Theologic Musings: What about original sin?

[St.Roymond]

@marvin

the fall is a poetic description of puberty

That’s a shallow and very modern reading.

@Vinnie

he thinks there are so many conceptual metaphors for human problems sin (with its corresponding forgiveness) isn’t actually a good umbrella term for them all

I like C. S. Lewis’ use of “bent”.

@Vinnie

So also “sin” has a correlative image in the Bible and in the Christian imagination—“forgiveness.” Thus, when sin is named as the issue, the logic of the image suggests that the solution is forgiveness. When sin becomes the one-size-fits-all designator of the human condition, then forgiveness becomes the one-size-fits-all remedy. And this is the problem. If the issue is blindness, what we need is not forgiveness, but sight. If the issue is bondage, what we need is not forgiveness, but liberation, and so forth

Excellent point! If forgiveness is the whole deal, it’s a rather narrow deal.

@Vinnie

But my MacBook went down

To Egpyt?

@Christy

We (Christians of English speaking heritage) have not been very good at reading the figurative language of Scripture and avoiding our cumpulsion to turn every verse into a prooftext for some element of a systematic theology.

I think the legal view of things in the Roman west and then the legal views of the Reformation (Calvin especially) lead us to want things codified rather than illustrated.

[St.Roymond]

@Terry_Sampson

The challenge would seem to be to avoid over-defining sin while maintaining some basic clarity.

I’m not sure it’s possible to “over-define” sin. From the OT, sin isn’t just moral failure, it includes all sorts of aspects of being mortal that we have no control over.
Which is why one of my favorite illustrations of the Gospel comes form the movie Meatballs – the whole “It just doesn’t matter” scene: yes, sin is pervasive, we fail continually, but it just doesn’t matter! It’s been taken care of! It’s been covered, atoned for, healed, wiped out, forgiven! As Staupitz tried to get through to Luther, all the time spent enumerating, indeed even figuring out, all our sins is time spent with our eyes off the Savior; the sin just doesn’t matter, but He does.

[St.Roymond]

@Mervin_Bitikofer

Glorying in agreed-upon (or not!) “definitions” is one of the main currencies of debate as it has come to be practiced and celebrated in the west at least since the Reformation.

I’d say we got the example wrong from the Fathers and their definitions of things. When examined closely, it’s evident that they put forward definition only to clarify and to correct error (primarily Christological error), while later theologians built up systematics and ventured into treating the definitions as valuable for their own sake (I was once told I’d never be a good systematician, and I took it as a compliment).

@Mervin_Bitikofer

more “who” centered

Yes – patristic definitions were set forth to keep it clear Who was being talked about, not to cover ever last idea. They were concerned with

@Mervin_Bitikofer

with whom do I (we) associate now and going forward?