Re: [asa] sin or Sin?

Re your point (2): yes, but in Gen. 3:22, God seems to confirm the
serpent's claim: "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and
evil." And God seems concerned by this: "He must not be allowed to reach
out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live
forever."

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:58 AM, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:

> There can be a great deal of discussion about the significance of "the
> tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Just 2 comments here:
>
> 1) Again, the fundamental reason in the story that it was wrong to
> disobey God by eating from this tree is that it was disobeying God. That
> remains true whatever we may think the actual "first sin" was - e.g.,
> staying on a particular island overnight, as in *Perelandra*. & this is
> the point I wanted to make originally. After they eat of the tree the
> humans' relationships with God, with one another another, & with the rest of
> creation are damaged, the 2d & 3d of those injuries stemming from the 1st.
>
> 2) The statement that "you will be like God (or gods)" doesn't come from
> God but from the serpent.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> *To:* philtill@aol.com
> *Cc:* gmurphy@raex.com ; asa@calvin.edu
> *Sent:* Thursday, February 21, 2008 10:15 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] sin or Sin?
>
> George, thanks for those clarifications.
>
> Phil, I've heard a variant on your theme -- that eating the fruit of the
> tree of the knowledge of good and evil was "sin" because it was disobedient
> of God, but that at the same time it *produced* moral cognition. This
> also seems to fit with the idea of being "naked and unashamed" before eating
> the fruit and experiencing shame afterward. It is a sort of a "fall
> upwards."
>
> But I'm personally not very comfortable with this because it seems to
> imply that Adam was not a moral agent before eating the forbidden fruit.
> I'd want to suggest that moral agency is a key part of the imago dei and
> that misuse of moral agency is a key justification for God's judgment.
>
> I want to think of the "knowledge" of good and evil in a Hebraic sense of
> "knowledge" as intimacy, as in sexual "knowledge." It isn't that Adam
> didn't have a moral sense before eating the forbidden fruit; it's that after
> eating the forbidden fruit he knew intimately what the meaning and purpose
> of the moral sense was all about and could understand in a more gut-level
> way what it meant to transgress it.
>
> This leaves the question of how this made Adam "like God." Maybe one
> suggestion here is that God "knew" intimately what it means for the moral
> sense to be transgressed, even though God never himself transgressed it,
> because before the foundation of the world the incarnation and crucifixion
> were part of God's plan for creation. This still leaves the odd sense in
> the text that God gives the command not to eat the fruit because he is
> "worried" about what Adam might do -- and through the lense of my moderately
> Reformed theology I guess I'd have to say that's a sort of anthropomorphism.
>
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 7:32 AM, <philtill@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > In order to have the 1st human sin correspond theologically (not
> > historically) to the story of Gen.3, it must be something whose essence
> > was failure to trust & obey God. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with
> > eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge - but it had been forbidden by
> > God. If you want to express this in terms of the second table being an
> > expression of the divine character, fine.
> >
> > I want to be careful about letting infants off the hook as far as sin is
> > concerned. But that's the other side of the coin from the fact that we
> > shouldn't be too quick to deny the possibility of infant faith, as long as
> > we don't undferstand faith in a purely intellectual way - we know that
> > infants can come to trust parnets &c very early. That's one reason why
> > infant baptism makes sense.
> >
> >
> > George,
> > in the above two comments you hit on the two things that I think are the
> > essence of the issue.
> >
> > (1) In just the past year I've started thinking that there was no actual
> > sin in eating of the tree of knowledge of good & evil (TKGE), and that the
> > "command" not to eat of it should be seen primarily as practical "advice"
> > from a loving Creator because becoming a moral agent would inherently bring
> > about our death UNLESS we had first been infused with His life by faith.
> > God wasn't setting up an arbitrary command for us to obey as a test.
> > Neither was he saying that to know good & evil is inherently wrong (since
> > man became like God in so eating). Rather, God was telling us of the
> > inevitability of death if we became moral agents in our then-present state,
> > and thus telling us not to go there. That's along the idea of what Paul
> > says in Gal.3:21, that the law is unable to impart life. Knowing the
> > law inherently results in death because we are powerless to obey apart from
> > God's life received by faith.
> >
> > (2) The idea that an infant can have faith (as in the Lutheran
> > tradition, or as in John the Baptist filled with the Spirit in his mother's
> > womb) also implies that a pre-human primate can have faith. So it may be
> > possible to have spiritual life before knowing good from evil. In fact, I
> > think that should be accepted as a necessary conclusion: if God cares about
> > mentally disabled and infants and includes them in His family, then there is
> > no reason why less intelligent primates couldn't have been brought into His
> > family before sufficient mental ability to know good & evil, too. That
> > would correspond to eating of the other tree in the garden, the Tree of Life
> > (TL), prior to eating of the TKGE.
> >
> > So (in the symbolism of Genesis 3) this implies that Man could have
> > eaten of both trees as long as TL was chosen first and TKGE second. I.e.,
> > God's command not to eat of the TKGE would have been rescinded after Man ate
> > of the TL. Then, we could have become creatures knowing good & evil but
> > having life to obey throughout the process of mental advancement. On the
> > other hand, because we mentally advanced to know good & evil without first
> > having the life & power to obey what we learned, we inherently and
> > inevitably wound up in spiritual death. Knowing right from wrong must
> > result in death if we do not have the power to do the right and avoid the
> > wrong.
> >
> > Phil
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> > To: ASA list <asa@calvin.edu>
> > Sent: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 9:33 pm
> > Subject: Re: [asa] sin or Sin?
> >
> > Thanks to those who've responded on this thread. I'll bundle
> > some comments to each.
> >
> > *Steve M*
> > **
> > 1st, I'm afraid I'm a bit confused by your discussion. Maybe that's my
> > fault for giving the impression that sins that injure other creatures are
> > radically different from sin against God directly. All sin is ultimately
> > sin against God, whether against the 1st Commandment or the 5th, 7th or
> > 9th. The basic Commandment - & the reason that it's 1st - is that God is
> > to be 1st for us, ahead of anything else. Sin against that needn't directly
> > injure others. Murder or theft, OTOH, do injure others & are thus sins
> > "against" a neighbor, but are also against God because they contradict God's
> > will & the authority for the commands against such acts is God's.
> >
> > In any case, the saving work of Christ deals with all sin, both the
> > fundamental idolatry that underlies other sins and those other sins as
> > well. But it has to begin with the former because what is necessary is
> > restoration of true faith in the true God, which is what the 1st Commandment
> > calls for.
> >
> > In the paper I cited I didn't deal at length with how the
> > cross-resurrection event changes the situation - i.e., atonement.
> > That's what I'm working on at present - I gave a preliminary paper on this
> > at the ASA -CIS meeting in Edinburgh last fall. (The audio is available at
> > http://www.asa3.org/ASA/meetings/Edinburgh2007/Edinburgh_paperlinks.html .)
> > Briefly - & I did hint at this in the PSCF paper - it involves a
> > reorientation of creation toward its proper role. But though a decisive
> > turn has brought about, we still struggle with sin of all types, idolatry
> > and others.
> >
> > *David O*
> >
> > In my brief discussion I didn't mean to suggest that sins against the 2d
> > table of the law were to be relativized or were any less sins against God
> > than idolatry - see my response to Steve above. The commandment to put God
> > 1st includes obedience to God's will as expressed in Commandments 2-10.
> > Nevertheless, the 1st really is 1st, as Paul makes clear in Romans 1. Jesus
> > makes the same point when he says that "You shall love the Lord your God
> > with all your heart &c" is the greatest commandment & "You shall love your
> > neighbor as yourself" is 2d.
> >
> > In order to have the 1st human sin correspond theologically (not
> > historically) to the story of Gen.3, it must be something whose essence
> > was failure to trust & obey God. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with
> > eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge - but it had been forbidden by
> > God. If you want to express this in terms of the second table being an
> > expression of the divine character, fine.
> >
> > I want to be careful about letting infants off the hook as far as sin is
> > concerned. But that's the other side of the coin from the fact that we
> > shouldn't be too quick to deny the possibility of infant faith, as long as
> > we don't undferstand faith in a purely intellectual way - we know that
> > infants can come to trust parnets &c very early. That's one reason why
> > infant baptism makes sense.
> >
> > *Moorad A & David S*
> >
> > I don't know whether the transition "from brute to moral man" was slow
> > or sudden & I don't think anyone else. If God took ~10 Gyr to create the
> > physical aspect of humans from the big bang, I don't think we should be
> > dogmatic about this. I think Teilhard's analogy of a phase change for the
> > emergence of consciousness is interesting & might apply here - heat a pot of
> > water slowly & nothing dramatic happens. The temperature rises slowly
> > until, at a certain point, there's a qualitative change as it starts
> > boiling.
> >
> > *Gregory A*
> >
> > In my PSCF paper I talked - borrowing an idea from Burhoe via Hefner -
> > of humanity as a "symbiosis" of biology and culture, & discussed the
> > "mechanism" of transmission of sinfulness as a polluted "cultural
> > atmosphere." Obviously those ideas require critique and input from
> > sociologists as well as from other scientists and from theologians. It
> > would be helpful if you would choose to contribute in that way instead of
> > just sniping at those who you think have inadequate appreciation for your
> > field.
> >
> > *Jim A*
> > **
> > In a sense God "invents" the distinction between good and evil for
> > humans by placing a boundary for them. Humans "discover" it, not through an
> > intellectual knowledge of the distinction but by experiencing evil, having
> > previously experienced good.
> >
> > Shalom
> > George
> > http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > *From:* Steve Martin <steven.dale.martin@gmail.com>
> > *To:* George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> > *Cc:* ASA list <asa@calvin.edu>
> > *Sent:* Wednesday, February 20, 2008 1:54 PM
> > *Subject:* Re: [asa] sin or Sin?
> >
> > Hi George,
> >
> > Ok. Maybe something is finally clicking. I must admit, I read your
> > PSCF article when it came out a year and a half ago – several times in
> > fact. But I can't say it brought me any closer to closure on the most
> > difficult implication of human evolution: the origin of sin. (I know you
> > have indicated that this is a "research program that is work in progress").
> >
> >
> > There is a palindromic progression here (I'm capitalizing the whole
> > second instance of sin for clarity – if only my own): Humanity's sin at
> > one point became SIN. Ie. sin came first -> SIN came later. Then, through
> > the death & resurrection of Christ, God incarnate, SIN is addressed, but as
> > Paul indicated we still struggle with sin. Ie. God dealt/deals with
> > sin/SIN in the reverse order of its appearance - with our SIN first (ie.
> > brought creation back into a right relationship with God) and then through
> > the Holy Spirit, helps us "work out our salvation" and works towards the
> > eradication of sin.
> >
> > Historically, it would look like this:
> >
> > - Initial Creation
> > - sin and then SIN enter Creation
> > - The Cross
> > - SIN and then sin is dealt with because of the Cross
> > - Eschatology: All things become new (sin & SIN are eradicated)
> >
> > Does this make sense? Or am I still missing the point?
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 11:55 AM, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I have spoken in the past - & fairly recently here - about the
> > > need for creatures to have become "moral agents" before it's possible to
> > > speak about them "sinning." I.e., our primate ancestors would to some
> > > extent have deceived, stolen from, been sexually promiscuous with, and
> > > killed other members of their same species but we would not say that in so
> > > doing they would have "sinned." It is only when they had a sense of right &
> > > wrong that that term would be appropriate.
> > >
> > > I've realized that that kind of language is inadequate. The first
> > > criterion for a creature to be able to sin is for it to be aware in some way
> > > of God and God's will, so that that creature can intentionally give
> > > something other than God 1st place in its life. I.e., it has to be
> > > able to violate the substance of the 1st Commandment. That is the
> > > fundamental sin, as Paul argues in Romans 1. There "worshipping the
> > > creature rather than the creator" is Sin with a capital S, & all the
> > > consequences that Paul lists - sexual immorality &c - are sins with a small
> > > s. Those are the things we usually describe as "moral failings."
> > >
> > > I actually made this point in the 2006 PSCF that I referenced in
> > > my post to Moorad yesterday, but by continuing the "moral agents" language
> > > may have clouded the issue. The point is not simply "morality" in the usual
> > > sense of the term but "religion" as "ultimate concern. This means
> > > that in order for some group of hominids to be capable of sin, they would
> > > somehow have to have become aware of God and God's will for them, however
> > > murkily that may have been.
> > >
> > > This has a number of consequences. E.g., there has been a good
> > > deal of discussion of the evolution of morality, some of which has been used
> > > to discredit claims that the existence of a moral sense in humans is an
> > > argument for religion. (Dawkins, e.g.) How the evolution of
> > > morality is connected with the emergence of religious awareness is something
> > > that needs to be explored, but the distinction is significant.
> > >
> > > Shalom
> > > George
> > > http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > --
> > Steve Martin (CSCA)
> > http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com
> >
> > ------------------------------
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> >
>
>

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Received on Thu Feb 21 11:22:48 2008