I would think the answer is self evident. If the fall had not occurred then why arent we in communion with God. Adam and Eve talked to God and were in paradise before the first sin. If they did not fall from grace, doesnt it follow that we should still be in paradise?
Since we are not, do we not need a savior to bring us back to God, albeit after we die or when the world ends…whichever comes first?
It follows only if we assume a place such as paradise exists. For those who do not assume this, the answer is not self evident.
Obviously, we have different definitions of free will. I can choose to smoke or not to smoke. If I choose to smoke and die of cancer, I still chose to smoke of my own free will. I can choose to drink gasoline. Does the fact that the consequences of that choice could be dire mean I have less free will to do so? I don’t see free will in that way. I think I understand you to say that free will is most meaningful when the consequences are removed, but I am not sure that I follow that line of logic. Isn’t it much more telling when the consequences are different? The consequences we value, on whatever level, will ultimately guide our choices and ultimately give a pretty good idea of who we really are.
Your definition seems to also assume only a works based atonement, which not all Christians would agree with. That, of course, gets into an area way off the original topic, but I think it is fair to say that some circles of Christianity acknowledge that both good and bad people will go to heaven, not based on works, but on God’s forgiveness.
The reality is that other people’s actions affect us, and that is the nature of society. When a building is bombed and people die, the families pay dearly for the acts of others. When a mother drinks alcohol while pregnant, the baby may pay the penalty, as well. There are million examples. That we have to suffer for the actions of others does not imply that we share in their culpability. I would argue that none of us will be called upon to answer for what others did, but for what we did ourselves. Such a viewpoint is certainly in the realm of orthodoxy. You may not have had your Eden, but have you sinned? If so, then how can you say you are different than Adam?
QUOTE]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?
[/QUOTE]
Are you saying that a belief that the beginning chapters of Genesis are allegorical means you must believe in evolution? There is certainly a difference between myth and allegory. The creation story of Genesis can be taken as allegory to give the general principles that God created man and that man chose to sin and was therefore separated from God. One can believe these things to be true without believing that the actual “fall” was brought about by eating some fruit.
Libertarian , I am curious, having read some of your posts in other threads, whether the above statement implies that you do not think there is a need for a saviour. I think the answer to that question is probably at the heart of the OP, and I would love to hear your views on the subject.
I dunno, but to me, “free will” is not the same as “approval”, or “freedom from consequences”. I have the freedom to go kill someone right now, in the sense that it is within my power to do so. It is a choice I can make. If I choose to do that, I will go to prison, because there are laws against that sort of thing. However, that doesn’t remove my ability to do so, it only assigns the consequences. Similarly, Christianity claims that people have the capability of doing whatever they please. They may believe whatever they choose (ignoring, for a second, the logical problem that your beliefs aren’t really voluntary), and they may choose to accept Jesus or not. It is entirely their choice. However, the consequences are very different - blissful paradise vs an eternity watching Full House reruns (or however you choose to define hell).
To answer your question, if everyone went to heaven regardless (and according to Christianity as I understand it, being a good person has nothing to do with getting into heaven), it may make your choices more meaningful, but it wouldn’t make them any more the product of free will.
Jeff
Well, maybe you’re not.
I realize that you’re intentionally misstating the Bible for effect, but this is ridiculous. God “raped a teenaged girl”? Why don’t you just go all the way and say something about God smoking Marlboro reds while masturbating to child porn? Or instead of resorting to insult-mongering, you could just engage in reasoned debate. Hopefully, that’s not too much to ask.
And why should you be saved because of what some other dude did? But more to the point, we all suffer the consequences of our predecessors mistakes. I’d be a lot better off if my father had invested in Microsoft in the 1980’s. Where’s my chance to invest in Microsoft in the 1980’s? . . . Well, I don’t get one. That’s just the way things are (at least until someone combines a Delorean and 1.21 gigawatts of power).
Can you tell me when, precisely, in the evolutionary process, did cows develop udders? If not, does that mean it didn’t happen?
Sorry to be argumentative, but the most beautiful thing in the world is Jennifer Connelly with a beer in each hand and laying on a Chicago-style pizza while mouthing the words, “Eat, drink, and be merry.”
Ahh, yes. The OP. Almost forgot about that.
The OP is flawed because it assumes that man’s need for grace must be explained by the “Fall of Man” story in Genesis. It implies that one part of the Bible (the “Fall of Man” story) may be allegorical, but other parts (Romans 5:17-18) may not. But that’s not the case. The point is that man is imperfect. Man’s imperfection separates him from God. Jesus’s sacrifice covers man’s imperfections, and therefore makes it possible for man to get closer to God.
And it is at least a little silly for this guy to tell Christians what “‘tis the foundation of the whole structure” of Christianity. Maybe we ought to leave that up to the Christians.
If you’re doing good deeds because you expect be rewarded or because you wish to avoid punishment, then you are still a selfish person. If you have nothing to gain by choosing good (or lose by choosing bad) and yet still choose good all the same (even to your own temporal detriment) then how isn’t this a far more noble exercise of will?
Your examples of innocent people being victims of violence has nothing to do with my objection. There is no implication that such victims are to be blamed. We’re talking about “original” sin here, the notion that people are born corrupt. If each person is responsible for only his own sins, then what was the “fall?” That was only one guy failing not everybody–and if you’re going to say that humans are inherently incapable of living without sin, then that’s God’s fault, isn’t it? If not, then what happened? why is man sinful?
Evolution is a matter of fact not belief, but I’ll let that go and simply ask you once again to elucidate your assertion that “man” chose to sin. How can “man” collectively choose to sin if we each have our own free will?
This is why I can’t be a Christian; this notion that God actually cares what people believe is more important than what they do. If leading a good life is not sufficient for salvation, then that is a God that I want nothing to do with. Futhermore it contradicts the words of Jesus who said that all that mattered was loving God and loving your neighbor. He also said that loving one’s neighbor was synonymous with loving God ("…whatever you have done to the least among you…") so I think Jesus, himself did say that works alone was good enough. And if it’s not good enough then God is not compassionate, or just or rational.
Ah, but he quotes several Christian theologians saying just that
(emphasis in the original)
So it is not simply he who is saying it, but devout Christians as well. (There’s other authors that he quotes saying much the same thing, but I chose this footnoted quote on the last page of the chapter because it’s the most concise.)
Perhaps I am missing something, but isn’t this a bit of a contradiction? If the consequences are the same, then how can there be temporal detriment? If a chosen action is a more noble exercise of free will, would not an action constituting a less noble exercise still be free will?
There are several interpretations of original sin, and not all Christians adhere to a belief in original sin, of course. I don’t think that humans are inherently capable of living without sin, I just think that only one person has ever done it. Ultimately, we will each be judged according to our own actions, not the actions of others. I don’t think that people are born corrupt, but we have a corruptible nature. I am certain that a fair number of Christians would disagree with me on this point, but I don’t think a belief in original sin as you have described it is a predicate to orthodox Christian theology.
The “fall” was the entrance of sin into the world. “Adam” sinned and passed on that sin nature to his offspring. Each person now has a sin nature, but can choose to act on it or not.
I should have specified macroevolution, which I don’t think can be taken as fact, otherwise it would not be called a Theory. I believe I answered this question above. I don’t think that man collectively chose to sin in a one time sense, although I suppose that if there is only one man and one woman, and they both agree to sin, then it would be “collective” by definition.
I don’t think it is accurate to say that God cares more about what people believe than what they do, but I think the problem for man lies in the nature of God. He is perfectly holy, a concept that I don’t think we humans can truly appreciate.
Jesus did indicate that works can get you to heaven, but I think the standard is higher than most people want to credit it. Here is the account you paraphrased as recorded in Luke 10:25-28 (NASB):
And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?”
And he answered, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE.”
How many people do you know that love the Lord with ALL their Hearts, ALL their souls and ALL of their Minds?
Leading a perfect life is sufficient for salvation, but leading a good life is not enought to claim to have followed the above commandments fully. If the standard were merely leading a good life, how would you determine what a good life is? How do you define it? How do you decide what is good enough? If you are just a little bit better than me, should we both get to go to the same heaven? What if I am good and you are a whole lot better? Should we be treated the same? Wouldn’t that be an injustice to you? If it is a balancing test and someone falls one good deed short of balancing out his bad deeds, doesn’t it seem harsh to punish him when the person with one good deed more got to go to heaven?
Since God is holy, we must be holy to be in his presence. If we are not holy, he made a way for us to be made holy, at his expense. To me, that does not make God irrational, but certainly makes him compassionate.
Touche. But my point is that most Christians don’t think their religion teeters on a literal interpretation of Genesis. There’s a lot of diversity in the opinions of Christians about their religion. I see no reason to assume that all Christians must believe what the quoted theologians believe.
IMHO, this is what one might call “closing the monuments” theology.
You know how, when the budget-cutters start wielding their red pencils, the Department of Interior says, “We’ll have to close the Washington Monument, and Yellowstone, and…”, implying that the first cut made will force the closure of stuff the nation holds dear, in order to hold off budget cuts altogether?
A bit of the same thing is going on here; this is a frequently-used approach by inerrantists. If they say, “if you question the historical and scientific veracity of a single verse of the Bible, then the entirety of the Gospel goes down the drain,” then it adds to the incentive for their flock to not question any of it.
But I wouldn’t take that seriously as Christian theology, even as evangelical Christian theology. Most of the guys using this technique operate in a zone where “theology” is itself a dirty word (“Baptist theologian” is practically an oxymoron), so it’s not like these guys are publishing in peer-reviewed journals. Collectively, the influence of authors like this in the evangelical world is fairly wide, but they don’t actually speak for anyone but themselves, nor are they answerable to anyone.
Serenitynow wrote:
Without a savior, we will die. Thus, there is a need for a savior for anyone who wants to live.
It isn’t that man fell; it’s that man is a free moral agent. And the moral imperative given to man by God is “be perfect”. (Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. — Matthew 5:48)
Let me see if I got this straight…
God gives man a rule that is impossible to obey given the way He made us. He then gives us a “savior” as a loophole to that rule.
But…
God and Jesus are the same being, right?
So…
God sacrifices Himself to Himself in order to get Himself to change the rule that He created?
Nah…I’ll have to pass on that one.
Smitty, the Evangelical-school-of-though expression of the Gospel tends to be, pretty much, just what you’ve suggested.
But for most of us, it’s a question of love – of a Father who sends his Eldest Son chasing after little children who are heading for a busy highway and might get hit. In short, “we don’t need no steenkin’ rules!”
From the perspective of the willful kid, parental rules are there as givens, possible to break if you’re sneaky, with no thought to the good reasons that may lie behind them. But from the perspective of the parent, they’re imposed for the long-term good of the child.
Many of us see God’s commandments in that context – not as Rules From On High, but as ways to live a healthy life without fear of danger. And the Atonement, not as payoff by one person to another part of himself for the breaking of rules by others, but as an act of love to win back those who were blindly heading for disaster.
Polycarp
I get what you’re saying, and I do understand that you come from the “God is love” perspective rather than the “God is gonna kick your ass” perspective, but how does your viewpoint require a savior in the first place? If God simply wants the best for us, why not just lay down the rules ONCE (which an omnipotent and omniscient being should be able to do, and do right the first time) and say. “These are the rules, follow them whether you understand or not, because I say so.” Why is the crucifixion necessary? Why the sacrifice at all? Why the “New Covenant”?
Also, how can you say that God’s commandments are not “Rules From On High”? Isn’t that what a commandement is? They’re not called the Ten Helpful Hints or the Ten Suggestions.
I just cannot see the Atonement as an act of love. If I came up to you, put a gun to your head, and said, “Poly, you have really pissed me off. I have no choice but to blow your brains out. But I tell you what; I love you so much that I don’t want to have to do it, but a price must be paid. So I tell you what. Take this knife and cut my son’s throat, and we’ll call it even.”
Would you say that was an act of love and that I was enormously compassionate? Or would you say that I was a nut job who should be locked away?
As I said earlier, I was talking only about metaphysical consequences (heaven and hell). Free will may or may not have temporal consequences, but that has nothing to do with my larger point.
What do you mean by “sin?” If we’re going to debate your assertion (that humans can’t live without sin) then I think we need a working definition of sin.
This is a logical contradiction. “nature,” by definition, must be inborn. What you’re basically saying here is “we’re not born that way, we’re just born that way.”
1.) How can sinned be passed on genetically if we have free will?
2.) Saying that Adam passed sin to his offspring is yet another way of saying we are born with it.
3.) If you say that we can choose not to act on our “sinful nature,” then you are contradicting your earlier assertion that we cannot live without sin.
sigh I don’t want to turn this thread into a hijack on evolution but let me just say (in the name of fighting ignorance) that a.) macroevolution is, indeed, a proven fact, and b.) that “theory” doesn’t mean unproven.
Gravity is a theory, the atom is a theory, germs are a theory. No amount of proof can change a theory into a law. Please see the (much cited on SDMB) FAQ at talkorigins.org for more detail on both macroevolution and the meaning of the word theory as it pertains to scientific method.
That depends on how you define “loving the lord.” if it is equivalent to loving one’s neighbor (as Jesus said it was) then I’ve known plenty of people who would meet this condition.
I’m reminded of the parable of the Workers in the Vinyard:
Basically, my answer is, yeah, everbody gets the same reward. So what? Why do you feel the need to keep others out of heaven in order to enjoy it for yourself? How would you be cheated by others receiving the same reward?
What do you mean by “holy?” Why must we be “holy” to be in God’s presense? Why didn’t God make us “holy” in the first place? How did murdering some hippie “make a way” for us to be holy?
This take is a late Christian one on the story. My interpretation of it from a lapsed Jewish perspective is that the story explains why the creations of god have to work and suffer. However, this perspective does not require any sort of a savior. My reading of the Yom Kippur service is that we all make mistakes, we all need to atone for them, but that we can do that directly to god. I have never, never, understood why god would limit himself in the way that Christians require him to limit himself.
oy, I’m not even religious and I am getting annoyed at the general lack of understanding in here.
its very odvious from the bible that its not that humans never did anything sinful before the fall, just that it was okay.
animals can’t sin, because they don’t know what they are doing. before the fall we did stuff thats “bad” like walk around naked… eatting the fruit taught us that some stuff is wrong. so we got a choice to do right or wrong in diffrent situations, and so could be good or evil, (just like a child isn’t evil if he does something horrible just because he doesn’t know better)
that makes perfect sense with a nonlitteral view…
we used to be animals, we woke up eventually into intelegant creatures who no longer could have the excuse of not knowing better.
So who was the “serpent,” and what was the “fruit,” allegorically speaking?
If I’ve sinned–whatever sin may be–why do I need to pass on the responsibility for my action? I’m the one who sinned, therefore I’m the one who must find my way back to God. No one can do that for me. I may need a pathfinder, a teacher, a guide, maybe even an example, but I don’t need a saviour. God did create me with free will, so I could find the Divine on my own. I was created imperfect in the sense that I am separated from the Divine, but I was created with the potential for perfection. And if you want to use the parent-child analogy–it’s when the child begins taking responsibility for their own actions (i.e. stopping themselves from running into the street because they understand it could cause injury) that the child moves towards adulthood. The only sin that will keep me from God is a sin of my own making, and only I can atone for it.
Sorry if this sounds preachy, I’m not use to this forum.
Why even make the story of the Creation allegorical? The ancient Greeks came up with theories of evolution, the atom, and the big bang very close to modern theories all without any of the advanced equipment or knowledge that we “modern” humans have, so one can’t argue that the allegory was used because less advanced societies couldn’t understand them. Seems to me that God would want humans to have an accurate account of those events as possible.
Right now, I’m working on the second chapter of BM&TPIOR which deals with Noah and the ark. In reading it, I have to ask:
[William Shatner] Uh, excuse me. Why does God need an ark?[/WS]
One would think that if God wanted to wipe out the evil members of society, He could simply wave His hand. No ark needed. After all, isn’t He supposed to do something similar during the End Times? Only instead of wiping out the bad guys, He’s going to “Hoover” all the good guys up to Heaven. Leaving all the bad ones and the halfway okay ones to fight it out on Earth.
If all of the Bible is supposed to be an allegory, why do it that way? Think of how long scientific progress was held back because someone decided that a particular verse meant that the sun revolved around the Earth and not vice versa. Again, it seems to me that if God truly cared about His creation, he’d want the most accurate record of His actions available to humans.
Wasn’t there a medieval heresy which claimed that the being we knew from the Bible as God, was, in fact, really Satan and that God was something altogether different and totally unknown to us? That strikes me as far more plausible than the Bible as allegory.