"Since Jesus is paying the penalty for our sin,..."
Only according to St. Augustine; most of the early church fathers believed
that man was being punished because he misused the gift of freedom that God
gave him; they believed that Christ's sacrifice was to restore to us the
spiritual strength needed to use that freedom correctly. As Paul himself
points out, just as one man brought death upon mankind, one man brings life.
The early church fathers did not see Christ's act as the act of a scapegoat;
they saw it as His last healing act before He revealed His true nature to
the world.
"...and if the sin didn't come about via a Fall, then that means that God
created us sinful. I don't like the implications of that one."
The early church fathers believed that man created his own sin by misusing
the gift of freedom God gave us; that God did not need to punish us directly
because our selfishness brought on our death and toil.
"If there was a Fall, but God inspired a different account of the Fall--then
God's inspiration, isn't worth much as a means of communication. To me this
leads to God being incapable of communion with us."
He didn't inspire a different account; we humans got it wrong, again, as
usual. But the account in the Bible isn't so much wrong as misdirected.
"If the Fall and the rest of the creation account was made up by men, then
what do they know about creation? I wouldn't think that a man-made version
of creation is very useful."
The story wasn't man-made (though St. Augustine's interpretation of it was);
it was the mythical account of what the Hebrews believed had happened based
on what God told them. Since they did not completely understand what they
were hearing, they described it as best as they could, then interpreted it
according to their culture.
"Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the TRUTH, and the Life.' Truth cannot be
contradictory."
Exactly. But what truth is He referring to? The grand truth that He is the
Messiah, the Son of the Living God? That truth certainly is contradictory
because so many other religions refuse to believe it. So maybe instead it
is the simple truth that God is love, and that the way to salvation is to
love God and our neighbors as He instructed us to. THAT truth is certainly
NOT contradictory, because so many other religions believe it
wholeheartedly. So if the criteria for believing doctrine is that it be
uncontradicted truth, I think the simple truth is more believable than the
grand truth.
"Do I worship logic? No, but without logic, one has no way to know WHAT GOD
REQUIRES of a supplicant."
Yes we do; we have our heart, we have our faith and we have the Holy Spirit.
Logic helps to reinforce these, but when it substitutes for them it leads to
error.
"No one denies the INTERNAL consistency of the Koran or other religions. It
is the external consistency that is a problem."
But it becomes a problem only if you try to force one religion to obey the
standards set by another.
Kevin L. O'Brien