Dick Fischer wrote:
>
> George wrote:
>
> >Dick Fischer wrote:
> >
> > > A "picture of" Adam? No real Adam though? I frankly don't know how a
> > > parallel can be drawn between a non-existent figurehead and a flesh and
> > > blood Christ. The first Adam was non-existent, the other really was? Then
> > > how does this work: 1Cor 15:45: "And so it is written, The first man Adam
> > > was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."
> >
> > Please stop trying to make me say things that I didn't say. I
> > think that
> >there's very little doubt that St. Paul understood Gen.2-3 as an account
> >of an
> >historical figure Adam & used that idea to express a belief in the causal
> >effects of
> >the the sin of humanity in its origin & the general sinful condition of
> >humanity.
>
> Okay, St. Paul and I agree. But then, neither he nor I have a Phd in
> theology, so what do we know?
>
> >In a similar way, the author/editor of Gen.1 thought that there were
> >waters above the
> >heavens and used that idea in expressing the belief that God is the
> >creator of the
> >entire universe.
>
> Well, which is it? Is it water, or is it solid? I have heard both on this
> list.
It isn't period. There are no waters above the heavens - liquid, gas, or any
phase of ice. & there weren't a few thousand years ago. The writer of Genesis is using
the concepts of cosmology prevalent in his culture, which we have no reason to think
he didn't accept, to speak of God as the creator of the universe as he knew it. The
fact that he was using what we now see as an obsolete picture of the physical universe
doesn't invalidate the creation theology of Genesis, which helps us to understand God as
the creator of the unievrse as we know it today - which will probably differ in
important features from the way people will understand it in 2104 if the world lasts
that long.
Similarly, Paul used the concepts of the history of the human race prevalent in
his culture to speak of the problem of human sin. & the fact that we know now that
humanity didn't originate with a single couple a few thousand years ago doesn't
invalidate that theological understanding of sin, which helps us to understand the
situation of the human race as we understand it today.
& to respond to your earlier question: Do I know more about some aspects of
biology & human history than Paul? Yes. Does that make me a better theologian than
Paul? No.
You said there that you & Paul agree. Kind of. If I can put it this way, you
agree with Paul about the historical picture he assumes & I don't. But I think
that I agree with his theological description of the problem of sin & you don't.
............................
> >My point was simply that your Adam-Hitler parallel doesn't work very well.
>
> My only reason for using that analogy is that we don't need to be directly
> related to someone to be impacted by the sin of someone. I don't think
> there is a genetic coding for sin in our DNA. We have free will, that
> allows us to make wrong choices, and the choices we make that are
> displeasing to God, we call sin. Adam brought accountability into the
> picture where humans had not been accountable before, and messed it
> up. Simple.
Nor do I think that sin is coded for in DNA. But it seems much too weak an
interpretation of what Paul says in Romans 5 simply to say that those not descended from
Adam became "accountable" because of him. You would have a situation in which person X
in Mexico circa 7000 B.C., before Adam sinned in the Middle East, was not "accountable"
but in which X's son X', born after Adam sinned, was accountable. That seems entirelt
arbitrary. Could God have held X' accountable & X not? Sure. But is that really what
you want to argue?
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Sat Mar 6 13:34:14 2004
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