Historical Adam, authority of scripture, and original sin

[morbo3000]

I'm moving this conversation here, because I've jumped the topic from monotheism to Historical Adam, authority of scripture and original sin.

This research didn't set out to undermine Adam and Eve. But its results wreak havoc on Pauline theology. Jesus not so much.

Unfortunately, the article can't be read in its entirety without a subscription, but it seems that many believers are heading in the direction of Darwinian or theistic evolution.

Also, I would imagine that the genealogies in the Gospels could be discounted, which would then cast doubt on the Gospels themselves, wouldn't it?

Sincerely, Jose

I wasn't sure how far you can get on that link. Pay-walls are frustrating. But they gotta pay the bills I guess.

I'm not what sure what you meant by "Jesus not so much" but that seems to imply that some things he said can be invalidated by evidence.

What I meant was that Jesus doesn't engage the subject of Adam as the source of original sin. That's a Paul thing. The (theoretic) lack of a historical Adam causes serious problems for Pauline theology.

Does your trust in the geneticists cause you to distrust the Gospels?

That's the real question. It was one thing when evolution was the only "threat" to inerrancy. Evolution, textual criticism, archaeology, historical studies, genetics, astronomy, physics... the list goes on. Have all caused problems for Christianity. And these studies do not start with an agenda to undermine the faith. They aren't part of a vast conspiracy against Biblical inerrancy. There are some exceptions. I can't even watch Cosmos, even though the science is probably good. But I can't watch Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's a jerk with an agenda. One of the "new atheists." Same with Bart Ehrman.

What, Christians ask, is the source for authority when these fields contradict scripture?

My modus operandi is to work with the texts as they are, rather than what the church later said about them. Paul never claimed to be an oracle. Jesus did. But the gospels had their sources in oral tradition, not transcription. Scientific inquiry is a threat to inerrancy. But inerrancy isn't a pre-requisite for the gospels and letters. And not a pre-requisite for faith in Jesus.

[dizerner]

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[morbo3000]

Here's a link to the article.

It will expire in 30 days.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/egrfopetovjh7 ... y.pdf?dl=0

[BrotherAlan]

morbo3000 wrote:

Scientific inquiry is a threat to inerrancy. But inerrancy isn't a pre-requisite for the gospels and letters. And not a pre-requisite for faith in Jesus.

The virtue of faith leads us to recognize the Scriptures as divinely inspired and, thus, inerrant—and this, indeed, is a foundational principle of theology (deny, or even doubt, the inerrancy of Scripture means denial of, or doubting, the inspiration of Scripture—and, the moment one does that, one is no longer doing true theology, i.e., Christian theology, for one is no longer embracing the true Christian faith, and theology is "faith seeking understanding", to quote Anselm). And, anything that is not inerrant cannot be true Scripture, for, again, “All Scripture is inspired,” i.e., written, “by God,” (2 Tim. 3:16), and God can not tell a lie (and, thus, for any writing to be a true Gospel or a truly Scriptural letter, eg., the four Canonical Gospels, the letters of Paul in the Scriptures, etc., they do need to be inerrant).

And, further, since faith is the virtue by which we believe all the truths that God has revealed (based on the authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived), and truth can not contradict itself, there is no true “competition” between faith and reason (rather, there is a “marriage” between faith and reason, for they are both avenues by which we can come to know truth-- with faith being superior to reason, but certainly not contrary to reason). And, thus, similarly, there is no such “competition” between true/authentic theology and true/authentic science. To the contrary, true science, being a quest for truth, is something that we Christians, followers of Him Who called Himself “The Truth”, can and should “warmly” embrace!

In Christ, the Incarnate Truth,
BrotherAlan

[TheEditor]

Hi Brother Alan,

Perhaps it would be good to review and qualify what we mean by certain terms. Terms such as "inerrant" and "inspired". Do you by saying "inerrant" mean entirely free from all error? And, by "inspired" (or as you put it 'written by God') do you believe that the actual holders of the quill were not in their own heads when they wrote? Much like "automatic writing"?

Regards, Brenden.

[dizerner]

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[BrotherAlan]

Hello, Brenden--
Yes, I agree with you-- always good to define key terms (especially when there is a dispute as to their meaning)!

So, yes, as you thought, by "inerrant" I mean "without error".
And, I would define "inspired" (as this term is applied to the Scriptures, eg., "All Scripture is inspired by God...") as "having been authored by God Himself."

Thus, if the Scriptures are truly inspired-- and, according to Scripture itself (2 Tim. 3:16), they are-- whatever is asserted as true in the Scriptures is asserted as true by God, for He is the Primary Author of the Scriptures (and, thus, for this reason, the Scriptures must necessarily be inerrant, for something asserted by God is never false, for God can never be in error or mistaken, nor would He ever lie).

Note that in asserting this definition of "inspired"/"inspiration", I am not asserting that the human authors were not ALSO real authors-- for, there is nothing contradictory between saying "God is the author of Scripture" and "Paul (or any other human author) is the author of Scripture" (for, note that the statement that is logically contradictory to "God is the author of Scripture" is, simply, "God is NOT the author of Scripture"). For, in fact, the human authors ARE true authors, which means that they wrote what they wrote of their own free will, utilizing their own minds (and other talents that they possessed as human beings). God is the Primary Author of all of Scripture; the human authors are secondary-- but TRUE-- authors of Holy Writ.

As I am a Catholic, my position can be described well in the following quote from the Second Vatican Council's document on the Scriptures entitled Dei Verbum (The Word of God); I hope it makes sense and clarifies my belief-- the Catholic belief-- on this matter:

11. Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For holy mother Church, relying on the belief of the Apostles (see John 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:19-20, 3:15-16), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.(1) In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him (2) they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, (3) they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted. (4)

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation. Therefore "all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind" (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text).

God bless...

In Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, and the Son of Mary,
BrotherAlan

[morbo3000]

One thing I would point out, is science does say we are all intimately related by DNA—and I think it's obvious to anyone the world has suffering and evil. Those two facts alone are enough to support original sin from the perspective of scientific fact intersecting with soteriology.

G.K. Chesterton said that original sin is the most obvious of all Christian doctrines. I completely agree with this. We cannot point to any point in history where humankind did not exhibit sinful behavior. In fact, evolution would agree with this. We are driven if by nothing else, the need to survive, and do whatever it takes to accomplish that. You don't need a historical adam to demonstrate that sin is a failure of all of us. And an inheritance of our parents, and our parents' parents. Amongst seculars, I will say "John Lennon is my Adam." I don't need to point back to the original pair to say that I have inherited sin. I was born in 1968. I tell people that it is a miracle of grace that I was not around for the hippie revolution. I am certain that I would have been taking LSD, participating in "free love" and protesting all sorts of things. Even though I have never taken drugs, or been promiscuous. I know that those roots are in me. I sinned in my own ways. Jesus' description that "greater love has no one but to lay down his life for another," demonstrates the contradiction against the base nature to survive at all costs. The gospel is a radical contradiction against the very things that make us human.

[morbo3000]

What, Christians ask, is the source for authority when these fields contradict scripture?

Well, for me, what it should have been since day one, and that's the affirmation of the Spirit upon the text. The Bible makes metaphysical claims, how could this be supported by reason, logic, science, and intellectual study; they simply cannot cross over into making any truth claims about that which is metaphysical, which by definition, is that which science cannot measure or study. This is why nonreligious scientists often want to find some concrete claims in religion they can disprove with science. But I agree this is a very troublesome topic to many believer's faith—as Paul said (and I think maybe Jesus would agree), our faith should be based in the power of God and not the wisdom of men (faith is a supernatural gift from God).

This is why nonreligious scientists often want to find some concrete claims in religion they can disprove with science.

I can't of course know, but I think these are outliers. I would say that these are anti-religious scientists. Neal Degrasse Tyson. Richard Dawkins. Bart Ehrman. I think tons of scientists are just doing what they do. What is aggravating is that these are the guys that get the press. But it is because media gets its audience from controversy. So the voice of legitimate science gets overpowered with anti-religious messengers.

Well, for me, what it should have been since day one, and that's the affirmation of the Spirit upon the text.

Agreed. All the hand-wringing about the trinity over focuses on the reconciling it against mono-theism, and synthesizing texts that are sometimes contradictory. But it misses the point about the spirit's role in the believer's life. We don't receive power when the creed about the holy spirit comes upon us. But we will receive power when the holy spirit comes upon us. And that is a greater testimony of Jesus and The Acts of The Apostles, than the claim that Matthew or the canon are inerrant. As biblical scholarship points out flaws in the text, our energy defending its inerrancy is wasted. When instead we should be living it out as a testimony to the Jesus movement that those books try to describe as best they can. Like witnesses of an atom bomb do their best to describe something that words can't contain.

I was reading Ephesians today, which is one of the disputed letters of Paul. And I was struck by the character of the early church that Ephesians' author (which may very well have been Paul, we just aren't sure) represents. The view of the church on things such as racism (Gentiles included with the Jews) is radically counter-cultural. The idea that God is loving, and not vengeful. Grace as the means for right relationship with God, rather than works. The belief that we receive wisdom, and knowledge through the spirit. These are remarkable ideas for the 1st century. That the church accepted these into its canon represents its commitment to this radical version of religion. When anti-religion scholars undermine modern christianity by questioning the validity of the Bible's books, they completely miss the description of the church at that time that these books represent. Which to me is evidence of the power of the spirit at that time. And that it is transformative.

[dizerner]

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