From: Adrian Teo (ateo@whitworth.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 20 2002 - 23:54:00 EST
Hello Rich,
You asked:
You say "in the context of the universal church's
understanding of it." I
don't know what you mean by that context. You're claiming
quite an authority.
AT: What I mean is what has been generally accepted by the
majority of Christians around the world throughout history. I think
this is a most legitiamte source of guidance for us, and will prevent
us modern Christians from all kinds of novel interpretations not in
keeping with Apostolic teaching.
Rich:
Why is the doctrine of original sin and the imago dei
incompatible with a
gradualistic account of human creation? St. Augustine said the divine
likeness was in mente, in thought. When you read the story of
Adam and Eve,
they eat the apple, feel shame and feel fear. You cannot feel
shame unless
you have a self to be ashamed of, so the shame is the result of
self-consciousness, which is the difference between man and
the animals and
which is constituted of reflective thought (in mente). Adam
and Eve's eating
of the forbidden fruit was a conscious decision made against
the will of God.
It was not instinctive behavior which is necessarily always
in accordance
with the will of God. Adam, even if he was an archetype
represents a real
human decision to move away from instinct and rely on learned
behavior.Some
hominid somewhere began making those conscious decisions.
There was even a
first one (It was through one man that sin entered the world
Mark 5:12). All
of us are sons of Adam in that we share the inherited reflective
consciousness and can sin. Animals who behave instinctively cannot.
AT: What you wrote appears to support my argument for a clean
qualitative break between animals and humans. One chooses freely and
the other doesn't. Humans arrived on the scene suddenly, although
there were other human-like, but instinct driven creatures roaming
around.
Rich: The
sacrifice of the Cross is the self sacrifice in which Jesus
demonstrated that
the way back to God was to make learned behavior perfect and
intuitive and
give up reflective self consciousness, give up the will to
sin. That is the
return to God. The return to instinctive behavior in which it
is impossible
NOT to do God's will. That is why religion is always a
discipline. If we go
back to the shame and fear of the eating of the apple we see
that fear is how
we approach free will and shame is what we feel when we have
sinned. In one
of the more famous of the Nag Hammadi texts from 1st century Egypt, the
Gospel of Thomas, Jesus specifically says, "When you disrobe
without being
ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your
feet like little
children and tread on them, then will you see the son of the
living one, and
you will not be afraid." Notice that Jesus has taken the
shame and fear that
arose with the Adam's fall and removed them. He is describing
the return to
God.
AT: I have personal doubts about the relaibility of the
Gospel of Thomas and the words ascribed to Jesus. I also disagree
that the way back to God is to return to an instinctual state. The
way back to God is to love with the love that Jesus demonstrated and
taught, and love absolutely requires a free and conscious decision,
not instinct.
BLessings,
Adrian.
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