The story of the Fall of Man is the story of the rise of reason (fruit of the tree of knowledge) in modern humans.? Evolution allowed instinct to naturally select in our ancestors for 300 million years purely under the auspices of Creations' (God's) demands.? We did what we felt like doing and lived or died for the privilege. Once the conditioned response became dominant over the pure stimulus response (reason over instinct) we began to be able to ignore our eons-old behavioral guide and choose do what our conditioning told us could happen instead.
Free will is not the myriad rational options we have, free will is the option to ignore our feelings and instincts to further our own survival with our thinking.? We could ignore our profound instinctive fear by joining with several of our fellow humans and facing down a large predator or we could ignore our instinct to preserve our species and kill another tribe member for his food or his mate.? The Fall of man is the rise of the ego is the rise of reason in humans.? The ability to think is the ability to sin.? Original sin is the rise of reason in humans.? (can I get an a-men?)
-Mike (Friend of ASA www.thegodofreason.com)
-----Original Message-----
From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: dopderbeck@gmail.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 9:28 pm
Subject: Re: [asa] Historical Theology and Current Theology re: Original Sin & Monogenism
There are several questions involved. First, are we guilty because Adam
sinned and his condemnation comes down to us? Is the story of the Fall an
explanation for the state we are in, imperfect morally? Are the second and third
chapters of Genesis history? The first chapter obviously cannot be, for it
reflects the solid firmament on which sun, moon and stars were stuck, with water
above them. Also, the order of events in the first two chapters do not
match.
?
As Dick pointed out, the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 have their counterpart in
Numbers 13:33. Are they the same? I note that "sons of God" elsewhere refers to
the righteous. Is this merely a matter of hybrid vigor or something
similar?
?
I recently saw a report that part of the Neanderthal genome was sequenced,
including specifically the gene for hair color. There was a coding that would
have produced blonde hair, but it was not the same mutation found in current
blondes. So blonde hair today cannot be the result of matings between modern man
and Neanderthals. Other analyses have discovered the identical virus genes
incorporated into the genomes of both man and chimp.
?
These, and many other matters, need to be addressed in the process of
developing a theology in this century. However, the field has been preempted by
those who declare that they do not interpret the scriptures, but just read them
as they stand. Similarly, neither you nor I have any presuppositions. ;-)
Dave (ASA)
?
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 19:34:47 -0500 philtill@aol.com writes:
?
But of course that person wasn't the only person alive at the time, nor
was he the only person from that time who contributed genes to the human
population.
?
But would that really affect the transmission of
original sin through the lines that _are_ fallen (in particular through the
paternal line)?????
More generally, how pristine
does the boundary have to be between human and non-human?? There is that
passage where the "sons of God" had children through the "daughters of
men."? I have to believe this is a reference to fallen angelic beings
(like Mesopotamian gods)?since it produced supernatural results.?
(Otherwise the context becomes internally non-sensical.)? In that case
God destroyed the offspring, perhaps implying they were not human (???).?
But if non-humans had indeed intermarried with humans, then that shows such
intermarriage is at least possible in a biblical theology.? So we don't
have to expect a completely pristine situation in defining the biological
boundaries between human and non-human, imago dei or not, fallen or
not.
Other thought experiments:? If I have 100% natural human DNA,
then am I more in God's image than someone who was conceived with an
engineered gene to prevent some disease?? What are the limits on who is
human and who is non-human as increasing quantities of the DNA are
artificially engineered or spliced in from other sources?? We
now?have the technology to upset monogenesis artificially, regardless of
what happened in the ancient past, and we can expect to see it being used very
soon.? Will the fallenness of mankind not be transmitted to someone who
has artificially engineered genes, and is therefore not in the monogenetic
"family"?
Also, what if Neanderthals had intermarried with humans --
were the offspring?human or non-human?? Or what if a retrovirus got
spliced into our DNA -- are we now part virus instead of fully human and
therefore not completely in God's image?
I have to believe the pristine
boundaries around imago dei and fallenness are spiritual and not
biological.? I think the same goes for salvation -- we may backslide,
repent imperfectly, and have a belief loaded with doubt, but our spiritual
re-birth is something that has either occured or not and God knows who are
his.??Since the?spiritual re-birth is not physical, then
fallenness and being in God's image should likewise not be physical,
right?? Therefore, we needn't necessarily expect pristine biological
boundaries around these things.? So if we discover the biological
boundaries were not pristine way back 100,000 years before Moses wrote
Genesis, then would that really upset the essentials of the
faith?
Phil
?
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?
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Received on Sat Nov 24 13:58:50 2007
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