Importance of Original Sin

That's possible. Okay, I retract the statement. That is true. I apologize. My feeling has been for some years now that it is the simplicity of the account which we may mistake for naivete. It does at times seem like a comic book.But I think we have a God here communicating to man in terms that the most people could understand. I think it reflects the wisdom of this communicating God to have things happen and to relate them to mankind in terms in which the majority of people could pick up the vital points.In essence I think God is way ahead of us. And He set up things so that they would unfold in a manner, the simplicity of which, could be communicated. On this point I disagree. That is that Christ is not portrayed as the life of God in the New Testament.Now the True Vine analogy is perhaps awkward for a starter. But there are plenty of other places in the New Testament teaching that Christ is divine life to ignore.I could give you many references. And I could also argue that the True Vine should not be thought of as not portraying Christ as the life of God coming to earth as a man to attach saved sinners to Himself. Then the riches embodied in Him are dispensed into His branches - the believers. "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." (John 15:4) Quite simply, though we have a natural life we need to merge our natural life with His eternal and divine life. If we would linger, remain and abide in Christ the divine life He would in turn linger, abide in us and the two lives would mingled.Not only so, but what defects there exist in the life of the branches would be swallowed up by the healthiness of the True Vine. We know that if you graft a sickly branch into a healthy tree the nutrients of the healthy tree will be dispensed into the grafted branch and make it healthy too.The analogy is not perfect but useful. He commands the faulty people to get into Him and "organically" abide in Him. And in turn He will be expressed in our living. He will abide in us.You should be able to see the similarity between abiding in the True Vine and eating of a tree of life in Genesis.A picture is worth a thousand words.Consider Genesis again. You have a graduation of kinds of lives. The scheme ascends from grass, herbs, trees, to fish and birds in the sky and on to cattle. Finally you have the top of the pinnacle of lives - man made in the image of God.This is now a climax. And here alone the divine counsel of sort is called and God says "Let Us make man in our image , according to Our likeness" (Gen 1:26a) . In no other act of creation do we see God calling a kind of decisive counsel. Here it does not simply say God made or God created. But we first have the great decision within the Godhead - "Let Us make man in Our image ... And God created man in His own image." So the top of the pyramid of lives is reached in the created beings - man in the image of God.Only one step higher is seen. And that is in "the tree of life" God the eternal and uncreated divine life is seen in terms of food. With the help of the whole Bible we can ascertain that God intends that man would "feed" on God - take God INTO himself and be assimilated within with God.Sure the theme is continued even centuries latter in the Gospel of John: "As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me." (John 6:57) Can't you see that Jesus Christ is the reality of the Tree of Life in Genesis ?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

That's not the point. The point is that growing up is inevitable. And while some of the outcome is "not so good", it also makes us more like God. Being able to make our own decisions has its pitfalls but it does make us superior beings. Personally, I think it's a just-so story to explain why we have certain difficulties in our lives. But it doesn't make any difference whether there was a "transmutation" or not. There was no "before Adam" so any change in Adam is irrelevant. All humans have had the same problems as Adam - and all humans have had the same coming-of-age experience as Adam. Definitely. Feel free to explain how "the Devil made me do it" or "Adam made me do it" is not abdicating personal responsibility. I'm not blaming Paul; I'm ignoring Paul. I thought you said you could substantiate original sin without Paul. Then it should be called "original potential for sin", not "original sin". Actually, I think your overall view of "God's plan", original sin --> salvation, has its own consistent logic. I'm just saying it isn't supported by Genesis (the purported "origin"). What Genesis shows is the potential for rolling that is innate in all humans. What it does not show is a cause-and-effect relationship between Adam's rolling and our own.

To obey the command would have meant being a child forever - I could have said a mindless zombie - instead of being more like God. Yes, I think being more like God was a better result. I'm puzzled why you don't. Well, he didn't know what to think. He had been told that he would die "that same day" and he was still alive. He had been awakened to the possibility that his "friend" could not be trusted. (Even if you think it was the serpent that lied, Adam had every reason to think it was God who had lied.) According to Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom...." Isn't wisdom a blessing?And of course, the entire Bible is a history of man's continuing communion with God but it just isn't the "ideal" communion of child with parent (or zombie with master) that you desire. It's a more real communion, a more equal communion, a wiser communion. You need to look at it from Adam's perspective. His newfound knowledge of good and evil compelled him to think about God, not just obey Him blindly.

Actually the potential for sinning existed long before Eve ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil according to the Bible. The great gift that is given in the story found in Genesis 2 & 3 is the ability to know when we have done something wrong and to learn from the experience.To say that the story found in Genesis 2&3 is some Fall or original sin was introduced in the story is simply nuts and not supported by the story itself. In fact it is just the opposite. As you said, it is a "just so" story explaining among other things why humans have the gift and ability to know right from wrong.The importance of original sin is it is a major tacit in coercing folk to join some chapters of Club Christian. It is the carny pitch of "You are a sinner by nature and damned. It is all Adams fault but tough. Unless you join our Chapter of Club Christian you will be damned for eternity. But kiss our ass and we will save you."That's an effective marketing tactic and provides a great cop out as well.

The fact that Adam was made of dirt is a clue.

See, learn something new every day. Dirt. Amazing.I thought it was snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails.But Eve would still have been made of sugar and spice and everything nice, wouldn't she?

She was made of ribs. The sugar and spice would have come from the barbecue sauce.

Makes sense. Ribs do be everything nice.

Precisely true. In fact, the same tactic is employed by the Church of Scientology and their personality 'test'. Which everyone of course fails. But they offer a chance to 'fix' what is wrong with you and it only requires joining their church and paying them money.Concepts like this are such an obvious scam tactic that I am amazed they still work in this modern day and age.On a side-bar, and I always wanted to ask this question:
According to Christian scripture, Eve was tempted to eat from the forbidden fruit by Satan who was masquerading as a snake. Can I ask exactly how Satan actually gained entrance to the Garden of Eden? Wasn't he banished to Hell after he rebelled? For an all knowing and all powerful god, as referenced in Christianity, he is surprisingly lax about how he handles security. One good bouncer from an L.A. club who maintains the VIP list could have prevented the whole original sin thing to begin with.

Well, you are getting a lot of stuff mixed up it seems, not unusual since most Christians get the stuff mixed up too.Satan being banished or rebelling against God is not really Biblical, at least not in most of the various Canons. It is an idea based on readings from the Book of Enoch and filtered through the 14th Century writings of Dante and others.In the Book of Enoch Satan is banished for refusing to worship man as commanded by God.In the Genesis 2&3 stories the serpent is not really Satan, that is a concept also developed much later. In most of the old Testament as well as most of the Gospel stories, Satan in an agent of God, the tester or tempter. God instructs Satan to test the worthiness of certain individuals but Satan only does what God directs him to do.Also, the God found in the Genesis 2&3 stories is not all knowing or all powerful. In fact the various descriptions of God in those stories is as a powerful but kinda bumbling back yard tinkerer, learning by doing, using trial and error, often unsure and even afraid, yet intimate, in touch and interacting with the creation.It is a God entirely different than the God found in the MUCH later story in Genesis 1. There the God is aloof, overarching, creating simply by an act of will, totally sure and secure, moving from step to step with no hesitation, creating order from chaos but apart, separate from the creation.

Ah, ok. I was not aware that the original canon did not depict Satan as the actual snake, although I could have sworn from my albeit archaic remembrance of Bible study was that our bible school teacher used the serpent and Satan in a synonymous sense.I guess my question somewhat still stands: if this serpent was essentially malevolent or had ill intent, then what was it doing in the Garden of Eden, which has always been depicted as being paradise?

I don't doubt that at all. It always amazes me how many so called preachers or pastors or brothers or teachers are totally ignorant about the Bible and Christianity in general. That seems to be particularly true of so called "Bible Christians" that we see here. The serpent is a plot device. Just as Genesis 1 was meant to explain the Hebrew week and concept of the Sabbath, Genesis 2&3 are "Just so" stories meant to explain some facets of the world the audience lived in. It explains why we fear snakes, why we kill snakes (even those that are beneficial) on sight, why childbirth for women seems much more painful than for other critters and why the husband rules over the wife, why we must 'till the lands like farmers instead of just being hunters and foragers (maybe a remembered time before agriculture and lament of lost 'Good Old Days'), why we grow old and die.Sure, lots of Christians do pitch the story as though Eden was Paradise, the serpent evil and the story an example of some "Fall" and that's a shame.

Interesting.Incidentally, when you brought up the notion of Satan (or the serpent) being somewhat of a 'trickster' deity, I couldn't help but draw parallels with that and Loki from Norse mythology. I am curious if there was any cross pollination of religious concepts in that regard. Greek mythology also has references to tricksters in the form of Hermes and his offspring, Pan.

A Trickster Deity is pretty common in many religions but I think independent development as opposed to transference is more likely. Consider Coyote from many American Indian mythologies. In that case the biggest difference is that Native Americans saw their mythos as "teaching stories" and never considered them as literal.But Satan is not a trickster, he is a tester and tempter. Satan is more a agent of God following Gods orders to PROOF someone.

In many of those stories Coyote was the favorite character. Think of a cross between a deity and Wiley E. Coyote.And that is my namesake!