How does that get Evangelicals off the hook?
Paul, Adam, and Salvation: maybe Augustine really did screw everything up and we should just move on
An interesting summary on original sin and how this may be discussed with regard to the outlook(s) provided by ToE is in http://www.ewtn.com/library/Theology/SINEVOL.HTM “THE CREDO OF PAUL VI: THEOLOGY OF ORIGINAL SIN AND THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF EVOLUTION”. The document provides the Catholic Church dogma, and discusses various arguments put forward from ToE. It is clear, even during 1968, that scholars were taking an interest in the opinions put forward by evolutionists, and yet the understanding of original sin remains essentially unaltered. The same can be said concerning Orthodox dogma, even if we locate people who may articulate the dogma using terms that appear to uninformed commentators to differ. The difference that occurred due to a translation from Greek to Latin has been discussed ad nausea and does not show conflicting views in the Church – instead we observe a remarkable consistency on Adam, sin, and salvation in Christ.
The various discussions that try to link the doctrine of original sin and various practices and beliefs by Catholics and Orthodox Christians may differ, such as belief that infants may not be saved if they are not baptized, and the notions of hell, limbo and such described by Dante. The latter are often not regarded as Church Dogma, but would require a very lengthy discussion to obtain a clear understanding. There are interesting discussions in Eclectic Orthodoxy and the web site also contains well informed opinions from a variety of readers.
Romans 8:20
Here - - let me provide some various interpretations of Romans 8:20.
I think the New Living Bible makes the keenest version:
“Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse…”
And I’m a huge fan of Romans 9, which goes into pretty grim detail of how God is like the potter, and humans are like the pot, who really don’t have the right to complain if they are made into a bed pan or something ugly but useful.
But @Paul_Allen1, I don’t want you to think I’m trying to turn this into an adversarial Bible Study. I’m not trying to “prove” that Original Sin isn’t Biblical. It seems to be well within a range of possible doctrines supported by the Bible. Which, naturally, poses problems for those trying to find a harmony between Christian metaphysics and Evolutionary reality.
My point is purely to show that there are millions of Christians who think we should adopt another interpretation.
In fact, the inclination amongst some Eastern Orthodox populations is so strong, they come up with a completely different explanation for infant baptism!
George
George
In 2K years of Church History you’re bound to find examples of nearly every idea: in this case I can give you Pelagius for free, and the Pelagians and Semipelagians following him for a few centuries afterwards in odd parts of the world. But the condemnation of several Ecumenical Councils made that a limited option, as indeed did his very dubious account of Romans 5.
Nowadays, those who support his position tend to get round Romans via the liberal route of dismissing Paul as simply mistaken, as Peter Enns does: in most of history, most groups held Scripture as infallible and/or tradition as binding.
But let us suppose you find supporters for Pelagius sufficient to please you: his teaching still has little or no traction in the origins debate. For the basis of Pelagius’s position was that it would be unjust for man to sin without freely choosing so to do, and so on a “free will” principle God must allow no inborn bias towards sin. Therefore each man must be born in a “neutral” moral state, with equal supplies of “grace” in the mundane form of conscience, the Law etc.
That means Pelagius (and his followers) could have no truck with any idea of a biological bias towards sin from evolution (thus sparing them the tricky task of explaining how the Creator was the direct cause of sin). So the popular ideas, amongst those replacing Adam with an evolutionary view that “selfishness” or violence are a result of our evolutionary inheritance, are clearly anti-Pelagian as well as anti-Augustinian - they are a “new creation” altogether. To Pelagius, there is a miraculous resetting of each human being to the innocence of Adam.
But it gets worse. How does it come about, in Pelagian views, that sin is, in fact, universal, since all men are born innocent? The answer is that sinners merely imitate the sin of Adam… if that was considered by the orthodox an inadequate account of sin in the past, it certainly makes no sense at all if one denies an historical Adam to imitate.
And so once again I challenge not only the facts that have been presented in this thread (distortion of sources, confounding of separate terms etc), but any significance they may have for Evolutionary Creation. The study of heresies is worthwhile in itself, because it reveals why they remained heresies and why there is a genuinely orthodox and catholic (small “o” and “c”) faith, and that’s why it is part of most university theology courses, including mine. For Pelagius, the entire anti-pelagian corpus of Augustine is online and an instructive read.
But the only way that I can see any of it connecting to the origins question is this potential conclusion: “All the main historic branches of the Church, misled by Paul’s belief in Adam, have a fundamentally flawed view of sin’s origin in their belief in original/hereditary sin. The only significant alternative, Pelagianism, though it denies birth-sin, also depends on an historical Adam, plus ongoing miracles of creation to enable each man to be born sinless; and by its theological arguments excludes an evolutionary origin for sin. Therefore theistic evolution needs to find an entirely novel explanation for sin with no support from any orthodox or heretical tradition except the rejection of Paul’s teaching.”
That is I’m sure somebody’s project, but I don’t see why it should have anything to do with BioLogos unless and until it should choose to sever its links with classical Christianity.
2 Likes
Nope. Second Temple Period Judaism, yo.
Sorry, can you make it really clear? Are you honestly saying that scientific facts (including but not exclusive to evolution), present no challenge to the doctrine of original sin?
No, misled by centuries-later mangling of Paul’s belief in Adam, by blundering theologians.
You worry far too much about classical Christianity, and not enough about Christ and the apostles.
Under the Evolutionary scenario, “all flesh” is sinful. Adam, as a figurative story, represents the first hominid with moral agency. It’s a perfectly fine parallel.
As to you “challenging” my discussions… accusing me of “distoring” sources, confounding separate terms, etc., that is pretty ridiculous … since I have found several Eastern Orthodox sources that say it all… just as I have reported it.
And some say it all so much they even embrace a very different logic for infant baptism.
You are just going to have to accept that, the Russian case notwithstanding, there are millions of Eastern Orthodox co-religionists that reject the Roman Catholic view of Original Sin … and even Infant Baptism! These are no inventions of mine.
I am reporting the facts, not making them up, as they publish them in their own internal organs..
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.