Sin

[eik]

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I don't accept the premise of your question: "God created mankind with a propensity to sin." That is talking back to God. Roms 9:20.

The thing is that Jesus said that the kingdom of God belongs to children. Luke 18:16. A proclivity to sin comes from being exposed to sin. People grow up into being sinners. Adam sinned when exposed to Eve's sin. Eve sinned when exposed to Satan's sin. God made mankind weak to be sure, and sin derives from weakness. Yet to impute God with directly creating a propensity to sin in people is quite wrong.

That God tolerates sin and sinners, allows sinners to corrupt other sinners, allows sin to deceive people, allow deception by the devil to result in sin etc. is not to "create a propensity" to sin outside of the actions of sinners and evil angels. Sin happens through all kinds of agents of God that he allows to work to promote own ends, which are achieved through his mercy. Let no man say: "I sinned because God caused it or created it me." 

So the doctrine of original sin, as formulated in Manichaean terms, whereby sin is associated with the mere existence of the material world, and an inherent property of it, may need revisiting.

[TJ's]

Okay I'm going to knit pick - this   

When beginning studies or sermons, you know that you have to examine every word and sentence..hence I have to monitor every word I speak /type/ [hence half the words I type are deleted.


Romans 9:20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"


Is an excellent answer and scripture.


However :

People grow up into being sinners. Adam sinned when exposed to Eve's sin.

[Not sure why we have to do this - I suppose it all comes from the role model idea]


Grow up into sinning ? as if we are born perfect and are corrupted by the world ?

As if Adam was created perfect and was corrupted by Eve ...


From experience I know that children are not born innocent - they may be perfect - but they are not innocent ..

From the time they are born and when they learn to speak - they begin to learn the word "no"- they begin to learn limits and they will test their limits [children are not silly]

Don't tell me they begin life as God intended - as God never intended life to be the way it is now for many..



Children were never created perfect - of course they are perfect in their parents eyes - [though not all parents are the same]

You only have to look @ Cain and Abel - to see who God chooses and does not. regardles of parental care

[eik]

Grow up into sinning ? as if we are born perfect and are corrupted by the world ?

As if Adam was created perfect and was corrupted by Eve ...

The concept of "perfection" of which you speak seems to be idealistic, and too perfect, as in being absolute and other-worldly, whereas it is always relative both in the bible and in life. For there are different degrees of perfection accorded to different things and different situations. So Rahab was praised and shown mercy Heb 11:31, whereas others of her profession were cursed for being in that profession at all without the possibility of mercy, Lev 21:9.

The perfection of Adam was relative to his position before God as "the first man, made from the dust of the earth" 1 Cor 15:47. What was expected from him was very limited: only that he would not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The perfection of Christ was relative to his position before God as "the one who came from heaven." His perfection was of rather a different category to Adam's at birth and at death.

Thus to say that anyone is "perfect" is meaningless unless it merely denotes a state of not sinning, but sin itself is relative to a person's knowledge and situation. As the Paul concedes, what is permissible for one isn't permissible for another. We find it difficult to attain to Christ's standard, and yet we are also lumbered with the curse of Adam due to the "knowledge of good and evil being in the world" that we cannot undo and which is why children go astray from birth, because they are "born into sin." Ps 51:5. They are surrounded by sin from birth. By the time they are 5 they have lived 5 years in a world surrounded by sinners and sin.

Adam was corrupted by Eve, and Eve by the lies of Satan. That is not say that either attained to Christ's state of perfection, but before they were corrupted, they were sinless enough to abide with God.

[melliff]

I don't accept the premise of your question: "God created mankind with a propensity to sin."

How can it be otherwise?  God created Adam and one thousand years later destroyed all living things in the Great Flood because mankind had sinned (with the exception of Noah and his family).  Being all knowing, he would have known that mankind was destined to fail but he created it that way anyway.  Had he wanted mankind to succeed, he could have removed the propensity to sin. 

[davetaff]

I don't accept the premise of your question: "God created mankind with a propensity to sin."

How can it be otherwise?  God created Adam and one thousand years later destroyed all living things in the Great Flood because mankind had sinned (with the exception of Noah and his family).  Being all knowing, he would have known that mankind was destined to fail but he created it that way anyway.  Had he wanted mankind to succeed, he could have removed the propensity to sin. 

Hi Melliff
Thank you for your post just a couple of questions how do you know there was a thousand years between The creation of Adam and the flood and where in scripture dose it say all those on the ark were righteous the only one I can find is Noah him self.

God could not remove the propensity to sin because we would only be robots programed by God we have to be able to choose between good and evil and the good we must choose is Love to Love God and our fellow man.

Love and peace
Dave

[eik]

I don't accept the premise of your question: "God created mankind with a propensity to sin."

How can it be otherwise?  God created Adam and one thousand years later destroyed all living things in the Great Flood because mankind had sinned (with the exception of Noah and his family).  Being all knowing, he would have known that mankind was destined to fail but he created it that way anyway.  Had he wanted mankind to succeed, he could have removed the propensity to sin.

"How can it be otherwise?"

Don't forget that when Adam and Eve were formed, there was no sin in the world and no propensity to sin. It wasn't until an other-wordly entity came along that mankind cultivated its own propensity to sin by obeying the devil and not God. Then "sin was in the world" Rom 5:13, and everything took off.

A propensity to sin is cultivated by each indivdual from birth, rather than humanity being deliberately tainted by God. This is why Christ, although a human being, didn't have a propensity to sin derived from his flesh. For whatever you taint mankind with, on account of its humanity, you taint Christ with too because he was made like unto his brethren in all things Heb. 2:17 (you can tell I'm not a Catholic).

I think what you may mean is a propensity to be deceived by the devil, or else a tendency to imitate other sinners, as Adam of Eve without deception. Christ wasn't deceived and didn't imitate those who were. Deception by the devil and imitation of sinners results from lack of faith, when faith is tested. Adam and Eve failed the test, so do we.

God could only have removed the propensity for earthlings to be deceived by sin, and to imitate sin, which results from sin being in the world, by destroying the world, the devil and all his works, which will happen eventually, as prophesied.

[melliff]

Thank you for your post just a couple of questions how do you know there was a thousand years between The creation of Adam and the flood and where in scripture dose it say all those on the ark were righteous the only one I can find is Noah him self.

Regarding the 1000 years, I am using Bishop Usher's timeline.  I assumed that all those aboard the ark were without sin, otherwise, why were they treated differently to the rest of the world?

[melliff]

A propensity to sin is cultivated by each indivdual from birth,

Exactly, it is part of human nature. It is the way God created us. We do not have any choice in the matter.  The way we behave is a function of many variables, our environment, our parents, our education and most importantly, our nature as human beings.  That nature is constrained by the way God created us.  Had he given us the ability to see into the future, so that we could see the consequences of our actions, then we might do things differently.  But we do not have that ability.  God could have created mankind very differently but he chose not to.  He created us to be sinners with no choice in the matter.