[quote=“tom, post:3, topic:4439, full:true”]
Thank you for this Post – one I believe is at the heart of our faith and existence.
The creation story in Genesis 2-3 that includes an account of a human fall in the Garden of Eden doesn’t say anything about original sin.
With respect, I disagree completely. To me, Genesis 3:5 clearly spells out the nature of our original sin… “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God".
This is the first sin in scripture making it the Original Sin. And rather than being about a simple act of disobedience, it illustrates the very worst of all sins – the desire to be god-like, to have ‘our will be done’, etc. A quick scan of human culture shows that this sin is pandemic and has countless forms. One could argue that every form of sin is merely a variant of one kind or another of this Original Sin.[/quote]
May I haste to point out, nothing is said about “desire to be God-like” being sinful. In fact we are often told to “Be ye Holy, for I am Holy.” We are encouraged throughout two covenants to attempt to be more like God. For that reason, I do not see emulating God to be sinful. Nor do I see wanting to be “more God-like” to be a disappointment in God’s eyes.
Truth of the matter is a little more subtle, in that Genesis does not camp on the grounds of first sin. Paul says more about it in his letter to Timothy.
My personal observation is that Adam had already known the bachelor-lifestyle, and did NOT want to return thereunto. He understood God’s instruction to him, because he evidently passed it on to Eve. I say this because when Eve quoted the injunction to Satan, she added a phrase that did not come from God’s injunction to Adam.
So Adam saw Eve approach him with a fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in her hand, and heard her words of offer, “Take and eat,” and his first response would be one of horror, in that he was very cognizant of God’s command to not eat thereof; Adam would remember his loneliness, which did not become evident to him until after God brought Eve into his life.
God’s company would have sufficed but only until Adam “knew Eve” as God had told him to. Adam did NOT want to give that up, so he joined Eve in her sin, possibly as an attempt at protecting her from her own folly, possibly simply not wanting to let her go alone into this
“Death” thing God had suggested. Having no experience about such things, he could only speculate, but he knew it did not sound like something good.
Anyway, whatever prompted Adam, he did not sin first; Eve did. So the doctrine of “original sin” is a mismatch from its inception. It says the man sinned first, due to forgetting that “Adam” was a name given to both Adam and Eve; “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”(Gen 5:1-2)
And Paul reminds us of this schema as he relates to us - " And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."(I Tim 2:14) So that when reference is made to "sin entered by one Man Adam, it included Eve from Gen 5:2. That eliminates the oft quoted “contradiction” made by doubters as to the veracity of scripture.
[quote=“tom, post:3, topic:4439, full:true”]
And this is consistent with evolution if it marks the point in which an animal species evolved past mere survival to the ability to grasp the concept of a Creator. But it is we humans who have chosen to go the next step bringing sin into an otherwise perfect creation.[/quote]
Respectfully disagree, for the following reasons. There is nothing in Genesis, nor in the Historicity of Man to suggest the Genesis account is false. I realize there is a non-scriptural scientific account offered in understanding Man’s beginnings, but it is not offered in rebuttal to scripture, only as an alternative understanding.
Nothing in the record rebuts Genesis account. It only differs. I consider the sources.
As for the assessment that the creation was “perfect,” again I disagree. According to the Genesis account, "God looked on everything he had made and saw that it was “very good.”
“Very Good” does not mean “Perfect.” “Perfect” is a reference in scripture to “completeness.” And it was just started, not completed. We are told Christ was “Perfected” at his demise. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; 9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;”(Hebrews 5:8-9)