Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred Gilham) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Is Original Sin a sin? Message-ID: Date: 28 Apr 91 22:45:23 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Computer Science Lab, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA. Lines: 74 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Eric Prosser writes: ---------------------------------------- I thought Sin entered into the world when Adam & Eve ate the fruit. Because of this, God cursed them. God hates sin! All sin has to be punished, thereforeGod cursed man. Keep looking at scripture. Read Romans. Chapter 3 talks about no one being righteous, not even one. All are under sin. This all happened in the beginning when man fell. ---------------------------------------- Actually God didn't curse them. He said, ``Cursed be the ground because of you.'' It might be better if we were clearer about the word `sin.' There are at least three words in the bible translated as sin, two in the New Testament and (I speak from ignorance here) at least one in the Old. The way I see it, the Fall had the effect of separating man from God. It was (and is) this separation which, in my mind, constitutes what some are calling `original sin.' The effects of this separation are so radical that humans are powerless to overcome them. This is how I interpret the doctrine of `total depravity' -- we are powerless to save ourselves from the effects of our separation from God. The obvious sign of this is physical death, which nobody avoids. However, this seperation actually expresses itself in the totality of our being, so that our ultimate end is not simply physical death, but total alienation from everything and everyone. But the emphasis in the bible is that God acted from his side, and rescued us because he loves us. The interesting thing, to me, is that the two words in the New Testament for sin are `transgression' and, for lack of a better word, `shortcoming'. In the one case, we are talking about a particular action, like breaking the Law of Moses. In the other case, I imagine that the emphasis is on something that springs from our nature, something that in one sense we can't help. I think this latter thing is interesting because one might ask, ``Why does God hold us responsible for something we can't help?'' Well, when I think about it, I realize that I am more likely to judge myself over something I can't help than over something I can do something about. That is, I will say something like ``I could do better, I'm not really like that,'' when I transgress, but when I have to say, ``I couldn't help it,'' I realize that the situation is hopeless. It's this helpless hopelessness that we need to be rescued from and that God has in fact come to rescue us from. (The transgression type of sin, in my mind, springs from the interaction of the Law, God's static picture of moral rightness, with our nature, which can't help not living up to that picture.) To say that `God hates sin' and `sin has to be punished' is, in my mind, to oversimplify. Rather than saying ``God hates sin,'' it seems clearer to me to say that God doesn't like the way the world, shaped by our autonomous rejection of him, has turned out, and he refuses to acquiesce in it. Rather than saying `sin has to be punished,' it seems more accurate to say that sin has consequences. These consequences are ultimately totally destructive. We can use David's adultery with Bathsheeba as an illustration how God treats sin. In my mind, God punished David to allow him, and Israel, to escape the consequences of his sin, and to produce repentance and reconciliation. If we look at Psalm 51, we see a picture of the effects David's judgement had on him. David agreed with God, and the result was that he submitted to God's judgement which involved what we would call punishment. But this punishment was not proportional to the crime; David was not killed; the kingdom did not perish in a welter of jealousy and murder. Instead, David was punished in such a way as to bring home to him the seriousness with which God treaded his crime, yet which nevertheless cast him back on God in repentance and faith. This is how God wants to deal with evil. -- -Fred Gilham gilham@csl.sri.com