humans & sin (Was Re: How to interpret Adam)

jack syme wrote:
...............
> I think that the Bible teaches
> that to say that one is "human", is equivalent to saying that one is a
> sinner. There were no "humans" before Adam, and no sinners before Adam.
> All "humans" are sinners and condemned, unless they believe in Christ, who
> saves all "humans" who believe. I dont think that we can define what it is
> to be human in biological terms at all. It is a spiritual definition.
> "Human" means able to communicate with God? Maybe.

        A theological definition of "human" may not match up at all points with
scientific categories. E.g., we can't say that all members of the species H. sap are
"human" in the sense in which the Bible talks about "Adam" (which means "human" or, in
older English, "man") and "sons of Adam" (= in Hebrew idiom not just "male descendants
of Adam" but "members of the class of humans".)

        & the precise division is perhaps not quite so important if we remember that God
is not concerned just about humanity but all creatures, & that "all things" have some
place (however obscure it may be) in God's ultimate purpose for creation.

        But being human is not equivalent to being a sinner. While evolution makes it
difficult to think that there was a "state of integrity" as a sinless condition of
humanity during some historical period, creation and fall should not be conflated. Sin
may have been "inevitable," given the way in which humanity developed through the
evolutionary process, but it was not "necessary" - i.e., intrinsic to being human in a
theological sense.

                                                        Shalom,
                                                        George

George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Mon Mar 8 08:11:25 2004