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

I am not trying to save a historical Adam, at least not as far as the text in Genesis goes.

My problem, and I have mentioned this here before, is that Christ and Paul talk about Adam as a historical person, and they state that sin came into the world through this one man. So, if the fall and Adam are all myth, we have a problem where Christ seems to be in error about this.

I know what your response to this is George and it might be correct, it certainly seems to be the best out of several poor choices.

BTW George, I was thinking earlier today about the how the Law fits into this. Did sin exist prior to the Law? Certainly man had a sinful nature before the Law, but was that only the Adamites that had inherited sin? And even after the Law came, the Law was not given to all peoples, so were they sinners without being aware of the Law?
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: George Murphy
  To: Jack ; dickfischer@verizon.net
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 5:26 PM
  Subject: Re: Re: [asa] Bloesch on the Fall (was "Adam and the Fall")

  In my 2006 PSCF article and my part of the discussion on Steve's blog I distinguish between the ideas of a "sin of origin," a condition with which everyone begins life, and an "original sin" that occurred at the beginning of human history. While the second is important and needs to be considered, it is the first, the universal sinfulness of all people from the beginning of life, that is really crucial and to which scripture bears extensive witness. As I pointed out to David O, it is the claim that all people begin life in a sinful condition and can't rid themselves of that condition by themselves that is the important anti-Pelagian claim that protects against the idea that we can justify ourselves by our own works. Why we are in that condition is a question that needs to be asked but an answer to it is not nearly as important as is the reality of universal sinfulness. I get the disturbing sense here that the priorities are reversed, that some way of saving "the historical Adam" is considered essential.

  My own answer to the "original sin" question is that the "transmission" (if that language must be used) of the sinful condition has both genetic and "environmental" factors. Our evolutionary history has given us propensities for selfish, and therefore potentially sinful, behavior, and the social environment into which people are born is one in which alienation from God is "natural" and therefor learned.

  I should add that the way I use the terms "sin of origin" and "original sin" to distinguish the two concepts is not used by all theologians but the distinction itself is. I think that the terminology I've chosen is much less clumsy than the corresponding classical phrases "original sin as originated" and "original sin as originating" or their Latin originals.

  Shalom
  George
  http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Jack
    To: dickfischer@verizon.net
    Cc: asa@calvin.edu
    Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:10 PM
    Subject: Re: Re: [asa] Bloesch on the Fall (was "Adam and the Fall")

    How about this, you tell me how Adam's sin is transmitted to all humankind.

    The truth of the matter is, it is not just that we are declared to be sinful, we actually ARE sinful. George wants at least part of that to be evolved behaviors. So, this sin at least in part is passed down from generation to generation. In the case of Adam alone as a federal head, he represents us in the specific sense that we are all his descendants, and that clearly cannot be the case.

    So since we cannot all be Adam's descendants this view of original sin being passed down through normal generation cannot be correct. But, your idea that Adam represents us like George Washington represents Americans, cannot be true because there is something more innate, fundamental, and biological about being human and being a sinner than being a member of a nation or any other group. Adam somehow made us all actual sinners, I have no idea how. And Christ redeems us. They are both mysteries to me.

    Nov 13, 2008 08:18:45 PM, dickfischer@verizon.net wrote:

      Hi Jack:

      George Washington was the father of our country. I live outside Washington named for him. How many of us do you think are related to George? But by all means, pick a date for Adam that would allow everyone in the entire human race to be related to him. As Adlai Stevenson said, “I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over."

      Dick Fischer, GPA president

      Genesis Proclaimed Association

      "Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"

      www.genesisproclaimed.org

      -----Original Message-----
      From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Jack
      Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 2:23 PM
      To: dopderbeck@gmail.com
      Cc: drsyme@verizon.net; asa@calvin.edu
      Subject: Re: Re: [asa] Bloesch on the Fall (was "Adam and the Fall")

      I dont have any problem with Abraham's blessing being distributed to all nations via means other than through "normal generation". In the case of Abraham, the blessing could very well be to those that are not his descendants.

      I dont think this is the case with Adam however.

      Nov 13, 2008 06:47:18 PM, dopderbeck@gmail.com wrote:

        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 18:05:29 2008