy to commit an injury against Him who is greatest. Yet it is impossible for him to compensate for this insolence by any honour... He, then, who seeks to cancel the indictment against himself must restore the honour to Him who has been insulted and pay more than he owes, partly by way of restitution, partly by adding compensation... [Jesus] alone, then, was able to render all the honour that is due to that Father and make satisfaction for that which had been taken away. The former he achieved by His life, the latter by His death. The death which He died upon the cross to the Father's glory He brought to outweigh the injury which we had committed; in addition He most abundantly made amends for the debt of honour which we owed for our sins.

Longer Catechism of St. Philaret of Moscow

208.  How does the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross deliver us from sin, the curse, and death?

That we may the more readily believe this mystery, the Word of God teaches us of it, so much as we may be able to receive, by the comparison of Jesus Christ with Adam. Adam is by nature the head of all mankind, which is one with him by natural descent from him. Jesus Christ, in whom the Godhead is united with manhood, graciously made himself the new almighty Head of men, whom he unites to himself through faith. Therefore as in Adam we had fallen under sin, the curse, and death, so we are delivered from sin, the curse, and death in Jesus Christ. His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one person, is both a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins, and grace to have victory over sin and death.

The ransom it seems to me is quite real and I agree with you that the idea that it was owed to the Devil is ludicrous.  That leaves one possibility, and I think both of these show what the ransom was, to who it was owed, and to who it was paid.

 

[ozgeorge]

St. Gregory the Theologian, Second Oration on Pascha

"To whom was that Blood offered that was shed for us, and why was it shed? I mean the precious and famous Blood of our God and High Priest and Sacrifice. We were detained in bondage by the evil one, sold under sin, and received pleasure in exchange for wickedness. Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds in bondage, I ask, to who was this offered and to what cause? If to the evil one, fie upon the outrage! The robber receives ransom, not only from God, but a ransom which consists of God Himself, and as such has an illustrious payment for his tyranny, a payment for whose sake it would have been right for him to have left us alone all together.
But first I ask, how? For it was not by Him (God) that we were being oppressed. And next, on what principle did the Blood of His only Begotten Son delight the Father, Who would not receive even Isaac when he was being offered by his father, but changed the sacrifice, putting a ram in place of a human victim? Is it not evident that the Father accepts Him, but neither asked for Him nor demanded Him; but on account of the Incarnation, and because Humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself and overcome the tryant, and draw us to Himself by the mediation of His Son, Who also arranged this to the honour of the Father, Whom it is manifest that He obeys in all things."

 

[Demetrios G.]

Demetrios G

I would not at all disagree with you. But I also do not see how Christ paying for our sins as part of the purpose of his death on the cross is at odds with what you have written.

It's not at all at odds. In fact it complements it. But that's not the point. The point is that western theology focuses on sin alone. Very much like Orthodox converts. Focusing on sin is a dead end. It doesn't end at the cross. If we don't look at it from an orthodox perspective (even if both end at the same place)  It doesn't bring eternal life. What gives us eternal life is focusing on the Eucharist. The Eucharist puts us in communion with Christ. Christ puts us into communion with the father. The Holy spirit razes us from the dead. The church will continue even after the second coming and forever. It's what gives us ever lasting life. The heavy focus on sin and the cross has also infected the orthodox. Most orthodox don't even know that life eternal depends on communion with Christ through his church. The churches have emptied out because people don't know what the church is there for. That's why.

 

[BrotherAidan]

ransoming us from sin and death
atoning sacrifice for our sins
taking our sufferings and sins upon himself
trampling down death by death and bestowing life
showing by example that no man has greater love than this that he lays down his life for his friends, even    moreso because as St. Paul states in Romans chaper 5, that God shows his love for us in that while we still his enemies, Christ died for the ungodly
Christ as victor over sin and death  
Christ as obedient son of the Father, obedient unto death;
All of these motifs and more are the mystery of Christ's death on the cross.

to just take one of the motifs scripture gives us or to eliminate any of them, diminishes our appreciation of the mystery

 

[BrotherAidan]

Or, another possibility is that "ransom" is a metaphor, and is not to be taken literally.

I would not wish to say that any of the bibilical motifs for understanding the cross are metaphorical; mysteries that we can't fully comprehend? Yes. Metaphors, No.

 

[BrotherAidan]

Demetrios
thank you for your comments on the eucharist.

 

[ozgeorge]

I would not wish to say that any of the bibilical motifs for understanding the cross are metaphorical; mysteries that we can't fully comprehend? Yes. Metaphors, No.

So, again, I ask, to whom was the ransom paid if it is a literal ransom? As St. Gregory says, the one who held us in bondage is the evil one, so did he receive the ransom?
The problem with viewing terms like "ransom" and "atonement" too literally is that doing so imprisons God. Basically, it means God cannot forgive sin unless an atonement is made or a ransom paid.

 

[lubeltri]

Demetrios G

I would not at all disagree with you. But I also do not see how Christ paying for our sins as part of the purpose of his death on the cross is at odds with what you have written.

Totally agreed. Demetrio's explanation is correct, but it is not the only explanation. The fullness of the Atonement, the Mystery of Faith, cannot be limited to one theory (a better term might be "expression" or "representation").