If we fell, what did we fall from, and if we are restored, what are we restored to.
I am using logic and rhetoric, what ate you using.
You have never been able to justify the interpretation in terms of reality and consequence. I am not even convinced you fully understand the ramifications of your belief.
Faith has to be more than cerebral, or obedience, or acceptance.
An ability to hold simultaneously two ‘realms’ in thinking, without mixing them too much, is a challenge every Christian scientist needs to deal with. If we step outside the field that can be studied with scientific methods, we step from natural sciences to belief-based thinking. Belief-based (faith-based) thinking is fine but it is not within the methodological scope of science and we should not mix it in scientific models, unless we can make predictions that can be studied with scientific methods.
For example, teleology could be a scientific hypothesis (suggestion) but not more than that, until there are supporting data for that hypothesis.
Also the hypothesis of Adam & Eve being historical humans that lived x years ago could be a scientific hypothesis but again, would remain just as a suggestion (hypothesis) until there are supporting data for that hypothesis. In addition, the suggestion would need to be more specific because ‘A&E were real historical characters’ is an umbrella category including differing beliefs that may be contradictory.
Philosophically oriented persons may complain about the limits of scientific claims but mere complaints will not help. It is logical that natural sciences stay within their turf. Philosophical models do not have the same limits but philosophy is not science.
Although I agree that humans have a tendency to be selfish and rebel against the will of God, I do not believe that we can blame A&E from it. Even the ‘privation’ version of the Fall is not convincing.
A&E may have been two persons who once lived but not the real culprits of the story. I think that it is more credible that we have inherited our tendency for selfish behaviour through the genes and upbringing - a consequence of a looong history under evolutionary selection pressures.
From this viewpoint, A&E can be seen as representative symbols of humanity. How they acted is how we humans tend to react.
This viewpoint leads to the conclusion (based on observation and what the scriptures tell) that we cannot save ourselves. We can try but our ‘flesh’ keeps us doing what A&E did - acting against the will and commands of God. We need the forgiving grace of God, given through what Jesus Christ did. Only the Holy Spirit can change our hearts so that we keep doing what is good in the eyes of God.
That is a subjective feeling. I do not know why you feel so but generally, such a feeling might be based on a false dichotomy in thinking - either this or that when both could be involved.
Morality or traces of it is something that we can see in every social animal. That kind of morality is always context-dependent, not objective. I do not know any way to define what is objective morality without including God or some other Creator into the definition.
A demand for justice could be explained as a feature that evolves through an evolutionary process. I do not say that it happened so but it is one logical alternative. Explaining how and why would take more words I am willing to use here.
Beauty is a subjective evaluation that has been studied. There are logical explanations on how humans could have developed a sense of beauty through an ordinary evolutionary process.
Truth is a word that has differing definitions. Some definitions are such that evolutionary processes could easily explain why some consider such ‘truths’ valuable - truths or ‘alternative truths’. The most ‘objective’ definitions of truth are more problematic. We might ask ‘who cares’. If we care, we might still ask ‘relative to what?’. That may lead to questions about the nature of reality or the existence of God because we would need to define the ‘objective’ truth relative to these concepts. Especially because all the observers (except God) have a limited and subjective viewpoint to what happened and our current understanding about the reality is still work in progress.
