Meaning and Import of Atonement and Resurrection
October 23, 2011
Here we consider the role of the Christian theory atonement and resurrection and how Paul and Kant and Wesley find some common ground.
The Christian message is meaningless if there is a possibility that the world could become a perfect world on its own, without the help of God. So Paul will be forced to look for a necessity to the life of Jesus and he finds it in original sin, the idea that we are by nature evil, even though God is perfectly good.
Here now we can introduce Kant’s thinking. Kant presents the moral law and its ensuing respect arising from our rationality and our physical and psychological make up, both together, the moral and the happy. When we first learn of this law (requiring our own conception) we have not only this feeling of respect arising within us, but we find that we have already broken that law, e.g., in the telling of our first lie and which may be no more than standing by silently when a lie is being told.
So we discover that we are by nature evil, i.e., willing to violate the moral law if convenient for our happiness, i.e., subjugating the moral to the prudent. Here we know two things; we know that we have freely chosen to do evil, for we see that we should not have done that evil. And yet we did it automatically, even reflexively. And so we must then face this additional fact: that we know the right thing to do, what we ought to do. So we know right and wrong and, upon this initial awareness, we know that we have already chosen the wrong.
So then finally: every person comes to the realization of the moral law and his own evil at the same time. How this has arisen, this penchant to choose to do this evil, we cannot explain at all. It is simply a fact. It is natural and it is free. This latter, that we have freely chosen evil, is the good news for it means that we can change.
Now we jump back to Paul for his understanding of the original sin and we see that by means of Kant’s understanding Paul would have seen this same fact, and so it is no wonder that he would express himself as he did, i.e., all people are born into sin.
So this is the world which Paul wants to address. I think here we can draw on Kant again regarding a universal understanding, namely that all people will realize that they have violated the moral law and (via the conception of the Highest Good) that a God of Justice will require that they pay for that. If they have told a single lie, then they will reap the reward of all liars (and so independent of any quantitative measure of actual evil [which is not a moral component]). Thus everyone knows that in a moral court they are rightly and justly due a punishment. The God of Justice. Commit the crime and pay the price. No favorites before the law. The demand of rationality itself in moral matters is for an enduring happiness in a degree that one deserves in a moral realm.
Kant also points out that a good deed does not cancel out an evil deed, because all good deeds are required as a matter of course for all people. So that is not a surplus on which to mitigate or cancel the punishment due for evil acts. It’s not the act that matters so much as rather the principle of action which has led to the evil acts which then arise upon opportunity.
How then does Paul approach this matter? He has Jesus playing the role of canceling these sins for those who want to have a second chance at the moral life. This is difficult to express and I want to appeal to two intentions which can exist side by side.
In the first case we can imagine Jesus representing the human species before the angels, and where God shows the angels that a perfectly righteous person is possible from the humans, and furthermore by the fact of this perfectly righteous person it will come about that all humans will become as that righteous person. So the human species is worthy to be classified not merely as good but even as “very good”. Out of evil will come righteousness (somewhat like Tolkien’s final return of the ring to its source).
In the second case Jesus shows the way necessary for the humans to take in order to represent this perfected existence disclosed to the angels. He shows it by leading and by taking the way himself. It is necessary for anyone wishing to attain to continuing happiness to deny his sinful nature, such as his penchant for telling lies, and to receive a new nature. In order to show the way this Jesus, who did not deserve to die because he was sinless, nevertheless for those who will follow him (and who must die to their own sinful nature) he dies in solidarity with them, only he has to die in the flesh (actual) death. So he goes through in the flesh what each follower must do in the spirit. The follower dies to sin.
The actual individual atonement, according to Kant, consists in this. By virtue of the conversion from the natural, default evil principle to the good or moral principle, the individual takes on a world of troubles, given the present state of the world (where lies are expected if ever convenient), for the individual can no longer make an excuse for an immoral act (not even the excuse that everyone else is lying or is willing to lie), and the ill that will arise for the convert in the world (conceptually considered and not in terms of quantity [which is considered infinite in every case]) as a result of this conversion will serve to cancel out the evil that the individual was willing to commit for self interest. This is expressed so: the individual dies to sin.
In a word then, Jesus dies for the sake of humanity and God is pleased by that.
Now the joker in the hand, according to Paul, is the resurrection. While God lets Jesus die by negating the natural law that a totally righteous person cannot die, He then negates that violation by having Jesus rise from the dead (a contrary violation which rectifies the former violation of the laws of nature*). The result of this resurrection is the effect it has on the humans who consider heeding the call of Jesus and renouncing their sinful nature and joining his band, namely that the death to sin will be matched by the resurrection to life, a new life based on a new nature, a nature where the initial impulse eventually become moral (a so-called state of sanctification). In other words, not only is the member of Jesus’ band given a second chance, he or she is also guaranteed success, i.e., attainment of perfect happiness.
[* Accordingly then it would be a law of nature that a person who is totally righteousness cannot die. That this has not be generally observed is due to the fact that aside from Jesus there has not been a totally righteous person. The resurrection of the dead, also a violation of the law of nature, was observed, but not generally and was witnessed to only by Jesus' disciples and friends.]
In order for this conception to make any sense we need to understand Paul in a Wesleyan way, namely where it is possible to subsequently fall from grace after a conversion, and to return to a world of sin. A Christian is saved and given eternal life by his faith, and his faith is manifested in his intention for loving and universal deeds, and his faith will be matched and verified by his progression in love, namely that he (given the opportunity in life) is coming closer and closer to perfection in love, and that is the promise of the gospels, along with peace of mind and joy of heart, namely that we will attain to Kant’s ideal of the moral religion, namely a love of the moral law, except that Jesus goes further and makes it a love of the law of love, a law of second chances and certitude of success.
Now the question will come up concerning the “righteous gentiles” (Romans 2). How came they to righteousness without faith in Jesus? The solution is to show that while someone can come to righteousness without this faith, the most that they can expect is hope, a hope that they will be found acceptable to God. What the Christian attains through his faith is a certitude of this acceptance and so where hope is changed into expectation and confidence, and the result in a joy in spirit.
This contrast of hope and certitude is exemplified in a comparison of the Islamic and Christian conceptions. The Muslim at most has hope and thus remains in fear. The Christian attains to confidence and loses all fear. The Muslim remains in a state of spiritual servitude. The Christian, acting now with salvation in hand, enters a state of moral freedom and acts independently of external instruction and reward. Thus while the good Muslim can be righteous, the most that can be expected is hope. The Christian alone can attain to the peace of mind that accompanies certitude. And so independently of knowledge of the Day of Judgment, the Muslim can only hope and fear and submit to external tutelage, while the Christian can attain to peace of mind and an independent, free spirit of action.
Paul then conceives of a way for Jesus to bring a change to the world, a revolution in religion, whereby all people can be appealed to and brought to a new nature of fearlessness and independence. The ultimate result will be the happiness that God intended to reign on the earth.