Adam's Sin

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rikuoamero
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Adam's Sin

Post #1

Post by rikuoamero »

From another thread, erexsaur said
the sin of Adam corrupted the whole universe so that if there is life elsewhere, it too would be affected by Adam's sin.
Topic for debate: Please outline what exactly the 'sin of Adam' is, and the mechanism by which it affected the whole universe. Please provide evidence that such a thing occurred.
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Re: Adam's Sin

Post #31

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theophile wrote: I have no idea how you're seeing in my views a need to "live with the reprobate and suffer under their sins and our own". I want evil to be addressed, full on, wherever it is found.
It is MY assertion that we need to "live with the reprobate and suffer under their sins and our own," sigh.

In the parable the angels asked if they should pull up the tares sown by His enemy. He told them no, let the good seed and the tares live together lest the judgement root up the good seed also, proving their sin. Why are they called good then? Since good cannot be a moral designation (none are good, not one) it must be a status designation of their relationship with HIM, probably that they are the elect, the people of the kingdom. So, why must the sinful elect live with the reprobate non-elect, the people of the evil one? Why not let us live with the process of redemption on Earth and let the demons wait out their time to the judgment day on Mars or Pluto?

PCEC contends that when all of those created in HIS image separated themselves into those who accepted HIS deity from those who did not, He immediately called for the judgement against the reprobate as HIS holiness demands but that some elect idolized the reprobate over HIS command to separate from them in their hearts and rebelled against HIS plan to judge them, making themselves evil also and forcing the postponement of the judgment of the demonic reprobate until the sinful elect could be cured of their enslavement to evil and idolatry.

Because their sin was idolatry of the people of the devil it seems HE chose to have us live together so that the sinful elect could see that reprobate evil is eternal, that they will never repent, that they do not make good lovers or family members nor neighbours...in other words, the sinful elect have to become holy and accept GOD's verdict of the necessity of the banishment of the demonic reprobate to the outer darkness, a holiness which speeds up/hastens the coming of that terrible day: 2 Peter 3:11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and speeding the coming of the day of GOD.
Last edited by ttruscott on Sun Jul 24, 2016 3:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
PCE Theology as I see it...

We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.

This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.

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Re: Adam's Sin

Post #32

Post by ttruscott »

polonius.advice wrote:And the ruling of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on the literal temtation by the talking serpent which Catholic were requited to believe.
Serpent refers to his character, not his shape as shown by Revelation 12:9 The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan...
PCE Theology as I see it...

We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.

This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.

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Re: Adam's Sin

Post #33

Post by theophile »

[Replying to ttruscott]

So why is ARM (remember, Hebrew has no written vowels until 600 AD) translated as "naked" about Adam and Eve yet "crafty" and "sly" about the serpent? Well, to say Adam and Eve were as crafty as the serpent when they were created in the garden was just too much for the ancient Jewish scholars to manage so they use the obvious alternative which was picked up by Christian theologians and is now believed by most church taught folk as the word of God.

Pre-Conception Existence Theology supposes that we, the Church and the damned, all sinned by our free will before the creation of the physical universe and that the earth was created for sinners to inhabit. Therefore we came to Earth as sinners and Adam and Eve led the way.
I most definitely disagree with that theology. :) But as you point out, there is clearly a word play going on here and a strong connection between how Adam and Eve and the serpent are qualified. My view on this?

1) I take a more positive spin on the serpent. Instead of reading it as the 'craftiest' wild creature, which implies mischief and trickery on its part, and biases our reading of the rest of the story, I read it as 'sensible', in the direction that the serpent was the wisest of wild creatures... More on this to come.

2) I would hold to the primary significance of Adam and Eve as naked. This fits with them being unashamed, the subsequent prevalence of nudity and clothing in the story, and the fact that there is absolutely no mention of evil in the biblical context yet, i.e., Genesis 1-2. (This relates back to why I opt away from 'crafty' in 1, since the creatures of the land, including the serpent, were just declared good, not sinful beasts.)

3) I do 100% think that an even stronger reading of the serpent is not as crafty or sensible, but rather naked, in that we are invited to see a strong connection between nudity and sensibility / wisdom here through the obvious word play. In other words, we are invited by the word play to read the serpent as the nakedest of wild creatures, and that this is a good thing, i.e., sensible, wise...

And isn't this precisely what we see in the story? i.e., an act of nudity on the serpent's part? Unlike all of the other wild animals, which hide from fear (as wild animals are wont to do), the serpent goes out into the open to meet Adam and Eve and share its knowledge with them ("you will not die...")

This is exactly the active nudity that I think is called for (the serpent exemplifies it) and that Adam and Eve nullify when they cover up and hide.

But anyways, that's just my far less pessimistic reading... I think it is no less consistent with the text, in fact more, since I don't bring in any prior notions of wrong doing, but assume just the very goodness that God just declared.

Apologies, I don't really have time to dive into your citations, but they were a) far from complete (Noah? Joseph? ...) and b) I don't think they contradict my conceptual unpacking of nudity earlier... So I really don't see them as a challenge here...

More important is your absolutely fair point about us ultimately being clothed in white linen. Nudity is just the beginning for me and a critical aspect of the way that is prescribed... And there is a huge difference between us putting up barriers out of fear, shame, etc, and us being clothed in our nakedness by those who love us...

Again, recall what I said: nudity has both an active and a passive mode (and these modes are independent, i.e., can be naked in one and not in the other..). In a passive mode, nudity is a lack, like hunger, that needs to be addressed. What does Jesus say to his disciples? To paraphrase, go out with nothing on your back, no spare shirt in your pack, and let the world give you what you need... That includes clothes to warm us when we're cold or exposed to the sun.

We can also see in this teaching nudity in the active mode: go out into the world, exposed, without a false trust in such things like a sack of food and spare clothes on your back, and trust the world to provide. In this mode, clothes can be seen as a token of glorification, like a white linen robe placed upon such a light to the world... There is a great passage on this in Jeremiah 13, where God compares Israel to a linen loin cloth that is to be to Israel as Israel is to God, i.e., an article of clothing adorned to Israel's naked body to the pride and glory of Israel...

But anyways, the short of it is that I have no argument with you here. When I say 'nudity' I don't mean in a nudist sense per se of being physically naked. We can have clothes put on us and still be out in the open, with no barriers setup between us and God. We can be adorned in white linen robes and still confront the world in our fullness, holding nothing back from the world.
Last edited by theophile on Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Adam's Sin

Post #34

Post by theophile »

[Replying to post 28 by ttruscott]
But trying to say they hid with no reason for hiding is untenable with me...makes no sense.
Again, the reason is twofold:

1) In knowing evil, or that bad things can happen, they are now afraid in their nakedness. This fear is the reason for their hiding "we were afraid because we were naked"...

In my previous post I talked a bit more about the serpent being an exemplar of active nudity, unlike all the other wild animals that hide.

We can read Adam and Eve here acting just like all the other wild animals: they now run and hide when God comes into the garden, just as the other wild animals hid from Adam and Eve. They run and hide out of fear. Knowing evil, or that bad things are possible and they are vulnerable to it.

2) As I tried to say in the very beginning, there is simultaneous with getting this knowledge of evil an act of evil, i.e., a violation of God's ask of them. So we can also see another reason for their hiding being the shame or fear of having disobeyed God, and the punishment they think God will bring.

I'm less inclined to affirm this though and think that 1 creates much better parallels and synergies in the story. But both are fair: ultimately, realizing we are naked means two things: both that we are exposed to possible violation and that our past violations are now exposed. BOTH OF THESE are reasons to run and hide and put up barriers.
Last edited by theophile on Mon Jul 25, 2016 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Adam's Sin

Post #35

Post by theophile »

[Replying to post 29 by ttruscott]
PCEC contends that when all of those created in HIS image separated themselves into those who accepted HIS deity from those who did not, He immediately called for the judgement against the reprobate as HIS holiness demands but that some elect idolized the reprobate over HIS command to separate from them in their hearts and rebelled against HIS plan to judge them, making themselves evil also and forcing the postponement of the judgment of the demonic reprobate until the sinful elect could be cured of their enslavement to evil and idolatry.

Because their sin was idolatry of the people of the devil it seems HE chose to have us live together so that the sinful elect could see that reprobate evil is eternal, that they will never repent, that they do not make good lovers or family members nor neighbours...in other words, the sinful elect have to become holy and accept GOD's verdict of the necessity of the banishment of the demonic reprobate to the outer darkness, a holiness which speeds up/hastens the coming of that terrible day: 2 Peter 3:11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and speeding the coming of the day of GOD.
If this is what we are to believe, why isn't it more clearly conveyed, say, in Genesis, where we would expect such a narrative? How can we assume all this backstory or side-story?

I'm also not a fan of people being nonredeemable. If we look at Jesus in particular, it seems he went to the dregs of society precisely in order to redeem them and pull them out of the dirt... He lowered himself in order to raise us all...

Most of all what upsets me with this is that it turns the whole of history and creation into one big lesson for the elect: that some people simply cannot be redeemed. I don't find that especially uplifting or meeting my expectations of God. (Fair, maybe God doesn't meet my expectations, but that, to me, is a critical component of believe-ability...)

I would rather see history and creation as the story of God becoming all in all, and all things becoming possible: including the redemption of those who seem absolutely beyond redemption...

But to each their own :)

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Re: Adam's Sin

Post #36

Post by ttruscott »

theophile wrote:I take a more positive spin on the serpent. Instead of reading it as the 'craftiest' wild creature, which implies mischief and trickery on its part, and biases our reading of the rest of the story, I read it as 'sensible', in the direction that the serpent was the wisest of wild creatures...
This "more positive spin" is what I referred to as sympathy for the devil. You claim to fight evil wherever found but this?? From my pov this is the first sin of some of the elect and is the sin that forced the postponement of the judgement and all the sufferings of Earth.

Of course it can be read that way as all of the verses can be read both ways but there is a woe to 'reading' such verses wrongly...in Isaiah I think.
PCE Theology as I see it...

We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.

This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.

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Post #37

Post by rikuoamero »

[Replying to post 24 by JLB32168]
Your OP asks the question of how Adam’s sin affected the whole universe and that demands a Christian context to answer and that context must have God in the equation. If God isn’t a part of the discussion then Adam can’t sin. Why is this so?
You're focusing too heavily on the name. To give a rather crude example of what is going, this (to me) is sorta like saying "Hey, we can't be talking about the effects of Down's Syndrome on a person, unless we assume there really was a Dr. Down who discovered it". What I want to talk about is the equivalent of the disorder of Down's Syndrome, irrespective of whoever discovered it. I want to talk about "Adam's Sin", whether or not it is a real thing in our universe, and maybe later, if the evidence leads that way, we can say whether or not there was indeed an actual individual by name of Adam and an actual divine entity by name of God.
"Adam's sin" is just a placeholder name, for now.

When discussing Adam's Sin before with other people, they say it did X, Y, Z. So, there are effects X, Y, Z then. Is there evidence of the state of reality prior to these effects, I ask? For example, some people claim that prior to Adam's sin, certain animals that are carnivores today were herbivores. Is there evidence of them being herbivores?
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I condemn all gods who dare demand my fealty, who won't look me in the face so's I know who it is I gotta fealty to. -- JoeyKnotHead

Some force seems to restrict me from buying into the apparent nonsense that others find so easy to buy into. Having no religious or supernatural beliefs of my own, I just call that force reason. -- Tired of the Nonsense

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Re: Adam's Sin

Post #38

Post by theophile »

[Replying to post 34 by ttruscott]
This "more positive spin" is what I referred to as sympathy for the devil. You claim to fight evil wherever found but this??


Why are we to take the serpent as satan? What textual evidence is there for that other than the possible interpretation of ARM as crafty and cunning?

You will likely throw that New Testament verse about satan, that ancient serpent, against me. I could just as quickly throw back Jesus' teaching that we become wise as serpents.

Also, let me throw back again God's declaration in Genesis 1 that the land creatures, of which the serpent clearly counts, are good. We have no reason to believe that satan even exists at this point in time... Certainly no textual evidence. In fact, textual evidence to the contrary.

That said, to go back to "satan as that ancient serpent", or how I can affirm this statement too, I do see the serpent as the progenitor of satan. The offspring of the serpent, as God declares, will become mortal enemies of humankind... But at this point in time, at the time of Genesis 3, I think we would be very wrong to think the serpent is anything but a good creature. The wisest in fact of wild creatures.

We should accept God's word in Genesis 1 as speaking true. We should not make up a backstory of some evil creature somehow lurking in the garden. Especially when textually viable alternatives exist that let us affirm God's word in its fullness.

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