Sacrificing Jesus for the survival of the Church
More thoughts on Christianity’s reformation
Gerald R. Baron’s recent article in the ongoing series on the reformation of Christianity contains an interesting phrase. His description of “myth becomes fact” gives a valuable insight into the motivation for the exclusivity of Christianity. For myth to become fact means the divine has become concrete in the world. The transcendent has descended and become matter.
If we consider the historical antecedents of Christianity, one of the puzzles of the time was how to link a singular, absolute and transcendent reality with a pluralist and relative world of matter. If the divine was One and wholly transcendent, how can we explain the existence of this world of duality? Somehow or other, the One must have become many, the universal had transformed into a pluralism of particulars.
The logical need for the transcendent
An important logical motivation for a singular divine being, is explaining the existence of this world of contingency. The world of matter has an inherent ontological fragility. Matter exists on the edge of non-existence, always in a constant state of becoming, not a permanent state of being.
