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

I am not trying to argue for RTB's solution. I agree with you that if Adam was historical, he was neolithic.

The problem that I have with your scenario surrounds this point:

"Through Adam men would have been introduced to God or even the Trinity. They would have been shown through Adam's good example that obedience had benefits and disobedience had consequences." and "This scenario suggests that one is not condemned or saved until one hears and rejects or accepts the message"

How exactly is this to be accomplished? Certainly during Adam's time there would be many peoples who never heard of Adam or of Adam's god. Even now there may be isolated peoples who have never heard of God or Christ. Are we to believe that there are modern humans (or were during Adam's time) who have a lower status of humanity because they have never heard of the gospel? Are they not sinners that need to be saved despite the fact that they have never heard?

This gets to my question of can there be sin apart from the law. According to Genesis 6:5 "The lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." This was not only before the Torah, but it was also before some people had a chance to hear "the message" but God considered them evil anyway.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dick Fischer
  To: ASA
  Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 12:01 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Bloesch on the Fall (was "Adam and the Fall")

  Hi Jack:

  That's a good question, but my answer just works for me. If it doesn't work for you then maybe somebody else's answer would work, but you can't do what Hugh Ross does, for one example. He has established a theological construct based upon how he has interpreted Scripture. Then, ignoring history, he gives science a modicum of attention and sticks his Adam at some point in time where theoretically he possibly could have lived and have been the progenitor of the entire human race.

  Adam can't be slid around to fit someone's theological opinion. What I have done is amassed an enormous amount of evidence that this man lived in the Neolithic period, in Mesopotamia around 7,000 years ago. Now the theological ramifications have to fit the facts of history. That said I'll give you my opinion.

  At the time of Adam's introduction mankind all over the globe was not held to account for their actions, and whatever knowledge or beliefs they might have had about a higher power or powers were tied to astrological considerations (movement of the stars and planets) or large animals (bear cult), etc. At some point the God of the universe decided to make man aware and with this knowledge he would also be accountable for his actions. The man God chosen to be His representative to mankind was this man Adam. Through Adam men would have been introduced to God or even the Trinity. They would have been shown through Adam's good example that obedience had benefits and disobedience had consequences.

  Had Adam resisted temptation and stayed the course the way to salvation would have been simply: worship God, be obedient, be saved. Adam failed to be that good example God needed him to be. This ushered in another course: worship God, try to be obedient, offer blood sacrifices as atonement when you slip up, be saved. Christ, of course, brought a new covenant that no longer required animal sacrifice.

  Man has a sin nature and so far as I can tell has always had it. If a child of two picks up a gun and shoots someone the courts would never punish the child because at age two he would not be capable of knowing the consequences of his actions. Cave men, for example, would fall into that category. Not tasked, unaware, no accountability. So the era of accountability began about 7,000 years ago.

  This scenario suggests that one is not condemned or saved until one hears and rejects or accepts the message, but again, theological considerations have to fit the facts. We don't ignore the facts of science and history or consider them to be malleable and beat them into a shape that fits how we interpret the Bible.

  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 4:10 PM
  To: dickfischer@verizon.net
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  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 Sun Nov 16 01:58:12 2008