
If all the tribulations of this world were to be written off as calculably necessary contributions to redemption - part of the great "balance" of things - then Christ's sacrifice would not be a unique saving act so much as the metaphysical ground for a universe of "sacrifice," wherein suffering and death are part of the sublime and inevitable fabric of finitude and divine providence would be indistinguishable from fate.

The secret irony pervading these arguments is that they would never have occurred to consciences that had not in some profound way been shaped by the moral universe of a Christian culture.
