Is there Biblical support for the concept of "Original Sin"?

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A few days prior to the garden event, God drops a large stone on Adams toe. Adam yells with pain. God says: "see the stars in the sky. Now imagine what it would be like if that many large stones fell on your toe and you'll begin to understand what death is like".

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It doesn't matter whether death is like that. What matters is a negative association with the word death is made.

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We don't know how Adam came by his understanding of any word but if we are to assume he understood something of any of them then we have to assume he had an understanding of them all. Including the word death.

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A negative association with the word would suffice for the purpose of choice made available.

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except that association was never made nor did that narrative happen. God said don't eat it or "you will surely die" if i say don't do that or you will surely gloobaxym. what meaning do you give to gloobaxym without knowing what it really means with that sentence can be read as positive or negative. we have nothing to go off of other than what the bible states happened.

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Adam and Eve could have been smart as hell. More competent to make consequential decisions than you or I perhaps.

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the only thing we can infer is that they had no knowledge of good and evil nothing is said of their competency, though if they are lacking any ability to reason morality i can not foresee very good reasoning skills at all. This of course is totally pointless to speculate one way or the other at all.If God's judgment lacked any type of moral factor (just disobey/obey) then I see no reason at all to attribute any reason to worship a being that is going to judge us now based on morality while he is conveniently lacking any such requirement to act in kind.

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It seems to me that it's you whose stacking the deck. What's written is negative and positive consequence offered. We're not told the power of either consequence being weighed to ensure a 'choice' in a particular direction. It seems fair that we assume a balanced choice for want of evidence to the contrary

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a FAIR choice is one that lays out all options and consequences to the one choosing so that a FAIR choice can be made once they outcomes are fully expressed that was never done. by not saying the "power" of the consequences assures that the choice IS STACKED against Adam, he is not fully informed and can not make an FULLY INFORMED choice, by definition that choice is unfair. I won't even get into the moral implications of withholding pertinent info on something like a choice of this magnitude (its wrong, and doesn't say much for the morality of god)Do you consider this story to be literal? I mean was there a fruit that was eaten, and that in turn caused our sin, so we die?? Because when i read this story this is exactly just like the opening sales pitch of a snake oil salesman, he tells you you have a fictitious problem and that he has the only "cure" for it.
If you do think this really happened literally, then you got a lot more explaining to do about god than just a consequence only based judgment. (see all of the forums that are about how literal genesis COULDN'T have happened as literally stated.
and if its a metaphor of some kind well then i can't see a reason as to why sin even exists as it is simply a metaphor. Genesis is pretty much its own kryptonite, it is either fable, and if so is not meant literally, or if literal then has problems with being steadfastly wrong based upon literally EVERYTHING we know about the physical sciences. Not to much wiggle room from where I'm standing.

Good question. This seems to be the crux of the thread. This is an interesting question, and your links to Overstreet provide some interesting history. But while Platonism could have influenced some of the way the doctrine has been stated historically, I cannot agree with Overstreet's position that the doctrine is unbiblical. Overstreet and his mentor Charles Finney were overly rationalistic and highly heterodox (non-orthodox), verging on the heretical. Why do you view "a sinful nature" as equivalent to "capable of disobedience?" I view "capability" and "inclination" as two different things. Yes, sin is personified in Gen 4. But in Paul's usage in Rom 5 it does not seem to be only an action; sin seems to be both an action and a state. All humans after Adam are born into a state of sin; their actions are an inevitable consequence of their state.

You're playing fast and loose with your definitions. "Support" generally implies two components: that which is supported and that which provides the support. The concept of "self-supported" has no more value than the concept of "self-evident".If there is any other support besides the skyhook of Romans 5, please show it.

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

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Why do you view "a sinful nature" as equivalent to "capable of disobedience?" I view "capability" and "inclination" as two different things.

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Then you need to expound on the difference concerning my comments on Adam.In Jewish thought mankind contains both good and evil inclinations. We can choose to obey or disobey.

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Yes, sin is personified in Gen 4. But in Paul's usage in Rom 5 it does not seem to be only an action; sin seems to be both an action and a state. All humans after Adam are born into a state of sin; their actions are an inevitable consequence of their state.

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What is a state of sin? From what I understand it is the state one is in after one has committed a sinful act and hasn't repented. Once one has repented, one is no longer in a state of sin.How was their state any different than Adam's? Were his actions the inevitable consequence of his state?

Without the potential for disobedience...Had they chosen to obey they'd have been expressing their freewill equally as well.

But they did choose to obey, they obeyed the most recent authority figure.You seem to expect them to understand that it is right to obey the God character in the story but wrong to obey the serpent character in the story.Until after they gained the knowledge and capability to distinguish right from wrong, they were incapable of mak9ing the decisions you seem to expect.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I didn't quote Paul equating disobedience with sin, I quoted Paul saying what the vehicle for people being made sinners was - Adams disobedience.To obey means to do what your told by a person. To disobey means not to do so. You don't need tools to do that. You only need to act, your choice in that regard flagging whether you have obeyed or not. In Adam and Eve's case 'obey' was attached to negative consequences and 'disobey' attached to positive consequences. We must assume they had the tools to appreciate consequences otherwise they don't understand plain English.You're claim that they act as children might be expected to act isn't supported by the text - it's laid onto the text.- Adults make consequential decisions all the time without reference to morality, their experience equipping them to do so. The story doesn't say what level of experience in consequential decision making Adam and Eve had so you can't suppose them children. Okay. I'll retract God equipping them with the choice. We'll go with circumstances doing so.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Cause and correlation are two different things. How do you leverage the one into the other? I don't expect them to do any such thing. They weren't morally equipped. Like I say, I'm not expecting them to make a moral decision. Only a consequential one.

But I don't see it being that simple a question to answer.e.g.
Person A tells you that if you eat an apple then an unpleasant thing will happen.
Person B tells you that if you eat an apple then a pleasant thing will happen.What would you choose?Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

Let's look again.Romans 5:12-14 as found in the NIV

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12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned

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13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

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and the KJV

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12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

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13(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

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14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

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and in the iano post that does not give attribution but appears to be Romans 5:19...

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For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners

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As you can see, once again, when you look at the material IN context, Paul is claiming that sin entered the world through one man and that death is the result of sin.Next, as I pointed out, Adam and Eve did obey. They simply obeyed the most recent authority figure, one that actually in the story was telling the truth.If you look at what is written in Genesis 2&3, until Adam and Even had the tools and capability to make decision regarding who they should obey, they behaved in the only way they could, they like little children obeyed the most recent authority figure.The subject is "Original Sin" and until Adam and Eve had the tools, the knowledge of good and evil, of right and wrong, there is simply no way that they could sin. Nor is there anything in the story that supports some original sin that then was passed down generation to generation.There were consequences, and those consequences are listed, but none of the listed consequences involves some inherited sin.As I have said many times, if YOUR chapter of Club Christian wishes to claim that there is some Original Sin and base that on Romans 5, then fine.I will simply continue to post the material IN context and claim that Paul did not support his assertion.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

It doesn't matter if it didn't happen the way (jokingly) I suggested. We either assume Adam and Eve understood language or we don't.It doesn't matter that they didn't know precisely what death was (or precisely what a knowledge of good and evil was, for that matter). For the purposes of making a choice based on consequences they only need to have some negative association attaching to the word/concept 'death' (and some positive association attaching to the word/concept 'knowledge of good and evil')- By 'very good' what do you mean? Morally very good or consequentially 'very good'? I don't see why you need morality consequential decisions.- Their choice lacked any kind of moral factor (is the suggestion). The promised consequences (not judgment) of their choice involved becoming moral.- There is no need to go that far in order to be fair. In order to provide fair choice, you only need to ensure that the level of knowledge of consequences on both sides of the choice is equal. Even if the knowledge of consequences was only 0.01% of the total possible, the choice would be fair if it was 0.01% on both sides. Peopleare flung into prison having had sufficient knowledge to make a choice. No one but God can know all the consequences.Are you suggesting prison is immoral?- I see no reason to see it other than literal. I've as little issue with talking serpents as I have water being turned into wine. I also understand what unbelief is - I was an unbeliever for 38 odd years, it took that long for me to become impoverished of spirit.- You've a post count of 4, I've lost count of my posts. I've seen all the arguments a dozen times over and am not convinced by them.- If your placing your bets on science then that's a fair stance to take. I'm not placing my bets there, I'm placing them on a God I know to exist other than by scientific means. You can appreciate whom I think must bow to whom.Don't get me wrong - I think science is really great (I'm a mechanical engineer) but I'm supposing this realm of ours a subset in a larger realm. There are surprises to be had I'm thinking.

Interesting question that. How does one make a undetermined free choice? I'm not sure I have an answer to the mechanics of that but I know that for the purposes of this discussion the conundrum isn't altered substantially by adding wrong/right onto the question above.

I too do not have a definite answer.
I also agree that the concepts of right and wrong alone do not help answer the question.
I think that you would also need to be able to be suspicious/trusting/cautious/etc. - all of which require the knowledge of good/evil first, before they can be given context.I guess that from a simplistic view I would act on what the last person that had spoken to me had said - as Person B's 'pros' were greater than the poorly understood 'con' of Person A.This leaves me in the position that Adam and Eve were very poorly equipped to make that choice, and that even if they had understood good/evil they would still be poorly equipped.

Indeed. But isn't our focus on the agreed working definition of original sin: that men are made sinners through Adams disobedience. That he was the vehicle whereby sin entered the world would seem to be a part of that mechanism - and is something that would appear to be supported in the Genesis account.Your point?- And disobeyed God.Your presume them like young children faced with authority but don't substantiate this other than by repetition.- Reptitious eisegesis. You point to the text. But don't cite it to support your claims. Countering that you have support for the idea of them making a consequential decision from scripture telling us that:- consequences were offered
- they understood plain English
- they weren't moral- The subject is biblical support for the Christian notion of original sin. Paul is an example of same.The sub discussion is whether Adam and Eve could make a choice and disobey as per Pauls claim of them (whereby all men were made sinners). Our working definition didn't mention sin. It mentioned disobedience. They disobeyed and so were clearly capable of it.- Which is not the same thing as Genesis contradicting Paul Welcome to the club. You yourself agreed that the Christian concept of original sin is defined in Romans 5 I'm content to leave it at Genesis supporting their disobedience.

My point is that the concept of Original sin that is marketed by Paul and much of Christianity is simply wrong and not supported by the Bible. I support it by pointing to their behavior. If you like I will gladly post all of Genesis 2 & 3 again, I certainly have in the past.There is nothing in either that shows Adam or Eve had any way of knowing they should obey the God character or the serpent.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!