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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/20/2009 7:46 PM (GMT -6) |   | Here's the topic about which I'm interested in getting your perspective:
Adam and Eve pre-fall vs. post-fall
So, there we are as time traveling spectators in the garden pre-fall. There is as yet
---no fall
---no original sin
---no sin nature
---no flesh (at least not of the variety that wars against the soul and the Spirit)
---no proclivities towards evil
---no misrelation
1) What was different about man's nature pre-fall than post fall?
2) Without any of the above mentioned aspects of the fall, Adam and Eve still managed to sin. Does that mean that sin is a function of...what?...free will and finite knowledge? Is there some aspect other than free will and finite knowledge that should be accounted for in man's ability to sin? What is different about our ability to sin post-fall than pre-fall? What does original sin, a sin nature, the flesh, evil proclivities, misrelatedness...(however else you want to describe what came about in man as a result of the fall)...effect in man that was not the case pre-fall? Is it just a matter of increased probability to sin? Or is there something fundamentally different post-fall than pre-fall about our being drawn towards the sinful?
3) When Adam and Eve sinned pre-fall...when exactly did the sin (or fall if you will) happen? When they a) thought about disobeying (during tempting) b) decided to disobey c) when they actually took the first bite of the fruit. If, for example, when Eve thought about disobeying...she imagined what that would be like...but then she decided not to eat the fruit...would that have been a fall?
If not...what about if she had decided to disobey...was lifting the fruit towards her mouth to bite...Adam saw her from a distance...shouted at her to STOP! ran towards her and took the fruit from her hand...would Eve have experienced a fall because of her choice to disobey? Or did the fall only take place when the fruit was partaken of?
4) What would have happened had Adam not fallen to the temptation and remained unfallen while Eve was fallen?
5) How was the fall (in this case the changes wrought in man's nature) effected? Did God do a special act upon Adam and Eve at the time of the disobedience to alter their nature? Was there something about that particular fruit that had within itself something that altered Adam and Eve's nature? Was there something about Adam and Eve's nature that when mixed with disobedience wrought the change? How was the fall brought about in man?
6) Given that man could and did sin pre-fall (no original sin, sin nature, flesh, etc.) What does the idea of a change wrought at the fall buy us...why do we need the idea of original sin, sin nature, flesh etc. What does it explain about man that could not be explained by things that were true of man pre-fall?
7) If the original design specs for man included free will and finite knowledge...both of which are STILL true of man post-fall...were Adam and Eve created sinful?...Is sin not as big of a deal as we think? (Stick with me now! I said there was going to be speculation in this thread.) I mean in a certain way...granted sin...whether pre-fall or post-fall...whether something that was inevitable and even built into man or something that was a tragic deviance from the plan...causes suffering...in one's self...in others...in God...
...but if these sufferings were inevitable...the real issue is how to remedy the sufferings...for mankind to grow to a point in knowledge that sinning was reduced in liklihood...(and yes, D, dependence on God is a type of knowledge...I mean knowledge in the broadest sense here...knowledge of God, knowledge of ourselves, knowledge of morality, HOW to depend on God, etc.)
8) What did we fall FROM? Was it just that before that fateful bite Adam and Eve were totally dependent on God...and now there was/is disjunction from God?
9) When a person is redeemed...what changes are wrought in him then to make him different than
a) the post-fall unredeemed
b) Adam and Eve were pre-fall. Obviously there is a return to God, but is there something about man's nature that is changed? And if man's nature is changed at conversion...he now has two natures...because he certainly can still sin. Obviously the biblical tradition points in the direction that in the end the sin nature will be gone from man and he will remain with the nature wrought at conversion. Does that mean that at some point man will not be able to sin? What about free will and finite knowledge? If that is what is required in order for man to sin...won't we always be able to sin? Is it free will that will go as in the ideas of solidification for example? Cause finite knowledge seems to be our lot forever. So, is all this a prep time...and maybe we'll even have a prep time after this (purgatorial reshaping, etc.)...and then once we have all reached a certain point with regards to character and morality...God flash freezes those aspects of our being so that they are locked in forever...and we continue on then without the ability to sin because we are solidified into a compatibilist free will. But what about the problem of finite knowledge? Many, many times we make the wrong choice (a choice that brings about evil consequences for ourselves and others) not because we want to do evil...but because of our limited knowledge about everything we need to know to make a truly informed decision. Won't that situation remain with us forever? We will always have finite knowledge. And that means that we will always be able to make the wrong choice. Or does God do something to our knowledge equivalent to what He does to our free will? So that, at some point, we arrive at a domain that includes boundaries on our free will and on our knowledge...and that domain has been constructed so that the free will and knowledge that operates within the bounds are safe together...are not capable of combining to bring about wrong decisions and even wrong thoughts...a safe sphere...big enough to enjoy each other and God...but small enough for God to keep every constituent in a steady state.
Lay it on me. Keep in mind I've pleaded speculation right from the start. I'm just trying to gain understanding. I am open to whatever. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/21/2009 6:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Asher: 1) What was different about man's nature pre-fall than post fall?
Tom: Wish I knew. Honestly.
Asher: 2) Without any of the above mentioned aspects of the fall, Adam and Eve still managed to sin. Does that mean that sin is a function of...what?...free will and finite knowledge?
Tom: What else? That seems to locate it.
Asher: Is there some aspect other than free will and finite knowledge that should be accounted for in man's ability to sin?
Tom: Nothing comes to mind.
Asher: What is different about our ability to sin post-fall than pre-fall?
Tom: Same ability to sin. Less ability not to sin.
Asher: What does original sin, a sin nature, the flesh, evil proclivities, misrelatedness...(however else you want to describe what came about in man as a result of the fall)...effect in man that was not the case pre-fall?
Tom: I tend to locate the real inevitability of sin in the epistemic distance and free will. You don’t need much else to make sin inevitable. But once human beings start misrelating, and society becomes misrelated, i.e., social dispositions become fallen and entrenched in selfishness, then it’s doubly inevitable that we’ll screw up.
Asher: Is it just a matter of increased probability to sin? Or is there something fundamentally different post-fall than pre-fall about our being drawn towards the sinful?
Tom: This all depends on how you define sin. If you define it relationally, as willful misrelation, then it’s hard to see how one can be BORN in a state of willful misrelation. I think whatever material consequences there are to misrelating, that can get passed on I guess…physical depravity, for example. But moral depravity? How do you put that under a microscope?
Asher: 3) When Adam and Eve sinned pre-fall...when exactly did the sin (or fall if you will) happen? When they a) thought about disobeying (during tempting) b) decided to disobey c) when they actually took the first bite of the fruit. If, for example, when Eve thought about disobeying...she imagined what that would be like...but then she decided not to eat the fruit...would that have been a fall?
Tom: Dunno. The command was “not to eat.” If Eve started to reach her hand out and then Adam stopped her, or she tripped and fell, she didn’t “eat.” So I take it she didn’t follow through on her attention.
If I decide to rob a bank and get in my car with a gun and set out to the bank, even pull up a mask over my face, but as I pull up the bank a car hits me and I’m hospitalized, did I rob the bank? Am I guilty of robbing a bank because I was “on my way” to doing it? I doubt it. But maybe the “intending” is a separate misrelation OF ITS OWN.
Asher: 4) What would have happened had Adam not fallen to the temptation and remained unfallen while Eve was fallen?
Tom: Then chauvinism would be a godly thing instead of a form of misrelation!
Asher: 5) How was the fall (in this case the changes wrought in man's nature) effected? Did God do a special act upon Adam and Eve at the time of the disobedience to alter their nature? Was there something about that particular fruit that had within itself something that altered Adam and Eve's nature? Was there something about Adam and Eve's nature that when mixed with disobedience wrought the change? How was the fall brought about in man?
Tom: The ‘choice’. To choice not to trust, to measure one’s identity and meaning by one’s self, one’s own judgment, is the misrelation. The blessings of life and wholeness are mediated via right relating…worship, trust, etc. When we stop worshiping and trusting, we step cut ourselves off from the blessings that come from perceiving and relating to God. Or something like that.
Asher: 6) Given that man could and did sin pre-fall (no original sin, sin nature, flesh, etc.) What does the idea of a change wrought at the fall buy us...why do we need the idea of original sin, sin nature, flesh etc. What does it explain about man that could not be explained by things that were true of man pre-fall?
Tom: This is really THE question here. All the others are only important to the extent they shed light on THIS question.
Asher: 7) If the original design specs for man included free will and finite knowledge...both of which are STILL true of man post-fall...were Adam and Eve created sinful?...Is sin not as big of a deal as we think? (Stick with me now! I said there was going to be speculation in this thread.) I mean in a certain way...granted sin...whether pre-fall or post-fall...whether something that was inevitable and even built into man or something that was a tragic deviance from the plan...causes suffering...in one's self...in others...in God...
Tom: This is Tom Talbott’s view; not that we were created in a state of misrelation, shame, and brokenness, but that as human being evolved and developed, and as God worked with us, the image of God and the capacity for right and wrong relating emerged as a determine feature of human beings. That might have taken some time. But Talbott’s view is that there really wasn’t much of a chance for us to fully develop and progress into relationship with God without things going awry.
Asher: 8) What did we fall FROM? Was it just that before that fateful bite Adam and Eve were totally dependent on God...and now there was/is disjunction from God?
Tom: I think it was less a fall FROM something place of HAVING ARRIVED than a DETOUR, or a turning aside from. In other words, redemption and salvation are not a restoration of humankind to a pre-fall state. It’s rather the restoration of humankind to the RIGHT ROAD TOWARD our destined end. We were heading in the right direction, then took the wrong way. Now we can head in the right direction again.
Asher: 9) When a person is redeemed...what changes are wrought in him…
Tom: We weren’t in relation. Now we’re in relation. Just like being reconciled to any person. The rift is healed and forgiven. Now we can stand face to face with that person without shame, knowing we’ve loved, and able to experience the benefit of having our identities shaped by reference to this new experience with him. It’s just the Jesus is that other person now.
Just thinking out loud,
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 11/21/2009 11:15 AM (GMT -6) | | | I'm thinking the change between pre-fall and post-fall was not one of human nature, but one of substantial change in environment from one that was extremely adapted to human psychology to one that was not. The change could have been substantial enough to render sin, post-fall, literally inevitable, as the NT seems to indicate. It could have involved aspects of change such as relatively intense NATURAL suffering that was futile for this-worldy living, anticipation of CERTAIN death, etc. The human psyche may not have been designed to withstand the assaults upon it that are common-place in the post-fall world. Mutations and further environmental changes may have contributed to the original mal-adaptive changes.
I think that explanation is sufficient without positing a change in human psychology to account for the inevitability of sin. As for original sin, Rom. says sin and death (by which it seems to imply INEVITABLE sin and death--i.e., mortality) ENTERED the world through the sin of one man. THat is consistent with what I'm saying. So too, is the fact that the Spirit is now necessary for humans to live sinless.
I agree that God might very well be capable of forgiving without substitution. But I have no way of making sense of the efficacy of Christ's death to those who lived PRE-INCARNATION in a state of inevitable sinfulness without the Spirit. And at least Galations and Hebrews seem to clearly indicate that Christ's sinless life and death had atoning effects for pre-incarnational humans that not only died in sin, but sinned and died INEVITABLY. And the relevant verses seem clearly plausible in terms of substitution. One thing that I think a substitutionary mode of forgiveness provides is the implied declaration that PERFECTION was always God's original intent. That's why it is still required in the form of substitution. And thus, I don't believe sin was originally inevitable. If it was, I don't know how to get around the implication that God is the AUTHOR of it, either by intent or incompetence.
We don't need to assume that the original sin was anything other than the forbidden eating of the tree. The fact that sin entered the world through the sin of ONE MAN implies, to me, that God would not have kicked Adam out of the garden over Eve's sin, alone.
To me, inevitable sin seems like a contradiction in terms. How could I be sinning by doing what I literally could not have prevented? Doesn't it seem that it must be true that where NOTHING is given, NOTHING is required? And how am I sinning if I'm not preventing something God never required of me? Alternatively, how am I sinning if I'm DOING something God never required me to RESTRAIN from doing? For how could God require of me what is impossible? Doesn't inevitable mean impossible? If not, what does it mean? Improbable? If so, are we literally going to say that it is merely IMPROBABLE that humans live sinlessly? I don't see that scripture (especially Rom 5-8) comes close to saying that human sin is MERELY improbable.
It seems to me to clearly indicate that, apart from the Spirit, sin is INEVITABLE for humans if they live long enough. I assume that since God said neither Jacob or Esau had done any good or evil in their mother's womb that they had not sinned yet. But that's a trivial exception to the general rule that humans do sin if they live long enough.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/21/2009 10:47:30 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/21/2009 12:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: I'm thinking the change between pre-fall and post-fall was not one of human nature, but one of substantial change in environment from one that was extremely adapted to human psychology to one that was not.
Tom: This also makes sense of the mounting social implications. As more people give themselves over to sin, the social environment becomes more entrenched and the inevitability caves in. Eventually we get to Gen. 6 where (given human life spans perhaps) it’s reached the point of no return.
Jeff: The change could have been substantial enough to render sin, post-fall, literally inevitable, as the NT seems to indicate. It could have involved aspects of change such as relatively intense NATURAL suffering that was futile for this-worldy living, anticipation of CERTAIN death, etc. The human psyche may not have been designed to withstand the assaults upon it that are common-place in the post-fall world. Mutations and further environmental changes may have contributed to the original mal-adaptive changes.
I think that explanation is sufficient without positing a change in human psychology to account for the inevitability of sin. As for original sin, Rom. says sin and death (by which it seems to imply INEVITABLE sin and death--i.e., mortality) ENTERED the world through the sin of one man. THat is consistent with what I'm saying. So too, is the fact that the Spirit is now necessary for humans to live sinless.
Jeff: I agree that God might very well be capable of forgiving without substitution.
Tom: I think this is really important, Jeff. Good point. Can we come back to this or start a separate thread on it? Because I think forgiveness does entail suffering. The one who forgives ‘suffers’ the wrong done him. That’s in fact what I think “forgiveness” is—the choice to suffer wrong and not seek retribution or justice parsed out on the offender. And in Christ that’s all I think we see, viz., God lovingly DECLARING his forgiveness of us in his choice to suffer our offense, telling us we’re loved and that he doesn’t want our sin to come between us. The only thing left is for the offender to take responsibility for the pain she’s inflicted upon God and receive the offer of restored fellowship.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 11/21/2009 1:12 PM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: And in Christ that’s all I think we see, viz., God lovingly DECLARING his forgiveness of us in his choice to suffer our offense, telling us we’re loved and that he doesn’t want our sin to come between us. The only thing left is for the offender to take responsibility for the pain she’s inflicted upon God and receive the offer of restored fellowship.
Jeff: We can start another thread if you want. But if the important thing is the DECLARATION entailed in Jesus' redemptive work, then we can truly say that the work, per se, is not necessary for God to forgive. But it's harder for me to see how your view can account for the verses in Rom., Galatians, and Hebrews that speak of a backward-working (to pre-incarnational time) effect of Christ's work. IOW, how does your view account for that seeing's how Peter tells us that the prophets who wrote of Christ's sufferings weren't even sure who they were writing about? The substitionary mode of declaration works both ways (in time) and at the same time affirms the fact that perfection was the original intent. Not to mention that some of the language like "without the shedding of blood ..." seems hard to account for on a non-substitutionary view.
But I'm with you that substitution was probably not necessary, per se, for God's forgiveness. Rather, it fits another revelatory purpose that may be necessary for God to get the full effects of repentance. It may also be an appeal to the analogical way we think. We have no instances of someone choosing to suffer anew tremendously to show someone, "look, this is what you're doing to me," which may explain why the thought never entered my mind that that's what Christ was telling me by dying. But we do have instances of people who would die in place of their loved ones to save their lives. And the love passage in Rom. 5 describes Christ's death in terms of that very analogy. And substitution makes sense that way if sinlessness is STILL the requirement of eternal life. If we separate works accountability from the temporal death that is the consequence of sin, per se, the analogy really does work.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/21/2009 12:16:07 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/21/2009 1:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: But I'm with you that substitution was probably not necessary, per se, for God's forgiveness. Rather, it fits another revelatory purpose that may be necessary for God to get the full effects of repentance.
Tom: Right. That's it. God can forgive without our even knowing it. But we can't be reconciled (brought back into experienced restored fellowship) without taking responsibility/repentance, and THAT I think requires that we understand the pain we've caused God, and the only way we can understand the pain we've caused God is if God suffers in plain sight, not SO THAT he can forgive us, but just so that we can see what we do to God when we reject him and thus become convicted and repent.
So this may be where I break with traditional views. I think the suffering of Christ is just an embodiment of the ongoing suffering of God from the beginning of creation. God decides to bring into view how much he suffers in loving and forgiving us. When we perceive that in terms we can appreciate, THEN we can have that "Aha, moment," and take ownership, repent, and enjoy his love. This WAS available in the OT (as David and the prophets understood). All it took is somebody to THINK through the sacrificial system and connect the dots to realize, "God's the one forgiving here, so HE must be the one suffering because of my sin." God made it possible to get it back then, and many did.
But I don't think the incarnation makes real suffering for God possible for the first time. It makes possible our perceiving the ongoing suffering of God for us in a way that answers all our questions and personalizes the suffering.
That's at least a part of it.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/21/2009 12:50:21 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/21/2009 7:08 PM (GMT -6) | | OK, good stuff, mostly what I expected, but then again...I certainly wouldn't expect this kind of thinking ANYWHERE ELSE that I know of. So, I don't know if I am taking you guys for granted (as in- you set the baseline)...or if I just appreciate you guys so much that I have these high expectations of you.
So, let's narrow the focus to the idea of what is necessary in man in order for him to sin.
Jeff expressed trouble with the idea of inevitable sin. But what about if we changed it to inevitable misrelation...which captures everything we mean by sin and also might touch closer to the core of the problem. Jeff, would you have the same kind of issues with inevitable misrelation? Given that man has free will and limited knowledge...wasn't it inevitable...that we would misrelate ourselves to something sooner or later?
Tom said: "The ‘choice’. To choice not to trust, to measure one’s identity and meaning by one’s self, one’s own judgment, is the misrelation. The blessings of life and wholeness are mediated via right relating…worship, trust, etc. When we stop worshiping and trusting, we step cut ourselves off from the blessings that come from perceiving and relating to God. Or something like that."
Let's start with consciousness. Are we at the core of our consciousness or is God at the core of our consciousness? Obviously we take as given that God grounds our consciousness as He grounds everything...but who is in the driver's seat of the consciousness? We are...is what I think. If we are at the core of our own consciousness then there just is some sense in which we measure our own identity and meaning. Not in the sense that we ourselves SET THE STANDARD to measure and judge our identity and meaning against....in the sense that it is US that does the measuring and judging. Now, our consciousness may not be expansive enough (that's a GIVEN given limited knowledge) and so there are all kinds of twists and turns that can go wrong in our self assessment and judgment, even when we are trying to use the correct STANDARD. Part of what being a human entails is a learning process...an expansion of consciousness. We constantly take in new perceptions. We form concepts. We form composite concepts. We experience others as I-Thou or as I-It. Isn't one of the most important consciousness expansions when we truly grasp that someone else is at the core of their own consciousness...just like we are at our own. Isn't the whole I-Thou/I-It axis the crux of the problem when it comes to misrelating and sin? So, the question becomes...were Adam and Eve created with an I-Thou consciousness and let it slip into an I-It consciousness...or were they created with both aspects in place (the same as us) I-Thou and I-It? And was the prohibition of the fruit from the Tree a test to see whether Adam and Eve would primarily relate to God in the I-Thou mode or in the I-It mode. Worship and trust of someone else only takes place in the sphere of I-Thou.
So, the major thing that is to be learned in life...something that may take an earthly lifetime...is to really grasp the I-Thou. So, my next question is...how do we teach THAT to people? What lessons must we learn for an adequate appreciation of I-Thou to take hold in our life? Almost everyone experiences both I-Thou and I-It. Many people divide other people into those close to them that they love...and everyone else. But even that division is marked with further division. Some people when dealing with even those they love deal with them as if they are simply copies of themselves. They do not take account of the differences. Now it gets more and more complicated...because when someone we love does to us something that we may not prefer...but we know that the thing they are doing is exactly what they would have done to them...we still credit that to them as loving. Do we consider a situation like that LESS LOVING than when we experience someone who really GETS US? Could we call the first type of interaction an I-I-Thou? They are relating to you by relating you to themselves...so we do grasp that they are not treating us as objects (Its) but also that they are not treating us as real others, real Thous...they are stuck in their own subjectivity in some way. How do we help them break out into a true I-Thou apprehension?
I have some more stuff, but the wife just got home with a Chicago style pizza! Back later. | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 11/21/2009 7:43 PM (GMT -6) | | With regard to man's "fallen" nature, I think that last thing we should think of that nature is that it is tangible. In other words, it's not like we can take out a pair of spiritual binocs and look inside us: "Ah, there is: that dirty, sinful, fallen nature." Further, freewill obviously played the key as to whether Adam/Eve would or would not sin; they had the choice. So when they chose to disobey God's word, it's not like some tangible "stuff" came into existence and planted itself in Adam/Eve. So what did change?
I don't think it was an environmental issue, though the environment would only hasten and exacerbate the issue. Without a time frame given, it's hard to know exactly when it was that God came down in the cool of the day to meed up with Adam after Adam had fallen. The first clue, though, as to something being up when God did show up was in what Adam both did and said; he hid and he laid blame on Eve. God had previously told Adam that if he were to eat from the tree, he'd die (not cease to exist but suffer separation from God and perhaps from other aspects of life). It's not too much to conclude, the, that the death God spoke of had showed itself active when God met with Adam after the fall.
It becomes clear that in what Adam came to "know"—that with which became unnaturally familiar to him; the knowledge of good and evil—Adam was viewing life from a different perspective than previously. This perspective was from the placement of and position from within death, separation from God and the defining of life from an unnatural existence. There was no need for anything else to have changed. Adam had plunged himself into a sphere of existence, by his own freewill, that was contrary to and in opposition of the nature God originally established Adam to walk in: one that defined its existence, in all manners of life, in God Himself. What Adam did, though, was change the direction of the view onto his own self. Adam, then, became the center of attention, the center of concern and the center of sustenance as regarded his life.
It is unfortunate that this affected not only Adam but was the state of being into which all humans would be born. Again, the hamartiology of the fall is not found in looking inside the non-Christian and seeing that dirty, ol' spirit getting all cleaned up upon accepting Christ as savior. Rather, it is one of positioning: "We have been transferred out of darkness and placed into His light" (Col 1). One day the affects of having been plunged into Self as the defining factor of life will be done away with for good. As it stands now, though, we are in Christ, yes, but we are not fully "redeemed"; that is, we have not been fully set free from the influences of what it means to live with Self (rather than God) as the governor.
As it took freewill to choose to turn away from God and define life accordingly, it takes freewill to turn back to God and redefine life in Him.
I know this doesn't address all the questions Asher has asked, but I hope it's contributed something anyway.
Starkman | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/22/2009 1:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom: "So this may be where I break with traditional views. I think the suffering of Christ is just an embodiment of the ongoing suffering of God from the beginning of creation. God decides to bring into view how much he suffers in loving and forgiving us. When we perceive that in terms we can appreciate, THEN we can have that "Aha, moment," and take ownership, repent, and enjoy his love. This WAS available in the OT (as David and the prophets understood). All it took is somebody to THINK through the sacrificial system and connect the dots to realize, "God's the one forgiving here, so HE must be the one suffering because of my sin." God made it possible to get it back then, and many did."
Yeah, this is what Paul Fiddes says in "Past Event and Present Salvation: the Christian Idea of Atonement" Here's a snippet:
"Forgiveness is no mere business; it is a 'shattering experience' for the one who forgives as for the one who is forgiven. This is because forgiveness, unlike a mere pardon, seeks to win the offender back into relationship. Nor is forgiving simply forgetting about an offence done; in order to reconcile the person who has hurt him, the forgiver must painfully call the offense to mind. Reconciliation is a costly process because there are resistances to it in the attitude of the person who has offended; the one who sets out to forgive must aim to remove those blockages and restore the relationship. Forgiveness then involves an acceptance which is costly. The question is sometimes asked about the Christian doctrine of atonement, 'If God forgives us, why doesn't he simply announce it from heaven? Why is there this whole complicated affair of the cross?' The question may be put both by those who think there is no need of an atoning act, and also by those who cannot believe that divine forgiveness is the whole meaning of the cross of Jesus. But forgiveness is not simply an announcement, a notice of pardon; it seeks to reconcile the person who is hostile to accepting forgiveness, or who is so anxious that he cannot believe he IS accepted. Forgiveness as an act creating response is therefore bound to be expensive in time and effort, requiring mental and physical anguish...It is hard to accept forgiveness, whether from God or other people; there is so much in human emotions and reactions that resists it."
That is really a great little book, best on atonement that I have read. Every page has gold. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/22/2009 1:36 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Asher: So, let's narrow the focus to the idea of what is necessary in man in order for him to sin.
Tom: Hold on. Let me put on Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious”…OK…Set…
All that seems necessary to be capable of sinning is to a non-divine sentient being capable of relating responsibly to God. If you can choose to do that, you can choose not to do that.
Do you mean to ask what ‘psychological parts/functions’ are required? I guess reason, volition, and some affective capacities that facilitate evaluation/judgment.
Asher: Jeff expressed trouble with the idea of inevitable sin. But what about if we changed it to inevitable misrelation...which captures everything we mean by sin and also might touch closer to the core of the problem. Jeff, would you have the same kind of issues with inevitable misrelation?
Tom: Hehe. Yeah, he would, ‘cause we’re both using ‘sin’ and ‘misrelation’ to mean the same thing. But I don’t have a problem with inevitable sin when you forecast it out over an increasing population over time.
Asher: Given that man has free will and limited knowledge...wasn't it inevitable...that we would misrelate ourselves to something sooner or later?
Tom: I sure think so.
Asher: Let's start with consciousness. Are we at the core of our consciousness or is God at the core of our consciousness?
Tom: God’s at the core of everything I think, because whatever else you want to place at the core is going to be sustained by and grounded in God.
Asher: Obviously we take as given that God grounds our consciousness as He grounds everything...but who is in the driver's seat of the consciousness?
Tom: Oh, that. Yeah, we are. But “driver’s seat” makes me think you’re asking who is in 'control', who ‘determines’ choice, and that of course is us. But you don’t determine consciousness; it’s not volitional. Maybe you're asking about who is the ‘subject’ of the conscious experience. I’d want to say we are. I think D would say both we and God are, but that God knows how to differentiate from his own divine God-defining first-person(s) subjectivity and our subjectivities. But for D, our subjectivities are PART of God’s subjectivity(ies). But unlike D, I don't think our first-person perspectives contribute to God's first-person perspectives.
Asher: If we are at the core of our own consciousness then there just is some sense in which we measure our own identity and meaning.
Tom: D always quotes Torrance’s idea that God is the objective element in our subjective experience, kinda like God is the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room we call our inner-subjective world. God’s there in the creative act saying “be free” and that command creates the space that is the unique thing we call us. But we furnish and decorate it how we want. We don’t automatically know God is the ‘space’ where we do all this. There has to be some epistemic distance. So God does this incognito just so that we can be free, because we have to choose him and make him PERSONALLY present through conscious choice. But once you meet and get to know God and spend time with him, you later find out he was there on a fundamental level in your room all the time, the One giving you space to live and choose.
But like you seem to say, Asher, we MUST design and decorate that room. That’s not a choice. Part of our created, conscious experience is the (Fr. John Zizioulas nails this) undeniable existential drive for personal identity. To be conscious and human is to ask “Who am I?” We can’t NOT ask that. It drives everything. That’s why I say that every significant choice we make is either an attempt at or expression of personal identity (i.e., our enduring unique meaning in the world).
Asher: Now, our consciousness may not be expansive enough (that's a GIVEN given limited knowledge) and so there are all kinds of twists and turns that can go wrong in our self assessment and judgment, even when we are trying to use the correct STANDARD. Part of what being a human entails is a learning process...an expansion of consciousness.
Tom: Which makes our screwing up pretty inevitable at some point.
Asher: So, the question becomes...were Adam and Eve created with an I-Thou consciousness and let it slip into an I-It consciousness...or were they created with both aspects in place (the same as us) I-Thou and I-It? And was the prohibition of the fruit from the Tree a test to see whether Adam and Eve would primarily relate to God in the I-Thou mode or in the I-It mode. So, the major thing that is to be learned in life...something that may take an earthly lifetime...is to really grasp the I-Thou.
Tom: I like it. I think that get really close to the truth of the matter. Our GOAL is to grow towards a self-consciousness (a experience and perceptive of our 'self' or 'identity') that’s defined and shaped in every respect by God/Christ, so that the “I/Thou”—though truly a mutual I/Thou relationship—isn’t experienced IN the “I/I” relationship. By “I/I” I mean how we relate ourselves to ourselves, the simple act of self-perception. Most of us still separate this act from the “I/Thou” act of our perceiving God and loving Christ. But since God just IS the walls, floor and ceiling of the self-perceiving act, the room of our consciousness, eventually we come to see God in seeing ourselves (not us AS God, but us IN God at the most intimate level), we perceive God as the walls and ceiling, the “other” who is where “I” exist. Then every time you do “I/I” you’re essentially doing “I/Thou.”
God couldn’t (I don’t think) create us, presto, already fully developed in loving relation. As created and finite we HAVE to ask “Who are we?” and given the epistemic distance that makes that question possible, and the volitional freedom that makes testing and expressing identities possible, I think God knew things would eventually go awry. And that’s perhaps what the Garden story tell us. Whether Adam was ‘a’ single, historical person or represents generations of development that step by step choose its way out of relationship with God is another question.
Asher: So, my next question is...how do we teach THAT to people? What lessons must we learn for an adequate appreciation of I-Thou to take hold in our life? Almost everyone experiences both I-Thou and I-It.
Tom: I learned it too late in life to start my kids out on this. But I give them heavy doses now. I think we teach and communicate it just by discussing it over dinner and in conversation, or in the classroom. Say it. Talk about it. Over and over again. And as far as I can tell, the mechanics of identity formation are pretty easy to grasp once people see how it works. So it's really not that difficult.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/22/2009 5:13:23 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 11/22/2009 7:16 AM (GMT -6) | | D, I knew you'd like this:
Tom: I like it. I think that get really close to the truth of the matter. Our GOAL is to grow towards a self-consciousness (a experience and perceptive of our 'self' or 'identity') that’s defined and shaped in every respect by God/Christ, so that the “I/Thou”—though truly a mutual I/Thou relationship—isn’t experienced IN the “I/I” relationship. By “I/I” I mean how we relate ourselves to ourselves, the simple act of self-perception. Most of us still separate this act from the “I/Thou” act of our perceiving God and loving Christ. But since God just IS the walls, floor and ceiling of the self-perceiving act, the room of our consciousness, eventually we come to see God in seeing ourselves (not us AS God, but us IN God at the most intimate level), we perceive God as the walls and ceiling, the “other” who is where “I” exist. Then every time you do “I/I” you’re essentially doing “I/Thou.”
But I'm surprised you're in agreement on the atonement thing, i.e., that God suffers our offense in love from the beginning and that this suffering constitutes our forgiveness and that the cross is about making this experience available to us. I thought you would object on the grounds that "that which is not assumed is not healed" (Gregory Nazianzus, I think) How do you see that squaring with what we're saying? My point in all this is that our forgiveness doesn't require some metaphysical transaction to take place on the level 'nature' within Christ. It's just about whether we perceive the consequences that our sins have had upon God. Once we take ownership, we're reconciled. And as we grow in grace we're healed as we grow toward our fulfillment in Christ.
But I don't see where any of this gets transacted in the incarnation per se. See? I would say that to the extent that the vast majority of us must perceive God's suffering in tangible (human) terms we can grasp before we can awaken to the truth that WE are the cause of God's suffering, then yes, God HAS to assume the nature of those he wants to win back. And Christ must truly be God is his sufferings are rightly to be said to BE God's suffering for us. And for these suffering to truly be what they appear to be, i.e., human suffering in terms we can grasp, then it's also the case that Christ must be truly human. But this is different I'm sure than the deeper sort of metaphysical transaction that you and the EO imagine transpires ONLY and precisely BECAUSE Christ shares a human nature. For me, the likeness of the divine image is enough to ground the full exchange of blessings and oneness with God that God created us for. After all, if God is the wall, ceiling and floor of our conscious experience, and if we live and move and have our being IN God, and if the uncreated logoi animate us--then what do you imagine is required for our salvation beyond all this that ONLY occurs in the incarnation? I can't think of anything.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/22/2009 6:35:16 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 11/22/2009 8:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom: This WAS available in the OT (as David and the prophets understood). All it took is somebody to THINK through the sacrificial system and connect the dots to realize, "God's the one forgiving here, so HE must be the one suffering because of my sin." God made it possible to get it back then, and many did.
Jeff: So how do we make sense of the verses in the NT that indicate that Christ's work was redemptive for OT folks? If they didn't forsee the suffering of God in the incarnation, how was that incarnation in any way effectual for THEM? I'm agreeing with you that substitution is not magical or metaphysical. I'm saying it's revelatory of God's original preference FOR and possibility OF sinlessness in a way that renders it meaningful to the analogical mind of man.
Personally, I was raised on substitution, so these attempts at explaining it differently never have
consciously affected my repentance. So it's hard for me, in my experience, to relate to the necessity of it. In fact, most people that seek non-substitutionary explanations for the Christus Victor work seem to do so AFTER having believed in substitution. So I don't see how these other explanations were necessary conditions of their own repentance.
Tom: But I don't think the incarnation makes real suffering for God possible for the first time.
Jeff: Me either. And I don't think the conception of sin has any meaning apart from God suffering or at least the diminishing of God's pleasure. Teleology is inconceivable to me apart from sentient motivation. A virtual corrollary of that fact (maybe just the most analogical explanation) is that the FRUSTRATION of a purposer's ends necessarily causes some degree of suffering or diminishment of pleasure to the purposer. Why else is the whole religious world trying to figure out how to please or propitiate their deities? It makes no sense on any other view, as far as I can tell.
The only way teleological action can be rationally grounded is if the highest natural good of any member of the moral community is consistent with and conducive to the highest natural good of every other member of the moral community. And God is both the ground of and a member of the moral community. Thus, it is RATIONAL to maximally please God. Because maximally pleasing God is the best anyone can do for all members of the moral community. If this were not true, we'd have no reason to believe it was in our own interest, even, to please God. For such a belief would be completely non-analogical, and therefore arbitrary. There is a reason why it is virtually impossible to conceive of a God who is benevolent in terms other than sympathy.
Consequently, those who think of God as benevolent are almost compelled, rationally, to believe in the golden rule for human activity, as well. And those who don't are either atheists or deists, like Flew. And even then, atheists and deists seem to believe in something like the golden rule for humans even though they have no rational grounds for it. This is an example of a mode of thought that is only RATIONALLY grounded by benevolent teleology EVEN when those thinking thus deny that very ground.
Sentient motivation is the only way to coherently conceive of teleological activity as far as I can tell.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/22/2009 9:07:44 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 11/22/2009 2:05 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Asher
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| Posted 11/22/2009 2:28 PM (GMT -6) | | Yeah, that's what Fiddes says too:
"...creation involves God in cost and pain from the very beginning. God is always sustaining his creation and keeping it from falling into nothing. In creation God gives freedom to something over against himself; he limits himself by the freedom of others, his creatures, and becomes vulnerable to their decisions. In the very act of creation then, he must preserve it from wilfully drifting away into nothingness and the void. From the act of creation onwards he faces the tragedy of death, and seeks to win his own creatures into free and joyous fellowship with himself."
"......we must surely go on to think of the divine personality as feeling in ALL ages the pain that is caused by human sin. Truly personal love involves the sharing of experience, so that an awareness of the plight of another will always mean sympathy..."
"The message of atonement calls for a movement of the hearer into a new and disturbing future, a willingness to leave behind all the securities by means of which we attempt to give meaning to our lives. Response to God's act of atonement is the opening of a new horizon, an acceptance of the reversal of all worldly values which the message of a crucified Messiah produces. ...Now, such a shift of perspective upon the world can only happen here and now in the present; salvation cannot be a mere contract or arrangement made and sealed in the past - it is a transforming of all human words and thoughts by the divine word in the present."
"...an interpretation of the atonement may be said to be 'subjective' when it describes salvation as a process in present human experience. It is 'objective' when it locates salvation in a past event, outside our experience and feelings."
"There is a whole range of ways in which we can begin to comprehend the objective, creative power of the cross of Jesus. From an existential viewpoint we can think of the power of a disclosure of something new in human experience, prompting repetition of it. From a viewpoint of narrative theory we can begin to appreciate the power of a story to create new experience within the hearer. From a viewpoint of social dynamics and the power of groups, we can begin to see the effect of a community which has lived through the ages under the cross and which links us now with the earliest discipleship. With the help of psychological theory we can glimpse the power of an event outside ourselves to break open a self-enclosed ego. A proper doctrine of the Holy Spirit will help us to speak of the personality of Jesus as a present reality, with an influence which is more than historical recollection. Above all, a doctrine of God which takes his suffering seriously will link our present experience of God with the past event of the cross. In all these ways we can begin to grasp the truth that an event two thousand years ago can actually enable people here and now to recognise the offer of divine grace and mercy, and then to respond to it."Post Edited (Asher) : 11/22/2009 1:34:08 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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| Posted 11/22/2009 2:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff, if sin/misrelation is not inevitable, then are you imagining a possible creation in which Adam and Eve never sinned. They lived their lives moment by moment...always with limited knowledge...but never making mistakes...day by day, every decision made in every existential second...always choosing correctly...with the limited knowledge...
They go on and have children...and their children also...with limited knowledge...never make errors...never sin against each other...right from the womb they grasp the I-Thou...never descending into the I-It.
Maybe it's just me, the sinner, who is having a hard time grasping that scenario...
Could we look at it like this...God's intentions were of something other than the inevitability of misrelation...but given the finiteness of man...misrelation was accepted in order to win the thing that man was designed for...in other words, sin was not a first order design spec...but it was a second order design spec...because the first order intention could not be achieved apart from the acceptance of the second order spec. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 11/22/2009 3:58 PM (GMT -6) | | | Asher: Jeff, if sin/misrelation is not inevitable, then are you imagining a possible creation in which Adam and Eve never sinned. They lived their lives moment by moment...always with limited knowledge...but never making mistakes...day by day, every decision made in every existential second...always choosing correctly...with the limited knowledge...
Jeff: Finite knowledge was all that was needed to know that if they ate of the tree, they would die, according to God. Newer SOFA's might have required new knowledge, but I have no reason to believe that such knowledge would have needed to be infinite.
Asher: Could we look at it like this...God's intentions were of something other than the inevitability of misrelation...but given the finiteness of man...misrelation was accepted in order to win the thing that man was designed for...in other words, sin was not a first order design spec...but it was a second order design spec...because the first order intention could not be achieved apart from the acceptance of the second order spec.
Jeff: First of all, if misrelation was not inevitable, why do we need a NECESSARY second order design? It seems to me that once we say misrelation was not inevitable, we are saying the second order design was contingent, not necessary as you've described it. Or at least that's how I understand open theism.
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Tom
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| Posted 11/22/2009 10:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Asher: Could we look at it like this...God's intentions were of something other than the inevitability of misrelation...but given the finiteness of man...misrelation was accepted in order to win the thing that man was designed for.
Tom: That's my view too. Yep. God creates fundamentally for an overall end-state--a quality of relationship with us, and all of us with each other, and all that encompassing the created order in us--that he knows isn't achievable in a single generation (or two, or ten, or a hundred). But he can't get to the end without taking the journey. And he can't take the journey without starting somewhere. So although there's a sense in which any single individual in the opening generation or two might manage to navigate his tiny part without going astray, it IS inevitable that eventually somebody, somewhere, at sometime is gonna screw up someway and the infection will spread. But no necessity for any particular sin attaches to any particular individual at any particular time. I can't appreciate Jeff's objection to the inevitability of sin in this latter sense. I understand his arguments, but I just disagree.
God knew it would get a lot worse before it finally became what he created it for. That doesn't destroy teleology. Like you say, Asher, God didn't fundamentally create so that nobody at any time would ever make a mistake. God can want that no individual misses the mark, and he can even work for it (it would be strange if he didn't, given his overall purpose), but that in itself is NOT the end-state he creates for. If it were the heart and soul of why God created, then God has already lost his creational purpose and will NEVER achieve that for which he created. But if he created for a particular end-state which is so glorious that it infinitely transcends any evil it encounters along the way, then God doesn't need to expect that no evil will ever occur in order to be a competent God. All he needs to be competent is to intend a loving end-state, equip the human race to achieve it, and then be resourceful enough to embrace any part of it (any one of us) along the way, working for the good in any manner of misrelation along the way; i.e., to not be overwhelmed with regard to his purposes whatever may come along--teleology without having to deny the inevitability of sin. God can expect a great deal of sin and wreckage along the way but know that the end-state will so negate their effects as to make it more than worth it all.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/22/2009 10:22:06 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 11/23/2009 7:11 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: If it were the heart and soul of why God created, then God has already lost his creational purpose and will NEVER achieve that for which he created.
Jeff: The heart and soul of why God created, to my mind, is PLEASURE. All teleological motivation is sentient motivation. There are degrees of pleasure God is capable of deriving from creation. God is MORE pleased if I don't sin. But creation is WORTH it even if I do.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/23/2009 6:19:15 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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