Re: mtDNA Eve and the determination of humanity

Rich,

"True Religion"? Yes I have read it, and I just re-read it to make
sure I was clear on the message. The _historical_ interpretation
appears sound and has the additional advantage of being falsifiable,
therefore scientific (e.g. if intelligence was found to depend
substantially more on environment than on genetics, your paradigm
would not hold -- but I highly doubt that outcome).

But let's go beyond the history in Genesis. Theologically, any
doctrine of the Fall must deal with sin, its effects, and the
redemptive power of Christ. Your only use of the term in your paper
is when you say "The newfound freedom to make personal choices based
on what an individual learned was also the freedom to 'sin,' to make
the wrong personal choices." And earlier today you said "There is no
spiritual quality to sin. Sin is making a mistake that compromises
your survival." I'll set aside the question of whether sin could be
considered non-spiritual, and questions about how this definition of
sin is squared with the notion of sinning "against" someone in the
abstract or in the myriad particular cases in the Bible.

Focusing only on the person of Jesus, it is an indisputable matter
that Jesus did not sin at any point. In your paper, you give a
negative definition for sin (making "the wrong personal choices") and
two positive solutions for it. One is a "personal discipline" of
making learned behavior intuitive. The other is a "reproductive
discipline" favoring intelligence, which may say more about corporate
sin than personal sin. It is clear that Jesus did not redeem us
through the second discipline, as he died without reproducing at all.
Thus his redemptive power must be through the first discipline: he
must have internalized the right personal choices. It is this which
we are called to imitate.

And here's where I have the most trouble with this definition of sin,
for the Bible records that Jesus "increased in wisdom". Logically
this requires that Jesus was not as wise when he was a child as when
he was an adult. Surely as an infant he could not sin, for infants
are not self-conscious. Once he became self-conscious as a child, he
could sin -- but didn't. Nevertheless, his sinless nature as a child
was apparently not predicated on his wisdom, for which he was praised
in his adult life, since his wisdom as a child was less than that of
his adult self. So do we say that Jesus, having God himself as
Father, was so intelligent that even his childish state was
incomparably wise, in which case we are hopeless to imitate him? Or
is wisdom is not a necessary component of developing personal
discipline?

This whole argument may seem pedantic but I'm really just trying to
get a notion of what you think it means to imitate Christ and to avoid
sin, using your definition.

Chris

On 3/1/06, RFaussette@aol.com <RFaussette@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> In a message dated 3/1/2006 8:11:10 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> chris.barden@gmail.com writes:
> Rich, I'm sympathetic toward your view of Genesis but your definition
> of "sin" seems problematic to me, if for one reason only: it makes the
> lack of wisdom "sin" if the potentiality is there for decreasing one's
> survival (which it obviously is). "And Jesus increased in wisdom and
> stature, and in favor with God and men." (Luke 2:52) What if the
> child Jesus did something unwise that could have killed him, like
> touching something hot or getting too close to deep water? You can of
> course argue that Jesus did no such thing, so he did not "sin", but
> that seems to make his increase in wisdom a meaningless notion.
>
> Chris
> There is no mention of the child Jesus doing anyhting unwise, so your remark
> is a hypothetical to which it is impossible to respond. My "view" of genesis
> is taken from the literal text.
>
> Before the fall, Adam has certain qualities that actually describe
> instinctive behavior. His eyes are closed (he doesn't KNOW what he is doing
> because he is not making any choices - he is behaving instinctively), he has
> no shame (because he has no SELF consciousness) and he has no fear (zero
> ontological anxiety = no conception of death and hence no fear of death).
>
> After the fall, his eyes are open (he knows the difference between good and
> evil), he has shame (SELF consciousness) and he has fear (awareness of his
> own mortality with a resulting increase in ontological anxiety).
>
> This is not interpretation. It arises from the text itself.
>
> Chris, have you read my paper?
>
> rich faussette
Received on Wed Mar 1 09:57:56 2006