Nice THEORY
Where are the facts?
You nor BT can prove this Theory anymore than proving the Tooth Fairy!
David Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
David Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Judy wrote:
> Yes Bill you are the hypocrite on this
> one and you need to repent.
I haven't been following the posts the last few days, but I read this one
this morning. Judy, please refrain from ad hominem arguments like this.
Such only reveals your frustration in being able to communicate and your
inability to make your case Biblically.
I would like to frame what I think Bill's position is in regards to
Augustine and you. Bill is not saying that you have read Augustine. He is
saying that you have been influenced by Augustine and have adopted some of
his viewpoints without realizing it. How? Because you live in this world
and have grown up around ministers and school systems that have been touched
by him in one way or another.
Let me illustrate this with a non-Biblical terms. If I were to say to you,
"Benedict" or "Benedict Arnold," what would form in your mind? Negative
thoughts? Why? What do you know about this name? Who taught it to you?
Now perhaps you can go to some class in grade school where you learned about
a traitor, but even many non-educated people have a concept of this name
without formal training. I myself do not know where I adopted the negative
thoughts that I have about the name "Benedict," but I am sure that it came
through the school system and society along the way. Ultimately, in our
generation, there are some historians responsible for developing the kind of
view that we have about this name. We may never have read this historian
ourselves, but through teachers or the news media or some other secondary
source, we adopted a concept concerning it. In other parts of the world
that do not share our history, the name "Benedict" has a very positive
connotation. Why? Different historians shaped the culture.
The point is that Augustine has so influenced our culture and society, that
many of his viewpoints become ours through secondary sources. You may never
have read him or even heard of him, but there are many ways in which his
views could have come down to you. Maybe you just heard a minister explain
Genesis and use the term, "spiritual death" along with some Augustinian
viewpoints. Perhaps he himself did not even read Augustine directly, but
heard the view from someone else. It may be that at the time, the concept
resonated with you and made sense. It may also be that at the time you were
not really paying much attention, but later as you were reading your Bible
privately, these ideas came to mind, having first been planted in your mind
sometime before. The third concept is, of course, that the Holy Spirit
revealed the truth to you just like he perhaps did to Augustine.
>From my perspective, the question of whether or not Augustine is ultimately
responsible for your viewpoint is not really all that important. It could
be that Augustine was right, and that you, independently, saw the same thing
and came upon the same language to explain it. What is important to me is
whether the concept is right. Is this concept of "spiritual death" the best
way of understanding the truth of what is being discussed. For example, did
Adam die spiritually that day, is that the best way to understand his death,
or did he actually die physically that same day, not in the sense that he
immediately dropped dead (we know that did not happen), but in the sense
that he was delivered to death, which began working upon him, such that the
aging process began and he became subject to disease, sickness, and death
from that very point in time. It could be that if somebody had stabbed his
heart with a knife prior to his sin, he would not have died, but if stabbed
after he had sinned, he would have dropped dead right there on the spot. In
other words, he became mortal immediately on that very day that he sinned.
Now if on the other hand Adam died "spiritually" and if people are born
spiritually dead and if his spiritual death is passed on through
inheritance, there are many implications that such a model would have than
if such were not true.
Let's take just the situation of inheritance. I understand physical
inhertiance pretty well, I think, having taught classes on genetics at the
university. What I do not understand is spiritual inheritance, or whether
spiritual inheritance even exists in the sense of being passed on from
parent to offspring. My viewpoint tends to be one that recognizes spiritual
inheritance only as an authority issue, not as something passed on through
the act of creating progeny. Sin gives spirits in the air authority over us
and over our children. Therefore, they have an effect upon future
generations, not because the children inherited some kind of spiritual sin
or spiritual death from their parents, but because their parents authority
over them has granted authority to evil spirits over their children. It is
similar to how the children are sanctified by believing parents, not by some
kind of transference in the birthing process, but by way of spiritual
authority issues. The passages that shape my thinking on this are Exodus
20:5 & Ezek. 18.
In a nutshell, I believe that we inherit the basis for physical sin from our
parents, but I do not see our spirits as being inherited from our parents,
and therefore, I have trouble seeing any kind of spiritual sin or spiritual
death being inherited from our parents. I believe in a concept of curses
being passed on to future generations, but not in the same sense of
inheritance as we find for physical inheritance. It is only through
authority that parents give to evil spirits through their sin that allows
curses to be passed on. How else do we understand the Lord's teaching in
Ezekiel 18?
Ezekiel 18:1-3
(1) The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying,
(2) What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel,
saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set
on edge?
(3) As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to
use this proverb in Israel.
Ezekiel 18:19-20
(19) Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When
the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my
statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live.
(20) The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the
iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the
son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the
wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Peace be with you.
David Miller.
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"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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