r/AskAChristian

From what I understand, PS goes like this:
Humans have sinned, missed the moral target God set, which created a moral debt to God’s infinite holiness and need for justice. Humans are too finite and imperfect to satisfy that moral debt. That debt comes in the form of moral guilt and can only be satisfied through death, the shedding of one’s blood as a symbol of the giving of one's life as a payment for one's sins. In the past, innocent animals’ lives were given as an attempt to satisfy the debt for the overall sins of the community, but they couldn’t. If that debt was not satisfied fully, humans would have had to answer for their sins through infinite punishment in the fires of Hell. Thus, God chose to send himself in human form as Jesus Christ to be killed, paying the debt for humanity on our behalf, so we could be saved from Hell and reconciled to God.

My issue is, why does sin necessarily create a moral debt, and why must that moral debt only be redeemable through death? That seems kind of gratuitous. The Gospels seem to show that the best form of justice to improve the overall long-term well-being of relationships is restoration rather than mere punishment, one that leads to internal moral transformation between individuals rather than a death sentence. If only an infinite being could satisfy our infinite debt to Him, why is it being applied to finite beings? That seems unfair. The idea that crimes done for a finite time period deserve punishment for an infinite time period seems even more unfair. Both ignore the need for a punishment should be proportional to the crime’s severity. We usually measure a crime's severity based on the crime in itself and its consequences to the overall well-being of sentient beings, not the authority of the offended. So, arguing that God’s eternal authority requires Him to infinitely punish our sins seems unfounded. Why does an infinite being need to make a standard for justice that only He can satisfy? The system seems arbitrary and circular. According to, under PS, God sacrifices Himself to Himself to satisfy the rules He Himself established, because that’s just the way He decided it to be. Isn’t it possible for God to simply forgive humanity for their sins and reconcile with us by helping us overcome our shortcomings? That seems like a and more restorative way of dealing with our guilt caused by sin, rather than bloodshed and infinite torment.

Also, PS seems to contradict Jesus’ own actions as painted in the Gospels. In Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5, Jesus said to a paralytic,  “Child, your sins are forgiven” (NRSVUE). He forgave the paralysed man before His supposed propitiatory sacrifice. If He could do that to one person, why couldn’t He, as an infinite being, be able to forgive all humanity’s sins in the same way? Throughout the Gospels, Jesus went around healing people from various ailments and evil spirits. He presented Himself as more of a healer and liberator than a judge. So, it’s unlikely that Jesus supports PS. His actions seem to be more aligned with, that God came to free all humanity from our bondage to sin and death, to be healed of the effects of sin and reconciled with God. That again is more in line with a justice system based on restoration rather than punishment.

Finally, PS seems to destabilise the Trinity. Trinitarianism posits that the Father, Son and Spirit are totally united in love and will. If the Father punishes the Son (Jesus) in place of humanity, that seems to disrupt their complete unity in love and will. So, PS seems to complicate the traditional understanding of the Trinity, making it less parsimonious than other atonement theories like CV. 

Now, some may also argue that CV faces problems, too – God can just remove all evil instantly. The problem is that evil is not just a stain that God can just erase: it is a choice to miss the mark and separate oneself from God, corrupting our relationship with Him and creation itself. If God just snapped its fingers and got rid of all evil, it may undermine human agency, since the effects of evil are so imbued in human desires, relationships and even the structure of creation. We don’t just force disordered relationships to work; we help them understand and choose to love each other again. Likewise, God in Scripture is painted as undergoing this process of entering human existence to enter into the effects of evil by experiencing violence and death, but through His holiness not become enslaved to its power, and thus destroy its power so all could be free from their bondage to it, as well, and begin the process of restoring their relationship with God. This powerful, transformative way of overcoming sin and death seems more effective than just wiping it out. 

So, I disagree with PS and think CV is a better model; of course, they're not mutually exclusive. What are your thoughts on this?

Just curious.

The Catholic Church condemns lending with interest.[1,2] Please read "Vix Pervenit" so you can tell me if I've misunderstood something and so you will know what you're talking about if I haven't.

The basic idea is that 'interest' is charging someone to use money, wrong like selling someone a drink and then making him pay again to drink the drink: It is effectively selling something that does not exist, i.e. fraud, as one has already bought the drink and should not be forced to pay to use what is already his. (Moral business lending to profit the lender instead is to agree to share some proceeds from the business, or some other fixed, finite return.)

I had thought perhaps this teaching was no longer applicable because we are no longer working with money, no longer using gold and silver, fixed stores of value, but instead are working with worthless paper (e.g. US Dollar) which is not a store of value but instead signifies opportunity cost, a behavior incentivizer instead of a store of value, whose purpose is not to store wealth but instead to move people to action. In other words: Since we are in an economy with 2% inflation target, currency being nothing but a digital spreadsheet number or piece of paper or mostly-worthless metal, rather than stores of value we are working with cash flows as primary objects of interest, and so trading cash flows is morally suitable as it becomes like any other transaction.

Yet I think this argument is specious, because in fact one can still buy gold and silver, stores of value(?), with USD, so all of the preceding statements are just mental abstractions to distract from the reality that the modern economy is mostly fraud at this point, inflation impoverishing the general public while transferring wealth from the consumer to the producer/investor.

But perhaps gold and silver are no longer stores of value if the majority no longer value them (by definition, something is a store of value only if the society values the thing).

So it's not clear to me: Are we still using money so the prohibition on usury still applies? Or are we now "working with cash flows instead of coins", currency rather than money, so it no longer applies? Or was this teaching opinion rather than dogma and Christians (especially Roman Catholics) are free to engage in usury (interest-bearing loans)?

I am thinking, similar to how a prostitute is guilty of enticing a man to sin even though the man himself is guilty of fornication, that I would incur God's wrath - be guilty of scandal, i.e. causing another to sin - in agreeing to a loan (say, to buy a house) even though it is the other party who is committing the act of usury.

Edit: It seems a good practice to read, reflect, and pray regarding relevant Bible passages.[3-5]

What do you think?

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