Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: st0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Steven Timm) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Could Jesus have sinned? Message-ID: Date: 27 May 91 21:56:59 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 66 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Kenneth Kutz lists a number of reasons why he believes it was impossible for Jesus to sin. Even granting that Jesus did not inherit original sin, such a position leads to a number of troublesome conclusions. 1) If Jesus were unable to sin, He would be the only human for whom this was impossible. Even Adam and Eve, created sinless at the beginning, had the capacity to sin. If Jesus were unable to sin, it would further mean that He had no free will. (If you believe nobody has free will disregard this point). Nevertheless, this would have made Christ's life on earth significantly different from our own. 2) A view of Christ as unable to sin suggests that the sole difference between Christ's holy life and our unholy life is the way we were born. He was holy because He was born that way, we're not because we weren't. In such a view the power of God who kept Christ and us from falling is reduced to nothing, and Christian overcoming seems impossible for us. 3) If Christ were unable to sin, then the whole exercise of His life and death was predetermined and therefore meaningless, since it involved no risk of failure. Giving a gift you know in advance you are going to get back is no gift at all. I must admit the idea that God cannot deny His own nature by sinning is a good idea and a strong argument in favor of the position that Christ could not sin. We know from scripture, for instance, that God cannot lie. But that position as stated fails to address the above concerns. I would be interested in hearing someone try to explain. Steve Timm [As usual, I'd like to point out that you have to be very careful about how you use terms like "cannot" and "unable". The normal meaning refers to physical ability or external constraint. In this sense it is clear that Jesus could sin -- I don't know of anyone who says he didn't have the capability of doing so. I think what is being claimed is something about his character, i.e. that his religious and moral character was such that one in a position to know him sufficiently well could have been sure that he was not going to sin. I don't see that this places any limits on his freedom. You're not very clear what you propose as an alternative. However I'm going to take a hint from your item 2, which suggests that what you object to is that the power of God is not being mentioned. Indeed I do see that danger. There is a possible problem with the concept of a Christ who is so perfect that he can't sin. The problem occurs if this perfection is seen as a static, a priori perfection -- as if the Deist watchmaker God created the perfect human, wound him up, and retired to his office to watch. But surely that isn't what people mean when they talk about Christ being unable to sin. Jesus is very clear that everything he has is a gift from God, and that he lives in continuous dependence on his Father. Thus any perfection he has is a reflection of his Father, present with Jesus throughout his life. But there is an equal danger if we refuse to see this perfection as being reflected in Jesus' character. While his perfection comes from his Father, surely it is reflected in Jesus' own character. Yes, his character continued to develop throughout his life, in dependence on God's grace. But if we don't see his actions as reflecting his character, then it seems to me we end up with a concept of Jesus being possessed by God and used without his will. So I would say that Jesus' sinlessness results from a character whose perfection reflects his Father's perfection. But this reflection is a result of God's presence with Jesus throughout his life, in a special way appropriate to his being the Christ. --clh]