@JustAnotherLutheran,
Could you specify where I could see these responses? I came into this thread a little late and not fully oriented…
That is, my answer to the first question in point 2. of my response to aleo.
Cardinal Bellarmine found Heliocentrism to be distasteful. I think you will find that truth is sometimes distasteful.
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Al, good point, except that the idea of “Good” is a judgment value. If we premise that the “breathing of the Spirit” into Adam has to do with moral and ethical values, (re the trees and: sinfulness and selfishness) then the “good” in this and the other Genesis 1 verses is tied to the values of what is being accomplished. I am taking the story as something that could possibly have been passed on to one human (Adam), or in the case of a prior (evolutionary) population, the values are not being “judged” as good or bad by God, until this particular point of time (whenever that occurred). Similar to the age of accountability).
Ray "Sunglass
I believe that there was death before the Fall, but that is not the question.
The question is, Did God create death and the answer is Yes. God created everything, including death, and if God created death, then it must be by definition, GOOD.
God could presumably created humans to be like angels and be immortal, but God did not. God made humans and all beings mortal and good. If death is evil, then humans are evil through and through because we kill plants and animals in order to survive.
If death were evil then Jesus Christ would not have eaten dead flora and fauna. If suffering and death were evil per se, Jesus Christ would not have suffered and died.
Life is not made to last forever, except through the grace of God. Humans are not the Lords of Life, God is.
Death is not the source of evil, sin is. Death without sin is good. Sin which creates spiritual death is evil. Humans are mortal, which means we will die, not that we are evil.
The Gospel is that humans have eternal life in and with God the Father through the Spirit, when they trust in the Son, not they will never die.
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[quote=“JustAnotherLutheran, post:59, topic:36407”]
3.Your ability (or lack thereof) to conceive something is hardly the measure of good or correct theology and biblical exegesis. Respectfully. For example, I cannot conceive how God can be born and die but in the person and work of Jesus we rightly say God was born and God was crucified. But Scripture and its faithful interpreters throughout history would assert just this humanly inconceivable truth.
Just for the record, I too must accept some dogmas as a matter of Faith if I wish to be considered a Christian. Jesus’ resurrection is one such essential dogma that fits the ‘inconceivable category’–especially if his glorified body was capable of being touched, could consume food, and still pass through closed doors. So, while it is still inconceivable to me, I accept it. For a number of years as an adult, I had to accept an essential part of the Apostles Creed purely on Faith: Jesus as fully human but at the same time “the Son of God, born before all ages.” As you point out, it is inconceivable ‘how God can be born and die’. But Christianity is pointless unless you do believe it. Things started to change for me when I began to enlarge my vision of God and the Cosmic Christ–taking into account Teilhard de Chardin’s understanding of evolution and of the journey the Universe was taking from Alpha to Omega.
In the past I have had enlightening discussions with Lutherans of the Missouri Synod persuasion, and while I respect what positive effects their beliefs have had on their leading good lives, I could not get past a statement in the ‘Small Lutheran Catechism’; “Each of us enters this world as an enemy of God.” Rather than accept this interpretation of Gen. 2&3 (the Fall and banishment from Eden) which I would deem inconceivable, I would rather place my bets on an interpretation built around humans being given a gift of conscience, whereby they had the privilege of learning of God’s will and entering into a covenant with him. Refusing to do so results in the obvious sins we see in the world which surrounds us.
Conclusion: Each of us comes into the world, NOT as an enemy of God, but with an evolved human nature which has a selfish component and thus a propensity to sin–a propensity that Jesus showed us can be overcome with love.
Al Leo
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In the movies you sometimes see a man “squint a little” at a fellow as he speaks. And then says: “You ain’t from around here, are ya?”
I asked you where I could find the responses from you; your answer was this:
“That is, my answer to the first question in point 2. of my response to aleo.”
Dear JustAnother,
I have no idea which posting this is in, or even if it is in this thread. If you really don’t want people to read your stuff… just keep making it hard for them to find it, or to figure out which part of it matters.
Frequent quoting from one’s own writings, at the appropriate part of a discussion, is what keeps everyone on track.
And this comment goes for some of those who are from around here, and still make it pretty hard to follow a discussion’s ins and outs.
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I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to just stop asking me questions read my mind…
Mea culpa
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We’re in agreement here! I’m glad. A good theological question for us to ask, next, would be: what is meant in our conversation by “inconceivable” as it pertains to biblical exegesis and theology generally. In a manner of speaking, not all inconceivables are created equal. [quote=“aleo, post:66, topic:36407”]
“Each of us enters this world as an enemy of God.”
[/quote]
I’m curious where this is in the Small Catechism. I’ve looked and haven’t found it yet. Nevertheless, once again our distaste for something is not the measure of good theology. I concur with Martin Chemnitz when he writes in the Formula of Concord (Solid Declaration, Art. 1.8): Reason does not recognize and knows nothing about the nature of this inherited defect. Instead, it must be learned and believed on the basis of the revelation of Scripture.
To us entering this world as enemies of God, your distaste is not of Lutherans or Luther at all but of Paul. Ephesians 2:3 calls all people children of wrath, including Christians prior to the in-breaking reign of Christ in the gift of the Holy Spirit in their lives. That is, children who are servants of the “prince of the power of the air” (i.e., Satan). We cannot be servants of two masters; we will love one and be an enemy toward the other.
That is one way of speaking about Sin. I quote (at length) from Beverly Gaventa’s Our Mother Saint Paul (pg 129-130) for another image:
In [Romans] chapter 6, Sin’s enslaving grasp comes into full and unmistakeable view. The chapter opens as a rebuttal of the possible conclusion that God’s grace permits antinomianism: “Shall we persist in Sin so that grace may increase?” (6:1). Paul responds with an extended contrast that plays on the language of life and death. Those baptized into Christ’s own death are simply dead to Sin - its power is shattered. All ambiguity falls aside in the second hald of the chapter, where the image of Sin as slave-owner is explicit. Sin was formerly the owner of these slaves (6:16-20). In that condition, they were enslaved to “impurity” and to “iniquity” (6:19). The only possible outcome of this slavery to Sin was death (6:20-22).
Not only did Sin enter and enslave, but also Sin’s resume includes the unleashing of its cosmic partner, Death. When Paul introduces the extravagant contrast between Adam and Christ in 5:12-21, he connects the entry of Sin with that of Death: “Death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned” (5:12). Death itself “exercised dominion” (5:14, 17). Death is the very “wage” of Sin (6:23). Not surprisingly, the language of Death is… more extensive in Romans than in Paul’s other letters. Elsewhere Paul may anticipate his own physical mortality as the opportunity to be with Christ (Phil 1:21; 2 Cor 5:1-9), but here Death is a force unleashed by Sin (see also 1 Cor 15:56).
Bringing this back to the subject of this thread, the implication of evolution prior to the Fall is that physical mortality while perhaps categorized as “not good”, ought not to be categorized as part of Sin’s reign over humanity; at least not as humanity and other species experienced mortality before the Fall. Post exile from Eden, however, mortality becomes a place where the rule of Death and Sin is most stinging. But on account of Christ, our mortality is transformed/redeemed into the moment where we gain the fruition of salvation.
Tonight I will search thru my library (some I rarely access), find it, and send you the information so you can locate it.
I really do appreciate the time you have taken, J.A.L., to increase my knowledge of orthodox Christian theology that has persisted through the centuries. It may surprise you, but I see much of it as an alternate phrasing of what I have come to accept as Original Blessing–except than in my worldview there can be no mistaking when a particular passage in Scripture is referring to Death of the Spirit and when it means Death of the Body.[quote=“JustAnotherLutheran, post:69, topic:36407”]
That is, children who are servants of the “prince of the power of the air” (i.e., Satan). We cannot be servants of two masters; we will love one and be an enemy toward the other. [end quote]
I (Al Leo) am not comfortable with the scenario that there are two personified entities in eternal conflict with one another: Lucifer, a fallen angel (AKA Satan) and ruler of Hell, and God our Father and ruler of the entire Universe. My seeing it as “uncomfortable” does NOT make it false (like Einstein I am uncomfortable with much of quantum physics). But what makes better sense to me, and thus is a better religious guide (for me), is to believe that my evolved, selfish human nature can become my Master, whereas God wants me to be co-creator with him in building a human society that is based on empathy and love of neighbor rather than love of power.
As hard as I have tried, I do not find how orthodox theology can explain how Sin entered this world and can so easily enslave us. My worldview does this for me, and so I guess I will remain a maverick.
Al Leo
aleo:
[/quote]
I always found the idea of final judgment a bit distasteful until I was standing outside a hotel in Bangkok with our tour guide explaining that every room held a girl imprisoned for the regular daily “use” by sex tourists. Then I understood the cry for judgment–God “putting things to right” (as N.T. Wright would say).
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@RLBailey
Maybe our theology is RIGHT?
@T_aquaticus
Are you likening me to…Cardinal Bellarmine? How do you know you have the truth?
Yes, there are moments when I wish there was more old fashioned smiting of the wicked going on. It’s complicated. 
And that’s the danger and tension–because there is “wickedness” in me. Why does God wait? To give humans time to repent.
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Thank you, Al. I appreciate your cordiality and aspire to present myself likewise!
@J.E.S I think you could be on the right track. Even in the strictest young earth model there has to be physical death before the fall. This is based simply on the fact that God allows Adam, Eve, and the rest of the creatures in the garden to eat, at the very least, plants. Spoiler alert: plants die when they’re eaten. Plus, there’s the nitrogen cycle. The nitrogen cycles requires death and decomposition to work, and it’s necessary for the survival of Earth’s life.
I hold the belief that the death referred to in the (somewhat extra-Biblical) statement “there was no death before the fall” is very obviously referring to spiritual death as opposed to physical death. This is what the Bible, both in and out of Genesis, supports. The idea that there was no physical death before the fall just isn’t Biblically supportable. There are many arguments I could make for this, but my favorite is a simple command God gave to every living creature: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Think about that for a second, if everything (except plants and single celled organisms, apparently) is immortal and everything is reproducing, do you know what a disaster that would turn into within just a few hundred years on a finite Earth? I would hope that God, being omniscient and perfect, wouldn’t command immortal beings to reproduce in a finite space.
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@QHansen
YES. I have often deliberated over this hypothetical…And the only conclusions I could come to were somewhat disconcerting:
1)God intended Adam and Eve to eat from the tree, starting death
2)There already was death on the level (or on a similar level) to what death is today.
Your thoughts?
@J.E.S
Option 1 certainly is disconcerting. This makes God out to be less than loving… essentially making it out so that humans were made in perfect relationship to God… only for that to be intentionally taken away. What kind of God would do that… certainly not one I would worship! No, the God of the Bible cares very deeply for our salvation. So deeply that he gave his only son for our benefit. (John 3:16, the central message of the Christian faith.) The God that does that is not the God that intentionally corrupts creation. Option 1 is certainly not compatible with how God is portrayed in the Bible.
Option 2 is essentially what I believe, on a physical level at least. Ever since the fall we are all dead in our sins, (Ephesians 2:1) so spiritual death remains the enemy. But I don’t find physical death before the fall the slightest bit of a problem. In a previous post I tried to convince people that perhaps physical death isn’t so evil after all. I do not believe that physical death is that big of a problem, at least not compared to spiritual death! In fact, physical death is “very good” in many circumstances! It allows us to eat, breath, stay healthy. During normal fetal development human cells are intentionally killed off to ensure the baby develops properly. I don’t think physical death is very bad at all!
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@QHansen
I often wonder if there actually was physical death (ultimately the death of organisms that are conscious of their own self) before the fall in the YEC model. It seems that Adam and Eve were not in the garden very long, so it’s hard to know…
That aside, I always thought that Adam and Eve often ate from the tree of life (rather in a “Norse Gods” like predicament) to maintain immortality. When cut off from eating of the tree, they would die. At least, that’s how I always thought of it!
Don’t be in such a rush to approve. Notice that in my first post I was describing a very non-traditional approach to death. My point is that I differ very significantly from your traditional view (no death before the “fall”), however, there are also significant reasons for retaining some aspects of the traditional view.
Ray 