Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 27
Sin and Atonement 27 which has been presented deserves to occupy our attention a little longer before we turn to some other aspects of crime and pun- ishment. Let us consider the case of a debtor called A, who owes a hun- dred thousand pounds to person B. If a rich philanthropist, in full command of his senses, seriously and genuinely wants to relieve the debtor of his burden, the common law would require him to pay to B all that person A owed him. But suppose the hypotheti- cal philanthropist steps forward with the plea that person A should be absolved of his responsibility of payment to person B and instead he himself should be beaten up a little bit or imprisoned for three days and nights at the most, in A’s place. If it really happened in real life it would be a treat to watch the horrified faces of the astounded judge and the confounded poor creditor B. But the philanthropist has yet to complete his plea for clemency. He would further stipulate: ‘Oh, my lord that is not all I want in return for my sacrifice. I require all the debtors of the entire kingdom alive today, or to be born until the end of time to be absolved of their dues in return for my suffering of three days and nights’. At this point one’s mind boggles. How one wishes to propose to God, the Just God, that those who had been robbed of the fruits of their labour, or of the savings of their lives, should have been compensated to some degree at least! But the Christian God, it seems, is far kinder and more clement to the criminal than to the innocent who suffer at the hands of the criminal. It is a strange sense of justice indeed which results in the forgiveness of robbers, usurpers, the abusers of children, the torturers of the innocent and the perpetrators of all