‘Sin’ is a word that not very many people seem to understand outside of the church these days. As a matter-of-fact, ‘sin’ is often associated with positive things (i.e. ‘sinfully delicious’). But the Bible makes it very clear that sin is a BIG DEAL. One of the primary reasons for the Incarnation was for God to deal with sin.
So, what is ‘sin’? What is ‘Original Sin’? Are traditional definitions of these terms still useful and relevant? How do we communicate the concept of sin to the people around us with any meaning?
St. Augustine said that ‘original sin’ was an inherited culpability for the sin of the first human couple. When Adam sinned he condemned the rest of us to paying the consequences for his sin, we, according to Augustine, inherit the punishment for this sin.
St. Chrysostom, on the other hand said that we inherit the consequences of the sin of Adam, but not the culpability for it. In other words, Adam’s sin had long-lasting consequences (including death, disease, pain, suffering, etc. being introduced into the world). We still grapple with those consequences today. Kind of like a nuclear bomb going off at the beginning of human history—the ‘radioactivity’ of sin spreads through all subsequent time and space. But, according to Chrysostom, we are not “guilty” of Adam’s sin anymore than you or I is guilty of our neighbor’s cheating on their tax returns. None-the-less we have inherited, as one of the consequences of our forefather’s sin, a pre-disposition toward sinful behaviour. One of the consequences of the original sin, according to Chrysostom is an inheritance of a kind of ‘mutation’ of human nature which means that we have a tendancy to sin.
Lutheran theology, however, disagrees with both Chrysostom and Augustine (and the parties they represent) by saying that sin is “inexplicable”. A Lutheran theologian by the name of Regin Prenter says, in his book entitled “Creation and Redemption”, says that ‘original sin’ means that humans are born ‘turned in upon themselves’ and that ‘actual sin’ (the act of actually doing something contrary to God’s law) is a manifestation of ‘original sin’. He further says that sin is inexplicable for a couple of reasons.
First, sin is inexplicable because to make an explanation of one type or another is to bring in a a form of excuse, and to therefore shift blame away from ourselves. If, for example, we say with Chrysostom that ‘original sin’ is a kind of defect which we inherit, well, then my sin is not really my fault—I was born that way. Or if, on the other hand, we agree with Augustine and say that responsibility is inherited through propogation then we can say, “How unjust! It’s not my fault that I was born! Why should I be blamed for that?” Therefore, sin is inexplicable—to explain it is to explain it away.
Second, sin is inexplicable because it enters the world (and our lives) through itself. Prenter says, “It is not possible to point to any single act through which I first became a sinner, because any such act could be committed only by one who is already a sinner.” (p. 286) As an example of this, let’s examine Adam’s sin. His sin, on the surface, is that he disobeys God and eats of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But, if we think about this, we realize that Adam must have sinned prior to that by deciding to sin. And prior to that he must have already been fallen in order to make that decision, etc., etc.
Prenter further claims that sin is, ultimately, rebellion against God. But what is sin? If we accept that sin is rebellion against God, from our perspective, then what is sin from God’s perspective? If God saw our sin as “simple” rebellion, then a quashing of that rebellion is easy enough (a la the flood). But clearly, from the Incarnation and the rest of the biblical account of human history, God sees our rebellion differently.
What is it that Jesus comes to restore? Right relationship with God the Father! What happens when Adam and Eve fall to temptation? Their relationship with God, with each other, and with creation is distorted—bent and bruised. At this point we need to look at who God created us to be in the first place. In the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 1 & 2 we read the creation account. In it we hear God say, “Let there be light!” and it happens. “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate the water from water” and it happens. But then, in Gen. 1:26, 27 we read the first account of the creation of humanity. For the first time we get an explicit reference to the relational nature of God within himself in v. 26 when God discusses within himself the creation of humankind. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule….’”. Immediately following this first “discussion” by God within himself we read, “So God created humans in his own image, in the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them.”
Later, when we read an alternative account of the creation of humanity, we read that Adam was alone and that that was the only thing about creation that was “not good” (Gen. 2:18). Notice that both here and in the Gen. 1 passage mentioned above, relationship is key to the creation of humanity. The image of God discussing within himself the creation of humanity is tied closely to the fact that humans are created “in the image of God.” Especially when you consider that this is the only time in the entire creation story where God is portrayed as discussing things within himself. And, when we throw in the remarkable fact that the only thing that was not good about creation was that Adam was alone, it becomes pretty clear that relationship is pretty important to who God created us to be.
God even sets up for us, through the writer of Genesis, an understanding of a kind of trinitarian model of relationships for humanity. God, of course, is inherently relational within himself because he is the three-in-one, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are, in a limited relational sense, set up as a model of God’s trinitarian nature. We are set up to have relationship with, 1) God, 2) Ourselves/Other Humans 3) Creation. We can see that throughout the creation story as God give humans the responsibility of caring for creation (even including naming the animals), God give Adam and Eve to each other to love, and God gives himself by creating a special garden for people where they can walk and talk with God himself (as we can see by the sad story of God walking through the garden saying “where are you, Adam?” after the fall.
But when Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God that all fell apart. As irrational as it seems, Adam and Eve chose to ruin their relationships with God, each-other, and the creation around them.
So what is sin? Yes it is rebellion against God: a rebellion against relationship. We chose (and choose) to break relationship with God, each-other, and creation when we sin. Jesus came to restore those relationships by living, and dying, and living again, as the true human who was without sin—who did not break the relationships—and to thereby take away the curses that fell on all of us as a result of our rebellion. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to us to counsel us and comfort us—to make real God’s Kingdom in our lives, spirits, and minds, just as Christ made God’s Kingdom real by being the firstborn of the dead—the one who conquer the rebel by not rebelling.
trespasses, debts, transgressions, shortcomings, iniquities?
If this project is trying to sense how the Gospel communicates hope and guidance to our current and emerging situations, then we can’t afford to get lost in anachronistic abstractions, born more of Zoroaster and Plato than of Moses, David, Ezra, Paul, and the evangelists. Apologetics rightly communicates the absolute and ageless Truth to the questions men propose in the context of their times and cultures. But those answers then become a part of the time and culture to which they responded, and ought not hold us back or guide us wrongly in sensing what the Gospel says to another people at another point in their inquiry.
The Gospel does not draw people to an earlier time and place where it once had answers it now lacks. Only past portrayals of the gospel are so lacking. Those portrayals, not the Gospel, Itself, are invalidated by failure to be relevent. The Gospel always is, and always will be.
I remember chanting some nonsense received from Augustine of Hippo as some sort of catachism. Able to sin, not able not to sin, able not to sin, not able to sin…. the progression of man, as clever in composition as the riddle of the sphynx, and pleasing, as an abstraction, in an Occam’s razor kind of way. But I think the distillation of all the violations of man to a single (latin?) word too much disguises the specifics of sin. Tresspass — a violation of boundaries. Debt — an incomplete covenant. Transgression — a violation of statute. Shortcoming, the greek amartyr (?), most often translated “sin”, being the corruption which makes us unable to live up to what God intends of us, and which being made incorruptable will enable of us (in line with Augustine’s concept of sin), and my favorite — iniquity, which is so often propounded as some kind of hedonistic deviance, but is literally a violation of social and economic justice.
Only by examining sin in its Biblical particulars, and discarding the theological abstractions of Augustine’s time, or Aquinas’s time, or Armenius’s time, will the Gospel speak in its own ageless and absolute manner, rather than anachronisms that fail to respond to any need but that of our own vanity.
____
A puff away from 3 packs a day
sin in abstraction
In response to dgzylstra’s post, I think a common concept between the Lutheran theology and Augustinian would be the notion that sin/evil is irrational, and for that reason, (morally) inexplicable. Of course Augustine saw sin/evil as not only irrational, that is, the absence of rationality, but also as the absence of being. Now there’s an abstraction worthy of Sartre, or Heidegger!
But is abstraction really all that bad? More importantly, is abstraction really all that avoidable? I realize that our anti-abstractionistic tendencies are part and parcel of the postmodern world of thought (largely influenced at this point by Nietzsche’s insightful critiques of much of western philosophy), but of course as many have pointed out, even the most consistent postmodernist makes their own abstractions (as did Nietzsche). It reminds me of those who argue that we need to eschew systematic theology altogether, and focus instead entirely on biblical and exegetical theology. But not only does such a reduction neglect to draw the obvious implications demanded by a biblical and exegetical theology (i.e., systematic syntheses arise quite naturally and unavoidably from a comprehensive biblical theology), but also, for this very reason, often becomes unconsciously ‘guilty’ of developing a systematic (if piecemeal) theology all of its own. E.g., NT Wright’s (who, as far as I know, has no beef with ST per se, but many of his fans that I’ve met do) reconstruction of post-exilic and pre-advent history of Judaism presupposed in his biblical theology shapes a systematic soteriology, particularly in a theory of the atonement. I’m thinking here of his argument that in the death of Christ (who, it is argued, recapitulates Israel’s history and identity), Israel’s exile has been fulfilled (this, he argues, is the thrust of Gal.3:13). Now there’s an abstraction!
In asking this question, what does Scripture teach about sin, we are by definition engaged in systematic theology. And I think that this is a legitimate question…
Looking at Augustine’s four-fold distinction in particular, I do not find it to be nonsensical. Rather I find it to be coherent and helpful. I agree that we need to look at sin in its particulars. E.g., the exegetical question of what ‘iniquity’ means here in this passage (btw, I could not find the particular nuance you attributed to this word [socio-economic crimes] in any of my Hebrew lexicons, but rather found the general sense to be: to twist, bend, pervert) and the biblical-theological question of what does sin/transgression/iniquity mean in Genesis 1-3, and how is that developed throughout the remainder of Genesis 4-11, the remainder of the book, and the litarary unit of the entire Pentateuch. For an interesting and insightful study of ‘hamartology’, I heartily recommend Plantinga’s “Not the Way Its Supposed to Be”. Has anyone read it? What do you think?
But getting back to the original post, I think the question of original sin and its significance turns on our interpretation of the important passage in Romans 5:12-14, and related to this, Paul’s theology of Christ as the second Adam (Ro.5:15ff.; 1Co.15:21), bringing righteousness, life, and redemption (in the place of sin, death and damnation) to humanity. And behold, a Pauline abstraction!
iniquity
“Iniquity” when used in older translations of the NT does follow more of the Latin sense and in the KJV is used for adikia as well as anomia, though in neither case very consistently.
Live to serve : Serve to live
Jesus was too reductionist
Samlcarr,
I have never heard that claim that Jesus was too reductionist to be workable. That speaks loads. It reflects my Muslim friends saying that love is an emotion, and is not enough to base a life on. And also go far in the complaint that, unlike other great tomes, Jesus’s biography was so small, they had to repeat it four times just to fill up the Bible. Compare that to the Quran.
Perhaps looking at issues in ‘global’ terms is perceived as reductionist to those who love minutiae. Every spiritual tradition agrees that some interpretation of ‘love’ is the root of Creation. And that is the basis for the individual’s quest, to find some sort of peace through enlightenment.
But lets look at the wisdom/knowledge dichotomy, as bobcmu76 points out. What is spirit? It is simply consciousness. Consciousness needs structure. It is in the form of meaning. At its root, this reflects both God and human thought. Both are invisible. So spirit is not that strange, its just confusing because it leaves us in the dark when our human survival and meaning is so dependant on tactile senses to relate to this world. It becomes a literary adventure to perceive meaning above and beneath the mundane. Civilization is the development of meaning to an exquisite degree, both invisible and visible.
We are caught between the poetic language of Spirit, and the prose of how-to manuals to control our environment and survival. Our assumptions of Civilization are buttressed by anthropology. It is the conceit that we are a positive evolution from cave men, who had little language and thus self-reflection, to the impressive use of such in the modern day. History is also defined as the advance of knowledge through technology, including writing. Agriculture and tools spawned hierarchical organization. This objectified reality and stratified society in the same way. Organizers were separated from the organized. And kings needed more mental skills to maintain this structure than peasants.
From this organization, wealth increased, spawning increasingly intellectual culture. Much of what clergy strive for now is a re-creation of ‘community.’ The use of this term is conceptual, reflecting a familial relationship between humans to counteract the atomization of the individual in our social organization. But the term ‘community’ is used as a dry academic term, despite the lofty goals in its definition. It is concept. Much like the term ‘Care Industry’ juxtaposes the human inter-personal relationship with the institutition that is about objective productivity. ‘Care’ makes us feel good about senior citizens’ warehousing. ‘Managed care.’ ‘Delivered services.’ Language is important. And scary when not reflected upon. How is academic language serriptitiously undermining the poetry of Spirit? It is how wisdom of the heart is extracted and used as knowledge for our intellectual manipulation to create meaning that we are comfortable with.
There are varying degrees of spiritual experience. Many ministers have never had a spiritual experience. The grade of perception increases from seeing the truth in scriptures as a guide to see the meaning in human affairs through its light, to actual perception of prayers being answered, to words of wisdom suddenly forming in thoughts without our will involved, to the most extreme examples of spiritual awareness that actually undermines the conventional intellectual understanding of reality. This makes communication between spiritually interested individuals more difficult. Language changes through one’s understanding through experience.
Theology and the Church are a product of the wisdom-knowledge dialogue. Taking spiritual meaning and transcribing it into the most commonly understandable language for the benefit of all congregants. This has had varying degrees of success. Every individual’s experience creates different reference point from which to perceive meaning.
At its foundation is the fundamental truth in the Creation myth. Adam chose to live by knowledge instead of wisdom. History is the progression from this. The love of God grants those who wish relief from this perception through His Church. But civilized humans cannot escape the dominance of the mind, except in extreme cases, Jesus being the most extreme. We are born into mind culture. It is how our thought structure is constructed through socialization.
Living from knowledge instead of pure wisdom is thought a curse. Salvation is the return to the Garden of Eden, where the condition of our consciousness can exist in a natural environment of love, that is eternal, pain-free and enlightened. The bizarre nature of the Jesus biography has given our minds much to focus on to achieve the goals of Genesis. The sophistication of the mind’s discernment of spiritual reality of the human is seen in the triumph of 2000 years of theological evolution. It is concerned with the spirituality of the human. Science is concerned with the third component of the Christian worldview. Reality, in the Church paradigm, is defined as God, humans, and objective finite matter. Science developed its own language to gain knowledge of this matter that the Church was not focused on. This knowledge now has reached such extreme sophistication in perceiving reality, that it has been observed that an object can actually be in two places at once, and that time and space do not actually exist, except in perception. This reflects the spiritual reality of eternity, a place of pure thought without time nor space.
Spiritual and scientific knowledge, are now reaching a stage of perception that mirrors wisdom, spiritual reality. Where we have thought in linear terms of history and progression to a goal, increasingly it is becoming apparent that knowledge in both fields are becoming circular. Both are returning to recognize the truth of spiritual wisdom and reality that always existed. But civilized man had to learn this through knowledge, pain, death, relating to reality as inert matter and the intellectual problem of the reality of Jesus of Nazareth.
This had to be done on mind terms, Adam’s choice to live from knowledge, the gestalt of will to decide meaning and truth without submission to authority. The natural human, Jesus being the model, has as its center the consciousness of the human heart, love. Surrounding and supporting it is the body, will, emotions and mind. The heart is the connection to spirit, to one’s soul, and the pump that keeps the body alive. Civilization inverts this reality. The mind is on top, using knowledge instead of wisdom to guide its actions. This is unnatural, and the other faculties rebel against this domination by the mind using knowledge, instead of the heart using wisdom, love and truth. To preserve its position, the dominant mind has had to increase its use of knowledge to maintain this inverted order of perception. The mind’s terms of reference is based upon control for its security, safety, survivial and freedom from domination and pain. This translated into its primary relationship with an objectified environment over a wise one. Threat, fear, manipulation are natural corollaries in ignoring the heart. The environment is seen as hostile, not supportive. Civilization tamed the environment, leaving human relations as the primary threat. And today, even that threat is mitigated by the artificial social environment we have created in Western culture.
Two hundred years ago, it was still understood that true consciousness was founded in the heart. Today it is the brain, the seat of the mind. With the removal of the Church as the central institution of society forty years ago, the clarity of seeing civilized humans as ‘mind man’ has become evident. By removing the dialogue with wisdom, we have become a pure mind culture. We do not speak in terms of wisdom, but knowledge. We do not speak in terms of absolutes, truth or morality, but ‘values,’ a mathematical and logical term. And theological debate today responds more than ever to this structure of ‘concept’ being used as a variable in its search for the equation of Salvation.
It is apparent now, with this distinction caused by the diminution of Church influence on society, that the issue of knowledge and mind leads back to the first chapters of the Bible. Further evidence appears in the story of the Ten Commandments. Simple wisdom was taken by the mind organization and turned into the Temple of oppression that Jesus complained about. The developing mind culture dominating the wisdom to fit its agenda. To rectify this, and other parallels in spiritual misunderstanding in non-Jewish civilization, God sent Jesus. Within a confined narrative, this man created so many questions that the mind could not control within its own meaning and structure. It was not just concept in parables, but actual experience and witness. It was an inexplicable demonstration of domination over the forces of objective matter. The mind could not do this. The dominant mind’s position was threatened. The dominant mind sought relief by focusing on the problem to maintain its position as arbiter of meaning.
Through this essential question, mind culture was transformed. The ideals of Christ became the ideals of society. Mind culture was transformed. With the truncated worldview of reality being merely God, humans and inert matter, mind culture evolved out of its repressive condition into the tolerant, abundant, healing society of our current knowledge culture.
In this way, despite living in the Original Sin of knowledge over wisdom, God has guided civilization to discover on its own terms, what Adam rejected. We had to learn the meaning of the Garden on our own terms. Our sin is the evolution into a blessing. Current trends in globalization, communication, science, medicine and domesticated culture point to a culmination of this progression. The Creation myth of Genesis becomes the Creation myth of the whole world.
What is beyond this Original Sin, once it has truly come to fruition as God’s loving blessing to his prodigal children, the descendants of Adam and Eve?
Sin is simply one phrase
Sin is simply one phrase: Adam chose to live from knowledge instead of wisdom.
So God granted his wish.
The separation between living from knowledge instead of wisdom is immense. We live from the mind first, then the heart. We have to train ourselves to live in the heart. Train the will, emotions, desires, body. We call it education. Education is about knowledge, using the mind to manipulate our world.
We think knowledge is essential, a gift.
But it demands we control knowledge, to choose meaning.
Wisdom does not demand such control. It is merely asks for acceptance, and watch the meaning blossom all on its own.
Civilized humans are not comfortable with that. We must be in control of the meaning of wisdom. So we convert it into knowledge. Jesus was too confusing. He is under control in the Church. We decided his meaning. Wisdom and knowledge co-existing on earthly logical-terms we can understand and debate. Growing in knowledge as we grow in wisdom. We think they go hand-in-hand.
But then Jesus lived in pure wisdom, unencumbered by knowledge, having to choose meaning. It was obvious to him. Not so for us.
Controlling meaning, choosing meaning, using knowledge with wisdom, using knowledge instead of wisdom. It is all a problem of meaning and control. Every issue we have today fits into this model, even the Church. The consequences of knowledge. Secular society gave up on the wisdom thing forty years ago. Just mind now. It has given us some clarity of living from knowledge alone.
Original Sin is quite plain. Right there in Genesis. And the consequences of intellect as arbiter of meaning has been that it cannot handle the power of wisdom. The meaning just spreads and spreads. Nothing is solid. Nothing will conform to the safety we would like knowledge to have for us. Luckily science makes meaning more solid. It converts dust into medicine, food, air conditioning. Some useful meaning from knowledge. Knowledge in Church is still confined to the Story, and the power of pure wisdom directly from God that we believe we can control by using it as knowledge, a concept, a neat package we can manipulate, keeping the Church from a greater clarity of what faces it today. The Original Sin is using knowledge over wisdom. Do we really recognize the implications of what this truly means?
We want to accept wisdom. But our next thought is what meaning from wisdom will we choose? We do not understand our own thought structure. That’s the Original Sin we cannot see. That is why we cannot still, after 5000 years, define it. It is so much a part of us, that we do not know what we are addicted to. That is why Jesus was free, and we knaw in envy at the lack of internal debate he exhibited. How do you live from this purity of heart of Jesus? The question is really, how do you NOT live from the dominant mind? It would mean letting go of one’s security in ways we don’t want to consider. Metaphor, symbollism, historical accuracy, theological consistency, logic, the constant compromises to keep the whole thing coherent. We are managers. Our Salvation depends upon it. Yet this Salvation thing that Jesus described was really all about: help me escape this world of knowledge, control, choice, pain, death - sin! Give me peace… from mind.
Ironic elevation
I didn’t know there was a word for it — hamartology. I never know in greek when to pronounce the h. I’m kind of Eliza Doolittle in that regard, I forget which way the little comma ought point. is “ha-” different from “a”, as a prefix. Could there theoretically be an hatheist, which is different from an atheist? My sketchiness with Biblical language makes for plenty of exegetical errors. But darned fine scholars are pushing exegetical errors (perhaps deceptions) on people. We all gotta keep our bull stool dectectors in tune. Mine tends to light up from language that both mystifies and implies that the speaker knows, but cannot competently communicate (because to the listerners’ shortcomings) beneath the mystery. That’s priest language. But getting over my knee jerk dismissal of a new-agey tone, I sense something in that wisdom/knowledge dichotomy which mirrors my own thinking.
In my own employment of mystifying language, I express the dichotomy as subject/object. The Bible comes to us as subject — as something both mobile, and capable of moving readers. It acts upon us. I’ll be vague as to how, but not priesty, because I’ve not a clue as to how, or how to explain how. I just know it by faith, sense, and praxis. But — people think they are elevating the Bible above man, by calling it “infallable” or words to that effect. But what they are doing is separating the tapestry into threads and the threads into knots, and mistaking the study of knots for the apprehension of the spectacle.
Systematic Theology, as I experienced it from my Calvinist upbringing, is every bit as much “placing God on the dock” (an expression of CS Lewis I believe, suggesting the Judge of men becomes the defendant facing men’s judgment) as smorgasboard “mix and match” fashion-conscious spirituality of the post-modern age. I think that critical methods deplored by “orthodox reformed” tradition are sometimes lost in minutiae, but ultimately seek to listen to the Word with greater clarity and less static — a signal/noise dichotomy. The abstractions of 16th Century Calvinism are reducing the Word to precepts and propositions, to be acted upon by syllogisms and meta-precepts which belong more to that age, than to the Bible itself. At least critical scholarship lets the defendent testify. God on the Calvinist docket is convicted by the forensic specialists. Hair and fiber evidence.
I got lost in a tangent — the title of “ironic elevation” being intended to look at the aspirations of man to build Babel, or to hold standards (knowledge of good and evil) to convict God of theodosic crimes. Did men of the first 1/3 of Genesis aspire to an I/Thou relationship with God, that seems to me possible with the Incarnation. Or did they aspire to rebel/replace/conquer God? One sees ironic elevation in Biblical inerrancy. That doctrine effectively enables men to conquer God, while all the time claiming perfect submission.
A puff away from 3 packs a day
taxonomy
It’s the oldest human propensity of all - to name and to classify. Many of Jesus’s arguments with ‘religious leaders’ centred around the law and how it was to be followed. Jesus answer was considered to be too drastically reductionist to be workable. He also put the onus on the individual to figure out what love was and to then do it - a truly horrifying prospect for any professional ‘teacher of the law’ to contemplate (then and now) - we just love our systematic theology.
The gospel is not complicated. God loves us so much that He wants us to be His children.
The problem with systematic theology is that we want to take this incredible good news and package, dissect, classify, ramify, categorize, unpack etc. The tendency is understandable but let us acknowledge that when we do this what we are attempting to do is to put God, His Son, His good news and the Holy Spirit all into a structure that we have erected, which we claim to understand and which we control.
Because we end up confusing ourselves (perhaps on purpose and perhaps out of stupidity) is why we have a revelation at all. God reaches in and says, “Stop confusing yourself, here I AM.”
Even when we know that the truth is as simple as God’s love we will still find ways to hide that truth. Whether we hide in ever more comprehensive and systematized theologies or when we swing the other way and want to throw God’s word out in a frenzy of mind denial. We hate the light of God’s truth.
Our tendency is to sin, one way or the other. Sin is a fact. God’s salvation is a fact. We can’t negate sin, either with much theologizing or without. But, God can and God did!
Live to serve : Serve to live
simplyfying sin for us simpletons
I’m new here and I’m wondering if I’m in over my head. Probably am. I didn’t understand a lot of what I just read. That’s OK. I don’t have to. There were a couple of thoughts I had though as I was reading.
First I thought that God defined himself as “perfect relationship”. OK so that is my understanding of what the writer of John’s epistle means when he says God is love. I have to understand that simple phrase somehow, and that is how I do — God is perfect relationship. All that is good in our relationships is a mirror of God’s relationship within the Trinity.
If that is true then I also want to understand sin as being anything that violates a relationship. Sin is sin not because God is a capricious God but because sin violates God’s nature.
This is the only way I can understand sin not so much as a moral thing but as a disease thing which Jesus came to cure. And we can have all sorts of fun with that one.
Stephen
Stephen, your simplistic
Stephen, your simplistic explanation of sin is in fact making things even more difficult and complicated for Christians and it illustrates how the western and modern mindset warps what sin has always been throughout the Scriptures, which was specifically a judicial matter and violation of a commandment. If you take a look at the Jewish view of sin (and Jesus did teach and preach in a Jewish environment since there were no “Christian Churches” when he was around), he spoke in the context of his people and their judicial understanding of sin.
Sin therefore, in the Jewish context, was not a state of being as you are implying by using the word “disease” but rather something on does, or an act. Jesus therefore did not come to heal a disease as you are suggesting, otherwise no Christians would ever commit sins. Rather Jesus brought a solution to deal with the consequences of sin, which makes the act ultimately irellevant. It is about God, not about what you do or do not do, thus dealing with the consequences is indirectly dealing with the act.
God therefore expects willing hearts to act accordingly out of love for God, not fearful hearts to do so.
Simplisticism
Virgil - isn’t your own explanation of ‘sin’ a bit simplistic? Jesus said: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality etc” - Matthew 15:19. Sin relates not just to deeds, but the origin of those deeds in the heart. Here we find an echo of Jeremiah 17:9 - “The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Something needs to be done to the heart - radical surgery is called for, not simply a change of moral conduct.
Further, with respect to the Jews (the Pharisees in particular, to whom he was talking), Jesus says: “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.” - Matthew 12:43-45. A change in moral conduct alone may be very dangerous.
Historically, any reflection by 1st century Jews on their history would have shown that something more than right conduct (in the sight of the law) was needed. Their exile in Babylon may have officially ended 500 years previously, but the larger issues - overthrow of the pagans, return of God’s presence to the temple - remained to be fulfilled, and showed that forgiveness of sins had yet to be fully realised. In other words, a deeper problem was indicated than one which rested on the level of action and conduct.
The testimony of the OT is that the sin which entered the world through Adam affected even the best that Israel could produce in terms of national role models.
I think that makes the relevance of the biblical narrative to non-believers quite clear. Sin is universal, and also personal, and profoundly affects our lives. It requires radical surgery. Jesus came to give that radical surgery - but also to receive it on our behalf. The requirement was not simply a new start in life, but a new life to start with. The cross was the beginning of the end to the old creation, and the beginning of the new. The beginning of the new, radically separated from the old, is demonstrated through baptism, and lived out, however imperfectly, in the life of every believer and follower of Jesus.
Peter, long time no
Peter, long time no see…thanks for the reply.
I was speaking strictly from a legal standpoint and I was pointing out that “disease” is very inaccurate contextually speaking. I don’t want to get lost in semantics and get away from the original point, but the western idea of “sin nature” is something I cannot find anywhere in the Scriptures.
Now I will grant you that Jesus did come to set a new standard for his followers in that he observed that the Law has emptied the hearts of Jewish people of any desire to do what’s right before God, and he is clearly correcting that kind of thinking: when you lust after a woman you have already committed adultery in your heart. I would however like to continue the “sin everywhere” conversation with you if you are interested - I find such conversations highly educational and enjoyable. :)
obtuse of me
I apologise for having posted something that is difficult to understand for, contrary to what Virgil says, I do think that it’s great that you have started to think about what Jesus teaches. Being in relationships is very important and it is impossible to express our love to one another apart from being in living and loving relationships with one another. Our human relationships will be set right as our relationship with God is set right. It might not be easy but that is how we will become His body and His ambassadors.
Keep studying God’s word and keep thinking, seeking the truth, and the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth, that’s His promise!
Jesus’s gospel, His teaching and His life are the best guide, so don’t worry about being in over your head, faith is essentially very simple, believe in Him and He will show you how to follow.
When we come across descriptions of individual ‘sins’ in the N.T. these are actually summaries of the things that go wrong when we fail to live in His love. These summaries point us back to our Lord and His summary: Love the Lord your God with all your heart…love your neighbor as yourself (the law & the prophets). Then Jesus takes it one step further for His disciples “take up your cross and follow me”. As we follow Him we will love others more than we love ourselves - to the point of death, now that’s tough love!
Live to serve : Serve to live
thanks
First, Virgil, thanks for your thoughts they were a needed corrective. Sam, Thanks for your kind words. And you are right. I can’t have good horizontal relationships without a right vertical one.
I look at the world and God as a recovering addict these days. I live in 12 step rooms and though I used to travel the world preaching about a God I only knew about through study and what I was taught I’m getting to know God now through all the incredibles he brings into my life in little rooms where we introduce ourselves as addicts in need of a HP to simply get us through the day.
This, Virgil, is where I think your statement, which I believe is true still falls short. Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection does somehow, mystically give us all of Jesus’s perfection before God and transfered all of our crap to him. (see 1 Peter 2) but his life and His gift of the Spirit has to do far more than that. If it didn’t I’d be dead from my addiction now.
In my world, sin is an addiction to self. I live at the center of my own universe. The world reveolves around me. I am in control. Recovery is all about giving control back to God and trusting Him for my very life. It is a frightening proposition. It is why Jesus said that I have to pick up my cross daily and follow him. It is the only way I have any chance at life.
Picking up the threads of my earlier post. If I am right, it is simply my addiction to myself that gets in the way of all my relationships with either God or my fellows. It is this “addiction to self” which Jesus has to deal with in my life every day.
I struggled with why the gospel writers again and again connected Jesus’ miracles with forgiveness of sins. E.g., the man lowered through the ceiling. Your sins are forgiven. And then take up your bed and walk. Life is full of disease and brokeness. The good news of the Kingdom is that God provides, not a cure all but a “way of escape.” To me that speaks of a journey. I am on “the way” — the way to freedom, joy and peace.
Virgil, I was also struck and appreciated your statement that no where in the Scriptures do you find the idea of a sin nature. My guess is that your statement is reactive against moralizers, for we cannot escape the statements throughout the Psalms which speak to the wickedness of the human heart or Paul’s statements throughout Romans which lend their support to the idea of a sin nature of some kind.
Because of my own journey I have come to understand that sin nature to be my addiction, which on my own I am powerless to overcome. It has to be irradicated by a power greater than myself. It was irradicated through the work of Christ on the cross. But His resurrection gives hope of power for me to live differently here and now. I no longer have to be a slave to my addiction. I can slowly discover freedom. My diseasae doesn’t have to kill me so long as I take my medicine every day and give up my life to Him hour by hour.
I tell people that I still beleive the same stuff I simply don’t trust my ability to understand it anymore. I am new to this whole blog thing. I am not used to typing out loud so am more than open to correction. If it goes over my head, I’ll let you know.
Stephen
Stephen, many thanks for
Stephen, many thanks for your kind reply. I only want to comment on your “sin nature” reference regarding Paul and the Psalms.
In the Jewish context, there was no such thing as “sin nature” - when western Christians see evil everywere, Jewish theology taught that mankind is inherently good (born without sin) however does have a propensity to commit sin. This is radically different than what modern Christianity has been teaching us, in that it prompts us to have an escapist view from an universe we see as steeped in sin. In reality, sin only exists in people’s hearts (as Peter rightly noticed earlier), thus Jesus deals effectively with this problem by repeatedly proclaiming that “the Kingdom is in you” or “you have passed from death into life” - etc. Again, I believe that freedom, as you called it, does not come from continuously doing what you think is the right thing to do. It rather comes from the conviction that Jesus has done what was necessary to destroy Death and bring life to the world, reconciling all things back to God.
Ultimately maybe we are both saying the same thing; this “blog thing” does not make communication easy.
Thinking of some movies.
I think when Christians stop talking with each other about sin, and addressing the world on the subject of sin, we fail our duty. So, having been struck by a silly observation of what the secular world regards as sin, I thought I’d pick this up kinda where I left of, though some great discussion followed, in which I didn’t participate.
Fisrt to Sam, who I’ve gotten to know more them most others here, — you can see I’m sort of a one-trick pony. I carry this theme of man’s sinful pretense of mastery over God just about everywhere I go. As with all judging eyes, I tend to acquit myself from my own standard of judgment. Can start calling that “Doing a Foley” — and I wonder — is confronting adolescents with creepy adult interest a greater sin than thinking my own creepy interests really aren’t so creepy? Perhaps this is a bit too contemporary for a discussion of timeless concerns — an eventual anachronism.
I like what you say, Sam, about how our nature is to erect systems of classification and relationship to organize and exercise mastery over our milieu — that’s the charge given us through Adam, to exercise dominion. But the tools by which we exercise dominion, are not tools by which to encounter God. But they are tools to which we’re accustomed, and generally work to our benefit, so we employ them overbroadly — and it’s natural to do so. It’s figuring out the set of tools by which we encounter God, and how they’re distinct from those by which we encounter domain, that’s I guess the central theological question. And I really lack answers. It’s really your post above which brought this necessary distinction to mind.
On to sin — I was thinking of two movies, both rather old. Woody Allen’s “Midsummer Night’s Sex Fantacy” — and Albert Brooks’ “Defending Your Life” — in which lost opportunity was the essence of sin. Lost opportunity for hedonistic or epicurian enjoyment, mostly.
A rhetorical question is often given us in making a choice. Five years from now — will I most regret not doing A, or not doing B. I’ve heard that in a context of Christian sentimentality — sort of “5 years from now, I’ll never regret having spent MORE time with my kids” — but in the Woody Allen movie, for instance — the regret offered is 5 years from now, looking back and saying “I could have gotten laid, but chickened out”.
And — leaving it there for others to dwell upon, if it merits dwelling upon — I wonder how much (post?)modern ethical attitudes are tied up in a “moral” imperative to “grab the gusto”.
A puff away from 3 packs a day
the unclean, sin, and human nature
I think it’s plausible that God brought evil into the world by defining what shall be regarded as evil. There may have been nothing intrinsically wrong with eating of that forbidden fruit. The Mosaic laws seem pretty random. You can always try to rationalize: pigs are dirty so they carry disease, God is protecting us from pig-borne pathogens, blah blah blah — but Yahweh made no such justifications. “This is clean; that, unclean.” By defining otherwise neutral acts as evil, God created evil.
To create evil isn’t to do evil, of course. For all we know, after establishing the Law Yahweh never again ate pork in his life. So, is it in our nature to sin according to the Law? A lot of the Law is devoted to defining uncleanness. Handling corpses, giving birth, menstruating, having sex, touching unclean things — everyone does the unclean sometimes; it’s part of daily life. So we’re naturally prone to unclean acts, as defined by Yahweh in the Law.
But is uncleanness sin? It seems to me that the Law treats uncleanness as sin. E.g., Lev. 5:1-4 lumps together as offences an unwillingness to testify in court, the touching any unclean thing, and the swearing oaths. V. 5f: “So it shall be when he becomes guilty of one of these things, that he shall confess that in which he has sinned. He shall also bring his guilt offering to Yahweh for his sin which he has isinned.”
This seems a consistent pattern in the Law: contact with the unclean is sinful. It’s also sinful to make inappropriate contact with clean things — e.g., drinking wine in the tabernacle (Lev. 10:9f). Unclean acts are sinful and require guilt offerings even if they’re performed unintentionally — Lev. 5:2,3,15). Unfair, you say? Hey, don’t look at me — I didn’t make the rules.
I think the Jews believed that the Law revealed the inherent uncleanness of things. According to this thinking, the Gentiles were under condemnation because they were ignorant of clean vs. unclean; consequently they sinned all the time without realizing it, and without ever making atonement via guilt offerings. This line of reasoning is, I think, dismissed in the New Testament.
In the Mosaic law Yahweh created a morality. The Talmudic elaboration on the Law isn’t necessarily the revelation of eternal ethical truths; it might also legitimately be regarded as the collective creation of a bunch of rabbinic scholars. The ability to create legal and ethical systems is something we Judeo-Christians have always been good at. Maybe it’s part of being made in the imago Dei.
Judaism and critique from within
I’m totally sold on getting a better historical framework for understanding the faith - which involves better understanding of the mindset and worldview(s) of Judaism - both the biblical and 1st century varieties.
The place where this approach needs to be handled carefully is with respect to the ‘critique from within’ which Jesus delivered, and Paul continued. In fact through Jesus, the expectations of historic Judaism were thoroughly overturned and repackaged. So we have the task of inquiring what the expectations were - and how these were modified to form the basis of the faith which we now hold.
Looking carefully at historic Judaism can provide many new insights into faith for today - but to my mind, both John and Virgil (perhaps) take the Judaistic interpretation further and less critically than I would feel comfortable with.
Nowhere is this inquiry more significant than the subject of sin - and its meaning for us today, and in the light of attitudes in the 1st century, and the sweep of the biblical narrative as a whole. I don’t believe God arbitrarily invented morality, as John asserts, and I do not think it is unreasonable to talk of a ‘sin nature’ - though that requires a great deal of elaboration. Sin which proceeds from ‘the heart’ is deeper than the level of actions alone, and even deeper than the level of a ‘heart commitment’ which can be changed simply by being determined enough. In one way or another, theologians through the centuries have realised this - though language and logic lack the resources necessary in the end to explain it. But reality does not cease to exist simply because our language or theological systems prove inadequate to fathom its depths.
Peter, I am trying to not
Peter, I am trying to not get over-excited about the new Jewish insights I am discovering, but it is hard to do so when one finds a wealth of amazing information in the writings of the ancient rabbis and scribes. Were they right about everything? No, but certainly, the fact that they have a few thousand years on us does prompt me to stop and at least consider what they have to say.
I don’t mean to digress but I did write an article on the topic of the Creation which really illustrates best what I am saying in relation to the Jewish spin on Biblical passages: The Deep and Endless Story of Creation.
I would appreciate your comments when and if you have the time to check it out.
Sin, Law, Creation and New Creation
Virgil - we both seem to be arguing for a Jewish perspective on the biblical narrative - but coming to some rather different conclusions!
I agree with you in one respect though (and I have read, and enjoyed your article in ‘Planet Preterist’). Evil as ‘darkness’ was not a direct creation of Go in Jewish thought (and Stephen’s passage from Isaiah needs careful consideration here in the light of a wider overall context). C.S.Lewis described evil as ‘God’s shadow’. It is the inverse consequence of creation - of matter and being separate from God. I take Genesis 1:2 to be a poetic rather than literal description of latent evil - which, as Virgil points out, in Jewish thought is the opposite of order, unity, etc (as seen metaphorically in the power of the sea as opposed to the power of the dry land).
Evil is therefore in one sense an absence - ‘nothing’ as opposed to ‘something’. It is the negation of good, rather than an entity in itself. It exists only parasitically - feeding destructively on good. ‘Good’ is associated directly with creation in Genesis 1. Evil is a kind of anti-creation. God did not create and could not have created evil - but creation allowed for its possibility; it was one of the risks God took in making a creation separate from himself, and a supreme risk he took in making mankind, with the potential of God-like qualities being exercised independently from himself.
However, I’m not really with you (Virgil) when you interpret Paul as saying that outside the Law there is no sin, and on a biographical level, sin only appears when the Law appears - Romans 7:8. Without the Law, sin is only ‘dead’ in the sense that it has not been highlighted. It is a metaphorical, rather than a literal ‘dead’. It’s possible that Paul has in mind here the Bar Mitzvah - the point at which the child enters the world of adult responsibilities, and takes on the moral responsibility and accountability that comes to those under the Law. And yes, the Fall is recapitulated here - Romans 7:10. But sin existed before this particular ‘fall’, and would have existed whether the Law was introduced or not - Romans 5:12-14.
Your references to previous ‘new creations’ in the OT point to recapitulated ‘recovery’ programmes - first with Noah, then Abraham on entering Canaan, then Israel entering the promised land. But none of these ‘recovery’ programmes were complete in themselves - they were all partial. None overcame the root problem which led again and again to their failure. They all pointed the way to the ‘new creation’, which would come in the person of Jesus himself, though his death and resurrection, and the participation in that through faith by the people of God.
The cross, and the resurrection of Jesus, were in one sense the completion of God’s recovery programme - in that the problem - sin - was dealt a mortal blow. Nothing else needed to be added. But it must be obvious that the outworking of that climactic event is incomplete - there yet remains a more total expression of the ‘new creation’ to come, which will cover the entire face of the earth. That simply has not yet come. However, we are called to live as prophetic people, in the light of the mandate of Isaiah 61, living out the new creation life, bringing the new creation realities into an old creation world, as realities for now, but signalling the irreversible advent of those realities for the whole earth and for all who will participate in them through the resurrection. So I would take your view that we are living in the new creation now with a big ‘yes’, but with the necessary qualifications above.
Wow Peter - great post
Wow Peter - great post here, I love your insight. I believe that maybe I wasn’t clear enough when mentioning Paul’s view of sin - Paul also wrote that gentiles had the Law written on their hearts, so in reality all mankind was under the law, some being bound by its written letter, and others unknowingly abiding by what God wrote on people’s hearts (according to Paul). I would think this goes back to the old argument that “nobody has to tell you when you sin - you know it in your heart.”
Now, I guess the question can still be asked if sin existed outside this “law” (written on hearts). My answer would be no. If it was a near mortal sin in Jewish culture to eat from the sacrifice food given in the temple if you were not of the tribe of Levi, it is likely (an I am speculating here) that a gentile would have no clue on whether or not God frowns on that. The same goes for other obscure Jewish commandments, like cutting of hair, shaving, etc. How would you think that those commandments (which do result in sin) would affect a gentile back before the Law was fulfilled?
The sins of uncleanness in Mosaic law
Peter,
Setting aside the more radical and inflammatory speculation that God might have created evil by defining the nature of sin, and also acknowledging that “through Jesus, the expectations of historic Judaism were thoroughly overturned and repackaged,” let’s go back to the Mosaic laws of uncleanness.
First, is “unclean” an intrinsic property of certain objects and behaviors? It doesn’t seem likely that some things were created unclean. I also see no suggestion that pork or shellfish or boiling a ewe in its mother’s milk became unclean as a result of the Fall. Rarely does the Law explicitly explain the rationales behind the laws. It seems that God establishes a set of behaviors by which his covenant people can be recognized and by which they can demonstrate their fealty. The Jews are circumcised, they don’t eat pork, they perform various cleansing rituals, and why? Because Yahweh told them to.
Second, is violation of the clean-unclean laws sinful? I previously cited the Leviticus passages to support the affirmative. Lev. 5:3f – “So it shall be when he becomes guilty in one of these, that he shall confess that in which he has sinned. He shall also bring his guilt offering to Yahweh for his sin which he has sinned.” Unclean, guilt, sin, guilt offering.
Third, does a sin of uncleanness reflect an inner state of the heart? Lev. 3:3 – “Or if he touches human uncleanness, of whatever sort his uncleanness may be with which he becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him, and then he comes to know it, he will be guilty.” Note that the person doesn’t become guilty upon contact with the unclean thing, so presumably it isn’t intrinsically unclean, infecting the person with guilt by sheer contact as it were. If the uncleanness was intrinsic to the behavior the violator would be guilty whether he came to know it or not. Perhaps the sinner subconsciously violates the law even when the conscious mind is unaware of it? I don’t think that’s the sense of the passage. The idea that the uncleanness is “hidden from” him suggests a state of the unclean thing rather than a state of the sinner’s heart. He isn’t guilty unless and until the moment arrives when he becomes aware that he has already touched a previously-hidden uncleanness.
In sum, the sins of uncleanness seem to reflect neither an inner state of the heart nor an intrinsic property of the unclean thing. Rather, the uncleanness laws seem to proscribe specific overt behaviors with respect to certain otherwise neutral objects that have been specifically set aside by God as unclean for the Jews. Yes?
Now if all that’s true, we can speculate about the NT’s “overturning and repackaging.” Perhaps the members of the Mosaic culture weren’t “internal” or psychological enough to distinguish intent from behavior, though presumably they were beyond the point of regarding specific objects in the world as intrinsically either holy or profane. So God came up with an external-behavioral system for defining sin and guilt that the people would understand on their socio-historical terms. Later, as the sense of intent and conscience became more entrenched in the culture and the psyche, God established a more internal-attitudinal covenantal code.
We can speculate that the inner-psychological sense of sin and guilt is better (deeper, more evolutionarily advanced, more culturally sophisticated, more enlightened, more rational, more love-based, more Christotelic, etc.) than the external-behavioral one. But these are two fundamentally different ways of understanding sin and guilt, I think.
Sin, Torah observation, national vindication and Jesus
John,
The ins and outs of the entire purity code are beyond me! I don’t however agree that many of the laws had no other purpose than to form a means of identifying God’s people. There seem to be many suggestions that the purpose of some of the more obscure regulations did actually have a function other than the arbitrary provision of an identification badge.
Despite your opening salvo, it is certainly the case that Jesus radically challenged the historic expectations of Israel concerning her national destiny - and brought fulfilment to those expectations in a way that was largely rejected by her - because her expectations had become too closely identified with the methods, ambitions and spirit of the power politics of the surrounding nations.
Despite the rigorous attention to the requirements of the covenant by the Pharisees (which was never divorced from nationalist political aspirations), the evidence of ‘forgiveness of sins’ had not appeared for Israel (ie triumph over the pagans, return of JHWH to the temple etc).
It is here that a reassessment of the ‘sin’ which was holding back the blessing of God was needed - since it was clear that adherence to the covenant requirements alone (as proof of loyalty to JHWH) was not enough to deal with the ‘sin’ that needed forgiving. Jesus provided a much more penetrating analysis of sin (see previous posts). Further, Jesus was bringing a more comprehensive view of Israel’s failure (as presented in her scriptures) as well as the failure of the world, which wound its way back to an ancient narrative in which death and sin were inextricably connected - ever since the expulsion from Eden.
This analysis was not invented by latterday evangelicals, or early church theologians shifting the church from her true Jewish roots. It is a profoundly Jewish analysis. The universality of sin, and the depth of its power, are proved by the universality and inescapability of death. The resurrection of Jesus was evidence that this power had been finally, and fatally, reversed. Contemporary 1st century Jewish expectations simply had not gone far or deep enough. Jesus came to identify with and fulfil a set of expectations which exceeded anything that had been imagined by his contemporaries, yet profoundly fulfilled the narrative expectations of their own scriptures.
In this fulfilment, Jesus’s death was to do with more than the issue of Torah observation alone, and certainly more than Israel’s national failings alone. Had the significance of his death been so restricted, 1st century Judaism(s) could rightfully have expected to see the hopes of their religious power politics fulfilled: Rome sent packing through a supernatural intervention of JHWH; a national vindication before a watching world; a worldly king on David’s throne of David’s line; a warrior messiah-conqueror; the righteous national dead raised; the Spirit sealing Israel’s new-found world domination and JHWH back in the temple where he belonged.
That was Israel’s version of the narrative. Jesus’s version had a more ancient origin, going deeper and wider in scope than Israel’s, in which Israel’s final role was to serve the world through her own failure. The crucifying of the servant messiah was the very means that not only reflected the depth of that failure, but reversed it - for the benefit of the entire creation. Israel as a whole had failed; Israel in her perfect representative triumphantly succeeded.
To fully understand sin, we need to look at the whole biblical narrative, and the part that Jesus played in bringing that narrative to a totally unexpected but triumphant conclusion.
a very cool extension of my mind
I have to admit I am eager every day to get back to my computer to find what has been added to this conversation. This is my first experience with a blog of this kind and I am finding it extremely helpful in continuing to challenge and shape my thoughts.
Peter, I have very much appreciated all that you have written and I am with you — the whole Levitical Law is in large part beyond my understanding. I want to support John’s argument a little biblically,and then see how it fits or doesn’t fit with my current understanding of our discussion.
Is 45:7-8 states, ” I am the one who creates the light and makes the darkness. I am the one who sends good times and bad times. I, the LORD, am the one who does these things. Open up, O heavens, and pour out your righteousness. Let the earth open wide so salvation and righteousness can sprout up together. I, the LORD, created them. ” NLT
I tried to get a grasp on that word “chosak” which is the word for darkness here and it is metaphorically understood as evil and/or wickedness. This seems to lend credence to what John is arguing.
However, I want to argue that in the same way we experience the limitations of our own language as we type into this blog the OT writer would have similar limitations. We use language to point us toward truth. Language can never be the Truth, or contain the Truth. Only the One True Word contains all Truth, and lived it out among us.
But going back to the Isaiah passage, I would argue that of course since God is the author of all that is he must in some ways be the author of evil if I want to go back to a modernistic philosophical model. I do not accept that God is the author of evil, however. I do not pretend to understand how is not but the God I have come to understand could not create evil — even by his absence.
That being the case let me try to come at this another way. An apocraphal story is told about Henri Blondine the tight rope walker who used to walk across Niagra Falls in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was looking for someone to get in a wheel barrow so that he could push them across the falls. A little boy had almost worshipped the ground Blondine walked on and was convinced that Blondine would never fall…until Blondine himself asked him to get into the wheel barrow. The little boy wouldn’t do it. “”Oh no, not me, Mr. Blondine!” he cried. The question comes up, “Did the little boy really believe?” Well, to a degree yes, but not really.
It seems to be the question God has asked us throughout history, “How much do you really trust me? Do you trust me enough to not wear clothes woven of two different fabrics? Do you trust me not to eat all this good food that you get to see your neighbors enjoy and I am asking you not to eat?”
We have to go even deeper than that too though, for God was trying to make the point to his people that He was wholly other or, “Holy”. He was cut off from and separate from all the other Gods and His people were commanded to be also. How that was to occur was through the laws that were given. Beats me as to how.
I am not an ancient Mesopotamian scholar. I am not sure I can even spell it correctly, but the reality is that there is much more that we don’t know than we know. And why God would ask his people to do some weird and far out things is way beyond me, but I refuse to jump to the conclusion that the creation of the Law made people sinners! It did not! People were self centered, selfish egoists, who kept applying for the position of God long before God gave the law to Moses. Esau applied, and so did most of his kids. It was done at Babel, and then by Noah and his son Ham. It was certainly the case with Abraham, Lot and then their kids. Jacob and his sons turned around and followed suit as well. Everyone throughout history has wanted to be the master of their own destiny. Surely this is the root of sin?
We cannot make sin to be a result of God’s law. God’s law made sin more readily visible. “We don’t really trust you that much. We prefer to trust ourselves. Thank you very much.”
Virgil, I continue to dig your insights, but still I find them lacking insofar as the Jews had a very good idea of a sin nature. Your comments made me go back somewhere I didn’t think I’d revisit, Calvin’s Institutes. I’[ve been reminded that he’s not as bad as those who followed him or we’d like to make him out to be…
I was pondering your claim about the Jewish tradition in which Jesus found himself. It has enough truth in it… but to make your statement you almost have to say that 2000 years of church history has been bunk and now we have discovered the real truth. That to me is a really dangerous position to take. We are so much further out than the NT writers and the early church Fathers. And yes I will acknowledge that many of them were products of the Greco Roman world in which the lived, but Peter, Paul, John, James, Luke and whoever else you might want to name who wrote the majority of the NT were not.
Lets challenge ourselves with new scholarship, and let it shape and form our minds, but lets honor the historical faith that has been passed down to us as well. Lets build and not destroy, lets create new vistas while not overlooking the vistas from the past.
We have to be careful here. If there is rediscovery of ancient and forgotten truths to be had (and I am convinced there is) then lets go for it. I am grateful already that my thinking has been reshaped by posts here that have challenged and changed some of my ideas. But we cannot simply throw aside that which we don’t like or don’t understand in the name of progress.
Stephen
Stephen,
Stephen,
My biggest dilemma is really the very same question you asked regarding 2000 years of bunk or of quality scholarship. Personally I am starting to wonder if each generation of believers should not be responsible for its own scholarship and development of doctrine, but as the emerging folks try, not doing so at the expense of grace abandonment and marginalization of love.
Now, regarding sin, I try to put it in the context of what Paul said about it and death. In Romans 7 Paul makes a striking comment that is most confusing: “I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.” It appears that there was a time in Paul’s life when sin was not there and Paul could call himself “alive” because of sin. Then, because of the commandment of the law (clearly he is referring to the Jewish Law here), sin became alive and Paul died. I can therefore conclude that sin was brought to life by the Law’s commandment. This has major implications on the idea of “original sin.” For example, I have no doubt that my two little girls who are both under five years old and lack understanding of sinful behavior and scriptural commandments are sin-free and thus without blame before God.
Perhaps this concise presentation of my understanding of Paul’s words in Romans 7 will prompt you to reconsider another (my) point of view about sin and original sin. You also mentioned Calvin – I did a short, intolerant and politically-incorrect paper on Calvin that you may find offensive if you look up to Calvin, but again, at least if you read it with an open mind, you may get more insight in the true nature of John Calvin; it is titled The Right to Heresy. I do apologize to our Calvinist friends if they take offense to it, but Calvin’s actions are relevant and they need to be discussed by posterity.
Regarding the second issue, which is the trustworthiness of Jewish theology, I submit to you that first and foremost, Christ’s message was for the Jews, in a Jewish context, based on Jewish theology, culture and social customs. It is therefore crucial for contemporary western Christians to make an effort to understand the anthropological aspects of first-century Judaism. In the Jewish mind, a shepherd abandoning his sheep to look for one lost sheep means something else than what it means in an American’s mind; a camel going through the eye of the needle has a special and unique relevance to Jews living in Jerusalem in the first century; even the word “faith” means something completely different in the Jewish mind, compared to the modern western definition of the word. It is clear therefore that we cannot and should not easily dismiss the thousands of years of exegesis, tradition and interpretive work of the ancient Jewish scholars and rabbis.
And I dig your comments too brother; thanks for the wonderful interaction.
An interpretation of the Fall
Virgil, Peter, Stephen —
I have a sense of being lured against my better judgment into revealing myself as a heretic or, worse, a sophist. Based on some of the other comments I’ve read on this blog I daresay I’ll have some company… so let’s press on.
Regarding Peter and Stephen’s self-proclaimed inability to grasp the nuances of Mosaic Law, you guys protesteth too much, methinks. There’s probably a hermeneutical mismatch in play here: parsing specific cases vis-Ã -vis the broad historical-contextual sweep. But then again, I was the one who put forward the broad proposition that perhaps God created evil. I think Leviticus is as good a place to begin as any, and an appropriate sociohistorical context for Jesus’ and Paul’s reframing of the sin issue, but I’ll let it go.
God created the idea of evil as something that makes sense of the human condition. Other animals steal, fornicate promiscuously, eat shellfish in season, do whatever they feel like doing – all without being evil, all without committing sin or incurring guilt. It’s in the animal’s best interest to live peaceably within the pack, to share food in anticipation of reciprocity during future times of shortage, etc. but these behaviors don’t count as morally good. In short, the other animals are amoral. But because man is uniquely made in the imago Dei, man is moral, capable of deciding and acting in ways that override raw animal instinct, of doing good without expectation of personal benefit.
So: when precisely did man become aware of himself as a moral being, capable of good and evil? Presumably it was in the Garden, when God told man not to eat of one particular tree. Surely the fruit didn’t contain an orally ingestible form of knowledge. The tree might have been any randomly-selected tree, indistinguishable from the rest. But God chose the fruit of that particular tree to be the forbidden fruit. It’s the sheer arbitrariness of it that makes it a valid test. This one tree was neither intrinsically better nor worse than the other trees; its fruit was good for food and a delight to the eyes; eating the fruit wouldn’t hurt the tree – the interdiction was based solely on God’s command.
If Adam and Eve had been squirrels the disobedience might have merited a rap on the snout. But no: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened,” it says. Was this self-awareness a curse, a blessing, or a natural consequence? Whichever way you look at it, man at that moment became a moral being, knowing good and evil, ashamed of doing evil, afraid of being caught, shirking responsibility, passing the buck – the whole cascade of sordid petty sinfulness.
Up to now the imago Dei has manifested itself in man’s participation in naming the creatures, in being able to exercise dominion over the earth, in using language (God did speak already in Genesis 1). Perhaps God was hoping to protect man from attaining a godlike moral awareness. Paradoxically, man became a moral being through his first act of immorality. He already seemed drawn to exploring the axis of good and evil, but there’s something about achieving self-awareness that carries man over the threshold from amoral to moral, from animal to… what: a kind of corrupt god? Whatever he became, it might never have happened if God hadn’t declared that particular tree to be off-limits.
I think the Romans 7 passage follows from this discussion of the Fall and the Law. Just declaring something to be off-limits – anything, no matter how arbitrary – is enough to instill desire for that thing. Even further: if God had never made coveting a sin, we might have coveted and “gotten away with it,” just like the other amoral animals that’ll snatch the pork chop off your plate when you’re not looking.
Speaking of pork chops, I was about to wrap up for now and have some lunch, but I see that Peter has a new comment, placed somehow out of chronological order. Darkness as metaphorical evil, matter’s separation from God as evil, the sea as latent evil, evil as absence, metaphorical deadness – all sorts of exotic notions seem to be cropping up. I am curious, though, about what you all think of this version of original sin I’ve put forward. Forget for now whether God deserves the blame for man’s sin: does this interpretation of the Fall seem plausible?
Looking at the Fall
John - enjoy the pork chops. I was just eating my sandwiches (not a shellfish or cloven hoofed animal to be seen) in front of the computer screen when your message came up.
I have to ask: what is the ‘morality’ to which Adam & Eve were supposedly introduced by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge? You make it sound slightly like a ‘thing’ which the couple were given, almost as part of their personal development, by God (their personal trainer). Eg ‘Now it’s time for Adam & Eve to learn about morality; here is morality - unfortunately, you have learned about it the wrong way.’
But morality wasn’t a package, or the granting of some new innate faculty that they didn’t have before. The issue was obedience to God - and with it, relationship with God. Did they or didn’t they want to continue in relationship with God, the condition of which was (and always would be) obedience?
I see something much more profound taking place when Adam & Eve partook of the fruit of the forbidden tree. Instead of God being God, they would be ‘gods’ themselves. God would no longer be necessary. God would from now on be regarded as a liar: untrustworthy, unreliable. His entire character was impugned. The shift was as great as could be imagined, and its consequences were seen almost immediately. Argument, discord, dissent, guilt, fear - in relation to each other and to God. Furthermore, instead of being guided by God, the couple would now be guided by the appetites (the fruit was good for food) and specious appearances (the fruit was pleasing to the eye). Something much greater was happening than the incorporation of a sense of morality.
Evil comes into the picture, because instead of life being governed by what was ‘good’ (God), it falls to the opposite, God’s shadow, to quote C.S.Lewis again. The consequences? Chaos, misrule, disorder. Maybe I’m too much of a literary philosopher here, but I think of the witches in Macbeth casting dissected animals into the cauldron in a celebration of anti-creation, or King Lear and his daughters: “Nothing will come of nothing; speak again!”, where Lear himself is the prime motivator of disorder.
Adam and Eve were moral beings the minute God breathed his Spirit into them. They remained moral beings for as long as they lived harmoniously in obedience to God. By taking the fruit from the tree of knowledge, they “knew” good and evil in a way that had never been intended - to quote Milton “Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.” But did they not know the good before eating the fruit? Yes they did - they were living and experiencing it. Evil was ‘known’ in a way that had never been intended - and the extent of the catastrophic experience which it precipitated can be seen in the immediate reactions of the pair, to each other, and to God. It took 235 years for mankind to get to the position where they began again to call on the name of the Lord - Genesis 4:26. A long time by anyone’s reckoning. Something very serious had taken place.
Anyway, I’ve had my sandwiches, and after this quick burst of activity on the site over the past few days, my intention is now to return to monkish seclusion once again.
Morality as a thing?
It turned out my wife brought me a kebab and frites, so I’m still kosher (or hallal, I suppose). I’ll respond at length to Peter’s skepticisms regarding my last comment about the Fall, then more briefly to Virgil about Romans.
‘Morality’ as a ‘thing’? asks Peter, to which I reply: God says that man already was godlike before the Fall (Gen. 1:26). God says that man became even more godlike after the Fall, perhaps even as a result of the Fall (Gen. 3:22). What made man even more godlike than he was before? The answer: knowing good and evil — that’s what it says, yes? Man did indeed acquire a new faculty at the Fall, or perhaps he first manifested a faculty for which he already had the innate potential, like the ability to use language.
As you point out, man lost more than he gained. ‘The shift was as great as could be imagined, and its consequences were seen almost immediately. Argument, discord, dissent, guilt, fear - in relation to each other and to God.’ Yes, I agree, these were the direct consequences noted in the Genesis text. ‘Chaos, misrule, disorder’ – these too, eventually. Surely man lost a great deal in this episode. There are those who suppose that man had to rebel in order to achieve his godlike moral agency, that God had created an untenable situation both for himself and for man. Adam and Eve became tragic antiheroes as soon as God expelled them forever from paradise. This is a fairly popular interpretation of the story, I’d say. But I don’t think it’s warranted by the text.
God as man’s ‘personal trainer’? Better: man as God’s personal apprentice in the creation. God assigned him the task of cultivating the garden, and He let man name the creatures, presumably with a view toward man exercising dominion over the earth.
‘Obedience as the condition for relationship’? As far as we know, the only explicit command God issued before the Fall was not to eat of that one tree; from any other tree they could freely eat. Of course the consequence for disobedience was profound: “you shall surely die.” God doesn’t say whether death was an explicit punishment for disobedience or an inevitable consequence. Either way, avoidance of death is a very self-centered incentive; God says nothing about broken relationship as a punishment or consequence of eating the fruit.
‘I see something much more profound’? Maybe so, but not all of it is in this text. Why afterward would man be guided by his appetites? Appetite guided man before the Fall – the fruit was good to eat and a delight to the eye. Why henceforth would God be dismissed as an unnecessary liar of impugned character? All that doubt would have crept in before the Fall, inducing Adam and Eve to eat. Afterward did they continue to harbor these doubts, or did they realize that their doubts had been misplaced? The text doesn’t say. We do know, however, that in Genesis 4:1 – the very next verse after God drove man out of the garden – Eve credits God for the birth of Cain.
I agree that man subsequently created moral systems based on all sorts of wobbly foundations, including the glorification of personal appetites. But the instinct to gratify appetite is an animal urge, as is the desire to avoid punishment. We are animals: we still take pleasure in taste and appearance as good things; we still avoid pain. It’s only when the instincts conflict with higher or deeper moral considerations that we need to suppress them. Seeking pleasure when it conflicts with one’s morality is to act sinfully. Creating a morality based on pleasure-seeking is to create a corrupt morality – but only a godlike being, an intrinsically moral being, can create any kind of morality.
‘Adam and Eve were moral beings the minute God breathed his Spirit into them’ – On what basis do you assert this? ‘They remained moral beings for as long as they lived harmoniously in obedience to God’ – Obedience isn’t morality. Even a dog can obey its master – or disobey, for that matter. You don’t stop being a moral being by acting immorally: you become im-moral, not a-moral. Only a moral being – someone for whom morality means something more than instinct – can sin. Still, humans didn’t have to sin in order to become moral. That was the unfortunate path that man chose; presumably there were other ways. “Christ learned obedience through the things he suffered;” he didn’t learn to be morally good through obedience.
Virgil, I think part of the problem with the Law is precisely this issue: being obedient just isn’t the same as being moral or righteous. On the other hand there’s the situation of Romans 2:14-15, where the Gentiles do naturally the things of the law. Sometimes instinct coincides with the Law. Sometimes people create their own moralities that coincide with the Law, “their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending themselves.” Then there are the seemingly arbitrary, non-intuitive, non-instinctive aspects of the Law: their very arbitrariness reveals them to be something other than intrinsic morality or righteousness. I’m going to check out your Genesis 1 evaluation; I’ll send you an email about it if I can figure out how it’s done.
And by now I’ve eaten not only my lunch but my dinner as well. I haven’t given serious thought to these issues in years, and I don’t think I’ve ever really discussed them since I got out of school. This is a nice forum.
Glad you enjoyed the kebab
Glad you enjoyed the kebab and frites John. We had a good old English dish for supper - Shepherd’s Pie made of beef left over from Sunday - minced. Is that hallal or kosher?
Just to say that I don’t think knowing good and evil did make Adam and Eve more ‘godlike’. That was the serpent’s suggestion (Genesis 3:5), and experience of the serpent suggests that one should be wary of taking his advice at face value.
What actually did ‘knowledge of good and evil’ amount to? A death sentence and a life of arduous toil and dysfunctional relationalships (Genesis 3:16b). I don’t think it was a moral awareness in the sense that you are suggesting. It was actually an opening of the door to evil through disobedience - which involved a radical turning of the whole person away from God.
“Knowledge” can mean more than learning, or even awareness. It can also mean experience. Instead of Adam and Eve obtaining godlike qualities (as the serpent promised), they became debased, distracted, less able to relate to each other or God. The experience they obtained was not of the good, which they were now less able to discern and enjoy than before, and more of evil, which they conveyed to the rest of creation and their successors.
I believe Genesis 3 to be a profound cameo of the psychology of sin (which somewhere was what this post was all about). There is also something of a cryptic mystery pertaining to the tree which was the subject of Adam & Eve’s disobedience. Its purpose (other than serving as a test for the couple) is not obvious, and somewhat darkly layered. Again, there is no suggestion (at least to my mind) that Adam and Eve did not have moral awareness before eating the fruit of the tree - the ‘good’ being dependant on their relationship with God, which entailed obedience (eg Genesis 1:28, 2:15 etc) before they were faced with the temptation to disobey the prohibition of the tree.
Anyway, I now return to my trappist vows (maybe), which also ought to apply to mealtimes, especially those consumed whilst typing messages. Spitting crumbs onto the keyboard is an unpleasant habit as well as potentially damaging to the electronic circuitry.
What's a frite?
I had just decided this wonderful conversation was about over when I read John’s post. I have to say I have gained a lot from participating. Like John, it has been a long time for me to participate in this kind of discourse.
John, stated that the result of the fall was death and no where do we read that a result was broken relationship. But surely as you read about Adam and Eve discovering that they were naked and hiding, we cannot excape the narrative assertion that relationship was at least severely damaged — additionally we discover as we read about the results of the fall. “Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.” (Gen 3:16) Reading the Hebrew and paraphrasing, “You are going to want to control men and men are going to dominate you.” (As an aside — both the desire to control and the ruling over are results of the fall and are not to be embraced. For insight into the word “teshuwqah” (tesh-oo-kaw’); from OT:7783 in the original sense of stretching out after; a longing: KJV - desire. It is the same word the writer uses when God speaks to Cain: “Sin is crouching at your door. It teshuwqah you.”) This too speaks of broken relationship, hurt and isolation.
The story immediately moves to Cain and Abel. Again there is a broken relationship — again both vertically and horizontally. (It is also an interesting aside that God does not require capital punishment from Cain. Man it is easy to digress in this forum.)
I was reading another thread in this forum from Andrew re the Imago Dei. Though he took a number of hits for it, I believe he is right regarding the Trinitarian reading of this passage. In Genesis 1 the writer switches to the plural word for God “Elohim” and he then reports a Trinitarian conversation, Gen 1:26-27 “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (NASU)
I have argued as Andrew seemed to in his post that Genesis 1:26-27 does not say that individuals are made in the image of God but rather, humanity is. Genesis 9 makes the point that individuals are made in the Imago Dei. I don’t want to confuse threads here but I think it bears upon this conversation because if this reading is close to correct in essence the lack of relationship is equivelent to death. Together we were created in the image of God. This means that we were made for relationship. By choosing our animal instincts, as John describes them, over simply trusting our Creator, we chose to place ourselves above all else, as Peter rightly pointed out, trying to be our own gods. But as the Greeks found, many gods tend to fight with one another and so do we.
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