Here you go.

1) If atonement theory is true, God acts immorally.

2) God doesn't act immorally.

3) Therefore, atonement theory is not true.

Satisfied?

As to the larger point about cultural influences, the point is that the theory of atonement assumes normative claims that seemed obviously true at the time, but which are today considered doubtful, and so it is a bad theory (yes, I am assuming we have good reasons for finding them doubtful). NotReady is trying to avoid this by a direct appeal to the Bible, but that won't work. The Bible is not a book of systematic theology. You can't turn to the section where Paul expounds the theory of atonement. Instead, the theory of atonement was a theory developed by later theologians to make sense of the claims of the Bible. If it fails to make sense of those claims, then it should be rejected as a bad theory. This doesn't mean rejecting the authority of the Bible, just acknowledging that there are parts of it that so far make no coherent sense to us.

That is a clear statement, but is point 1 not overly simplified.

Should it not read as follows:

1a. Atonement theory is inconsistent with contemporary views of morality.

1b. If atonement theory is true and contemporary views of morality are fundamentally correct, then God acts immorally.

After all, it is possible that our contemporary views of morality are flawed.

What is the difference between suffering and suffering for atonement?

But all you're doing here is saying that God has to explain everything to us in a way that is exhaustively comprehensible to us. You should first establish that as a valid(or even plausible) premise. Alternatively, you can show that the atonement is of the class A=nonA.

Failing in the above, we remain rational to accept the Word of the sovereign God that Christ, through love, offered to substitute Himself for our sins that we might not have to.

Why even require freeness of contradiction?

I didn't say that it was irrational to accept the authority of the Bible. I also didn't say that God has to explain everything. All I've said is that the common theories of atonement are unsuccessful theories because they fail to explain the atonement. As far as I can tell, you actually agree with me.

This metaphor ("God through a cultural lens") is incoherent, I think. Either there are culturally invariant features by which we can identify 'descriptions of God'; or there are not.

If there are such features, what are they? In my experience, answers to this are never forthcoming.

If there are not such invariant features, then there is no culturally invariant 'God' concept at all; and the entire metaphor is in fact nonsensical.

Are you saying that your inability to describe God without being biased by your cultural bias means that God cannot exist? That would be nonsense. All it means is that your intellectual process is not flawless.

If you are saying that there is no culturally unbiased description of God, then that is fine. In fact, I basically agree.

Nope. My argument is valid as is and, at least for most values of atonement theory, both premises are true.

Now, if you want to challenge the truth of (1) feel free. I will defend it by arguing that it is true that, e.g. owning human beings is immoral. This, the truth of this claim, is the point, not that almost all contemporary moral theories agree. The reason I initially brought up this consensus was to steer the conversation towards the more explicitly theological rather than moral issues.

Well, I disagree. I do not concede 1 as you worded it as inherently true. I believe it contains a hidden assumption that limits the scope of the final conclusion. I guess that ends the discussion.

Overlooking a few loaded terms, this is basically correct. It is also as it should be given that someone owns what he creates unless, and only insofar as, ownership is relinquished.

Well, your mixture of freedom, unfreedom, and liability still seems incoherent to me, but let's move on. Let's suppose humans really do owe God property damages, how does Jesus death pay them off?

Here's a few issues. First, you said that Jesus did not create himself. I assume this means that God created him. Doesn't this mean that God already owns Jesus? Thus, Jesus, as perfect human, cannot repay God for Adam's liability. This is like if I borrowed your car and totaled it, and then when you bought yourself a new one I said, "My debt is paid off--see you have a new car."

Second, how does Jesus' death pay off liability? That seems backwards. Isn't that just another destruction of a perfect human?

In some sense, yes. But more specifically I'm criticizing the metaphor "God through a cultural lens."

Since there is no culturally invariant concept of 'God', it is wrong to separate the concepts 'God' and 'cultural lens'; but the metaphor implies exactly that separation. (Viz.---that there is a single concept, 'God', which different cultures see differently. But in fact no such concept exists to be seen!)

I'm not asking you to concede (1). In fact, I assumed that this discussion would primarily be about whether or not (1) is true (or inherently true, whatever that means). I assume you accept (2). Thus, if (1) is true, since the argument is valid, the conclusion follows. Therefore, rather than arguing about premises I've not asserted, if you disagree with the conclusion you should show how (1) is false.

You are asserting that there is no God, which as a theist is not an acceptable assumption for me. I assume that there is a God and that it is the description that is flawed. Is there more to this discussion than that simple disconnect?

I'm observing that there is no culturally invariant concept 'God'. Obviously in your mind, and my mind, this word is connected to concepts we have learned through such-and-such experiences and observations, but our concepts are not separable from those experiences in any strong sense.

Hence this metaphor of different people seeing the same(!) concept differently is wrong.

Of course, this is not actually a given. I've explicitly denied this claim. I've said that persons are not the kinds of things over which you can have rights of ownership. If I legally buy materials (so I own them) out of which I construct a human being, I do not thereby have a moral right of ownership over that human being.

I did not go through the whole thread. Did you already post a demonstration that (1) is true? You keep mentioning slavery. Is that key to the demonstration? If it is we may still disconnect. I would concede that in 2010 I cannot conceive of moral slavery and I would heartily agree that slavery as practiced in the US in the early 19th century was deeply immoral, but in a full historical context I would be more circumspect.

Slavery played a role in Alexander the Great's campaign across southern Asia for example and I would hesitate to call his actions immoral.

OK, as a concept I think I agree. Concepts are human creations after all.

Nope. Since there is no agreed upon theory of atonement, I am addressing them piecemeal. So propose your favorite theory and I'll try to show why it doesn't work. (1) is primarily directed at the version Concerto is defending, as he claims that God has ownership rights over humans.

In a manner of speaking, the Creator does not transfer perfect title to His creations. The death of Jesus was a payment from humanity to God in that it sacrificed blessings which God had given to Adam, for example life.

The human race, in its capacity as heirs to the blessings of Adam, assumed the debt Adam acquired though the violation of a duty concerning himself (and Eve) imposed through his Creator's reservation of rights of title over him. Repayment of this debt required restoring from among ourselves to God what our progenitor had removed from the presence of God: the life of a perfect man the benefit of whose perfection we could have otherwise enjoyed (like God enjoyed Adam's perfection before the fall), had He lived to become a worldly king. Because the sacrifice was voluntary by Jesus, there was no further offense on our part.

You're mixing your metaphors. The law does not make provisions for your creation of a human being since you have no prospect of doing so. In cases where creation is feasible, e.g. intellectual property, the law recognizes the creator as having original rights of ownership.

Jesus CHOSE to be crucified? I always thought he got caught. Never knew he turned himself in. Or did God turn him in (wouldn't surprise me at all)?

I don't see how a sacrifice is a repayment. If I owe someone $100, I don't go burn $100 to him, I give it to him. Isn't this what caused the problem in the first place, the destruction of something that is God's?
This doesn't really address the objections I brought up. Namely, since it was God who created Jesus, humans don't have a right to "give" Jesus back to God as repayment of what they destroyed. Jesus already was God's. Also, Jesus can't voluntarily give himself back to God--he already belongs to God.
This is a thought experiment. I'm not talking about my legal rights, but moral rights. I assume that is what is relevant, since God's putative ownership rights over humans is not due to a legal right of ownership. Thus, my point is, hypothetically, if I created a human being out of materials over which I had a moral right of ownership, I would not thereby own that human being. Do you disagree?

John 10:17-18 "The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

And it was one of His own apostles who turned Him in.

The sacrificial system was a way of offering things to God, not merely destroying them.

I explained this already. God gives up certain rights to His creation man, while reserving others. By sacrificing in payment of Adam's debt what Jesus, as an heir to Adam's blessings, had title to, namely His life, He was indeed offering something that was His to give.

You would not have moral ownership of such a human being because materials are not all that go into the creation of one. Otherwise, a pregnant woman would only have to pay for nine months of meals to morally own her child.

Yes.

I do believe that God does have to struggle. If God gave Satan and fallen Angels as well as humans free will, then there is a part of them that God cannot logically control. God gave up part of his power when he gave beings free will. Now that is not to say that it is actually possible that God can lose, but that there is an actual struggle that must occur if God gave beings the ability to defy him.

First, I don't remember minimizing the significance of Jesus' actions during his life.

Second, I don't know that he had to do it this way necessarily, but it obviously was the best way to do it to accomplish Gods goal.

Thirdly, whether or not dying is usually a sign up defeat is inconsequential. The outcome is what decides whether or not something/someone was defeated. The process, even if unconventional, really doesn't matter.

Again, free will. It's not like God was taking a ****, and Satan snuck in and tricked us while God wasn't paying attention. We allowed ourselves to be enslaved at the fall. As far as whether or not it was early enough is very relative.

Why do you say that it was not justified? I would say that those that would be considered still enslaved by Satan are in fact in that position by choice. So everything has changed.

It explains everything that it needs to. The intricacies are really not necessary to know. This theory really explains, imo, the most of any of the theories in the most consistent manor.

A)I know how a good amount of a computer works. I know that what the HD does, the power source, the video card, the motherboard, the processor, the optical drive, the monitor, and the case. I also know how everything plugs in. Once that is done I know what the BIOS does, the OS, and inside the OS I know the programs, a little bit about the Registry, and the basics of how everything is talking to each other.

B)Now what I don't under is how the HD actually work, as in how it holds the data and for that matter what the data physically is. I don't know what any of the transistors or anything on the motherboard does. I don't understand how the optical drive reads a CD/DVD. I don't understand how the data is transmitted and displayed on my computer monitor. I don't understand how the browser displays everything, although I do know how to build a website that communicates with the browser.

I am giving you A) with the Christus Victor view of atonement. You are asking for B), which I just cannot give you. While it would be nice to be able to give you B) the absence of B) does not mean that A) is not a very useful set of knowledge. In fact, I would say that A) is really the most important part of the story. If one only knew B) and not A) that info would be essentially worthless.