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

It's a matter of
relevance and context that no single reference can contain, But I'd be
personally happy with the following range of dates.  The earliest I
think the Bible refers to is when humans began to presume that we lived
by the providence of some greater Deity, the first hint of which from
the archaeological record, I think was about 29,000 years ago or so
with some fertility goddess statue out of some German dig. 
Ideologically, you could run that date all the way up to the beginning
of written history, if you liked, waiting for Abraham to line us up on
a formalized definition of God.  (Young Earth-ish time ago I guess 6000
years ago?)

But if you open up a absolute context I think everything is in the
image of God due to immanence issues. Getting more relativistic, I
think life is in the image of God over non-life.  Among animals, I
think one stage of our creation in the "image of God" was advanced when
the first primates began to think of their species as special over all
others by way of an advanced "awareness" of their common circumstance. 
Then there is the stage where they began to intuit that their unlikely
awareness was predicated on something totally beyond their grasp that
was just like their own fledging "awareness" only WAY more.  Then
finally the idea came that we should cultivate our awareness of that
Awareness and Abraham was drafted in the first, yada yada. 

-Mike (Friend of ASA)

-----Original Message-----

From: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>

To: ASA <asa@calvin.edu>

Sent: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:33 am

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

Dear Michael:

By all means state your mind.  Since
you appear to think my ideas are heretical perhaps I’ll get the opportunity
to meet Adolph in the hereafter?  Would you mind stating in 25 words or
less what qualifies us (you, me and Adolph) to be in His image?  And please
give us a ball park date when it commenced.  For example, the Gregorian
Rift cut across Africa about 5 million years ago, separating the jungle from
the savannah causing our brachiating forbears to climb down out of the trees, becoming
bipedal in the process.  I think we could set that as an outer limit could
we not?  So pony up, give us a date between now and then or earlier if you
like since you think it’s so easy to understand you can be dogmatic.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and
History

www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
[mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf
Of Michael Roberts

Sent: Monday,
 November 26, 2007 12:57 PM

To: dickfischer@earthlink.net;
asa@calvin.edu

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

----- Original Message -----

From: Michael Roberts

To: Dick
Fischer ; ASA

Sent: Monday, November
 26, 2007 5:32 PM

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

Cant buy your ideas Dick. All people including Adolf H
are made in the Image of God. FULL STOP. To say otherwise is simply heresy

Michael

----- Original Message -----

From: Dick
Fischer

To: ASA

Sent: Monday, November
 26, 2007 1:24 AM

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

I don’t think we
would speak of earlier pre-Adamic humans as being “fallen.” 
There was a time God “winked at” their ignorance.  Adam was
fallen in that he failed in his primary mission and fell from a state of grace,
living in obedience, to another state where animal sacrifice was required as
atonement for his transgressions which passed to his generations.  Adam
was the one God chose as the federal head of the human race to bring humanity
into a state of accountability.  We all are fallen as our appointed leader
was fallen.  What effect Adam’s sin had on those long deceased is
fairly superfluous in my estimation.

If Adam was chosen to
represent God, another way of stating that in Hebrew-speak is Adam was
“in the image” of God.  I doubt whether every member of the
family of Homo sapiens who ever
walked the earth represents God.  If so, then it virtually has no meaning
at all.  Thus when Christ was in the image Paul was just telling us that
he had an opposable thumb, walked on two legs, and had a cranial capacity of
roughly 1400 cubic centimeters.

Dick Fischer

Dick
Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding
Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
[mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf
Of philtill@aol.com

Sent: Sunday,
 November 25, 2007 6:41 PM

To: dopderbeck@gmail.com

Cc: gbrown@Colorado.EDU;
asa@calvin.edu

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

OK,
I'll concede my argument from Romans 5 is weak, but my sense is that Paul
assumes everybody knows we are "in Adam" and that common
understanding came from Genesis 2ff implying that we are descended from
Adam.  You can't disagree with me that this was probably the common
understanding of Paul and his contemporaries, right?  Paul's argument in
Romans 5 does nothing to modify that view, whereas he does treat being
"in Christ" differently as being something we must "receive"
(v. 17).  Being in Adam is universal whereas being in Christ is not, so
the comparison is inherently asymmetric, and in some ways he treats it
asymmetrically.

David O. wrote:

Perhaps we can think of it this way -- as other
"people" would come into contact with Adam as head of the race, the
imago dei would be imparted to them.     

Don't you think this is ad hoc?  The imago dei is
discussed only in the Genesis 1 creation account, not in Genesis 2 where the
concept of an individual Adam is introduced.  The sense I get from Genesis
1 is that God is discussing a universal characteristic of humanity, not
something that is conferred to a individuals sometime after their creation.

It's also dangerous because it says that humans aren't necessarily in God's
image as an inherent characteristic, and idea that could be abused to great
harm.

David O. wrote:

At the end of the day, what alternative can you
offer?  Your notion that everyone was metaphysically present in Adam
doesn't seem to be materially different than what I'm saying here. Either
way, it isn't "ordinary generation."  

I
agree that we are discussing two ideas that are very close in some ways. 
But I think you are striving hard to keep Adam as a literal individual, even
though you are willing to give up the very reasons why it was thought to be
important for him to be a literal individual.  (Is this a fair
statement?)  And in the process, I think it makes the concordism more ad
hoc instead of more natural.

If "Adam" represents early humanity rather than an individual, and if
early humanity was universally fallen, then we all get our fallenness and our
imago dei through ordinary generation from that early group of humanity. 
So it is ordinary generation.  Similarly, George says that the Fall occurred
within that early humanity, and so it could all have been ordinary generation
since then.  So it is not hard to maintain ordinary generation in a
polygenetic view. 

What I'm questioning is whether the early humans were ever inherently
unfallen.  It may have been that they became "human" and fell
simultaneously.  In gaining the knowledge of good & evil, they died
because they could not do good.  This would be a natural understanding for
why _knowing_ good & evil causes the Fall.  But if so, then I
have to wonder if they ever really had a chance to live as unfallen humans with
the imago dei.  If not, then Genesis 2&c seems disengenuous, because
it is explaining that God is not the author of sin.  So that's why I
wonder if there is something more mysterious to the Fall than simply early man
going astray because his biological nature made it impossible for him to keep
the moral law that he was at last beginning to grasp.  So maybe mankind's
ultimate culpability in our Fall is something that is not entirely comprehensible
within spacetime.  We can't blame it on the biology that God set up
because in a mysterious way we all really did want to sin.

We all affirm our position as fallen when we are old enough to culpably sin,
and so in a sense we all do re-enact or re-affirm the Fall.  (And we are
judged for our sin, not for the original sin.)  The purpose of the
"Adam" account is to explain that God is not responsible for original
sin and (as exposited by Paul) to explain why sinfulness is universal.  If
original sin is a spiritual mystery in any case, then is it that much worse a
mystery to affirm that there was no garden at all, and that the original sin is
something incomprehensible apart from metaphors, like the one given in Genesis
2&c?

I think that kind of view naturally concords with science without any ad hoc
features.  It simply affirms that mankind's culpability is presented via
the metaphor of the garden, and that we all get it by ordinary generation from
the earliest group of humanity.  Is that not elegant?

Again, I am prepared to chuck all these ideas if they are heretical.  This
is just a thought experiment.

Phil

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Received on Tue Nov 27 15:54:30 2007