I
was reading Louis Berkhof's 'Systematic Theology' recently and viewed
hi chapter titled 'Man in the State of Sin'. Berkhof goes over the
historical opinions of select theologians in regard to the origin of
sin in-the-world. Berkhof's work is quite interesting and indirectly
lends support to some very modern ideas.
The
background for the theological controversy regarding original sin is
quite interesting and largely beyond the scope of this blog note that
I am making primarily for my own later use. Of course prior to the
historical life of Jesus Christ there were several religious and
philosophical ideas about the nature of matter, good and evil. Not
all of those ideas made their way to ancient Israel or Athens to such
an extent that they would become popular or well known. In the first
and second centuries after the crucifixion when the disciple had
passed on and scripture was being conserved and canonized theologians
also began to address various points of doctrine that would actually
require centuries to develop. One such point was that of original
sin; was the fault in matter and somewhat predestined or did Adam
simply make a voluntary choice to sin and thereby condemn everyone
human ever after to bear the guilt of original sin?
The
different points of view comprise something of a dialectic of
opposites. Supporter of the fault is in matter and energy eventually
became associated with gnosticism and Pelagianism while the Adam is
entirely to blame school became associated with St. Augustine. There
was a kind of in-between school that were known as semi-Pelagians.
I
am interested in the point not only because of its historical and
theological interest for-itself. I have given some though to the
issue myself while considering modern creation theory in regard to
the Biblical Genesis creation narrative. Adam seems to make his
choice to sin before he is in the normal world with its thermodynamic
and evolutionary processes that are the rule rather than the
exception. That seemed very plain.
Berkhof
seemed to believe that Karl Barth felt the Adamic temptation and fall
happened in super-history, or what I believe is a greater,
metaphysical situation that God created that transcended the material
Universe, or even preceded it although like folded-space-time
dimensions and membranes with shortcuts through them the idea of
linear time progression of all things cannot necessarily be
informative of before and after concerning space-time off
super-history.
I
also thought that the Garden scene of Adam and Eve occurred in a
super-historical context and that as punishment for sin Adam and Eve
were down-loaded into a thermodynamic ecosystem Universe suitable for
sin as normal in matter. Therefor once Adam and Eve had sinned, all
of humanity thereafter; their heirs and whomever else was created to
populate the fallen world they were cast in to outside the Garden
that was thereafter inaccessible and guarded by four cherubim
(perhaps each assigned a space-time dimension to defend) would be
born into a thermodynamic Universe where original sin of eating,
sexting, dying and so are inescapable. An interesting point in
Genesis is that the ante-Diluvian descendants of Adam and Eve do not
have an instant normal mortal lifespan; there seem to be a gradual
relativistic slowing merger into the normal Earth time-line.
My
opinion then is somewhat more semi-Pelagian than purely Augustinian
or Pelagian. I agree with Augustine that human nature is totally
depraved because- because it coheres within the temporal Universe
selected for its thermodynamic characteristics. In that fallen
Universe the only way God might even notice people as anything
besides being of the corrupt Universe context is if they have ate the
body and blood of Christ spiritually so that God sees Christ rather
than sin within them. I hesitate to use the term semi-Pelagian though
for its historical definition that cannot provide the facts about the
relationship between original sin and the space-time mass energy of
the evolving material in the Higgs field that itself is probably
embedded in some sort of a meta-field. I believe the fact is that
interpreting the Bible and accurately understanding scriptural based
theology may take more thousands of years to get a solid start upon
because people just aren't that bright or necessarily informed by God
about all things that they might be curious about upon their own
schedule.
Augustine
was right about many things theological, and quite an inspiration for
believers. With a Calvinistic notion about pre-destination it is
quite reasonable to accept Augustine's idea that mankind is totally
depraved because Adam choose to disobey the will of God and that he
used his own free will to make the choice and was therefor entirely
to blame. Augustinian liberty with a Calvinist state of
pre-destination where the bulk of the predestination is just God's
prescience of what someone will choose is a reasonable precursor for
the corrective action of God to thrust Adam and Eve into a fallen
material world where evolving creatures input energy existentially to
exist and grow and have a kind of cellular division to generate more
like themselves sexually. Those creatures have original sin in the
nature of the matter wherein they cohere, yet until they advance to a
certain state of self-aware cognizance they also have primeval
innocence in their ignorance of the difference between good and
evil; animal versus man and the conscientiousness of a sentient
being.
The
actual mechanics and time-line of God's interaction with and
interpolation and extraction of Adam and Eve from super-history to
history aren't presently known in concrete terms. That is an example
of why I think it may require a few thousand years to accurately
comprehend, God willing, more or less.