DISGUSTING Things From My Theology Degree

hey I'm selling new merchandise with new designs check out the link in the description I've also got events coming up in London Cambridge and Winchester very soon all down below it's really verging on a cliche at this point on this channel to open with it's been a while but well there I've said it now but it's good to be back you'll know this if you follow me on Twitter and or Instagram but if you don't I just finished my first year studying philosophy and theology at Oxford University many people have asked what it's like to study theology as an atheist and it's actually wonderful I have nothing but appreciation for my excellent tutors and the modern theology degree is technically a theology and religion degree and is suitably secular in its nature it feels more like studying religion than studying God and the degree is broad enough to tailor it to your own interests such as when I convinced my tutor to let me spend a week with my nose in the novels of Dostoevsky instead of some dry Russian mysticism that he'd originally intended but unavoidably this year I also had to spend a great deal of time reading some of the theological classics there's a compulsory paper studied by all theology undergraduates at my university called the figure of Jesus through the centuries for this paper I read the works of some of the Christian church fathers who were the people who formed and founded the doctrines upon which the modern church is based and some other high profile thinkers too and I kept stumbling across things that made me want to make a video like this one detailing some of the fairly revolting ideas that I've been reading about these classic texts I've been reading are fantastic for a specific reason in the modern day in modern theology and religious apology there's a tendency to euphemized uncomfortable topics like hell and human depravity in unconditional submission to God these things are talked about distantly and brushed over skirting the edges because it's recognised that they're a bit dodgy and that no one really wants to be told that there are serf but when these ancient tracts were written there wasn't such a considerate sensitivity these subjects are talked about here plainly and without sugarcoating so it's much easier to see how truly awful they are so I want to present some of these ideas to you here in this video but do note these are all from the Jesus so the content isn't particularly broad in fact I'll only be referencing two theologians in this video because they were two of the most central to this paper and I want to give them their due but if you want to hear more about the the contents of my degree just let me know also while the things I'm about to list are undoubtedly vile my disgust sli's with the subject matter not the subject I have nothing but praise for the way that theology is taught at my university and I greatly enjoy it and the faculty is commendable with that said here are some disgusting things from my theology degree [Music] Athanasius of Alexandria was a third century church father who if he didn't inspire the Nicene Creed was certainly its greatest defender this Creed or at least the version that's used in church services and recited every single week by believers exists largely thanks to this man who's been called the father of Orthodoxy for his early defense of trinitarianism against the heresy of arianism in the formative period of the church Athanasius is a Titan of the formation of Christian doctrine it's important to stress that when Athanasius was writing the New Testament hadn't even been compiled and canonized yet these were early early days there were no official victims to refer to no orthodoxy nothing like that this is the man who provided these things it's difficult to overstate Athanasius importance to the creation of Christian orthodoxy in his most important essay entitled on the Incarnation he writes an extensive defense of precisely why God had to become a human being why our sins need paying for and why only a person who is both fully man and fully God could provide this so then what does this vital church father think is the basis for this unavoidably sinful state of humankind and need for salvation well Athanasius states very plainly that Jesus died to resolve our state of corruption itself due to the sinful nature that all humans inherit from Adam and Eve Jesus came to quote settle man's account with death and free him from the primal transgression this transgression rather obviously being Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge forbidden naturally since the church consider ignorance to be a virtue now we now know of course the stories of Genesis to be based on nothing more than a mixture of original superstition and plagiarized mythology but we're at least expected to take the metaphor of the fall of man as the basis for the original sin we're all supposedly born with this being the reason we need salvation so consider what we're actually being sold here the unthinkable concept of inheritable sin inheritable moral responsibility this of course being the basis for that other kind of superstitious idiocy that is racism the idea that you could have a moral character and value ingrained in your DNA by virtue of the crimes of your forefathers which by the way they never actually even committed there was no first man there was no fool and there is no basis for this concept of original sin but for how many years has this invention been used to justify the concept that we human beings are in a state not just a mere transgression but of total corruption and not only rapists murderers and the likes but everyone children from the moment of their birth well the moment of their conception there's another Christian sticking point are in a state of corruption deserving of unimaginable torture in an infinite series of punishment in hell I mean have you ever heard of anything more cruel and disgusting and thanks to Athanasius who grounds the entire necessity of Christ in this concept of original sin it will never be something that Christianity can throw off let alone apologize for since he believed that Jesus came precisely to solve this condition of humanity more specifically Athanasius writes that Jesus came to resolve what he calls the divine dilemma this dilemma is the conflict between two things on the one hand God created man with infinite life and happiness in mind but on the other he ruled that the price of sin must be death this means that when Adam and Eve committed the primal sin God had to stay true to his word and condemn us to that death the dilemma is that God designed us to achieve eternal life but he can't go back on his word so death must be paid nonetheless but if we die it's an insult to God's presence because he may as well have never created us in the first place yet if we don't die then go we'll be going back on his word it's a tough spot this is why Jesus needed to come in order to pay the price of death on our behalf being fully man he could pay man's price of death and being fully God he had the power to resurrect himself restoring eternal life ergo man pays the price of death yet man also achieves eternal life the dilemma is solved and the way Athanasius writes suggests that we should be celebrating the fact that Jesus offers a solution to the dilemma which I'll remind you is a dilemma of God's creation in the first place I mean we're expected to be grateful to show thanks how could you be so merciful O Lord as to offer me a chance to escape your punishment for that crime that not only did I not commit myself but nobody ever committed and who offer it through the torture of a pseudo pacifistic and sexually repressed human being by crucifixion thank you for affording us such class and such grace of course Athanasius writes later in the book that the reason Christ needed to die such an embarrassing and torturous death is because he needed to demonstrate victory over all death not just death in its most noble forms but again who was it that decided that death should be the punishment for eating the tree of knowledge who was it that created man without the presence that he might have given in to such a temptation the very existence of Athanasius is divine dilemma relies on the fact that it was God who dictated these things it's because God decreed death as punishment for original sin that this death must be fulfilled by Jesus and remember Athanasius is the father of Orthodoxy he wrote the book on this stuff every single week the Creed spoken aloud by churchgoers is indebted to his ideas which have irreversibly embossed themselves on the doctrines of the modern church CS Lewis referred to him as an obvious genius whose intellectual prowess makes itself immediately apparent in his writings he's venerated as a saint by both eastern and western churches this isn't just some obscure Christian polemicist this is one of the most important figures in the history of the church look teach this stuff to your children if you wish but don't be surprised if they start yearning after their own death as Athanasius writes that we should celebrate Christ's victory over death a victory which is evidenced by the fact that young boys and girls quote train themselves to die because they're so excited by the prospects of what follows I must say though I won't be teaching this stuff to my own kids [Music] okay let's fast-forward to something a little more modern but still suitably old and fundamental Anselm of Canterbury of ontological argument Fame and also once the Archbishop of that city was an 11th century monk who like Athanasius is a crucial theologian within Christianity himself a saint and a doctor of the church and so there's another towering figure in the theology syllabus at Oxford you might best know him for his philosophical argument that God is the greatest conceivable being and since a being that exists is greater than one that doesn't God must exist but Anselm was also the author of a famous tract entitled cur Deus homo or why God became man Anselm essentially sums up his view on why God had to become a man remember the very center of Christianity in chapter 10 of the first book of code is homo Anselm presents the following three considerations all of which he believes to be true first man was created for happiness second that no one can attain happiness unless his sins are forgiven and third that no man passes through this present life without sin so all men sin and no man can attain happiness if he's still in his sins yet God created us for the very purpose of attaining this happiness and so from this we can conclude that we require salvation from our sins in order to attain what God intended us to this is how Anselm seeks to prove the necessity of Christ without assuming any knowledge of Jesus or the Gospels for him it's a matter of necessity it's here that Anson begins to discuss the nature of sin and where things get a bit murky Anselm appears to have been inspired by Athanasius or at least his thinking since there are noticeable parallels in their works but Anselm is more concerned throughout Co Deus homo with the concept of justice according to Anselm to sin is quote nothing other than not to render to God what his Jew that's from book 1 chapter 11 just what we owe him he explains is a subordination of our will to God's thus sin is characterized as a kind of theft since when we sin we steal from God something which is rightly his his honor and yet Anselm also seemingly contradictory Lee writes that it's impossible for to lose his honor that's from book 1 chapter 15 now what this means is that since every person sins and sin steals God's honor but God's honor can't be stolen this theft of sin this debt must be repaid not as a matter of mere morality but of logical necessity God is the very meaning of justice and so anything that contradicts justice cannot apply to him so if we steal his honor it must necessarily be repaid so then how can this debt of sin be repaid remember Anselm says that everybody sins well by sinning we take what is rightfully God's his honor so the debt is repaid by God taking from us what is rightfully ours our happiness which you'll remember is what Anselm thought God created us for how is our happiness taken from us why of course through eternal punishment in hell this Hellfire quote constitutes the satisfaction which every sinner is obliged to make to God the problem is that we also require some compensation and some here uses the analogy of imperiling someone else's safety if we do this to someone unjustly we can't repay them by simply restoring their safety we should also provide some compensation for our wrongdoing in order to restore justice similarly we can't simply return God's honor to him we have to pay some kind of compensation an Psalms fictional conversational partner in the book called bow so replies here that he does compensate God he fasts and prays and makes self sacrifices but Anselm points out that these things are owed to God already in fact there is nothing a person can do that he does not already owe to God to whom all things are owed so what can we provide by means of compensation to pay for our inevitable sins well nothing it's all a bit hopeless really this is why we need a Savior to pay the price of death on our behalf yada yada hosanna in the highest Lamb of God taketh my sin away what this means is that we can never pay this debt and it's a debt that every person has simply by virtue of being born like Athanasius Anselm also grounds our sinful nature in the myth of Adam and Eve so we're forever chained to this condition never being able to pay for the sinful nature that it's not even our fault that we inherit the only thing that we can do is throw ourselves on the sacrifice of an innocent man and devote ourselves to his worship because we simply have no choice in the matter of course the religious often pressed that we can choose whether or not to accept Jesus but when Anselm says that we must necessarily be punished in hell unless we worship Him the choice seems somewhat forced again a fairly revolting doctrine don't you think and Anselm really doesn't want us to underestimate the severity of sin even in the case of minor sins here's something really telling in chapter 21 of book 1 of Kadesh homo a chapter entitled the graveness of sin Anselm asks bozo to imagine that he stood in the presence of God and somebody tells bozo to look in a particular direction but God tells beau so not to do so and some asks would you even consider looking in that direction though so realizes that of course he wouldn't and he wouldn't even need to ask why he can't just flatly contradict something God says whilst directly in his presence after all very well while Anselm now asks what if it were the case that if you don't look in that direction the entirety of creation will be destroyed those who says he still wouldn't look in the presence of God there's no way beau so could contradict God's command no matter how trivial his transgression may seem and a matter how severe the consequences seem God's command must always be followed Anselm then reminds us that we are always in the presence of God and so this principle should apply universally just consider the implications of this for a second both practical and theological practically this instills the notion that it's virtuous to risk absolutely anything and everything in order to follow one's religious convictions will the world be destroyed if you follow your God's commands it doesn't matter follow them anyway but also theologically we're left with the implication that any sin no matter how minor condemns us to an unimaginable debt which I'll remind you is impossible to repay we also have here an equivocation between sins as trivial as looking in the wrong direction and the worst kinds of sins imaginable since both are infinitely transgressive and infinity knows no what sound doctrine could equivocate these awful and fairly trivial sins and see them as deserving of the same punishment i'll leave that to your consideration and this isn't even to touch on an psalms discussion of the morality of think about this the morality of punishing an innocent man christ for the crimes of the guilty this is something that doesn't seem to get enough reflection from critics of Christianity Anselm writes that God never forced Jesus to die Jesus died of his own volition his own choice but Ansem also recognizes that there are a number of Bible verses that say that Jesus was doing the will of the Father - how can this be squared well Anselm says that it's not that the father willed for Jesus to die is that the father willed for justice to be restored and that this justice entailed Jesus dying Jesus had to follow the Father's will and so this entailed him having to die now you may ask what on earth is the moral difference between the omnipotent father willing something that entails Jesus's death and willing Jesus's death itself and well yeah good question I implore you of course to read the text for yourself and see what you make of it but I think that the punishment of an innocent man for the crimes of the guilty especially when such sophistry is used to defend it should be enough to make anyone squirm and besides that I don't really want to carry on talking about Anselm any more than you want to carry on listening to me talk about Anselm so I'll leave that as homework and so to summarize an Psalms views we have to pay the price of eternal punishment for stealing from God what cannot actually be stolen from him an act which we cannot help but do by virtue of simply being human because we inherit the guilt for the moral transgressions of our ancestors ancestors we now know to never have actually existed okay well how on earth can we possibly escape this ghastly fate of course by throwing ourselves on a middle-eastern human sacrifice of a man who was not forced by God to die but simply had no other choice but to do so since he had to follow God's will and God's will entails his death but Jesus wasn't forced to die no that would be wholly disturbing it was just that he was simply obliged to follow God's will for justice which happened to entail him having to die moral pathetic I think you'll agree ladies and gentlemen with only a hint of intellectual acrobatics just for Flair probably I guess but anyway there's a taste of what I've been dealing with for the past academic year if you've made it this far then well congratulations and pitchy those of us who have to spend almost every waking hour in term time reading about this nonsense in the library now if you want to know more about my experiences studying theology I'll leave some links in the description there are a few things that I've done such as an article I wrote on the topic of studying theology as an atheist for a Christian magazine as well as I've provided my university reading list on my website and if this goes down well I can always make more of these videos covering more of the material that we study but this has been a nice catch-up now you know what I've been up to you should expect more frequent content over the summer and remember that I'm now selling brand new merchandise with a brand new designs they're all really cool and working with tea mill now a link is in the description I also have a podcast available on iTunes and Spotify in case you forgot I've got some really great guests lined up so keep your eyes peeled but with that all said I've been Alex O'Connor or cosmic skeptic you can find me on social media here thank you for watching don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: CosmicSkeptic

Views: 722,476

Rating: 4.7592731 out of 5

Keywords: Alex O'Connor, cosmic, skeptic, cosmicskeptic, atheism, oxford, university, theology, athanasius, anselm, ontological argument, disgusting, religion, christianity, Dostoyevsky, philosophy

Id: VvcOfUrHS5U

Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 15 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/FlyingSquid]

I doubt you're going to get many people to watch a 20-minute video without even a basic summary of what they will be watching.