From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Mon Oct 06 2003 - 11:09:49 EDT
See my comment below Josh's
Blake writes, responding to Josh:
> An inherited Original Sin, in the way the Western
> church understands it, is the result of Augustine's
> influence and writings (indeed, although Origen talks
> about it, he does so differently than does Augustine).
> John Damascenus (died A. D. 760) does not include
> Original Sin among the doctrines held by the Church.
>
> The Eastern Orthodox church has a very different view
> of things in this regard, which may be instructive of
> the fact that it is not the only interpretation of
> Genesis 3, which obviously does not contain the term.
> For what it's worth, nor does any of the Old Testament
> speak of Genesis 3 as the source of man's sin, but
> rather of man's sinful nature with no reference back
> to Genesis 3.
>
> Anyway, not to belabor the point, but the Fall can be
> understood entirely differently than Augustine
> understood it, even though there has been a
> significant accretion of theology in the western
> church around Augustine's approach. To understand the
> Fall differently from Augustine does not in anyway
> represent a modernization or attempt to avoid
> particular consequences of Biblical passages since
> Augustine's interpretation was the novel one and one
> has an unbroken (although diverse) tradition of
> understanding of the Fall in very different terms in
> the Eastern church.
>
>
> --- Josh Bembenek <jbembe@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Howard, from what I've come to understand the
> > primary importance is being
> > able to claim that mankind is fallen and that has
> > been inherited from Adam
> > and Eve. In this view, The Fall requires some kind
> > of mechanistic transfer
> > into all of humankind from Adam, otherwise we had no
> > fall. This is
> > partially bolstered by the idea that God looked at
> > His creation and called
> > it "good." Would the creation of hominids that die,
> > have disease, etc. and
> > are inherently fallen creatures be "good?"
> >
> > This is an interesting question.
> >
> >
> > Josh
> >
Bob's comments:
Blake is right on about the doctrine of original sin; the eastern Church
does not accept the Augustinian interpretation of the fall, which provides a
kind of "mechanistic transfer," as Josh put it, a notion that has been
dubious from the start and largely rejected today by many contemporary
western theologians who interpret "original sin" in psychological or
sociological frames.
Josh has come to see what others of us have also concluded. YEC is
built upon certain interpretations of the Bible, esp. Genesis 1-2, that have
been long held and have a long history behind them, and believe that these
are the only correct interpretations. Since the interpretations are true,
their theology must be true, and it trumps any scientific ideas which arise
from the thinking of sinful men.
The problem is that they are setting up their interpretations, however
much anchored in a tradition, as the only vaid ones. Tradition is not a
word a lot of Protestants are comfortable with in defending biblical
interpretations, but in fact there is a kind of Protestant tradition at
work here, as there is in George's Lutheran ways and my Anglican ways of
seeing things.
The problem with YEC as I see it on this score, is their assertion that
the interpretation of six-day creation and an Augustinian concept of the
Fall are integral to the doctrines of creation and fall as such. Something
I read in Aquinas last evening, quoted in Stephen Barr's new book, points
to a different understanding, which I am more comfortable with: "With
respect to the origin of the world, there is one point that is of the
substance of the faith, namely, to know that it began by creation, on which
all the authors in question are in agreement. But the manner and the order
according to which creation took place concerns the faith only incidentally,
in so far as it has been recorded in Scripture, and of these things the
aforementioned authors, safeguarding the truth by their various
interpretations, have reported different things" (Commentary on Bk. II of
the Sentences of Peter Lombard, 12,3,1).
When only one interpretation is allowed as providing the substance of
faith, then dialogue over the meaning of Scripture is cut off. The same is
true of doctrine. One of Cardinal Newman's great contributions to Christian
thought was his recognition that theological doctrines have their own
history, and that theological doctrines have undergone change throughout the
centuries. When we insist otherwise, I think we run the risk of making our
doctrines into idols.
Grace and peace,
Bob Scheider
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