What, in your view, is the "Redemptive Principle"?

Question

Among Christians this has been defined as Christ, among western pre- and proto-Christian-era religions and some neopagans, it has been the solar deity, in the east, it appears as the Avatar and the Boddhisattva.

Please oh please someone say something truly relevant, insightful, impressive, and knowledge-based.

Anybody have any anthropological or views based in knowledge about mysticism? Is the Redemptive Principle a flaw within consciousness or is it an archetype and as such, does it have value?

Answer 1

The Redemptive Principle, as you call it, is required by a false need. First, we must believe ourselves to be imperfect and therefore requiring to be perfected by something. This is where redemption comes in.

It is quite natural of the human condition to see ones self as imperfect or incomplete as we are social creatures by nature. We reach out to others as infants and children for help in survival and forge mental conditioning which sets us in a situation where we seek for help and connection with others through our whole lives. This is reciprocated by adults who by natural instinct, drawing on their own experiences as a child, tend to want to help younger individuals and be wanted for this purpose as if it is completing an internal need. It is a self perpetuating cycle of conditioning and being conditioned which has been instrumental in our survival as a species and to a point as a society. This sets up a dynamic where the individual naturally feels incomplete and thus requiring completion. For many, Christ fills this void, for others, some other Deity or individual outside of ones self. Hence the societal concept of Redemption, and the many ways in which it is expressed.

However, it is not a necessity. if the initial conditioning can be recognized, and released, one will find that there is no natural, innate state where one requires completion. (This realization might be titled as a "redemptive process" if you so choose...) Without this presustained condition, this naturally removes the need for Redemption. If one can come to the realization that they are complete, then the desire for Redemption disapears!

Redemption, in essence, is something which we all need, but its source is quite hidden form us. The desire to be redeemed is what requires redemption. Once we have "completed ourselves" we become independent entities, and the illusion of redemption disapears along with so many other percieved desires which stem from it.

at least this is my view, and i can hardly say i am "Redeemed", but an understanding of the process and the motivations involved has yet to hurt anyone. at the least im on my way :) are you?

EDIT: my views, while not based solely on mysticism, do draw on my knowledge and understanding of The Tree of Life, the Tarot and other mystic traditions. These ideas have been tempered by my rational mind and refined through meditation and questioning. i dont claim them to be "correct" but only that they are self-consistent within my personal view of the world. you can learn what you will from them. or you can disregard them completely. that choice is yours.

feel free to contact me

Answer 2

In thinking about your question, I wanted to find an answer, but when you asked for a truly relevant, insightful, impressive, and knowledge-based answer, I felt too humble to think about an answer of my own, so I looked online and found an interesting comment on redemptive principle from an authentic scholar: Greg L. Bahnsen:

The contention of the Chalcedon school concerning the binding nature of the Mosaic law is sometimes expressed in unqualified fashion (for rhetorical effect?), but inevitably there are other statements admitting exceptions. In the formulation of concrete legal cases, the Mosaic legislation would naturally include an occasional detail that was culturally contemporary at that time but not literally applicable now (e.g. the specific architectural feature in Deuteronomy 22:8).

We need not quibble about such exceptions. The main exception Bahnsen acknowledges is the “ceremonial” law by which he means the laws of priestly ritual expressive of the restorative-redemptive principle.

And even here he comments that the obligation entailed in the laws was honored in their fulfillment in the priestly accomplishments of Christ. These laws were confirmed and eternally validated in the very process of their being changed and becoming inoperative under the new covenant – so Bahnsen argues quite properly (p. 209), approving of similar sentiments in Calvin (pp. 49, 70), but curiously condemning Kline’s statements to the same effect as an extraordinary bit of “semantic deviation” (p. 575).


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Answer 3

Redemptive Theology requires a belief that mankind is here as a product of some sort of "cosmic error". In the Bible, this is the "fall from grace" at the garden of Eden. Redemptive Theology then states that mankind must perform some act or series of acts to redeem itself or return to the source of Divinity. I do not believe in redemptive theology because it turns the creation of the universe into a big "oops" by God. In essence, it makes the first acts of the highest Divinity a huge screw up. If one accepts creative purpose to the universe, mankind and all of the universe becomes not fallen, but living as aspects and expressions of Divinity.

Answer 4

It is a mistaken idea that seems to span all religious and cultural thought systems. It is the idea that we are somehow broken and need some sort of external assistance to be whole or good enough.

This could only be true if the Gods were incompetent.

Somehow if they exist, I doubt that they are.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 5

Surrender = redemption

Answer 6

Christ is my redemptive principle.

You asked "in your view".

Answer 7

u pay in order to redeem. either u pay or someone else pay for u. it is found in all the religion.

Answer 8

WHAT?