C.S. Lewis' Narnia analogy (in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) was that Satan (the Witch) was God's executioner, so to speak, licensed to pay out retributive justice; and any rebel was the Executioner's lawful prey. The only way to prevent this happening, was for Aslan to substitute himself (because the Witch would rather destroy Him than any other victim.)
But this doesn't make sense to me, either. Why should God "owe" Satan a tasty torture snack?
It's clear to me that a human can't merit heaven (because of our limited nature, we could never merit something infinite.) But, following the same line of reasoning, it's not clear to me how a human could merit hell.
In a paradoxical way, I would even wonder whether Original Sin doesn't make personal Mortal Sin impossible, since we were rendered so marred in our minds and wills as a result of Original Sin, that we could never muster the single-minded, knowing, unwavering and limitless malice needed to earn a proportionately unlimited punishment.
I believe it all makes sense somehow, but I don't know how.
Your thoughts, Father?
No theory holds water if it sets up the Father as demanding something from the Son—such as torture and death. Or if it posits that Satan has some kind of RIGHT to anything, which Jesus was required to satisfy.
God created man. Man rebelled. God chose to overcome that rebellion and give us what he always intended to give us: eternal life, i.e., a participation in his life, i.e., a participation in the divine nature—charity. Somehow, the means by which this was accomplished was the Incarnation, and the suffering and death of Jesus.
Frankly, I don’t see why a “theory” is needed. I’ve never seen a theory that didn’t imply grotesque consequences. Which may, of course, merely reveal my abject ignorance of theological history.
I’m sure you’re aware of Plato’s prediction in the Republic (700 B.C.) that if ever there were a perfectly just man, he would be beaten with rods and taken outside of town and crucified.
Actually, all “theories” of the “atonement”—even the notion that Jesus died in order to “atone” for our sins is a theory—presume that we even know, when it comes to Incarnation and the suffering and death of Jesus, what was the END and what was the MEANS. There are long-standing theological theories that hold that the purpose of the creation was to accomplish the Incarnation, absolutely irrespective of Adam’s sin, which had not taken place, and didn’t have to take place.