Friday, March 27, 2009
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About Me
- AZSuperman01
- I was raised as a Christian. I "saw the light" in my early 20's and over the course of several years became an atheist. I do this blog in order to help other people who are doubting recognize that they are not alone... and to challenge people to question things they have taken for granted.
An excellent question!
ReplyDeleteBeginning with Adam and Eve, Why is it that all of humanity pays for their sin? The answer lies in how you apply the story. If you apply it as literal history then you are left with several problems, only one of which you describe here.
But Genesis is best understood as describing humanity's relationship with God.It must be understood, however, in a very personal sense. Because history begins for each of us at birth, there is a certain universality to our existence, and thus cerain universal truthes. Our view of the world can be one of self interest or selfless love, and the story of the fall describes our native condition, so to speak. If there had been such language, Genesis might have said that humans are genetically predisposed to self interest and that this is a radical separation from God, which He is in the midst of repairing. The fact that the story begins with our first parents who failed within a paradise describes our most telling weakness to us: that of turning away from God when it is not in our best interest to do so, and it describes our blindness to this condition. It completes the picture by illustrating God's real intentions for us: to give us a life free from pain and death.
The state in which we find ourselves does not make us instantly aware of God, rather it makes our own wants our primary concern. Our natural condition is to be lawless, and so God gave us the Law.
For Catholics, at least, the Fall describes Original Sin. Original Sin is the state or condition of being predisposed to sin, and is the state of being born separated from God. At baptism the process of grace begins.
So to say that we are all paying for someone else's sin is to miss the much more important thing being described, which is our relationship to God and His plan for us amidst our separation from Him.
The rest of your question is in regard to the Old Testament's frequent brutality, and how God punishes people for someone else's sin.
In answer to that, we must note the distinction between God's behaviour pre-Christ, versus Christ's actions Himself. For example, Peter draws a sword and strikes the ear off a servant in the garden as Jesus is being arrested and Jesus heals the man. How do we reconcile the two sides of God: the brutal punisher and the healer?
The answer lies in the fact that all of God's actions are part of a gradual revelation. That revelation continues even now. One of the affects of this is what you might call an expansion of conscience. You, for example, have quite a different reaction to the behaviour of the Old Testament God than did the Isrealites. What they saw as God's mercy you see as God's brutality.
The progression of this revelation is from the external, angry, vengeful God to the entirely internal loving God of interior metamorphosis. Think of the different historical modes of revelation: Covenant, Law, Kingdom, prophesy, Jesus, and finally the Holy Spirit. The different modes arise, it seems to me, not in God's own changes but in our changes.
Let me give you an analogy. We know that light is what it is depending upon how it is detected. That is to say that its final state – wave or partical - is determined by the object that detects it. Now I don't suppose to say that God is whatever we interpret Him to be, but rather He takes the shape of, and is limited by, whatever “vessel” we have. He enters, and then ultimately expands the vessel, making room for ever greater revelation.
Thus, revelation takes place over millenia. God prepared humanity for Christ, just as we are being prepared for whatever is to be next. It's interesting to note the useful role science has played in this history: focussing God's place in our lives by gradually stripping away what our faith is not.
Thanks again for a great question, I hope this answer provides you with some grasp of the issue.