Is there a Metadivine realm?

[sago]

It has been suggested by various theologians that God exists in a metadivine realm. In other words God exists in some framework that gives him power, limits his power, moderates it, or some such.

For example. In our universe 1+1=2. This may be a feature of creation ordained by God. Or it could be something that is beyond that, something that limits God: God couldn't make 1+1=3, that would be silly.

This becomes important when we think about Jesus and the Sacrifice for Sin. Most Christians who believe in the substitution of Jesus's death for theirs believe that Sin neccesarily entails death, and God sent his Son to pay that price so we didn't have to.

If you believe this, do you believe it because of a metadivine rationale: death as a neccesary consequence of sin is something that God is subject to. God couldn't just ignore or forgive the sin without the price being paid?

This is the logic of the common analogy told about Jesus paying the price: imagine a Judge who condemns a guilty person, then steps forward to take their sentence on. In the case of the analogy the unbreakable law is analogous to the metadivine constraints.

Or do you believe that the death-penalty for sin is something that God instituted, and that he chose to send his Son to death for some other reason that because death is the unavoidable consequence of sin?

Sorry if it is a highbrow topic, but I'm genuinely interested in what you think.

 

[Van]

It is not a highbrow topic, just a biblical topic dressed up with philosophical verbiage.

God is all powerful, He can do as He pleases. Thus He is only constrained by His decision to constrain Himself. For example, if He chooses not to lie to us, then it is fair to say God is constrained by that choice to tell the truth to us. No need to invent a metadivine realm.

The reason we think 1+1=3 is silly is because in our universe, God chose to make 1+1=2. What seems logical based on our experience within God's creation, would not necessarily seem logical if our experience was in a very different universe. Simply consider a person raised on earth in a gravational field. He would agree with the statement what goes up must come down. But if that same person had been born on a space station, outside of a gravational field, he would say the statement, what goes up must come down is silly.

Lets turn now to whether God could have chosen to save individuals without sacrificing His Son on the cross. Yes! But God chose to establish by His sovereign rule, that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Thus again, the requirement was decreed by God, and is not an artifice of anything outside of God such as the conjecture of a metadivine realm.

The Bible says "for God so loved the world that He gave His one of a kind Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. So God made the choice to sacrifice His Son as a ransom for all.

Was this evil? To inflict pain and suffering for a little while in order to provide eternal life to believers? Not in the eyes of God.

 

[Van]

Many years ago, in a little town in Germany, famous for its puppets, a person watched a puppet show in the public square. It was the story of Abraham and Isaac. Up the mountain they go, with the boy asking, "I see the wood, but where is the sacrifice?" The show builds to its climax, Abraham draws back his knife, ready to slay his son, when God speaks, "Stop!" As the show nears its end, it has Abraham walking back down the mountain, seeming to argue with God. "Why, he says, why put me through that terrible time. You have no idea how hard it was, to sacrifice your only son." The curtain draws closed in silence.

Do you get it?

 

[childofGod31]

I was wondering about that too. We can tell that God is bound by some rules:

like "without shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness"

like "we had to die in order to be freed from the power of the law" (which we died on the cross with Christ) (because a woman is bound to her husband until she/he dies, and it was the same with us and the law)

like "the wages for sin is death"

But where do these rules come from? It must be related to 'being holy, being righteous, or being just"

Since God always existed, his character traits always existed, right? So these ideas of "justice" "holiness" "love" must have always been there as well?

Like the character of God is "to always tell the truth". So it says: for it is impossible for God to lie.

So God is bound by his own qualities? Because he can't go against himself?

 

[jameywright]

one thing that we caght up with is when we start refering to things above or beyond God, once we do this logic just seems to break down. God is the top, the head honcho, there is no morality or reality above him. what he defines as right and wrong come simply from his own being. God can refer to nothing higher than himself.
God cared about what he ethically told us so when we disobiedad him we owed him a debt. we could not pay this debt so he sent the second person of the trinity to die for us. this is the the only way to make up for the debt. God does not refer to anything above or beyond himself.

 

[Van]

Spot on, Jameywright! For example to say God is bound by His characteristics is to imbue His characteristics with a power over God, when it is God who established the characteristics He keeps. For example, God is just. Does this mean God must comply with our idea of what is just? Nope. Whatever God does is just. He establishes what is just.

 

[jameywright]

that is what i talking about. thank you friend.

 

[Van]

Yes, I was just seconding your motion, you were spot on!

 

[sago]

Van - thanks for the thoughtful posts. Presumably you would say that we have no way of understanding why God choose to sacrifice his son then. We just have to trust that this was the best way because it was the way he chose?

this is the the only way to make up for the debt.

That is the heart of the question and seems to go against the other stuff you wrote Jamey.

What Van and you seem to be saying is that it isn't the only way to make up for the debt. God could have chosen any way for that to happen, because there is no logical constraints or limitation on God. He could have decreed that anyone who stood on one leg for an hour would be free of sin.

If nothing is above or constraining to God then it was God's choice to make death the penalty for sin, and God's choice to allow Jesus to atone for our sins.

Van - incidentally I'm not trying to say either viewpoint is better or worse, and certainly not that either is 'evil'.

It is just interesting that most of the time we talk (as Jamey did) in language that seems to imply that God had to send his son in order to pay for our sins. But most Christians (as you showed) believe that there is no authority above or constraint upon God.

 

[Van]

If nothing is above or constraining to God then it was God's choice to make death the penalty for sin, and God's choice to allow Jesus to atone for our sins.

Spot on.

But since God does as He pleases, and it pleases God to reveal Himself to us, we can accept, as far as it goes, that God restrains Himself such that He is loving, just, merciful and good. And so, "for God so loved the world that He gave is His of a kind Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Further, we need not assume God's choices were arbitrary, I will save those who stand on one leg, but rather they are choices that further His purpose and plan of choosing a people for His own possession.

God gives grace to the humble, but is opposed to the proud. We have Jesus as our model of humility, who was willing to sacrifice Himself, even to the point of death, for our sake. Whoever loses his life for my sake will....