The Universal Moral Law & Devolution since the Fall

This is a fair simplification of the Taoist view. The attempt to make this philosophy an example of 'moral law', though, is to squeeze too large a round peg into too small a square hole. The words 'moral' and 'law' imply specific Western religious concepts shaped by Judeo-Christian traditions. This rhetorical flourish does not accurately reflect Christian practice. In their daily lives Christians feel an obligation to obey moral laws just like anyone else. Having a savior doesn't free them from an obligation to be moral; it just offers them overdraft protection for the times they come up short. Now, now... there's no cause for paranoia.

Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Thanks to Faith for providing the Scripture quote. Verse 17 settles it as far as Paul's thoughts are concerned.'Death' is a metaphor. It represents a spiritual, not physical, situation. Everyone knows that physical death is endured by Christians and non-Christians alike. No one is exempt. So Paul cannot be talking about physical death. Just as Christians are not being promised they will live forever on this earth, neither are we being informed that Adam would have lived forever on this earth.The contrast drawn between 'death' and 'life' in this passage is spiritual. Paul is discussing the consequences of, and remedy for, human disobedience that began ('entered the world') with Adam. He uses the words 'life' and 'death' to describe metaphysical, not physical, realities.

death reigned = immorality, disobedience, condemnation, hopelessness, Sheol/Hell

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life will reign = morality, obedience, justification, hope, Heaven

It's interesting too that Paul avoids the present tense. He places death in the past, life in the future. What about the present? We are to understand, apparently, that the two realms co-exist for now.But every reader knows that for the present--Paul's and ours--physical death continues unabated. Every living thing endures it. Choosing 'life in Christ' doesn't get one out of it. Physical death is an appointment all keep, whatever choices they make.So again--obviously--physical death is not the subject Paul has in mind. On that matter there's no contrast for him to draw. Under Adam people die and under Christ people die. The only contrast to be drawn is moral or spiritual.The words 'death' and 'life' here describe metaphysical, not physical, situations..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

It is very strange to read a professed Christian pronouncing spiritual matters dull, trivial and boring. I respectfully suggest that, if you really do feel this way, it is you who fail to understand Christianity.For Paul, the spiritual world was the most real world there is. How often does he talk about 'flesh' and 'spirit' in opposition? In posing that duality it's never hard to tell which side Paul is on. For him matters of the 'spirit' are not only interesting, but vital.It is irrational in the extreme to slam Paul's discussion of spiritual matters for being 'earthbound.' You'd be on more logical ground if you criticized it, as some do, for not being earthbound enough.It is 'earthbound' rather to make a habit of thinking, apart from all considerations of what a text means to tell you, that no message matters unless it can be pressed into service defending a pseudoscientific point about super-genomes, biological devolution, or flood deposits. That's earthbound.In matters of flesh and spirit, Paul sided with spirit.Faith tells us she finds matters of the spirit dull, trivial and boring. Faith likes flesh.Who knew?
.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

It is only through metaphors that spiritual realities can be discussed at all. On the contrary: I said plainly that in Paul's writings, spiritual things are the most real things there are. Next to this he attaches little importance to the physical.You are supplying the trivializations. Not me. You have finally said something Paul would agree with. My point exactly.When Paul uses the words 'life' and 'death' to describe contrasting spiritual states, he is discussing something that matters more to him than the physical life and death that provided him with the words.Do you always take it as a putdown when someone suggests the presence of metaphor? Does a metaphor always mean a 'word game' to you--something unreal, unimportant, uninteresting, untrue?This is a prejudice I would expect a literalist to hold. But it represents an inaccurate and very unhealthy way to think of metaphors.A metaphor is a means of expressing something, just as a literal statement is. Truth can be expressed either way.Your relationship with the Bible will take a healthier turn the day you give both metaphorical and literal means of expression their proper levels of respect. Each are valid ways to communicate. Each are ways to say something true.It's fine to say 'The Lord guides me, protects me, and cares for me.' But nothing is lost, nothing at all, if one says instead: 'The Lord is my shepherd.'.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I asked: Faith replied (in pertinent part): Again, the lazy equation of metaphor with 'unreality' and 'trivia.' The answer to my question appears to be yes.It's not likely we will ever see you complain of 'reality being trivialized into a literal factual statements.' But it would make as much sense.Reality has nothing to do with either metaphor or literal statement. Reality may be expressed through either. Both are valid means of communication.Your prejudice on this point is deeply set. But then, that prejudice is the reason you're here, isn't it? You are eager to prove that your faith is science, not faith. You have Science Envy. You like the literal factness of science and assume that any sacred text worthy of its name should be able to serve as a lab report. Truth must express itself as fact, not metaphor, or it can't be truth. God is only allowed to talk to you one way.I wonder if you would consider adopting a more balanced perspective if CS Lewis rather than me showed you the wisdom of it.I recommend a thoughtful reading of Miracles. Lewis does an excellent job in that book of showing the necessity of metaphors in talking about metaphysical realities. He shows that the use of metaphors can hardly be avoided, even when we try to replace a very concrete set of images with concepts we consider more abstract.A wise book. Highly recommended..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

It's already sin to have an inclination to sin?Does that make sense to you?By that logic, being inclined to be righteous makes one righteous already. Is this what you believe?And where does that leave Jesus, who 'in every respect has been tested as we are'? If he's tempted to sin but doesn't, he's already damaged goods by this logic. You've just told us the inclination equals the deed..

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Thanks. I checked the thesaurus and concede your point that the two are not synonyms. Scratch the aside about Jesus being tempted.That still leaves us with main 'current, drift, tenor' of my post.
Sin was defined as being synonymous with the inclination to sin. I asked if this is logical.If so, the corresponding opposite would seem to be just as reasonable: an inclination to be righteous is the same thing as being righteous..

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Thank you for making sense!It makes sense that the Edenic sin would be 'original' in the sense most things in Genesis are original: the beginning of a particular phenomenon in the world.It is going far beyond anything the Bible says to postulate an unbroken line of genetically inherited guilt. That's a later--and exceedingly dubious--development in sectarian theology.Well said..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Brevity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Well done. Thanks, equinox, for taking the time.Have you posted some of this material to the 'barrier to macroevolution' thread? The cause of demonstrating a barrier has already been spectacularly lost,as you can imagine. The 'degradation' fantasy has now been rushed in to rescue the thread. It would be helpful for some individuals there to confront the reality check you offer here..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Equinox: Thanks for the link.No, 'original sin' is not in the Bible. Like the 'Trinity' it is a concept that developed later in Christian theology. (Judaism has had the book of Genesis a long time, but has never taught 'original sin.') The NIV headings are more recent than that. They date from the 1970s. They were inserted by the NIV's team of (evangelical) translators. I don't think there's any question the expulsion from the Garden got blown into a 'historic space/time Fall' through the efforts of Christian theologians through the centuries to magnify the importance of the crucifixion.'Testimony' stories have always been a staple of evangelists. The genre consists of presenting a Before & After picture. The effectiveness of a good 'testimony' story depends on making the Before side of the picture look as bleak as possible so the After side glows brighter by comparison. The uglier Christian evangelists could make the pre-Christian cosmos look, the brighter the post-Christian cosmos appears. The pressure on them to dramatize the difference was great, too, when you consider the fact that none of the great moral concerns of humankind really underwent a sea change after the first century. Christ came and went, but mortality, violence, disease, war, suffering and immorality all continued. Most embarrassing to the cause: even Judaism continued.Among pseudoscientists, of course, 'The Fall' serves as a catch-all explanation for everything in the universe that doesn't seem very intelligently or benevolently designed. They freight the Garden story, like the story of The Flood, with loads of fanciful propositions affecting genetics, evolution, geology, speciation and a host of other phenomena. This is cargo the stories were never meant to carry. Small wonder they creak under the weight.Biblical literalists do as much violence to the texts they claim to revere as they do to the scientific method..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : HTML.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I have wondered the same thing. A relationship clearly exists.Certainly both trees have 'Allegory' written all over them, whether one believes that allegory may once have been literalized in physical botanical forms or not. The difference in category is not hard to see.

Which of these doesn't belong?

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A. pears
B. figs
C. knowledge of good and evil
D. peaches

And both trees are said to stand at the center of the Garden.Are they adjacent to one another? Joined at the roots (as some medieval depictions had it)? Are they two fruits of the same tree?It's worth mentioning that Babylonian creation images show a tree (along with a snake in the tree and a naked couple standing aside) that has four rivers flowing in the four compass directions from a spring in the base of the tree..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo repair.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I've wondered the same from the human point of view. Why didn't Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Life before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? They must have been kicking themselves for this later.They were innocents, sure. But you'd think the snake at least would have given them better advice.
_Of course, the real reason the story comes out this way is because it has to. Human beings know good and evil. But we don't live forever. It's just so.Gilgamesh, along with other ancient stories, has a similar moment. An individual on the brink of acquiring immortality for humankind blows the opportunity..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Punctuation.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Extension.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Interesting. Can you elaborate?The catch would be that as soon as you complete the prerequisite from the Knowledge Tree the headmaster expels you from God School before you can get to the Life Tree.Certainly Adam and Eve's story is iconic: it parallels the life story of everyone. We start out in innocence and enjoy a relative sense of protection as the world seems to smile on us. But there's only one way to know the meaning of one's innocence: one has to lose it. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is a tree everyone eats from at some point in life.The tree of life? Well, for most people plenty of life remains to be lived at the time we get through that first rite of passage. People leave the garden and start working for a living and making babies, painful moments as these activities often provide. Plenty of life gets ingested and savored, so in that sense we do eat. But the life that remains to be lived is not eternal. So it's a taste only. In the eternal sense the tree would seem to be well guarded indeed.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

jar: Logical, and poignant.The storyteller also had the option of portraying God as killing them the same day. It would more literally fulfill his threat about what he would do 'the day you eat of it.' (Note: here's a 'day' in Genesis that God himself doesn't interpret as a 24-hour time period.) But he doesn't do that, either..

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Henry's wording in the quote you provide is interesting. He says Adam in the Garden could look forward to 'the continuance of life and happiness, even to immortality and everlasting bliss, through the grace and favour of his Maker, upon condition of his perseverance in this state of innocency and obedience.'His wording does not commit him to the idea of physical immortality on this earth. He seems to be suggesting that Adam and Eve could look forward to living forever with God in heaven (after physical death or a translation as with Enoch and Elijah) because of their innocence.This idea finds support in what Henry says next: 'This Christ is now to us the tree of life.' Christians, as we know, do not expect physical immortality from their 'tree of life.' They are mortal like anyone else. The life they anticipate is an eternal afterlife that takes the sting of their mortality away..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.