Featured Inherited Sin

RsR shut down the thread dealing with this, but, I thought Jon needed and deserved a response:

O.K.

Forgive me then, if you are not a 5-point Calvinist....
I was under the impression that you were.

If you are, I think my critique holds...
If you are not, than I was making assumptions without warrant, and I apologize.

Really, though, the only question is the issue of "Original Sin".
If "Original Sin" is to be believed most of my critiques stand.

It's a horrific doctrine which makes no sense, and causes grieving parents no end of torture.

We are on the same page.
I assumed that you agreed with "Original Sin" or "Original Guilt" or whatever....
That's what that entails...
I must have been wrong.

I think it does, very simply and very cleanly...

Infants aren't sinners...full stop.
No Theological trappings, no questions, no dealing with un-baptized infants, no dealing with the sin of babies.

Babies don't know how to sin.

Babies don't sin.
Easy.

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and yes.

Yes...
And interesting side note:
"Ahuva" means "blessed" and my wife uses that moniker on the sites she haunts!.

I don't think you believe that Jon....
I just don't think one can square a doctrine of "Original Sin" (Calvinist style) with the notion that Christ was truly a human with a full human nature....
Forgive me if I'm wrong.

Pointing out, and scoffing at, the grammatical errors of the illiterate is a powerful (if illegitimate) debate tactic.

But, I'm neither stupid, nor ignorant, nor uninformed.
It does not strengthen your case to point out the occasional error in my syntax.

That's weak tea.

True...
Physical death anyway.
Not Spiritual Death.
Which is the Calvinist assumption.
I was under the impression that you adhered to it.

Yes.

I suggest they are not sinful or partakers in Adam's sin, and therefore not evil in God's sight Jon...
That's what I suggest.

Physical Death is one thing.
Spiritual Death another.

You insist "Scripture" doesn't "address" infants who die....I say, it doesn't even NEED to, because the answer is already there.

Infants aren't "sinners".

My only point was that Babies aren't "sinners" guilty of the sin of Adam.....transferred to them by nature of their very being.
If you are already in agreement....I laud that.
If not, I'd hope you consider it...because it's the only Scriptural way to see your child in heaven.

This was in reply to my statement that God did not "curse" mankind...
My point was that at the FALL...Mankind was no more "cursed" in his constitution than anything...a robust doctrine of Original Sin or Guilt is usually couched in terms of mankind suffering the effects of Adam's sin and a Spiritual curse of death as partaker in Adam's iniquity...
Surely...
I don't have to explain that to you.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I know.

I know.....I think I get that passage better than you do, actually.

That "curse" is a human-conceived one actually, not a Divine-One...
When Christ said he must be crucified....and the apostles denied it...it was an example of the "Messianic Secret".

They couldn't comprehend how the Messiah should suffer in that manner...

Humans, not God, curse those who hang on a tree.
But, that's an issue for another day, one I brought up before that you didn't appreciate that much.

I have understood you to be an adherent of the doctrine of "Original Sin"...
If you are, then that is what I was referring to....
If you deny Original Sin...than, my apologies.

If you deny the doctrine of "Original Sin" or (I tend to prefer to say) "Original GUILT"...
than...
Indeed it was presumptuous and foolish of me.


.

 

Meh....
Yeah, but, there's already a word for that usually it's "Amyraldian"....
and so, your example doesn't hold together perfectly, but, I think I see your point

I'd agree with this.

Here, you're losing me, because I don't think infants have a preference one way or the other.

Perhaps, and if I am confused than I apologize.
I thought I did....

I CERTAINLY understand Calvinism and the TULIP in nauseating detail....

I took you for, and thought you an adherent of "Calvinism"...
If that is NOT so.... and you do not adhere to the "TULIP" as it were, than I apologize.
But, I do know "Calvinism" and I know the schema.

My belief that you were a 5-point Calvinist.

Infants DO reject grace, actually...

They can't even conceive of it....

They reject a clean diaper-change Jon.

I also lost a child due to mis-carriage so I don't think it "trivial"....
But, I also believe that that means you don't have a moral authority to shut-down argumentation.

I know that may be harsh...

But, frankly, that's why I absolutely LOATHE the idea of "Original Guilt" or sinfulness.
It was the onus upon which infant Baptism was conceived.
It's a nasty heresy which tortures grieving parents who don't know their own children's fate.
I hate it with a passion because Godly parents often have no idea whether their child is safe in God's arms, or rightly suffering eternal righteous torment in hell because they were guilty of being a partaker in Adam's sin.

And....as you keep saying....they think the Scriptures..."Don't address it".
I think the Scriptures do.

Disabuse oneself of the notion that babies or infants are condemned through Adam's sin, and there's nothing to fear...infants are therefore safe:
But, if one accepts the Calvinist notion (or the Catholic idea) that sin is passed to all infants, than there is no hope, Jon.

There is hope:
Your young child was NOT A SINNER.
I am.
You are.
Your child was not.
Your child is safe.

No, we don't, and I agree with this point.

I'm good at it, but, no, it was actually Philosophy.

I'm not "exploiting" the death of your child Jon, any more than I am the death of my own.....
I also have a dead child.
You aren't morally immune to criticism, I'm sorry.

I want you to know your child is safe, as is mine.
That's all.

 

[

O.K....
I LITERALLY laughed out loud at that.....
That was funny

,
I don't....It makes more sense to me than a Theology conceived by the Reformation....
I studied at the University of London.
To them....Christology and Trinitarian Theology super-ceded Soteriology to an extent that....
Frankly, it was a liner note.
CHRISTOLOGY....was the summum bonum of Christian Theology to them...
They didn't seem to think that man had a clue about the mechanics of Salvation....only that...belief in God and acceptance of his son makes it happen....
Here's a neat lecture from one of my professors on "Christology".

and


That's one of my Profs...

I think.........
I'd agree....

I know...
But, there are those who seek to define it only upon "Compatibilist" lines...and frankly, it's a new version of it, it's disingenuous for them to pretend that it is the expression of it on all lines.
Frankly, there's been MANY a Calvinist Theologian who no more pretended that men have a "free will" than the man in the moon.

And often, people on this board pretend that ALL Calvinists at all times have understood their faith in Compatibilistic terms.
That's bull-hockey....
And most of them know it, they just aren't honest about it.

So....
You're killing me Smalls....
You have to give us a moniker to work with...
Sorta.

I'd more or less agree with this...............
I actually think that as far as "systems" of Theology go...the Orthodox Doctrine of Sin is closest to truth, they explain it something like thus:
http://www.oncedeliveredfaith.com/2014/07/05/original-sin/

As far as "myself" is concerned.....
I'd loosely say something to the effect that:
All men (once given the chance) will sin.

Sin is a CERTAINTY....But it is not a NECCESITY
They all do it, but it is not neccesary that they MUST do it.

I believe that the ancient Theologians thought of the fall, and the sin of man in three ways:
1.) The fall of Adam
2.) The sin of the "Watchers" in Genesis 6
3.) The sin at Babel...

They conceived that the world was as wicked as it was...
because of all three of those things.
They may all be well and good, but the Post-Reformation Theology only conceives of wickedness as the fall of Adam.

I don't believe man was constitutionally changed in the garden with Adam...Adam was the prototype of the "sinner" in us all.
We all choose to sin eventually, and are therefore sinners.......
Given my Christology, I don't agree with Calvinist suppostition...
I think it's a denial of Christ's REAL humanity:

Here's why I think that:
Calvinism teaches:
Humans are irrreparably damaged and constitutionally destroyed by the fall.
Humans are sons of Adam...and Adam's sons are irreparably sinful by nature.

I think they deny that Christ was a real Son of Adam.....
He's....well, something else entirely in a form much like a man...but, he wasn't a nasty human tainted with the nastiness of "manness".

As my professor would put it....
The Christ of Calvinism comes from the planet Krypton.
He looks like a human...
But, he's Super-man...and he has no "sin-nature"...
He pretends to be Clark Kent, but that's where his real humanity begins and ends....
He's REALLY from Krypton, and he doesn't have a sin-nature like you nasty humans do...
He's not a real man.

Calvinism denies God's humanity in the flesh...
It's Docetism I.M.O.

I think that what we have is a WILL

We are VERY MUCH like God.
So much, in fact, that we have a "WILL"...a desire...a penchant for seeing and executing our own preferences and ruling ourselves and the world around us to our own desires. God made us that way...
God made us....like him really.

And our "WILLS" simply don't always align with his..It's the very similarity of mankind to God which makes sin or disobedience so very tempting....

We are like him.

We were made by him to rule this Earth.
God actually made man to rule this Earth.
He made us to be his "image-bearer" upon Earth.
Thus, we have strong wills.
But, we find ourselves in disobedience to him....Our wills don't align with his.

I actually think Calvinist Theologian R.C. Sproul best defined sin:
It is "Cosmic Treason".

That's what we do. And it's an act of a free will to obey or disobey.
It's a power he gave us, and it's one we routinely abuse....
That's sin.

"Original Guilt" is what I abhor.
If one wants to say that mankind is bent towards evil and does so with certainty....I'd go along with it...

What I CANNOT and do not accept...
and frankly, I hate the idea:
Is that all persons were partakers in, and are condemned Spiritually by .............Adam's sin.

I think it's un-biblical,

I think it wrongly defines what sin is (an act of the will)....
"Cosmic Treason" as Sproul put it.
It riddles us with problems, and twists our Anthropology into pretzels......

And...frankly, it causes grieving parents no end of torture not knowing the fate of their beloved infants.

 

Oh, my God...
No, I didn't...
You were merely the material agent who, in fact....

Shut the discussion down.

Now, it's just bully for you that you did, and I neither care nor does Jon, I think, that you shut it down...but you were the one who did it, that's all.

But you were the one who did it,
And I wanted to continue a discussion with a decent man on a topic we both are having perfectly edifying conversation exploring.

You actually shut it down...
I didn't say that because I wanted to rattle your little cage...
It was a rote statement of fact.

Fine...that's great...
I don't care why you shut it down..
You shut it down because of the greatest and most awesome-sauce of reasons because you are awesome-sauce.

I just wanted to talk to Jon...and he is perfectly happy to engage actually...
It has nothing to do with you.

Again......

You are totally awesome-sauce.

I'm sorry for your loss.
This thread wasn't about you though....
And you're still totally awesome-sauce...and this thread is so totally not about you or anything you did...
but, you are totally awesome-sauce.

I do.

,
And people here actually.

I have.........................


But, anyway.... this whole discussion was totally about RSR...
and why he shut down the other discussion.....

Yes, this was all about you, because you are awesome-sauce.