Without fall or original sin? A materialist world view has no trouble explaining “sin” or even an accompanying sense of guilt in many. Sin promotes self – guilt is of evolutionary or social value for survival. There is no deep conflict – only nature and survival. Social constructs control behavior for mutual survival.
The view of Xun Zi sums it up – human nature is evil, but nature is also easily controllable and eminently improvable. All you have to do is put the philosophers in charge.
But there is no moral judgment here – evil and sin are just loaded terms describing normal human response to life.

I think the definition of ‘win’ might be a big part of the issue here. ‘Selfish’ can often produce an overall best outcome for everyone in a societal situation.
Here’s an interesting article on the relationships between slefishness, spite and un-fair offers – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2229179,00.html
For me, sin is about more that simple short-term selfish decision making. Sin is about humanity trying to define its own morality – this is the ‘knowledge of good and evil’. Where knowledge is humanity’s ability to define the nature of things. Just look at the Genesis explanation of humanity – it was the naming of the animal world that was God’s first task for Man – i.e. the categorisation and definition of “other” things. This is true power, and true responsibility.. . .
Did I ramble too much?

Suppose sin erupts from human awareness of something lost? Humans carry a longing for “something more” and that longing prompts feelings, attitudes and actions that are “selfish” or “self-saving” in the sense of a quest for a missing reality. Qoheleth puts a non-religious phrase to it: eternity in human hearts. Nothing finite fills the infinity-capacity of the heart. From this we can spin out all the traditional expressions of “sin.”

The question seems to assume that your readers ARE going to bracket the idea of original sin, that we will assume it is incorrect. What if one generally agrees with the suggestion that “we inherit the ability and inclination and inevitability of doing such,” while still acknowledging that “original glory” preceded original sin and will be restored, and that abuses, misunderstandings and misuses of the doctrine of original sin often cause problems in the church?

What if, from a human perspective,?original glory? did not preceded original sin? What if only God was ever the “original glory”, and humans never existed in a state of moral perfection? Does the Christain theology of ‘original sin’ have a place for undertanding pre-historical human ancestry? Perhaps pre-humans were ‘sinful’ by post-law standards, but blameless (like animals now) due to moral naievity?
My little theory is that it was only the knowledge of good and evil (or the ability/free will to start determining their own morality) that rendered them responsible before God, and thus worthy of existing with Him in eternity (as morally responsible beings). But, being sinful by nature they were incapable of truly attaining moral perfection. The solution (somehow)–> Jesus.

I agree to some extent with Phil. Sin is not merely selfishness. Selfishness is our connection with the rest of the animal kingdom and it arises from the instinct for self-preservation, which in the natural world is the first moral imperative. However, when animals kill, mate or destroy we don’t call it sin; animals have no moral culpability. It is our knowledge of right and wrong which makes it sin when we do it. Even then, there appear to be degrees of culpability. We “sin” in a sense just by living. We can’t live without causing harm. Much of the harm we do is unintentional. When I spend more than I need to to survive, knowing that somewhere someone is going hungry or even dying due to my selfishness, it is my knowledge of that relationship between my actions and their consequences, a knowledge which animals are spared, that makes my day-to-day living sinful.
If you are an Christian evolutionist the moment God breathed his spirit into homo sapiens, the moment (how ever long a moment that was) we became self-aware was when we were capable of sin. Which brings us back to that moment (metaphorically speaking:) in Eden. When man disobeyed God, was he culpable? Can you sin if you do not know the difference between right and wrong, which according to the Genesis story they didn’t obtain until AFTER they had sinned. It seems that by giving us that understanding God Himself creates sin. We didn’t ask for the knowledge of good and evil, we didn’t ask to become sapient. God breathed his spirit in man and then God put something in front of Adam and Eve that He knew they couldn’t resist – because he had created these clever but non-sapient creatures. If there was a “fall” God set us up for it.
So why would He do that? Is God that author of sin? I would have to say “yes” if my understanding of the Eden story holds. But is He the author of evil?
Evil is a different matter. Evil is more pure. It is not tangled up with our instinct for survival – in fact it is the opposite. Evil is not merely selfish and stupid choices, as sin often is. Evil is a conscious choice for darkness and destruction. Evil is harming God’s creation and God’s creatures (including ourselves) for the twisted pleasure of exerting one’s power just to make others suffer. Evil is disobeying God, not because we have urges we are not strong enough to control, but because we hate God and spit in His face.
So here is my hypothesis. God chose to give us the gift of his image. It is a gift because it is the only way we can ever feel the joy of oneness with God, it is also the key to eternal life. He gives us this gift because He loves us and wants to be in communion with us. But it also appears to us as a curse because it is also how we become aware of the consequence of our actions, it is how we are capable of sin. And sin we must and suffer we must so that we reach out to God in our guilt and sorrow. Sin is not evil. Sin is the war. Our desire to be one with God which he planted in us wars against our animal nature. God becomes flesh and dwells with us to show us that He truly understands. And He forgives us because He knows that we are not Him and that we don’t know what we do. And He dies for us to show us that destruction and decay can be overcome, that sin need not lead to evil.

His scriptural example (David and Bathesheba) I find quite lacking. First off, the Psalm headings are not inspired nor part of the originals, so this Psalm could very well be pseudonymous (which it probably is). Also, no matter who the author is, they are attempting to explain David’s reaction after his affair with Bathesheba. Of course he’s going to say things like “I was guilty of sin from birth” do to the intensity of the situation.
We also have to take into account the genre of literature (poetry). Poetry is meant to evoke and explain emotion, not produce systematic theological statements.
Basically, this is a horrible proof-text for the doctrine of original sin.
I like what Phil states about “original glory”. The text never states that the male and female were “perfect” before eating the fruit, so we are making assumptions that are not evident in the text.
Like I have stated elsewhere, my main problem with this is how one describes the doctrine exegetically. In my opinion, it simply cannot be done from Genesis 3 and Psalm 51.

Luke,
Your rhetoric is too strong. It is not helpful to anyone to speak of a “horrible proof-text” because the first word is simply not right and the second one biased. So, let’s think this through …
First, Jacobs knows that not all agree this is Davidic; he admits that. The words he focuses on are not infrequently interpreted as he interprets them, so he is not alone.
Second, to be sure, post eventu explanations shape the event, but one thing he does do is connect his sin to his birth, and that is about all Jacobs is trying to do in his sketch.
Finally, what I’d like to say is that your view is your view; in a conversation we have to move between various views and it is a simple fact that many readers of Gen 3 and Ps 51 read the text in ways that lead to original sin (and they do so, so it seems to me, on the basis of Romans 5:12-21 as filtered through Christian theologians). It is important to state our views without disrespecting the views of others.
Thanks brother.

Sorry Scot, I was not meaning to sound like this, so my apologies. I have just heard that verse used so many times as the main text to prove the doctrine, so I guess my tiredness of the verse being used has shown through in my remark “horrible proof-text.” I admit it’s biased.
This is just an issue I have been wrestling with for a while now, and I have just found many of the (particularly reformed) evangelical arguments quite lacking on the basis of the texts they use to defend the doctrine.
David (or whoever) does connect the event to his birth, but in my opinion the genre and literary features should be taken into account before using this psalm as a defense for this doctrine. So my apologies to Mr. Jacobs for reading too much into his statement, because the text should certainly be discussed.
I meant no disrespect and will try to do better in not disrespecting the views of others. I just get sort of passionate about things people preach and teach like they’re essential for salvation, yet to me it seems like they’re more grey than black/white.
Thanks Scot,
Luke

I don’t think that Jacobs is trying to “prove” original sin or proof text anything in this chapter of the book. He seems to be illustrating a broad multicultural recognition of guilt from ancestors (we inherit the iniquity of those who go before), a recognition that none of us even keep our own “moral law” perfectly, and a broad multicultural realization that we “offend the Gods”.
On David and Bathsheba, Psalm 51 is quoted, but Jacobs uses the whole narrative story as well – where David acts, tries to cover up, acts again, is confronted, and repents. David recognizes his guilt in the story. The Psalm (Davidic or otherwise) is at the very least a further cultural elaboration of that realization.

When I blogged on the David/Bathsheba story a while back I noticed this as well. One might deny the Davidic authorship of Psalm 51 (though I can’t really think of a good reason to do this – it strikes me as akin to denying Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare), but the story in II Samuel itself has a sense of inherited guilt as well – that of David’s child “conceived in iniquity”. It is for this wretched little child that David prays for, and with it that David identifies in the psalm.

It is not the fact that humans are unable to consistently make choices that are in line with God’s holiness that I have issue with when considering the concept of “original sin”. Rather, it is the extent to which this reality is spun into bondage of the will that concerns me….
I think we have to stop and consider what “sin” is. If we believe sin is missing the mark of God’s intent, then we have to consider what that intent (the target, as it were) was and is. What if it is as simple as this: to walk humbly and joyously in community with God; to trust God’s requirements are just and right (as well as the consequences being true) and, therefore, due obedience; and to faithfully accomplish our task to steward the rest of God’s creation cooperatively with each other.
Bear with me, now…as we use the archery concept from which the term for “sin” derives….
And then, what if the command against eating and getting the knowledge of good and evil was meant to be like a guard and guidance for keeping proper focus necessary for good “aim” at the “target”. While Adam and Eve were constantly presented with the opportunity to choose to keep on target, their innocent trust and simple obedience made their task easier.
When they turned from obedience and trust, they basically removed the safety and guide from their “bows” and the task of keeping on target got immediately more difficult. They were distracted by the knowledge they gained and were introduced to the “evil” of which they had not previously been aware: the ability to freely choose that which is harmful (to self and others) and disrespectful and disobedient to God. Relationships crashed on all sides and the cooperation necessary to steward the creation suffered terribly.
What if, then, humans (as created in the Garden) were without sin (able to consistently hit the target) until they ate of the forbidden fruit? What we have inherited, as a result of their rebellion, is the requirement to continue to strive to hit the mark, but without the safety and guide of innocence and with a marred creation that requires much more effort to steward. It does not mandate that we cannot ever aim well, but it makes it virtually impossible to completely and consistently hit the mark.
The Law, in time, was introduced as an echo of the safety and guide in that it called out to warn against terrible choices and call God’s people back to focus on God’s will. It was a first level of reinstating restraint.
But it was not until Christ came and set up the New Covenant that the safety and guide is in full view again. As we are “in Christ” and continually submit to the Spirit’s transforming power to make us “like Christ” that we are able to be “with Christ” — and feel his strong arm and steady hand on our bow, helping us focus our aim and shoot ever nearer to the center of the target. Here again the importance of restraint comes to the fore….
The hope and promise of the coming age is that the time of weak restraint in dying human flesh will be supplanted with the perfection in the new, imperishable bodies — safety and guides restored — able to again commune with God and each other while stewarding the New Creation.
Sorry for the length….back to chasing kids outside.

Scot, when Jacobs says “original sin”, does he mean the act of eating from the forbidden tree and/or that which impelled it, or does he mean the guilt of Adam and Eve for doing so which is passed to all humans as a “sin nature”, or a combination? Or something I’m missing?
Taking your questions at face value, I think we sin because on some level (often very deep and opaque to us) we perceive our life is threatened. Sin feeds death and death drives sin. I don’t think we have a “sin nature”; I think we have a human nature capable of choice, and in the face of our inheritance of death and fear of it, it’s tough to choose to act from appropriate self-giving love. This is often compounded in community (groupthink, etc). We have a consciousness of sin and need to deal with it because we were created for communion and we both need and fear the Other, and sin fractures relationships. The mark we miss when we sin is the mark of treating others as bespeaks our own and their human-ness (loving others, as per Jesus Creed). (There is much for thought and discussion in mariam’s ideas too.)
The need to expiate old sin is connected, in that we are trying to keep the gods (or whatever) from causing our own death before its time, and to keep them from bringing death upon our clan.
Wonders’ explanation of Ps 51 holds water. Otherwise, in general my sense is that the scripture texts have been used to bolster the doctrine, rather than the doctrine making sense of scripture. You already know that the different point of view of the Eastern church makes better sense to me, though I’m not as eloquent as Scott M…
Dana

I haven’t read the book, so I commented out of ignorance. I was just reacting to Scot’s summary and particularly his point about Psalm 51. Thanks for providing the context, RJS.

I see original sin as the root that the axe has been lain to. There is no such thing as original rust. Rust is as evident today as it has been on it’s first possibility.
The bible would have never been written had not the “it is good” later needed a helpmate. What is deemed as human nature is a self starting point rather than the awareness of being possesors -thus, the kingdom of God is within you.
Mankind, as the univeress, has been created to express their relationship with their possesion – thus, “Oh taste and see, the Lord is Good.”
God, for some idiodic reason, wants relationship of family servatude with His creation. My only explanation is that He loves us. There is only the “Living soul” and the “Life Giving Spirit”. The cocoon and the butterfly. in betweeen -pain, suffering and joy.
So I suggest that the only nature of any human is to posses life or death and comes through as a “choose” a act of God as in ” It pleased Him to send His son.” We enter into relationship with Life as Life by posession – the getting of the giving.

The so-called heading of Psalm 51 is actually verse 1 in the Massoretic text…so I’d be a little cautious about willy-nilly ruling it out as unimportant to the setting of Psalm 51.

John,
all the headings are in the Masoretic text. The manuscripts are from medieval times, not biblical times.

Peggy, your beautiful archery anology reminds me of the faith William Tell’s son had in his father’s ability by placing the apple on his head. I wonder how many onlookers would have done the same thing.
One of my favorite books is “The man of LaMancha” It doesn’t take to much effort in reading the book that it is a wonderful representation in a nutshell of Spirit, soul body, and salvation. Don Quixote as the life giving spirit, Sanchez as the ever needy and purpose driven soul and of course the whore Aldonza as body; or as the noble night would call her his ladylove Dulcinea del Toboso.
The book might seem to end in tragety but what one might not help is but to take the Man of LaMancha with them after closing the books covers. I for one, called myself a whore for many years and Jesus kept calling me a saint. I’ll keep believing that as long as He will.
Only God can live God’s Life since He is Life and there is no measuring up by a somewhat like his Life. That is why Jesus chose to come into us that we might be in Him and that our obedience would be His, a centermark everytime, using our arms and eyes, even if it’s to show us how off target we are if we try to do it the way we don’t really want to do it but think that we really do and how He can turn it around for the good, as in all things.
Well, I’m off to Scotland for two weeks to join my vacationing wife and our two sons. Preacherman, my desire is that you are overwhelmed in His Love.

Scot asked: “If we bracket the explanation that we inherit the ability and inclination and inevitability of doing such, how can we explain the presence of sin in everyone?”
Short answer after much discussion and searching….I don’t think we can. Equally, I don’t think that, bracketing the creation story, we can explain why we are able to do unselfish good.
Humanism acknowledges an ability to not choose the highest moral good but doesn’t explain why everyone seems to have this propensity.
Biology can explain being selfish in order to survive but not being unselfish in order for someone else to survive.
Are there other explanations?

I’m so relieved to find people discussing the concept of original sin. Please, if anyone can direct me to good reading material on the subject, I would be most grateful.
My problem with original sin has always been the implication it has on God’s character (an implication which none of my pastors or theological lecturers have ever been concerned about). ie. In the ‘traditional’ view of original sin (which is the one I’ve had drummed into me), God gives free will to humankind, knowing that they are unable to cope with it… kind of like giving dynamite to a two-year-old. When the explosion happens, God ‘self-righteously’ steps in and deigns to clean up the mess, on the understanding that we are in no way deserving of this gift, and that, in fact, we deserve death. I can’t buy into this view any longer, but have not been offered an alternative at this point. This has huge implications for my relationship with God, and my ability to see Him as good (which I desperately want to do). All help appreciated!
Linda

scot, on the topic of psalm 51 – it is interesting to note that in the septuagint version of the psalms, that passage in psalm 50 (51 masoretic) is “in sins did my mother bear me”. this passage influences greatly the eastern christian view of original sin.