Think Outside the Box
COUNTER POINT
On the Atonement
Richard Dawkins writes:
God incarnated himself as a man, Jesus, in order that he should be tortured and executed in atonement for the hereditary sin of Adam. Ever since Paul expounded this repellant doctrine, Jesus has been worshipped as the redeemer of all our sins. Not just the past sin of Adam: future sins as well, whether future people decided to commit them or not!
I have described the atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sado-masochistic and repellant. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity. If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them, without having himself tortured and executed in payment – thereby, incidentally, condemning remote future generations of Jews to pogroms and persecution as ‘Christ-killers’: did that hereditary sin pass down in the semen too? (The God Delusion, p. 252-253)
R.C. Metcalf responds:
Every man, woman and child alive is born a slave to sin, due to the inheritance of a sin nature. However, the only person capable of overcoming death, Jesus Christ, paid the penalty for that sin as our substitute. While the crucifixion may seem barbaric to you, it was born on the shoulders of God himself. This means that God not only created and enacted the Law; He bore the punishment for our crimes (even if we perceive them as mere peccadilloes), entirely in our place. Christians understand this as Christ’s atonement for our sins. He willingly paid the penalty we rightfully should have paid ourselves. You finds this doctrine of the atonement sado-masochistic and repellant. Yet the atonement forms the core of the Christian concept of grace. This initial act of grace on Jesus’ part promises us forgiveness of sin and opens the door to a new life of grace. Henceforth we find ourselves no longer slaves to sin. As Paul says,
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
-- Romans 6:16
But we can define grace as so much more than mere forgiveness of sins. It also provides an entrance into a life in which God actively participates. God, the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, works in the lives of believers to empower them toward living sanctified lives that reflect the moral teachings of Jesus. No one can truly understand this aspect of the Christian faith short of personal experience. Since you seem convinced that science offers no evidence favoring the existence of God, it will be especially hard for me to convince you that God actively intervenes in the lives of Christians, yet countless thousands can testify to such occurrences.
