The doctrine of original sin does not work with the evolutionary model

Faith & Science Conversation
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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. :relaxed:

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. :hatched_chick: :hatching_chick: :baby_chick: And I’m sure some of our illustrious friends here probably have some quibbles with how I envision it all. :grimacing:

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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).

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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.

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Is evolution driven by violence?

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Thanks Al, Sorry I need a little clarification. Are you affirming eternal conscious torment for the nonbeliever, or rejecting it?

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Yup, that’s what Biologos is all about - sophisticates who have risen above the childlike thinking and trusting that the bible is the express and inerrant word of God. These sophisticates have seen the truth and it is evolution. Nothing else will satisfy.

I wonder, given that Adam and eve are mythical, what does Eve mean in the context of Adam waxing lyrically about his new companion[who by the way appeared out of his flesh within the same day he underwent surgery, no evolution required]? Also, just so by the way, how on earth did the sexes “evolve” to fit so perfectly together, both physically and functionally?
Did Cain really kill Abel or was that just another figment or parable to indicate how sinful human beings can be? What does one make of 1 John 3:12?

Such an innocent statement, raising such a lot of questions…

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How do YOU know that God chose to work thru that slower process?
The bible clearly indicates that He did not: Exodus 20:8-11 is definitely and expressly clear on that. EVERYTHING was created in 6 days. The context is clear about that too. The very same days that mankind was to do all his work is exactly the same days that God used to created everything. What is not clear about that? How do you twist these verses to conform to the premise of evolutionary self-growth?

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Oh, please, Christy don’t be so obtuse.
Whoever HAS the Son of God has eternal life. How do you GET the Son of God?

Perhaps a better question to ask is this - how do we get to be debating about how God created via an evolutionary process taking billions of years when it clearly is not part of the bible itself?
In fact, the bible expressly negates ANY notion of evolution by stating unequivocally that God created everything in 6 days in Exodus 20:8-11. The 6 days in which mankind is to do all his work is exactly the same as the 6 days in which God created everything. The context is crystal clear.

The only reason that we are having this argument in the first place is that people have swallowed the lie of the atheist as truth and now have to manipulate and injure the meaning of the biblical text to justify their belief in the “scientific truth”. Clearly if you take that human “science” about our origins as the gospel “truth” and use it as your standard for judging all else including the bible, then the bible becomes just another mis-directed source of human information which you now have to fix to bring it in line with your perceived “truth”.

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By grace through faith.

Says you. You know many of us reject this premise for reasons you could find all over the BioLogos website.

That’s not what is going on here.

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It is true that people twist the scriptures to harm and attack people all the time. This is not my intention. Also, my question for Paul was genuine and not meant as an attack.
I do happen to believe that evolution is true, because 99 percent of scientists today support it as fact based on the evidence nature provides. I believe scientists have logical fact driven minds, and so are not about to start making up falsehoods in order to disprove the Bible, or for any reason.
That said, I do not believe that being a Christian who believes God created via evolutionary process disqualifies me from the redemptive blood of Christ. Christ did not say you will be saved by my blood, AND if your interpretations of scripture are correct.

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My personal belief rejects eternal torment for the nonbeliever–IF by “nonbeliever” you mean someone who has NOT specifically accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Through the years I have become close friends with colleagues who are non-Christian and/or agnostic, and I have had no doubt that they are as beloved by God as any devout Christian I have known. I have previously posted the account of an incident where this Truth was demonstrated to three fellow scientists and myself. I called it ‘The Miracle of the Panel Truck’. If you cannot find it on this Forum, I can send it to you.

Furthermore, it is my (personal) belief that this concept of Jesus being the exclusive Way to heaven arose from one the most famous quotations from John’s gospel, 14:6; "I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me. But this very well be a misquote of what Jesus actually said, as reported in the earlier passage, John 6:44; “No one comes to Me except the Father draws them.” The two quotations lead to quite different conclusions, wouldn’t you say?

I accept the fact that Scripture, albeit providing valuable guidance, is still a product of a number of Jesus’ disciples who gathered together many years after his death, to recall and recored some of his most pertinent sayings. Even with the best of intentions and inspiration, some errors were likely to be included. And I believe this is one that has caused a great deal of mischief.
Al Leo

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Is evolution driven by violence?

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@aleo @Relates I’ve moved your discussion to the thread linked above.

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In thinking thru the story, it seems it begins with a talking snake. hmm suspicious it is.
a talking snake fooled Eve who had until then only talked with Adam and God. And the downhill slide cursed humanity for all time? I think it is just a story. And with so many people on the earth, Adam could not have been the father to Chinese, Australian Aborigines, american indians.
Can evolution fit original sin? definitely. Take the 10 commandments, start at the end and work down. Most of what is evil could come from instincts developed for evolutionary survival. The evil is in all of us, it is inherited, even instinctual. Adultery, murder, theft, deception are thoughout the animal kingdom. Winning wars often depends upon theft, murder and deception. One could develop this more, Evolution is a mother to what is called original sin. Adam and Eve with 7 days of creation, is a story with moral points, and documents God’s interest in humanity, but a lot of the unimportant details e.g. was it an apple or a peach? are not important parts of the message.

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I know this question is for Paul, but still I hope it’s ok for me to throw in my two cents here…
I believe that since Adam did sin, he indeed did have the disposition to sin. What other proof would we need? Keeping in mind humans also had the disposition not to fall into sin. It was a choice.
What is sin? Sometimes that word really bothers me, like a hang-up we all have. Sin = a selfish act without regard for others.
Did humans have the ability to be selfish and harm others intentionally? yes.
My thoughts are that the sin could only happen at the point and time when mankind became aware of the fact of his ability to choose, coupled with the knowledge that others would be hurt by his selfish action. For me, Adam and Eve are symbolic of the first human beings who became capable of understanding that a choice was available to them, but also with that there had developed a conscious, the understanding that one choice before them was selfish and harmful, (wrong) and the other loving and selfless, (right).
Really, who can have a conscience without understanding? All part of the gradual development of man.
Through their development and experience there was that “aha” moment, that was later passed down from generation to generation.
Who taught us about right and wrong? God.
When? When we were ready and able to learn it.
When I observe animals, I assume they are ruled by instinct, I see creatures who make selfish choices, but I cannot blame them because they have limited understanding. Like children.
Which brings me to the subject of souls. Only humans have human souls,
but I do not negate the possibility that animals may have souls as well.
Do children have souls? Yes, even though they lack understanding.
God revealed so much about Himself through His word in the Bible, however there is so much more to learn about what He has done, and is doing. There are countless things that we do not know about God, because everything about Him, all of His secrets are not contained in the Bible.

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Do you really think there was a point in history where two human beings became aware of their “ability to choose”? This is such a gradual process, imposing the biblical story of Adam and Eve on it is a losing battle (in my opinion). If this moment does exist, was every human suddenly in need of a savior and deserving of damnation?

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@freddymagnanimo

At some point … the pre-human hominids on the verge of achieving humanity … had to cross over the threshold of morality, right? Even if you don’t accept Evolution, you have to accept the logic of this position, yes?

I don’t think any human observer could offer rules for when each child achieves “Moral Agency” – so it is unlikely that someone in the hominid group ever suddenly becomes aware of what we call morality.

But God, the author of morality, obviously has his definition - - and it would be God who says: this is the line for that person… and he is the first person of all hominids to cross into Moral Agency.

This is a momentous event. And I can see the author of that story making a big deal of the first moral decision (which happened to be a bad one).

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I’d like to hear you answer the second part: was every human suddenly in need of a savior and deserving of damnation? If you answer “yes,” I can see how it would be a “momentous event,” peculiar and twisted, but also momentous.

Anywhere you draw the line in hominid history is arbitrary. Sure, you can say that God decided at one exact point some hominid crossed some line, but this would be the most infinitesimal move forward conceivable (this “move forward” would really be more of a curse - to be all of a sudden a wretched sinner in the eyes of God).

At this elusive point in history are the hominid’s moral faculties fully intact? I mean, most humans didn’t figure out slavery was wrong until relatively recently. Again this is such a gradual process, both before and after the supposed “first sin,” that I find it very forced and hard to believe.

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