I do not believe this myself, but in the interest of fairness:
There are some Christians who believe that the crucifixion was only the most visible outward agony that Jesus suffered. The more significant agony was that he experienced being cut off from God the father. (Hence the famous Aramaic exclamation.) Some Christians have hypotheses that this agony was equivalent to all the weight of all the misery caused by all the sin and guilt ever.
I do not believe you will find direct textual support for this in the Bible, but it is an extant item of faith for some Christians, and it changes the equation somewhat, no?
An important point in this is that God chose to inflict on himself (or his son, or another part of himself) exactly as much anguish as human beings have ever inflicted on themselves and each other. This makes an interesting retort to the theodicy problem: Why does God allow such suffering? We don’t know, but he must have a good reason, in that he was willing to experience exactly that much suffering himself.
Other Christians, by the way, differ in saying that Jesus suffered only enough anguish, guilt and misery to equal the harm done by those who will eventually be saved, so his sacrifice was only sufficient to atone for them. This is a point of contention among different Christian sects.
And of course some Christian sects do not believe either of these two alternatives.
In either case, it goes way beyond the physical suffering, and it greatly changes the “facts” in your
“case study”.
it greatly changes the “facts” in your “case study”.
Actually, does it not add another level of putting Jesus on a pedestal above everyone else?
It changes the equation when comparing Jesus to John Perry (indicating that Jesus’ suffering was greatly heroic after all), but perhaps intensifies the “Alas, somehow it seems greater for a hero to have steel skin and godlike powers.”
(Btw I’m one of the abovementioned Christians. Just thought I’d point out that the article’s point is not greatly changed.)
I do not believe this myself, but in the interest of fairness:
There are some Christians who believe that the crucifixion was only the most visible outward agony that Jesus suffered. The more significant agony was that he experienced being cut off from God the father. (Hence the famous Aramaic exclamation.) Some Christians have hypotheses that this agony was equivalent to all the weight of all the misery caused by all the sin and guilt ever.
I do not believe you will find direct textual support for this in the Bible, but it is an extant item of faith for some Christians, and it changes the equation somewhat, no?
An important point in this is that God chose to inflict on himself (or his son, or another part of himself) exactly as much anguish as human beings have ever inflicted on themselves and each other. This makes an interesting retort to the theodicy problem: Why does God allow such suffering? We don’t know, but he must have a good reason, in that he was willing to experience exactly that much suffering himself.
Other Christians, by the way, differ in saying that Jesus suffered only enough anguish, guilt and misery to equal the harm done by those who will eventually be saved, so his sacrifice was only sufficient to atone for them. This is a point of contention among different Christian sects.
And of course some Christian sects do not believe either of these two alternatives.
In either case, it goes way beyond the physical suffering, and it greatly changes the “facts” in your “case study”.
Actually, does it not add another level of putting Jesus on a pedestal above everyone else?
It changes the equation when comparing Jesus to John Perry (indicating that Jesus’ suffering was greatly heroic after all), but perhaps intensifies the “Alas, somehow it seems greater for a hero to have steel skin and godlike powers.”
(Btw I’m one of the abovementioned Christians. Just thought I’d point out that the article’s point is not greatly changed.)