Re: [asa] Neo-orthodox and Traditional views of the fall

On Fri, 8 Aug 2008, David Opderbeck wrote:

> The traditional view, I suppose, is that the Fall was truly cosmic -- the
> entire creation, and particularly the earth, were dramatically changed at
> the fall.
>
> The prevailing contemporary concordist view among mainstream (non-YEC)
> evangelical theologians seems to be that the fall was not truly cosmic, but
> that it was a historical event that had some physical consequences, most
> notably in the death of humans, who before the fall were either immortal or
> conditionally immortal (naturally mortal but potentially immortal through
> direct action by God, eating from the tree of life, or some other means).
>

I suppose that traditional probably means prior to the twentieth century,
and I have not researched the views of that era. However I can speak from
experience about mid-twentieth century views. The original version of the
Scofield Reference Bible was the most commonly used edition among
evangelicals in the U.S. at that time. What is described in the second
paragraph above would be a fair representation of much of the thinking at
that time, and the first paragraph would fit Scofield's view of the fall
of Satan rather than the fall of man.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

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Received on Fri Aug 8 17:11:53 2008