I was going to respond to the comments in my last post in the comments section, but since it will be long, it makes sense to answer them in a fresh post. You can look at those comments first.
None of the commenters explain why the choice of Adam and Eve is inherited. Why couldn’t God let each individual choose? Maybe Abel wouldn’t have screwed up, why is he damned for what dad did? Couldn’t God offer the tree to him as well? God apparently changed human nature because of the act of these two. The closest to an answer to this is that the act somehow cracked the mold of humanity or a spiritual law caused it to happen. Still, it is necessary that God created that spiritual law or created the world such that a choice of two people would rend the mold. God could have just condemned Adam and Eve and given their children another chance.
Joanna Mallory speaks entirely in terms of an individual wronging God in the present tense (if I choose to be boss of my life, etc.). I can understand that. But there is no explanation of why Adam wronging God should affect me. How is a God that creates all of the suffering in the world because of one act at all just or merciful?
All commenters made some equation between original sin and free will. Of course, Adam and Eve had free will before their sin as well, or they couldn’t have chosen as they did. So their act didn’t create free will. You can use orginal sin just as a metaphor for the fact that humans are free and we often choose to hurt people. I don’t see that as at all useful. We already know that, and it is an unsatisfying “just so” story for its origin. The part about things being perfect prior to the sin is the part that is hard to believe. All explanations for human origins, scientific or mythic, explain the fact that we make bad choices. If original sin is just a metaphor for the fact that we are selfish, then tying it to a specific act is pointless. It makes it worse, because now it is something that could be different, but God imposed it on us because he was pissed at Eve.
I know that the fruit in Genesis 3 is not specified as an apple, nor is the tempter actually called a snake. But it doesn’t matter what the act is, whether it is eating bad fruit or strange sex acts involving serpents. Why change the world because of it?
And none of the commenters explain the necessity of sending Jesus. First, I don’t see how that it really changed anything. When we are “saved” by Jesus, we are just as selfish and sinful. Nothing changed in human nature with the coming of Jesus, and believers are no less selfish than others. If sending God was supposed to save us from original sin, why all of this talk about us still being sinful? If believing in Jesus made us less sinful you might have a case, but clearly Christians are just as prone to sin as anyone else.
But more importantly, there was really no attempt to explain why killing his son is the way to get rid of original sin. There is talk about having someone perfect to take on the sins. How does Jesus dying help at all?
Laurie says that if she wanted to pay for my sin, she would have to be perfect first. I don’t understand. In what way could she possibly pay for my sin, perfect or not? If I hurt someone, only I can pay for my sin, and forgiveness can only come from the person I wronged. How could any third party pay for it? She can offer to die for what I did wrong, but it would be a wasted gesture.
If I wrong someone, then I can be redeemed by that person forgiving me. It must be a free choice between him and me. If my grandpa wronged someone, it doesn’t make any sense for that person to forgive me. They have to forgive my grandpa. And whether it is me or my grandparents, it doesn’t make any sense for that person to say they will forgive me, but only if I kill his son.
If someone is a killer and is condemned to die, would justice be served if someone came in and said I will die in his place? That’s what Jesus did, he offered to die in our place, even though we are the criminals. This is an innocent person, being killed for someone else’s crimes. How does that make sense? How does that fix the crime? Would the victims of the crime somehow feel better by having an innocent person killed?
If the victim of our crime is God himself, then what strange terms are these for his forgiveness? Does it matter if the person making the offer is perfect or not? And if God demands this, why? God could forgive the criminal directly, or he could demand an act of kindness towards those he wronged. Why would God say that I will forgive you, but only if this person is killed instead?
Steve Grove talks a lot about holiness and grace, but those aren’t addressing my question. When he does address my question, this is the core of his answer: “So, the death of the perfect man is what broke the curse of sin – death.” There is no explanation for why this would break that curse. God could have chosen any means to break the curse. Why a scapegoat? It lacks any moral logic. Presumably it is God who sets the criteria for how to break his curse. The curse was originally put on us for a disobedient or selfish choice. Wouldn’t it make more sense then to let humanity prove we can make the right choice?
It just seems like God making strange arbitrary rules. His rule is that if Adam and Eve make the wrong choice, everyone pays for it. This is a rule created by God, not imposed on him. He then sat down and tried to figure out how to fix this mess, and decided that he would send his son, his son would collect the sins, and then by killing him, the sins are gone. That’s the way we can fix our mistake, and he’s sticking with it. He briefly thought about the option of sending his son as a downtrodden man and seeing if humans would lend a hand, but that would be too obvious. The best people can say is this is the way God said would redemption would happen, so that’s it. There is simply an appeal to authority, but no attempt is made to explain the moral logic.
Tags: incarnation, redmption
September 9, 2008 at 5:19 pm
“None of the commenters explain why the choice of Adam and Eve is inherited. Why couldn’t God let each individual choose? Maybe Abel wouldn’t have screwed up, why is he damned for what dad did? Couldn’t God offer the tree to him as well? God apparently changed human nature because of the act of these two. The closest to an answer to this is that the act somehow cracked the mold of humanity or a spiritual law caused it to happen.”
What if the Garden was a probation? That as long as Adam and Eve obeyed the simple laws given, relationship with God was ensured with no barriers. If they had children at this point I assume they would have been given the same opportunity. How long would it last? I don’t know. The barriers came up when the decision to disobey was put into action. Could the world have been a different place if Adam and Eve had decided to obey? I expect the answer would be yes. Is it moral how God set it up? I believe it lines up with who God is, His character, yes. Oh, and I am damned by what I did, as you are by what you have done.
I have come to the point of belief and faith in this God, so my pursuit is to understand His infiniteness in my finiteness. There could be a whole different explanation that makes total sense to you or I but we just haven’t thought of it yet. To say with confidence that this is all wrong is to have a certain amount of pride in your (and humanity’s) level of intelligence and thought. It is always easy to prove something “wrong” through lack of understanding a reality that is beyond you. This isn’t personal, talk to me about quantum physics and I could with confidence say certain things are wrong, simply because that experience is beyond me.
If a characteristic of God as stated in the Bible doesn’t seem correct or to make sense to me (or you), it may be my (mis)understanding of how an eternal God exists and thinks, that is at fault, rather than God Himself who is whacked out. As I understand you in your pursuit of knowing God, you are trying to dispel all the things that don’t make sense to you, whether it is the traditional God of Bob the Believer or the Allah of Mohammed. Who is God to you now? I see that all this “traditional” stuff doesn’t make sense to you. Do you trust the Bible as an authoritative voice as His revelation? If not, why even bother with this “Christian” God? I find it odd that people will use parts of the Bible to show why God is evil or doesn’t make sense as if those passages are inspired, but then try to discredit other passages as if those ones are wrong (using the ones you have picked out as “right”. It gets to be pretty arbitrary. If your role is to discredit the Bible by showing inconsistencies, that is a different argument. Either accept the Bible and use the Bible as your starting point (i.e., what does this passage mean when it says this about God?), or reject it and search for God somewhere else. To argue that something doesn’t make sense to your own moral logic only goes as far as you – you can’t say something doesn’t make sense because the whole universe agrees with me, where’s the logic in that?
“But more importantly, there was really no attempt to explain why killing his son is the way to get rid of original sin. There is talk about having someone perfect to take on the sins. How does Jesus dying help at all?”
Why is death the penalty (or payment) of sin? I think the answer has to do with separation. The act of creation was about life, about existence. Physically, death separates the breathing part of us (our soul/spirit) from the physical part of us (and all other things that are physically based – life). Spiritual death is the separation of our spirit from God’s presence. Sin produces that separation because it is anything against/outside of God’s character. For us as humans, God provided the way to bridge that separation by conquering death, which the Bible seems to indicate wasn’t an afterthought of the Garden. The choice wasn’t about whether to give man free will or not – that is part of the image of God. God’s choice was creation in the first place. It is free will that necessitated the choice in the Garden, for how can you have free will without choice? And knowing that there was a choice, God also knew that a created being could not live up to the same standard of who He was (deity), and so along with creation the plan of salvation was created at the same time in the Godhead.
“But there is no explanation of why Adam wronging God should affect me. How is a God that creates all of the suffering in the world because of one act at all just or merciful?”
I notice that we are descendents of Adam and Eve, and not created out of dust like them. It is that descendent stuff that causes the sin nature to be inherited. It part of man’s creation to have babies and descendents, to be fruitful and multiply. Does a baby die in sin at 2 months? I don’t believe that. I believe in an age of accountability (that is different for different people) where a person becomes responsible for their actions not just before men, but before God. The sin issue is universal. God didn’t create the suffering, and it wasn’t just one act. Suffering is the result of actions of people today – the murderer, the greedy power broker, the gossip who kills with words, the rapist, the self-righteous who don’t help others…
“And none of the commenters explain the necessity of sending Jesus. First, I don’t see how that it really changed anything. When we are “saved” by Jesus, we are just as selfish and sinful. Nothing changed in human nature with the coming of Jesus, and believers are no less selfish than others. If sending God was supposed to save us from original sin, why all of this talk about us still being sinful? If believing in Jesus made us less sinful you might have a case, but clearly Christians are just as prone to sin as anyone else.”
The Bible clearly states we have everything at our disposal to live without sinning. It is not will power or strength of character. It is by surrendering our will to the will of God through the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Read Romans 8 for a great discussion on this. This is at the heart of the struggle of free will. It also answers the question, “Why was I created?” The short answer is so that we could become more like Jesus in our attitudes, words, and actions. We don’t become little gods, but our character begins to reflect the character of God. A great verse in 2 Corinthians 3 gives us the analogy of a mirror. When we look in it we should be seeing Jesus looking back at us – we should be reflecting God’s character in our life, primarily through loving our neighbour as our self. Don’t judge God by how people behave, even those who say they follow Him. The Bible is filled with how lousy we are at following God. Maybe some people failed because they were too busy talking about the Law and theology and philosophy that they gave little thought to what they should be doing to help others. Jesus clearly stated that people will know His disciples by their actions (primarily love).
September 11, 2008 at 4:10 pm
[...] pride and ignorance A commenter recently posted on my discussion of the fall and redemption here. It is a long comment, but I just want to comment on one part of it here. Commenter Steve says: [...]