Re: [asa] Historical Theology and Current Theology re: Original Sin & Monogenism

Mike said:* Original sin is the rise of reason in humans. (can I get an
a-men?)*
No amen from me. I can't see how "reason" is sinful. We are reasoning
right now as we discuss this -- are we sinning? Scripture, I think,
generally assumes reason is a good thing -- see, e.g., Luke's introduction
to his gospel -- though of course scripture presents natural reason as *
corrupted* by sin. The Christian tradition also overwhelmingly sees reason,
in proper relation to faith, as a good thing -- "faith seeking
understanding." Moreover, the Christian notion of reason provide the
epistemological support for the very science on which you rely to equate the
rise of reason with sin. God is a God of order and the contingent order of
creation provides the basis for our reasoned investigation of it. The
exercise of reason, in proper relation to faith, is a redemptive act that
reflects the image of God.

On Nov 24, 2007 1:50 PM, <mlucid@aol.com> wrote:

> 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 15:48:54 2007