Re: [asa] Original Sin and Genesis 3

It strikes me that the fundamental moral principle is obedience to God.
There was a command given, but its relationship to morality was not clear
to the first pair. Disobedience immediately made them aware of the good,
obedience, and of evil, disobedience. After disobeying, they could not be
restored to the previous state of nescience. Now there is a different
question which is not covered: How would the pair have developed if they
had been obedient in connection with TKGE? Additionally, how did the
primary recognition produce awareness of nakedness? I note that there is
the interpretation of the Fall that goes back to the church fathers that
understands it as cohabitation. But I don't see this notion as supported
by the text.

I believe this approach totally avoids the possibility of making God the
author of evil.
Dave (ASA)

On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:14:36 -0500 philtill@aol.com writes:
David O. said,
>> I think this gets too close to making God the author of evil.

I understand your concern. But exegesis has to come before systematic
theology, and if we are having a problem in the systematics then we have
to go back to the Scripture first. I don't expect the full picture to
emerge overnight. For that reason, I haven't tried to present a complete
picture of the Fall, but only a small part of it corresponding to the
nature of the tree in the garden.

David O said:
>>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.

David, I think you are telling me about our Western preconceptions but
almost nothing about the text itself. The Bible says very little about
the nature of Adam's fellowship with God prior to sin. It says that God
came walking in the garden _after_ Adam sinned, and so presumably God did
this before Adam sinned, too. But how do you discern from this the
nature of Adam's fellowship and what it would enable him to do after
knowing good from evil? Even more importantly, how can you use this kind
of interpolation to overthrow what the text clearly says? It names the
tree the "Tree of _Knowledge_ of Good & Evil," and it says that God had
the same kind of knowledge. So before sin, Adam didn't have the
knowledge of good and evil. What can be clearer than that? Are you
willing to throw that out because your preconceptions of the nature of
Adam's fellowship -- not mentioned in the text -- don't resonate with it?

David O. said,
>> personally I think Christian theology requires something more behind
the Eden / fall narrative than the standard evolutionary story.

I wholeheartedly agree. But if our theology doesn't concord with what we
know about the history of the world, then let's take another look at the
exegesis first before we start worrying about the systematics. I suspect
that the issue with the tree helps move us toward resolving the apparent
conflict, but there is much more work to do.

Phil

Original Message-----
From: David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 8:01 pm
Subject: Re: [asa] Original Sin and Genesis 3

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.

On Dec 9, 2007 6:39 PM, <philtill@aol.com> wrote:

David: I don't know! I'm struggling with the same larger issues that
you are.

David O wrote:

>>It seems to me that if sin is a type of knowledge, then the atonement
would be an act of removing that knowledge

(end quote)<<

The knowledge of good & evil was definitely not sin. God says, "man has
become like Us, knowing good & evil." So this knowledge is something
that God has, too, and hence cannot be sin.

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. (Footnote: I
do not think that genetics or any kind of weakness is ultimately to
blame, even they very well may have been present in early man. It is not
the existence of some characteristic of mankind that made us become
sinners. It was the absence of a positive thing, which I will explain
below. But for now, suffice it to say that mankind could not possibly
avoid becoming sinful once he could discern good from evil.)

So to quote Paul,

"I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin
became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in
life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity
through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then,
the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it
never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by
effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the
commandment sin would become utterly sinful." (Romans 7:9-13, NASB)

To apply what Paul wrote we have to remember that he is speaking about
post-Fall humanity, and so Romans 7 may not directly apply to Genesis 3.
But there are some ideas in common, I believe. The knowledge of good &
evil is like the Law, and it is not sin; it is "holy and righteous and
good." God didn't forbid the TKGE because it was bad (it was not!), but
because we could not bear it in our original state and it would cause our
death.

David O. wrote:
>>how would this theory of sin tie into theories of the atonement? Any
theory of sin has to relate to theories of the atonement. (end quote)<<

David,
I am thinking along these lines: What we gain in Christ is more than
what we had before the Fall. What we gain is the life of God through His
Spirit in our hearts. The Holy Spirit in our hearts gives us the power
to obey God. That infused life of God is not just something we get for
the here-and-now to help us overcome temptation. It is the very essence
of what we are gaining for eternity. Our sinless perfection in heaven
will never be intrinsic to ourselves, but will always be essentially the
life of God within us.

So what about prior to the Fall? Well, at that time, mankind was not
living in God's power at all. He was living in his own intrinsic power,
and was innocent and sinless because he did not know good from evil. But
upon learning the distinction of good & evil, and yet not having God's
life infused in his being, mankind inexorably (and instantly???) became
sinful.

So the Atonement is to pay for our sins that we have committed wilfully
now that we know good from evil, and to open the door for us to come into
the life of God. But in the garden, mankind could have chosen the life
of God first (Tree of Life), rather than choosing the knowledge of good &
evil first. If John the Baptist could be filled with the Spirit while
yet in his mother's womb, then we can see that knowledge of good & evil
and rational thought are not requirements to having God's infused life.
If mankind had grown to know God first, prior to knowing good & evil,
then perpaps they could have remained holy through God's power once they
eventually came to know about good & evil.

Phil

More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail!

More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail!

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Dec 9 22:26:10 2007