I'd guess I wouldn't say that evolution rules out a decline in rational powers that precipitated the Fall but it surely counter-indicates it.? However, I might be open to some sort of surge in emotional brain structures that overwhelmed a fledgling reason requiring us to grow wise through Biblical revelation.?
But, as you know, the way I see it, the Bible is trying to get us to regulate our powers of reason under our emotional imperatives to love each other and treat each other as equals to the last man jack of us no matter what.? That is not easily supported in a purely rational sense and we've got a ways to go yet.
Be advised however, all these rationalizations I'm making are solely in an effort to get science and religion some common ground and NOT to assess the purposes and design of the will of God as delivered by the Bible.? I got no idea about most of what is going on spiritually speaking, which I'm sure is more than any mortal can comprehend.? I'm not trying to portray Christianity in a way that science likes.? That's impossible.? I'm trying to portray science in a way that a Christian could like.? That's not nearly as hard.?
-Mike (Friend of ASA www.thegodofreason.com)
-----Original Message-----
From: Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: mlucid@aol.com; dopderbeck@gmail.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 7:56 am
Subject: RE: [asa] Historical Theology and Current Theology re: Original Sin & Monogenism
Is there any legitimacy to man rather than beginning humbly and developing
reason, that the opposite could have been the case? That is to say, the fall of
man is more a discontinuous drop from grace and rationality to the present stage
of sin? Is the latter totally ruled our by our attempt to reconcile evolution
with the Christian faith?
Moorad
________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of mlucid@aol.com
Sent: Sat 11/24/2007 11:04 PM
To: dopderbeck@gmail.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Historical Theology and Current Theology re: Original Sin &
Monogenism
I'm saying that the rise of reason in humans marks the beginning of our ability
to sin. I'm not saying that reason is sin. I'm saying you have to be able to
reason to be able to sin.
I also say that reason in humans marks the beginning of our capacity to
symbolize God within our minds. The emergence of reason in humans marks not
only the beginning of our ability to sin, but also marks the beginning of our
creation in the image of God. I think the Fall of Man in Genesis does a
beautiful job of boiling down this 10 million year process into something that
humans could sink their rational teeth into for over 5000 years now. But to
imagine that our powers of reason are not inherently and fundamentally tied to
sin is flat out irrational. Our rational powers have produced the means of not
only our own annihilation, but that of virtually every living thing on the
planet.
I also posit that instincts have evolved in accelerated lockstep with the
emergence of reason in humans and are promoted in the Bible at every turn over
various self-interested rational tactics. Desire becomes ambition only when we
gained the ability to rationally simulate the future in our minds. I say that
ambition is not a rational conclusion so much as it is a highly sophisticated
instinct that has evolved from pure desire on the back of our reason.
Ambition is an instinct that can drive us to either rationally plan our lives in
the long-term interests of everybody we can think of, or it can drive us to plan
our lives to excel at the expense anyone who gets in our way. The difference is
ultimately determined not by rational assessment, but by fealty to an even more
sophisticated sense (more evolved instinct) of what is right and wrong. It's
like art or pornography. You cannot rationally define what they are and what
they aren't, but you can know them when you see them just as easily as you know
the difference between two colors.
The ability to sense the ultimate authority beyond all rational conclusions is
our most highly evolved instinct: our faith. As long as we maintain that
instinct and subjugate our reason at all points to that greater truth (faith in
God) then our reason can be free of sin. Otherwise sin is the inevitable decay
of reason into self-interest (survival of the self over survival of the
species). Issues like purpose and goodness (and yes, evil) and grace and faith
and forgiveness and love and humility and tolerance and gratitude are not
rational conclusions of the individual's mind. They are profoundly evolved
instincts naturally selected by Creation (the hand of God) to preserve the
integrity of species over the self-interested assaults each and every one of our
powers of reason.
Whether they are maintained in our future is not only a Christian imperative for
each of us to pursue, I say its also a matter of the survival of the species. I
say that if the human belief in God is allowed to be whittled away by the notion
that science is sufficient to the task of our own evolution then we are doomed
as a species. Genetic engineering is right around the corner. You give a bunch
of scientist full reign to tailor our genes and what neurological trait do you
think they will advance first? Faith or reason?
-Mike (Friend of ASA www.thegodofreason.com)
-----Original Message-----
From: David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
To: mlucid@aol.com
Cc: dfsiemensjr@juno.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 2:47 pm
Subject: 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 eo ns-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 <http://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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Received on Sun Nov 25 10:23:46 2007
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