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The Incoherence of Original Sin and Substitutive Sacrifice
By Philip Kuchar
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Foreward:
Christianity is based on the unusual idea of sacrificial punishment. The
atonement has been interpreted in different ways, but the explanation stemming from some of
the more vocal apologists is that of substitution. Jesus suffered God’s righteous
indignation instead of sinners, substituting for those who deserve punishment. Curious
concepts are
employed to make sense of the central idea of substitutive sacrifice, which in
turn is an
explanation for the brutal fact of Jesus’ violent execution. An anomaly, a
grossly
unfair event--from one widespread perception, at least--in the ancient past has
come to
necessitate peculiar explanations to make sense of it. Original sin was
conceived,
skeptics contend, to provide everyone with the disease for which the
proselytizer claims
God has the cure. And the sacrifice is said to work in terms of a
"transference"
of moral debt. When examined, these explanations turn out to be incoherent, a
fact which
casts doubt on the truth of Christianity’s central concept, that
Jesus’ death
was a sacrifice.
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Original Sin
Original sin means that the human species is innately depraved, a global
consequence of
which is the punishment of physical death for everyone. We are
"guilty" of
original sin just by being born human. This involves a curious misuse of
"guilty," because someone can be guilty only of choosing to commit a
particular
criminal act. No one chooses to be born a human, with an allegedly corrupt,
incorrigible
"nature." Therefore original sin cannot be something we’re
"guilty" of and "deserve" punishment for. We deserve
punishment only
for the crimes we choose to commit. Otherwise, "guilty" and
"deserving (of
punishment)" are weasel words, empty constructions for accommodating
contrary
evidence, such as the ordinary practice of treating anything destructive yet
not chosen by
a moral agent subject to judgment as an unpleasant feature of nature, or an
"Act of
God." Moral evils are those committed by a morally responsible agent for
which
she
might be punished. Natural evils (diseases, earth quakes, floods) are brought
about by
randomness, accident, indifferent forces of nature, or perhaps an angry deity,
but not by
ordinary human decision. Human "nature" has evolved over thousands of
years, and
whatever inborn potential to commit misdeeds we might have would seem based on
the fittest
characteristics our ancestors could evolve to survive in an unforgiving,
hostile
environment.
Christianity can be summarized as the worship of a saviour-God who washes
away our
worries and deadly sins in the blood he shed on our behalf. But it’s clear
that
some
people’s particular sins far outnumber those of other people. The genius
of Paul was
in conceiving universal sin, giving everyone without exception a necessary
reason
to pay
special attention to Jesus’ death.
Yet
if we
can deserve punishment only for our actual sins, "original sin" is
a misnomer. No one deserves punishment for existing in a certain state or for
having a
tendency to sin, only for the actual immoral choices we make. It may or may not
be true
that we have an inborn tendency to lie, steal, rape and kill. This may be a
fact about
human nature. However, this tendency can be called only an original inclination
to
sin, not a sin in itself. We are not responsible for having this tendency,
especially
given evolutionary theory as to when and how this tendency probably first
developed, long
ago before we could be called human. Even if the sins of past generations
helped shape our
social environment and biological impulses which compel us to sin, again no
single person
or group of persons is responsible for creating this environment. And even if
we
negatively impact the environment with our particular sins, each of us is
already born
into
such an environment, complete with the genetic makeup of human
"nature."
Yet "guilt" applies to someone for the misdeeds she carries out, not
for the
material cause of these misdeeds, such as a depraved will present from birth
and an
imperfect, preoccupied nature. So long as we can be guilty only of our crimes,
the
destructive choices that we personally make, "original sin" is a
verbal trick
used to justify the Christian concepts of the universal need for salvation and
the
legitimacy of Jesus’ substitutive death.
One
of the most obscene consequences of the doctrine of original sin is its
explanation
of the death of infants, as offered, for example, in regard to the story of the
Amalekite
slaughter (1 Sam.15). Because of "original sin" infants not only
deserve to die,
but indeed God would be justified in killing them violently like any criminal
guilty
of a
capital offense. Commitment to much of the New Testament and especially
Paul’s
writings leads to the belief that fundamentally the human species is worthless,
depraved,
incompetent, infinitely guilty and deserving of ultimate condemnation. And
more, that even
an apparently innocent infant is likewise "guilty" and
"selfish,"
deserving of punishment. But not just any punishment: violent execution, the
death penalty
for
those
who are too young to make any real choices at all let alone rational ones for
which they could be held accountable. Imagine building a tiny electric chair
and knitting
a baby-sized black mask to go over the infant’s barely developed face as
she
cries
and
cries
for her mother, absolutely ignorant of what is happening to her and why; she is
carried to the chair, strapped in, and electrocuted. Capital punishment for an
infant
carried out at God’s discretion, because of "original sin," a
word
game
that confuses having an innate tendency to sin and a sin itself.
The idea of original sin can be modified to avoid these problems. Instead of
considering human nature as something "sinful" and deserving of
punishment (such
as physical death), our depravity together with its "punishment"
could instead
be analyzed in terms of an amoral necessary relationship between cause and
effect. Human
nature becomes naturally not morally evil. God is perfect, and we are imperfect
which
God
can’t tolerate. Therefore we must be separated from God, the result of
which is death
for us, because life comes only from harmony with God. No universal
"sin" or
"guilt," just a disastrous consequence of being human.
The problem with this interpretation of original sin is that it shifts
responsibility
for
death on to God, who must have assigned physical death as a side effect of the
human
form. This in turn detracts from the need of salvation through Jesus’
sacrificial
punishment. If we were created imperfect and therefore to be apart from God,
there would
be no sense in punishing us for either our corrupt nature or the particular
sins we commit
as a direct result of this nature. Once original sin is naturalized the
"punishment" must be as well, whether this be physical death for
universal sin,
hell for the sins we commit as so many expressions of our inner depravity, or
indeed the
gospel’s centerpiece, Jesus’ sacrificial crucifixion. All of these
would lose
their force as meritorious features of a system of justice, were original sin
attributed
to God’s Design or Predestination of our species (as in Calvinism, for
example)
rather than to human responsibility.
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Substitutive Sacrifice
As a result of original sin we cannot pay for our crimes and survive the
process, which
is to
say that we deserve hell for our corruption and disobedience. Fortunately,
Jesus
‘bore the sins of the whole world on the cross.’ A sinless person was
allowed to
undergo the (spiritual) death penalty that we deserve for our sins. This
despite the fact
that a moral debt, unlike an abstract monetary one, can’t be transferred.
There
are
two conceivable parts of a monetary debt: the money owed, and the moral
obligation the
debtor might feel that would turn to guilt were the debtor incapable of paying
the
money
and to suffer a conscientious reaction. In a sense, a debtor who finds herself
incapable
of returning the money owes both money and guilt, a kind of psychological
recognition of
fault. Were a debtor to find herself broke, and to fail to produce both the
money
and the
consequent guilt the creditor would feel doubly cheated: first for the lack of
the proper
monetary payment, and second for the lack of the proper emotional response to
the
debtor’s fault. A debtor might try to substitute for the money owed a
recognition of
fault with overflowing guilt.
Imagine a wealthy and selfless replacement debtor (RD) who offers to pay
what a
destitute debtor owes. The RD could conceivably offer to supply both the money
and the
guilt. The creditor would have no trouble accepting the money, as long as the
money were
legally obtained. Money, after all, is abstract: the value attached to a
hundred dollar
bill has nothing to do with any qualitative superiority of the bill over a mere
one dollar
bill.
The
value of money is fixed in abstraction. But would the creditor accept the
RD’s display of guilt on behalf of the poor debtor? The moral value of
guilt, unlike
the
value of money, is fixed by the context in which the guilt is expressed.
Imagine
a
hero who after saving twenty children from a burning building responds to her
own heroism
with a heart-aching display of guilt. Since guilt would be a misplaced emotion
under these
circumstances, the guilt would have no moral value. On the contrary this
"guilt"
would be evidence of a disturbed mind. The moral value of guilt, like any
emotion, depends
on the circumstances under which it’s displayed.
The primary condition of the moral value of guilt is that the person who
displays it
must be the same person who owes it. To test this, imagine the RD producing a
fine torrent
of
guilt, complete with tearful eyes and a shame-faced apology, all on behalf of
the real
debtor, the one who entered into a contract to return a sum of money, who shook
hands with
the creditor, taking on a personal as well as a legal responsibility. What
value could the
creditor place on this display of guilt, even if it appeared genuine and
heartfelt, so
long as it issued, as it were, from the wrong heart? The reason the RD’s
guilt would
be morally worthless is that guilt is the recognition of one’s own
wrongdoing. A
thousand other people could be well aware of the debtor’s fault, but only
the
debtor’s own sorrowful self-acknowledgement would be properly called
"guilt." The notion of stand-in guilt is incoherent. Such guilt could
at best be
a simulation, at worst a fraud, a bogus, superficial display.
Likewise the value of punishment, again unlike monetary value, depends
fundamentally on
the identity of the punishment’s recipient. A replacement convict might
offer to
undergo the criminal’s punishment, and might succeed in producing genuine
suffering.
But this suffering would have no moral value, because the fundamental point of
punishment
is to
pay back to the criminal what she is owed. This is the element of retaliation
at the
heart of all punishment, even of the sort that may serve other functions, such
as
rehabilitation, vindication of the law or the appeasement of a watchful deity.
Retaliation
is central to many Christian theories of the atonement. Instead of repaying
sinners the
harm we have caused with our disobedience, a substitute is produced who offers
to
accept
our ‘sin debt,’ ‘bear our guilt,’ and fulfil our
responsibility with
his own life. Jesus’ death was God’s payback for our sin, and
that’s why
the atonement took the form of a violent execution: the misery our sin causes
is returned
to the sin bearer. Even granting that Jesus was innocent, produced genuine
suffering, and
died, there is still the problem of the uselessness of his whole endeavour.
What is the
moral value of a replacement punishment, inflicted not on the offender but on
someone who
has nothing to do with the crime and who is in fact guiltless? Again, the
notion
of
substitutive punishment is incoherent because punishment, even as defined by
many
Christian theories of the atonement, involves repayment, which means returning
to the offender
what is owed her. The "re" in "repayment" and
"retaliation"
refers
to the aiming of punishment towards the offender, the one to whom punishment is
owed. Hence the concept of substitutive retaliation is incoherent.
To test this conclusion, imagine you are charged with the task of locating a
convicted
criminal so that punishment might be inflicted on her. The criminal, however,
has hid
herself in a large crowd of a thousand innocent people who all happen to be
perfectly
willing to accept the criminal’s liability and undergo her punishment. To
get a
better view you fly over the crowd in a helicopter. Looking down at the crowd,
knowing
that all but one of the people below would gladly accept the payment, and that
you
could
swoop down and snatch any of these willing people instead of the criminal,
would
you not
still burn the helicopter’s fuel searching for that one guilty person who
actually deserves
the punishment? Anyone who would continue the search despite the multitude of
would-be
lambs of God would seem to believe that punishment is worthwhile only if
it’s carried
out against the right person, the criminal whose misdeed should be
repaid
in kind.
Closely related to the idea that a sin debt can be transferred is the idea
that God
loves sinners but hates sin, and that therefore Jesus ‘bore’ our sin
on the
cross so that sin’s power over the sinner could be broken. Why the
emphasis on sin?
Why didn’t Jesus bear sinners on the cross? After all, punishment
is normally of
sinners and for sin. Sin is just the cause and justification of the
punishment, but
sinners bear the punishment. A sin, of course, is just an event, a type of
choice
of a
morally responsible agent. In focussing on the presence of our sins on the
cross, however,
the apologist seems to imply that punishment is of sin and for
sinners,
making sin the target of God’s wrath rather than that which alone could
deserve anger
and punishment, the accountable cause of sin, the sinner. The apologist has no
trouble
claiming that sinners themselves will be condemned on Judgment Day and will
descend to
hell for their punishment. Here where God’s punishment is direct without
any
substitutive sacrifice, the sinner is emphasized in the judgment and is the
target
of
God’s wrath. Yet in God’s indirect judgment of sinners through
Jesus’
sacrificial death, the focus is on sin, a deadly power binding sinners and
enslaving them
to demons, which is subjected to God’s wrath on the cross. Sin is
condemned on the
cross whereas the sinner is condemned in hell.
The reason for this curious reversal seems clear. The very notion of
substitutive
sacrifice presupposes love for the sinner. Otherwise, there would be no need of
a
sacrifice and sinners would be punished directly, as will reportedly happen on
Judgment
Day. A sacrificial punishment is motivated out of love and mercy for sinners,
and a desire
not to have them punished directly. Wrath can’t be forgotten entirely,
though,
because there would then be no punishment at all. The wrath is simply
redirected away from
the sinner as a result of God’s forgiveness. But where could the wrath go?
Ordinarily
sinners are the ones to blame, and deserve a harsh emotional reaction and
punishment since
they are culpable for sin. Yet sinners themselves are forgiven, which is why
they are
spared direct punishment. And yet a punishment is wanted.
It would be absurd to suggest that Jesus bore sinners on the cross,
since this
would negate the substitution and sinners might well then have been punished
directly
without the need of Jesus’ representation. Jesus bore our sin on
the cross,
which becomes the target of God’s wrath even though making a crime the
focus of anger
is absurd. Hating sin is as absurd as blaming a fig tree for not producing figs
out of
season (Mark 11:13-14), or indeed as absurd as loving a fig tree for producing
figs in
season. And yet if God’s wrath for sinners were softened by mercy but not
expunged,
and a punishment were still desired, a target for the wrath would have to be
found.
Since sin is so closely related to the sinner irrational anger might perhaps
shift
towards the sin, which then becomes the object of the punishment, that which
must be
broken like a cruel chain, whereas the sinner’s welfare becomes the
justification for
the punishment: sin is punished to spare the sinner. Whereas normally a
punishment is
inflicted on the sinner for the sake of condemning sin, substitutive sacrifice
involves
punishment of the sin for the sake of rescuing the sinner. The distortion of
the
commonsense definition of the meaning of a moral debt, to include the
possibility of such
a debt’s transference, is accompanied by a reversal of the commonsense
understanding
of the relation between sin and sinner. Both distortions are required to allow
for and
explain the illogic of substitutive sacrifice.
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