posted
Since I’ve seen at least two threads in the last few weeks critical of the concept of “original sin”, I thought I’d give one Christian’s (that would be mine ) interpretation of the doctrine of original sin, why I believe it, and why I continue to teach and preach it. But I decided to make a new thread instead of cluttering up Lalo's atonement discussion.
I think original sin is one of the most misunderstood doctrines around, probably because historically it has been the most abused and abusively used. And for the record, yes I have read Augustine and Aquinas, and I’m tolerably familiar with both of their views about sin and sex. I just don’t completely agree with them. So don’t bother telling me that they interpreted things a mite differently – I already know that.
Original sin is a doctrine that safeguards the doctrine of the good creation. One of the earliest doctrinal arguments in Christian history, and one that keeps coming back up, was the argument against the Gnostic idea that the material world, including human bodies, is intrinsically evil. The Gnostics had a strict spirit-body dualism, under which the “good” spirit is trapped in a body. This led them to the idea that the god who sent Jesus Christ must be a different being than the god who created the earth, since no good god would create matter. The position that became orthodox Christianity insisted that the created world, matter, bodies, etc were in fact good. It’s somewhat ironic that ancient Christianity has gotten such a reputation for spirit-body dualism, when in fact that was one of the things they fought so hard against. (Not that they weren’t still extremely ascetic by modern standards.)
But if the material world, including human beings, are intrinsically good, how do we explain the fact that we continue to do wrong? In theological terms, how do we explain the universality of sin without positing a flaw in the original creation? And for the sake of this argument, lets leave out the sins that are violation of religious taboos. I have yet to meet anyone, religious or not, who has never done something, deliberately or by obvious neglect, that they later acknowledged was wrong. Or to put it another way, someone who has never fallen short of being the person they wished they could be. If I ever do I might change my opinion on the universality of sin. But not until then.
The doctrine of original sin is often interpreted as saying that we are “born bad.” I think it means exactly the opposite – we are created good. The “bad” – the sin, the evil, the falling short, are all external to who we really are, who we are meant to be. It may be universal, but it’s not innate. Which means when we try to become better (kinder, more loving, more honest, etc) we are actually become more our true selves.
To sum up: I do not believe that sin is a sexually transmitted disease, as one of the cruder interpretations of original sin puts it. Nor do I believe that humans today are to blame for choices made by their ancestors. But I do believe in the doctrine of original sin, as a descriptor of the current state of the world and an affirmation of the goodness of God’s creation.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
"Nor do I believe that humans today are to blame for choices made by their ancestors. But I do believe in the doctrine of original sin..."
Not to press you, Dana, but where did sin come from if not from "our ancestors," in this case? I had thought that was the question the doctrine of original sin tried to address.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not sure I understood exactly, you're saying that to you orginal sin simply means that we are not inherently evil, just that everyone eventually screws up? Or am I way off base? Sorry, I probably shouldn't try to understand people in the morning.
posted
Tom -- I don’t think that the point of the Genesis stories, or the doctrines based on them, is to explain causality, but to describe the world. It’s when we try to make them something they’re not that we get nonsense like a literal seven-day creation or sin as sexually transmitted. I don’t know where sin comes from, or why it’s seemingly universal. I do know that it’s not what God wants for us, and that avoiding sin does not mean transcending our bodies or rejecting the created world.
Hobbes -- not exactly, but close enough for early morning sleepy-heads.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've always felt the idea of a flaw creating original sin, wasn't really a flaw from the outset, as free will was more of a design feature.
Just my personal belief here, and I don't have any doctrinal evidence to back it up, but I believe that our "original sin" comes from our being given the ultimate ability of free will. God, as omniscient and omnipotent, gave us wee little humans our own free reigns and restricts His own power from taking them from our hands. Sure, He has offered teachings and guidance, and dire warnings again and again, but it's our decisions in the end.
Where we fail and fall into sin is that we have something so powerful as free will, an almost God-like ability, but we have such a limited grasp of scope that we can never truly know the results of all of our decisions, at least in this mortal existence.
Perhaps our original sin is the exercising of that free will, eating the forbidden fruit after being warned of the dire consequences. Perhaps I've just made a hash of this, but it comes down to my belief that sin is an almost inescapable part of who we are, but that Salvation lies just one decision away... all based upon our free will and inability to recognize the end results of our decisions. If we knew what happened after we turned our back on someone in need, would we ever commit that sin? If we knew how truly perfect the reward of Salvation is, would we ever shy away from it?
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I still don't understand. If Original Sin does not imply that we are all guilty of Adam and Eve's sin, then what is it?
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
You know, I kind of like the sound of "Nis Lanigiro". If I were going to create another Hatrack screen name, I think that that would be it.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
dkw, I certainly had missed this thread. I'm not sure that I completely understand why you need original sin if this is your view of it.
Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems to me that you're saying that you don't bleieve that original sin happened because of Adam and Eve's disobediance. And yet, you are also saying that it is not a part of creation. So where does it come from?
It's fine to reject Augustine's conception of original sin, but it's through his work that the concept of original sin really became part of the Christian tradition. Why not discard the idea altogether?
If you view the central meaning of the Adam and Eve myth as the consequences of the rise of consciousness and not how humans are bad because they disobey authority, I think that man's capacity to do bad things is already accounted for without needing to add any sort of moral stain. Witohut "knowledge of good and evil" and the ability to choose either, man does not have free will and cannot really be a volitional being. However, holding this sort of view, and embracing man's free will and creative nature, in my opinion, goes against the Old Testament and it's reductive teaching of obediance as the primary virtue.
edit: What I'm sort of trying to say is that I don't really see what you wrote as an actual defense of original sin. It looks to me like you're saying that you need a concept like original sin, even if there is no rational basis for it, to see the world like you do. Obviously, that's not how you meant it, so I'd like to understand what I'm missing.
posted
Squick - I know your post was directed to dkw -- but because this topic is of interest to me...
quote:If you view the central meaning of the Adam and Eve myth as the consequences of the rise of consciousness and not how humans are bad because they disobey authority, I think that man's capacity to do bad things is already accounted for without needing to add any sort of moral stain. Witohut "knowledge of good and evil" and the ability to choose either, man does not have free will and cannot really be a volitional being. However, holding this sort of view, and embracing man's free will and creative nature, in my opinion, goes against the Old Testament and it's reductive teaching of obediance as the primary virtue.
I read this part over, twice - outloud. It still doesn't make any sense to me in the way you say it. (I do understand your "footnote" to it). But could you say this again please, in a different way?
posted
Farmgirl, I was trying to talk about different ways of approaching the myth. In the traditional way of looking at the Adam and Eve myth, the central focus is on Adam and Eve being disobediant by wanting to have the knowledge of good and evil. Because they disobey, God punishes them. Depending on your interpretation, original sin and also the whole pain and suffering are either direct consequences of Adam and Eve's disobediance or are part of the punishment that God imposes.
However, this myth has been told in other cultures too, and some of them have much different ways of looking at it. I'm suggesting that we approach the fundamental idea as one of what it means to be conscious and to have free will. If you look at it this way, this type of story isn't equivilent to an Adam and Eve or Pandora's box myth where people choosing to do bad things and the existence of pain and sufferring are caused by someone in the past being disobediant and thus staining all future generations and subjecting them to punishment. Rather, by the very nature of having consciousness, people intrinsically have the ability to choose to do bad things. Suffering and the ability to choose bad stuff are intrinsic parts of the experience of being a free-willed volitional being. The only way for this not to be true is if people didn't have free-will.
It's not a moral stain of guilt we need to carry aroumd, but rather part of who we are. A consequence of this is that, instead of needing some sort of external supernatural intervention for us to overcome it, we can achieve this on our own. As another semi-related thing, instead of alienating the impulses that come from ourselves because they are necessarily evil, we should work to incorporate them into a maturing whole.
edit: It may help if you understand that my impression of the Old Testament is that its fundamental moral rule is obedience to authority (mainly God's). Also, my criticisms, such as it alienating the intrinsic self and creativity, of this are based off of what I believe about the psychology of obediance to authority.
posted
Kayla, Hey, I said whatever you liked too. No really, I'm not just trying to piggyback on your positive impression of it. I completely understand what you took out of it.
But for everyone else's sake (not mine, you understand, because I like totally get it) what exactly did you think I said?
I am (I mean they are) interested in what other impression I might have made.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
I also believe that free will had a lot to do with it. We are free to act as we choose, but we must remember that however we choose to act, we must take the consequences as well.
Posts: 52 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
If Adam and Eve relates the information that knowledge begets evil, and you don't agree that it relates how all men are evil today because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, then you don't need to add all that other stuff. Knowledge begets evil, no need for "moral stain."
If you don't know right from wrong and don't have a choice, you really aren't able to sin. However, that opinion and embracing man's free will goes against the teaching of the Old Testament, which it seems to me is a huge long book who's main purpose is to teach obedience as the number one goal.
(And by free will I mean we have to have the a choice. We have to be able to actually make the choice, so churches, and other crusaders can't take away choices (like abortion) otherwise, living a sin-free life wouldn't really be all that hard. Just make illegal everything that is a sin. See, without choice, free will is an illusion.)
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sqick, you are wicked cool at Hatrack, but in my head, you're always a little more human-like. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
I want to know how in since I am with you. I always felt that original sin was because we DO NOT have free will.
Let me explain.
Economics, what a great place to start.
In a "free market" system, certain conditions must be met. In a free market society, demand and supply must be in equilibrium. To achieve the equilibrium there must be competition. So what is competition?
Econ 101 says that perfect competition has four conditions. Condition #3 is: Buyers and sellers must have all relevant information about prices, quality, source of supply, et cetera.
Example: I have 10 dollars and am willing to buy perfume for 7 dollars, and Mike sells perfume for 10 dollars, and Milo sells perfume for 7 dollars. If I know about Milo's price, I will not buy form Mike. Demand and supply are equal.
If I don't know about Milo, and I am going on a date, then I may buy from Mike for 10 dollars, but the price is too high, and there is no "perfect competition" because I don't have all the relevant information (plus there are not multiple buyers and sellers in this simple analogy).
What does this have to do with original sin? Well, God gave Adam and Eve "free agency" or free will. I contend that in order for someone to have free agency, an individual must have all relevant information about price of an action, consequences, sources of desire, et cetera.
Any information gap results in a loss of complete free agency. Yeah, God told them not to partake of the fruit or they would die, but did they really understand what death was? What suffering was? or Did they even understand they were making an "evil" choice since they did not know the difference between good and evil?
I think not.
I think the only person to live who had true free agency was Christ. He did know (or at least He does now after His atonement) what the consequences of His/our actions would/will be.
The rest of us have doubts, addictions, and lack of information that creates "barriers" to our free agency. We exercise free agency, but it is flawed. This flaw, due to our own ignorance, is what original sin is in my opinion.
Original sin is good since, working through it, we gain can a deeper appreciation and understanding of life. It is not something we should blame on God, but rather, we should thank God for our imperfections. If you disagree, try Ether 12:26-28.
quote: 27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their aweakness•. I give• unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my cgrace is sufficient for all men that humble• themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak• things become strong unto them.
28 Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith•, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness.
posted
Squick, I am afraid you are misreading me. I don’t view the central meaning of the Adam and Eve myth as having anything to do with the rise of consciousness. Nor do I think it is about accounting for humanity's “capacity to do bad things.” Maybe it would be more accurate to say I view it as a paradigmatic story – acknowledging the reality that all of humanity does do bad things.
And yes, I was saying that I need a concept like original sin to view the world as I do. Or, rather, I was saying that part of how I view the world includes a concept that pretty much fits the doctrine of original sin. (I don’t completely reject Augustine, btw, he’s one of my favorite theologians. I just shift some of his emphases.)
Our longstanding disagreement about the major themes of the OT is probably not helping our communication here, either. I don’t view it as a book of rules that can be reduced to obedience to God’s authority. I view it as a love story between humanity and God. Sin, therefore is not a violation of rules but a violation of relationship.
Alexa, I’m afraid we are not in sync at all on this one. I believe that we DO have free will, and I believe that original sin is a tragedy, absolutely contrary to God’s will for the world.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm going to make the assumption that since Alexa quoted Ether, she is trying to approach this from an LDS perspective (The statement "Original Sin is good..." nothwithstanding).
If level of knowledge is the determining factor but we have the knowledge before us and fail to take advantage of it, I think we are still responsible.
My view is that Adam and Eve's sins resulted in the Fall and in a fallen world all sin.
It's been interesting in my discussions with the Jehovah's Witnesses. They don't believe in "Original Sin" but they do believe in the goodness of the creation, as dkw put it, and that God "purposed" for us to live in a paradise.
The LDS take on this is that no one else ever would have been born without the fall. But that when Adam and Eve sinned, it was not only the human species that was affected. Violence and death as well as birth became possible in all the world and kingdoms of living things.
This may sound flippant, but if there were no death before the fall there could have been no birth because ants and cockroaches would have completely overrun the earth within a few hours if they were reproducing but no one was eating them. From this literalist perspective, perhaps Adam and Eve also didn't have any parasitic or cooperative protists in their bodies. But I guess they were eating fruit. I don't know. And you thought a 7 day creation was absurdly literalist.
Posts: 383 | Registered: Nov 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
If you go to a resturaunt and all they offer is spam, does it matter what you order?
If there was no sin, what real choice would Adam and Eve have had?
Sin existed from creation, even if only in the form of the "apple". God created everything, good and bad, and then let us choose between them, and we don't always choose as he would wish us to. If we did, what would the point be?
I think Original Sin is a good parable and helps explain why we have the freedom to fail as well as the opportunity to suceed, but I don't think it is as literal as some preists (Agustine immedatly comes to mind) have taught it.
As an adult I have often seen younger, less experienced people make some very serious mistakes, mistakes that I myself have made. So, even though I knew their actions would cause them pain, and I did not stop them, I am not responsible for their actions. I can't remove their choices without taking away their freedom. God has the same problem with all of humanity. He/She knows what would be best for us, but he has to let us find out for ourselves. If he only allowed us to do what he sees as right, then we would have no free will at all.
I did not believe we have NO free will, but rather, that we have degrees of free will. Of course we all can make choices for ourselves, but inasmuch as additional information affects our choices, barriers exist that interfere with complete agency.
I know it is a matter of semantics, but it is an important one for me to understand sin. That being said I can move on to Kwea...
Kwea states...
quote:So, even though I knew their actions would cause them pain, and I did not stop them, I am not responsible for their actions. I can't remove their choices without taking away their freedom. God has the same problem with all of humanity. He/She knows what would be best for us, but he has to let us find out for ourselves.
My question to Kwea is since when is giving additional information taking away their freedom? To me that makes as much sense as a President's Aides not giving him complete information in fear that it will take away his freedom to choose if we go to war.
I do believe God has to let us find out for ourselves, but I don't believe it has to do with keeping our agency.
I think being ignorant implies a degree of agency-- just like a baby who crawls behind a parked car has less agency then an adult crawling behind a parked car--true, they both had the agency to choose actions, but "understanding" adds something.
Sin of partial awareness and sin in the delight of suffering are two different types of transgression. LDS perspective on the garden works for me, not because it is literal, but because I am fascinated by the concept of conflicting commandments, and I am fascinated to think to what degree could Eve have disobeyed God if she did not yet know the difference between good and evil--unless disobedience is NOT evil.
I think God did not tell us everything because experience gives a type of knowledge tat instruction can not give. Christ knew what he was going to do in the garden and on the cross, but the actual suffering taught him infinitely more. If not, then there would be no need for an infinite atonement.
This suffering gives awareness, which shapes character, which adds to a more complete free agency. In that regards, Original sin is necessary. Original sin is kinda like Judah, yeah, we can call him evil all we want, but where would we be without him?
Strika03, You could say I am approaching this from an LDS perspective, but that does not mean I am taking "The Fall" literally. I have a lot of issues with the LDS religion, however, I was raised LDS, married an LDS person in the temple, and I have it so ingrained in my mind, that as I work through my philosophy on life, I do draw from LDS literature--as that is what I understand best.
HOly Shietza, I am sounding a lot like Moore!!!
Posts: 1034 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Who said that I didn't warn them? You are presuming a lot of information that you don't have.
My point was that just because God (or parents) know their children well enough to predict their behaviors, but that that doesn't mean events are pre-determined or predestined.
Most young people don't believe that the same things can happen to them. They feel that they are "different", or special, and that they are immune to life. They forget that we were young too, and that we thought the same when we were their age.
I couldn't stop them, but I did try to give good advice....they didn't listen. Hence, they had free will, because the choices were theirs to make, not mine. The very fact that they were free to fail is a validation of free will. I would have spared them if I could, but the only was that could have happened would have been to remove their ability to choose.
God feels the same way about us, I imagine. He sees all the choices ahead of us, and knows what would bring us closer to him, but he has to let us choose our own paths or free will would be endangered. So he watches us stumble, and recover (or not), and continue on, and hopefully at the end of it all we end up where we need to be.
Original sin is merely the representation of all of the information God gave us in order to allow us to choose. In order for there to be choice there has to be more than one option, by definition. Sin had to exist, or what would the second option be?
posted
You are right, I did presume. What you said about GOD
quote: He/She knows what would be best for us, but he has to let us find out for ourselves.
made me think you endorsed the idea that people have to find out for themselves. I can now see you can find out for yourself, after advice has been given.
You have an interesting look on sin. I have a different outlook on sin. I am not sure God exists any more then I am sure he doesn't, but when I think of myself, if GOODNESS always leads to more happiness (wickedness never was happiness), then to choose to be evil must be a result of lack of understanding.
Moral choices have consequences. If we understood completely the implications of immoral actions on ourselves and others through-out time, I wonder how much difference in behavior there would be between two individuals.
Or, in other words, I wonder how much of our personality is due to sorting through our limited awareness of the purpose of life.
If you know everything, how different would you be? From the Mormon perspective I gleaned that if you see Christ you have seen the Father, because they are so similar in countenance and looks.
Free will exists. We all have it. But inasmuch as additional understanding will influence our behavior, we are not free of ignorance. That is my definition of Original Sin. It is not something evil that God created and left us the ability to choose. Original sin is the complete ignorance of what the consequences of our actions are, so we have to work through choices and mistakes.
This working through our ignorance is what affords us the opportunities to make mistakes, because suffering through our actions gives us empathy. This is not evil. I do believe in evil, but evil for me is delighting in the suffering of others. After all is said done, and we stand before God, I think a lot of who we are will be stripped away with our increased understanding, and we will be judged by the intents of our hearts.
Posts: 1034 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, I'm not sure who is at fault here, because once again I think you are missing my point. Maybe I wasn't clear enough (I don't need to make you agree, but I hope you can at least see what I mean).
I do think that people have to experience sin in order to appreciate virtue. I don't think that advice is usually enough to teach us important lessons.
Sin could be ingnorance; I agree with you there. Often times it is. But to me ignorance doesn't explain everything. You can have two people make two different decisions based on the same information, and neither is ignorant of the facts.
I think that God created sin at the same time as he created everything else, becuase without it we would have no choice, no free will at all. The ability to sin, and to trancend sin is what makes us human beings, warts and all. We would be nothing without him/her, but we have the choice of what to do with our lives. It isn't predestined, even if he already knows what we will do, any more than I was to blame for my friends mistakes after I had warned them.
I do think this is a pretty cool discussion though...
posted
I undersand why this is hard to follow at times, we are discussing something that no one has an understanding of yet, kinda like the atonement.
I understand that you think God created sin. My question: Is sin Evil? I was always led to believe that anything good comes from God; so is sin good? If so, how do you differentiate the different types of sin?
I hope you don't think I believe in predestination. I don't. I am propsing a new paradigm to look at sin, and the absence of free will is not part of that paradigm.
Posts: 1034 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
See, Alexa -- my opinion is kind of like this:
You are saying about that you think God created sin along the lines of thinking (by example) "If God created Matter, then He must have also created Anti-Matter" (the opposite of the thing).
God created the universe, and he created humans. Then he said to humans "here it is, and here are my instructions on it." BUT he allowed them to make the choice to follow his instructions, which, in turn, would lead to following Him, and happiness.
The first humans, at one point, said, "nope, I'm not going to follow the instructions, I'm going to do the opposite." In doing that, they separated themselves from God. That means THEY (the humans) created sin. That's why it is the "original" sin. They were the first to pull themselves in a direction away from God -- which is what sin is.
When we are going in the direction that God wants us to go, and how He designed us, we are not sinning. When we go contrary to that original design or plan, and chose through our actions (or thoughts) to go contrary to Him, or do things which pull away from Him, causing separation, then that is sin.
posted
My take on it is somewhat different (go figure).
I feel that God created sin....sort of..... He created the potential for sin, and some sin is evil...or, some sins are more evil than others.
I don't think that God is responsible for all evil, except in the fact that without him there would be nothing...no sin, no virtue, no experience at all, at least for us. I don't think that sin is always evil, because it is part of the whole design he has for us. We are allowed to make mistakes, so we learn and grow closer to him.
But sin is evil, as it represent moving away from God. Sin is the tool the Devil uses most often, to lead us astray. I'm not sure if their is actually a being that IS God, or the Devil, or if they are merely our own preconceptions of good and evil, but either way sin is not a good thing unless we learn because of it.
I believe that God uses sin to help us grow, so I don't think that we would evolve without it.
posted
dkw, I'm asking here where do you think original sin comes from? You've said it doesn't come from God and it's doesn't come from inheriting from Adam, so where does it come from? Part of the thing I'm trying to get at is that, since you've thrown away the Biblical justifications for original sin, I'm not sure I understand why you feel that you need to concept or what you even mean by it. It seems to me to exist as a sort of moral ether, a substance that comes from nowhere whose only properties are the ones that you are convinced it must have for you to believe in something else. That's where I felt I didn't understand you. The myth stuff was just me explaining my own way of looking at things.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: since you've thrown away the Biblical justifications for original sin
I did what? Where? That certainly was not my intent.
I don’t think the Genesis stories were written to show scientific causality. Not in regards to the creation, and not in regards to sin. As to “where does it come from” how can it “come from” anywhere? It’s not a substance. Where does cold come from?
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
dkw, The only parts of the Bible that I'm aware of that have been used to support the doctrine of Original Sin are the Adam and Eve myth and the two parts of Romans where Pauls says something like "And as sin entered the world through one man, so did death" and then later (paraphrasing heavily here) "I try to do the right thing but I find that I can't. Every time I try to do right, my nature makes me do bad. Only through God can I do good."
I think your statements about what you think Original Sin is are inconsistent with interpreting these in relation to it. Which is fine. I think that they are pretty weak support. But I don't think that there is any Biblical support for your position.
As to where it comes from, this is extremely important in regards to your position, as it seems to me that the whole point is that it can't be a part of God's creation. However, if it just is, then logically it's a natural part of creation and thus comes from God's design. The alternative is that it somehow comes from man's actions, either through the hereditary mechanisms of traditional Original Sin or through some other method. As far as I can tell, you've rejected both of these alternatives, but I don't see what you've replaced them with.
From my perspective, I don't really think that you're defending original sin. I don't think, from what you've said, that you actually believe in anything that bears much of a resemblence to original sin.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I maintain that there are two types of sin.
1: ignorance (non-evil) 2: delighting in suffering (evil)
While God can not create sin in regards to creating something evil, I do believe that God can withhold knowledge.
Adam and Eve had no desire to sin, infact, (assuming it is a true myth) until they partook of the tree of knowledge, they could not know the implications of their actions.
Working through experiences (i.e. ignorance and hence sin) to learn Godly attributes is not evil and can exist with an Omnipotent Good God.
I think the vast majority of sin in the world is due to ignorance since all of us (from a Mormon perspective) are still behind the veil.
In ignorance we can learn to delight in the suffering of others, and that is why we need an atonement. We need the atonement, not because we were too ignorant to know better, but because in our ignorance we can also learn evil attributes just as easy as we can learn good attributes. God created neither, but He does give His endorsements and judgments.
Of course, on interpretation of your description of the fall could note that while they were given the instructions, they were not only not told what would happen if they disobeyed, they weren't even able to know why disobedience was wrong (after all, only after they eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil can you really assume they knew all the ramifications, hence the fig leaves, the hiding from God).
That puts an additional wrinkle in the story, if you ask me.
posted
Mr. Squicky, I think that my view of original sin has more Biblical support than the standard caricature of original sin. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to write out a good argument for it this week (it is Holy Week, after all), and I’m going to be doing continuing ed stuff all next week. I promise to get back to it eventually, but it might be a while.
As to where it came from, on this I line up with Augustine fairly closely. Evil (and sin) comes from nowhere, as it has no actual existence. It is an absence of good, in the same way that cold is an absence of heat. It’s not possible to create cold, and it’s not possible to create sin.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
Sure they were told what would happen -- they were told if they ate of the fruit, they would die (become mortal).
Of course, you can argue that they had no concept of "death" (which is true) so perhaps that really didn't mean anything to them.
God knew that when he gave them freewill, he also knew what their choice would be (because he has no time dimension, even though we have free choice, he already knows what we will chose, because he can see all time). So he knew they would chose to go against His instructions and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. The name of that tree says a lot -- up until then, basically Adam & Eve only knew good -- they had no concept of evil. So in eating of the fruit, they first learned the difference. That doing something that God told them not to do, separating themselves from God in that way, was sin (or evil). Maybe not evil in the way we tend to think of it today, but evil in the sense that it is opposite of good.
So God knew at the creation that there would in the future be a need for a savior, because we would choose to separate ourselves as mankind from him, choose our own way, and we would need a savior to redeem us to allow us to come back to Him.
You could say that perhaps God knew that until we languished around in our own pig sty, we wouldn't really appreciate His goodness.
(Yes, I'm sure some could make the comparison between this and the world in Brave New World which is always debated in college -- would people who have only known happiness have any idea what sadness is? And if they don't know what sadness is, then do they truly feel happiness?)
posted
dkw, You obviously have a much different perspective on Augustine's take on Original Sin and in general than I do. I'm eager to hear it. So, whenever you get a chance to write a little bit on it, I'd be glad to read it. Don't worry about getting to it though, I'm sure it will be worth waiting for.
edit: I object to labeling what I've said about Original Sin as a caricature. I think that I deserve more respect and credit than that.
posted
My apologies. I wasn't actually thinking of what you wrote when I used the word "caricature," but rather the descriptions/dismissals of original sin on other threads that led me to post this one in the first place.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
) interpretation of the doctrine of original sin, why I believe it, and why I continue to teach and preach it. But I decided to make a new thread instead of cluttering up Lalo's atonement discussion. 
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Hail]](graemlins/hail.gif)
I bow to you.
![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
