Prode, are you truly asserting that you know exactly how salvation works? To me, it is a wonderful mystery that I can only be thankful for, never anything I can comprehend. But if so, I too am unsure of your assertion. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” makes no mention of an inheritance requirement.
It is a mistake to take the anologies of legal inheritance rights that go with the Christian metaphors of adoption and sonship and conflate them with genetic or biological inheritance. Nowhere in Scripture, that I am aware of, is righteousness pictured as a biologically inherited trait.
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It is important to keep the Genesis narrative flow in mind, if you are using the judeo-christian model of these ideas. When banished from the Garden as Adam and Eve were, there was never a point that they could return to the situation in which they existed pre-fall. Adam had no disposition for sin when he was created (ie. pre-fall). But after the events in Genesis 3 occurred, his fallen nature as well as his created existence could only support sin since there was no possibility to reverse the events (ie. go behind the angel with the flaming turning sword which kept Adam (and Eve!) from ever returning to a prior existence.
Upon what scripture or evidence do you conclude that Adam had no disposition for sin?
If we read Genesis literally … what we are told is that Adam didn’t know a thing about the difference between good and evil !
So, you have two choices. Adam did evil because he didn’t know anything about it…
… or because mortal flesh is not capable of avoiding sin when a person achieves status as a moral agent.
I’m not sure I understand your presuppositions. From the narrative in Genesis Adam (pre-fall) did not possess any knowledge of good and evil because he had not eaten from that tree as yet (Genesis 2 only). Assuming (and I recognize that this is an assumption on my part and is not visible in the text) that Adam ate from the Tree of Life because it provided nourishment (not to keep alive but merely for the pleasure that nourishment provides) in a sinless existence.
So is someone more or less inclined towards sin if he has no knowledge of what is good and evil? So many folks are keen to turn Adam’s decision to eat the fruit into some kind of galactic magic act … and yet:
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he had no intention of sin in his head to begin with;
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how does having an intention to sin transmit to all of creation?
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what transmits to all of humanity is humaness . . . the very same humaness that Adam had even before the “intentional act with unintentioned sin” !
These are questions and wonderments made by sinners (myself included) who live post-exile from the garden. IE. We will never know since it is impossibile to get a view of things before the Fall. Obvously this even questions the narrative of pre-fall itself and its own condtions.
@Christy You’re right, of course. Just HOW we could inherit Christ’s sinless nature is problematical, but a cursory glance at the mess this world is in is proof that it did not occur in any meaningful way. But if we twist the initial conditions somewhat, it MAY make some sense.
Assumption #1: Once God created Life on this earth, he allowed it to become more complex and varied through a process we now call evolution.
Observation #1: As evolution proceeds it produces genomes that strive to be represented in the following generation, and as a result the final animal or plant tends to behave ‘selfishly’ or instinctively.
Assumption #2: After some 3 billion years life had evolved into a wide variety of beautiful forms, but there was no conscious creature to appreciate it, and it did not reflect (to any appreciable extent) some to the characteristics of its Creator; namely, true love and compassion.
Observation #2: Some 40 thousand years ago evolution had produced a primate (Homo sapiens) whose exapted brain had the capacity to operate as a computer/Mind, and with the conscious ability and awareness to use symbols, create new beauty, and appreciate its ‘creature hood’.
Assumption #3: God granted that gifted primate a conscience and the freedom to use this Gift to rise above Instinct and become, to a real extent, Images of its Creator. But to a large extent, Humankind rejected this Gift, with Sin being the result.
Assumption #4: Although present to some extent in all of his Creation, God chose to come to Earth in the special form of a Human, with the same Homo sapiens genome that had rejected His Gift. This special Human, Jesus, had the potential to Sin, could be tempted to do so, but could and did resist.
Conclusion: All of us humans inherit the Homo sapiens genome with the recently added Gift of Mind/Soul. We all have the potential to overcome our animal-instinctual heritage to become, like Jesus, the Image of our Creator.
I would honestly appreciate any response from @Christy, @Jonathan_Burke, @Eddie, @Relates and others: Is the ‘Christian Tent’ large enough to accommodate the above world view? Or is it out-and-out heresy? I see it as harmonizing Science and Faith better than any other view, but the concepts of justification and atonement would need rethinking. And it surely may not the best way of teaching young kids.
Al Leo
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Observation #1: Survival of the fittest and the Selfish Gene are scientific myths. They have not been proven to0 be true. God’s Creation was good, not evil. Evolution is good.
Assumption #3: Humans also were created as good. However humans have to choice to be good or not. Sadly we have chosen to be selfish or evil.
Assumption 4#: The antidote to evil or sin is Love. God the Father so loves us that the Father sent God the Son to demonstrate how much God loves humans, andf pay the price for the sins of the whole world. When we accept responsibility for our sin, turn to God, and accept God’s forgiveness, we are saved and receive God the Holy Spirit into our hearts.
Conclusion: All humans have the ability to choose for or against God, just as Adam and Eve did in Gen 3. Rhis choice makes all the difference, not their theology.
As soon as humanity was capable of becoming a moral being … humans failed the test of perfect morality.
There’s no way for mortal flesh to be perfect. And that’s why we need God.
I think the Christian tent is pretty large. I don’t think anything you said is heretical. I think it is incomplete because it doesn’t really address how we are reconciled to God, or that we need to be reconciled to God, which is the crux of atonement and justification. Personally, I need more theologically than just imitating Christ. I think the kind of identification with Christ that the Bible speaks of when describing salvation is deeper and more complex than the simple imitation it seems you are describing. We got more out of Jesus’ death and resurrection than a human example to follow. I think we are incapable of imitating Christ without the spiritual regeneration that comes from grace by faith (because of Christ’s atonement which secures our justification 
).
I added some additional thoughts below:
I think you can run into problems when you make God’s election contingent on human development or achievement. Other animals use symbols, communicate, and have primitive sorts of culture. Although obviously a certain level of development was necessary for God to be able to relate to humanity the way he chose to relate to humanity, I don’t think the development was the reason or motivation for God initiating the relationship.
I think we have discussed this before and I see image bearing and sin in a different light. I think image bearing is a role offered to humans and I see sin as tied to violating God’s revealed will and rejecting his rightful authority. I don’t see God’s image as moral potential/conscience, or sin as generic immorality.
This strikes me as very orthodox.
I guess I don’t like the ultimate end-goal being defined in terms of humans overcoming instinct/animal. It is too anthropocentric. I think the end-goal is our Christ-likeness, but I don’t think the point is to make us more fulfilled humans (though that is a side-effect). The point is to fulfill God’s mission on earth, the mission he gave us as image-bearers, the mission of reconciling the world to God and bringing all creation under God’s just reign for God’s glory. The point of it all has to be reconciling our relationship with God for his ultimate glory, not merely human self-actualization.
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@aleo, even though I’m not on your official list, I’m confident you want as many opinions as possible.
I think the figurative aspects of Adam & Eve are easy enough to discern:
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They are the story of the first “moral beings” in the hominid family. I don’t think they are the literal progentitors of all Humanity … but they represent humanity just like the first man on the moon represented all of us - - without having to be on the hook for paternity support to 4 or 5 billion souls at the time.
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Using the template of a toddler’s mind - - it is easy to see the frustration and confusion of an innocent child, who knows nothing about good and evil - - suddenly confronted with the consequences of a decision he makes that suddenly he realizes was morally deficient!!! … though made at a time when he didn’t even grasp morality fully.
^^^ This is the theme of Adam and Eve that survives whether you are a YEC or not!
Evangelicals insist this story can only have meaning if Adam and Eve are the genetic source of all humanity - - but that is not very sophisticated thinking.
God is about the human spirit striving for a higher morality. And the Adam and Eve story would be relevant even to the talking primates of the movie franchise Planet of the Apes.
So ThAT is a pretty big tent, Al - - if a story works for any primate that would understand it !
What happens to nonbelievers?
The truth of Evolution does not nullify the other truths of most Christian denominations. For most, Hell or some kind of purgatory keeps on running rooms at a reasonable rate … some for long term occupancy!
This is why BioLogos has to be a Big Tent operation - - if we went around adopting a narrow view insisted upon by some theologians… it would just upset the denominations who think the narrow view is too narrow…
[quote=“Christy, post:37, topic:5677”]
I guess I don’t like the ultimate end-goal being defined in terms of humans overcoming instinct/animal. It is too anthropocentric. I think the end-goal is our Christ-likeness, but I don’t think the point is to make us more fulfilled humans (though that is a side-effect). The point is to fulfill God’s mission on earth, the mission he gave us as image-bearers, the mission of reconciling the world to God and bringing all creation under God’s just reign for God’s glory. The point of it all has to be reconciling our relationship with God for his ultimate glory, not merely human self-actualization.
[/quote] @Christy @Relates @gbrooks9 Firstly, thanks for responding promptly. I learned something from each of you. Since you are so involved in home schooling, Christy, I did hope you would directly answer the question posed in the last sentence of my previous post: “Even if my World View is OK for adults, how early should it be taught to kids?” With my three kids and nine grandkids, I tried to go about it gradually:
For our three, my wife and I relegated their formal catechetical teaching to the nuns in our local parochial school, but of course we made sure to say a family prayer at each meal and at bedtime. In addition, my wife and I both thought that one of the surest ways to “give glory to God” was to appreciate the wonderful planet he made for us. So we travelled a lot to all the national parks, to Mexico and Canada, bringing along binoculars, telescope, and using a telescope eyepiece as a high power, hand held microscope (for bug watching). We are pleased that they have handed this pleasure down to their kids and grandkids. We introduced them to fossil hunting, and let them see for themselves the thousands of feet of strata that bore the remains of the life that preceded us here on earth during the course of billions of years.
During those formative years (grades 1-6) the nuns seemed to be giving our kids a good grounding in how to behave as good moral and social human beings, all the while sticking to Catholic dogma that evil in the world resulted from the Original Sin committed by our first parents, Adam & Eve, in the magical Garden of Eden some six to seven thousand years ago. Now, looking back, I wonder if it were better had I sat each one down, at the age of six or seven, and prepared them to keep their minds open to the possibility that a literal belief in Adam, Eve, & Eden might have to give way to another story of how God created our universe. What I had read of Piaget about the stages most kids go through in cognitive development and Kohlberg’s extension of that work to stages of moral development should have alerted me that I should have sensed when each of my kid’s minds was open to expanding their World View to accommodate what they were actually seeing of the world.
But I didn’t. I expected they would absorb it by a sort of ‘osmosis’ as I had. Now I wish I had had some of your gumption, Christy, and accepted the task of conducting some home schooling. [On the other hand, steering them towards your type of evangelical Christianity might have been more fruitful in the long run than steering them towards my more ‘maverick’ type.] Some of your responses to my earlier post seem contrary to my views but surely deserve my further consideration. For example:
@Christy I think it (Al’s view) is incomplete because it doesn’t really address how we are reconciled to God, or that we need to be reconciled to God, which is the crux of atonement and justification. Personally, I need more theologically than just imitating Christ. I think the kind of identification with Christ that the Bible speaks of when describing salvation is deeper and more complex than the simple imitation it seems you are describing. We got more out of Jesus’ death and resurrection than a human example to follow. I think we are incapable of imitating Christ without the spiritual regeneration that comes from grace by faith (because of Christ’s atonement which secures our justification.
It is true, Christy, that as I began my training in the ways of science, I asked: "What if I applied the same rigor to justify my Christian Faith as I do to justify my scientific beliefs? Specifically, what if I no longer accepted a priori (or unquestionably) that the evil we see in the world around us was due to the Original Sin of our ancient ancestors? After reading Teilhard de Chardin and Mathew Fox, I could see why the Vatican authorities were alarmed at the suggestion of giving up Original Sin. To some extent, it might jeopardize their role as keepers of the Keys of the Kingdom and the authority given to them "whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." So, not having a staunch evangelical upbringing, I was willing to question whether God really required us to accept this sort of “guilt trip”. After all, the nuns taught us “the Act of Contrition” before receiving the sacrament of Penance and the Holy Eucharist, which hints that we should outgrow the early stages of morality and pass on to higher levels (i.e., the Kohlberg scale):
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell (fear of punishment, Stage #1), but **most of all because they offend Thee, my God who art all good and worthy of my love.** (Stage #5)
I can accept that, in the days of Abraham, the idea of innocent sacrifice as atonement for sin was important in directing the early Jews away from pagan beliefs. But in the world of today is it absolutely essential to believe that Jesus death on the cross was necessary to appease our Creator who was angry at the disobedience shown by earliest humans? It may be anthropocentric, but perhaps our ultimate role as humans is to be the ONLY conscious creatures in the entire Universe that can give glory to our Creator, and we do this best by imitating Christ. You adhere to the more orthodox belief, Christy, and it may well prove to be the correct one to hold for the distant future. I wonder, what will Christian Faith be like 10,000 yrs. from now?
Al Leo
Here’s my approach: In science class and history class we read books that explain and refer to evolution. I don’t try to Christianize or reframe the scientific/historical presentations. (Unless I feel they introduce an obvious anti-faith bias, but most of the materials we use are fairly neutral.) In Bible class, we read the Bible (an adapted children’s version for the OT that edits some of the PG-13 and boring parts out), we and talk about what it means and what we should do about what it says. We memorize verses about being loving, kind, hard-working, generous, etc. We recite the Nicence Creed and the Lord’s prayer. I point out things that not all Christians interpret the same way. (We have Catholic family members and we work with many families that are more conservative Evangelicals than we are. We are members of a Baptist church in the States, but almost all my favorite theologians are Anglican and I don’t personally agree with everything my church teaches.) Once in a very rare while one of the kids will hear something in science or Bible and say, “but I thought…” and refer to the other subject. Then we deal with whatever issue has come up. I don’t try to teach some kind of integrated overarching science/Bible/history theory of everything. Since my kids live cross-culturally, and we spend a good deal of time with a rural, indigenous people group, maybe it is easier for them than for others to grasp the idea that the people in Bible times thought about things and communicated and lived differently than we do now.
Well, we are all helping keep the world evil to some extent, aren’t we? I believe fairly strongly in free will and think whatever metaphorical or historical “fall” there was, it is reenacted in every individual. We are born into a rebellious community (we are born into a sinful identity) and we each of our own free will choose personal rebellion (we commit sins).
I can see how that would be distasteful. We Protestants like our priesthood of all believers and confidence in the hope of heaven. 
I don’t think the cross was about appeasing the Creator because Adam and Eve sinned.
I think the atonement is something we will not fully grasp and all our metaphors and parallels (paying a debt, ransoming a captive, setting a prisoner free, redeeming a slave from slavery, healing a sickness, pardoning a crime, cancelling a verdict, defeating an enemy, sacrificing an innocent party in place of a guilty party, washing away filth, exchanging shame for honor, etc.) are in and of themselves incomplete and inadequate and the analogies eventually break down.
As I understand the gospel message, God loved humanity and wanted to live in relationship and communication with them as their God and King. Humanity’s rejection of the reality of God’s rule over them and plans for them ruined the potential for the kind of relationship God wanted and the kind of relationship humans needed to reach their full humanity. This rebellion is pictured in Adam and Eve and personally re-enacted in every individual and every individual experiences the brokenness that comes from being separated from relationship with God. I believe God created a world in which creatures are truly free. But the cost of true freedom is the potential for evil. I take it on faith that a world with freedom and evil is better than a world with no evil and no freedom. I think in some ways God is willingly constrained by the way he has set up his creation. He has submitted himself to his own rules, so to speak. And one of those rules is that our sinful rebellion makes ideal relationship and communication with God impossible because of his holiness. Even if he wanted to just overlook our sin and love us anyway, somehow, given his character and the created order he has set up and confined himself to, that is not possible. Sin has to be “dealt with.”
But because God loved humanity so much, in spite of their flaws and rebellion and abuse of their freedom, he took it upon himself to fix things. The Trinity is a great mystery, but it says that God himself became human. God lived the perfect human life and then God took personal responsibility as a representative human for all of humanity’s rebellion and failures, individual and corporate. Jesus’ death and resurrection purified and recreated humanity so that God could indwell humans by faith and have that relationship and communication he desired. Jesus’ resurrection made possible a new order of things, and ushered in a new era in Creation history.
The heart of God’s interaction with humanity is grace, unearned favor, an undeserved gift. I don’t see how picturing God as an angry deity who needs to be appeased by a blood sacrifice in order to refrain from destroying his creation fits with the orientation of grace that is described throughout the Scriptures. But, I also believe the wrath of God is a real thing, perhaps something we don’t have a healthy enough respect for. I know I prefer not to think too much about it.
Well, @aleo I hope my theological ramblings are useful in some way. I’m certainly not convinced I have the right answers or I have everything figured out or that my way of looking at it is necessarily mutually exclusive to other people’s ways of looking at it. There are lots of ducks that don’t stay in their rows in my mind. 
And I’m sure some of our illustrious friends here probably have some quibbles with how I envision it all. 
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I find it hard to believe God would use evolution as a means of creating humans, and then deem them deserving of eternal conscious torment for not being perfect. Pretty sadistic (and unlikely).
I am in total agreement with this statement, Christy, and it has become the foundation of my Worldview. So the way we both arrived at this conclusion, and the words and logic we use to defend it, may not be all that important. Your terminology may have more appeal to youngsters, brought up in Christian homes who become enamored by the appeal of science and are tempted to use it to replace their Faith. I have taken as my ‘target’ someone like Richard Dawkins, who was raised in a somewhat tepid Christian Faith, a Faith which (supposedly) rests upon a “hell and damnation” version of the Old Testament. I will grant that your approach should carry much greater weight for the avowed target of BioLogos.
Incidentally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to folks like you who make sacrifices to home school kids or take low paying jobs in private religious schools. I am sick of politicians who promise to defeat ‘radical Islam’ using smarter bombs or more drones. How about reducing the honest criticism (by Islam and others) that too much effort in our United States goes into 'recreation’(?) based on hedonism and self gratification? This country is still a beacon for people seeking freedom and opportunity, but is it still true: In God We Trust?
God bless you and your work, Christy.
Al Leo
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That is precisely the basis for Christian belief: God saw the potential in Humankind, and so he came to earth as one of us to show us how each of us could join in his creative effort. He is just the opposite of sadistic. He is True Love that He wants expressed in Creation. We are deceived when we believe that God keeps us from Paradise using an angel with a flaming sword. Just the reverse. He invites us to become better creatures and to join him.
Al Leo
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Hello Paul,
I wonder, how is it that the doctrine of original sin cannot work with the evolutionary model?
Imagine for a moment that evolution is true, why is the redemptive power of Christ then null and void?
If God chose to create everything and everyone through that slower process of evolution, rather then “whip us people up” in a day or two… why does one method of creation work , while the other does not? (work with the doctrine of original sin)
I just don’t understand the premise.