Adrian Teo wrote:
> Hello George,
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 6:41 AM
> > To: Keith B Miller
> > Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> > Subject: Re: Human origins and doctrine
> > >
> > 2) & to get to Adrian's argument, the points I've
> > emphasized do not
> > require a view of original sin as hereditary in the strict
> > sense. That is
> > certainly the way that Augustine & the Augsburg Confession
> > saw it, but that is
> > an attempt to explain _why_ we are in the condition that's
> > been described. We
> > should start with the existential statement that "we are in
> > bondage to sin and
> > cannot free ourselves" as we say in the Brief Order for Confession and
> > Forgiveness. Then we can start talking about the why of it.
> > The traditional
> > western view of a fall from perfection and hereditary
> > transmission of sin is
> > one explanation, but it is not the only or, IMO, the best, one.
>
> I may have missed this, but did you ever get a chance in this thread to
> explicitly state what you think is the better alternative to the hereditary
> idea? If not, would you be willing to do so?
On 23 February I wrote (in a spin-off from this thread that I titled
"original sin"), among other things, the following:
_____________________
The eastern tradition, represented by Irenaeus, sees humanity as
having been created without sin but in an immature & childlike state.
Humanity was intended to grow, to develop toward a final state of righteous
maturity in union with God. The first sin then was not so much a matter of
an abrupt "fall" but of getting off the proper road.
To this point I've just been reviewing traditional beliefs. But no
the question is, can we make sense of the basic ideas of the church's
tradition here if human beings are the result of evolution. (& of course I
mean there evolution through which God has been acting.) If so, how?
First, the basic idea that all human beings are sinners & in need of
salvation by Christ is not touched by concerns about how we originated many
generations ago. In my view the western emphasis on the seriousness of the
sinful condition of humanity is appropriate.
But then the idea of an "original righteousness" of the first humans
comes into question. Especially the ideas often held in the west, that the
first humans had tremendous wisdom & other special attributes that we have
lost is very implausible with an evolutionary scenario. The eastern view,
that humanity began in an immature state, seems closer to the mark.
But we can't simply think of the first humans as moral or
intellectual blank slates who could just
as well have avoided sin as sinned. What we know of evolution suggests that
the first humans (however we choose to define them) would have inherited a
heavy genetic &/or behavioral load inclining them toward behaviors that we
would consider sinful - aggression, sexual promiscuity, theft, &c. These
behaviors would not have been sin in their ancestors who were not moral
agents, but would have been sinful in moral agents. & with those inherited
tendencies it's very hard to see how those first moral agents could have
avoided sin.
We can still say that sin is not part of what constitutes proper
human nature, but in the course of real evolutionary history sin could not be
avoided. Sin is not "necessary" but it was "inevitable."
In brief, I think an eastern metaphor of "taking the wrong road"
(with the consequence of all humanity getting "lost in the woods") is better
than the western metaphor of "the fall," especially if we are concerned to
make theological sense of human evolution.
______________________________
"Getting off the road" is of course a metaphor, as is "fall." Its
point is that humanity as a whole has gotten into a condition in its
development very far from what God intended. It is a condition in which people
from the beginning of life are unable to "have true fear of God and true faith
in God" and are inclined toward sinful acts.
In a sense this is an "environmental" view of sin in contrast to an
hereditary one. But the distinction is not always as sharp as it's pictured.
E.g., fetal alcohol syndrome is not genetic but environmental - i.e., due to
the uterine environment in which the fetus has developed. But there is also a
sense in which it is "hereditary" since the child has this condition from birth
from its mother.
The discussion of some modern Roman Catholic theologians on "structures
of sin" in society may also be helpful here but I haven't been able to give
much attention to this.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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