Re: Dick Fisher's "historical basis" remains no less doubtful

>
>Jack,
>I'm persuaded that you are right in your question and Dick has obfuscated
>in his answer. According to him only Adam was given the crucial choice,
>which would apply to him and possibly to his descendants. But his failure
>was transferred to all others, even to those who were totally isolated
>from him and his descendants. If the sinful nature were like a virus,
>transmissible from one person to another, those in contact with Adam and
>his seed might be infected. But this could not have been transferred to
>Americans and Australians, who were totally isolated from the Old World
>until the time of the Viking exploration for America, and about 3/4 of a
>millennium later for Australians. However, Dick seems to feel that the
>infection was transferred magically and immediately to everyone who
>looked like the soul-gifted and sin-damaged pair from Eden. Do you
>suppose there is a ghostly contagion in the very air we breathe so that
>no material transference is required? Then the consequences of Adam's
>fall would have reached the American aborigines a couple weeks later.
>Maybe souls are contagious, so that both traducianism and creationism are
>wrong, and every newborn gets its soul from the environment. Since the
>ancestors of the Adamites were religious, as Glenn has shown, I infer
>that they must have had some awareness of both deity and moral
>responsibility. Do you suppose that Dick can come up with a
>pseudo-justification for worship without any sense of accountability? I'm
>sure he can, but it will be as irrelevant as his response to you.
>Dave

Legally and covenantally is not "magical" any more than it is for
what I get from Christ. I get a legal status of non-guilty
(justified). That makes me right with God. Granted, intrinsic
righteousness follows by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Why must we insist on "material transference"?

I'm not necessarily saying that this is what Dick Fischer is saying,
but if God in his dealings with human-kind made some individual that
we reckon to be Adam to be the representative of everyone,
everywhere, then that's His choice (and such dealings through the
covenant head seems normal for God's dealing with His people
throughout history). I think it's fully possible that actual
transgression can flow out of imputed guilt just as much as actual
righteousness can flow out of imputed righteousness. Granted, there's
Holy Spirit renewal in the latter case--perhaps imputed guilt with
the absence of the Holy Spirit is enough to produce actual
transgression (speculation, I know).

TG

-- 
_________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado  80523
grayt@lamar.colostate.edu  http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801