Post by logic on Mar 1, 2010 12:17:35 GMT -5
Jesse'e quotes which Sam quoted are italisized
How so if it is impossible to live a life free of sin?
There you go, proving the doctrine of sin nature with the same doctrine.
In other words.
I am proving we have a sin nature by claiming that we inherited a sin nature.
That proves nothing. A some may be more prone not to drink because of the despisal of their father’s deeds with alcohol.
Predisposal is not a “nature”, and the fact we are predisposed, does not prove that we have a sin nature.
Being predisposed only proves that we have a favor towards something. Favor towards anything is not inherited; it is a choice of values that we have assembled, choosing to obey our conscience or choosing to ignoring our conscience.
God would be the one to inaugurate the inheritance of a sin nature, therefore, God would be 'at fault' for causing man to be sinful.
If God didn’t to inaugurate the inheritance of a sin nature and we came into this world as Adam did, God would be free of blame (which He is & this is how it is)
You do say that we are born sinners; it doesn’t matter which "way we are born".
Your dad preaches it all the time. We are born sinners.
More specifically:
We sin because we are sinners.
So, if we are born sinners, & we sin because we are sinners; that would mean that we sin because we are born.
No, your dad says that we are sinful because we are born sinners.
More specifically:
Our sin makes us sinful, but we sin because we are sinners.
How do you say that this is “nature”? God would be the one to inaugurate the predisposing of us to sin.
We claim that God did not make us predisposed to sin just because Adam sinned, but that we do what we want. Doing what we want from what we put our affections on, which are the values that we have assembled, choosing to obey our conscience or choosing to ignoring our conscience. That which makes our values are the things which are important to us. The things which become important to us are our evaluation of the Eternal compared to the temporal.
If we life for this life only, well then...
However, if we are living for the next life, which is eternal, well then...
The knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10, Prov 1:7; 9:10).
Your “Christian teaching” is so full of holes, it doesn’t hold water.
There you go again, proving your theology with your theology.
First, you must prove that this bent was perverted before you claim it as fact.
You must first prove that there is a difference between the pre-fall and post-fall man. You keep starting from the premise of your doctrine. You must first prove your premise to be true before you use it as a starting point to interpret Scripture and use your interpretation of Scripture as your proof.
You must prove that the fall corrupted him.
Why do you keep proving your doctrine of sin nature by the fact of sin?
With that, we could day that Lucifer had a sin nature; along with Adam & Eve before they sinned.
By you using this verse literally is where we get that you think infants are evil.
The Scriptures does not conflict with what we claim. You misinterpret the Scriptures to promote this ridiculous doctrine. We interpret the Scriptures without any bias toward this doctrine.
We explain it by manifold temptations with bad examples, along with the denial of God all around us.
Yes we do. you only ignore it.
NNo, you only invent the doctrine of a “tainted nature” so to make an excuse for the consistent history of disobedience to the law.
If you don’t want to call it an excuse, then you’re only attempting to find an answer while missing the obvious answer; which is free will.
Then you attempt to understand why (with free will) the consistent history of freely disobeying the law, so you blame it on our nature which God creates in each individual, thus criminalizing God.
Actually, we do not “inherit a "craving" for drugs or alcohol”, the craving is conditioned. The drug addiction is physically put the child us by its mother with her own use of drugs, thus, coming into the child by physical means.
No, we do not inherit inclinations.
I do apologize for his mistake.
The mistake is saying that it cravings for drugs are “inherited”.
Mankind has a disposition toward that which we want from a value system built by an assembling of choosing to obey our conscience or choosing to ignoring our conscience
Your doctrine makes sin to be caused. You claim that it is impossible to live a life free from sin. You claim that a man cannot live from childhood without committing sin. If this is impossible, there must be a cause. The cause would be that so called sin nature which inclines a man to consistently choose evil.
Correct, you say that men sin because they are sinners, and we are sinners by birth. This means that we sin because we are born. In other words, our sin is caused other than from a free willed choice.
I could say the same for you. No need to talk this way.
These are not strawmen, but your misunderstanding of our issues. We get our issues from what you all say.
Yes you do. If you personally do not believe that we are sinful by nature, there are many who think otherwise because of this ridiculous doctrine.
I am also weary of correcting your gross distortions and misperceptions about Christian Teaching.
You start from a wrong premise. Your premise is that Adams nature changed when there is no Scriptural support for it.
According to this, Adam & Eve had a sin nature before he sinned. They both had a strong inclination or an intense desire to attain that which came from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil.
The error is that drug addiction is not inherited. Cravings cannot be inherited.
Your arguments are so illogical because you keep using your doctrine to prove itself. Your arguments are so illogical because you keep starting from the premise of that which is in question.
Your arguments are so illogical because you keep contradicting yourself, for example:
“We are born sinners and we sin because we are sinners.” which contradicts “We sin by choice”.
&
“Babies are not evil” But you take this verse as literal:
Psalm 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
Please, let me know if there is a better responce than that which I posted. I plane on sending this to Sam.
Nobody has said that sin is God's fault or that the doctrine of Original Sin necessitates Divine Complicity. This is nothing more than a silly straw man that you and Darin have gone to great lengths to perpetuate. Sin is absolutely a free choice;
only because of the first sinful man, we are more inclined or disposed to sin because of our sinful natures, which we inherited from Adam.
In other words.
I am proving we have a sin nature by claiming that we inherited a sin nature.
It’s like this: say the abuse of alcohol has run rampant in a certain family; i.e., one's father and uncles and grandfather all have had a history of abusing it. Now, if the son takes up alcohol, and abuses it like his father’s/uncles have done, it is incontrovertible that the fault and blame still lies with the sinner himself. He was the one who made the choice to begin drinking; he was the one who did not have the moral fortitude to stop; etc. That said, the sin of his fathers played a role. Because of their failures the son was more likely to fall into the same sin---maybe alcohol was always around as he grew up, or he was introduced to it at an impressionable age, etc.
See? The sinner (the son) is wholly complicit before God because of his free choice to moral failure; yet the original sin of his father and uncles no doubt contributed to the son's being predisposed toward the same sin.
Being predisposed only proves that we have a favor towards something. Favor towards anything is not inherited; it is a choice of values that we have assembled, choosing to obey our conscience or choosing to ignoring our conscience.
1. The Bible says that God forms us in the womb. God is our Creator. Therefore if we are born with a sinful nature, that sinful nature is the product of God's hands. If we are sinners because of the way we are born, then it is not our fault that we are sinners, it is God's fault.
2. Since God is our maker, designer, creator, who forms us in the womb, we are actually created with a bent towards obedience because God has given us a conscience. The Bible says that the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the law, which show the work of the law written on their hearts. When we do what is right, we naturally feel good. When we do what is wrong, we naturally feel bad. In this way God has given us a natural tendency to obey his law. It makes sense that if God is our Creator, that He would create us with a bent, bias, or tendency for holiness. But while we do have a natural tendency to obey the law of God, when our conscience is developed, we also have a natural tendency towards self-gratification because of the natural desires of the flesh God has given us. But we can choose to gratify those desires in a lawful or unlawful way. For example, God has given us our attraction for the opposite sex and our desire for sex, but men freely choose to be fornicators, homosexuals, etc. They choose to gratify their flesh in an unnatural way.
3. Yes a child can inherit a craving for drugs or alcohol. This is physical, not spiritual or moral. You can inherit what is physical from your parents, since your substance comes from them, but you cannot inherit what is spiritual or moral from your parents. If a person is born a crack baby, with unnatural cravings for drugs, that does not make them a sinner. They inherit temptation, not sin. And the cravings eventually go away, as nature corrects itself. But the person becomes a sinner when they choose to do drugs when they clearly know better. You cannot say that we are sinners because we inherit a tendency towards sin from Adam, because having a tendency towards sin is not the same thing as sinning. A sinner is a sinner for sinning, not for inheriting a tendency towards sin.
4. The Early Church were not "Pelagians", but Pelagius held to the doctrines of the Early Church. The Early Church taught that all men have free will and that men are sinners by choice, not by nature. They said these things because the Gnostic's were teaching that men were sinners because of their nature and denied that sinners had a free will. Augustine converted from Gnosticism and brought these doctrines into the Church, he influenced Luther and Calvin, and almost every seminary and Bible College in America today is spreading these Gnostic views of human nature.
Sam Randles writes:
This exchange won't work well if you fail to address the substance of my e-mails. Most of the points I brought up you simply evaded. Simply stating your beliefs over and over does nothing to further dialogue or to defend your intellectual indiscretions. Still, I don't have the time to retread.
1. The Bible says that God forms us in the womb. God is our Creator. Therefore if we are born with a sinful nature, that sinful nature is the product of God's hands.
This is a sad argument, I must say. God created Adam and saw that His creation was good. Adam did not have a sin nature, for it was by Adam that sin entered the earth, and we, his children, inherited "original sin". Therefore God could not possibly be 'at fault' for causing man to be sinful. God created man in Adam and Adam was without flaw (yet with free choice, which he abused).
2. Since God is our maker, designer, creator, who forms us in the womb, we are actually created with a bent towards obedience because God has given us a conscience. The Bible says that the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the law, which show the work of the law written on their hearts. When we do what is right, we naturally feel good. When we do what is wrong, we naturally feel bad. In this way God has given us a natural tendency to obey his law. It makes sense that if God is our Creator, that He would create us with a bent, bias, or tendency for holiness. But while we do have a natural tendency to obey the law of God, when our conscience is developed, we also have a natural tendency towards self-gratification because of the natural desires of the flesh God has given us. But we can choose to gratify those desires in a lawful or unlawful way. For example, God has given us our attraction for the opposite sex and our desire for sex, but men freely choose to be fornicators, homosexuals, etc. They choose to gratify their flesh in an unnatural way.
3. Yes a child can inherit a craving for drugs or alcohol. This is physical, not spiritual or moral. You can inherit what is physical from your parents, since your substance comes from them, but you cannot inherit what is spiritual or moral from your parents. If a person is born a crack baby, with unnatural cravings for drugs, that does not make them a sinner. They inherit temptation, not sin. And the cravings eventually go away, as nature corrects itself. But the person becomes a sinner when they choose to do drugs when they clearly know better. You cannot say that we are sinners because we inherit a tendency towards sin from Adam, because having a tendency towards sin is not the same thing as sinning. A sinner is a sinner for sinning, not for inheriting a tendency towards sin.
4. The Early Church were not "Pelagians", but Pelagius held to the doctrines of the Early Church. The Early Church taught that all men have free will and that men are sinners by choice, not by nature. They said these things because the Gnostic's were teaching that men were sinners because of their nature and denied that sinners had a free will. Augustine converted from Gnosticism and brought these doctrines into the Church, he influenced Luther and Calvin, and almost every seminary and Bible College in America today is spreading these Gnostic views of human nature.
Sam Randles writes:
This exchange won't work well if you fail to address the substance of my e-mails. Most of the points I brought up you simply evaded. Simply stating your beliefs over and over does nothing to further dialogue or to defend your intellectual indiscretions. Still, I don't have the time to retread.
1. The Bible says that God forms us in the womb. God is our Creator. Therefore if we are born with a sinful nature, that sinful nature is the product of God's hands.
This is a sad argument, I must say. God created Adam and saw that His creation was good. Adam did not have a sin nature, for it was by Adam that sin entered the earth, and we, his children, inherited "original sin". Therefore God could not possibly be 'at fault' for causing man to be sinful. God created man in Adam and Adam was without flaw (yet with free choice, which he abused).
If God didn’t to inaugurate the inheritance of a sin nature and we came into this world as Adam did, God would be free of blame (which He is & this is how it is)
If we are sinners because of the way we are born, then it is not our fault that we are sinners, it is God's fault.
We are not sinners because of the way we are born. No Orthodox Christian has ever taught that. This is a ridiculous straw man that bears no resemblance to true Christian doctrine.
More specifically:
We sin because we are sinners.
So, if we are born sinners, & we sin because we are sinners; that would mean that we sin because we are born.
We are sinful because we have, at various times, chosen to transgress God's law.
More specifically:
Our sin makes us sinful, but we sin because we are sinners.
Man's first such transgression in the garden predisposed us to be more likely to be sinful than holy, yet blame for our rebellion has always lied in the same place: the individual.
We claim that God did not make us predisposed to sin just because Adam sinned, but that we do what we want. Doing what we want from what we put our affections on, which are the values that we have assembled, choosing to obey our conscience or choosing to ignoring our conscience. That which makes our values are the things which are important to us. The things which become important to us are our evaluation of the Eternal compared to the temporal.
If we life for this life only, well then...
However, if we are living for the next life, which is eternal, well then...
The knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10, Prov 1:7; 9:10).
This is something I would ask that you try to understand, as it is inextricable from your misconception of Christian teaching.
2. Since God is our maker, designer, creator, who forms us in the womb, we are actually created with a bent towards obedience because God has given us a conscience. The Bible says that the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the law, which show the work of the law written on their hearts. When we do what is right, we naturally feel good. When we do what is wrong, we naturally feel bad. In this way God has given us a natural tendency to obey his law. It makes sense that if God is our Creator, that He would create us with a bent, bias, or tendency for holiness.
We were, at the beginning, created with such a bent. Since Adam's Fall this bent was perverted.
We were, at the beginning, created with such a bent. Since Adam's Fall this bent was perverted.
First, you must prove that this bent was perverted before you claim it as fact.
As Psalm 51 says "I am evil, conceived in iniquity". What you are doing is confusing pre-fall and post-fall man.
Man was created good; but the fall corrupted him.
Does a child have a "natural tendency" to obey his parents, or does it learn quickly to lie and transgress? Indeed it does:
With that, we could day that Lucifer had a sin nature; along with Adam & Eve before they sinned.
"the wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth..."
Unfortunately you not only have Reason and Experience opposed to you, but Holy Scripture contravenes you at every point.
But while we do have a natural tendency to obey the law of God, when our conscience is developed, we also have a natural tendency towards self-gratification because of the natural desires of the flesh God has given us. But we can choose to gratify those desires in a lawful or unlawful way. For example, God has given us our attraction for the opposite sex and our desire for sex, but men freely choose to be fornicators, homosexuals, etc. They choose to gratify their flesh in an unnatural way.
This is getting to the point where you are indulging in the nonsensical. If we are naturally disposed toward adherence to the law, how do you explain our consistent aptitude toward "gratify(ing) those desires in a lawful or unlawful way"?
This is getting to the point where you are indulging in the nonsensical. If we are naturally disposed toward adherence to the law, how do you explain our consistent aptitude toward "gratify(ing) those desires in a lawful or unlawful way"?
The doctrine of Pelagianism does not provide an explanatory framework for this question.
We, who accept the tenets of orthodox Christianity, can readily tell you that our consistent history of an inclination toward disobeying the law can be traced back to our tainted natures. "The heart is deceitfully wicked..."
If you don’t want to call it an excuse, then you’re only attempting to find an answer while missing the obvious answer; which is free will.
Then you attempt to understand why (with free will) the consistent history of freely disobeying the law, so you blame it on our nature which God creates in each individual, thus criminalizing God.
3. Yes a child can inherit a craving for drugs or alcohol. This is physical, not spiritual or moral.
Your saying this, makes me wonder if you even read in full my earlier response. My analogy demonstrated the distinction between a predisposition toward sin on the one hand and a causal relation to sin on the other. Of course we do not genetically inherit sin; for sin is bound up in the heart. You even verify this when you point out that we inherit a "craving" for drugs or alcohol!
Your saying this, makes me wonder if you even read in full my earlier response. My analogy demonstrated the distinction between a predisposition toward sin on the one hand and a causal relation to sin on the other. Of course we do not genetically inherit sin; for sin is bound up in the heart. You even verify this when you point out that we inherit a "craving" for drugs or alcohol!
It is not cravings that are sinful, but the indulgences of them; just as we do not inherit our parent's sin (analogous to inheriting their abuses of alcohol), but rather we inherit their inclination toward such (analogous to inheriting their "cravings").
You see? You yourself provide a very cogent support of Original Sin by stating that we inherit from our parents certain tendencies toward sin (ie, the sin nature).
When you say that children "can inherit a craving" (we could use the term "inclination" here) toward "drugs or alcohol" (we can use "sinful behavior" here), you, for the first time in this debate, align yourself with the Christian belief that we inherited Adam's "craving" for sin; that while Adam's sin did not cause our sin, never the less it created in us an evil disposition toward it.
Mankind has a disposition toward that which we want from a value system built by an assembling of choosing to obey our conscience or choosing to ignoring our conscience
You cannot say that we are sinners because we inherit a tendency towards sin from Adam, because having a tendency towards sin is not the same thing as sinning. A sinner is a sinner for sinning, not for inheriting a tendency towards sin.
Precisely! Our tendency toward sin is not causal. We, with free wills, choose to transgress God's law. The role our sin nature places is, I think, facilitative. Instead of having desires that are naturally oriented toward holiness, we are, due to Adam's sin, oriented toward sinfulness. Still, a choice to commit sinful acts is just that: a free choice. Again, I must thank you for making our point for us.
Precisely! Our tendency toward sin is not causal. We, with free wills, choose to transgress God's law. The role our sin nature places is, I think, facilitative. Instead of having desires that are naturally oriented toward holiness, we are, due to Adam's sin, oriented toward sinfulness. Still, a choice to commit sinful acts is just that: a free choice. Again, I must thank you for making our point for us.
4. The Early Church were not "Pelagians", but Pelagius held to the doctrines of the Early Church. The Early Church taught that all men have free will and that men are sinners by choice, not by nature.
Those who hold to Original Sin do not believe that men are sinners by choice.
Those who hold to Original Sin do not believe that men are sinners by choice.
Your maintaining this perpetuates either: a nasty lie, arrant stupidity, or total ignorance.
Your obvious strawmen are no good anymore as I am not one to fall prey to your delusional arguments (nor is my father, nor any of the other good men who have combatted your heresy).
We who believe in Original Sin do not believe that we are sinful by nature.
Yes you do. If you personally do not believe that we are sinful by nature, there are many who think otherwise because of this ridiculous doctrine.
We hold that we sin by free choice, and that our sinful natures make us more inclined to be sinful than to be righteous. Now please, read that over once or twice, as I am of correcting your gross distortions and misperceptions about Christian Teaching..
Let me make a syllogism out of what you said earlier, and see if it makes more sense.
You said, verbatim: "a child can inherit a craving for drugs and alcohol". Before I flesh out the argument, lets analyze the terms.
(1) from whom does a child "inherit" attributes? Obviously, his/her parents. Who is the original parent of man? Adam, the archetype. Or at the very least we could say (as per the transitive relation): if A (child) inherits something from B (parents), and B inherits something from C (Adam), then A inherited it from C.
You said, verbatim: "a child can inherit a craving for drugs and alcohol". Before I flesh out the argument, lets analyze the terms.
(1) from whom does a child "inherit" attributes? Obviously, his/her parents. Who is the original parent of man? Adam, the archetype. Or at the very least we could say (as per the transitive relation): if A (child) inherits something from B (parents), and B inherits something from C (Adam), then A inherited it from C.
(2) what is a craving?
The term is typically defined as strong inclination or an intense desire to attain something. Fairly self-explanatory; someone who craves something is strongly inclined toward it (though the term itself does not necessitate that he must).
The term is typically defined as strong inclination or an intense desire to attain something. Fairly self-explanatory; someone who craves something is strongly inclined toward it (though the term itself does not necessitate that he must).
According to this, Adam & Eve had a sin nature before he sinned. They both had a strong inclination or an intense desire to attain that which came from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil.
(3) "drugs and alcohol" here are synonymous with "sinful behavior" (per the context of abuse).
(4) we see that "child" can be substituted with "Adam" (per one), "craving" can be substituted for "desire or inclination" (per two), and "(the abuse of) drugs and alcohol) can be substituted for "sin" (per three).
Now, keeping in mind the property of identity that states if A = B, and B = C, then A = C, your statement--which, remember, was meant to be in defense of the Pelagian Heresy--is roughly equivalent to saying:
"A person can inherit from Adam a strong inclination to commit sinful behaviors".
(4) we see that "child" can be substituted with "Adam" (per one), "craving" can be substituted for "desire or inclination" (per two), and "(the abuse of) drugs and alcohol) can be substituted for "sin" (per three).
Now, keeping in mind the property of identity that states if A = B, and B = C, then A = C, your statement--which, remember, was meant to be in defense of the Pelagian Heresy--is roughly equivalent to saying:
"A person can inherit from Adam a strong inclination to commit sinful behaviors".
I think that statement speaks for itself; indeed, it is a clear articulation of Original Sin. Thus, I am forced to conclude: you are not really a Pelagian, or your arguments are so illogical that they make it seem as if you are. Neither one is, for you, an attractive proposition.
Your arguments are so illogical because you keep contradicting yourself, for example:
“We are born sinners and we sin because we are sinners.” which contradicts “We sin by choice”.
&
“Babies are not evil” But you take this verse as literal:
Psalm 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
Please, let me know if there is a better responce than that which I posted. I plane on sending this to Sam.