Socinianism

[JonC]

I am relieved to hear that. So when you were saying all those times how objectionable it was to have penal substitution because God does not punish the innocent or acquit the guilty and you were using that argument in a debate about penal substitution which involved an innocent Jesus as the subject of the debate (which we all agree about) well, what were you trying to say if it was not that it was ridiculous that our sins were imputed to another person - namely Jesus?

No, those passages still apply because they define adpects of God's justice. God does not punish the innocent, He does not punish the Just, and He does not clear the guilty.

What I said is that it is not ridiculous to view sin as being imputed to Christ and righteous being imputed to us. He bore our sins and we bear His righteousness.

I was saying that our sin was imputed to Jesus and Jesus righteousness is imputed to us. He bore our sin and we bear His righteousness. He shared our death and we share His Life. He bore our image (the Son of Man; sinful flesh) and we bear His image.

I am not sure that you realize your shift in the conversation. Socinus rejected that our sins were imputed to Christ. This rejects Christ as bearing our sins. I agree Socinus was wrong. But then you went to God punishing the just to clear the guilty. That is equally a heresy.

What needs to be cleared up is your philosophy of justice and punishment. Beating around the bush to try and tie one another to some hetesy does not edify as it never gets to the philosophy behind PSA. I realize nobody (or few) today affirms the philosophy at the foundation of PSA, but adherents still acceot the conclusions. So we need to see if it is simply assumed or how it has been reworked to find out if PSA is valid or if it is just an echo of a failed 16th century philosophy.

Why do you believe punishment satisfies divine justice?

How does punishment satisfy divine punishment?

What is the purpose of divine punishment?

 

[DaveXR650]

I am not sure that you realize your shift in the conversation. Socinus rejected that our sins were imputed to Christ. This rejects Christ as bearing our sins. I agree Socinus was wrong. But then you went to God punishing the just to clear the guilty. That is equally a heresy.

Christ is bearing our sins - how? We agree that he was not truly guilty. In fact he was innocent and remained innocent. So what bearing our sins means is that he bore the consequences. And by that I don't mean "consequences" as some use it, like Boyd does in the sense of violation of a speed limit can result in an accident, but I include the sentence for sin, the penalty of sin, and the wrath of God which is the result of our sin. While that may be an equal heresy in your mind, the question I ask is, whether that is a reasonable assumption, given what we know about what scripture says about sin, God's wrath, His role as final judge of everything and so on.

Now, you know as well as I do, that while you are under no obligation to see the above in this way, others do. Many others in fact, including the Reformers. This is not new or strange or my private philosophy. You certainly are not required to believe it. And, if we continue discussion, which I hope not, but if we do, we will have to get into the arguments against this - which I guarantee you are going to be identical to those of Socinus.