Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Can you explain what it means that sin separated man from God?
It implies a before and after. Was man united to God at one point and then became separated?
Separation from God refers to a spiritual separation from God due to man's righteousness not measuring up to God's perfect standard of righteousness. A lack of relationship with him being the result.
As for man being united to God as some point and then becoming separated, that could be the case with or without a historical Adam. At some point humans became/become morally responsible to God for their thoughts and actions and failed/fail and fell/fall and God needed to do something about it because he wanted a relationship with mankind. That involved Jesus going to the cross at the right time in human history.
Separation from God refers to a spiritual separation from God due to man's righteousness not measuring up to God's perfect standard of righteousness. A lack of relationship with him being the result.
Is man inherently capable of measuring up or inherently incapable?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Way
As for man being united to God as some point and then becoming separated, that could be the case with or without a historical Adam. At some point humans became/become morally responsible to God for their thoughts and actions and failed/fail and fell/fall and God needed to do something about it because he wanted a relationship with mankind. That involved Jesus going to the cross at the right time in human history.
Along the same lines, is it within the realm of possibility for any individual human to not fail/fall throughout the course of a lifetime? Do you believe in a "collective fall", or does each human fail/fall individually?
Historically orthodox Christianity posits that the reason we suffer and die is because of Adam's choice to sin. It is good and right that we perceive suffering and death as unnatural, as not being right. This is because God did not make the world that way. We brought suffering and death upon ourselves through our choice to disobey God and taste of the knowledge of good and evil on our own terms rather than on God's terms. If we perceive the world as being "off-kilter", that something is not right that needs to be remedied, then we are correct in that perception.
The evolutionary paradigm posits that the reason we suffer and die is because that's how God made the world. How then can anyone's perception that something in the world is not right be justified? What problem, if any, does Christianity solve?
WHAT??!! Not the evolutionary paradigm I learned about! The evolutionary paradigm posits, that here was no master plan, and no Master Planner. Things just evolved after primitive protozoa formed on Earth partly as a result of electrical activity in the atmosphere.
My reply actually does address it. Humans are the product of evolution. With or without an historical Adam man still has a sin problem which needed to be solved. Therefore Jesus came into the world to resolve that problem.
Death, including human death is a natural part of life and in strictly naturalistic terms is a good thing because otherwise the planet could not support a vastly overpopulated planet.
So by our very constitution it is not possible for us to measure up to God's standard of righteousness, and it seems that this must have been by design. At the same time I know from your previous posts that you believe in eternal punishment and hell.
If God created man (by means of evolution) with a constitution that is incapable of living up to His standard of righteousness, can you explain how God would be just in sending anyone to hell?
It seems to me that man was set up to fail from the very beginning. Can you explain how that isn't so?
WHAT??!! Not the evolutionary paradigm I learned about! The evolutionary paradigm posits, that here was no master plan, and no Master Planner. Things just evolved after primitive protozoa formed on Earth partly as a result of electrical activity in the atmosphere.
Stop dragging religion into a secular theory.
This is the Christianity subforum, and we are dealing with the implications of evolution specifically within a Christian paradigm.
As a sidebar, evolution is not a "secular theory". I would posit that it's an anti-theistic ideology.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
