Eutychus: What aspect of humankind's universal sinful nature requires us all to be direct biological descendants of Adam?
Why don't we need a similar direct "descendancy" from Christ. When Paul says Christ is the "firstborn of many brethren" does that mean he must be him literally so?
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
The second point you raise is pretty well covered by Paul in Romans and in Hebrews.
looking at Habbukuk.
"The just shall live by his faith"
Space precludes laying it all out but you know it all as well as I do.
Abraham is the father of 'faith' and Paul argues that similarly we 'by faith' can be declared inheritors of Jewish spiritual blessings. Jesus himself must have anticipated this when he declared that God is able to make sons of Abraham.. "from these stones."
Basically a projection of negative spiritual power on another person usually via words but also via directive prayers. Proverbs states that a curse without a cause will not alight. It is essentially in new age terms, sending out bad words and thoughts towards someone that the demonic world can use to get inroads into a life. In church communities, gossiping creates curses quite often. Getting rid of them is part of our warfare in prayer. I appreciate that this is probably very medieval to you but it is real whether you know it or not. Essentially, it is witchcraft.
Because I believe in not putting unneccessary stumbling blocks in people's way.
Your constant refrain on the Ship is that there's a bit of truth on every side of an argument. True interest in establishing a consensus means not emphasising differences where they are unimportant.
Is the non-literal existence of Adam something you'd want to die on a hill over? Crucial to orthodoxy? No? Then why bother insisting on it?
It's not necessary to affirm a literal Adam didn't exist to hold that the role and importance of Adam in the Bible is a representative one, and that's the nub of my discussion with @MPaul just now*.
Eutychus: What aspect of humankind's universal sinful nature requires us all to be direct biological descendants of Adam?
Why don't we need a similar direct "descendancy" from Christ. When Paul says Christ is the "firstborn of many brethren" does that mean he must be him literally so?
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
My whole point here is that even if God created a literal physical Adam and a literal and physical Adam fell, resulting in the universal guilt of humanity, that notion does not in and of itself require us all to be directly biologically descended from Adam.
All it calls for is God to have taken Adam as a representative individual - in very much the same way as he takes Christ as a representative individual.
Indeed to my mind, all considerations of the literal existence of Adam and Eve and how long ago they might have lived aside, this way of reading things makes a lot more sense of Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15 to me than one in which sin is passed on through a biological link.
This idea is by no means without precedent: it's usually referred to as federal headship. Do you find anything in this theory to take issue with? (NB - again - it makes no judgement as to the literal existence of Adam, or the age of the earth†).
That's a good question, worth a thread of its own, perhaps. But before you simply dispense with curses as a thing of our primitive past, ask yourself whether you'd happily put yourself in Rebekah's shoes and say "my son, let the curse fall on me" without a qualm (Gen 27:13; it just so happens I was preaching on that chapter last Sunday).
===
*I'm still interested to know why he seems to think the Bible requires belief in a young earth, though.
†I'm still interested to know why you seem to think the Bible requires belief in a young earth.
Is that not the point though? His humanity can only be established if he was actually created imagio dei and fell from grace. I agree it is a powerful metaphor but how can one establish ancestry without history?
We did, all by ourselves. Babies don’t sin.
We also have our animal nature (our ancestors) to cope with and sometimes overcome. Of course, much of it is essential to survival, but the ‘chimp’ in us comes to the fore all too often then empathy and human kindness disappears.
Paul’s other metaphor isn’t about falling from grace, it’s about failure to reach the goal - to be humans, not animals - and the point that we can’t do that in our own strength.
Unless one thinks humans were specially created outwith of anything else, I can't compute how you can believe that Adam and Eve were real, historical people.
It doesn't seem like something you can sit on the fence about.
Unless one thinks humans were specially created outwith of anything else, I can't compute how you can believe that Adam and Eve were real, historical people.
It doesn't seem like something you can sit on the fence about.
Eutychus: What aspect of humankind's universal sinful nature requires us all to be direct biological descendants of Adam?
Why don't we need a similar direct "descendancy" from Christ. When Paul says Christ is the "firstborn of many brethren" does that mean he must be him literally so?
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
Because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God?
Basically a projection of negative spiritual power on another person usually via words but also via directive prayers. Proverbs states that a curse without a cause will not alight. It is essentially in new age terms, sending out bad words and thoughts towards someone that the demonic world can use to get inroads into a life. In church communities, gossiping creates curses quite often. Getting rid of them is part of our warfare in prayer. I appreciate that this is probably very medieval to you but it is real whether you know it or not. Essentially, it is witchcraft.
Without gossip we couldn't be human, wouldn't have evolved to be the exceptionally eusocial species that we are. Witchcraft, shamanism is much older than medieval in our evolution, going back to the at least two hundred thousand year dawn of humanity. Like gossip, it's ultimately genetically based by natural individual and group selection as it is cross-cultural in space and time.
Unless one thinks humans were specially created outwith of anything else, I can't compute how you can believe that Adam and Eve were real, historical people.
It doesn't seem like something you can sit on the fence about.
Who is sitting on the fence about it?
Well Euty seems to be arguing that we should be sitting on the fence about it.
Eutychus: What aspect of humankind's universal sinful nature requires us all to be direct biological descendants of Adam?
Why don't we need a similar direct "descendancy" from Christ. When Paul says Christ is the "firstborn of many brethren" does that mean he must be him literally so?
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
Because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God?
I’m typing but nobody is listening 🙄
But that's not really an answer.
The question is about what distinguishes us from animals with reference to sin. Saying that "we are all sinners" is not an answer if the question is about how we managed to end up being sinners.
That's why the Original Sin and Fall idea has so much power - it gives a locus for the origin of sinful human nature.
Eutychus: What aspect of humankind's universal sinful nature requires us all to be direct biological descendants of Adam?
Why don't we need a similar direct "descendancy" from Christ. When Paul says Christ is the "firstborn of many brethren" does that mean he must be him literally so?
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
Because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God?
I’m typing but nobody is listening 🙄
But that's not really an answer.
The question is about what distinguishes us from animals with reference to sin. Saying that "we are all sinners" is not an answer if the question is about how we managed to end up being sinners.
That's why the Original Sin and Fall idea has so much power - it gives a locus for the origin of sinful human nature.
I deleted my post, sorry. I was making the petulant point that I’d already said ‘We all sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ and @Mr Clingford just passed by it.
Deleted too late.
Th animal distinction is an answer. We evolved from apes. If we revert to ape-like behaviour we become sinners imo. The chimp is essential but not always useful to us, we need to differentiate when we are being necessarily self preserving and when we are being selfish.
Eutychus: What aspect of humankind's universal sinful nature requires us all to be direct biological descendants of Adam?
Why don't we need a similar direct "descendancy" from Christ. When Paul says Christ is the "firstborn of many brethren" does that mean he must be him literally so?
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
Because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God?
I’m typing but nobody is listening 🙄
But that's not really an answer.
The question is about what distinguishes us from animals with reference to sin. Saying that "we are all sinners" is not an answer if the question is about how we managed to end up being sinners.
That's why the Original Sin and Fall idea has so much power - it gives a locus for the origin of sinful human nature.
I deleted my post, sorry. I was making the petulant point that I’d already said ‘We all sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ and @Mr Clingford just passed by it.
Deleted too late.
Th animal distinction is an answer. We evolved from apes. If we revert to ape-like behaviour we become sinners imo. The chimp is essential but not always useful to us, we need to differentiate when we are being necessarily self preserving and when we are being selfish.
Ok, but nobody says a chimp is exhibiting sinful behaviour when they act like a chimp, are they?
I say this because in my mind there must be some link between the ability to sin and both self-awareness and the capability of abstract thought. The picture I have is of a more gradual dawning of this kind of self-awareness.
There is although something to be made of the Orthodox understanding that Adam was a child, made in the image of God, with the potential to grow into the likeness of God, but also the potential to sin. He has free will. He can choose. Kallistos Ware argues that this understanding is not incompatible with evolution.
I'm not quite sure where these findings and ideas leave the notion of a literal first man (a kind of homo sapiens patient zero). It seems unlikely to me.
Eutychus: What aspect of humankind's universal sinful nature requires us all to be direct biological descendants of Adam?
Why don't we need a similar direct "descendancy" from Christ. When Paul says Christ is the "firstborn of many brethren" does that mean he must be him literally so?
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
Because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God?
I’m typing but nobody is listening 🙄
But that's not really an answer.
The question is about what distinguishes us from animals with reference to sin. Saying that "we are all sinners" is not an answer if the question is about how we managed to end up being sinners.
That's why the Original Sin and Fall idea has so much power - it gives a locus for the origin of sinful human nature.
I deleted my post, sorry. I was making the petulant point that I’d already said ‘We all sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ and @Mr Clingford just passed by it.
Deleted too late.
Th animal distinction is an answer. We evolved from apes. If we revert to ape-like behaviour we become sinners imo. The chimp is essential but not always useful to us, we need to differentiate when we are being necessarily self preserving and when we are being selfish.
Ok, but nobody says a chimp is exhibiting sinful behaviour when they act like a chimp, are they?
No animal does. But they have no sense of right and wrong, good and evil.
Well this idea of sin being somehow giving in to an animal side is a bit like Plato - who believed human nature was divided into different parts - reason, spirit and appetite.
Anyway, maybe that doesn't really matter just now.
Is that not the point though? His humanity can only be established if he was actually created imagio dei and fell from grace. I agree it is a powerful metaphor but how can one establish ancestry without history?
We did, all by ourselves. Babies don’t sin.
Paul’s other metaphor isn’t about falling from grace, it’s about failure to reach the goal - to be humans, not animals - and the point that we can’t do that in our own strength.
Well, unsurprisingly, the animal ancestors, if real, would be the end of faith for me, the ultimate show stopper. As a grand dad these days, Sin is kind of obvious in the rebellious natures of even quite small kids but it is not about their actions but their nature. You are bang on in your last point. We need more than power to change though, we need to be transformed.
Is that not the point though? His humanity can only be established if he was actually created imagio dei and fell from grace. I agree it is a powerful metaphor but how can one establish ancestry without history?
We did, all by ourselves. Babies don’t sin.
Paul’s other metaphor isn’t about falling from grace, it’s about failure to reach the goal - to be humans, not animals - and the point that we can’t do that in our own strength.
Well, unsurprisingly, the animal ancestors, if real, would be the end of faith for me, the ultimate show stopper.
You need to have a good look at the evidence for animal ancestors. I had a period of believing like you do. Then I met a biologist who showed me the evidence.
I still have faith in God. S/he’s bigger than my changing beliefs
Well, unsurprisingly, the animal ancestors, if real, would be the end of faith for me, the ultimate show stopper.
Wow, I've just got to jump in here. If your faith depends on belief in creation / young earth etc ISTM that you are of all 'men' most miserable. I'm sure others will want to respond to you.
Unless I misunderstand you, of course.
I think it is more helpful to look at the thought processes and the axioms which produce what seems to be a self-painting into a corner. When every cell of every living organism contains DNA it is pretty difficult to argue for a special and separate act of creation to explain homo sapiens.
Unless one thinks humans were specially created outwith of anything else, I can't compute how you can believe that Adam and Eve were real, historical people.
It doesn't seem like something you can sit on the fence about.
Who is sitting on the fence about it?
Well Euty seems to be arguing that we should be sitting on the fence about it.
Is that your answer to my question to you? It was a serious one.
Unless one thinks humans were specially created outwith of anything else, I can't compute how you can believe that Adam and Eve were real, historical people.
It doesn't seem like something you can sit on the fence about.
Who is sitting on the fence about it?
Well Euty seems to be arguing that we should be sitting on the fence about it.
Is that your answer to my question to you? It was a serious one.
It wasn't a question addressed to me.
But generally I think people should be able to believe whatever nonsense they want. It isn't up to me to regulate church standards and beliefs - and I think I'd rather be in a place where weird and wonderful beliefs were tolerated rather than attempting to stamp them out.
On the other hand, the one thing that is hard to tolerate is someone with a daft, minority view attempting to insist that everyone should join them in it.
Also, as I've argued many times before, science and faith are different "languages" which cannot really communicate.
The only response one can have to someone who repeats endlessly that something is correct because "God said so" is to say "no he didn't".
One can provide all kinds of rational arguments and scientific evidence why the belief is nonsense, but ultimately the basis is fundamentally irrational. So it has no impact.
It just comes down to the circular "I believe it because I believe it" point that MPaul has got to above.
Sorry, it was directly addressed to you, it's just that it doesn't appear that way due to Boogie's cross-post (as I now see).
This isn't about other people believing nonsense. It's perhaps similar to your "things that divide" issue (I haven't been following that thread).
The question is whether you make an affirmative belief in the non-existence of Adam, a young earth, etc. into an article of orthodoxy or not. You might think such beliefs are beyond the pale because they are so eccentric or indeed because they are unsupported by the science - but then @SusanDoris thinks God is unsupported by the science, so... .
I'm all for respectfully picking apart flawed creationist arguments, but that is not quite the same thing as insisting their proponents jettison any and every aspect of their beliefs even when one's preferred theory doesn't require them to do so. In this respect I think a lot of anti-YECers can be as hidebound as the YECers can be.
Does your theological orthodoxy require you not to believe in a literal Adam?
But generally I think people should be able to believe whatever nonsense they want. It isn't up to me to regulate church standards and beliefs - and I think I'd rather be in a place where weird and wonderful beliefs were tolerated rather than attempting to stamp them out.
But isn't that what @Eutychus is saying—that whether or not Adam and Eve were real people is irrelevant to the meaning of Genesis, and so it shouldn't matter whether people believe they were real or not? That it's not something to insist on either way?
Does your theological orthodoxy require you not to believe in a literal Adam?
Living in this world and using modern medicine do!
YEC is incompatible with so much of life I can’t imagine believing it, without rejecting too much of what life now consists of - either that or living with a crazy cognitive dissonance.
But generally I think people should be able to believe whatever nonsense they want. It isn't up to me to regulate church standards and beliefs - and I think I'd rather be in a place where weird and wonderful beliefs were tolerated rather than attempting to stamp them out.
But isn't that what @Eutychus is saying—that whether or not Adam and Eve were real people is irrelevant to the meaning of Genesis, and so it shouldn't matter whether people believe they were real or not? That it's not something to insist on either way?
But I'm not insisting. MPaul can believe whatever he wants. I'm simply saying that I can't see any way that it can have happened like that and no good reason why the faith can only be believed if it did happen like that. As far as I can tell, it is a nonsense position.
It isn't something I'd die on a hill for or fight a stupid war over a pointless church in Bethlehem about.
I'm not arguing for a fence-sitting position, if that's how Eutychus has understood me.
Like Boogie, I thought it was Eutychus was was arguing for a half-way house position, but I may have misunderstood him.
I certainly 'get' his contention that anti-YECers can be just as hide-bound at YEC-ers.
FWIW, no, I don't believe that we have to have a literal Adam and Eve to ensure that 'as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall be made alive.'
But then, neither would I make it a mark of orthodox belief that people shouldn't believe that we do need them to be literal rather than 'representative.'
Sorry, it was directly addressed to you, it's just that it doesn't appear that way due to Boogie's cross-post (as I now see).
I'm all for respectfully picking apart flawed creationist arguments, but that is not quite the same thing as insisting their proponents jettison any and every aspect of their beliefs even when one's preferred theory doesn't require them to do so. In this respect I think a lot of anti-YECers can be as hidebound as the YECers can be.
I think that's a load of humbug.
We all believe irrational things. The incarnation itself makes no sense - what does it mean?
YEC is no better or worse than any other belief that sets itself up against science.
But it isn't the same as saying those who want to assert that YEC is true and geology is false because the Bible says so are as hidebound as the scientist.
I don't think Adam and Eve can have been historical figures because it doesn't match with the available science. But it is, ultimately, a faith position that is not capable of being interrogated by science - much like the belief in fairies, aliens or miracles. If one wants to believe a human can walk on water, then of course it is possible to believe that all humanity originated from two named individuals. If you want to believe that, ok fine - but it isn't the only way to read and understand the faith in the light of science.
Does your theological orthodoxy require you not to believe in a literal Adam?
I don't think this is about theological orthodoxy.
No, but it is down to you what you believe - and to explain what you believe (if you want to discuss it).
I have problems with that because my beliefs are my own and belong to no orthodoxy. I believe in God and try to make sense of him/her. Reading what others think helps, but I cant make myself believe something that doesn’t ring true to me, whether you said it or Paul or Jesus.
Does your theological orthodoxy require you not to believe in a literal Adam?
Living in this world and using modern medicine do!
Your personal standards of cognitive dissonance (and I think we all live with a certain degree of that if we're honest) are not the same thing as theological orthodoxy, which I think is the centre of the topic at hand here.
@mr cheesy all of us are entitled privately to think that other people's views are nonsense and indeed to say so here if we can provide reasons why. But personally I don't think it encourages dialogue to rubbish people's views without supporting arguments - and it certainly doesn't encourage dialogue to rubbish those aspects of people's views that actually aren't a cornerstone of our own orthodoxy or argument.
I think the existence of a literal Adam is a red herring - for both sides of this discussion.
You can argue why you think a literal Adam is nonsense, but you don't need to make a suggestion that is visibly so unpalatable to @mpaul to challenge his thesis that the doctrine of the universal sinfulness of humankind requires a direct-line biological descent from any such Adam. So why bother?
Like Boogie, I thought it was Eutychus was was arguing for a half-way house position, but I may have misunderstood him.
I'm not arguing for a "halfway house" position. I'm trying not to antagonise @MPaul beyond what is strictly necessary to my position. Challenging the idea of a literal Adam is not essential to challenging the idea that we are all descended from him and/or that he embodies humankind's sinfulness just as Christ embodies our freedom from sin.
Similarly, I don't really care how old the earth is. An old earth is not central to orthodoxy in my view. I do care if people turn a young earth into an article of orthodoxy. Which is why I want to know why @MPaul thinks the Bible teaches, specifically, a young earth.
The age of the earth is a different thing. That's not really a faith position, just a flat-out rejection of all the available science and an effort to replace it with woo.
You can argue why you think a literal Adam is nonsense, but you don't need to make a suggestion that is visibly so unpalatable to @mpaul to challenge his thesis that the doctrine of the universal sinfulness of humankind requires a direct-line biological descent from any such Adam. So why bother?
Because it causes people of reason to reject the message entirely. “If they believe this young earth, literal Adam nonsense how can any of it be true?”
What other supporting argument do you need - the science says no
In the context of a Dead Horses thread discussing this topic, that's about as convincing as "the Bible says so". One is not entitled simply to say "that's crap". One can either set out the arguments (for the nth time) or watch others do it.
The age of the earth is a different thing. That's not really a faith position, just a flat-out rejection of all the available science and an effort to replace it with woo.
I'm sure @MPaul sees it as a faith position and I suspect a fair chunk of Muslims would too. We don't get to dictate what others see as a "faith position".
I'm not sure you've really understood what I'm saying here - @Nick Tamen does, though. Is your non-belief in special creation an article of faith for you, or not?
Because it causes people of reason to reject the message entirely. “If they believe this young earth, literal Adam nonsense how can any of it be true?”
Believing in a young earth is not the same thing as belief in a literal Adam. And if you are going to dismiss this belief, you have to argue your case, just as those of us who believe in God have to argue our case with the likes of @SusanDoris.
To me the main problem with @MPaul's position is not that he claims to argue from the Bible, but that he assumes the Bible says things that it doesn't actually say and was never designed to say.
Hence my repeated question to him about just what in the Bible leads him to believe in a young earth.
Because it causes people of reason to reject the message entirely. “If they believe this young earth, literal Adam nonsense how can any of it be true?”
Believing in a young earth is not the same thing as belief in a literal Adam.
Well it is, really isn't it. A literal Adam implies special creation, the fall and all the other stuff MPaul says are important.
So how exactly can you square a literal Adam - the father of all mankind - together with an old earth and evolution?
And that's the problem here - people talk about a "literal Adam" without actually saying what it is that they do or don't believe in.
Other than MPaul, who has at least the virtue of being clear in what he is saying and talking about it as if it matters rather than throwing his arms up and saying "Adam? pah, who cares anyway?"
Clearly some do, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation.
How does keep badgering me contribute here. I have said what I think, if you'd bothered to read it then you wouldn't need to keep asking it again.
For this and content of your preceding posts, here's due notice that your Hell call is under consideration*.
I asked you whether you believed in non-special creation as an article of orthodoxy. If you don't, I see no reason to diss special creation gratuitously here. That risks creating animosity where there is no need to.
I haven't said "Adam? Who cares anyway?". I've said that belief in a literal Adam is tangential to a belief in universal sin and not required by the phrase "as in Adam, all die, so in Christ are all are made alive". At least one other person on this thread acknowledges this distinction. If you don't think it's important, you could simply hold your peace.
==
*subject amongst other things to a rush job I may be getting in later this evening.
Right, if you want me to "hold my peace", how about stop asking me questions?
Almost everyone on this thread sees that there is an issue with belief in a "literal Adam", depending on exactly what you mean by that. It isn't tangential for many.
And here is your notice - if you start a hell thread I will not only not contribute, I will not even read it.
Comments
OK, so lets look at it another way. If no literal physical Adam and Eve were created by God and fell, then how can one argue any universal guilt for humanity, as Paul does, that needed propitiation?
The second point you raise is pretty well covered by Paul in Romans and in Hebrews.
looking at Habbukuk.
"The just shall live by his faith"
Space precludes laying it all out but you know it all as well as I do.
Abraham is the father of 'faith' and Paul argues that similarly we 'by faith' can be declared inheritors of Jewish spiritual blessings. Jesus himself must have anticipated this when he declared that God is able to make sons of Abraham.. "from these stones."
Because I believe in not putting unneccessary stumbling blocks in people's way.
Your constant refrain on the Ship is that there's a bit of truth on every side of an argument. True interest in establishing a consensus means not emphasising differences where they are unimportant.
Is the non-literal existence of Adam something you'd want to die on a hill over? Crucial to orthodoxy? No? Then why bother insisting on it?
It's not necessary to affirm a literal Adam didn't exist to hold that the role and importance of Adam in the Bible is a representative one, and that's the nub of my discussion with @MPaul just now*.
My whole point here is that even if God created a literal physical Adam and a literal and physical Adam fell, resulting in the universal guilt of humanity, that notion does not in and of itself require us all to be directly biologically descended from Adam.
All it calls for is God to have taken Adam as a representative individual - in very much the same way as he takes Christ as a representative individual.
Indeed to my mind, all considerations of the literal existence of Adam and Eve and how long ago they might have lived aside, this way of reading things makes a lot more sense of Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15 to me than one in which sin is passed on through a biological link.
This idea is by no means without precedent: it's usually referred to as federal headship. Do you find anything in this theory to take issue with? (NB - again - it makes no judgement as to the literal existence of Adam, or the age of the earth†).
That's a good question, worth a thread of its own, perhaps. But before you simply dispense with curses as a thing of our primitive past, ask yourself whether you'd happily put yourself in Rebekah's shoes and say "my son, let the curse fall on me" without a qualm (Gen 27:13; it just so happens I was preaching on that chapter last Sunday).
===
*I'm still interested to know why he seems to think the Bible requires belief in a young earth, though.
†I'm still interested to know why you seem to think the Bible requires belief in a young earth.
We did, all by ourselves. Babies don’t sin.
We also have our animal nature (our ancestors) to cope with and sometimes overcome. Of course, much of it is essential to survival, but the ‘chimp’ in us comes to the fore all too often then empathy and human kindness disappears.
Paul’s other metaphor isn’t about falling from grace, it’s about failure to reach the goal - to be humans, not animals - and the point that we can’t do that in our own strength.
It doesn't seem like something you can sit on the fence about.
Who is sitting on the fence about it?
Without gossip we couldn't be human, wouldn't have evolved to be the exceptionally eusocial species that we are. Witchcraft, shamanism is much older than medieval in our evolution, going back to the at least two hundred thousand year dawn of humanity. Like gossip, it's ultimately genetically based by natural individual and group selection as it is cross-cultural in space and time.
Well Euty seems to be arguing that we should be sitting on the fence about it.
So if you're using MPaul's definition above, you are saying God is a witch.
But that's not really an answer.
The question is about what distinguishes us from animals with reference to sin. Saying that "we are all sinners" is not an answer if the question is about how we managed to end up being sinners.
That's why the Original Sin and Fall idea has so much power - it gives a locus for the origin of sinful human nature.
I deleted my post, sorry. I was making the petulant point that I’d already said ‘We all sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ and @Mr Clingford just passed by it.
Deleted too late.
Th animal distinction is an answer. We evolved from apes. If we revert to ape-like behaviour we become sinners imo. The chimp is essential but not always useful to us, we need to differentiate when we are being necessarily self preserving and when we are being selfish.
Ok, but nobody says a chimp is exhibiting sinful behaviour when they act like a chimp, are they?
I say this because in my mind there must be some link between the ability to sin and both self-awareness and the capability of abstract thought. The picture I have is of a more gradual dawning of this kind of self-awareness.
There is although something to be made of the Orthodox understanding that Adam was a child, made in the image of God, with the potential to grow into the likeness of God, but also the potential to sin. He has free will. He can choose. Kallistos Ware argues that this understanding is not incompatible with evolution.
I'm not quite sure where these findings and ideas leave the notion of a literal first man (a kind of homo sapiens patient zero). It seems unlikely to me.
No animal does. But they have no sense of right and wrong, good and evil.
What divided soul?
All can be found in our brains.
Anyway, maybe that doesn't really matter just now.
You need to have a good look at the evidence for animal ancestors. I had a period of believing like you do. Then I met a biologist who showed me the evidence.
I still have faith in God. S/he’s bigger than my changing beliefs
Wow, I've just got to jump in here. If your faith depends on belief in creation / young earth etc ISTM that you are of all 'men' most miserable. I'm sure others will want to respond to you.
Unless I misunderstand you, of course.
But MPaul is by no means alone.
I can't blame them, and I trust God will have mercy on them. The people who peddle such nonsense will have some hard questions to answer.
Is that your answer to my question to you? It was a serious one.
It wasn't a question addressed to me.
But generally I think people should be able to believe whatever nonsense they want. It isn't up to me to regulate church standards and beliefs - and I think I'd rather be in a place where weird and wonderful beliefs were tolerated rather than attempting to stamp them out.
On the other hand, the one thing that is hard to tolerate is someone with a daft, minority view attempting to insist that everyone should join them in it.
The only response one can have to someone who repeats endlessly that something is correct because "God said so" is to say "no he didn't".
One can provide all kinds of rational arguments and scientific evidence why the belief is nonsense, but ultimately the basis is fundamentally irrational. So it has no impact.
It just comes down to the circular "I believe it because I believe it" point that MPaul has got to above.
This isn't about other people believing nonsense. It's perhaps similar to your "things that divide" issue (I haven't been following that thread).
The question is whether you make an affirmative belief in the non-existence of Adam, a young earth, etc. into an article of orthodoxy or not. You might think such beliefs are beyond the pale because they are so eccentric or indeed because they are unsupported by the science - but then @SusanDoris thinks God is unsupported by the science, so... .
I'm all for respectfully picking apart flawed creationist arguments, but that is not quite the same thing as insisting their proponents jettison any and every aspect of their beliefs even when one's preferred theory doesn't require them to do so. In this respect I think a lot of anti-YECers can be as hidebound as the YECers can be.
Does your theological orthodoxy require you not to believe in a literal Adam?
Living in this world and using modern medicine do!
YEC is incompatible with so much of life I can’t imagine believing it, without rejecting too much of what life now consists of - either that or living with a crazy cognitive dissonance.
But I'm not insisting. MPaul can believe whatever he wants. I'm simply saying that I can't see any way that it can have happened like that and no good reason why the faith can only be believed if it did happen like that. As far as I can tell, it is a nonsense position.
It isn't something I'd die on a hill for or fight a stupid war over a pointless church in Bethlehem about.
I'm not arguing for a fence-sitting position, if that's how Eutychus has understood me.
Like Boogie, I thought it was Eutychus was was arguing for a half-way house position, but I may have misunderstood him.
I certainly 'get' his contention that anti-YECers can be just as hide-bound at YEC-ers.
FWIW, no, I don't believe that we have to have a literal Adam and Eve to ensure that 'as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall be made alive.'
But then, neither would I make it a mark of orthodox belief that people shouldn't believe that we do need them to be literal rather than 'representative.'
Not that it's down to me, of course ...
I think that's a load of humbug.
We all believe irrational things. The incarnation itself makes no sense - what does it mean?
YEC is no better or worse than any other belief that sets itself up against science.
But it isn't the same as saying those who want to assert that YEC is true and geology is false because the Bible says so are as hidebound as the scientist.
I don't think Adam and Eve can have been historical figures because it doesn't match with the available science. But it is, ultimately, a faith position that is not capable of being interrogated by science - much like the belief in fairies, aliens or miracles. If one wants to believe a human can walk on water, then of course it is possible to believe that all humanity originated from two named individuals. If you want to believe that, ok fine - but it isn't the only way to read and understand the faith in the light of science.
I don't think this is about theological orthodoxy.
Why would I need to?
No, but it is down to you what you believe - and to explain what you believe (if you want to discuss it).
I have problems with that because my beliefs are my own and belong to no orthodoxy. I believe in God and try to make sense of him/her. Reading what others think helps, but I cant make myself believe something that doesn’t ring true to me, whether you said it or Paul or Jesus.
@mr cheesy all of us are entitled privately to think that other people's views are nonsense and indeed to say so here if we can provide reasons why. But personally I don't think it encourages dialogue to rubbish people's views without supporting arguments - and it certainly doesn't encourage dialogue to rubbish those aspects of people's views that actually aren't a cornerstone of our own orthodoxy or argument.
I think the existence of a literal Adam is a red herring - for both sides of this discussion.
You can argue why you think a literal Adam is nonsense, but you don't need to make a suggestion that is visibly so unpalatable to @mpaul to challenge his thesis that the doctrine of the universal sinfulness of humankind requires a direct-line biological descent from any such Adam. So why bother?
That's it.
So to believe in it is to believe in an irrational position which cannot be interrogated by any logical or scientific methods.
In my view, it's so far from the science as to be basically nonsense.
I'm not arguing for a "halfway house" position. I'm trying not to antagonise @MPaul beyond what is strictly necessary to my position. Challenging the idea of a literal Adam is not essential to challenging the idea that we are all descended from him and/or that he embodies humankind's sinfulness just as Christ embodies our freedom from sin.
Similarly, I don't really care how old the earth is. An old earth is not central to orthodoxy in my view. I do care if people turn a young earth into an article of orthodoxy. Which is why I want to know why @MPaul thinks the Bible teaches, specifically, a young earth.
Because it causes people of reason to reject the message entirely. “If they believe this young earth, literal Adam nonsense how can any of it be true?”
I'm sure @MPaul sees it as a faith position and I suspect a fair chunk of Muslims would too. We don't get to dictate what others see as a "faith position".
I'm not sure you've really understood what I'm saying here - @Nick Tamen does, though. Is your non-belief in special creation an article of faith for you, or not?
To me the main problem with @MPaul's position is not that he claims to argue from the Bible, but that he assumes the Bible says things that it doesn't actually say and was never designed to say.
Hence my repeated question to him about just what in the Bible leads him to believe in a young earth.
How does keep badgering me contribute here. I have said what I think, if you'd bothered to read it then you wouldn't need to keep asking it again.
Well it is, really isn't it. A literal Adam implies special creation, the fall and all the other stuff MPaul says are important.
So how exactly can you square a literal Adam - the father of all mankind - together with an old earth and evolution?
And that's the problem here - people talk about a "literal Adam" without actually saying what it is that they do or don't believe in.
Other than MPaul, who has at least the virtue of being clear in what he is saying and talking about it as if it matters rather than throwing his arms up and saying "Adam? pah, who cares anyway?"
Clearly some do, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I asked you whether you believed in non-special creation as an article of orthodoxy. If you don't, I see no reason to diss special creation gratuitously here. That risks creating animosity where there is no need to.
I haven't said "Adam? Who cares anyway?". I've said that belief in a literal Adam is tangential to a belief in universal sin and not required by the phrase "as in Adam, all die, so in Christ are all are made alive". At least one other person on this thread acknowledges this distinction. If you don't think it's important, you could simply hold your peace.
==
*subject amongst other things to a rush job I may be getting in later this evening.
Almost everyone on this thread sees that there is an issue with belief in a "literal Adam", depending on exactly what you mean by that. It isn't tangential for many.
And here is your notice - if you start a hell thread I will not only not contribute, I will not even read it.