Hi Homer,
First, let me say I failed to thank you a month or two ago for emailing me privately to welcome me to the Narrow Path site. In fact, I was touched by that gesture, and I remain truly appreciative. So, thank you!
Re. Numbers 14:28-32 [in which only those who were 20-years old and older were held accountable at Kadesh-Barnea for refusing to go into the Promised Land], like you, I see this as the strongest challenge to the view I expressed in my last comment. For answer, then, I think I would understand Numbers 14 as follows:
(1)If we are to place Numbers 14 in a context of individual, eternal libability, it would suggest that all persons reach an age of accountability at exactly the same point—upon their 20th birthday. Yet from what we know about people in general such an arrival at accountability at the same exact point in age seems unlikely, since maturity and understanding develops at a different rate for every person. Yet, of course, Numbers 14 does speak of accountability, and so we cannot simply dismiss this passage nor the age it gives.
(2) Also, it seems harsh to most of us that a 6-year old who died might be in hell because he sinned unto eternal liability. But I don’t think it’s impossible that a child could so suffer, and this may be possible if we keep in mind that the Bible teaches that some in hell will suffer much less punishment than others, i.e., few stripes compared to many. The first, or one of the first, sins I can remember committing was one in which I repeatedly mocked the title of a hymn, which struck me as funny. I remember later coming under spiritual conviction about that act, and I don’t think I was probably more than four-years old. And then, too, some Christians feel they were saved at an early age, such as three or four-years old (myself at four). But how could that be if it were not also true that these persons had sinned unto eternal liability? Also, IMO it becomes very difficult to explain why children feel shame about their nakedness at so young an age, if not because of their sinning unto eternal liability. You mention that environmental conditioning may play a part, and perhaps so. But any point of knowledge finally comes into being only as an act of the self, and I think the same is true of shame. And so, while I think you are right to point out that there can be mitigating circumstances (e.g. parental influence) which may lead a child
toward knowledge, and though I think the
form of the development of the kind of knowledge which finds shame in nakedness is Adamic based, I believe the
content of this knowledge is created by the child himself. Moreover, a child cannot simply be told that he is naked, and thus “know” he is naked. My wife and I have friends who have a special needs child, and though I think his parents believe he understood for years that nakedness was the state of being unclothed, his father told me that this child did not feel
shame about nakedness until he was eleven. The shame factor is related to what I’m talking about, when I speak of the response to “knowing” one’s nakedness. And I don’t think such shame can be understood as shame merely because a parent tells a child he is naked.
(3) A further consideration of Numbers 14 is that the Lord said he pardoned the people’s sin. This seems to suggest that their deaths in the wilderness was a chastisement, not punishment due to eternal liability. The chastisement was aimed against the nation as a nation, in order to prevent the upcoming generation from a future rebellion. So it may be that the accountability age of 20 served more of a national, rather than individual, purpose. For if God desired that the upcoming generation should witness the sign of His chastisement of their fathers, a very specific cut-off age would need to be given so that all could observe the sign.
(4) Mitigating factors of accountability in Numbers 14 apply not just to those
younger than 20 who escaped the chastisement, but also to those
older than 20 who would die in the wilderness. As Num. 14:36-37 tells us:
As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land and who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing out a bad report concerning the land, even those men who brought out the very bad report of the land died by a plague before the LORD.
So, while those
under 20 were, perhaps because of mitigation, spared the chastising death of their fathers, so, too, were those who were
over 20 spared the worst of chastisement because of the 10 spies who “made” them rebel because of their evil reports. One other note: the upcoming generation did suffer indirectly because of the chastisement of their fathers, since they lost relatives to death sooner than they would have. I think the point I’m trying to make in all this is that the context of accountability mitigation in Numbers 14 seems to be of national chastisement, not individual eternal liability (at least)
per se. And so I think it’s still possible to argue that, e.g., a young child today of, say, 6-years old (or even younger), could be eternally liable for his sins, and that his shame over his nakedness is a sign of this.
I admit this is a difficult subject. But I don't see any answers in following the lead of scientists who tend to see human experience through a materialistic lens, and thus (imo) make certain unwarranted assumptions about brain development among the young, e.g. teenagers, in order to explain teens' poor decisions. For what scientists seem to see as the chief evidence of immature brain development—i.e., that teenagers make poor decisions—is, I think, also their weakest evidence. For if (as they say) poor decisions are the result of immaturity in the brain core, not a lack of wisdom and/or life experience, then according to the laws of probability teenagers ought to make right decisions as often as they make wrong decisions. For if one doesn’t know which is the right choice in a multiple-choice test between A and B, one is likely to get the correct answer half the time. But many teenagers demonstrate a tendency to make the wrong choice. IMO it is much more likely, for example, that a 17-year old girl who is raised by an emotionally-distant and unloving father is going to end up with the same type of loser in a boyfriend. And so, primarily speaking, I think the cause for poor decisions among teenagers is a question of whether they are taught and exampled wisdom and are willing to retain it. I hasten to say that some teenagers, esp. those raised in the fear of the Lord, often make very wise decisions the majority of the time. So in the case of a teenager’s pattern of poor decisions, I think what primarily is lacking is wisdom, not brain core development, with parents being a mitigating factor.
One last, if incidental, note. I don’t think Christ felt shame about His nakedness. I believe the reason for this is because He was born without the form of the knowledge of good and evil which Adam obtained in eating the forbidden fruit and which he passed down to his descendents. I believe Christ escaped this form of knowledge due to His virgin birth. Interestingly, the Messianic section in Ps. 22 which speaks to the naked state experienced by a crucified victim, is, in the mouth of the Messiah, not expressed as nakedness as such. He does not say, “I saw my nakedness,” but rather, “They may tell all my bones,” a natural way a man who had no shame about his nakedness might express his unclothed state. Of course, for the benefit of others Christ dressed himself during his life. As for the believer, I think he will be delivered from Adam’s form of knowledge once he dies, leaving him in a state where again he experiences no shame in his nakedness. But this leaves open the question why people seem clothed in heaven. I don’t know if I have an exact answer for that, except that it may be for the benefit of those on earth still born with Adam’s form of knowledge during the Millenium, among whom I think the citizens of the New Jerusalem may have some interaction. I realize this touches on eschaetology and opens a can of worms for a lot of people (including myself), a subject I pretty much steer away from because I don’t feel overly competent discussing it. But to continue a discussion in this vien may be touching on too much minutia in this thread, anyway.
In any event, thanks for listening to this long explanation. I grant that we’re trying to fit a lot of puzzle pieces together—not an easy thing!
Cordially,
Daniel Gracely