I wasn’t very familiar with this academic dispute before reading the article, but honestly it still strikes me as a bit misplaced. The so-called “antisacrificial Girardians” seem to treat the word sacrifice as if merely using it implies that Girard abandoned mimetic theory and shifted toward penal substitutionary atonement. But that's not what Girard implies by the use of the word "sacrifice," he never abandons mimetic theory, nor does he smuggle back in a violent God who requires Christ’s death to satisfy either natural law or divine justice.
The main thing that matters in Girard is the revelatory innocence of Christ in His sacrifice--whether or not it is called a sacrifice or not. Violence, is therefore, revealed to be human, and not divine, destroying the logic of the sacrifical mechanism.
The argument feels rather semantic and like a divergence from Girard's actual theory.
Yes, definitely semantic, but in an important sense. I dove into this debate because I could relate with Thiel, Pattillo (the author of the academic article), and the group they represent - what I describe as 80s era antisacrificial Giraridans. After reading The Scapegoat and studying pre-Christian sacrifice, I felt what Girard said as quoted by Pattillo - that the ritual sacrifice practiced by our ancestors and the sacrifice of Christ are so different that they cannot have the same semantic expression. The divergence was not in mimetic theory - ei, that the source of the instinct for the sacrifice of the Other was its success as a resolution to the inevitable conflict from mimetic rivalry and further down mimetic desire. The antisacrificial Girardians accept this. The divergence was in the implications of Christ's revelation. To me, this includes questioning the innate value even of "self-sacrifice." If Pattillo's and Thiel's account are accurate, Girard also believed this, but he later changed his mind after his conversations with the Innsbruck Jesuit Theologian Raymund Schwager. This is also a conflict I experience within me since I belong to a church with a sacrificial liturgy and which is inundated with the language of self-sacrifice. DBH gave me a sense not of its resolution but of its mystery: there is more to this than I could grasp. I have two preliminary paths in translating this to living my life: 1) the message of Christ in dying on the cross has a Straussian character: it speaks (truly) to those who view the world still through the old sacrificial economy - that everything has a cost - and he says to them that he has already paid everything in full. But there are deeper layers. 2) What makes self-sacrifice Christ-like is not the suffering but the love.
I appreciate the elaboration! yeah that makes sense to me. it also illuminates why theil says aligned things like this. but even with what he says in public it still seems like the argument is semantic! because yes: he says sacrifice is bad and we shouldn't have to sacrifice anymore, but he also says there are times where we might have to die so our friends aren't sacrificed. Does that not imply the very same resolution DBH gives, at least in broad strokes?
In orthodoxy, we view suffering as the necessary precursor to spiritual fruit (the vine must be stretched before it bears good grapes), but suffering usually does not equal something extreme and traumatic such as marytrdom. Mostly, it just means ordinary self denial. I get irritated, I must restrain myself from snapping at someone. I feel insecure, I must restrain myself from self soothing with pride. And of course, we are meant to struggle through the fasts.
this self denial is the only way, from an orthodox perspective, by which our souls become pure and temples of the holy spirit. Is it sacrifice? surely, but it is a sacrifice after Christ's own sacrifice: done voluntarily in love of others. It is set apart from the sacrifices committed by the mobs.
I blurted out the answer while I was giving a talk on fortitude to some young fellas earlier. By becoming man, Christ sanctified everything he touched: family, work, friendship, the little things of ordinary daily life… and of course the cross. It does not matter how it “works.”
I wasn’t very familiar with this academic dispute before reading the article, but honestly it still strikes me as a bit misplaced. The so-called “antisacrificial Girardians” seem to treat the word sacrifice as if merely using it implies that Girard abandoned mimetic theory and shifted toward penal substitutionary atonement. But that's not what Girard implies by the use of the word "sacrifice," he never abandons mimetic theory, nor does he smuggle back in a violent God who requires Christ’s death to satisfy either natural law or divine justice.
The main thing that matters in Girard is the revelatory innocence of Christ in His sacrifice--whether or not it is called a sacrifice or not. Violence, is therefore, revealed to be human, and not divine, destroying the logic of the sacrifical mechanism.
The argument feels rather semantic and like a divergence from Girard's actual theory.
Yes, definitely semantic, but in an important sense. I dove into this debate because I could relate with Thiel, Pattillo (the author of the academic article), and the group they represent - what I describe as 80s era antisacrificial Giraridans. After reading The Scapegoat and studying pre-Christian sacrifice, I felt what Girard said as quoted by Pattillo - that the ritual sacrifice practiced by our ancestors and the sacrifice of Christ are so different that they cannot have the same semantic expression. The divergence was not in mimetic theory - ei, that the source of the instinct for the sacrifice of the Other was its success as a resolution to the inevitable conflict from mimetic rivalry and further down mimetic desire. The antisacrificial Girardians accept this. The divergence was in the implications of Christ's revelation. To me, this includes questioning the innate value even of "self-sacrifice." If Pattillo's and Thiel's account are accurate, Girard also believed this, but he later changed his mind after his conversations with the Innsbruck Jesuit Theologian Raymund Schwager. This is also a conflict I experience within me since I belong to a church with a sacrificial liturgy and which is inundated with the language of self-sacrifice. DBH gave me a sense not of its resolution but of its mystery: there is more to this than I could grasp. I have two preliminary paths in translating this to living my life: 1) the message of Christ in dying on the cross has a Straussian character: it speaks (truly) to those who view the world still through the old sacrificial economy - that everything has a cost - and he says to them that he has already paid everything in full. But there are deeper layers. 2) What makes self-sacrifice Christ-like is not the suffering but the love.
I appreciate the elaboration! yeah that makes sense to me. it also illuminates why theil says aligned things like this. but even with what he says in public it still seems like the argument is semantic! because yes: he says sacrifice is bad and we shouldn't have to sacrifice anymore, but he also says there are times where we might have to die so our friends aren't sacrificed. Does that not imply the very same resolution DBH gives, at least in broad strokes?
In orthodoxy, we view suffering as the necessary precursor to spiritual fruit (the vine must be stretched before it bears good grapes), but suffering usually does not equal something extreme and traumatic such as marytrdom. Mostly, it just means ordinary self denial. I get irritated, I must restrain myself from snapping at someone. I feel insecure, I must restrain myself from self soothing with pride. And of course, we are meant to struggle through the fasts.
this self denial is the only way, from an orthodox perspective, by which our souls become pure and temples of the holy spirit. Is it sacrifice? surely, but it is a sacrifice after Christ's own sacrifice: done voluntarily in love of others. It is set apart from the sacrifices committed by the mobs.
I guess this is part of faith: to see suffering as purification without understanding how.
Lord, increase our faith!
I blurted out the answer while I was giving a talk on fortitude to some young fellas earlier. By becoming man, Christ sanctified everything he touched: family, work, friendship, the little things of ordinary daily life… and of course the cross. It does not matter how it “works.”