Jesus was a Liberal

I got nailed by my Sunday School class yesterday. It happened like this…

I was doing my part-time duty teaching Adult Sunday school and we were studying Psalm 51. When we got to the verse “in sin did my mother conceive me”, I asked whether David was expressing the depth of his sin (much as Job expressed the depth of his suffering by cursing the day of his birth) or whether this was a statement about “Original Sin”. (I should have been better prepared, but…) I defined Original sin as an inherited guilt from Adam which is removed by Baptism and then I went on to stick my foot in it by describing the doctrine as “Catholic” (which, it is). After which the good Lutherans in the class said this was Lutheran belief also. “Really?” My class then reminded me that (as an ex-Southern Baptist) I had never gone through Catechism.

So properly put in my place, I’ve poured through the Book of Concord and read extensively about Original Sin yesterday and today. Having studied these texts, I am left with one question I need to answer before class next week and another question for myself.

The first question deals technically with what Original Sin is. The reformers use the word “inherited” for Original Sin and then go on to talk about a human being being born without righteousness or the power to become so. What I wish to know, for the class, is whether original sin means that Adam sinned and was thereby transformed from a righteous person to an unrighteous person, and that trait has been inherited by all of his children, or whether the guilt of his particular sin is imputed to all of his descendents. I know the reformers teach the former, but I’m not sure about the latter.

The second question deals with my own encounter with the teaching. I gained a rather negative view of the idea of Original Sin (as I quoted it to my class up in the first paragraph) when I saw the theological knots it caused the Catholics who tried to answer the question of how Jesus avoided original sin (leading them to some strange [IMO] ideas about the Virgin Mary and formally to doctrine of the Immaculate Conception).

Now I fully appreciate that a bent towards sinning is universal among human beings and we cannot save ourselves from sin and death. But what does original sin mean if one believes (as I do) that Adam was not a historical person, and that (as all biologists do) that acquired traits are not inherited. If we cannot blame our sinful nature on a real historical Adam, then does that say (what the reformers denied) that mankind was created sinful? If the answer to that question is “no”, then how can I affirm original sin, either as inherited guilt or as pre-installed unrighteousness?

Heh, you can’t fool me. That’s a trick question. The answer depends on *WHICH* inquisition you mean. But to give a general answer:

Often at the instigation of secular rulers, bishops were urged to investigate and deal locally with heretics, since they were seen as a threat to both ecclesiastical and the social order. [Grolier’s Encyclopedia]

The inquisition that we most think of, the Spanish Inquisition, was begun at the insistance of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile (1483).

The truth is that the Spanish Inquisition was particularly severe, strict and efficient because of its strong ties with the Crown. [ibid]

But if you do not agree with us, we shall put you in the “Comfy Chair”!

I got nailed by my Sunday School class yesterday. It happened like this…

I was doing my part-time duty teaching Adult Sunday school and we were studying Psalm 51. When we got to the verse “in sin did my mother conceive me”, I asked whether David was expressing the depth of his sin (much as Job expressed the depth of his suffering by cursing the day of his birth) or whether this was a statement about “Original Sin”. (I should have been better prepared, but…) I defined Original sin as an inherited guilt from Adam which is removed by Baptism and then I went on to stick my foot in it by describing the doctrine as “Catholic” (which, it is). After which the good Lutherans in the class said this was Lutheran belief also. “Really?” My class then reminded me that (as an ex-Southern Baptist) I had never gone through Catechism.

So properly put in my place, I’ve poured through the Book of Concord and read extensively about Original Sin yesterday and today. Having studied these texts, I am left with one question I need to answer before class next week and another question for myself.

The first question deals technically with what Original Sin is. The reformers use the word “inherited” for Original Sin and then go on to talk about a human being being born without righteousness or the power to become so. What I wish to know, for the class, is whether original sin means that Adam sinned and was thereby transformed from a righteous person to an unrighteous person, and that trait has been inherited by all of his children, or whether the guilt of his particular sin is imputed to all of his descendents. I know the reformers teach the former, but I’m not sure about the latter.

The second question deals with my own encounter with the teaching. I gained a rather negative view of the idea of Original Sin (as I quoted it to my class up in the first paragraph) when I saw the theological knots it caused the Catholics who tried to answer the question of how Jesus avoided original sin (leading them to some strange [IMO] ideas about the Virgin Mary and formally to doctrine of the Immaculate Conception).

Now I fully appreciate that a bent towards sinning is universal among human beings and we cannot save ourselves from sin and death. But what does original sin mean if one believes (as I do) that Adam was not a historical person, and that (as all biologists do) that acquired traits are not inherited. If we cannot blame our sinful nature on a real historical Adam, then does that say (what the reformers denied) that mankind was created sinful? If the answer to that question is “no”, then how can I affirm original sin, either as inherited guilt or as pre-installed unrighteousness?

Somebody called me a “part-time atheist” because (I presume) that I post articles which do not support the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.

There is a rather strong stereotype among some atheists that all Christians are anti-science, blind-faith, literalists, inerrantists and moral absolutists.

And I find it ironic that the fundamentalists and many atheists share a fairly close view of what Christianity must be. I’m neither a fundamentalist nor an atheist.

Just a point to ponder.

A rather curious verse appears in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (7:25). Paul says: What follows is not from God. It is my own opinion.

Now if the Bible is indeed INERRANT then Paul is speaking the truth and what follows is not from God (hence it is not inspired).

If on the other hand, what follows is INSPIRED (i.e. from God)  Paul incorrectly states that is is not from God. Hence he speaks in error.

Personally, I’ve always thought that it was likely that there was life elsewhere.

If God created the universe and life in specific, it would seem strange to me to make such a BIG universe to be populated only in one insignificant corner.

I think that the reason that some fundamentalists consider the possibility of life on Mars toublesome, is that it lends support to the arguments for evolution, and makes mankind not the result of a unique creation event.

Maybe God was working on a pipe bomb and it went off.

The ancient Hebrew, confronted with the fact that Sodom was destroyed (earthquake and fire), wondered “what did those people do to be punished like that?” As Beduins, they would consider being inhospitable to a stranger a very bad thing. And what could be worse than that? Why being inhospitable to an ANGEL! And what is the meanest thing you can to to a stranger? Rape them. And so we get this neat episode in the Abraham saga. To make his point, Ezekiel came up with a different story about the demise of Sodom, blaming it on what he felt was the worst thing a society could do, namely disregard its weakest members.

Failure to understand the nature of the story is why one group will yell that the Sodomites were homosexuals and the other side will yell back what Ezekiel said. As I see it, nothing is known about the real Sodomites, beyond the desctuction of their city in the earthquake c. 1900 BC. The various stories in the Bible are the reflections of the cultures who confronted the destruction and either wondered why it happened, or wanted a symbol to use in making an argument.

Sodom was a symbol of whatever the viewer considered the ultimate social evil.

Let me try to draw an analogy between scriptural interpretation and mathematics (since that is where my training lies).

The mathematics that we are most familiar with (that of the Real Numbers) relies on 13 postulates of the Complete Ordered Field — one might call them a set of presuppositions. From these initial assumptions, all the rest of the system is built.

Mathematicians do not KNOW that the postulates of the Complete Ordered Field are consistent. They cannot prove that there are no contradictions in these founding principles. They are assumed to be consistent (inerrant) and rather taken on faith (and the fact that mathematics has generally proved to work well over the years).

Given the assumption of consistency, mathematicians are free to do mathematics, and prove theorems using the axioms and postulates with logic. A mathematician, in producing a proof, never justifies his result by trying to show that the result is consistent with *all* the postulates and axioms in the system. It doesn’t matter WHICH postulate or axioms are used in the proof. They all guarantee the same reliability of result.

If scripture is presumed to be inerrant, and in particular internally consistent, then one is justified in “doing theology” in much the same way that mathematicians do mathematics. One may take any part of scripture and apply rigorous analysis to it (including cultural and linguistic analysis), apply logic, and reach a guaranteed valid result and may do so without having to justify the conclusion by comparing it to every other part of scripture.

I don’t mean to suggest that every inerrantist puts blinders on and doesn’t look at scripture more widely, but the inerrantist assumption certainly gives one a license to do so.

I recall an e-mail debate I had with a fellow earlier in the year, who argued that homosexuality was a punishment from God (based on Romans 1:28). He wasn’t interested in other parts of scripture, or modern psychological theory. He had a text; it was inerrant; and that was sufficient for him.

Dropping the consistency assumption forces one to work much harder to make a point based on scripture. One could point to other parts of Scripture about how God is merciful. One could point to psychological studies that show that sexual identity is determined in childhood.

I am reminded of the argument of one of the Church Fathers that infants should be baptized because they are helpless, just as helpless as adults are without God’s grace.

If we make the inherent assumption, then we are saying that we are capable in and of ourselves (using a text and logic) to know God and that we can do so without any teaching from the Holy Spirit.

This is the first reason why I do not think that the doctrine of inerrancy is good for the Church.

I think that St. Paul understood that following laws for their own sake is anathema for the Christian, and so he mentions over and over again that much of the external lawkeeping is only valuable so as not to harm weaker persons who are not yet ready for “solid food”.

What St. Paul really thought about food regulations is best seen, not in the texts cited in the earlier article, but rather in 1 Timothy 4:1-6.

exerpt: “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving” [v4]

While not specifically making the connection, I think that things which fall under his phrase “profane myths and old wives’ tales” are notions such as that the life is in the blood, and that other old Hebrew idea that the seat of consciousness was in the kidneys.