A theological-biological explanation of “the original sin’s transmission”

Evil, sin, or whatever term is used, is an act by a person due to intent and conscious choice. We can say the person who committed the act is evil (or he has such a character) because he wanted to hurt, or pervert (or whatever description we give it). This to me means a person (especially humans) must possess the knowledge and understanding of what is good and what is evil before he can decide to commit a good act, or an evil one.

From this, I can understand God creating beings who may choose to do good or evil acts to each other, but not necessarily that He created evil beings as such (nor a thing called evil).

It should be said however, that the problems of good and evil has bedeviled us for all recorded history. It is one of the hardest questions I can think of - but it is still what we decide to do. I do not think God forces anyone to do evil.

1 Like

The same thing can be said about good and love but I don’t see your argue over not being a God by the same logic.

That’s the mainstream orthodox position. I don’t see you proposing something different. I have to ignore it unfortunately because im uninterested to it,sorry

That we agree on.

For one to do that there’s must be good and evil.
For Satan to do that there should have been evil together with good.

Your options are a(God created it
b Evil "preexisted)

If God didn’t create evil then it must have come from somewhere. From where thought?
Also your idea of what sin is and such is somewhat contradicting. Have you read how the OT writers describe sin and evil? They describe it pretty much like an entity itself

Thanks Adam for commenting.

The “very obvious biblical theology” you refer to is actually the very core of my model!

The history of humanity as “a community in need of redemption” begins at the arrival of the first sin. Therefore, only at this moment death, illness, aging, and concupiscence become significant in the perspective of the eternal happiness God orders humans to.

Before this moment, the evolutionary mechanisms, and in particular death, are “of no real significance”, as moral responsible beings are not involved in and therefore they have no actual relevance for eternal life: Without the perspective of the eternal happiness all things are transient, and death is merely a natural process of decay.

The decay of creation is wanted by God as a state that is convenient to motivate humans to repent in case they sin. Thus, strictly speaking, death becomes “the wage of sin” only and immediately after the arrival of the first human sin. Although before sin’s arrival death can be considered “the wage of sin, in case sin comes”.

The fact that DNA transmits illness, aging, and death in the animal world before the first human sin is a somewhat “retroactive” effect of this first sin: God creates the world since the Big Bang as if the first sin had already happened. However, God creates the first human beings in the image of God during the Neolithic in a state of original holiness as if the first sin had not yet happened: The genetic transmission bears the state of original sin only after the first sinner perpetrates the first human sin so that subsequently the transmission happens in absence of God’s original grace.

The reason why “original sin” becomes transmitted is a theological one, but the transmission is linked to biological mechanisms.

1 Like

I make note of one particular statement above and have a question…

The decay of creation is wanted by God as a state that is convenient to motivate humans to repent in case they sin. Thus, strictly speaking, death becomes “the wage of sin” only and immediately after the arrival of the first human sin. Although before sin’s arrival death can be considered “the wage of sin, in case sin comes”.

  1. So you are saying God designed into humanity mechanisms that would “switch on” in the event one sinned? Isnt this intelligent design? (it certainly is the claim that lies at the very heart of that movements theology)
  • I have grave concerns for the claim that God blackmailed humanity via such mechanisms…Especially given Satan said to Eve “you will become like God knowing good and evil”. Clearly prior to the point of this statement made by the serpent, and the fall of Adam and Eve, they had no knowledge of what good and evil actually “looked like”.

  • As i wrote earlier, the bible very strongly proposes that death is the separation from our creator. We die because we are no longer “attached” to our giver of life, God. The redemption process defines this very clearly…we are redeemed back to Him (both physically and spiritually).

I will close our discussion with this (as I have said), knowledge of good and evil is required, not a pre-existing thing. And evil (or sin) is deprivation of good, or contradicting the good that God reveals (or teaches) us (it is the absence of good, although I prefer contradicting what one knows is good.

The thing is you close the discussion without any evidence for your opinion.

Says who? You? By what premise? Where’s your backup?

Says who again? The Eastern Orthodox church? The Catholics? Who ? You?

Where’s the backup? Because sin is only described as missing a target in the bible.

Exactly. You answered my argument with a bias not an counterargument :upside_down_face:

I fully agree to this!

But I would like to add:

God let us sinners on earth to give us opportunity to convert, repent, and then redeem us back to him.

To facilitate our conversion God considers it convenient to let us in an environment where we experience our weakness and realize that we are not God: This environment is the world we live in, ruled since the beginning by evolutionary mechanisms that entail illness, aging, death, and inclination to selfishness.

The first human beings God made in the image of God were endowed with original grace capable of overpowering illness, aging, death, and concupiscence.

Since God planed the earth as a convenient place for people in need of redemption to dwell, after the first human sin all humans come into existence without the original grace, and therefore submitted to illness, aging, death, and concupiscence, that is, in the state of “original sin”. God bounds everyone over to this state so that he may have mercy on us all (Romans 11:32).

1 Like

how do you come to the conclusion that corruption of a “very good” creation which was sinless is now convenient to God for extending grace and salvation? Have you also considered that salvation required God to die for his own law at the hands of His own creation…is that convenient to you?

I also have grave concerns about the earlier claim that God is not all powerful, omnipotent, and all-knowing…the bible very specifically states the complete opposite of that claim. As a Christian, it is not a claim i can find find biblical references to support.

Adam, I am not aware to have ever claimed such a thing.
Could you please quote the place where you have found it?

Me too!

1 Like

I do not find evidence in the bible that supports this theory…you have extrapolated decay existing before sin…ie that death was already in the world before sin. The bible has no texts that I am aware of that support such a view. Sin and death very specifically “ENTERED” this world…it was not created with those mechanisms already here!

Death is the separation from our lifegiver, our creator, God. If we are disconnected from our creator, we eventually die…this is the entire point of the tree of life…this is exactly what that tree represents. Adam and Eve exercised the fruits of their own faith by physically eating of the tree of life. This was not a faith of salvation btw…prior to the fall Adam and Eve did not need saving from the wages of sin. It was a faith that everything God had given them was sufficient.

12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned.

The judgment that followed one sin brought condemnation, but the gift that followed many trespasses brought justification. 17For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive an abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

I wasn’t quoting you on this…its a doctrine i have noticed a number of TEists use in order to get around theological problems.

This an interesting statement. I think i would amend it however because the consequences of sin entering this world go far beyond the biological…it corrupts everything, both physical and spiritual. Biology is but one part of the world that has become corrupted.

The Apostle Paul says that ALL creation was affected.

18I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time. 23Not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently.

26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. 27And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

You got part of that right: “I am not aware.” Period. We have already talked about God planning two creations from the beginning, and the first one was destined to futility. You have been shown texts that demonstrate that. Death and decay therefore did exist before sin, no extrapolation required, before there were humans to sin, and don’t confuse physical death with spiritual death, which is what you appear to be doing.

YECism still makes Jesus Plan B. That should be repugnant to any Christian who loves God.

The available data tell us that animals died before there were moral human beings to sin.

Nonetheless this death was not eternity-relevant as the animals are not ordered by God to share eternal life. In this sense “death before sin” is not properly death, but merely a decay process like many others, part of the universal increasing of entropy (“second law of thermodynamics”).

You could even say that before the appearance of human beings in the image of God the world didn’t actually exist, as it was not (yet) ordered to endure forever.

Thus death (as an eternity-relevant event) entered the world in the very moment the sin entered the world, very much as the Bible states: “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men” (Romans 5:12).

Now the decay of creation and death are fore-planned by God as part of his redemption plan, and are naturally transmitted, in particular biologically encoded in the DNA. And in this sense, the first sin can be considered the cause of the state of decay and death that affects the creation since the beginning.

This has the following important consequences:

  • The “original sin’s transmission” means the transmission of death, suffering, and concupiscence, and results from the biological transmission of the decay of creation and Darwinian inclination to selfishness in absence of the original grace.

  • The first sinner, whoever he is and whenever the first sin occurred, can be considered the first parent of all human beings sharing the state of original sin, even if their DNA does not derive by replication of the first sinner’s DNA.

This is what I state as well!

I claim the very same! Prior to the fall Adam (the first sinner) was endowed with original grace to nullify the state of decay and the Darwinian inclination to selfishness.

Nonetheless the corruption is not so strong and throughout that God can no longer redeem us.

God let sinners on earth in a corrupted state of creation so that they experience their own weakness and realize they need God’s grace to reach eternal happiness. In this sense the state of corruption is theologically motivated by God’s mercy.

However, the state of corruption of creation becomes biologically transmitted, as it is somehow encoded in the Homo sapiens DNA.

Sorry, but no – the “thorn in the flesh” Paul wrote of was a physical affliction he suffered.

That’s pretty wild, unless you only mean human transmission; our DNA “transmits” death, and because of death we sin.

That’s the heresy of dualism or “Manichaeism”.
The flaw is that sin is not a thing with existence, it is a subtraction from what is good.

It isn’t a power, it only appears that way to us. Sin results from a failure of power, not from a contrary power. “I will be like God” was the first sin, but what it was was a failure to fully be what Lucifer was made – a relinquishing of power such that Lucifer failed to be what he had been created to be.

But it does seem strange that such a thought could occur to Lucifer, unless it occurred at the time that God made the first humans, because it was the intended destiny of humans that we should become like God – so Lucifer stole the idea, too.

According to scripture He certainly does not! He allows it, which is a very different thing.

No – that’s the dualism heresy again. Evil is not an option, it is a failure to be as good as was intended. Evil can be summed up as “It’s too hard for me!”, a surrender to being less than is possible or intended.

I notice that so far no one has made the obvious link to the fact that Jesus is called “the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world”. If that statement didn’t exist in the scriptures, the above claim wouldn’t have much foundation. As it is, if He was “slain before the foundation of the world”, then there was a reason for Him to be slain and that reason had to be there at “the very beginning”.

The other link is Paul’s use of the word “prototokos”, “firstborn”, calling Jesus “the firstborn over all creation”. Paul was educated enough to know that he was using a term used by Greek philosophers that depended on the root meaning “opener of the way”; biologically the firstborn is the one who “opens the womb” – but philosophically, the “firstborn” is the one who forges an opening into a new realm, with the result that everything that comes through that opening takes on the “shape” or “form” of the opening.
This implies, as Arius noticed, that Jesus had to be “creature” – he just lacked the imagination to see that the actual first moment of Creation was not at the Big Bang (assuming that’s correct theory), it was at the moment of Incarnation, the moment when dead matter encompassed the divine emerging from Heaven, and time unfurled in both directions from that Event.
And thus the entire existence of the universe occurred because the uncreated took on createdness, with the universe just the backdrop and result of that transition.

2 Likes

Calvin suffered from being a lawyer.
But in one sense he’s correct: God flat out tells us that He “creates ‘evil’”, or as it is better translated, catastrophe. The fall of Lucifer is to my mind a catastrophe that arose from Lucifer’s jealousy of humans who were made to “be like God”; like a mountainslide, that jealousy dragged him down, diminishing the good he was made to be – and that infected the first humans by opening the door for them also to “slide”.

That is not the heresy of Machienism. Where did I stated that Father is the adversary as they believed? No where. I have an expectional knowledge of gnostic sects and even have some gnostic beliefs. But you trying to attribute that particular view on me won’t work. I never stated anything close related to Manichaeism.

That’s your definition. Which I believe is wrong. No need to try to change my mind. Won’t happen.

The bible says it is. So …

For free will to exist and Satan to choose there should have been evil before. Or the option to do evil
. Either that option was created by God or preexisted somehow and God was unable to do anything which makes God not all powerfull and not the one that has ultimate power over sin.

You can’t have free will between good and good

Dualism exist in Christianity. Like what?

Manichaeism beliefs include believing in dualism that an evil God and a Good God exists.
The difference is

Christianity believes the devil exist whom is the God of this world and the good God of Jesus exists .

The only difference is that you attribute less power to the “God of this world” and you believe he is subservient to the Good God.

I don’t believe such fallacy. God isn’t more powerful than the adversary nor all knowing.
These are added human attributes. The end is yet to be decided. Jesus just showed us that God has immense power. He hasn’t destroyed evil nor Satan . He hasn’t come back and will never come back maybe.

I can’t stress enough how much your thinking hurts my brain sorry. What you just said is the same thing I have. You just used a synonym phrase. This is getting frustrated not gonna lie

I remember reading something like this from Kreeft and Tacelli’s Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Sin is not a thing or being. Its in the intent. A sword is not evil, its the intent or will of a person or being using it contrary to God’s will that is the sin.

How does this explanation impact typical theories of atonement? On the Cross, can Jesus just take on a “conceptual framework” or did he literally take on something more real and tangible?

Sin (the absence of God?)) came into the world through one man, and his sin (brought death with it."

2 Cor 5:20: “For our sake he made him to be sin (absence of a thing or theoretical construct?) who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 Peter 2 He himself bore our sins (bore a theoretical construct?) in his body on the cross, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."

Does scripture think sin is a thing or being? It doesn’t seem nearly as concerned with Greek philosophy and God’s omni attributes as we do… Even the flood story shows God with regret:

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.”

A beautiful passage in one respect. God loves us so much our sin broke his heart. But God seemed to think his response was extreme or maybe even inappropriate judging by the end? The smell of roasting animal flesh compels him to never kills millions of people again in a flood.

21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.

That sounds like a deity that learns from his choices and sometimes doesn’t always act in the most optimal way. Why would God not repeat his actions of destroying humanity if that was the appropriate thing to do? Definitely not getting an omni-vibe from this story.

We all believe God is just and loving but I think we may have let omni-attributes and Greek philosophy cloud our understanding of God and sin.

This correlated with my view.

As I’ve said countless of times God is NOT

:All knowing
All powerfull
All present

LOL
“Without any evidence” is a perfect description of your entire position – it’s nothing but speculation based on some a priori prejudices.

Over nineteen centuries of deep thought, in which your position was considered and found wanting before the third of those, and nothing new has been brought in to change that.

Yes, the Orthodox and the Catholics, and the Oriental Orthodox and the Lutherans and the Anglicans and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and the Episcopalians . . . with nineteen centuries of deep thinking.
The “backup” is the Bible itself – unless you’re just making up your own version of God and all the rest, in which case as I’ve noted before your position is nothing but speculation.

By that standard, you haven’t even made an argument, only set forth your own bias about how things work.