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Originally Posted by Lachean  I am often asked, when I explain that I do not regard him as my lord or god, whether or not I see philosophical or moral value in the teachings of Christ. Until recently my usual reply would have been "of course, if you pick and choose, there is much value to the Bible."
Then I read the response of C.S. Lewis, who has re-emerged as the most popular Christian apologist, to the notion of Christ as merely a great moral teacher (if not a god):
I never thought of it that way... you really must admire Lewis for his logic. Either the gospels are a literal truth, or they are a fraud and an immoral one at that.
So I pose this question to Christians, theists of other faiths, and skeptics as well: If he were not a god, could such an alleged scapegoat for man's crimes against other men be regarded as a great moral teacher?
How should we regard another mere human who claims to forgive your trespasses against another? How should those victims of sin regard sun a person?
EDIT: Because IMO I no longer feel that I can ignore much of what he claimed and died for, simply for that which I find poetic, inspirational or useful (for example you need the Bible to understand much of Shakespeare.) My estimation of the man, if he did indeed exist and was not the god he claimed to be, must encompass his entire message. |
My perspective has been somewhat different. While I subscribe to the belief that there was a man named Jesus who was rather famous within his social circle in the area of Palestine, I don't actually believe that he necessarily claimed to forgive sin. The Gospel accounts are not credible to me. So, about Jesus himself, I don't believe there are accurate enough accounts to know much of true value about him.
So, I have always evaluated the moral value of the stories
as if they were in fact all true. This is sort of a buy in to Lewis' claim that the accounts must stand or fail together, so I agree there. And I further agree that, if they are taken as if they are true, they can be taken as a marvelous story of altruistic love and self sacrifice. There are of course many stories that are this way, very inspirational. I imagine that some of these would also have parts that lose their inspirational quality if you fail to suspend disbelief about certain other parts of them.
As to your OP, I don't think anyone can fail to see that Jesus is either a jerk or a lunatic if he is not a true sacrifice.
I actually think the more interesting question is whether or not God is a jerk or a lunatic if he holds sinful affronts paid in any part by another's sacrifice, no matter how pure. Why
should the horrible acts of one person be payable by any other person? Your questions still stand whether or not Jesus is a true sacrifice as long as you ask the right entity. Just ask the Father, instead.
The whacked nature of this kind of Justice is illustrated by considering the following possibility: Hitler may have accepted Jesus right as he died. It doesn't even matter that he committed suicide (if he did), since he still might have accepted Christ just as his life expired. Now, chances are that millions of Jews never accepted Christ and died in Hitler's camps. According to most theology, these Jews will not be in Heaven. Hitler may have gotten in, but not any Jew he killed who didn't accept Jesus? It's perverted any way you slice it. It is an unforgivable perversion of Justice.
And if your questions are not adequately answered in this 'new' context, then the heroic nature of Jesus stories fails. Of course these questions have been asked before, and as far as I'm concerned have never been answered satisfactorily.