Scripture and God in Christianity

the theology into two main categories: the cataphatic or positive theology that proceeds by affirmations
and the apophatic or negative theology that proceeds by negations. Ruling out the first,
he emphasized the other. "The perfect way, the only way which is fitting in regards to God, who
is of His very nature unknowable, is the second-which leads us finally to total ignorance. All
knowledge has as its object that which is. Now God is beyond all that exists. In order to approach
Him it is necessary to deny all that is inferior to Him, that is to say, all that which is. If in seeing
God one can know what one sees, then one has not seen God in Himself but something intelligible,
something which is inferior to Him. It is by unknowing ... that one may know Him who is
above every possible object of knowledge. Proceeding by negations one ascends from the inferior
degrees of being to the highest, by progressively setting aside all that can be known, in order to
draw near to the Unknown in the darkness of absolute ignorance." 800 The three Cappadocians
tried to defend the apophatic basis of all true theology as seen above. 801 St. Maximus the Confessor,
St. John Damascene, the ninth-century Irish philosopher John Scotus Eriugena and the great
St. Thomas Aquinas are just a few names to be mentioned in this regard. Swinburne, like these
traditional theologians, despite great emphasis on metaphorical and analogical nature of Godtalk,
could not solve the problem of incomprehensible nature of God vs. the doctrine of Incarnation
of Jesus the Christ.
Swinburne takes a route somewhat similar to that of the Fathers. Using modern concepts, Swinburne
attempts to reach the conclusions that are awfully close to the traditional Christian dogmas.
He defines sin as "Failure in a duty to God...If a person does what is wrong (whether or not he realizes
it), he sins objectively. If he does what he believes to be wrong, he sins subjectively." 802
He further argues that "Each of us suffers from the burden of actual and original sin." 803 He contends
that "Christ's life and death is indeed, as he intended, efficacious for anyone who pleads it
as a perfect atonement for his actual sins and the sins of others with whom he is involved." 804 He
observes that "God did indeed become incarnate in Christ and lived a human life so perfect that it
ended in a foreseen death, and if he intended that life should be available to be used by us to
make our atonement, it is indeed the sort of thing which we could offer God as our reparation and
penance....Given that Christ the man who made the offering intending it to avail fully for our
atonement, is also the God to whom it was offered, he will forgive us without demanding
more." 805 The problem of logically explaining that why God is making the sacrifice to Himself is
given a kind of new dimension by observing that "it is good that there be reparation and penance,
it is good that these be substantial; that the atoning sacrifice be not a trivial one. And it is good
that our creator should share our lot, and of his generosity make available to us his sacrificial
life." 806 He concludes, observing that "God in Christ performs an act which makes an objective
contribution to removing our guilt which we ourselves were in no position to make." 807 Had the
guilt been absolutely eliminated from Christians after such a huge sacrifice, then, it would have
been possible to make some sense out of what Swinburne is trying to argue. It is the other way
around. Many of the great Bishops, Cardinals and Christians still are sinful and guilty like other
human beings. To sacrifice God for the sake of such a meager accomplishment is too much a
price to pay.
To what extent Swinburne uses traditional Christian terms metaphorically or analogically becomes
evident in his discussion of "Could God Become Man?". He defines a human being by ar-
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