Re: [asa] "Evolutionary Creation" book comments

Bernie:

Last spring I asked what people on the list, thought about the
historicity of Adam and the origin of sin etc. While I would not be
dogmatic and am certainly not done thinking about the issue, here are my
current thoughts.

1. God selected a representative human couple (or possibly a tribe)
and communed with them, in particular God communicated a small part of
his requirements to them. At the time I would expect that others of the
same species as the representative pair existed So what we have in
Genesis is a myth based in part on actual happenings. Can I sort out
which details occurred and which are only used to communicate theology
to us? No.

Man, like his forebearers did what I will call bad things. Note I do
not use the word sinful just like I do not use the word sinful to
describe the ill behaviour of the other primates.

2. Man rebelled against God's commandments and thus the fall happened
and Adam and Eve's guilt was imputed to the remainder of the human
species. This fall was not from a state where no bad things occured.
It was a fall into legal guilt since man now had knowledge of God's
will and commandments, at least in a minimal sense. This is one area
where I find theology makes more sense when I accepted an evolutionary
origin of mankind. Paul's discussion in Romans about those without the
law seems to apply in spades.

3. About concepts like soul and spirit my thinking is still very
confused. I tend to take spirit as the essence of a person that other
people recognise even if there is great change in the persons outward
appearance, ie personality... In terms of soul, I tend to follow Donald
McKay and think that soul is what is instantiated in this life in our
mind and in the life hereafter possibly instantiated in some different
mechanism. To be crude the soul is like a checkpoint restart record
that computer system's record when the computer hibernates. In some
ways this view of soul would mesh with conditional immortality, which
people like John Stott have accepted.

4. The fall resulted in both a loss of potential benefit from a deeper
communion with God and sin seems to act like a magnet and draw us into
more sin, just because something of forbidden.

5. In some ways the theology of the old testament or covenant has been
superseded by the new covenant but I would hesitate to use the word wrong.

Dave W

Dehler, Bernie wrote:

> Let me be more precise in my original assertion:
>
> 1. You say (and I agree) that the Bible can be separated hermeneutically into three areas of concordance: science, history, and theology.
>
> 2. The science and history can be identified as 'ancient' and incidental, therefore, it is not a problem if they are in error. They are only vessels to deliver the theological message (I agree).
>
> 3. You imply, therefore, that the theology of the Bible is not, and can't be, 'ancient and incidental' in the same exact way as applies to science and history. I disagree, and say the origin of sin is one such example of ancient theology.
>
> I'm not saying all ancient science and history and theology is wrong. But you are saying that some ancient science and history is wrong, but NO ancient theology is wrong. How can you say there is NO ancient (and wrong) theology? By assigning the errors due to ancient theology to science and/or history, seems to me.
>
> To pin you down, that's why I ask "If the Bible is about theology, and the question of how sin arose is a theological question, does the Bible answer it?"
>
> You now appear to be saying that the Bible does teach the inerrant truth that sin arose from humans. Are you sure you want to go there? If so, I'd like to explore that with you.
>
> ...Bernie
>
>

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Received on Tue Sep 29 15:26:12 2009