[emergent evolution]
gink (gingk) n. Slang: An odd or peculiar person.
[Cf. dial. E. gink trick]
a fallen world?
Here is the problem I have with the idea of a "fallen world” [a “fallen humanity”]; it does not express the reality God, it can't. It can only express evil. In that, the reality of evil, because it is evil, can not express the reality of God. If the world is fallen, then the 15yr old I saw give her food to a homeless man did it for some other reason than to share her food with someone in need. if the world is fallen, then the 90yr old women taking in aids babies is doing it for more than the love of the child and the care of those in need. If the world is fallen, we must have an alternative reason, or desire, for helping people other than helping people. If the world is fallen, God can not be in the world, because [as traditional theology teaches] God can not be in the fallen/evil.
If we live in a fallen world, and we are never “outside” that world, "redemption" can only truly happen after this world - and with that thought, "the kingdom of God" can not be "here and now" - and I believe that the kingdom of God is here and now. When we think of a "fallen world" we can not express the salvation offered in Christ, because we always turn back to the fall and not the resurrection. We are stuck in the words and reality of “the fallen” and are unable to speak the words of salvation. I can not live in the fall, it is too negative, and I need to life in the resurrection, the light of Christ; and it is a place where [as Paul puts it] I “moved out from.”
When ever I hear terms like "original sin," “fallen humanity” and "the fallen world" it is seldom accompanied with the idea that salvation is here, now - but that it comes at another time. No matter the statements, when we start with the fall we never pick ourselves up, we are “always fallen.” We always see the worse in people and we never see the possibility that Christianity can truly change a life. When we center our theology on “the fallen world” we find the drug addicts, the prostitutes, the criminal, and the “ugly” and we never see in them the possibility of salvation. We seek to punish those who do wrong, and justify that punishment via law, and we never see the power and love of grace. We do not move forward in Christ, because we use the excuse of being a fallen people to hold us back. We think in terms of what we can not do, because of the fall, and not on what we can do because of the resurrection.
I firmly believe we need to get past this idea of a "fallen world" and move to the idea that we are a people living in a new land, a land of Christ. I see it all the time in talking with those who have "come from church." When questioned as to why the church hurts its own, we are told that we do not move forward in out faith, because we are fallen; people in church treat you poorly, because we are fallen; people in the church talk and gossip, because we are fallen - yet, all those are not what we are told to be in scripture. When I hear "we are fallen" from church people, I wonder if they truly understand the Christian walk. Yet, in that the misguided theology of the fall, we forget that as a believer in Christ, we are made new, and in that we must act anew – not fallen, but resurrected.
posted by john o'keefe at 7:46 PM
12 Comments:
Perhaps it is our understanding of what it means to be a new creature in Christ that is actually fallen...
4:05 PM
I'm not sure who gave you such a horrible impression about the doctrine of total depravity, but what you have said in no way reflects the beauty and glory that is seen through it.
I agree with you that we should live our lives as resurrected (or perhaps "resurrecting," but I'll get to that in a moment), but by its very definition, to be ressurected means that at one point we were dead. It is important that we remember that we were once dead in sin because as soon as we forget, we abandon mercy and grace as meaningless. And as soon as we lose mercy and grace we loose sight of who God truly is. God becomes a deistic creator, Christ becomes a good teacher who puts on a good show, and the Holy Spirit is nothing more than a tingle in our spine. In the moment that we see the world and, most importantly, ourselves as fallen we eoncounter God more fully. We see a God of grace as well as wrath; of mercy as well as justice. And not only do we get a fuller glimpse of God but of humanity as well. When we accept that were dead in sin and that only by the grace of God are we redeemed and capable of any good we do not just see people as prostitutes drug dealers but as people with hope.
Hope is the key word here, because that is the key to who we are. We are a people in transition, resident aliens in what Aquinas called status viatoris. We are in a state of being "on the way." In his epistles, Paul says that Christians are saved, being saved, and will be saved. He intentionally uses three tenses to signify our pilgrimage between the damnation we were born into and the completion of our santification and salvation when we have "finished the race."
For the sake of brevity i will end here, but a quite side note, I'm not sure where you got your idea that God cannot be in what is fallen or evil unless the tradition you are referring to is gnostic or manichean. I can assure that the church fathers would not have taught this though.
6:18 PM
i'm sorry, but where did you get the impression that "i made" God into some cush toy? and where did you get the impression that i did not see hope? i think if you reread, you will see that I give God all "God's due" and that i see a vast aray of hope -
God can not exsist in evil, "a house can not be divided unto itself" :)
6:55 PM
Quite honestly, I didn't get the impression that you made God into a cush toy, that you don't see hope. What i was saying is that without the understanding of mankind as fallen (as well as the world due to that fall), that any remaining Christian idea (such as redemption) would eliminate hope (not in the direction of despair, but in the direction of its hopeless cousin "presumption") and distort God. You may very well hold a great deal of hope, but if this is so then it is in contradiction to your denial of a fallen world.
I think our greatest point of departure (and oddly enough a point of agreement as well) comes from your statement,
"No matter the statements, when we start with the fall we never pick ourselves up, we are “always fallen.”"
I would absolutely agree with the first part that when we begin with the fall we never pick ourselves up, specifically the idea that "we" never pick ourselves up. That is where true redemption rests. The bittersweet truth of our existence is that we are dead and there is nothing we can do about it. But God comes to us and places His Holy Spirit in us and "When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God"
In our death and decay, God puts His Spirit into us so that we can cry out to Him and recieve His grace. This is the true "foolishness" of god, that through death we are made alive. It is a difficult paradox, but a necessary one. The moment we loose sight of our death (our fallenness) we lose sight of our life.
I am a bit confused by your intepretation of Christ words refuting the idea that He is demon possessed. It seems that if we take this notion that God cannot be in what is evil seriously then we have a difficult time answering the question "How are we redeemed and transformed into vessels of the Holy Spirit?" It seems to me that, assuming the statement to be true, we have two options,
1) People are not evil. But if this is true then we are not in need of redemption in the first place.
2) That we are capable of making ourselves pure enough to be vessels of the Holy Spirit. But I fear that this position proposes a theory of human volition that would make Pelagius blush.
I agree with the overall tone of your post. The "fallen world" should not be used as a cop out by Christians and certainly shouldn't be the end of the Christian story. If we teach death we must preach life. To teach one without the other renders both meaningless.
10:36 PM
"...the idea of a "fallen world” [a “fallen humanity”]... does not express the reality [of] God, it can't. It can only express evil."
Whe I think of "fallenness", I think of a machine slowly wearing out, or suddenly malfunctioning. I think of entropy, an increase in chaos, or as I prefer, a decrease in order.
In an unfallen world, every good desire would have a sinless expression, and bad desires, "temptations", (those that would cause harm no matter how they are expressed) would be rejected or discussed with God.
In an unfallen world, even self-preservation and self-interest would play out without becoming selfishness.
Take for example the traditional market posed by Adam Smith's economic theories. Jim tills the soil for his family, and has extra to take to market. Meanwhile, Bill the blacksmith makes plows and other large tools, but doesn't have time to garden. Jim's self-interest feeds Bill, and Bill's self-interest helps Jim be efficient enough to have a surplus to sell.
In a fallen world, such things exist, but only in shadows of how God intended them to be. That 15yr old who gave her food to a homeless man did it to share her food with someone in need, but how many people walked by him without so much as a glance? I have, and every time it was with a sense of silent guilt in my heart. "I should, but ...", and then the rationalization.
Choice is what makes us human. Choice is the Image of God. If God is above and before everything else, subject to no rules save those He makes for Himself, then He is Choice as much as He is Love and Power and Truth.
He gives us choice, the greatest gift of all ... and we use it to squabble amongst ourselves over the most idiotic things.
Authority figures who use choice in wrong ways, teaching their children that authorities are not to be trusted. When those children grow up, they choose to free themselves from authorities that remind them of their parents.
Satan did not give us choice. He lied to Eve that disobedience is a valid choice. That lie broke a perfectly running machine.
2:27 PM
If there was a "fall" in Eden, it seems to me to be a "fall forward." Moving toward the integrated fulness of God and humanity.
10:13 AM
Hello:
I have cited your post in Multifaith Issues From Other Blogs - Update No. 8.
And, technology synchronizes. By the time I went round thanking for the message, and knocked yours, I found your post shows my stamp (I am already linked to your post).
Anyways, would appreciate if you could leave your comment at my blog.
Best, Mohamed
1:59 PM
It appears that the authority for what you believe is your logic and reason, not the Word of God. You cited no biblical refs for your view, so I'm just guessing. Am I right?
8:43 AM
If we are fallen, what are we fallen from? From God and all things good. So in this way evil/fallen reflects God and all this good. We can not be fallen without falling from something. God can be in the fallen world because of Christ, which elevates us to His right side. Grace makes all this possible We are adopted and so become equals (but not really equal). This is the mystery that Christ lives in me.
8:56 AM
I think you have a serious misunderstanding of what "traditional theology teaches".
The whole point of the incarnation is that God became man to deliver us from evil, from the fallenness of the world, and to establish a liberated zone in the midst of enemy-occupied territory.
8:29 PM
You are right to say that we are resurrected - Christians are people of the resurrection. God loves "stuff" - He loves His creation, this world that He created and called good. God loves His creation so much that He Himself is going to break into creation. The Father sent His Son, who clothed Himself in flesh - to redeem and renew a fallen creation.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks about the effects of sin, not just on people, but the entire world - he says that the entire creation is groaning, and waiting with us, the final and ultimate renewal in Christ.
Even though I would say this world is fallen - I know this because people I love get sick and die, natural disasters wipe out entire cities, the news at night is filled with horrible things that people do to one another - it's not lost. God has already begun to renew His creation, and the first evidence was the life and ministry of Christ, who died in a fallen creation, but was resurrected as the firstborn of the new creation. And through Jesus, we followers have the promise of the new creation (that has ALREADY begun in us!) But until that final, ultimate recreation, I take comfort seeing that God's law is written on people's hearts, that everything in this world isn't absolutely evil, that love and service and caring can exist - even in a world that seems so broken at times.
7:43 AM
Gotta say, depravity is an orthodox doctrine, and rejecting it means making one's self equal with God, because it implies that one is not truly in dire need of salvation.
This is the notion that man aids God in salvation (synergism), which has been rejected by the majority of Church Fathers & Reformers...
but then, I suppose if we are too advanced to fall back on their words, we should just forget about it and figure out how to give God the extra help he needs in accomplishing his purpose through fallen man.
1:14 PM
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