Judaism and Islam offer a different formula, although they lead their adherents down the same path. Judaism and Islam are religions of law. Both have elaborate rituals and codes: Pray five times a day. Pack up and go to Mecca. Sacrifice a lamb or a goat. Wear a long beard. Keep kosher. The great Jewish jurist Maimonides even argues that circumcision is essential for salvation: “Whoever neglects the covenant of our ancestor Abraham and retains the foreskin … will have no portion in the world to come.” The rigor of these rules has caused many Jews and Muslims to ignore many of them and simply follow a select few prescriptions they can live with. These are the “reformed” Jews and Muslims, who seem to have given up trying to live up to the full rigor of their legal codes. They are basically living in hope that God is not a stickler for details.
But God is not a lenient tradesman willing to accept 30 percent payment; His justice demands full reimbursement. Still, it is hard not to sympathize with the slackers. They are actually correct that it is too difficult to render adequate recompense to God. I even sympathize with Christopher Hitchens, who complains that if God wanted man to live up to these high standards, “he should have taken more care to invent a different species.” Christianity agrees with Hitchens that the standards are difficult. Indeed Christianity says they are more than difficult; they are impossible. Not only is it impossible to stop sinning—even the most devout Christians cannot stop sinning— but it is also impossible to atone for one’s past sins. How would you go about atoning for them? Can you locate everyone you have wronged and make them whole? Yes, you can resolve to live a subse- quent life of goodness, but this is no atonement; you should be doing this anyway.
