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Author | Topic: Is there Biblical support for the concept of "Original Sin"? | |||||||||||||||||||
iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Panda writes: Well, this sounds like we are back to my Message 80 (which I think you missed): Sorry. I did.
Eve was told 2 conflicting pieces of information. Since she had no reason to doubt the 2nd informer, I see no reason for her not to act as if the 2nd piece of information was correct. Her reason for doubting the 2nd informer would stem from her doubting the 1st (which she would need to do in order to circumvent the contradiction and go with the 2nd). But if any informer can be wrong then all informers can be wrong - she'd have no reason to suppose the one more likely to be right than the other. -
Do you see a reason for Eve to [think] that the Serpent was lying? Do you see a reason for Eve to understand that serpents can lie? Do you see a reason for Eve to know what a lie is?I say: "No" to the above questions. Me too. And if you put "God" instead of "serpent" the same applies.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Ringo writes: Again, isn't that the point? Without a "should-element", how can there be any sin? They used their free will, which they were entitled to do, and they accepted the consequences. Where's the sin? If "disobeying God" is a definition of sin then they sinned. That you add a moral element to the original consequential element for my sinning doesn't alter the definition being so. It's still disobeying God and so, still sin.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Panda writes: Who says she doubts the first informer?Being wrong is very different to lying. Doubting need not involve suspicion of lying. One could suspect a person of being wrong - like you say. Suffice to say she either doubts the first (and moves in direction 2) or doesn't doubt either party and sit's where she is with an unresolved contradiction. But if doubting the first ("the first could be wrong") then she'd immediately have reason to doubt the second ("if one can be wrong then so can two") You don't supply a reason to doubt the first and not the second. -
If the Serpent corrects God's information then neither are necessarily being dishonest. True. But how's she to know the Serpent is correct once doubt is permitted as a resolution of the contradiction? -
For Eve to question the veracity of informer 2's information to the point of ignoring it, she would have to think he was lying or delusional. Or mistaken. Just as she'd have to do with informer 1 -
If Eve asked: "Are you sure?" and the serpent replied: "Yes. Completely." then she would be left with no other option that to think the Serpent correct (unless you think she could anticipate the Serpent being mad or immoral). ..or mistaken, for all his self-assuredness. We can dance around Panda but nothing of substance has emerged so far: not in the serpent being the last to speak, not in the doubt raised. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Ringo writes: So the only way you can come up with "Original Sin" is by trivializing sin itself? I don't see the original sin as trivial. There were huge consequences arising from it. Then again, I'd be shy of supposing us the luxury of blaming it all on Adam.
If sin is nothing but disobeying God's whim, if it has no "bad" connotation in and of itself, why would we be concerned with sin at all? Per definition, it has a "bad" connotation when arising from creatures made moral. For you, for me, for post-fall Adam, for post-fall Eve. Before that, it only can have consequential connotations - perceived as negative or positive. I wonder whether Adam and/or Eve were saved. No man comes to the Father except through Jesus .. afterall.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
ringo writes: Your reasoning seems circular. Definitions usually go that way
You're assuming that there was a sin committed in the Garden of Eden I'm defining sin as disobeying God - whether that involves a moral element or not. According to that definition, there was a sin committed
and then you're attributing consequences to that sin. Better said: consequences attached to the disobedience. The text indicates so.
I'm saying that if anything Adam and Eve did in the story was a "sin", then sin is trivial. Trivial: "of little worth or importance". Importance: "marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence". There were consequences and they were significant. Could you show me where your statement attaches to the situation? -
According to the story, Adam and Eve were "made moral" by eating the fruit. How can you retroactively charge them with sin when the act was what made them capable of sin? Wasn't sin previously defined as disobeying God (whether or not a moral element was attaching)? If they are moral creatures then sin committed is morally bad. If they are not it's consequentially bad (from their perspective) But sin in both cases... per definition.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Panda writes: The reason she accepts that the first party is wrong is because the second party assures her that they are. She has no reason to think that any of them are lying. 1) Nobody is suggesting anyone need be suspected of lying. 2) If assured that a person can say something and be wrong, what value an assurance when an assurance is merely something someone says and things people say can be wrong. You're reasoning in a circle (edit: or better said: the serpent has her head spinning in a circle - she's left stuck in the dilemma - "who's wrong") -
If you think otherwise could you please show why you think she has doubts? See above. Edited by iano, : No reason given. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Panda writes: Are you saying that Eve would no longer know who or what to believe because one person had been identified as being wrong? For want of a means to know any differently, yes. The 'means' suggested by you are self-refuting Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
ringo writes: That's how you defined it. I'm playing the hand the Bible apears to have dealt me. - they weren't moral beings at the point of choosing- they are stated as disobeying God - their disobedience is described as sin ergo: a definition of sin doesn't need to include a moral element. I'm not suggesting that's all that could be said to define sin but it includes at least that - it would appear
I'm saying that that's a silly definition that trivializes sin. Yet there were "significant consequences arising" from their action. Since the antithesis of trivial is "significant consequences arising"... -
Sin has to have more to it than just disobedience of God's whims or it has no meaning. Where, other than within God, would you suppose to ground things in order that meaning can be produced. If the grounding is only within God, how can you ever escape so-called whimsy? -
Nobody was hurt (with the possible exception of Adam and Eve), so I don't see how it was a sin. This discussion centres around a biblical notion for sin. Not any old notion for it. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Panda writes: And just to be completely clear: do you know of any 'means' that would have allowed Eve to know any differently? That the one was wrong when the other wasn't? No. Which seems to return us to her being presented with a balanced choice in which she is the decider - not external influences. And neither of us seems to know how process of choosing in a balanced choice situation is worked out. Edited by iano, : No reason given. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Panda writes: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. When the man saw that the fruit of the Ferrari was good for speed, pleasing to the eye and a magnet for drawing babes, he laid down the dough and ripped out of the forecourt. He finds out subsequently that the babe magnetism of the Ferrari isn't quite enough to offset the male pattern baldness that has advanced of late. More topically, he remembers that this Ferrari-as-babe-magnet notion took hold subsequent to his seeing Ferrari advertisement in mens magazines which suggested that this would be the case. The serpent has built a case for the desirability of the fruit prior to her eating it. Her seeing it as desirable after his pitch can be: a) it was desirable all by itself but God's prohibition held her in check (in which case she had a free choice). Then the serpent comes along and reduces the restraint of the prohibition by sowing the notion that people (him and God) can be wrong. The fruit, the third party, exercises control. b) Her having chosen for his pitch as an exercise in free choice.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Panda writes: The Serpent made it more desirable, yes. But "the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye" is not to do with the Serpent. True. It's to do with the Lord God who planted the garden and filled it with trees which "were pleasing to the eye and good for food" (Gen 2). So when she finds it so, it's because he made it so. Our meanderings thus far persist in returning us to the conclusion of a balanced set of influences. This suits my position but doesn't yours. You turn now to look at something which, by any textual measure, is an aside: the issue of the attractiveness of the fruit apart from the central theme of good and evil. In response I'd point to a garden full of "all kinds of trees" which shared these characteristics of being pleasing to the eye and being good for food. Over-abundance in these departments renders the influence of any one tree a trifle. -
Reduces the restraint? You said earlier that it completely removed the restraint. Eve (we both agreed) didn't know who or what to believe, so I proposed that she would believe what she saw: "good for food and pleasing to the eye". To clarify: I wouldn't have been including good for food/pleasing to the eye in my thinking (for the reason given above). I was dealing with the suggestion of yours that there was a three-legged stool in this choice: - God's prohibition- the serpents temptation - the fruit being desirable for knowledge apart from what the serpent said If the serpent and God are cancelled out (due to the possibility of both being wrong) then desirability of the fruit itself comes to the fore. But the restraint isn't eradicated by such cancelling. No matter how many bullets you pull from a `Russian Roulette gun, there will be a degree of restraint in the case of a chance that even a single bullet remains. God could be right for all the "cancelling out". If it's 'pleasing to the eye' she's after she's the rest of the risk-free garden to choise from. -
It is the same free choice that you give a baby if you offer it a lit or an unlit sparkler.God gave Eve a choice he knew she was not equipped to make correctly and then punished her. That's been dealt with already. I'm assuming she understood plain English (although I'm not supposing that an omnipotent knowledge of every consequence arising from her choice is required in order for her to make an informed-enough choice. No more that it should be supplied to us when we make choices) Edited by iano, : No reason given. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
jar writes: Until we have the capability to judge right from wrong, there can be no such thing as sin. Could you supply some biblically-based argument for this statement?
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Could you supply some biblically-based argument for this statement?
I don't need that. I have reason, logic and reality. But I have presented the evidence. It is explicit in both Genesis 2&3 as well as in Roman's 5. That's a pretty tall order jar
quote: Here's the Romans 5 passage dealing with the issue. Where does it explicitly say that one needs a knowledge of right and wrong in order to sin?
quote: Perhaps you meant to say implicitly? It's not much better but it allows you at least some wiggle room. ABE: if it's totally irrelevant to the topic then why do you make the claim as recently as post 193. Let's make a deal: if you stop posting irrelevancies, then I'll stop challenging you tio support them. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
Your claim:
quote: The (supposedly) explicit support from Romans 5 for this claim you say is:
quote: How can a verse which makes no explicit mention of a knowledge of right and wrong explicitly support your claim? Indeed, how can a verse which makes no implicit mention of a knowledge of right and wrong implicitly support your claim? -
quote: Er..relevance to your claim? -
quote: Which would be fine were somebody making that claim. But they're not. It's your claim we're examining - not a contrary claim nobody has yet made.
It really is that simple. ...that disjointed ... is the word that actually springs to mind. Regarding the defence of your claim, I mean. Edited by iano, : No reason given. Edited by iano, : No reason given. Edited by iano, : No reason given.
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iano Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
jar writes: Because as I mentioned, "Sin that is not charged to an individual is of no consequence or relevance." There is no sin unless as Paul put it "13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law." Paul doesn't say there is no sin. He explicitly says there was sin but it wasn't charged to someones account prior to the law being given. That it wasn't charged to someones account doesn't mean it ceases to exist - at least, your claming it so doesn't make it so. Not only are you not tying this 2nd claim together (sin not charged > sin non-existant), you're failing to show explicit support for your 1st claim. You did say Romans 5 explicitly supported your 1st claim.
There is no way to know someone should obey a law until they know right from wrong, at least so far no one has shown that it is possible. The topic is your claim regarding sin, not law. Additionally, it's for you to support your claim, not others to prove any claim they might make. Could you halt with the misdirection already
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