The Greatest Earthly Tragedy, Pt. 3

(continued from last entry)

As of yet, we’ve not talked extensively about the character of God.  Is God just if he relies on such a potentially faulted system of divying out salvation? Yes, most assuredly.  There is an important part of this debate that I’ve saved till now, namely that none of us deserve salvation, according to the Christian worldview, and any attempt God makes to reach out to us has nothing to do with justice-it has everything to do with God’s overwhelming mercy and grace, and love for us.  Christianity is not about entitlement for what we have earned, it’s about thanksgiving at being given a gift we can never repay.  I’ve talked about this in passing before, but it is important that we discuss this now in some depth, so that we can fully understand the Christian view in this matter.  I believe that might diffuse some of the criticisms.  Christian doctrine states plainly that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23).  The punishment for this sinning (literally the violation of the person of God, see my Sinner entries for more on this) is death, without exception.  In other, more direct words:  We all deserve to go to hell.  (Again, we have to maintain a Christian conception of hell, literally an eternity apart from God, not being physically tortured ad infinitum in some burning pit of fire, as some would have you believe.)  But the gift of God is eternal life, for those who accept Christ.  If there is something unfair about this physical existence, from the Christian worldview, it is that anyone goes to Heaven, not that some go to Hell.  Do you see the shift there?  It has nothing to do with how good or bad you are.  There is no divine ledger, with the good you’ve done on one side and the bad on the other that somehow will decide the matter.  The verdict has been read:  we are guilty of violating God.  Our sentence has already been levied:  death, and eternal separation from God.  That God himself offered freely to take this punishment is the gift of mercy from God-literally someone else taking our death penalty, and the court bailiff taking off the cuffs and saying, “you’re free to go.”  You could live life as a paragon to virtue and morality, and the sentence would be the same if you’d sinned even once (as we all have).  All sin is equal in God’s eyes, and it all gets the same penalty.  That is what Godly justice is all about.  Any violation getting equal punishment.  While we as humans don’t share that view of transgression (we don’t give people who commit perjury the death penalty, at least outside of Texas), it is the Godly view. 

There is an important difference between the social side of transgression and the theological side of transgression that this debate also misses, as I’ve just alluded to.  If God is perfect, righteous, etc, than ANY kind of imperfection He accepts makes Him imperfect.  Justice then is letting the imperfect reap the fruits of their imperfection.  This point is getting long, so I want to end it by using an analogy I often make.  If the world’s people were all on a boat in the ocean, and there was no such thing as land, what is the due, logical reward of sinking your own ship?  The answer, of course, is drowning.  You have one means of staying alive, and that’s staying on the boat.  If you destroy your means of life, you die.  Simple.  There is no difference between the man who throws out the liferafts and the one who breaches the hull or destroys the radio.  Now, we bring out the Coast Guard, on a helicopter, and it keeps throwing down ropes, saving whoever will grab the rope.would it somehow be unjust if those who don’t grab the rope die as a result of their stubbornness?  No, of course not.  The same is the case here.  The people who are on deck to see the Coast Guard come-their duty is to go and tell everyone they don’t have to drown, but you can’t make anyone take the rope.  Even a safety rope would feel like a chain dragging you down if you were convinced you had to drown, for whatever reason.  This entry is long, so I’m going to end it now, and I’ll see how this settles, and what questions it raises.