Re: [asa] Original Sin and Genesis 3

David Opderbeck wrote:
> Phil said: /But I think as creatures of time, bound in biological
> vessels and subject to the weaknesses and temptations of the body, and
> having the genetics common to other primates adapted to survival, then
> it would be impossible for mankind to remain innocent once he knows
> good & evil. /
>
> I think this gets too close to making God the author of evil. It also
> doesn't resonate with the Eden narrative (even if not taken
> literally). Before sin, Adam had fellowship with God of a sort that
> could have allowed him to avoid sin. Whatever else sin was, it was
> also a willful turning away from that fellowship with God. Man was
> not made to be separated from God; he chose that separation.
>
> I've yet to see any effort to account for "Eden" and sin from an
> purely evolutionary perspective that makes any sense. However,
> wherever, and whenever it may have happened, and whatever it may or
> may not have meant for other contemporaries of Adam -- all things we
> may nver know -- personally I think Christian theology requires
> something more behind the Eden / fall narrative than the standard
> evolutionary story.
First paragraph below is a response to "knowing". Second paragraph
below is a beginning attempt to summarize an evolutionary perspective.

Perhaps our concept of "knowing" is too bound to mere cognition -- such
as learning some new fact I had not previously known. Or, I didn't
know what was in the box until I opened it and looked. Now I know.
What if the sense of knowing were more along examples of intimacy.
E.g. Before, I didn't much know that young woman. Now she has been my
wife for seventeen years, and we begin to "know" each other. Since the
Bible speaks often in marriage metaphors about what God is to the
church, and the intimate relationship we are to have with Christ, I
think it's Biblically apt to apply this different standard of "knowing"
to the verse in Genesis 3. So I can have mere cognition that, yes, I
choices to make, some evil and some good. But after I have chosen an
evil option or allowed myself to be seduced by some temptation, then I
begin to *know* that evil (or evil in general) in a different way -- an
unholy intimacy if you will.
It will be objected that the phrase of 3:5 is "...will be like God,
knowing good and evil.", and certainly, then we wouldn't think of God
knowing evil by participation. We could write this off as a lie of the
serpent (it is, after all, the serpent speaking) if it were not for the
later verse 3:22 where God himself confirms that man has "become like
us, knowing good and evil." Yet it still seems much too shallow to
think this was about some historical event of "discovery" where a human
suddenly discovers this previously unknown option of rebelling against
God which had never occurred to him before. This theology is more
about a rebellious will, and not so much about discovery, I think. And
my will tends to be more driven or seduced by what I *know* in the
deeper sense, than merely what I've learned (which will only be a tool
for my will to use, in its obedience or rebellion) If it were only a
matter of discovery, then we could keep our children from rebellion
simply by hiding evil options from them. And God could have done the
same for humanity and not given us access to the tree. While we don't
usually accuse God of evil, we don't have to read far to see that God
does take responsibility for calamity in many parts of Scripture. And
when we begin to try to copy God in that regard -- then that is revealed
to be evil. God can take life (his prerogative). I can't -- when I
do, then it is evil. So, in a sense, if I'm a murderer, then I know
evil as God does; with the distinction being: He's God and I'm not.
Job makes for profound reading about this, I think.

Here is an attempt at a construct incorporating evolutionary thought:

   Humanity "emerges" biologically from the animal world, as an animal
-- and like animals, he is not morally responsible, having not yet been
imprinted with the Image of God. At some point in history (whether
symbolically or literally to one couple-- I'm not sure), Man, who was
formed of the earth is given status as bearing the "image of God", and
he becomes a moral agent, aware of the possibility of rebellion (prior
to yet *knowing* it by participation). But he / they fall away and
choose rebellion, and physical death begins to have a new larger
terror. Sin is now in the world with its attendant spiritual death, in
a preview of what would be given even more specific illumination later
at Mt. Sinai. So now humans are aware of the evil they are choosing as
a rebellion against God. The world had been good before, as it brought
forth an abundance of vitality (but not according to modern images of
paradise where the absence of suffering is taken to be a complete
absence of physical pain and death.) If the evolutionary thought is
accepted, then what God called good, had to include, that aspect of
nature that is "red in tooth and claw". Eden, here would be symbolic of
a previous (good) state instead of a specific place. So the suffering
that would negate the observation of goodness would have to refer to
something other than physical suffering. This would have to be so since
evolutionarily we see the use of physical death as part of the forming
of creation. But now the Cains of the world, know better, and despite
the fact that it hasn't been spelled out in commandment form yet, they
are held morally responsible for what they did to their brothers. God
sighs, becomes angry, and tries purging the evil away. But it comes
back (as God knew it would at some level -- but the Biblical writers
anthropomorphize God as one making plans and carrying them out as a
human would, because this is our only way to relate to something we can
understand.) God sighs, and advances to the next level where he
spells out the rules precisely so we can see the extent of our
rebellion. So he uses a chosen people to do this. All of this, of
course, is a pointer to the real solution that God has planned all
along, Christ. But first we have to see the extent of our problem
which the law will reveal to us at Mt. Sinai. Then, when the student is
ready, the Master steps in. God stoops down and joins us in our frail
humanity to show that, as frail as it is, there is something more
important than our animal-like preoccupations with survival. And He
shows us how to lift our eyes back up to where they belong. And his
conquering of death shows us, not that we won't experience physical
death ourselves -- but that we aren't in bondage to the fear of it. It
is not the final event for us. So He doesn't so much show us how to
escape this world (which happens by death, after all), so much as how to
live in it. Death is robbed of its victory over our lives. God is
not a God of the dead, but of the living. But we get confused, and
physical death still looms larger than life for us. Many of us still
suspect that "this is all there is", and therefore live in our old
animal fears. But the Spirit keeps pointing Christians at Jesus and
reminding us that we are called to live beyond that fear here and now,
in the flesh. And we long for the final redemption where we are given
our immortal bodies, but meanwhile, we already have the promise and are
to live by it. The kingdom is here and now in our hearts. The Lion
and the lamb lay down together in a way that the world calls insane as
they continue to vehemently point at nature, red in tooth and claw.
But our dual citizenship is a reflection of the paradox in this living
that prizes our kingdom citizenship above our citizenship in what we
call "physical" life. It isn't that we abandon the world or treat it as
dross. But we consider it as redeemed and now opened up with new
possibilities. It is now precious for a whole different reason that
allows us to prize it, use it, and then let it go without fear when the
time comes. And at this point I should probably offer some money to
anybody who has actually read this far. I didn't plan to write a
sermon. But if anybody does actually read this, help me wrestle some
more with all this by responding and tearing it apart wherever needed.

--Merv

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Received on Sun Dec 9 21:49:09 2007