Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)

Phil -

The point of the "wrong road" metaphor is that's got the idea of motion or development, which is a critical concept missing from the traditional "fall" metaphor. Of course "a journey of 1000 km begins with a single step" & eating of the tree of knowledge can be seen as standing for the 1st step. OTOH, there are no commands, + or -, given to Adam & Eve concerning the tree of life, so speaking of "eating from the wrong tree" is a bit misleading just in terms of the text.

In my 2006 article I mentioned Barr's argument (in The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality) that Gen.3 isn't about immortality lost but about a lost possibility
for it. The tree of life reappears at the very end of the Bible in Rev.22.2. & as I suggested, the cross is not really "another tree" but in fact is the tree of life - if God has created the world with sin & redemption in view. & in a way that's consistent with what you suggest. The original (& ongoing sin) is refusal to trust & obey God, while Christ crucified is the supreme & life-giving instance of trust & obedience.

(The ancient proper preface for Lent in the Communion service has the phrase "that he who by a tree once overcame, might likewise by a tree be overcome." There the comparison is between the cross and the tree of knowledge, not of life.)

Shalom
George
http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: philtill@aol.com
  To: GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com ; alexanian@uncw.edu ; bernie.dehler@intel.com
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 6:07 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)

  George,

  instead of saying "taking the wrong road," could we not say "eating from the wrong tree"? The text doesn't tell us a lot about the tree of life, but since the symbolism of the one tree was that it made man become permanently different, isn't it likely that the symbolism of the other tree was intended to be that it, too, would make man permanently different? And thus its name "the Tree of Life" would imply that it could make mankind become those who have God's life in them, making them regenerate, but from an unfallen state rather than from a fallen one. I keep thinking that if mankind had **first** gone into a relationship with Christ (i.e., having eaten from the tree of life), then God would have granted us **second** to know moral law (i.e., having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and thus become beings culpable to that law but without it becoming death to us.

  I can't help thinking this is the meaning of the symbolism in the text, and so I think that the two roads you are describing are actually an explicit feature of the text, the intended symbology. There really were two roads (two trees) and humanity took the wrong one first.

  I find this appealing because it matches closely Paul's discussion of why the letter kills us and how the Spirit gives life. The moral law kills us because we don't have the ability within ourselves to keep it and therefore it merely points out where we fail and in that sense kills us. And Paul describes the life of the Spirit within us as making us become those who keep the law in the sense of becoming righteous. So this corresponds perfectly with the two trees in the garden. If we had eaten of Life then we would have had power within us to keep Law. The basic idea is that no creature is intended to be a moral agent apart from spiritual Life from God in us to empower that moral agency.

  I also like to think that the symbolism of the Tree of Life in the garden could be taken to be Christ present in the garden. Paul presents the rock that Moses struck with his staff during the Exodus as being Christ. If Paul can describe a rock as being Christ, wouldn't he also take the Tree of Life in the garden to be Christ? I know that a high Christology is your guiding hermeneutic, and I think this interpretation of the second tree being the alternative "road", the untaken road, is consistent with a high Christology, because it is Christ who was present from mankind's beginning as the way to life. But Christ was the tree that was rejected in the garden, just as He was rejected when He later came into the world, being nailed upon another tree so that we may each individually choose to eat from Him, the Tree of Life.

  Do you see anything wrong with this reading of the text?

  I also find it interesting that it seems (to me at least) compatible with what we know of human origins.

  Phil

  Original Message-----
  From: George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com>
  To: Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu>; Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 6:38 pm
  Subject: Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)

  Moorad-
   
  I agree that 'we could have not have "fallen" if we were not in an "un-fallen" state,' but I think language of "fallenness" isn't the most appropriate. Rather, as I discussed in my 2006 article, I think that the image of "taking the wrong road" corresponds better both to the picture given in the early chapters of Genesis & to what happened to early humanity - though I don't think the former is a blow by blow description of the latter.
   
  Shalom
  George
  http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm
  ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
  To: "George Murphy" <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com>; "Dehler, Bernie" <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
  Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 11:28 PM
  Subject: RE: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)
   
  George it was nice meeting you and listening to your talk in New Bern, NC. I want to view this issue of sin as simply as possible without, I hope, distorting or minimizing the depth and importance of this problem.
   
   
  Jesus came to undue something we did. However, what did we do? Surely, we could have not have "fallen" if we were not in an "un-fallen" state for otherwise we would be "fallen" creatures and not deserving of eternal punishment. If God turned some sort of lower form of being into a human, since evolution could have not accomplished that, would not then that be Adam. The issue then becomes, were there many Adams turned or only one? Are we then only reinterpreting Scripture to accommodate our knowledge of evolution? However, this seems somewhat contrived.
   
  Moorad
   
  ________________________________
   
  From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of George Murphy
  Sent: Fri 11/14/2008 5:04 PM
  To: Dehler, Bernie
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)
   
  Bernie -
   
  1st, sin was not "always there." It only arose in the world when creatures came into being who were able to be aware to some extent of God's will for them & to be able to either obey or disobey it. (With my qualification "in the world" I am bypassing the question of an angelic fall.) There was no sin before there were "theological humans" - not because our consciences create sin (God decides what is sin) but because there was no one for whom the concept "sin" was meaningful.
   
  Then note that I said nothing about a "fall." When humans, in the above sense, came into being they could in principle have progressed toward the goal God intended. They didn't. That's what I meant by the process getting off track.
   
  Of course images of "roads" or the crude diagram I sketched have serious limitations. There is no need to think that there was precisely one path that would have led from Point A to the eschaton. Similarly, there are many wrong paths. & as I tried to indicate in my sketch, the work of Christ doesn't immediately put us back on one of the original correct paths but rather reorients our path so that we're headed back to where we're supposed to end up rather than away from it.
   
  There is a sense in which the "fall" is in each of us, and more than that, it's in each of us over & over. Genesis 3 is our story. But it's not just the story of everyman and everywoman, for its presented in scripture as a story set at the beginning of the human race. When Steve has the 2 parts of my response up on his blog, take a look at my responses to Denis L's position.
   
  Shalom
  George
  http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm
   
  ----- Original Message ----- From: Dehler, Bernie <mailto:bernie.dehler@intel.com>
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 2:42 PM
  Subject: RE: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)
   
  David said:
  "My specific concern is that it starts to sound like panentheism or other such systems in which humanity is inevitably becoming more "godlike." There are plenty of new-agey worldview systems out there in which humans, along with the rest of the universe and "god," are evolving together towards a common future. These systems tend not to have any notion of sin and redemption, which of course are essential to Christianity."
   
   
  The idea is "Christian" (not panentheism) because becoming born-again, a new creature, is all about Jesus and His work (the Christian gospel). In biological evolution, you have isolated groups, then change. In this case, an isolated group is one with the spiritual nature- although it is not 'inherited' in the new gene pool but passed along in the meme, rather than gene.
   
   
  George said:
  "But what's missing here is that after humans form, (at stage 6.1 or something like that) the evolutionary process got off track, and the work of Christ in his ministry, death and resurrection and the subsequent work of Christ and the Spirit through the church (.e., you stage 7)are directed to getting the process back toward the ultimate goal God intends."
   
   
  Thanks for your contribution, George. You are implying that creation was good at some point, and then got corrupted (went off-track). But you and I both accept a non-historical Adam- no real person named Adam. We did not fall into sin- sin was always there and our conscience arose (via evolution) to recognize sin as sin. The creation of the conscience was an evolutionary thing, it detected the problem of sin, and God made a way for a solution, which is another step in evolution. So there's no literal historical "fall event," so I still see the straight-line progression. The "fall" is in each one of us when we recognize our sinful nature.
   
   
  ...Bernie
   
   
  ________________________________
   
  From: George Murphy [mailto:GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com]
  Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 10:59 AM
  To: Dehler, Bernie
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)
   
   
  Bernie -
   
   
  If I may butt in - & not really deal with Lewis's views - it looks to me as if you're arguing for the same sort of thing Teilhard & other process theologians have in mind. I.e., the work of Christ (which would have to be stage 6.5 in your scheme) is seen as part of the general evolutionary process. & in one sense it is - in Christ God becomes a participant in that process. But what's missing here is that after humans form, (at stage 6.1 or something like that) the evolutionary process got off track, and the work of Christ in his ministry, death and resurrection and the subsequent work of Christ and the Spirit through the church (.e., you stage 7)are directed to getting the process back toward the ultimate goal God intends.
   
   
  Diagramatically (if this shows up right) it's not just
   
   
  1__2__3__4__5__6__7__8
   
   
  (8 being the final Kingdom of God) but
   
   
  1__2__3__4__5__6_6.1 8
   
    \ /
   
    \ /
   
    \ 7
   
    \ /
   
    6.5
   
   
  On the gospel being "ther nex step" in evolution, I would prefer to speak of the church, the Body of Christ, as the next stage in evolution, as Teilhard did. But that needs to be placed in the "crooked" diagram I sketched rather than a straight one.
   
   
  Shalom
  George
  http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm
   
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dehler, Bernie <mailto:bernie.dehler@intel.com>
   
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
   
  Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 1:39 PM
   
  Subject: RE: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end (spiritual evolution)
   
   
  Hi David- let me state it this way, and tell me what you think (lots of steps are skipped, like in biblical geneologies :-) :
   
   
  Evolutionary sequence:
   
   
  1. Big bang (nothing but energy- no matter)
  2. Elements form (matter forms)
  3. Stars form
  4. Planets form
  5. Biological life forms
  6. Humans form
  7. The "spiritual man" forms
   
   
  That is taking Lewis' ch. 11 literally. Where's the error? Yes, God does something new in step 7 (directly intervening and creating a personal relationship with humans/God), but there's always something radically new anyway in each major stage- so why is that a problem? This seems like an interesting impact on evangelism- a message for scientific people to accept the next stage... become a "new creature" and enter into a relationship with God. I feel like I'm spear-heading something here... taking Lewis farther than he intended- has anyone else wrote or espoused this possibility of the gospel being in-line with evolution as "the next step?"
   
   
  ...Bernie
   
   
   
   
  ________________________________
   
  From: David Opderbeck [mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com]
  Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 10:01 AM
  To: Dehler, Bernie
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end
   
   
  I don't think Lewis is making those distinctions; he's trying to make an analogy with biological evolution.
   
   
  If all you mean is that conversion is an "evolutionary" process in the sense that it is gradual and happens over time, I think that is a fair statement, at least if we are understanding "coversion" to mean the entire ordro salutis.
   
   
  But the analogy still breaks down because Christian conversion is obviously teleological, while natural evolution is not (at least from a human perspective). Moreover, Christian conversion doesn't happen in accordance with natural laws -- it specifically requires divine intervention.
   
   
  So, it seems to me a limited analogy. The classical notion of a "pilgrimage" or the Pauline idea of running a race seem more apt.
   
  On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 12:49 PM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:
   
  Hi David-
   
   
  Evolution is different in different realms. For example, there is the sex act in some biological evolution, but not all. For chemical evolution, there is no sex. Same with planetary evolution. DNA mutation plays a part in biological evolution, but no part in planetary or star evolution. Therefore, there's nothing wrong with the next step of evolution, getting born again, being by choice. Evolution also creates new things, for example, the ability to hear, see, talk, think, etc. The new thing in this case is the introduction of the spiritual man, and the way it is received.
   
   
  I'm still looking at to why this chapter can't be taken literally. Any other ideas? Does this seem foolish, or am I picking-up on something new?
   
   
  ...Bernie
   
   
  ________________________________
   
  From: David Opderbeck [mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com]
  Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:14 PM
   
  To: Dehler, Bernie
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end
   
   
  That conversion is analogous to biological evolution. Biological evolution happens "naturally." Conversion doesn't.
   
  On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:
   
  I guess a clarifying question of mine would be "What does Lewis say in Ch. 11 that is figurative and can't be literal?"
   
   
  ...Bernie
   
   
  ________________________________
   
  From: David Opderbeck [mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com]
  Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 12:01 PM
  To: Dehler, Bernie
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: [asa] CS Lewis and going-off the deep-end
   
   
  It's an interesting analogy. But read it carefully -- nowhere is Lewis suggesting that we simply evolve into new creations. His focus is on transformation, of the sort that only comes through submission to Christ. He uses the metaphor of evolution to suggest that this process, as it occurs in Christians here on earth, isn't always obvious and often is gradual. But without that crucial aspect of transformation by Christ and in Christ, you're really starting to talk about a different gospel, I think.
   
   
  On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:
   
   
  One thing I wanted to share and see what feedback I get.
   
   
  I kind of feel like I might be going-off the deep-end. The reason why is because of how I understand C.S. Lewis in "Mere Christianity" (online here: http://lib.ru/LEWISCL/mere_engl.txt )
   
   
  In his last chapter, 11, "The New Men," he offers evolution as a metaphor for gospel transformation. Here's why I think I might be going-off the deep-end: I'm starting to see what he wrote as literal instead of figurative. It seems so profound and touching, I'm wondering if what he says about evolution isn't really just an analogy, but literally true.
   
   
  By evolution, I mean "total evolution" not just biological evolution. Total evolution explains how everything evolves- from the big-bang, to elements, to stars, planets, etc. Maybe the work of Christ is the latest injection according to total evolution? He talks about "the next step" in evolution- the ability to be born-again.
   
   
  Anyway, I feel strange taking something that was offered as an analogy to be thinking of it quite literally.
   
   
  I'll likely be giving a presentation of this chapter 11 at one of the meetings I hold, so I would appreciate feedback on this chapter.
   
   
  ...Bernie
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
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Received on Tue Nov 18 09:31:23 2008