Re: [asa] Bloesch on the Fall (was "Adam and the Fall")

Except that we have a clear example of this with Abraham, who was to become
a "great and powerful nation" and through whom all the nations of the world
would be blessed (Gen. 18). Neither all of early Israel nor the new Israel
were / are Abraham's direct biological descendants.

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 1:43 PM, Jack <drsyme@verizon.net> wrote:

> Even if he is speaking of ensoulment and not a material special creation,
> we still have the problem of how this "communion with God" is "irremediably
> forfeited by sin" by one man who is not related to all men through "normal
> generation" (WCF).
>
> My point entails two assumptions. First that Adam was neolithic. I
> suppose that if Adam was pushed back 100 k years or more, like the RTB
> hypothesis, you might find a common ancestor.
>
> It also assumes the federal headship view of the fall. I cant understand
> this view without Adam as the head of all mankind, unless they were his
> descendants. I just cant accept that Adam's fall would curse other
> contemporaries and their descendants. (Bloesch seems to dismiss this too
> with his point that other "pre-Adamites" would make not contribution to the
> human race.)
>
>
>
> Nov 13, 2008 06:09:29 PM, dopderbeck@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Donald Bloesch is a moderate evangelical theologian whose work I greatly
> admire. His view of scripture and epistemology resonate with me deeply. In
> his "Essentials of Evangelical Theology," in the chapter on "Total
> Depravity," Bloesch discusses the doctrine of the Fall. He states that
>
> "[w]ith Reinhold Niebuhr we affirm not an ontological or transcendent fall
> but a historical fall. Yet this does not mean that the story of Adam and
> Eve as presented in Genesis is itself exact, literal history. Not on
> Neibuhr but also Jacques Ellul, Paul Althaus, Karl Barth, Raymond Abba, C.S.
> Lewis and many other evangelically oriented scholars would concur. . . . It
> seems, however, that the story of the fall does assume that mankind has a
> common ancestor or ancestors who forfeited earthly happiness by falling into
> sin. . . . The lost paradise is not simply a state of dreaming innocence
> before the act of sin (as in Hegel or Tillich) nor a utopia in the past (as
> in some strands of the older orthodoxy) but an unrealized possibility that
> was removed from man by sin. It represents not an idyllic age at the dawn
> of history but a state of blessedness or communion with God which has been
> given to the first man and all men at their creation but which is
> irremediably forfeited by sin."
>
>
> Concerning Adam, he says "We also maintain that if the symbolism of both
> Genesis 2 and 3 is to be taken seriously, the emergence of man is to be
> attributed to a special divine act of creation and not to blind, cosmic
> evolution." In a footnote to that statement, he says the following: "We
> are open to the view of Karl Rahner that the first authentic hominisation
> (coming into being of man) happened only once -- in a single couple. Yet it
> would not contradict Christian faith 'to assume several hominisations
> [pre-Adamites] which quickly perished in the struggle for existence and made
> no contribution to the one real saving history of mankind . . . .' [citing
> Rahner]".
>
> It's unclear to me what Bloesch means by his statements about Adam. I'm
> assuming by "special divine act of creation" he's referring primarily to
> something like ensoulment, not material creation. I'm also assuming that
> his emphasis on the non-literalness of the Gen. 2 and 3 stories, to "a
> common ancestor or ancestors," and the footnote reference to "pre-Adamites,"
> means he's open to some degree of polygenism (Rahner, a Roman Catholic
> theologian whom Bloesch cites, moved away from requiring monogenism later in
> his career).
>
> Does anyone know if Bloesch ever published any more detailed thoughts on
> this? (He's retired now and apparently isn't reachable by email).
>
>
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
>

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Received on Thu Nov 13 13:47:46 2008