Re: [asa] Original Sin and Genesis 3

Addressing the "selfish" nature of infants and animals:

There are many instincts in animals and that are completely selfless.?
Herd behaviors, hive behaviors, familial behavior etc.? That doesn't
mean that they are selfless, mind you.? They just don't know the difference
between one instinct and another.? When you have a situation that delivers a
number of stimuli which evoke a number of different neurological responses,
the behavioral result of those stimuli is purely a matter of integrated neurological
amplitude of the feelings which come to the fore in the organism's perception.

Animals aren't selfish or not selfish.? Survival appears to our rational minds
as being largely selfish because all survival is achieved predominately as a
matter of individual survival.? But there are plenty of survival traits that serve
almost completely the species' interests at the expense of the individual's
survival (High birth rates, hive strategies, etc).

In fact there are probably a world of collective, species serving instincts in
our feeling repertoire that we are simply not yet scientifically sophisticated
enough to understand, because species level traits are far too complicated
in their survival implications.? Traits like forgiveness or love are inscrutably
difficult to deconstruct in terms of how they might naturally select compared
to more obvious traits like strength or sharp teeth.?

-Mike (Friend of ASA)

-----Original Message-----
From: Christine Smith <christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 6:43 pm
Subject: Re: [asa] Original Sin and Genesis 3

Hi Phil,

I'm in agreement with what you write in your posting
below, specifically where you ask: "Could it be that
early man, like all
> animals, was inherently selfish, and that the
> essence of the Fall was simply that he began to know
> good from evil?? In other words, early man might
> never have been unselfish prior to the Fall, but
> only sinless.? And it was only in the addition of
> _knowing_ good & evil that man became a sinner by
> being able to judge his own inherent selfishness and
> its outcomes."

I've mentioned this idea in previous posts discussing
animal souls, and what specifically sets us apart from
animals--that being the knowledge of good and evil.
However, I'm still working out the implications for
what this means...one implication which I am firmly
committed to is the idea that animals, infants, and
the severely handicapped (i.e. anyone who lacks the
ability to judge between right and wrong, and
therefore are sinless) go to heaven because they are
in no need of redemption.

Others I'm still working through--for example, what
does this mean for baptism, particularly as it relates
to infants? In my ponderings, I've come to the
tentative conclusion that baptism is, in the tradition
of John, primarily to "prepare the way for the Lord"--
that is to say it is a spiritual rite that, while it
cleanses the soul of existing sin (which for
infants/severely handicapped, would not apply), it
more primarily is a spiritual anticipation (would
"anointment" be an appropriate term?) of the receipt
of the Gospel into one's life (which would apply for
all who partake in the sacrament). It becomes less
about the past, and more about the future, which I
believe is consistent with the fact that John the
Baptist's original "function" if you will was to point
towards the future--Christ. It also still accords
with the practice that this is the "formal" means of
entrance into the church. As an aside, I think its
also worthwhile to point out that, to my recollection,
I don't believe that there is an analogous practice to
Baptism in the OT. (correct me if I'm wrong?) The
closest I suppose would be circumcision, but I don't
remember that having anything to do with atonement for
"original sin"...so one has to ask, if "original sin"
demanded some type of cleansing following birth, why
would God not establish this for the Israelites in the
OT?

Other questions I have regarding this interpretation--
1) why would God not want us to have the knowledge of
good & evil--was this His means of trying to keep us
from sinning? Were we "growing up" (evolving?) too
fast so to speak? Is the possession of the moral code
a curse rather than an intended gift from God? 2) The
knowledge of good and evil is represented as coming
from a tree, a natural object--could this be taken to
mean that morality does have its roots in natural
processes, such as evolution? (hey, we even represent
evolution as a "tree", right?) Or is this stretching
the interpretation too much?

Anyway, I best be off!
In Christ,
Christine
 

--- philtill@aol.com wrote:

>
> I suspect there that?the?Catholic and Protestant
> theological tradition?has misinterpreted the Genesis
> account of the Fall, because we are operating with
> pre-conceived notions rather than listening to the
> text.? Genesis 3 says the tree is named the "Tree of
> the Knowledge of Good and Evil."? The focus is?on
> "knowledge" of good & evil, rather than "doing"
> evil.? After they sin, God says, "now they have
> become like Us, knowing good and evil."? So
> "knowing" evil?was intended to mean something that
> God Himself does, and therefore it couldn't have
> been a reference to something sinful.? It can't mean
> experiential knowing of sin that comes through doing
> sin.? Also, it is not the tree of the knowledge of
> evil alone.? It is knowledge of both good AND evil.
>
> It seems the idea in this is that man was like the
> other animals and like infants and little children,
> not having a moral code?prior to eating of this
> tree.? Yet it seems that the traditional
> interpretation always under-emphasize this and try
> to make it out that Adam and Eve were already moral
> beings prior to the Fall.? To reconcile this
> pre-conception with the text, the tradition claims
> that the essense of the "knowing" was to assert
> independence from God, as though Adam and Eve
> already?recognized good from evil but were
> submissive to God's determination of good & evil.?
> The the tradition says that?after the Fall Adam and
> Eve were asserting their will to determine good and
> evil for themselves.? But really this idea is
> foreign to the text.? There is no distinction
> between different codes?of good & evil in the text.?
> When God says they have become like Him in knowing
> good & evil, it is not saying that there are
> multiple codes of good & evil, or that the humans
> were now?able to
> invent a different moral code, but rather it says
> that they are able to know the moral code that God
> Himself already knew.? There is no hint of any idea
> about different codes of good & evil.
>
> I think that if we carry this idea through, then it
> puts a different spin on the Fall of Man.? It also
> raises a different way of thinking about non-human
> animals and infants.? Plants, animals, and infants
> are all inherently selfish.? This is not sin for
> them, but when an infant grows up and recognizes
> that selfishness is wrong, then that child begins to
> see himself as a sinner because of his inherent
> selfishness.? Could it be that early man, like all
> animals, was inherently selfish, and that the
> essence of the Fall was simply that he began to know
> good from evil?? In other words, early man might
> never have been unselfish prior to the Fall, but
> only sinless.? And it was only in the addition of
> _knowing_ good & evil that man became a sinner by
> being able to judge his own inherent selfishness and
> its outcomes.
>
> It seems Paul was reflecting this idea in Rom 7:9
> where he says, "I was once alive apart from the Law;
> but when the commandment came, sin became alive and
> I died."? There is much more to be said about Paul's
> discussion in Romans 7, but much of what he said was
> speaking about modern man, not pre-Fall humanity.
>
> Has anybody thought about this, and does anybody
> have any resource that discusses it?
>
> Phil
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Dec 9 17:14:08 2007