Quote:
Originally Posted by KSA
Well, my objection to the term "sinful nature" is this. Nature is a substance. All substance is created by God. Therefore, substance cannot be sinful. Sin is not a substance, it is a perversion of substance. Sin does not have an ontological existence of its own. It is just the corruption of something created by God.
No, influence is not a substance. Substance is a matter, and influence is not.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KSA
What would you say of these verses then: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Ps. 51:5). "Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble... who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!" (Job. 14:1, 4).
And I also believe that doubt and lie entered into man. I actually stated it earlier.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KSA
Well, my objection to the term "sinful nature" is this. Nature is a substance. All substance is created by God. Therefore, substance cannot be sinful. Sin is not a substance, it is a perversion of substance. Sin does not have an ontological existence of its own. It is just the corruption of something created by God.
No, influence is not a substance. Substance is a matter, and influence is not.
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Dear KSA,
Just for clarification of your thoughts,
Are doubt and lie a kind of substance? I assume that you think they are because you said "dobut and lie
entered into man". I think only substance (or something that has its own ontological existence) can
enter into something. And if that is the case, why not "influence"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
The problem I have with this is that if DOUBT got into man, what got into Satan and where did it come from? Why could it originate in Satan but not originate in man?
Your theory thus seems to place Satan as a more fundamental, and thus more important, source than man, making man simply the playground for sorting out the conflict between God and Satan.
I don't really believe that. Though I believe God has something to prove regarding Satan, I don't think this is his primary purpose for creating mankind. Since man is really superior to angels in regards to God's purpose, man should be able to morally orginate anything Satan can, including, unfortunately, self-corruption.
So it seems your thought includes the point is that man could not have corrupted himself without Satan's help. And I'm not sure why you feel you should believe that.
Something did happen to man's nature at the fall. Something that gets passed along to children. But the idea that Satan's nature is somehow in man, as unsupported as it is by Scripture (the Bible says in numerous places that God is in us, why would it be coy about whether Satan is in us?), seems no more than a superstition.
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Dear Igzy,
Just for putting in my 2 cents,
I think that "doubt" could be a very neutral noun in its usage. What if Adam had "doubted" Satan's word, rather than God's word in the Garden? Where could that doubt have been from?
My tentative conclustion is this. Adam had his own freewill (including his own, independant ability to believe or doubt other's word) in the Garden to begin with. According to my definition of person in the former post, the prerequisite of being called "person" is whther the entitiy has its own freewill or not, that is exactly what our God is like.
However, another difficulty to recocile Adam's fall and it's passing to his decendants is that why just one action of doubt of God's word (or disobedience) of Adam, who is individual or just a person, can be transmitted to the unborn children who are also many persons having their own freewill. This could be more related to "eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" than disobedience, though.
The last ever-lasting difficulty I have is whether the tree of life and the tree of knowlege of good and evil is historical and physical existence or not. Are those just figurative expressions?
Anyway, thanks for your postings. Those are very helpful to me these days for clarifying my thoughts.
-Gubei