One way to interpret that dichotomy is that the Catholic Church is living up to their belief that humans cannot do what god does. While god’s ineffable wisdom allows them to sacrifice an innocent for the good of humanity, humans’ imperfect understanding means they cannot do the same.
Yeah from my observations that seems to be the preferred interpretation.
A lot of Catholic apologetics picture God as basically an utilitarian, who thinks big picture and allows bad things (sin, suffering) to happen for greater good. Then they turn around and say only the mob boss gets to break the rules, and you should get in line and also stop masturbating.
It still raises the question why God arranged the paradigm just so he’d have to have to sacrifice an innocent for the good of humanity in the first place. This practically admits He’s not so omniscient / omnipotent or that He’s not benevolent to humankind, certainly not all of humankind.
In the catholic tradition there’s a view on jesus’s sacrificial role that interprets it as the last human ritual sacrifice. For long the religions of the region had transitioned from human to animal sacrifice. Greeks, Romans, Judaism and, later, Islam all used animal sacrifice as offerings to god. Jesus’s death was the human sacrifice to end all ritual sacrifices and replace them with symbolic offerings, like wax candles, flowers and behavioral sacrifices in the form of penance and prayer. Or the consumption of wine and wafers (body and blood of Christ) instead of ritual consumption of blood, meat and fats of sacrificed animals.
It’s a shitty explanation that comes from anthropological analysis, but it is an explanation alright.
One way to interpret that dichotomy is that the Catholic Church is living up to their belief that humans cannot do what god does. While god’s ineffable wisdom allows them to sacrifice an innocent for the good of humanity, humans’ imperfect understanding means they cannot do the same.
Yeah from my observations that seems to be the preferred interpretation.
A lot of Catholic apologetics picture God as basically an utilitarian, who thinks big picture and allows bad things (sin, suffering) to happen for greater good. Then they turn around and say only the mob boss gets to break the rules, and you should get in line and also stop masturbating.
It still raises the question why God arranged the paradigm just so he’d have to have to sacrifice an innocent for the good of humanity in the first place. This practically admits He’s not so omniscient / omnipotent or that He’s not benevolent to humankind, certainly not all of humankind.
In the catholic tradition there’s a view on jesus’s sacrificial role that interprets it as the last human ritual sacrifice. For long the religions of the region had transitioned from human to animal sacrifice. Greeks, Romans, Judaism and, later, Islam all used animal sacrifice as offerings to god. Jesus’s death was the human sacrifice to end all ritual sacrifices and replace them with symbolic offerings, like wax candles, flowers and behavioral sacrifices in the form of penance and prayer. Or the consumption of wine and wafers (body and blood of Christ) instead of ritual consumption of blood, meat and fats of sacrificed animals.
It’s a shitty explanation that comes from anthropological analysis, but it is an explanation alright.