I don't want to make this all-important, David, but
I do want to respond and make sure I haven't misunderstood you.
You say that we are not born oriented towards God,
and that when you were a child your spirit had no inclination towards
God until you were prodded by the Holy Spirit. Do you believe then that a sort
of spiritual neutrality is possible? You also agree with me that it is our
capacity to recognize God and perceive the truth about him and our relation to
him that is most impaired. But I am thinking that you believe
this impairment (if it is the same thing you are calling defilement) is an
after-effect of the act of sinning, and that sin, in the beginning at
least, attacks our spirit from without, via the body.
"Not completely dark" is quite different
from either "most impaired" or "spiritually neutral": it's better than
the one and worse than the other. So I'm not sure what you mean by it.
But I think the verse from John tells me that any light we have is
from outside ourselves, from the true Light. (And I don't think the Proverbs
verse is about any of this at all.)
Debbie
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 1:00
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Adam - sin - and the rest
of us
>> I do not believe Scripture teaches that we are
>> born innocent or oriented towards God. David,
>> your dualism obliges you to say that, since you
>> posit a separate spirit-entity specially created by
>> God, but I don't see support anywhere in Scripture
>> for our coming into the world (since Adam) with
>> an innately good spirit.
>
> First, let me say that I did not adopt "dualism" and then posit the
> evidences needed to support it, so be careful of how you argue about what
> "my dualism" supposedly obliges me to say. I can drop dualism today if it
> appears to be an unsatisfactory model for explaining all my observations.
> Sometimes I actually operate from a trinity perspective of man, but dualism
> is satisfactory in many cases as a rough model of explanation.
>
> Perhaps you overlooked my answer in a previous post because your description
> above does not properly characterize my perspective. Although I believe we
> are born in innocency, I do not believe that we are born oriented toward
> God. My memory of my first prayer to God was one of utter disbelief that
> there was a God up in the sky listening to me. I had no inclination to
> follow him at all, except that something in my spirit drew me to him when I
> was five years old. I believe that was my spirit being proded by the Holy
> Spirit, because prior to that, my spirit did not have any inclination toward
> God at all.
>
> Let me go back to a previous point I made concerning the conscience. Do you
> recognize that people inherently see something innocent in infants and even
> in young children? If not, let me know and I will be more explicit with
> what I am thinking about with some examples. This would be an empirical
> observation in support of my perspective that newborns have a lack of sinful
> defilement which they take on later in life after they have sinned. Please
> keep in mind that I do not say that infants are born without any sinful
> nature. Rather, I say that the sinful nature exists in the flesh, and their
> spirit is dimmed by that flesh, although innocent at the time they are born.
>
> As for Scripture concerning the idea that our spirit is not completely dark
> (which is a better way of characterizing my position than what you had
> written), we could start with John 1:9 which says, "that was the true Light,
> which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." We could also look at
> Prov. 20:27 which says, "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord."
> There are other passages as well.
>
> Debbie wrote:
>> If anything, the contrary: it is with respect to our
>> very ability to recognize God and perceive the
>> truth about him and our relation to him that we
>> are most impaired.
>
> I agree with what you just wrote. What you just said is not contrary to my
> perspective.
>
> Debbie wrote:
>> By your account the struggle of our life is
>> between our good spirits and the evil bodies
>> in which they are entrapped. Nonsense.
>> It is at the core that we are twisted. There is
>> no struggle at all until, by gracious revelation,
>> we become aware of our sin and of God's claim.
>> If it weren't for that, we would go on cheerfully
>> and comfortably sinning all our lives.
>
> You abbreviate my understanding too much. There is a path one takes in
> life. When a person sins, he defiles both his spirit and soul. As he sins
> more, he becomes sinful to the very core as you say, sinful in body, soul,
> and spirit. So the path of most people is one whereby they are twisted and
> sinful to the very core, prior to their coming to an awareness of what sin
> is.
>
> When the word of God comes, it brings the knowledge of God. Then man
> becomes aware of his sin, and as you say, he becomes more frustrated at his
> inability to keep God's word once this knowledge comes to him. The word of
> God aggravates sin, because of the power of the flesh to keep man in sin.
>
> When a person comes into Christ, and he is filled with the Holy Spirit, the
> struggle ends. Now he enters the rest of God and has power over sin.
> Nevertheless, he still exists in the likeness of sinful flesh. Therefore,
> the flesh must be denied as he walks in the Spirit. In order to glorify God
> in his flesh, he must not follow his flesh, but rather his spirit as it has
> been inspired by the Holy Spirit. As long as he walks as a spiritual man,
> he is fine, but if he were to give into the desires of his flesh once again,
> he would frustrate the grace which he has received from God.
>
> Peace be with you.
> David Miller.
>
> ----------
> "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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