The Muslim thinking on atonement is broad based and is not literally linked to the story of Adam and Eve as narrated by the Jewish/Christian scriptures:-
• All human beings are born innocent. After birth or more pertinently after the age when a person is mature enough to distinguish right from the evil, every person is responsible for his actions sinful or otherwise. If he repents before God for his sins and resolves before Him that he would not do it again; God in his mercy and in his sole discretion could pardon him. If God pardons then the person is like the one who has done no sin.
• All prophets -the perfect men; are innocent and not sinful and that is why they are chosen by God as His messengers to humanity (from Adam to Abraham to Moses to Jesus, from Krishna to Buddha to Muhammad) all prophets of God are respectful persons and innocent and not sinful.
My present submissions are not intended against the factual person Jesus s/o Mary -the perfect human being; but it is intended against the mythical Orthodox Christian faith who deify Jesus and present him as Son of God or God. This is solely done to bring such person to realize the points where they made the mistakes so that they could update their faith based on facts, scientific knowledge, reason and rationality.
I agree on many points with the views of certain moderate Christians who believe that God does not play favorites. He loves all His children equally. No just parent would hold their children accountable for what the children did not know .But unlike the orthodox Christians, the moderate Christians do not believe that people who are not Christians are condemned automatically.Their thinking is very close to the human psyche that has not changed much from the time of Adam to date.
To elaborate the point I present what Mirza Tahir Ahmad has stated on the issue:-
Muslims believe that all divine books are based on eternal truth and none can make any claims contrary to that. When we come across inconsistencies and contradictions in any so called divinely revealed book, our attitude is not that of total denial and rejection but that of cautious and sympathetic examination. Most of the statements of the Old Testament and the New Testament, which we find at variance with the truth of nature, we either try to reconcile by reading some underlying cryptic or metaphoric message, or reject part of the text as the work of human hands rather than that of God.
While Christianity itself was true, it could not have contained any distortions, unacceptable facts or beliefs giving a lie to nature. That is why we started not with the textual examination but with the fundamentals themselves, which through centuries of consensus have become indisputable components of Christian philosophy. Rudimentary among them are the Christian understanding of Sin and Atonement. I would much rather believe that someone, somewhere during the history of Christianity, misunderstood things and tried to interpret them in the light of his knowledge and misled the following generations because of that.
The reader must be reminded here that this concept of inherited sin is only a Pauline misinterpretation. It cannot be rightfully attributed to the teachings of the Old Testament. There is an over-whelming evidence t to the c contrary in many books of the Old Testament.
In the fifth century, Augustine the Bishop of Hippo; was involved in a confrontation with the Pelagian movement, concerning the controversy of the nature of the fall of Adam and Eve. He proclaimed the Pelagian movement as being heretical because it taught that Adam’s sin affected only himself and not the human race as a whole; that every individual is born free of sin and is capable in his own power of living a sinless life and that there had even been persons who had succeeded in doing so.
Those in the right were labeled as heretics. Day was denounced as night and night as day. Heresy is truth and truth heresy.
From the above, it becomes comfortingly clear that the concepts of Inherited Sin and of Crucifixion are based only on the conjecture and wishful thinking of Christian theologians at a later date. It is quite likely that it was born out of some pre-Christian myths of a similar nature, which, when applied to the circumstances of Jesus Christ, tempted them to read close similarities between the two and create a similar myth. However, whatever the mystery or paradox, as we see it, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Christian philosophy of Sin and Atonement was based on anything which Jesus might have said or done or taught. He could never have preached anything so contrary to, and so diametrically opposed to human intellect.
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/christianity_facts_to_fiction/index.html
http://www.alislam.org/library/books/revelation/index.html
http://www.alislam.org/
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Tags: atonement, Christ, comparative study of religion, Jesus, religion, sin, theology of Paul
paarsurrey 
August 21, 2008 at 7:17 am |
My friend, it must be understood that the Christian Scriptures are based upon the Hebrew Scriptures. Most of the Jewish Old Testament is filled with examples of animal sacrifice to atone for sin. In fact, the holiest of their days, the Day of Atonement, was a day that the High Priest was required to make atonement for his sin with a sacrifice; and atonement for the people with another:
Leviticus 16:30
…for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins you shall be clean before Yahweh.
In addition a scapegoat was chosen to carry the sin of the people outside and away from the camp (see Leviticus 16).
The blood of the unblemished Passover lamb accomplished a similar purpose at the time of Passover. The celebration of Passover reminded the Jews of the past when God had delivered them from Pharaoh’s death and slavery (see Exodus). It also pointed to the future, when Jesus, the sinless one, would willingly become the final unblemished Passover Lamb. Again, the purpose was to deliver us from spiritual death and slavery, (which are the wages of sin):
Exodus 12:27
that you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and spared our houses.'” The people bowed their heads and worshiped.
As you can see there is clear teaching of sin and substitutive sin before (and during, as will be shown) Jesus’ incarnation.
You are IN ERROR (I am not trying to be rude, but must emphasize this) when you say, “there is no evidence whatsoever that the Christian philosophy of Sin and Atonement was based on anything which Jesus might have said or done or taught.” Please note:
Matthew 20:28 “even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a RANSOM FOR MANY.”
Matthew 26:28 “for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the REMISSION OF SINS…”
I believe your own Muslim teachings have a parallel to this:
Sura al-Saffat 37:107 “and we have redeemed him with a great (slaughtered) sacrifice”. This indicates that there can be a divine reconciliation through a Divine offering. Again, this speaks of Isaac in the past while it is pointing to the future sacrifice that God makes of His only beloved Son. Although Sura al-An’am 6:164 may say that “There is no one burdened (with sin) who can carry the burden (of sin) of another”, the substitute who is without sin can bear other people’s burdens of guilt as described in the preceding sura – the Qur’an confirms that Jesus was sinless.
The more you examine the concept of substitutive sacrifice for sin in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures, the more you will see that it is obvious.
In truth,
Pauline Donnelly
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August 21, 2008 at 7:36 am |
Sorry to say I made an error in paragraph 6 – it should read:
“As you can see there is clear teaching of sin and substitutive SACRIFICE…” (and not “SIN”).
PD
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