I wrote:
> And did sin enter the world by the volitional act or acts of
>humans as told in Gen. 3? If so then at some time there must have been
a
>"sinless world" prior to this (these) act(s). If there were such a
sinless
>world, would it be wrong to speak of the existence of a "perfect
>communion" between the Creator and His creation, protean though the
>creation may have been at this stage, and "immature" though the humans
may
>have been? If it is wrong to speak of "original sin" in this way, then
it
>seems hard to understand any need for atonement by the sacrifice of
Jesus.
And Keith responded:
I am far from a theologian, but one way of thinking about this that is
helpful to me in my current thinking is to view Adam as innocent, not
perfect or "sinless." Just as we see infants as innocent, and
recognize
that children grow and reach an ill-defined time of accountability,
mankind
perhaps was in an initial stage of innocense. God's initial
self-revelation may have been to humans who lacked any awareness of
God's
expectations and of their own tendencies to disobedience. This, to
me,
makes sense of the symbol of the "Tree of Good and Evil." Adam and
Eve's
innocense was broken through disobedience. It was in disobedience
that
they became aware of what sin was. This interpretation also makes
sense of
the subsequent call to Cain to master his sin.
All theologians are now free to shoot me down. :-)
Now I respond:
But it seems difficult to associate the state of the first humans as a
state of innocence such as in an infant. In a state of innocence the
individual can hardly be held accountable for his or her behavior. We
certainly don't hold infants accountable or attach blame to them for
their actions do we? Accountability surely must be associated with a
voluntary and knowledgeable act of wrongdoing. If the first humans did
not know they were doing wrong how could they be held accountable?
I wonder if there are theologians on this list? I was very serious
about my question regarding why Gen. 1-11 is included in the Scriptures?
What is it that we may reliably believe and learn from these stories?
kpiers
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