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

Faith & Science Conversation
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160

I agree with your interpretation.

According to my theological-biological explanation the meaning of the “original sin’s transmission” is the following:

The first sin in human history provokes a state that becomes transmitted to all humans coming into existence after the moment of this first transgression of God’s commandments.

The state of original sin consists mainly in the lack of original grace at the moment of conception. Because of this lack, the new human being is submitted to death, suffering, and concupiscence that originate from deficiencies encoded in the Homo sapiens genes: The lack of original grace becomes transmitted by theological reasons; the genetic deficiencies by biological means (DNA replication).

The transmission of original sin does not mean the transmission of other’s personal sin and guilty. If the first sinner had died after his first sin, he would have been damned to join the devil in hell. If one baby dies in the state of original sin, he will NOT be damned to join the devil in hell.

Consider David’s sin of adultery and planed murdering: Since this sin was not the first sin in human history, it did not provoke any sinful state that became transmitted to David’s offspring.

161

Original sin as in 1st makes much more sense than Original Sin as in infected or continued.

Richard

162

Thanks Richard for commenting!

It is not clear to me what are you referring to by “Original sin as in 1st”.

Could you please clarify?

163

I am quite happy for Adam to be the original sinner, as in the 1st person to do so (figuratively) but I am not happy for any continuation or perseverance of consequence. Humanity is neither innately sinful nor doomed to sin. We have individual choice. In reality the chances of not sinning are pretty astronomical but, just as it is possible to win the lottery, it is possible not to sin.

Richard

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164

Great!

Now, since Adam freely chose to sin, he deserved to be sent by God “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matthew 25:31).

Furthermore, God could very well have treated this same way whoever sinned after Adam.

So, each sinner would have been punished for his own sin, and on earth there would have been only righteous people living in a paradise at all times!

Would you be happy with this solution on the part of God?

165

No, but it is academic because God wants people to be forgiven. I am vehemently against any notion of Heaven on Earth or the righteous being rewarded. You do not get rewarded for doing what is right.
We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty (Luke17)

Richard

166

Exactly: “God wants people to be forgiven”.

Nonetheless, God respects our freedom above all. So, God can only forgive us if we want to be forgiven, convert, and return to love God!

Now, we would hardly convert if we could continue living on earth as if nothing had happened: We would cling to the delusion that “we are like God”.

So, it looks rather obvious that for us sinners to convert it is convenient we realize that our sins have consequences. This is the reason why God let us sinners on earth submitted to suffering, death, and concupiscence, so that we are aware of our weakness and seek for God’s help.

167

How does sinning once warrant this? It’s like God is punishing Adam for not being God. What does He expect? Or are you saying Adam chose a life of sin and continually sinner?

The account actually says they did not know good and evil.

I don’t doubt there was a “first sin” but if humans truly evolved then I don’t see that as black and white. I believe some of what we think of today as “sin nature” is just evolutionary baggage. Don’t chimpanzees go on murderous raids of other rival groups? It’s about competition and survival. Is it any wonder how prevalent slavery has been in advanced civilizations throughout the world? I feel like it’s just a product of our evolution. Sex outside marriage is deemed bad and sin, but it feels really good and there is a biological drive to procreate and for humans to care for our young (probably stronger in females if I may assume that gender). The deck is stacked against us here (it is stacked for us in others… e.g. reciprocal altruism).

Humans are rational and either we were given or able to discover the moral law as we developed. I think the Adam and Eve story being the first sin that changed the whole world is too simplistic and naive. The development of “sin” was more of a ramp than a stair/step to me.

Now you can claim that God chose to specially reveal Himself to two humans and they disobeyed him. Fine, but that is not really what Genesis says and it’s a retreating and in my mind, desperate, contrived and ad hoc interpretation. The history battle for the primeval “history” in Genesis 1-11 is lost. It’s time to move on. Even the rest of Genesis cannot be read as history.

Not to mention I think the second creation account just rearranged Mesopotamian furniture and offers us a different theology. Enkudu (iirc) vs Adam. I also see it as more of a human attempt to explain evil in the world. It probably was used to explain the Exile as well. Gods can be annoyed at humans and bring them misfortune but for Jews it seems God was good so just like Job’s friends thought, the evil in the world must be the fault of humans. It’s an attempt at theodicy. It’s saying God is good and humans tend to not be.

We moderns know death, disease, suffering, decay, naturally disasters, and things we think of as sin today (animals evolved to be in fierce competition with one another and sexual urges and tendencies) evolved.

Paul’s just saw a golden opportunity to cast Jesus as the antidote to human sin. The way to bring humans out of exile. He probably thought Adam was a literal person. Luke after all, traces Jesus’s genealogy to Adam. Paul was simply wrong and we have to see God speaking though accommodation here.

I just don’t see how Christians that believe in evolution don’t make it an integral part of our moral system and sin. I’m no biologists but it seems like we have a million years of evolution baggage conditioning us and it’s not all roses and cotton candy.

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168

Sin is not a scientific notion. It involves the existence of God, which is also not a scientific notion. People who marry science into religion tend to keep them apart. Natural and instinctive behavior is not sin. Sin only exists in relationship to obedience to God. Until or unless a person identifies both God and His requirements they cannot sin. They can commit something sinful but without understanding it is not sin. That is the whole point of Adam. He lost his innocence and therefore sinned.

Richard

169

I’m talking about behaviors most Christians consider sinful and their relationship to our evolutionary development. Sin doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It occurs in evolved bipedal primates that come with a lot of evolutionary baggage that in a lot of case might predispose us to actions God apparently views as sinful. That “the existence of God is not a scientific notion” really has absolutely nothing to do with what I am saying. I made it plain I was referring to Christians (already believe in God) who accept evolution. I think some of what we see as “sin nature” is just evolutionary baggage.

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170

The behaviors (“most Christians consider sinful”) you are talking about, are certainly related to tendencies driving “our evolutionary development”.

These tendencies were encoded in the DNA of the Homo sapiens creatures in the Neolithic, when (according to my explanation) God wanted to call and order them to eternal happiness by sharing divine life.

However, in the very moment of the call, God endowed the first chosen “humans in the image of God” with special “original grace” that made them capable of nullifying these tendencies. So, they were absolutely free to fulfill God’s commandments without any urge to sin coming from the evolved flesh God had made them of.

In this sense the first sin is necessarily a question of “black and white”.

By sinning, the first sinners damned themselves and, in particular, they lost the “original grace”. Nonetheless God in his mercy let them on earth to give them opportunity to repent and return to God’s love. In this new stage without “original grace”, humans are submitted to the full evolutionary baggage encoded in the sapiens genome. So you are right: “some of what we see as ‘sin nature’ is just evolutionary baggage”. It is the so called “concupiscence”.

171

You’re not getting what I said. Sin is not a specific behaviour. It is specifically disobedience. You cannot disobey what you have not heard or understood. Nature cannot sin without cognisance of God

Richard

172

There is no more Original grace than there is Original sin. They are invented terms, not of God.

The Garden of Eden relies on human innocence. Once humanity became cognisant they banned themselves from Eden. If you choose to think that man stole his cognisance then so be it. I prefer to think that God created us with full faculties and in doing so knew that we would turn away from Him. There was no conspiracy or surprises. Sin is just a by-product of free will. To remove all sin you must deny certain actions. The moment you prevent an action from happening you are interfering with freedom of choice.
Self-preservation is a necessity for survival. Eventually self-preservation will come into conflict with Morality and the perceived will of God. You either get saints or sinners. Saints are considered by most to be freaks.

Richard

173

Accordingly, we have to accept that God made humankind able not to sin.

In other terms, in creating the world God took account of the both alternative options:

  • Humans will sin.

  • Humans will not sin.

And made a world that fits either case!

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174

My theological-biological explanation achieves precisely what you propose: to make evolution an integral part of our moral system!

On the one hand, as said in a previous post, the so called “concupiscence” (inclination to sin) in theology, is nothing other than the Darwinian tendencies ruling the life-death cycles in the absence of “original grace”, absence that appears concomitantly with the first sin in human history.

On the other hand, the fact that creation is submitted to decay and animal life to death, is a state of the world wanted by God to facilitate the conversion of the sinners, in case sin happens.

Therefore, it holds that:

Concupiscence comes from sin, and leads to sin, but on its own is not sin!

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175

Not recognizing and exalting God as God is sin, and those who deny his existence are not able not to sin, are they?

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176

In my view, those who deny God’s existence, as far as they are on earth, are free to repent and accept God’s love. In this sense they are able not to sin and reach eternal happiness.

Only those who are damned in hell (because they damned themselves to it) “are not able not to sin”.

177

No, I meant what I wrote: the decay was inflicted from one moment of infection and reached back to the first moment of all things. I did not mean “it appears that way to fallen humans”, and I did not mean it “in case humans at the Neolithic sin”, I meant exactly what I wrote.

178

According to the apostle, sin is any action that is not undertaken with faith in God.

He made a world where the Logos, the eternal Son, was already slain before the foundation of the world. How does that fit a world where humans do not sin?

179

Citation please

Richard