The problem with the doctrine of original sin is that the Genesis 3 passage makes it clear that neither Adam nor Eve new the difference between right and wrong until after they ate the fruit. That means that they did not know it was wrong to disobey. The supposed punishments for their actions were not really punishments but the reality of the conscious awareness of those activities such as toil and giving birth. This a story about how humans became self - aware. Death came into the world because we became aware of death. Evolution tells us a similar story with a similar story line. We once were animals of the field or of the trees. We ultimately transformed into self - aware creatures capable of having conscious relationships with our creator and fellow human beings. We also know that our brains are accretive with layer after layer overlaying deeper layers. At the base of our brains is a layer that is equivalent to a reptileâs brain. It is all about survival of self and progeny. The Eden story includes a snake that tempted humankind into folly. We now know that the reptile is not exterior but interior, and we deal with it every day. Fortunately, we have the way of Jesus who teaches us a better way.
Iâm not sure I understand this. If they were told not to do something, isnât that by definition disobedience; and if itâs God talking, doesnât it sound wrong? Thus, the âknowledgeâ would be more like âexperienceâ of good and evil from the insideâsort of how the older term of âknowledgeâ would implyâmore of an experiential rather than an abstract concept?
Thanks.
I canât make heads or tails out of the previous two sentences, so Iâll start here with the obvious. Genesis says nothing about âquantum mechanics, electro-magnetism, chemistry, relativity or gay rights,â but it does say something about the creation of plant and animal life, including human life. That obviously involves biology and evolution. Some Christians have been told that Genesis rules out evolution. Iâm sure youâve run across more than one here. Others have questions. I see nothing wrong with attempting to answer those questions.
(And the imago Dei has something to say about gay rights, but thatâs a different discussion BioLogos doesnât want to host.)
Itâs a non question as Genesis 1-3 has nothing whatsoever to do with biology and evolution any more than it does quantum mechanics.
While that seems logical enough I wouldnât assume that Godâs logic is our logic, or the means which would be necessary for us also binds Him. Of course I start out assuming that what God really is isnât a unitary being carrying out a plan. I prefer to think it is something baked into everything in the cosmos which imbues it all with a degree of consciousness. Iâve given up the idea that consciousness is something that arises as an emergent property of living things which in turn emerge from matter and energy.- God only knows how. That life and consciousness are emergent properties of pre-existing phenomena would seem to be the case given what little we are in any position to know about origins. But is it reasonable to think that matter, life and consciousness are all the handicraft of a being we cannot know anything about except what He Himself chooses to share which Christians choose to believe is what the Bible represents. So if we wish to harbor any opinion at all about origins we are forced to believe fantastic things which we cannot justify except to others who share out assumptions. Since God Himself seemingly has no back story or describable characteristics except what we infer He has chosen to share with us -and those are not very specific- I conclude that origins is beyond our reach and any conclusion we settle upon will of necessity be a mere echo of the assumptions with which we start.
This is why I do not see why anyone would insist on linking what they take to be the holy spirit or the counsel they experience in prayer and (occasionally) revelation to âthe creatorâ. I suppose it answers a requirement of making sense of how whatever it may be is actually capable of answering prayers and providing authentic revelation. But again what must be true just amounts is to what we would like it to be rather than anything we have really have good reason to believe.
Donât get me wrong. I think what gives rise to God belief is real and important. I just donât think we should insist what it is is what we feel we need it to be in order that it make sense to us. Why shouldnât it be enough to admit that we do not know what it is or how it works but still retain faith that it is what it is and amazingly cares how we are doing and can support our progress?
Youâre just being obstinate now. Gen 1-3 may be mythological, but even a perfectly naive reader understands it tells a story of origins. Itâs not âreading into the textâ to ask how the text relates to biology and the other sciences of origins that we understand today. Itâs faith seeking understanding, as I said before. Seems weâve reached the usual dead-end. Haha.
Good, challenging questions, Mark. My brain is about done for tonight, though. Composing anything thoughtful will not happen until sometime tomorrow.
Just skip it by if it stresses you at all. Im a fan of sharing challenging views, but an even bigger fan of faith on whatever terms work for each soul.
But I had to postpone viewing the atomic Cafe when Lia reminded the Ken Burns documentary on Ben Franklin began tonight. Hearing his impressions about virtue, salvation, all interesting
Hey, now youâre talking!
There, not quite so much. We have very good reason to believe objective evidence, not âjust what we would like it to be.â Recall the astrobiologist who when she was younger was given several instances, and which youâve seen, and also the CEO. Also recall that Jesus said people would reject objective evidence. I donât want you to be one of those.
Of course itâs reading modernism in to the text. Biology didnât even begin to coalesce around microscopy until the C17th. If faith seeks understanding, it has to be fully cognitive. Intellectually honest. Disinterested. Once again the historical-grammatical methodâs assumption of inerrancy and infallibility, of the hand of God, revelation in a C6th BCE myth, one of many hundreds, thousands, is exposed. Thatâs the dead-end.
Martin, what is your understanding: how does one best handle the biblical texts to understand them properly?
Thanks.
What jumps immediately to mind is, once again, Dietrich Bonhoefferâs hermeneutic:
First of all I will confess quite simply â I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us. And one cannot simply think about God in oneâs own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us. Of course it is also possible to read the Bible like any other book, that is to say from the point of view of textual criticism, etc.; there is nothing to be said against that. Only that that is not the method which will reveal to us the heart of the Bible, but only the surface, just as we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on, like Mary, âpondering them in our heart,â so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the BibleâŚ
If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands. This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it. But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old TestamentâŚ
And I would like to tell you now quite personally: since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way â and this has not been for so very long â it becomes every day more wonderful to me. I read it in the morning and the evening, often during the day as well, and every day I consider a text which I have chosen for the whole week, and try to sink deeply into it, so as really to hear what it is saying. I know that without this I could not live properly any longer.
Thanks, Dale. Thatâs a great quote. I will spend more time with it. I need to finally read more of his work than just this quote. So so so much to read. So many years behind on the book collection and not yet in the collection.
Or is there even anything left to handle?
The only way for me, Kendel, is to utterly respect the texts in the postmodern sense, as I understand it; that is to eliminate all anachronistic views, especially all Christian, starting with the Christ Himself in every way, and any hint of modernism, to try and bring nothing to the party but ruthlessly honest, objective, scientific i.e. materialist (which excludes inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility), rational intellectual inquiry: historical-critical method.
Well, do you think there could be for me after following my approach above?
One would think not. No evangelical, no Protestant (which amounts to the same thing from Luther), no Roman Catholic and probably no Orthodox could surely have anything left to handle if they followed it. I mean, I actually throw out the baby - Christ - with the bathwater! Jesus invented Himself as the Messiah, clothed Himself as Messiah, arrogated Messiahship to Himself
But I do. Have a handle. I donât throw out the baby Jesus with the bathwater. I yearn for the proposition of God incarnate in, as Him to be so. That moves me writing it, with hot eyes. If Jesus were God incarnate He had every right to pick up the mantle of the Jewsâ Messiah. How could He not? He believed - an entirely human proclivity - that He was the promised Messiah for a start. Wrongly. So what? He was still God the human. That actually accentuates both natures. For me. Being brutally honest about the text does not leave it without a handle.
Furthermore it makes the role of the Holy Ghost infinitely more subtle, more mysterious, how They acted absently present, and how They led and spoke.
I can be as free thinking as I will, that doesnât exclude Jesus.
See, you can have your cake and eat it too!
I hope youâre enjoying Ben Franklin. My husband was watching it, too. I caught a bit. But sitting down to watch tv in the evening is often not possible for my body. As far as the Atomic Care goes, I have no expectation that you watch, but if you do, I hope you find it worth-while.
I appreciate the challenging views you share, your background behind what you bring up, the tolerance with which you offer them, and the venue in which you choose to share them. I, probably others that hang out here, are used to moving between worlds weâve had to treat as discrete (work-academia, church/ecclesia). I learned early that attempting to find overlap or conversation between categories is nearly always. Except at some kitchen tables, these discussions have been impossible.
This is something I would not have considered (I donât think; itâs hard to know for sure what would be). Iâve always imagined myself more aligned with Martinâs views, if I were without faith in Jesus and the Trinity of which He is a part. (Iâll let you retain your assumptions and vocabulary, but will use the ones meaningful (and meaning differently) to me.)
Youâve brought up consciousness before, and I have no philosophical background with it, only a rudimentary understanding grounded in psychology.
Yep. I think.
Decades ago a fellow student in a lit class asked me, as I remember it-- out of the blue, if I had a god. I was completely baffled by his question, and maybe afraid to even consider answering. He was incredibly handsome and charming, and we had just been talking about his involvement in and love for gang violence in Detroit. Maybe not someone to discuss anything potentially controversial with.
But the way he framed his question made me aware of the idea of how fantastical belief in and worship of âmyâ God would look to someone who doesnât share it. We Christians in the West have long been able to assume that weâre the norm and enjoy all the worldly advantages that go with âbeing the norm.â
But yeah. I trust, worship and pray to a God who was ancient to the Romans. I participate in a ritual that references blood and flesh of my God, believing that He communicates his love to me through it, strengthens my faith in him through it, and binds me more closely to the others participating in that ritual with me locally, as well as universally. I sing to him, believing he hears me and delights in what I am able to bring to him in that way. I trust him with my soul. And I look forward to at some time, consciously being in his (currently incomprehensible) presence, sinless and finally able to properly commune with Him as well as with anyone else in his presence. And finally to worship unhindered.
I donât have an apologetic for this, really. The ones Iâve heard, even as a Christian, have found fairly unconvincing.
I am forced to rely on those apparently deconstructable texts like Ephesians 2:4-9:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ â by grace you have been saved â and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
I understand it seems fantasic/fantstical. But to me, itâs where reality is at.
This is a good question and a hard one. Moving from one part of my brain to the other, yes. What you say makes perfect sense. And I do want to support you in your progress.
In the other side of my brain, though Mark, I am thinking, I want so much more for you (and everyone else).
[And yes, I recognize that this probably sounds like cult language at best. But I know itâs not foreign to you, and you at least understand what i"m saying, even if you donât agree.]
Martin, thank you for your straight-forward answers. You clarified a lot for me.
I wonder, if in your attempt to eliminate all anachronistic views, by subjecting the texts to scientific i.e. materialist, rational intellectual inquiry, you have actually imposed anachronistic views on the texts, which were not written according to those same assumptions. Evaluating our own reception of texts is incredibly challenging work.
Martin, forgive me for being blunt, but Iâm not convinced you actually believe this. Your liberal use of the subjunctive and repeated references to Godâs nonincarnateness tell me a different story. Unlike Lewis, Iâve never been convinced that the desire for something indicates the existence of the thing desired. I suspect you have not been either.
? by using the accumulated toolset of ration enquiry, how do I impute them to the text ?
?
And no, my desire makes no difference to the way things are, except for me. âAllâ I need then, now, is faith.
How dreadful to think the desire for another does not correspond to reality.
When I was younger I may have had a different reaction but yes I do understand your intent and thank you for it. It is actually a sentiment I share albeit in a way consistent with my WV. I feel for anyone who has no awareness of this something more which seems resistant to direct knowledge that can be readily conveyed in prose. But poetic language can activate our being in places deeper than cognition, and of course the Bible is loaded with it.
So those who define themselves by working backwards from what they take to be the fact that God is simply silly stuff and of no consequence, suffer the greatest loss to their humanity. But I suspect believers who never hear or feel directly this something more and who make do with ritual and ceremony that never quite fulfills them are also missing out on something. Frankly anyone who has never been deeply moved by nature or been transported by music, inspired by literature or had the good fortune to find a medium in which they have been compelled to create something by midwifing what the muse will give is settling for something much less than that which is more makes available. I think all of these are forms of devotion and worship. What I lack is worship of an embodiment of what is more as a being relatable in a human form. But the reason for that is I feel certain what is more is something far different than though also inclusive of us.
You know I really appreciated how clearly you heard and understood what Iâd written before and had reactions (positive ones ) all along the way which I wanted to respond to. But then all of this came up and felt more important so perhaps Iâll sit with it a while and then come back later.
I do hope you realize I donât think less of Christians for shaping God the way they do. Iâm convinced that had I been raised in that faith more successfully and had a more thoughtful education centered in it, Iâm sure I would have worked hard for and fiercely defended it as embodying what is most core to me, as I see many of you doing. Iâm sorry that my views will always be a confront for some and even an abomination for others. But perhaps I can help those who wish it to shed some of the aspects of tribalism which are constraining the reach of your empathy? No one seems anxious to see me off at least.