it, when you sent your Redeemer into the world? The answer is that there must be something so dazzling about his life, that you are confident that there will always be men who will rise to the challenge to follow the path he trod. You must be confident that men will always rise to the challenge, in spite of the cowardly advice which you know other men will give, to the effect that the Redeemer's life is unique, and cannot and ought not to be repeated. The whole point of your sending a Redeemer into the world is that his life should be repeated in endless glorious variety. One may ask the fatuous rhetorical question: what other purpose could you have?
On the other hand, you will have to reconcile this requirement with the knowledge that probably your Redeemer will be murdered. He may not be; but it would be quite unsafe to proceed on any other assumption. Now your choice is limited to making the Redeemer perform remarkable achievements, or making his actions have a remarkable quality; not an unnoticed metaphysical quality, but a radiance which no-one can fail to see. Probably it would be prudent to use both methods, but to rely chiefly upon the quality of his actions, rather than on the quantity of his achievements. Achievements will always be overtaken; Christ himself saw this. But the quality of a man's actions may be so sublime as to be unrepeatable; yet I insist on the paradox that the more unrepeatable a man's actions, the more intensely worthwhile it is that other people should try to repeat them. This is in conflict with the teaching of the Church, and the doctrine of the atonement.
The other difficulty is that you cannot compel your Redeemer to do anything at all; of all people he must be free, and not a slave. Any obedience he gives must be free and voluntary, and the horrible question raises its head, “Suppose he too asserts his independence, and merely by wanting to lead his own life, thwarts my best laid plans and intentions?”. There was nothing to…