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Moral accounting






The Moral Accounting metaphor works as follows:

• Acting immorally gives one a moral debit.

• Acting morally gives one moral credit.

• Suffering (by moral arithmetic) gives one moral credit.

If one's credits exceed one's debits at death, one goes to heaven. If one's debits exceed one's credits at death, one goes to hell.

Heaven is the state of receiving perpetual nurturance from God: being in God's presence, being close to God, being filled with his love and warmth, being blissfully happy. Hell is the state of never again receiving nurturance from God: being alienated from his presence, being unloved, uncared for, unhappy.

Because of Original Sin, people inevitably act immorally and run up huge moral debits, so huge they can never pay them off with good deeds. On the basis of our own actions alone, therefore, all human beings deserve to go to hell, to suffer alienation from God and his nurturance in perpetuity.

But God, being a nurturant and loving parent, did not want his children to have to suffer forever. He wanted to give them a chance to go to heaven, to be with him forever and be nurtured forever. But since human beings had earned eternal damnation, their moral debts had to be paid off for them to have a chance to enter heaven. They would have to grow morally and learn to act nurturantly toward others. The only way they could do this would be through example, through the example of a perfectly nurturant human being. Even so, human beings could never do enough good deeds to pay off their moral debts. Those debts could only be paid off through human suffering.

Since God, being God, could not teach human beings nurturance through human example, and since he, not being human, could not suffer human afflictions to pay off the moral debt of human beings, another solution was required. God sired a human son – Christ – who could do these things for the sake of saving human beings from hell.

Christ, being the son of God, was without sin; that is, he acted with complete nurturance – with empathy toward others and for the benefit, development, and happiness of others, requiring nothing in return. Through his actions, he set an example of a perfectly nurturant person for human beings to follow, so that they could learn to become nurturant toward others.

Christ, being perfectly nurturant, made the ultimate sacrifice for human beings. On the cross, Christ suffered so much that his suffering more than balanced the sins of the entire human race. Through his suffering he acquired enough moral credit to pay off the moral debts of all human beings.

Christ thus delivered God's nurturance to human beings, that is, he offered us God's Grace. Through accepting Christ and following his example of nurturance, we can grow morally, gradually incorporating his nurturance into ourselves and becoming nurturant beings.

In those denominations of Christianity where communion is of great importance, communicants are brought at communion into God's presence: they are offered God's Grace and accept it. In eating the wafer and drinking the wine that is symbolic of Christ's body and blood, they are incorporating the essence of Christ – nurturance – into themselves, and hence changing their own essence to become increasingly nurturant.

In accepting Christ, in following his nurturant example, one is accepting God's Grace. Christ, being the ultimate nurturer, offers Grace to all. Those who accept, those who " take Christ into their hearts" – that is, who take nurturance as the essence of their being – have their moral debts paid off with Christ's moral credit. They are " redeemed" and thus are saved from hell and can earn their way into heaven through their subsequent nurturant behavior.''






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