Compare And Contrast Jay And Gilkey

INTRODUCTION
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edemption is the focus of the passages, and both authors have different views. Lossky portrays a biblical, orthodox and concise description of the suffering and death of Jesus, who defeats the law of sin and death, so reconciliation between man and God is possible. The focus merely on suffering and death portrays the passage as mainly pessimistic. The Gilkey passage is subjective and explanatory. Gilkey asserts the Hellenic method of salvation by living a ‘perfect’ life as impossible. Only Jesus is ‘perfect’, and faith in him will fulfil the requirements of such method. Gilkey’s passage is positive, replacing ‘suffering and death’ with sacrificial love and alluding the hope of resurrection and prescriptive of living a ‘meaningful
In contrast, though voluntarily, Jesus must also suffer and die. Unlike man, he lacks the inner guilt of sin, therefore confidently bears the ‘full measure of agony’, merely confined to physical suffering. Death has overcome both. Though, Jesus dies only once and with death and therefore sin defeated, provides redemption by reconciling God and man. In contrast, Gilkey’s passage does not mention guilt of humanity, but faces temporality. Instead of resigning to the fate of death, humans attempt use of the Hellenic method of salvation. The method uses power to ‘marshall’ worldly resources of power and wealth to inoculate against death by living a ‘perfect and good life’. Gilkey seldomly mentions suffering, as the passage is directed towards self-sufficient citizens, to which suffering is a foreign concept. Gilkey reveals Christ as achieving perfect obedience to God. Gilkey concludes that security is not achievable by humans, but needs depending on God who is the only source of fulfilment rather than worldly
He insists the method of Hellenic salvation by perfect living is unachievable. The paradoxical verse he employs ‘He who loses his life shall find it’ and ‘through death, there is life in resurrection’, challenges this method of redemption. The Hellenic method ignores the depraved human condition. Both authors recognise this. Lossky infers a person is incapable of being perfect, or as Lossky defines is ‘under the law of sin and death’. Even if idiosyncratic virtuous life is possible, it does not change the condition of other depraved humans, so they would not inflict evil and suffering on a person. As Lossky implies, the true cause of suffering - humanity’s original sin, must decisively be defeated (Christus Victor), rather than individually by futile means of virtuous living (Gilkey). On this basis, the Lossky portrayal provides a more satisfactory explanation than Gilkey’s sacrificial love (Moral influence theory), though this is subjective. There are merits to Gilkey’s passage, the use of moral influence theory, without doubt would appeal to adherents of other non-Christian religions including Hellenic, who emphasise human methods of virtuous living to achieve