What a joy this bright Pascha morning to awake and to find this indulgent conversation with Justin Coutts and Owen Rachal posted by them with their New Eden ministry. We recorded it several weeks back when they invited me to talked with them for what turned out to be a luxurious two hours. We all three talk about our own lives for a while before diving in with a more concentrated focus on the atemporal fall topic that assembled us. Both Justin and Owen share good life stories with many insights. For example, no one should miss hearing a little more about Justin’s journey’s into the wilderness with nothing but a copy of John Scotus Eriugena’s
The notion of our participating in the Fall rings true to me, but I’m having trouble squaring it with Hart’s Romans 5:12 (probably because I am misreading it). If I am active in the Fall, then the western rendering, that all men die because all men sin, makes some sense to me. Adam dies because of sin; I die because of sin; it is the same sin; it is the same Man. But does Hart’s picture—in which death pervades humanity, whereupon man sins—have me outside of Adam, sinning in reaction to death, not with Adam, that is, sinning in pride even outside of a death-bound time?
Jonathan, the key point with Hart regarding Romans 5:12 is that sin is not an issue of legal guilt but of a sickness in which sin exists on the same spectrum as death. There is a larger point that Orthodox theologians will make at times that sounds confusing: God never punishes anyone (in the sense of exacting punitive legal consequences). Death is not God's legal consequence for sin. Instead, sin and death are two ends of one progressive sickness that organically leads from one to the other and that can flow in both directions as the shared condition of death leads to the spread of more sin from person to person—with the "organic" outcome of sin being death. Anyway, I'm rambling here and repeating myself. However, Hart is very clear about this being a two-way street or a "chiastic" relationship in his note on Romans 5:12 to which you must be referring:
"Paul speaks of death and sin as a kind of contagion here, a disease with which all are born; and elsewhere he describes it as a condition like civil enslavement to an unjust master, from which we must be 'redeemed' with a manumission fee; but never as an inherited condition of criminal culpability. ...The point Paul seems obviously to be making [is] about the intimate connection between the disease of death and the contagion of sin (and vice versa). The most obvious and, I think, likely reading is that, in this verse, a parallelism (something for which Paul has such a marked predilection) is given in a chiastic form: just as sin entered into the cosmos and introduced death into all its members, so the contagion of death spread into the whole of humanity and introduced sin into all its members."
To connect this to Hart's idea of a meta-historical human fall (that Hart has very clearly advocated for many years and in many places as shown in the article linked below), I would simply say that our fleshly condition and experience of sin and death within this fallen cosmos is a shared illness that all of us have upon entry into fallen time and that flows in both directions between persons within fallen time (death provoking more sin and sin provoking more death).
I think Tim James puts it well with his comment (although I would not entirely equate “meta-historical events” and “mythic events” as Tim seems to do). At any rate, just as Tim says, the categories of the Genesis creation and fall narratives are clearly mythic and those of the resurrection and ascension accounts are clearly not. It’s really a sign of paranoid fundamentalism to even raise this question in my humble but frank opinion. And trying to “answer” any kind of paranoid fundamentalism is something I don’t try to do anymore generally speaking.
I wasn't meaning to make any judgments about the metaphysical reality of the events in Genesis so much as make a comment on genre. If you recognize a story as mythic, you obviously have to then make a further judgment on how it should be interpreted, which could lead to a meta-historical reading or something elese.
The story of the Resurrection happened in a specific time and place and was witnessed by real people, some whom are named in the historical record. The Genesis account is set in no-time and no-place and the main characters are literally named "mankind" and "living one." It's so thoroughly infused with mythic qualities it's hard to know where to begin. Just as important, we know that early Christians interpreted the Genesis story as allegorical/mythical, but not the Resurrection. As Origen said, "Surely, I think no one doubts that these statements [that is, the Genesis story] are made by Scripture in the form of a figure by which they point to certain mysteries."
The acceptance of suffering as a means by which God can restore is different than saying that it is a necessary component of our world - you spoke well on this point, Jesse.
I really struggle with the notion of there being no such thing as good without evil, or love without hate.
As if the only thing that actually holds weight with regards to the love I have for my wife is the potential to NOT love her.
Thanks for sharing. Glad there was some connection. As you noted, I despise any notion that God needs evil or hatred in order to create and to love. When creatures are evil or hateful, God “makes use of it” by the cross of Christ, but God doesn’t need creaturely evil and hate. God ultimately works with us to utterly destroy evil and hate.
The notion of our participating in the Fall rings true to me, but I’m having trouble squaring it with Hart’s Romans 5:12 (probably because I am misreading it). If I am active in the Fall, then the western rendering, that all men die because all men sin, makes some sense to me. Adam dies because of sin; I die because of sin; it is the same sin; it is the same Man. But does Hart’s picture—in which death pervades humanity, whereupon man sins—have me outside of Adam, sinning in reaction to death, not with Adam, that is, sinning in pride even outside of a death-bound time?
Jonathan, the key point with Hart regarding Romans 5:12 is that sin is not an issue of legal guilt but of a sickness in which sin exists on the same spectrum as death. There is a larger point that Orthodox theologians will make at times that sounds confusing: God never punishes anyone (in the sense of exacting punitive legal consequences). Death is not God's legal consequence for sin. Instead, sin and death are two ends of one progressive sickness that organically leads from one to the other and that can flow in both directions as the shared condition of death leads to the spread of more sin from person to person—with the "organic" outcome of sin being death. Anyway, I'm rambling here and repeating myself. However, Hart is very clear about this being a two-way street or a "chiastic" relationship in his note on Romans 5:12 to which you must be referring:
"Paul speaks of death and sin as a kind of contagion here, a disease with which all are born; and elsewhere he describes it as a condition like civil enslavement to an unjust master, from which we must be 'redeemed' with a manumission fee; but never as an inherited condition of criminal culpability. ...The point Paul seems obviously to be making [is] about the intimate connection between the disease of death and the contagion of sin (and vice versa). The most obvious and, I think, likely reading is that, in this verse, a parallelism (something for which Paul has such a marked predilection) is given in a chiastic form: just as sin entered into the cosmos and introduced death into all its members, so the contagion of death spread into the whole of humanity and introduced sin into all its members."
To connect this to Hart's idea of a meta-historical human fall (that Hart has very clearly advocated for many years and in many places as shown in the article linked below), I would simply say that our fleshly condition and experience of sin and death within this fallen cosmos is a shared illness that all of us have upon entry into fallen time and that flows in both directions between persons within fallen time (death provoking more sin and sin provoking more death).
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2024/03/03/a-human-fall-from-out-of-another-kind-of-time/
This helps a lot; thank you so much for taking the time, Jesse! It's really generous.
This is helpful gentlemen, I thank you both.
What would you say to the push back that if you take the Genesis account as meta-historical why not the death resurrection and ascension?
I have tried to answer this question, but have failed to be persuasive.
I think Tim James puts it well with his comment (although I would not entirely equate “meta-historical events” and “mythic events” as Tim seems to do). At any rate, just as Tim says, the categories of the Genesis creation and fall narratives are clearly mythic and those of the resurrection and ascension accounts are clearly not. It’s really a sign of paranoid fundamentalism to even raise this question in my humble but frank opinion. And trying to “answer” any kind of paranoid fundamentalism is something I don’t try to do anymore generally speaking.
I wasn't meaning to make any judgments about the metaphysical reality of the events in Genesis so much as make a comment on genre. If you recognize a story as mythic, you obviously have to then make a further judgment on how it should be interpreted, which could lead to a meta-historical reading or something elese.
The story of the Resurrection happened in a specific time and place and was witnessed by real people, some whom are named in the historical record. The Genesis account is set in no-time and no-place and the main characters are literally named "mankind" and "living one." It's so thoroughly infused with mythic qualities it's hard to know where to begin. Just as important, we know that early Christians interpreted the Genesis story as allegorical/mythical, but not the Resurrection. As Origen said, "Surely, I think no one doubts that these statements [that is, the Genesis story] are made by Scripture in the form of a figure by which they point to certain mysteries."
Thanks Tim!
Thanks for posting - I enjoyed the conversation!
The acceptance of suffering as a means by which God can restore is different than saying that it is a necessary component of our world - you spoke well on this point, Jesse.
I really struggle with the notion of there being no such thing as good without evil, or love without hate.
As if the only thing that actually holds weight with regards to the love I have for my wife is the potential to NOT love her.
Thanks for sharing. Glad there was some connection. As you noted, I despise any notion that God needs evil or hatred in order to create and to love. When creatures are evil or hateful, God “makes use of it” by the cross of Christ, but God doesn’t need creaturely evil and hate. God ultimately works with us to utterly destroy evil and hate.