Home » Discuss Elliaison Books and Articles » The Atonement of Jesus Christ » Justice (Who is justice that makes demands?)
| Re: Justice [message #3867 is a reply to message #3865] |
Sun, 21 June 2020 09:38  |
Contemplator
Messages: 12
Registered: January 2013
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Junior Member |
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This is a wonderful post on a topic that is so big that I don’t know if I can do it justice in any response (you see what I did there? 😂😂😂 I do enjoy a pun!
In my OP, I brought up the nature of God for a specific reason that I did not make clear. Many discussion of the atonement are premised on an idea of a “price for sin.” That must be paid. In this paradigm, justice is the system that enforces the payment of some kind of price for sin. Each sin has a price, maybe measured in units of suffering, and that price must be paid before mercy can be applied. So, the atonement becomes a pathetic exercise in whipping, torturing and killing Jesus so that he will pay the price for sin and we get off free for having accepted Jesus. Now, I know that this is not your view. You have taught vigorously against this. But, the notion of justice has become linked to this penal substitution version of the atonement.
One of the important reasons that penal substitution is flawed is that it is based upon someone setting the prices for each sin. Who sets the prices? God? Or, something above God? The challenge that you have is that Mormons are set in a thousand-year history of talking about justice in a penal substitution setting.So, when we use words like “justice demands” we do not get to choose how those words will be understood in the preconceptions and traditions of the reader. Thus, it is important to write in such a way that the reader is less likely to be confused by their preconceptions and will perceive what you are actually trying to say.
Alma tries to do this in Alma 42:1 when he says, “And now, my son, I perceive there is somewhat more which doth worry your mind, which ye cannot understand—which is concerning the justice of God in the punishment of the sinner; for ye do try to suppose that it is injustice that the sinner should be consigned to a state of misery.” Alma defines justice in the context of his son’s question, “How can it be just for people to be punished?” Alma describes a system of natural consequence. There is no supreme God or Concept called “Justice.” Alma says that it is just for people who live in a manner inconsistent with how God lives to have to live somewhere else. This is how it is. Alma’s teaching is consistent with your post about truth and how we live. Unfortunately, it is easy as a reader to forget that this is the justice that Alma is talking about and then to misunderstand his later statements about justice. My OP was a poor attempt to draw attention to this.
The definition of justice is central to this who discussion. If justice is a system of penalties for violating laws then we get into trouble understanding the atonement. If justice is that we cannot return to God until we repent (learn from our transgressions and return to truth) then we get to a more productive discussion.
So, truth. This will be a bit of a side note relative to the OP, but is such an interesting topic! I like much of what you have said. I would offer one little idea to try to tighten up what you are saying. We live in a culture that is heavily influenced by a line of philosophy that argues about whether there are absolutes. Is truth an absolute? Many philosophers would argue that the most we can have is perception and that there is no absolute state of being to be called truth.
You quoted D&C 93:
23 Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth;
24 And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come;
25 And whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning.
I think you said this, but I just want to be sure we are agreeing on this definition of truth. Truth is not the THINGS as they are, were, and are to come. Truth is the KNOWLEDGE of things as they are, were, and are to come. Who has this knowledge (=truth)? It is whoever is described by “Ye” at the start of verse 23. So, looking two verses prior:
21 And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn;
22 And all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn.
The speaker is Jesus Christ. He is speaking to those who are begotten through him to become the church of the Firstborn. Thus, members of the church of Firstborn were (existed) in the beginning with the Father (as you have described in your post). These beings were Spirit, even the Spirit of truth (knowledge of things as they are, were, and are to come). This is one of those definitions that God wants to protect. Jesus Christ says that anything more or less than this comes from the wicked one.
Not to go too far afield from the topic of this thread, Let’s look at Moses 6: 61 “Therefore it is given to abide in you; the record of heaven; the Comforter; the peaceable things of immortal glory; the truth of all things; that which quickeneth all things, which maketh alive all things; that which knoweth all things, and hath all power according to wisdom, mercy, truth, justice, and judgment.” Receving the Holy Ghost is an essential part of being in the church of the Firstborn. This comforter includes the truth of all things and has power according to wisdom, mercy, truth, justice and judgment.
My suggestion for the book is to avoid language in the presentation that plays in to preconceptions of a price for sin, or any notion of penal substitution. Instead, link the discussion firmly to the ideas that I know you espouse about the nature of God, and our relationship to God.
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