Depends on your theology. From what I remember reading Constantine’s Sword, Anselm’s theology was that Adam & Eve’s crime against God was an infinite crime since God is infinite, and so nothing less than another punishment (of an infinite being) could be equally infinite and wipe it out. So it’s not that Jesus experienced, packed into 3 short days, the sins or the suffering of all humanity through all time—it’s just one crime of lèse majesté had to be balanced out.
(Of course, this is Christianity we’re talking about. If you know of fewer than 100 distinct positions, that just shows you haven’t done your homework.)
“Moreover, arguing that an error against God is infinite because He is infinite is like arguing that it is holy because God is, or like thinking that the injuries commited against a tiger must be striped.”—Jorge Luis Borges
Depends on your theology. From what I remember reading Constantine’s Sword, Anselm’s theology was that Adam & Eve’s crime against God was an infinite crime since God is infinite, and so nothing less than another punishment (of an infinite being) could be equally infinite and wipe it out. So it’s not that Jesus experienced, packed into 3 short days, the sins or the suffering of all humanity through all time—it’s just one crime of lèse majesté had to be balanced out.
(Of course, this is Christianity we’re talking about. If you know of fewer than 100 distinct positions, that just shows you haven’t done your homework.)
“Moreover, arguing that an error against God is infinite because He is infinite is like arguing that it is holy because God is, or like thinking that the injuries commited against a tiger must be striped.”—Jorge Luis Borges
A classic. I recently re-read my copy of his Nonfiction, so possibly I actually am remembering it from there rather than Constantine’s Sword.