Did Adam reach age of responsibility before

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

I do not expect anyone to go back through past posts to dig up old passages that have been discussed. The point is that this discussion has just began and you act as if though I am avoiding some passages when you know full well that if anyone has taken time to address every passage of Scripture mentioned in the past, I have. Others may not know that but you certainly should. As time permits we shall go over each one you listed carefully, but I am not going to fail to bring to the readers attention the lack of support the passage you first listed has for the notion of original sin. The fact remains that the verse in question by no means makes no such illusion to all of mankind period, or of any necessity, infants. It speaks to an unspecified number of disobedient individuals. I ask you again. If infants are disobedient as you seem to imply, please share with us the sins infants commit.

DHK, you are no island to yourself, and you have not developed the notion of original sin apart from the influence of Augustine, having read him or not. The Scriptures alone have not been your sole teacher, nor have they been mine. All of us are influenced by spiritual leaders, in accordance to truth or error. You would do well to recognize that fact.

You know more than about Scripture than Scripture reveals DHK. Why men sin is a mystery that even Christ could not evidently comprehend or understand. I might not have the reasons why men sin, but neither will I replace my confessed ignorance as to why men sin with the heathenistic philosophical conclusions of Augustine or Philo. I will remain within the confines of Scripture, that all men sin, and agree with Scripture that men are indeed blameworthy when they do. I will agree with Scripture than sin is willful disobedience to a known commandment of God and not the necessitated consequence of being born of finite matter. I will agree with Scripture that the blame for sin lies squarely upon our shoulders as a product of our personal will, and not try and philosophize as to ‘why’ we choose as we do. I will place the blame for my sins not on Adam, my mother, my father or anyone else. It is me oh Lord that stands devoid of any excuse for my sins. I am to blame, not any other. There is not a power in heaven or earth that has or can make one anyone sin. Sin is the willful transgression of a known commandment of God.

If it is necessitated, of necessity it cannot be sin.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Ephesians 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

Moving right along….. Well, well. This verse mentions 'children' of wrath, so DHK automatically reads Augustinian original sin into this passage as well. The same argument applies to this verse as the former. “Children of wrath” by no means necessitates the notion that this applies to infants or those prior to the age of accountability.

How easy it is to simply read into passages like this original sin when one blindly holds the Augustinian notion of original sin as a presupposition, and then cause the verse to walk on all four legs in support of the notion. As I recall,...... would that not be a great object lesson for reasoning in a circle?

 

[DHK]

Why men sin is a mystery that even Christ could not evidently comprehend or understand.

I would consider this a blasphemous statement. And you don't??
Christ, being omniscient, does not comprehend sin, or the things you cannot comprehend???? On what level are you placing yourself?

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Eze 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

Eze 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

“Lu 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!”

Here we see an expression of the prophet Ezekiel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and Christ in an expression of bewilderment over the sins of His chosen children. They both seem in amazement as to ‘why’ those that have had every opportunity and had been the recipients of Divine favor for hundreds of years would turn from the God that loved and cared so much for them. There is a clear mystery as to why men and angels choose selfishness as opposed to benevolence.

God has created and endowed moral beings with mysterious capabilities, one of which is the capacity to be the sole cause of their moral choices, the sole creator, if you will, of those choices. We can certainly account selfishness as the reason for sin, and God has no problem whatsoever with judging it as sin, but the mystery as to ‘why’ such a choice so foreign to the design of our makeup was made. I believe the ‘why’ remains a mystery. Every indication from Scripture points to that mystery remaining by God’s own design.

Man is not some machine that when certain motives are applied he is necessitated to act in a given way. We are not some mechanical device that when it malfunctions can be torn down and the mystery solved as to why the malfunction occurred. We are not mindless robots merely acting and reacting in sync to outward or inward stimuli, suggestion, temptation, or influence. There is a Divine mystery coupled into our creation involving moral agency and the ability to choose benevolence or selfishness. Just as there is a mystery to God, God has granted to us part of His own mysterious nature. Without this mystery of moral choice love could not exist.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

What if we used DHK’s approach to the word ‘child’ or ‘children’ in other passages, and declared that if the word children is used it is universal in nature and must of necessity include infants, for they are part of mankind are they not? (to again use DHK’s purported logic)

Here is just one example of many in Scripture. Lu 16:8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

Using the logic employed by DHK in our discussion, I will allow the reader to apply his logic of infants of necessity being included due to them being part of mankind.

Lord help us

1Co 14:20 Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Lest we drift off topic too far, let me ask once again this question to DHK. If infants are disobedient as you seem to imply, please share with us the sins infants commit. Tell us of their guilt before God.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

So as not to be falsely accused again by DHK of failing to address the texts he presented, I will post yet one moe explanation. I hope more listeners get involved in some of the argumentation as we go along. I would like to see some interaction from others on DHK's usage of the word 'child' or 'children' as well as any comments on what IU have stated, pro or con.
Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
--No exceptions, not even infants. There is none righteous.

DHK is using this verse to support the notion of original sin. Because the Scriptures state that none are righteous, DHK concludes all must be unrighteous and as such sinners from birth. That is a completely erroneous conclusion, based on nothing other than the unproven presupposition of original sin that he applies to every verse he lists.

First, infants are not even moral agents, and are neither righteous nor unrighteous. They are incapable of moral choice or intention and as such are neither judged sinners or righteous. So, to declare that there is none righteous does NOT necessitate, as DHK falsely assumes, that all are indeed unrighteous, nor do the Scriptures ever present infants as unrighteous or sinners.

I COULD RIGHTFULLY, TRUTHFULLY, AND BOLDLY ASSERT THERE IS NOT ONE INFANT ALIVE THAT IS RIGHTEOUS. Would that be proof I believe that one is unrighteous or that I believe that all are born sinners? Absolutely not. Again, the only way you can arrive at Augustinian original sin from reading this passage is to insert it via a presupposition unsupported by the text itself.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Romans 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
--No one, by their own nature, understands. They don't, by their own nature, seek after God. They all have a sin nature--all of them, even infants.

Romans 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
--There is no one that does good, no, not one, not even an infant. This is very emphatic--not even an infant--no one!

I will address these two verse together. What if I told you that infants do not seek God? Would that be any brilliant deduction? What if I sat and read to them from God’s Word and exclaimed that they understood not a word I read? Would that grant to us any enlightenment to the state or condition of their heart? What reasonable person would not justly proclaim, they are not capable of even understanding a concept of God, let alone seek him. There is not an infant alive that at birth comprehend any language, regardless which one might be spoken.

Now take a look at verse 13. Does the text say that they are BORN out of the way, or that they are BORN astray, or that they are BORN unprofitable as DHK would have us believe? By no means. It clearly states that they all have “GONE out of the way’ and they have all ‘BECOME’ unprofitable. If one needed a text disproving original sin clearly it would be the text that DHK tries to walk on all four legs in support of the unfounded presupposition of original sin not established by the text itself in the least.

I COULD RIGHTFULLY AND TRUTHFULLY SAY THAT THERE IS NOT AN INFANT ALIVE THAT SEEKS GOD OR ONE THAT UNDERSTANDS HIM. Would that in any way be proof that I believe or support the false notion of moral depravity from birth or original sin? Simply put, there is only one way, once again, that original sin is supported by these texts. It is by reading into the text the unfounded presupposition of original sin, not supported in the least by the text itself.

 

[DHK]

Eze 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

Eze 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

“Lu 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!”

Here we see an expression of the prophet Ezekiel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and Christ in an expression of bewilderment over the sins of His chosen children. They both seem in amazement as to ‘why’ those that have had every opportunity and had been the recipients of Divine favor for hundreds of years would turn from the God that loved and cared so much for them. There is a clear mystery as to why men and angels choose selfishness as opposed to benevolence.

You say that Christ is bewildered over the sins of His chosen children; that he is amazed as to why...Israel would turn from the God that loved and cared so much for them.

So, in other words, Christ the almighty, all-knowing Creator is deficient in intellect. He doesn't even measure up perhaps to your intellect. He doesn't know why Israel rejected him, though the Bible does clearly tell us. In your eyes Christ isn't even deity. He is just some man that doesn't have very much intelligence at all. I really feel sorry for you depiction of an Almighty God who created all things.

 

[lori4dogs]

DIDYMUS THE BLIND (c. 313 - 398 AD)
'If Christ had received His body from a marital union and not in another way it would be supposed that he too is liable to an accounting for that SIN, WHICH, INDEED, ALL WHO ARE DESCENDED FROM ADAM CONTRACT IN SUCCESSION.' (Against the Manicheans)

 

[lori4dogs]

Lori4dogs, there is no collaboration of evidence period that early Christian fathers prior to Augustine held to any such notion as original sin. Augustine is noted as the father of the doctrine of original sin by scholars that themselves might even accepted OS to be so. One thing is for certain, no one in the Church prior to the rule of Augustine was forced to honor or believe in any such doctrine as the doctrine of original sin. Pelagius made that point as I recall, and was exonerated by at least two councils of the charges levied by Augustine.

Even in the quotes you mention there is no indication of original sin. Being made the ‘cause of death’ can speak to a physical consequence of sin, and not to a moral contagion from birth on the order of OS as Augustine developed it.

Augustine referred to the ECF's when defending OS. The ECF's clearly had a concept OS as it was developed from the scriptures and from the teachings of the apostles. A rationale person does not read ECF's and conclude differently.

St. Cyprian addresses your issue with an infant committing actual sin:

ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE (c. 250 AD)
'If, in the case of the worst sinners and of those who formerly sinned much against God, when afterwards they believe, the REMISSION OF THEIR SINS is granted and no one is held back from Baptism and grace, how much more, then, should an INFANT not be held back, who, having but recently been BORN, has done no sin [committed no personal sin], EXCEPT THAT, BORN OF THE FLESH ACCORDING TO ADAM, HE HAS CONTRACTED THE CONTAGION OF THAT OLD DEATH FROM HIS FIRST BEING BORN. For this very reason does he approach more easily to receive the REMISSION OF SINS: because the SINS FORGIVEN HIM are NOT his OWN but THOSE OF ANOTHER' [i.e. inherited from Adam]. (Letters 64:5 of Cyprian and his 66 colleagues in Council to Fidus)

 

[billwald]

>Sin is the willful transgression of a known commandment of God.

Known to whom? The bible student or the infant?

Why, then, do Christians ignore 603 of the 613 commandments? How did Jesus "fulfill" the commandment about not planting two kinds of seed in the same field? The commandment against wool/nylon blend sox?

It may be that no infant intentionally does good. This is immaterial unless it can be demonstrated that every infant intentionally does evil.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

No one would argue the point that the idea of matter being evil or sin lying in the constitution of the flesh and not the will existed prior to Augustine. As I have pointed out, Philo, the GK heathen philosopher clear believed matter was evil. Augustine, drawing from his heathen philosophical roots, clearly filed suit.

The point is that the Augustinian notion of original sin was never a cardinal doctrine of the Church before Augustine, nor was it in any way required of one to accept such heathen nonsense. Again, the trial of Pelagius proved that point for the historians.

The problem with men such as Augustine was due to his heathen philosophical background, I believe coming from Philo, by falling into the same trap as Philo and made no distinction between moral and physical depravity.

One thing is clear, Augustine is credited as being the father of original sin to the Church, i.e., if you differ from John MacArthur and believe those of the Roman Catholic faith were ever part of the Church and not all enemies of the gospel.

By the way Lori, you can save your condescending remarks for someone ignorant of the facts. There have been many in the Church and that exist today that are reasonable men and women who have not and do not accept the Augustinian notion of original sin. If you are unaware of the mighty moving of God among their ranks, particularly in the mid 1800’s, you need to do some study of revivals of religion even in America and England by some who clearly rejected that erroneous teaching.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

HP: in is the willful transgression of a known commandment of God.

BW: Known to whom? The bible student or the infant?

HP: It would appear to me from Scripture, reason, and lots of experience,)) that infants have no conception of morality, and as such are simply not moral agents or accountable to God’s moral law.

 

[lori4dogs]

H.P. said: 'By the way Lori, you can save your condescending remarks for someone ignorant of the facts. There have been many in the Church and that exist today that are reasonable men and women who have not and do not accept the Augustinian notion of original sin.'

I was speaking of Early Church Fathers. I pay a lot more attention to what people believed in the early Church and who were much closer to the actual teachings of the apostles than someone in the mid 1800's.

Again, the ECF's clearly had a concept OS as it was developed from the scriptures and from the teachings of the apostles.

 

[lori4dogs]

H.P.: I would be interested on your take on the following writings of St. Ambrose, writing before St. Augustine.

ST. AMBROSE OF MILAN (c. 383 AD)
'Before we are born WE ARE INFECTED WITH THE CONTAGION, and before we see the light of day we experience the INJURY OF OUR ORIGIN. IN INIQUITY WE ARE CONCEIVED [cf. Psalm 51:5] -- he does not say whether the wickedness is of our parents or our own -- AND IN SINS each one's mother gives him life. Nor with this did he state whether his mother gave birth to him in her own sins or whether the sins of which he speaks pertain in some way to being born. But consider and see what is meant. NO CONCEPTION IS WITHOUT INIQUITY, since there are NO PARENTS WHO HAVE NOT FALLEN. And if there is NO INFANT WHO IS EVEN ONE DAY WITHOUT SIN, much less can the CONCEPTIONS of a mother's womb be WITHOUT SIN. We are conceived, therefore, in the sin of our parents, and it is in their sins that we are born.'

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Obviously some did Lori, most likely formed at the feet of the heathen philosophers like Philo and others.

One thing is for certain. Our heritage is not a heathen heritage, but a Judeo Christian one. According to the well known scholar of Jewish antiquity, the renowned scholar Alfred Edersheim, the notion of all dying spiritually or morally in Adam was “entirely unknown to Rabbinical Judaism.” Somehow I knew that reading Scripture and applying God given intuitive principles of justice.

I suppose you would just write off Mr. Edersheim as a less than reasonable man as well. Oh well.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Lori: H.P.: I would be interested on your take on the following writings of St. Ambrose, writing before St. Augustine.

HP: I believe my comments on others you have posted is sufficient for now. We have our hands full with dealing with all the passages DHK has listed. Let’s try to address those passages first.

Why don’t you give us your take on his interpretation of the word ‘child’ or ‘children’?

 

[lori4dogs]

Obviously some did Lori, most likely formed at the feet of the heathen philosophers like Philo and others.

One thing is for certain. Our heritage is not a heathen heritage, but a Judeo Christian one. According to the well known scholar of Jewish antiquity, the renowned scholar Alfred Edersheim, the notion of all dying spiritually or morally in Adam was “entirely unknown to Rabbinical Judaism.” Somehow I knew that reading Scripture and applying God given intuitive principles of justice.

I suppose you would just write off Mr. Edersheim as a less than reasonable man as well. Oh well.

The notion of Jesus atonement for our sins is also rejected by Rabbinical Judaism. So what??

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Was not ST. AMBROSE OF MILAN the man responsible for Augustines conversion? Possibly Ambrose was as steeped in Philo’s heathen philosophical ideas as was Augustine.

What I cannot understand is why would you desire to seek out the writings of Roman Catholic leaders to establish your theology?? If they missed so many other doctrinal issues, would it be any surprise that they missed in on original sin as well? They may be your fathers but I dare say I do not claim them as my own. As for me, I will stick to Scripture, reason, and principle of immutable justice.