From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Dec 20 2002 - 07:38:56 EST
Adrian Teo wrote:
>
> Hello Jim,
>
> It would be poor exegesis to simply point to a single passage in
> Scripture to prove one's point. Scripture is to be understood as a
> whole, and in the context of the universal church's understanding of
> it. In this regard, then, one is able to say that the doctrine of
> original sin and the imago Dei is incompatible with a gradualistic
> account of human creation. Paul, himself, presented his point about
> sin (Romans 5), and simply assumes that Adam was a historical man.
> Jesus is presented as the 2nd Adam, undoing the work of the first.
> The geneaology of Jesus goes back to Adam. The reality of original
> sin in all of us necessitates a single source, and in parallel, the
> reality of salvation for all of us necessitates a single source,
> which is Christ. We all (i.e. humans) have to be sons of Adam in
> order for the need to be saved by the second Adam.
1) The fact that Paul "simply assumes" Adam to have been an
historical human
should raise questions about the claim that such a belief is essential to the
theological point that he is making.
2) & in fact it simply is not true that "the reality of
original sin in all of
us necessitates a single source." In Romans 1:18-3:20 Paul speaks in
detail of the
sinfulness of all human beings without referring to Adam or, indeed,
to any historical
source for that phenomenon.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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