Okay, so I’m busily (alright, not so busily, but I am working on it) transcribing T. W. Doane’s Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions and he’s pointing out some of the problems with Genesis in the first chapter of his book. While he skips over the easy choice to point out some of the problems in Genesis (Where did Cain’s wife come from?), he quotes myths from various other religions which are nearly identical to the Biblical account of the Creation. He then concludes:
(emphasis in the original) This has set me to wondering, so I’m asking here:
If Genesis is supposed to be taken as an allegorical story, then how does one explain the imperfect nature of man? What purpose lay behind that creation? Other thoughts and comments are welcome.
This is a good question and one that I’ve had some difficulty finding a satisfying answer for in discussions with Christians (excluding the rock-ribbed creationists, of course). The most common response I’ve gotten is that God gave humans free will and that humans chose evil. This strikes me as rather begging the question, though. It also seems internally contradictory since the doxastic position that humans are inherently corrupt (because of Adam) seems to belie the notion of free will. I am also rather curious as to which particular moment in human evolution the “fall” occurred. Was it the first homo sapiens? Was homo erectus without sin?
I think that allegorical explanations of the fall are really just back-pedalling apologia for an archaic piece of teleological mythology.
Whether or not it had anything to do with a couple in a garden, the fact is that human beings are very interested in taking charge, particularly where they can only make things worse, and in trying to run each other’s lives. Whatever God may have intended us to be, we’re not it.
So yes, the Atonement remains a necessary part of the Divine Plan for reuniting man with God regardless of what reading you put on the story of the Fall. (I read it as a mythical retelling of man’s misuse of his free will.)
God created us capable of making moral choices in order that we might freely choose to love him. You cannot make a robot that loves you, because the essence of true (agapetic) love is an unforced choice. And, of course, given all good things and the opportunity to make our lives worse, we chose the latter, and now have to live with it. (Except, of course, that God in His wisdom has provided a way out of the dilemma!)
Using The Bible only, one could come up with some answers for those questions. But, interpretations will vary greatly from church to church. Sometimes even from member to member in the same church.
The Cain’s wife question could be answered by Genesis 5:4. Since that was before the Mosaic Law Covenant, incest was not forbidden. :eek:
As for the basic theology question, in the strictest of interpretations, it seems that The Sacrifice of Christ was indeed the response to The Fall of Man. See Romans chapter 5, esp vss 17, 18.
I find this statement to be rather amazing, since he is claiming to have disproven something which cannot be disproven in the absolute sense. Even if the first eleven chapters of Genesis are allegorical, mythical or total fabrication, that does not logically lead to the conclusion that man was not originally created a perfect being who has fallen. In fact, if Genesis is allegorical, it could rightly be said that the allegory supports the perfect creation and ultimate fall of man.
I have not read the book which you quote, but taking that one quote in isolation, and assuming that it is in context, it seems to me that he is overreaching in his conclusion.
So, I gues the real Question is: What was the Fall of Man?
Polycarp seems to hit the nail on the head, the missuse of Free Will. With out moral codes, such as found in religion, only the free will of the strong would prevail, the free will of others would be non existant, or at least, not so free. So, having Someone (read God) that we have to answer to, moderates everyone’s free will to a point where all may be able to live pleasing fulfilled lives. Does that make sense or am I missing some point?
A non-literal Genesis certainly causes problems for atonement theology, yup.
John Shelby Spong reads as a nice bloke who’s made something of a career out of really irritating those vested in the more fundamentalist formulations of Christianity; among other things, he’s urged strongly that the very idea of the substitutionary atonement doctrine is something Christianity can and must shed itself of if it’s to survive. Cheerfully recommended–although I think he’s more or less taking a needlessly long detour to what’s essentially Buddhism. But that’s fair enough; the more liberal formulations of Christianity would probably accuse Buddhism of taking a needlessly long detour to Christianity.
I think it’s fairly easy to formulate other understandings of the Atonement than the substitutionary one – it’s founded in legalism, after all, and Christ was clearly down on legalism.
How is that possible? If God gave humanity free will, then the only way we could not be what He intended is by giving up our free will.
serenitynow, you can download the first chapter in a .pdf format from here. (Warning! Angelfire site!) And while I have to agree that his arguments in the chapter aren’t necessarily the final nail in Christianity’s coffin (nor is he really trying to drive a stake through Christianity’s heart with his book), but it does raise some questions if you accept his conclusion.
In my way of looking at it, no one has absolute free will. Relative free will is what we seem to have.
I may say that I have the freedom to say whatever I want, but the laws of this country have been interpreted to say this isn’t always the case.
So, could not God given free will be similar? Run our lives as we see fit untill it impacts on the free will of others, and then answer to a higher law that that of our own free will?
Perhaps. In my more propinquitous brushes with immanent thundering silence, I’ve never really caught much of a vibe of disappointment in it, but there’s the whole pachyderm mystery grope factor going on.
Much as I dislike the God-as-parent/humanity-as-child metaphor, I’ll use it anyway. When a toddler…toddles, furiously growing, brain changing every hour with amazing amounts of synapse growth and apoptosis, and moves clumsily, taking tumbles and stumbles, banging and scraping knees, making guardians wince and briefly panic with each fall…is that child being something wholly other than what the parent intended?
I have a suspicion that, pulled from the tunnel-temporal vision of this life, many troubles and tribulations may look entirely different. But that’s quite enough of that hijack.
The substitutionary one looms large in my vision, because of the intensity of my visceral reaction to it. So it’s a rather difficult thing to see around–and that it’s dominated most viewpoints through the last twenty centuries or so isn’t much comfort.
I dont doubt that there was an actual Jesus Christ. In in bible there are 20 years of his life that are only accounted for by him going EAST for education. Also along that time Taoists in east China according to old ledgends are doing amazing things with mental control over ones body. And also they talk of a man who came from the wast. Jesus also showed a lot of signs that he had studyed the Taoist ways. http://www.abodetao.com/messages/messages/1239.html this should say something helpful in the string as well.
Tuckerfan , thanks for the link. I read through it rather quickly, and found it interesting. I will read it in more detail when time permits.
While I know it is a bit off point from the OP, I must say that I would not give a plug nickel for his logic. He claims to prove something by simply quoting a number of opinions of others and then referring to some similarities (sometimes rather strained, sometimes not) between Genesis and creation mythos of other cultures. Then he claims to have disproven that man was originally created a perfect being, and is now only a fallen and broken remnant of what he once was. His conclusion is a remarkable nonsequitor to his work. He could argue with same logic that he has disproven the existence of man, trees, birds and snakes. Whether his ultimate conclusion is correct, I don’t see the logic that leads him to his conclusion.
One could argue that the similarity in creation stories cited comes from an ancient knowledge handed down through oral tradition and that over time it was simply adjusted to fit particular cultural patterns while maintaining a certain level of integrity as to the actual events.
I am not sure I follow here. It seems like the assumption is that free will is an end unto itself. I don’t see it that way. I think that we could more easily prove to be unlike what God intended by misusing our freewill. I think that point has been made more eloquently than I ever could by others in this thread.
As to the original question, I don’t see how an allegorical interpretation of Genesis leads to the conclusion that there was no fall of man. If you believe that man has free will, and that man misused that free will resulting in separation from God, then some sort of atonement would be logical.
First of all, there can logically be no such thing as a “misuse” of freewill. If there is a “right” choice and a “wrong” choice, then it’s not freewill. You can’t tell a child, “choose whatever you want for dinner, but if you don’t choose the liver, you’re gonna get a spanking.” Likewise, it is asinine for a God to say, “you have free will, but if you choose wrong, I’m gonna burn your ass forever.” Free will can only be “free,” if the consequences are the same either way.
Furthermore, If God made humans, and God is omniscient, then God already knew what choices people would make before he made them. So let me get this straight:
God created something which he knew would be corrupt. Then when that creation did what he knew it was going to do, he got his panties all in a bunch and demanded a blood sacrifice. (of what possible use a blood sacrifice is to God, I have no idea). He then looked around and decided that none of his creations were good enough to murder for his sacrifice so he came down to Earth and raped a teenage girl to get her pregnant. Then, after his “son” was born, he had the dude pull off a few magic tricks before being tortured and murdered, and then brought back to life for a grand finale. Then the son dude says he’s gonna go away, but he’ll be right back. Then he disappears for a couple thousand years, but don’t worry, he’s coming, he’s coming…any day now…
Oh and also God and the son are the same dude, sort of, but they’re different dudes too… plus there’s also this ghost dude, and…aw, forget it, we can’t understand it anyway cuz this God dude’s all smart and stuff and we’re not.
One final point, how is it possible that the “misuse” of free will by Adam, or whoever, imparts any culpability to the rest of us? What happened to my shot at Eden? I didn’t eat the damn apple, why should I have to pay for what some other dude did?
BTW, for any Christians who read Genesis as allegorical and believe in a “fall,” I really would like an answer to my previously posted question about when, precisely, in the evolutionary process, did humans become corrupted?
I know you are being sarcastic about this, but still… may I suggest that any god behaving this way would be behaving quite oddly (for an all-powerful being) and that it is far more likely that there is no god at all (or at least no god that would senselessly give his creations just enough rope to hang themselves)
I have to agree with Diogenes. I never understood the blood sacrifice thing, never grasped the fallen man thing, and never was able to wrap my brain around a god whose whole purpose was to have itself a laugh by means of a cruel practical joke perpitrated on its own creation.
Actually, isn’t it the other way around? Free will is only “free” if the consequences of your choice are different. If I’m at a restaurant and make the choice to get the soup, the consequences are different than if I choose the salad. If the same result happens no matter what you choose, then that’s not freedom to choose, it’s only an illusion of freedom.
I was talking about metaphysical consequences, not temporal ones. Let me put it this way, if you can choose to be a good person or a bad person but either way you still go to Heaven, then isn’t the choice for good infinitely more meaningful? If good is not required, and yet is chosen anyway, that is my idea of free will.
serenitynow, I’ll admit that some of his reasoning in the chapter is weak, but he’s building on a theme with it. The first chapter is almost a throwaway. He returns to the subject of Genesis later on in much greater detail. (It’s been 10 years since I read the book, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little vague.) His arguments do improve, and he points to events which, if true, certainly indicate that whomever wrote various portions of the Bible deliberately swiped myths from other groups and did little more than change the name of the particular God being mentioned.
That being said, I’m not so much interested in this thread if Doane’s reasons why Genesis should be considered a fiction/allegorical story are valid, but what an allegorical Genesis means for Christianity. (If you want to comment on Doane’s work, then feel free to do so in this Cafe thread. Unless you think that it can help shed some light in this thread on the subject.) DtG has expressed better my questions on this matter than I could.
(Except, of course, that God in His wisdom has provided a way out of the dilemma!)