Comments on: Christ Uncrucified?

By: Jeff Peterson

Jeff Peterson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:15:45 +0000

The neglected Anglican theologian (and friend of C. S. Lewis) Austin Farrer has a few lines on the speculation “that God’s people might have been in such friendship with his will, that the death of Son was not required to reconcile them” in his _Saving Belief_ (1964), concluding that even had the Atonement been unnecessary “Christ would still have come to transform human hope, and to bring men into a more privileged association with their Creator than they could otherwise enjoy.” The counterfactual leads to the positive judgment that “Christ did not come to get himself killed; he was not a suicide. He came to associate his people with divine life, and they killed him for doing this. By so dying he reconciled sinful wills to God, and made their incorporation in his mystical body a real possibility” (first 3 pp. of the 5th chapter on “Law and Spirit; page numbers vary in the original and the reprint). Farrer scarcely ever footnoted anything, but he may well have drawn on the Scotists for this.

By: David S. Yeago

David S. Yeago — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:28:15 +0000

The most interesting discussion of this question I know is in the chapter "Destiny and Decision" in Romano Guardini's classic The Lord. It needs to be said, though, that the existing English translation of this book is wretched, and this chapter is full of omissions and obscurities. Catholics could do an immense favor to all of English-speaking Christianity (including themselves) if they would produce a decent translation of this great book. It would be a wonderful way of supporting what Pope Benedict is trying to do with his own book on Jesus.

By: Chris Mueller

Chris Mueller — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:16:11 +0000

OK, so this is a little off-topic, but the great science fiction novelist Orson Scott Card (also a strong social commentator) published several years ago a novel called “Pastwatch”, which is a contrafactual novel about what would have happened if Christopher Columbus and the Indians had, you know, gotten along and been friends. I actually remember the novel being pretty good:
http://www.amazon.com/Pastwatch-Christopher-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812508645

By: Joseph Bottum

Joseph Bottum — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:02:23 +0000

A friend emails: “The classic text is Scotus, Ordinatio III, dist. 7, q. 3. All of the major Scotists comment on it”

By: dilys

dilys — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:57:14 +0000

Our discussion here, including Professor Eire’s essay, seems not to have mentioned the story’s key element (I Corinthians 15:14) — the Resurrection. There is something beyond arresting in the fullness and irony of a particularly horrible and shameful and alienating death, leading to an unpredecented manifestation of Divine Life — that seems pivotal for the Cosmic Work as well as for the psychology of humans.

This doesn’t exactly join the counterfactual issue, but seems worth mentioning.

By: claudio

claudio — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:21:26 +0000

I agree with Evelyn Waugh. Had Adam not fallen we would be living in a Wodehouse novel world.

By: SMatthewStolte

SMatthewStolte — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:14:45 +0000

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to the bleg.

Maybe there’s a good reason that this question has been seldom considered at depth. The possibility of Adam’s not having fallen always seems real to us because we know that the unfallen Adam did not suffer the same kinds of temptations we do today. It is imaginable that Adam might never have fallen. But it is difficult to imagine how people like us might have accepted Christ during his life — not because it wasn’t a real possibility, but because it seems so out of character for the way we actually behave.

Perhaps even less in character than our having accepted Christ outright would have been our having rejected Him in a persistently mundane way: no crucifixion and no royal parade into Jerusalem, but only yawns and faded memories.

By: Anthony Mator

Anthony Mator — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:23:09 +0000

Anselm believed he could demonstrate logically that Christ’s death was both fitting and necessary for the restoration of man to God. From that point of view, it would make sense to conclude that if the Jews and Romans had not crucified Christ, then God would have found another way to sacrifice him. Otherwise, we’d all be condemned.

By: III

III — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:15:22 +0000

“We really need our medievalists to weigh in here”

Where’s C.S.Lewis when you need him….

I’m in way over my head here, and so I’m going to stop talking (commenting, that is) now. If you ever find some historical commentary on it, please do all of us ignorant folk a huge favor and post a brief summary on the different views. That would be fantastic.

By: Patrick Molloy

Patrick Molloy — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:55:21 +0000

Here’s a modern discussion by Carlos M.N. Eire, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale —- The Quest for a Counterfactual Jesus, Imagining the West without the Cross:

http://books.google.com/books?id=CYldK3ngFVIC&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=carlos+eire+cross&source=bl&ots=64rXCJ5rt_&sig=t8XD1x6YYJdXjqs_-lMD46RF6Bw&hl=en&ei=9dPkSqjGLoitlAfN_LDoCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCwQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=carlos%20eire%20cross&f=false