Quote:
Originally Posted by Trapped
IIRC, the comment on "both being true" was made regarding the two trees in the garden of Eden. One side was that "something got into man" from the TOTKOGAE fruit itself....and that the fact that God chose "eating" was significant; the other side was that nothing got into man from the fruit because the Bible describes the TOTKOGAE only positively, just forbidden, and that disobedience was the issue.
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And my response is that the only thing we know from the scripture is that there was disobedience and consequence. Everything else, even if actually true, is not commented on and therefore supposition. That is the problem with so much of what Lee said and taught. There is some that is clearly false. But much of it is not stated either way, but insisted upon by Lee as being true and important as such. That is why it is so hard to simply defeat it. It is not clearly wrong, but neither is it clearly right. And it is stated in terms that seem so spiritual. And after you have taken your followers on an exciting trip down "amen!" lane, just saying it seems reasonable since the speaker (Lee) has just established his credibility with that sequence of true statements.
So here we are. Genesis 3. God says don't eat, but they did anyway. Lee's premise is that since eating is the process of getting something into the body, then it must mean that the bite invaded our body with bad stuff. But the Bible never says that. And it never even hints that the tree is evil or bad, or that what is in the fruit is itself harmful. Only the warning that eating results in death (not in permanent invasion by Satan).
And the cause of the curse is given as disobedience, not becoming infected. And neither is the curse itself described as being linked to what was eaten. The disobedience began as a willful exercise of disobedience before the teeth met the fruit.
No evidence that it was something invading man through the ingestion of the fruit. Only supposition. Not known fact. Could be. And could not be. The record here doesn't say. And even the wording of Paul's discourse in Romans 7 doesn't make either clearly right. So we are left without a reason to insist on anything.
However, if you presume it to be true, you could read Romans 7 to support it. But that results in the error of begging the question (circular reasoning) — using the unestablished premise as true to cause the otherwise unclear evidence to support the unestablished premise. (And this is not the only place that Nee or Lee used this kind of logical error to support a teaching.)
The problem is that insisting on either is not supportable, therefore not a basis for claiming a superior theology or ministry.
And it really isn't like the Calvinist/Arminianism debate. Those at least are dealing with verses that somewhat support their positions. That means that there is a lack of understanding of the differences and context for the different verses. And possibly the lack of understanding of certain terms and their extent of application.