What exactly happened in the fall?

[Guest]

Paidion- are you saying that Adam passed on his "propensity to sin" only because he sinned?

The reason I ask this is that scientists used to believe that parents could pass down ACQUIRED characteristics to their offspring. The example I remember is that a horse-like animal had to stretch it's neck out to reach higher vegetation, and it passed this longer neck down to its offspring. of course we know that this is not correct; if a man cuts off his arm, and his son does, and his grandson does, etc etc, the great great great great grandson will still be born with an arm.

i guess what i am asking is whether you think Adam's sin actually "mutated" his genes, for lack of a better word. these "mutated" genes, complete with propensity to sin, could indeed be passed on.

TK

[Guest]

i guess what i am asking is whether you think Adam's sin actually "mutated" his genes, for lack of a better word. these "mutated" genes, complete with propensity to sin, could indeed be passed on.

Yes, and not only were the genes of man altered, but that of other members of the animal kingdom as well --------- or do you think God created mosquitoes just to irritate people and other mammals?

And did God create harmful germs and bacteria in order to cause disease and suffering?

[Guest]

I happen to agree with you paidion-- i just wasnt sure if that was where you were coming from.

since flies and mosquitos started biting after the fall, i wonder if cows and horses etc also developed that "twitch reflex" they have to shoo off flies and mosquitoes right after the fall as well.

so much conjecture, but kind of fun.

TK

[Guest]

I don't subscribe to the idea that anything but humans were affected by the fall. So I'd say that mosquitoes always preyed on humans, but we didn't develop the nice little allergy to their saliva until after the fall.

I always go back to this question: if God had created life on other planets, would it have been affected by Adam's sin?

[Guest]

There is a really good series of articles on this topic at reclaimingthemind.org.
D.

[Guest]

I always go back to this question: if God had created life on other planets, would it have been affected by Adam's sin?

Seth, please explain why you always go back to this question.

In any case, this is the planet in which sin was introduced. All Terran life was affected.

I see no reason to believe that life on other planets (if it exists) would be affected in the least by Adam's sin..

[Guest]

I always go back to this question: if God had created life on other planets, would it have been affected by Adam's sin?

Didn't CS Lewis' space trilogy answer that question?

[Guest]

paidion wrote:

I see no reason to believe that life on other planets (if it exists) would be affected in the least by Adam's sin..

which is why, of course, they are so intellectually advanced and therefore able to develop technology that allows them to travel at warp speeds to visit our tiny corner of the universe. maybe. at least that was my HS history teacher's theory.

TK

[Guest]

Seth, please explain why you always go back to this question.

In any case, this is the planet in which sin was introduced. All Terran life was affected.

Because to me, the issue is, did Nature fall, or did Man fall? Obviously, we all agree Man fell, but why do we think anything other than Man was affected?

Of course, I'm an old-earther, so I don't think that death entered the world at the Fall (at least not plant and animal death).

I think what happened was precisely what God said would happen. They died. Oh, not all at once of course...but they certainly *started* dying. To go from living forever to being mortal in any sense is "dying".

I find the whole "God meant Spiritual Death" thing to be an interesting theory...but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It seems a retrofitted theory to account for the fact that the word "day" is used, and since they didn't literally perish that day (literal day), God must have meant something else. Why assume this? I prefer to think that, since God said they would "die" that day, that they did. It's just our understanding of what "day" meant that's flawed. I take it to be as literal a "day" as in Gen 2:4. I suppose in the end, it's death or day that has to bend from the literal in order for the passage to work out for us (emphasis on us).

Oh, and yes, Christopher, it's covered by Lewis...love the first two books of that series. The third one...not so much.

[Guest]

i just finished re-reading books 1 & 2 a couple of months ago. much more meaningful than when i read them 20 or so years ago.

TK