From: REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Original sin or 'sin' ?
Date: 11 Nov 92 07:42:45 GMT
Organization: FNAL

In article <Nov.8.01.23.23.1992.8976@geneva.rutgers.edu>
ba2cs252@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Leonidas Hepis) writes:
Statement #1:
>Disobedience was not more evil to Adam and Eve than 
>obedience was.  I don't see how you could blame and punish a 
>baby for pressing the red instead of the green button when
>it is unable to tell the difference between the two and 
>unable to understand their results.
Statement: #2
>The Fall was too much of a punishment for doing the wrong 
>thing, when God himself made it so that A&E couldn't tell
>what the wrong thing was.
>
Well Leo, I think you're a product of humanistic thinking.  Adam was no cave
man with high brow and dumb looks.  He didn't evolve from a slug into a
semi-Self-conscious being.  Adam was highly intelligent and he didn't have a
fallen intellect. He named all the animals and he named them true to form.  He
walked in the cool of the evening with God and had conversations with Him!  I
agree with Joe's statement that it was disobedience, but I would make it a
little more forceful and say that it was an enlightened, willful disobedience. 
Adam knew perfectly well the effect he would cause (though not exhaustively) in
choosing to follow, to continue to commune with his wife, instead of his God. 
He knew that he was choosing the fellowship of one over the other.  A decision
was made.  You do an injustice 1) to Adam, and 2) to God to think that this was
a baby ignorantly choosing the wrong color button. 
 We sin from a fallen nature or propensity toward the fleshy comforts.  We
choose the immediate over the eternal.  Sin IS enjoyable, lets be honest here. 
However, it is only for a season, and as with the woman at the well, it in the
end leaves one still thirsty, never satisfied, always wanting more.  This is
our base of operation.  This, however, was NOT Adam & Eve's base.  They were
innocent, and I don't mean the dictionary term of naive, lacking
sophistication, guile or self-consciousness either.  Or what Eric Heller has
alludes to in the statement: "an insidious deficiency in the concept of what is
real."  
   Maybe we should discuss this concept of the circumference of reality in
light of this era of intellectual history vs the notion that reality is a state
of being that is independent of and does not derive itself from anything.  It
is effective existence and thus not dependent on our imagination or ideas.  It
is perceived in the act of cognition as an "opposite" outside of (or even
against) my consciousness.  Reality is also experienced in emotional-receptive
and emotional-prospective acts.  The former term describes reality acting upon
me, as I am exposed to external limitations, The later term describes
anticipated events which exert a limitation on my actions in the expectation of
a real situation to come.
    This concept of reality was ultimately based on the idea that the Bible is
God's prepositional revelation.  The image of God in Man (Gen 1:26) was
understood to refer to the essential relationship between God and man (among
other things), whereby a continuity of categories existed from the character of
the infinite-personal God to the finite-personal man.  Attributes of God,
revealed in the Scripture, are then not only true to man, but also true to God
and true to the impersonal creation.  They do not have an existence limited to
man's perception but describe the actual form of what is there.
   Gen 1:26 and its context give us the framework for understanding that all of
life was to be lived and enjoyed before a knowable God who had revealed himself
so that man would have outside information that was not dependent upon his
subjective consciousness.  Within the Trinity we see diversity of members with
a reality of  the unified personal.  Real communication did exist between
members of the Trinity forever (Jn 17:24).  God did not have to create in order
to become personal in communication.  And man, being personal, is not a misfit
in an otherwise impersonal universe.
   So..... we are not confined to the absurdity created by the acknowledgment
that man's value necessarily depends on being able to ask questions in a
universe where no absolute answer can be given.  Rather, like Adam, as men, we
can ask questions and look forward to answers which can truly understand.  Even
after the Fall, we can realize that on the level of personality there is
someone who can hear and respond to our complaints.  Man does not have to be
only a scream in a silent universe.  Personality is not only real to us;  we
can also know that the personal God of the Bible has always existed.  There is
content to the imago dei in man!
   Also, the framework set in Gen 1-3 gave the basis for the direct
relationship of both man's prayers to God and God's relationship to man.  God's
knowledge of reality and man's knowledge of reality could have much in common,
since man himself bore the imago dei.  As I've, said, you've done a grave
injustice to Adam and to God.  
   God, being the Creator, has made an objective reality which He, being
infinite, knows objectively.  This He communicates to man who, being finite,
would otherwise have no way to be certain of perceiving anything outside of
himself and his subjective consciousness, hence may statement that you are
operating from a humanistic base.
   It most assuredly was preincarnate Christ that was taking those strolls in
the evening with Adam, and it is through the incarnation that we have most
completely demonstrated that He is both "ratio" and "oratio," that is, both the
*mind* of God in his objective understanding of all reality and the
*communication* of this truth.  
   God has made an objective universe and personal beings who can perceive this
universe truly.  The Bible allows the individual not only to live with his
perceptions but to measure these with the Word of God and the reality in which
all individuals have to live.  This is the basis for a profound enjoyment of
reality!  The dilemma of the objective-subjective relationship can thus be
resolved for the Christian.
   God judges according to the revelation given.  Without a doubt, to remain
consistent to the Biblical concept of Logos, the preincarnate Christ most
assuredly  and adequately defined the parameter in which Adam was not to step
out of.  In Jude we read of the angels that left their proper abode.  Did they
too act in ignorance and hence God has acted too harshly or has come to
judgment too quickly?  May it never be.  I would first see all the freedom and
dignity of man fall by the wayside before you lower the majesty of God.


To say nothing of its holiness or authority, the Bible contains more specimens
of genius and taste than any other volume in existence. (Walter S. Landor)

Rex