Shame or guilt
In an online group of colleagues a friend reminded me of something that I think would help Alan in his search to understand how Adam and Eve's sin has anything to do with him. Alan is right to say that he is not guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve, however Adam and Eve(and others) have brought shame on the human race through their disobedience of God. Shame is communal and therefore we all share in that shame and need our collective honor restored. Since Jesus lived a perfectly human life in relationship to God He has restored/redeemed human honor from the shame of sin. Does that makes sense? I owe thanks to Brian for reminding me of this aspect of sin that we learned in seminary.
posted by Travis at 1:39 PM
7 Comments:
Travis,
I am not sure it helps me. How does a specific sin long ago affect my life? What is sin? What is my sin?
Let me see if I can connect community and sin in the ways you speak of.
Individual focus is idolatry. God deemed the individual without relationship as 'not good'. Relationships, community, bonds of love are the good of Gods design. Sin breaks community.
God and true judgment come from beyond time and space. God is at the beginning and the end. Perhaps space-time separation of sins and the resulting spiritual deadness don't mean anything. Adam and Eve both choose self-ness (idolatry) and broke all relationships (God, wife, friend). However, we join them in confirming our choice of individual over community so we are just as culpable.
Inside of time from our finite position in creation means there was a first sin for us and for humanity. But this is not true for God. My first sin (choice of individualism over community) confirmed my 'inheritance' of sin nature. In a sense, I have been always dead to God because I, at some point in time and space, confirmed my spiritual deadness through hateful sins against my neighbor, wife, and God.
My sin IS the first sin, too. But God has entered a point in time and space to redeem me through an act of love towards all mankind. But the cross event gives life for all time -- past, present, and future. Because I have at a point in time humbled myself before God to receive God's forgiveness through Jesus, then I have now been made alive at a point in time. But I have always been alive to God from his Eternity.
This 'outside of time' thing for God is very useful for theology. From man's perception there is a motion through time, a sequence of events. To God and maybe my 'god-likeness' there is a timeless quality.
The problem is that I cannot really take God 'point-of-view'... because God has not 'point-of-view'. It all seems like impossible philosophy. so be it.
Travis,
I don't really think that individualism is equivalent to sin. Rather self-centered worship (self-aggrandisement) is probably a better description of sin. We have to recognize that God made us individuals. Individualism is a beauty in God's creation, too. But the individual without loving relationships is not good.
I do think that America worships the individual, which should be considered a Christian heresy. In the other extreme, when one raises community above the individual one embraces the heresies of Hegel and Marx. That is the neat thing about Genesis; it suggests that both extremes are 'not good'.
Travis,
You are using a Christian argument, one that I understand very well, but it doesn't apply to my thinking. Remember, I don't accept the premise...
If I have a lack of confidence in the historicity presented in the Biblical documents, it also means I have a lack of confidence in the present Christian theology. Your focus, and I understand why, is placed on Jesus. I say Jesus has nothing to do with anything until we can get sin placed into the picture and need a reason for a Messiah in that fashion. Many issues have to be resolved before I can have a discussion about the corporate nature of sin and whether I accept the account that Jesus was divine.
I'm starting from zero, the rug got pulled out, I don't want to make the mistake of assuming something to be true and living a life based upon self-deception.
Philosophical Issues: How can we know God and God's nature? Is it through revelation, or only through philosophical thought or some combination of the two or some additional characteristics. These are questions of Philosophy that must be answered first. A whole framework has to be built: How is history understood, what is the certainty of knowledge, questions of logic, etc.
As an aside: I don't discount revelation a-priori, the issue I have with revelation is how do I place confidence in the messenger, a philosophical question. I mean this rhetorically, not necessarily looking for a response, I know the arguments for the reliability of the Bible. As noted many times and should be obvious by now, my confidence in the Biblical documents is reasonably low, with respect to revelation. I do consider most of the writing to be based around historical events, but not necessarily written to be regarded as a recording of history. I believe the words on the pages have been reasonably accurately transmitted, what I don't accept, and as we have already reviewed, is what the words say, and most importantly, have a tremendous amount of confusion regarding how they should be interpreted. Confusion might give the wrong impression, I believe I understand how the words should be understood...and that is a big reason why I no longer identify myself with Christian theology.
Theological Issues: Assuming some progress can be made philosophically only then can a discussion about sin be made. Until then, there is no differentiation of Christian theology versus any other system of theology. For now, philosophical issues are the only ones that matter, theology is without meaning until a philosophical framework can be constructed within which to place it.
I have an entire life devoted to Christian thinking, it isn't easy to leave behind and I don't necessarily think it is wise to too quickly disregard it. The human psyche is complex and doesn't like to change a worldview too quickly. If there were no peer pressure, most of my social group is Christian and my life has been affected by the change in my ideology, it would be much easier. But we are social creatures, so it is the social influence that has the most profound affect on our belief systems. I have managed to pierce that veil and have to be ever vigilant to avoid that pitfall again.
The focus for the next period of my life is to tackle these philosophical issues. Assuming I can gain comfort with something there, theology can re-enter and the discussion of "how can I get started?" can return with some effectiveness. I don't expect to work this out in these blogs, but it does help, me anyway, to read other's thoughts and express my own.
Again, to everyone, I appreciate the responses and the time you have taken.
Alan
Travis,
I have been thinking about your blog on sin and I think I missed the point. Adam and Eve (who ever they are or aren't) experienced sin (whatever that is) and their decision infected all humanity some how.
Your point was about community not about how Adam's personal sin infected my personal righteousness. Let me rethink the community aspect of sin.
The Jewish view of sin involves community. Sin breaks the shalom (peace) of the community. This is not the greek view. From Socrates in Plato's apology he describes his pursuit of personal goodness. The greek view is that I own my personal righteousness and my personal actions taint my personal righteousness. Gentile Christains failed to incorporate the Jewish communal reprocussions of sin. Rather the Desert Fathers (St. Anthony and others) sought to shield themselves against personal sin through celibacy, fasting, and separation. This is not Jesus' view or Jewish community view. Jesus always referred to sin as a breaking of relationships and righteousness as shalom in relationship. His healing and forgiving was followed by an exhortation that related to re-entering into the sholam of the community.
So Adam and Eve bring sin into the world, that is, they bring brokenness to their marriage, kids, community, etc. Every relationship is broken. It is not a matter of Adam's or Eve's personal righteousness affecting our personal righteousness. It is a matter of relationships broken. They are separated (they feel naked before each other). They are separated from God (cast out of the garden). Their brokenness in relationship influences their kids, etc. We now live in a broken world and God must find a way to bring and teach peace (shalom). We also look forward to the new earth when shalom is brought back in fullness.
I think the brokenness of the shalom community was more your point. My early blog was trying to figure out how my sin is tied to Adam's sin. Unfortunately, it had the point of view of personal righteousness rather than community brokenness.
Vince
Vince,
Yeah, I think that's how sin ought to be understood first. Primarily, sin is the broken relationship all of humanity has with God. Secondarily, sin is something we each experience as a result of our personal disobedience for which we are held responsible. Theologically this could be dealt with in terms of justification and sanctification. In baptism we are joined to Christ and the new community of whole relationship to God that He has instituted. As a result of baptism we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit and invited to live life as friends of God.
I'm just trying to figure out if I can post a comment as a blogger. I don't blog very much.
Hey Travis/Vince,
Glad to see you guys talking, I think Travis got to know Barth and Tillich quite a bit in seminary and I know Vince is pretty familiar with both at this point too (i also think you both side with Barth over Tillich). I know both of you fairly well I think and I think you share a lot of respectable views about Christianity and what it means for the world.
For Alan I would suggest studying epistemology explicitly and at some point in that process reading Wittgenstein's "On Certainty". I can't say what the destination of that journey would be but I think it helped me untie my knotted understanding.
Until then, just keep writing that Yet Another Testament, be careful that people don't Plagiarize your Apologetic arguments and of course the preeminent rule of the Church of Mike, pay your 10%!
Mike
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