Joseph,
From your silence I must assume you refuse to answer my last reply to you? You have accused me, falsely, of heresy. A charge that carries serious weight.
You focus on John 9:1ff. However there are several points you are ignoring (in reference to this discussion).
1. Jesus was talking about "this" blind man (vs1,3). That man, nor his parents, did anything to cause his condition. Personal sin was not the issue (in that case). Certainly some people sin and suffer disease as a result (see next paragraph). But that was not the case with this man. This man was not blind because of his personal sin nor his parents. However apart from the fall (sin) this man would not have been born blind.
Concerning your heresy charge I find it interesting that the Lord Jesus does not call his disciples "heretics" because of their statement in verse 2. In fact their statement was a common belief of the time. They believed that if a person was born with a birth defect either their parents sinned, or they sinned before birth. Jesus pointed out that in this particular case (Jn 9:1ff) the belief was not true (vs3). However some people's sin does lead to their own physical suffering according to Jesus Himself and other clear Scripture (see Jn 5:14, Jms 5:15, 1Cor 11:30, Rom 1:27, Pr 5:11, etc). We also know of times when the sins of the parents does indeed cause suffering in the life of their children (ex: mothers who abuse drugs, alcohol, or smoke, etc, etc).
Now since I was NOT saying what the disciples said, and since Jesus did not call them heretics, you had no ground of charging me with heresy. Also my position that human suffering (etc) is a result of the fall (sin) is perfectly Biblical and orthodox (see below). Any position that tries to divorce suffering and sin (the fall) is unBiblical.
2. Jesus never said that suffering was not the result of sin (in general). In fact Paul indicates that it is (see Rom 8:18-22). In a very real sense all suffering is a result of sin. For if there were no sin there would be on suffering.
3. It would be error to claim that there was disease, birth defects, and human suffering before the fall (before sin). It would also be an error to claim that if there was no fall that people would still suffer from birth defects and disease.
Now back to the point of the original post (which seems to have been lost). I don't see how anyone can claim that there are no influences on behavior (social, mental, or even biological). Clearly there are. We can see this in our daily life and in Scripture. People who fall into the sin of homosexuality have been influenced. Clearly their actions are the result of a choice they have made. However there had to have been some influences. These could include family, friends, teachers (ie...social), or mental issues of some sort (maybe a result of the social).
What about biological influences? As I said in my original post, I don't know. Thanks to sin (the fall and its results) it is possible that some people have a birth defect that allows them to be tempted with homosexuality. This type of thing is not unheard of in the medical community. It is known, for example, that children of alcoholics tend to tempted by alcoholism themselves. There is something that has "gone wrong", or been altered, in their biology that causes that (ie..a birth defect). This of course does not mean that the behavior is ok. No. Morality is not determined by biology (in a fallen world). I don't know that there are biological influences when it comes to homosexuality but if there are it does not justify or excuse the behavior. It is still a sin. The person who is tempted by homosexuality, like every other person, must come to Christ and be born again. Christ can save them from sin and give them the strength to overcome the temptation (see 1Cor 10:13).
Martin.
