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

Faith & Science Conversation
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[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

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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).