@jay thanks for these thoughts. Just got back from my quite time, in which I am reading the Old Testament, which got me thinking more about fairness/justice. @gbob interested to hear your thoughts on these questions, too:
Don’t lots of questions of lack of fairness arise in the Bible?
From our human perspective we could say that:
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It isn’t fair that the Israelites were called out from among all the other peoples to be in a special relationship with God, which is different than that from the Gentiles
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From a perspective of people who have compassion on animals, we could say that the ritual of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament was not fair. Why should animals die to cover human sin?
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From a nonChristian perspective, we could say that it is not fair that Jesus teaches that belief in Him, His death and His resurrection is the only way to salvation and peace with God and eternal life in heaven
However, in spite of those things, as Christians we believe that God is all loving and completely just. There are great mysteries left in the scriptures, but by the scriptures we understand God’s character to be both loving and just. So I hear your concerns about the fairness/justice around the transmission of Original Sin in any young Adam model. I’m trying to sort that out in my own mind. However, taking in perspective how God can bring together both love and justice and solve the problem of evil at the Cross, in spite of many mysteries in the scriptures about fairness, I’m not sure that new Adam models need to be excluded from consideration. Couldn’t a genealogical transmission model be a powerful symbol of a greater spiritual/metaphysical reality? Perhaps the transmission of original sin fits into the realm of metaphysical/spiritual reality, like models for a “federal headship” or “priestly” role of Adam and Eve. The GAE model would fit nicely into those types of federal headship models. However the GAE model would simply add into the picture the truth that here is also a powerful symbolic physical reality that genealogical relationships show us that all people are related to one another and Adam is the universal ancestor of us all.
Thus, the GAE model might not be required to explain the physical transmission of sin. Instead, the GAE model could help, in that in showing the physical reality of Adam being a universal ancestor, it focuses us on the spiritual truth that all humanity has the same sin nature.
Edit 1 day later to add additional points of discussion: I’d like to hear what other’s on this forum think about these questions:
The Bible clearly tells us that we (all humanity) are all guilty and are held responsible for our own actions. I think that the Reformed view would point to a historical point in time when Mankind/Humans were given moral responsibilities, and were found to fall short in their ability behave in a perfectly moral way (However, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong). So people who believe in a literal first couple can easily point to a single point in time in history when humanity “fell” into “sin” as told in Genesis 3. Adding evolution into a conceptualization of The Fall clearly raises additional questions:
- When did Sin (or Moral Culpability) originate?
- Did Sin enter the entire population all at the same time, or did it spread in some way as people developed an ability for moral reasoning?
- Did God endow people with that sense of morality, or did morality evolve into the population?
- When did God start holding people responsible for their moral failings? Did God hold the entire population responsible all at once?
Edit a few days later to add an additional idea to ponder:
I appreciate this struggle that the concept of Original Sin could bring, that it is not fair for God to judge me for Adam’s (or anyone else’s) sin. This concern is clearly held by many, and so has got me thinking over the past couple of days…
What if we could look at it from an opposite point of view: Perhaps rather than thinking of Original Sin as being unfair, Original Sin is the great equalizer. Since the Fall, all of humanity is now in the same “state” such that no one person can claim to be better than another. We are all guilty of sin, we cannot earn our salvation by doing any number of good works or paying any amount of penance. We are all in the same boat. Thus, by holding to the doctrine of Original Sin, we are setting up the idea of equality between all people.
What I do appreciate in Paul’s writings are the sense of humility that faith in Jesus brings to a person. This humility comes from knowing that we are all sinners and thus we also experience incredible gratitude in knowing that God came into the world to pay the debt of our sin, that He loves us so much that died for us, because He wants a relationship with us.
Romans 3
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded.