Importance of Original Sin

Paul's argument is that all mankind stands guilty before a holy God (rather than an unholy civilization). He could simply state it - as one could the answer to a math problem - without showing his work. But the argument is better made by showing how it is you come to make the claims you do.If setting out the remedy to a problem it might be considered important to establish that there is indeed a problem to be resolved.- The argument appears to be that we have control over our sin in the same way that the pilot of a stricken aircraft has control over the place where it ploughs headlong into the earth. No amount of control can avert the crash and so the offer is put that the pilot bale out.- The question isn't where the idea might or might not have arisen. The question is whether we can conclude original sin today from the text. I think that's certainly a possibility.- If you are defining saving faith as involving 'believing in what God says' and if believing that God says he has provided you a sure salvation from your failure to adhere to his rules then faith and rule-following are separable.You are saved despite failing (and continuing to fail) to follow God's rules.- Establishing man as constitutionally unholy is, I think, vital. A proof of this comes from a myriad of world where man is told that if he tries hard enough, he can make himself right with God.Someone convinced that their very constitution prevents them from ever meeting the standard will be forced to seek another solution. Salvation by (Christian-style) faith is the single alternative to various shades of working for your salvation.

Paul's interpretation of the creation story see's man rendered constitutionally unholy. And rendering man constitutionally unholy is critical to the Christian argument.-

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Paul could still make his argument by using the songs and prophets as he did. The creation story isn't vital to his argument. Even before Jesus there was Biblical criticism and Jews who understood that the creation stories were legends, not fact.

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Paul could have used any other disobedient person to contrast Christ.

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What the Jews understood the creation stories to be isn't the issue, it's what Christianity (with Paul as expositor of our understanding) understands them to be.Paul pointing to this or that disobedient person doesn't quite explain the constitutional element of sin. For constitutional things you have to go back to the start and heart of the matter.- If sin a foundational issue, where else but to it's root do you go to illustrate it thus. So what a man crying out that he was "conceived in iniquity" if we don't know why that is so?

My point with "conceived in iniquity" was to illustrate the question begged. Conceived begs the question as to the situation that brought about the conception being so. It's a regression that must go back to the start. As Paul does. We were examining whether the A&E story is critical to Christian thinking. You can appreciate why it is: the good news is as good because it deals with bad news. The bad news is made as bad as it is because of mans very constitution.Anything less than constitutional sin is perhaps self-resolvable. The denial of this is critical to Christianity.

If defining sin as human beings knowingly and wilfully disobeying God then the story does give us an account of the original sin. It presents us with the first two human beings knowingly and wilfully disobeying God.Afterall.

Fortunately, in God's eyes it does. The term is 'new creation'. Whatever about the whys and wherefores of the new creation sinning, his constitution is indeed changed. Without the Adam story Paul has no foundation to work back to in terms of the constitutionality of our sinfulness. And the constitutionality of our sin is central to the good news of the gospel he is in the process of presenting and explaining.If you suppose he has another potential explanation then perhaps you could suggest one? "It's in our nature" only kicks the can up the road. I mean, "it's our nature" doesn't explain anything. It just so happens that he places this explanatory element into the book of explanation. You might suppose his including it a by-the-by but that doesn't really stack up - unless you are supposing Romans a by-the-by piece of work.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

God said not to eat. Disobedience is doing that which you are told not to do.Unless you figure that they didn't know that they had been told not to eat (Eve admits she had been told not to eat) I'm not sure what leg you hope to stand on here.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This presumes the story a myth. Paul doesn't given any hint that he thinks it is so I've no reason to suppose it other than true.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Correct.Whilst there is good external reason to suppose he isn't speaking of factual events I don't detect that from an internal reading. Then again, there are good external reasons to suppose God does exist at all.Paul's treatise on gospel mechanics is a sober stitching together of fact. Why would I suppose him suddenly inserting a mythical componant (which happens to work perfectly as far as gospel mechanics goes) to convey an idea for which no other working mechanism is posited? A fact? Perhaps you mean a scientific fact?

There is no 'should' element required in order that a person be deemed to have disobeyed. To disobey someone merely means not doing what someone tells you to do.("Should" and the like find it's root in a knowledge of good and evil. They hadn't got a knowledge of good and evil at the time of choosing and so, weren't in the realm of should/should not) Back to the drawing board you go. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I thought I clarified my considering him to be speaking in factual terms. I have a positive reason to suppose adam & eve real - not just his omitting to mention that he was introducing myth.- Two things: Paul is writing factually (from his perspective). In laying out the detailed componants of the system and showing how they all fit together he won't go and throw in a mythical componant to fulfil a crucial function. Not without saying so.If he is wrong about this thing then he could be wrong about a lot of things. In which case chuck the book away.When you say Jesus is 'my man' surely you mean Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are my men - since I've only got what others record Jesus as saying. And so, must assume them correct too. Not that I see conflict between Paul and Jesus - but it's Paul who's tasked with deconstructing the gospel mechanism.
- Go on..Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I don't see that it's required.If a stranger instructs me to do something and I know nothing about him, there is no particular reason why I should or should not follow his instruction. If I don't obey his instruction I've disobeyed him. Or ignored his instruction if you prefer.- Knowing you are disobeying and expressing your will unto disobeying don't require a should element. I knowingly and wilfully disobeyed the stranger above.- I agree. But we're not talking about them doing wrong, we're talking about disobeying.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Certainly threat is an element and since the bible is full of it it does deserve a mention during 'marketing drives'- Whilst they had no knowledge of right and wrong they had a knowledge of consequences. And consequences was the thing driving the choice made - not right and wrong.God promised negative consequences, the serpent promised positive consequences. They choose and got negative consequences.I don't see that the text can be forced to suggest they had more reason to choose this way than that way.- They could choose alright: gain (promised) positive vs. gain (promised) negative consequences offers choice. Unless you assume the choice was skewed to ensure a particular result.When disobey merely means not following an instruction and choosing necessitates not following one or other of the instructions given I don't see what there is to understand. Perhaps you could explain?You'll know your not following an instruction when you choose however. It's kind of obvious.

I'm not claiming infallibility in this. But the internal evidence; the subject matter and 'flavour' of the writing (often described as 'forensic' such is the precision with which the argument is constructed) render a curve ball like this highly unlikely. It's be like dismantling a racing engine and finding a tennis ball fitted to the top of piston rod instead of a piston- Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. The book is written to the church in Rome. To Gentiles primarily. Romans is more like a car workshop manual. The gospel disassembled into componants so you can see how the whole thing works. It's breathtaking.This isn't a poetic, meandering treatise on good and evil. It's razorsharp.

It doesn't matter whether you agree that the negative consequences delivered on were the one's promised. It doesn't even matter were it that no consequences followed. What matters is that consequences were promised and that they understood consequences would follow. And choose..- Eve displays an understanding of a prohibition imposed by "surely die". She falters in the face of the temptation: "But God did say.." and the serpent has to counter her faltering.And they saw the fruit was desirable for gain. "If I do this I can obtain my desire" - a positive consequence.I don't know what brand of Christianity you're peddling but it would want to put all the pages it ripped out, back into it's bibble Um. When sin has earlier in the discussion been defined as humans disobeying God's instruction and they are the first to disobey God's instructions...*

Saying there is nothing isn't the same as dealing with the evidence presented that there was something.In dealing with the evidence avoid conflating "understanding consequence = a full understanding of what each and every aspect of the consequences would be" with "understanding consequence = understanding that something positive / negative would follow their decision"The evidence presented follows the latter of the definitions.
- The working definition of the Christianity I've been marketing has disobeying God's instruction = sin - without there being a moral element to the disobedience. Countering this brand of Christianity isn't accomplished by inserting definitions of sin utilized by the brand of Christianity you're marketing- ...Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.