Monday, April 28, 2008

A Musing About The Origin of Sin

God cannot create God.
A creature (Man) created with a will, (free agency,) cannot & will not always and every time choose right (i.e. 'choose God.')

By virtue of his createdness\creatureliness, (fallibility) the Fall was inevitable...there's no avoiding it. At some point, in some way, Adam would choose “not-God,” either by choosing himself or something else in creation instead of God. With choice being based upon “greatest preference” which in turn is based upon nature\character, Adam's nature\character begins to slide because it is not being nourished by God through the Tree of Life. To eat from the Tree of Life would’ve required Adam to acknowledge God as God, and acknowledge his dependence upon Him. Adam had no positive command to eat from the Tree of Life, so not eating from it wasn’t sin, yet it led to his “slide,” …not guarding the Garden from, & entertaining, the serpent; becoming enamored with his singularity and the idea of autonomy, all climaxed in Adam’s eating the fruit, i.e. breaking The Command. (Also ref. Samson’s demise)

When God did first intervene, it suddenly became apparent that it was “not good that man should be alone.” Also, we must consider Eve’s “version” of the command to not eat came from Adam. Then after the Fall, we notice Adam blaming God, “this woman, You gave…,” faulting God for the helpmeet (“little savior”) God gave to him.

Being fallible, without Divine intervention, (and God did leave him to his own will,) he would eventually choose wrongly... ie. not-God. Which would be the "thing" named sin. Fallibility is inherent in the creature, even the creature created, "very good."

ONLY God is inherently & intrinsically infallible
Self-sustaining Infallibility is an incommunicable attribute of God. Only God is able to choose "right" every single time. The creature cannot do this, unless God continually forces\acts upon the creature to do so. But that’s not the situation God created. God foreknew the Fall and even planned it and planned for it. “…the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” And “…a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world.”

So even though man was created very good and even "perfect" in the human sense, he was not, and could not be infallible, unless God so acted upon him to be\do so.

Now let's see:
Adam was supposed to "keep"( i.e. guard,) the garden - he didn't.
Adam somehow goes from a state of "very good" to "it's not good."
Adam's attitude is reflected in the woman's answer to the serpent,

"We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"

Notice the addition? Where would she have gotten the notion of, "You must not touch it," if not from Adam? This is Adam wanting to be God! This is Adam wanting to dominate instead of taking dominion.

So if that’s true of Adam in the unfallen state, how much more of those born in sin. And even if we were born into the same state that Adam was created, i.e. “Innocent,” we would fall just like he did. But we have it worse, because we are born with a corrupt nature and with a “mortal” body too. So then death envelops our very being until Christ regenerates us.

God made it this way to teach all of creation of their total dependence upon their Creator.

For a free agency creature to choose "not-God," is what God named evil and sin, because it makes ‘another god,’ (which is really no god at all) and draws the creature away from God Himself, where there is no Life, and only death. Not only is it true that we “Shall have no other gods before Him,” it is not possible for there to be any other God. For He is and there is no other. For God to create a creature who would love him and worship Him in the way God desired, "freely" & "with utmost intensity," the very opposite of this had to be possible as well...and to the same degree.

Once Mankind died, there is no remedy for him outside of Christ. There is no choosing of God, but only not-God...until God regenerates & gifts him.

There, end of musing.

8 comments:

ScottH said...

Lets see how do I ask this. Okay,Adam being a creature was fallible and the fall was inevitable how do we view Jesus? Jesus of course being the God/man could He have sinned? Some theologians say yes,some no. It seems to me if Jesus was fallible in His human nature it would have been inevitable for Him to sin. On the other hand He is God in the flesh,so how could God sin? I'm sure this has been a raging debate in the church for centuries. To me it would seem Jesus was infallible in His human nature as well. I don't know,if He were exactly like Adam as far as His human nature it would've been inevitable for Him to sin? Now that I've opened up this can of worms how would you answer this? Or is it one those mysteries we might know in Heaven?

sh said...

His divinity was the cause of his humanity's sinlessness and also preserved him from sin.

God acting upon men enabling infallibility in them also took place in the writing of scripture.

This will be a permanent feature in the New Heavens & New Earth.

self-sustaining infallibility is the attribute of God

ScottH said...

Yeah that makes sense.

sh said...

Also Christ was a Divine Person who took on a human nature.

Impeccability would be the prominent view among conservatives today.

http://www.biblemaster.com/qanda/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=3&TopicID=6091&PagePosition=1

http://home.att.net/~sovereigngrace/impeccability.html

One scholar (Bartmann) has pointed out that the ancient heretics, however divergent they were in Christology, did not attack or question the Impeccability of Christ.

http://www.letusreason.org/Doct3.htm

Temptability does not require susceptibility to do that temptation.

ScottH said...

So it is fair to say God doesn't grant infallibility to men anymore. Since the Canon of Scripture is closed. Otherwise if God is still doing this,the R.C.C. would be correct in their doctrine of papal infallibility right?

Wm Mallory said...

Scott, Try telling the mini-popes out there that God doesn't grant infallibility to men anymore ;)

Anonymous said...

"His divinity was the cause of his humanity's sinlessness and also preserved him from sin."

To add that The Heidelberg Catechism says this in question 17.


Question 17. Why must he in one person be also very God?

Answer: That he might, by the power of his Godhead (a) sustain in his human nature, (b) the burden of God's wrath; (c) and might obtain for, and restore to us, righteousness and life.

ScottH said...

Well doggone Bill! I plum forgot about the minis. You know what, the mini-popes would deny they were infallible even though they act like it!