Yeah, my more limited way of trying to grasp it is too much stuck to a timeline. My brother’s wasn’t, but I never grasped n-dimensional geometry (I always asked how you can do geometry if you don’t know how many dimensions you have) so I’m not even going to try to explain his view.
But my attempt isn’t as stuck to a timeline as it might seem if you think of a timeline as having directional flow; it’s trying to regard the timeline as an object in a space with at least two more dimensions so when a flaw occurs it automatically “defines” the entire timeline, and “propagating backwards in time” is what it would look like from the perspective of anyone on the timeline.
Except since that one sin “infected” the entire timeline the actual point at which “time begins” would be the moment of the first sin, which is mind-wrenchingly strange, plus it is easier to argue (from the scriptures, anyway) that the point at which “time begins” is the first moment of the Incarnation – which from a certain perspective is fitting here since the Incarnation came about to counter sin and thus sin and holiness are both ‘contained’ in that moment. That of course really departs from a linear timeline since it puts the actual beginning in the middle – which apparently isn’t an issue if you have enough additional dimensions including at least two more time dimensions.
Which I’m “proposing” would, I think, depend on how well my audience could deal with geometry that has more dimensions; it’s much simpler to hold in one’s mind the idea of sin/flaw propagating backwards in time (or for a computer-savvy audience, a command that jumps back to the start and changes certain parameters) than to try to think of a timeline as an object within a “space” that has six or eight or more dimensions.
Though I’m not suggesting any “imagined existence”; if anything it would be a sort of “Schrödinger’s Cat”, a “Schrödinger’s Creation” situation where both the flawed and the unflawed Creations are both valid until the triggering event. But even that doesn’t quite work if you consider Adam and Even to have been real in any historical sense because the potentially flawed version would only have pertained externally to them . . .and now I’m grasping t concepts that slip away almost as soon as I look at them.
First, welcome to our little corner of the internet. It is good to hear you voice. Second, my thoughts on the subject are much as you state. As biologic creatures, we evolved to look to our own interest. Such is to be “of the world.” When we reached the place where we were capable and culpable of doing otherwise, we could and did then sin by putting our selfish interests above the will of God.
Yes. I would go further than this, and speculate on the possibility (likelihood?) of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If we needed an Incarnation to “save” us from our sins, then so would other civilisations. Which raises the question: would those “Incarnations” be the man we know as Jesus, or would it be the “Son of God” in the form of someone else? Are there many “Jesuses “?
The fact that they would not be subject to death does not mean that they would still be now living on earth, if they had not sinned.
After a time, God had assumed them into heaven, although without undergoing the pains of death, in a similar way as God did with the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 2:11).
God is merciful and decided to save us “before the beginning of time” (2 Timothy 1: 9). Therefore, the reason why God created the world submitted to the degradation and death you refer to, cannot be other than God considers this state of the world to be convenient to move us humans to repent, in case we sin.
So the degradation of creation and the selfishness ruling life are in fact caused (“retroactively”, so to speak) by the first sin, but God transform them into redeeming suffering.
This is the understanding I am proposing as well!
The transmission of “original sin” does not mean the transmission of Adam’s personal guilty, but the transmission of a state involving mainly illness, death, and concupiscence.
And since this state (and in particular the “selfishness” you refer to) is transmitted by DNA replication, it follows that “the state of original sin” becomes transmitted biologically by generation.
From all this we are led to the following conclusions:
Before the first sin, “Adam” (the first sinner) was endowed by “original grace”, given “in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Timothy 1:9); this grace made him capable to overpower the degradation and selfishness encoded in the evolved sapiens flesh.
After the first sin, the sinners remained on earth (by God’s mercy) without “original grace”, and so became submitted to illness, death and concupiscence, i.e.: “the state of original sin”.
Through Jesus Christ redemption we sinners can receive the grace (in particular in Baptism) to fight the tendency of “putting our selfish interests above the will of God”, and thus “live a holy life”.
What I hear is an unsupported assertion (endowed with original grace) that relieves the need to handle the path to the Father that comes only via the Son.
What limits the Son in this case? All souls will pass before him. Does he have no insight?
The Fathers spoke of original grace in the same way, especially (IIRC) Gregory of Nyssa. Indeed for the Fathers anything that gave life and health qualified as grace, and grace only comes through Christ, so original grace was grace through Christ.
So it didn’t " [relieve] the need to handle the path to the Father that comes only via the Son", t affirms that path – it’s just that the path got shifted due to the Fall.
If we assume that biology like physics works the same way overall in the universe, it is fitting to assume that “other civilizations” coming in contact with us, could sharply be characterized as human, that is, as being the same biological species as we are.
Then, the status of such “speculated civilizations” with relation to the incarnated “Son of God” (Jesus) would be very much the same as the status of the millions Homo sapiens creatures living in America and Australia at the time the first human sin occurred (i.e.: sometime during the Neolithic, as I assume).
Accordingly, at the moment God proclaimed the universal prohibition of homicide (i.e.: the moment referred to in Genesis 9:5-6, after the end of the flood), these possible civilizations, like the large Homo sapiens population on earth, became humankind in the image of God, although submitted to illness, death, and concupiscence. As such, these civilizations if any, would have been “saved and called to a holy life” by means of the same grace that “was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Timothy 1:9).
Ok so let’s assume that all this talk about sin is human invention because we have some sort of need for forgiveness. So God provides a mechanism to alleviate that guilt. Christ died for us not God. God is quite happy with his creation we, on the other hand are not. We see sin and corruption, death and decay and need some sort of justification for it. We must assign blame. There must be justice.
I am a Christian because I think it is the right way to behave. It is not about blessings or punishment. It is not about Heaven or Hell. It is about the right way to live.
Original Sin is a human concept. It is not of God.
I wouldn’t agree that other civilisations are of “the same biological species” as ourselves, because the distances are almost certainly far too vast to permit of that. I would anticipate that they are creatures of reason and free will like ourselves, but could be very different in appearance for example. And because of free will, they are inclined to sin and thus need redemption, I suggest in the form of an Incarnation, though not necessarily of a death (e.g.crucifixion).
All wholly speculative of course, but I still think it can be helpful in thinking through our theology.
The Western Christian tradition of “original sin” dates from St. Augustine and is the supposed “sin” of our first parents whose guilt was transmitted to us by generation (a concept I reject along with many (most?) theologians). But it’s a useful way of describing our natural (uninherited) human inclination to sin.
As I explained in an earlier comment, it is when we pursue our instinctive interests while knowing that, in some way or other, it can harm others, that constitutes “sin”. In that sense we are flawed. But it’s not a generationally inherited thing.
You feel guilty? fine, get salvation, but don’t transfer your guilty feelings onto others or judge them unfit. That is not your place (or mine)
Christ’s sacrifice was to alleviate the guilt of sin. It is there for whoever feels they need it. it is not an obligatory cleansing. It is not as if we actually have to do anything to get it. There is no self-satisfying penance or heroic self-sacrificing. We just have to accept that as far as God is concerned it doesn’t matter! He wants us as we are, not some self-glorified saint.
And if others do not feel the guilt? They do not require the reassurance of forgiveness.
Absolutely, I think that your speculation is quite useful to the aim of “thinking through our theology”!
So I dare to argue further:
If these other civilisations are “creatures of reason and free will like ourselves” but are “very different in appearance” from ourselves, then we could not live together: Indeed, the very basis for assigning rights is the visible and detectable human body. Without specific bodily evidence you cannot define any coherent legal ordering.
The foundation of morality and law is the principle God proclaims in Genesis 9:3, 5-6:
God gives humans all other animals for food. But from each human being God will demand an account for the life of another human being. For in the image of God has God made humankind.
This principle makes sense because at the moment of its proclamation there is a sharp distinction between the appearance of the human species and that of the other animal species. And this sharp distinction was worked out by evolution in a lengthy process through the disappearance of many intermediate varieties. (The main mechanism of evolution for “the origin of species” is actually not “natural selection” but “natural deletion”).
In conclusion, if God would allow other civilizations to encounter us, God would have cared that elsewhere evolution worked the same way as it worked on earth. Notice that this would confirm the repeatability of evolution as an experiment, and therefore as a scientific theory!
Jesus, as a human being, would have died anyway, sooner or later. He chose to die in the way he did. For another civilisation elsewhere in the universe, I don’t think it would necessarily have to be in that kind of way.
Then you do not understand why it had to happen the way it did. Scripture, specifically the Garden of Gethsemane, makes it perfectly clear that there was no other way…That would apply no matter who else was involved.
The point of the crucifixion s that it is a carte blanche forgiveness of sins It applies to all. There is no one who is denied it (Technically it is denied to someone who blasphemes the Ho;y Spirit but maybe we should not go there.)
If all sins are forgiven, who cares if anyone sins? Not God! But it does seem to matter to Christians! Perhaps there is something radically wrong with Original Sin theory.
Richard
PS I know that according to Christianity you have to accept the forgiveness for it to apply. But is that a human caveat or a Godly one? If Jesus only died for people that believe in HIm it was a bit of a futile gesture.
(Then again, if you don’t believe in sin why would you need to believe in the cure?)
I’ve already explained why I don’t like “Original Sin theory” as you call it, namely that what we inherit by generation is physical and other characteristics, not the guilt of a sin which one of them committed. As for “all sins being forgiven”, Jesus did say to the woman taken in adultery “go, and sin no more”. So in that sense, God does care.