A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

[quote=“Bill_II, post:332, topic:35442”]
I certainly hope God loves me independent of who I am. If His love was dependent on me a holy and just God wouldn’t love me, or anyone else for that matter.
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“God so loved the world that He gave His One and Only Son, so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.”

The Bible says that God loves not only you, but the whole world, so much that God sent Jesus to die for our sins and give us eternal life with God. The Bible does not say that God does not love humans for who they are, but because they try to be who the aren’t, God.

God sent Jesus so that we might be reconciled with God the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is people who refuse to be reconciled with God, who are damned, not because God does not love them, but because they refuse God’s forgiveness and love.

John 3:16 says God loves everyone. Period, full stop. He never stops loving you for any reason. He loves me, chief among the sinners if I can borrow from Paul. So where in the Bible does it say God doesn’t love people that fail to live up to His expectations? Or are you saying that God starts out loving me, stops for a while if I am not doing right, and then go back to loving me when I start doing right again?

We may be talking past one another. You say

Which implies that God’s love is dependent on what I do. And then

Which implies that God continues to love those who are damned.

Count me confused.

Luke 23:39-45 (NIV2011)
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Him: “Aren’t You the Messiah? Save Yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this Man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”

The other criminal on the cross defended Jesus from the taunts of his comrade. He admitted his guilt and did not ask to be rescued. He recognized Jesus as the Messiah and asked to be remembered in His Kingdom. Because of this Jesus granted him salvation.

The criminal did not “do” anything to earn salvation from Jesus. However he accepted responsibility for his life, expressed the need for a change, and accepted Jesus as the Savior and declared his faith in Jesus. He was saved by God’s grace through his faith.

God loves everyone until they die. Those who accept God’s love are saved and go to heaven. Those who reject God’s love get their wish to go to Hell where they cannot change and receive God’s love. Death is the end of this life ands the beginning of the next.

I have proposed that there were two populations of humans, the population generated in Genesis 1-2.4 and Adam and Eve created in the garden. If you simply read Genesis as if for the first time, I feel that this conclusion is obvious. In Genesis (and in Chronicles) the line not leading to the Messiah is always given before the line leading to the Messiah and this sequence of events is consistent with that approach. Man created in the Genesis 1 creation is referred to as the “daughters of man” in Genesis 6 and the descendants of Adam and Eve as referred to as the “sons of God”. This is why it is stated that “Noah was perfect in his generations” so that we would all inherit original sin from Adam, as we are all descended from Adam.
I feel that this interpretation is consistent with the context of all the books in the Bible and is consistent with current scientific observation as well.

@TGLarkin,

It all sounds reasonable enough … until you fly the whole scenario off the rails with “inheriting Original Sin from Adam”!

Our souls do not come from the biological side of our existence… they come from God.

So not only is it rather vile to think God does punish the children of sinners, instead of keeping the children’s guilt separate from their parents… but you create a metaphysical construct where Adam can taint the soul of an unborn child, not only too young to know guilt or evil, but too young to do anything.

Frankly, its magical thinking at its most egregious. The only mechanism for passing on Original Sin is by means of God deciding he needs to “add a touch of sin” to the souls he delivers to the womb… pretty much just because the scribes of Genesis want him to do that.

Paul states that through Adam all have sinned and have death, and through Jesus all have life. All fall short of the glory of God and all have sinned. If original sin were removed from me, unfortunately I would still fall far short of the glory of God and need to accept Jesus gift of forgiveness and eternal fellowship with God (in this life and the next) through His sacrifice that paid the debt of my sin.

God is the source of goodness, not of sin. This message is consistent through all 66 books of the Bible. I feel that my argument is firmly on the rails on the text of the Bible.

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George don’t be shocked, but we might be in agreement again.

I view humans as containing two natures, the fleshly and the spiritual. The fleshly we get from our evolutionary background. The spiritual we get from God. So I read Paul as saying like Adam, having a fleshly nature, all have sinned. There is no original sin only our original nature. So God is not the author of sin.

Agreed that God does not give us sin.

We inherit our body, mind, and spirit from others. What we do with ourselves is our responsibility.

It looks as if we all agree upon the following three points:

  1. God “plans for the future”, which is the Kingdom of God.

  2. Our spiritual souls come from God.

  3. “God does not give us sin”, He is not the source of sin.

So I dare to continue the discussion by expanding on the preceding points:

All possible histories are contained in God’s mind and their end is God’s Kingdom, “the actual future”. God looks at all possible histories from this end.

The history without sin is in principle possible. It would have been rather weird that in such a history humans were submitted by God to illness, suffering, and death. For the same reason it seems fitting to assume that in the beginning God creates humans in a stage of original Grace (Albert Leo‘s “original blessing”) so that they were completely free to love God: The only sin they could commit was that of pride (they were not hampered by fleshly tendencies to sin).

For all possible histories where sin happens, God could have planned that those who sin are cast away without possibility to atone, and the earth is populated only by righteous people at any time.

However we know by Revelation that God loves us so much that sent His Son into the world to save the sinners. In this sense we have already concluded in previous postings that God’s suffering Love is something intrinsic to the Holy Trinity (as the paintings of the “Throne of mercy” magnificently illustrate).

This amount to say that God’s redeeming Love extends to all possible histories and all possible sins: To save the sinners God lets them on earth in a stage of “need of Redemption”, that is lacking “original Grace”.

From our perspective God’s plan of Redemption is triggered by the first sin in history. In this sense this first sin can be called “original” because it initiates the stage where humans are in need of Redemption. So what is transmitted after the first sin to each future generation is the “stage of need of Redemption” or “lack of original Grace”. God adds no “touch of sin” (no spiritual damage) to “the souls he delivers to the womb”.

From God’s perspective each sin is like the first one: it “contributes” to God’s death on the Cross.

So, in my view, the Multiverse may also be useful to approach “the mystery of the original sin”: From our perspective the original sin is the first sin in history, the sin that actualizes God’s plan of Redemption and initiates the stage of “need of Redemption”, in which humanity is till God’s Kingdom comes at the end of time.

Antoine, I appreciate your mentioning my previous posts on Original Blessing, but in reading this paragraph ‘thru the eyes’ of someone not familiar with my posts, these readers would probably misinterpret my position; Using evolution, over a period of more than a billion years, God created the primate species, Homo sapiens, which the science of anthropology considers as ‘humankind’. However, for theological discussions, these early Homo sapiens had the potential to become the creatures that God intended–i.e.,made in His Image–but were not there yet. Only when they became endowed with Mind and Conscience, could they choose to rise above their animal natures and fulfill their spiritual destiny.

IMHO much of what we now designate as Sin results from the ‘selfish genes’ that were instrumental in producing the early Homo sapiens. But, like all animal life that acts on instinct, God could not ‘hold them responsible’ for the behavior he instilled in them. By whatever mechanism Homo sapiens acquired a Conscience, it did NOT immediately confer an ‘Original grace’ that freed them from ‘fleshly tendencies to sin’. It took the Incarnation of Jesus and his message of love to lead us to that goal.
Al Leo

Al, it takes two things to be held responsible for your sin. The first is a conscience as you say. And then you have to have the maturity to understand why not following your conscience is wrong. Which is where we get the age of accountability.

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Right on, Bill. But perhaps it is one and the same thing: When we reach the age of accountability, it is only then that we become (for theological purposes) truly human.
Al Leo

I would have a problem considering, for example, a 6 month old baby as less than truly human even if only in a theological sense. Perhaps instead of truly human we could just say a mature human for theological purposes.

Me too I would have a problem.

To avoid the problem it may help considering that:

  1. It is impossible by biological means to establish which creature is the first Homo sapiens.

  2. It is possible today to establish definitely on the basis of observable features which animal is a human and which is a chimp. The reason for this possibility is the disappearance of intermediate varieties between humans and chimps. (see Essay).

Taking account of these two facts it seems reasonable to assume that God conferred the sense of accountability to one or several human individuals at the dawn of Civilisation. Before this moment God could not ‘hold them responsible’ for the behavior he instilled in them.

At the same time He did confer “an ‘Original grace’ that freed them from ‘fleshly tendencies to sin’.” In any case this ‘Original grace’ derives from “the Incarnation of Jesus and his message of love” since, as discussed in previous postings, the history without sin is in principle possible, and also in this history God’s Son becomes flesh as completion of Creation: God’s love is one:

In the view I am proposing the first sin (the “original sin”) is one of pure pride, and leads to the loss of “Original grace”. It is the lack of Original Grace what becomes transmitted to future generations: The Christian Teaching about "transmission of the stage of need of Redemption (‘stage of original sin’), does not require any biological common descent (neither genetic nor genealogical).

So by one person’s sin everyone else suffers the consequence. Sounds like Original Sin in a slightly different package.

Antoine and @Bill_II, it is not a surprise to me that you both have a problem with my statement about ‘when we become fully human’ and when and we just potentially human. I think we can all agree that a human sperm and human egg deserve respect because they contain the amazing information that, when combined and properly nurtured, will result in a human being. But the are NOT human. Do they become fully human (and have full human rights) at the moment the two meet and fuse? Catholic dogma, as well as many Protestants, hold to this belief which is certainly reasonable. All the humans we admire had to go through this stage: Newton, Mozart, Mother Teresa, etc. (It would not destroy my Christian Faith if I learned that even Jesus did.)
But only God knows how many promising zygotes have been conceived that do not pass all the hurdles before birth (e.g. implantation, invagination). Probably as many as one-third fail. Are these to be treasured and given the same rights and respect as the Smiles Train M.D. or Doctors Without Borders who spend their lives alleviating human suffering? I think not. The current controversy over ‘abortion rights (?)’ proves that honest, rational people can differ fundamentally on this subject. For dozens of millennia humans have struggled vainly with this problem; e.g. a migratory hunter-gatherer woman 8 months pregnant or nursing when the clan had to move. It is not likely we will ever find a solution outside "the incarnation of Jesus and his message of love’.
Al Leo

Which is why I leave drawing the line in God’s capable hands. Since I don’t have God’s wisdom the safe bet for me is to draw the line as early as possible.

That’s always the wisest course. Besides He may not need to ‘draw as many lines’ as we do.
Al Leo

I would like to formulate things a bit more accurately:

From God’s perspective “the stage of need of Redemption” (or “lack of Original Grace”) is the consequence of all sins humans can do and God’s will to redeem the sinners (Romans 3:23-24, 11:32).

From our perspective this stage is obviously triggered by the first sin in human history (the original sin). If at this moment there were other humans who did not sin (in my view Melchizedek can be interpreted as such a one), these would not have suffered the consequences of the first sin.

@Bill_II,

Hey… so far, so good. Are you willing to say that each generation produces its own sin, and that there is no such thing as “Original Sin” passed on to these generations?