What Jesus Said About Adam and Eve

[DialecticSkeptic]

I am seeking to explain why I believe it is incumbent upon us to scrutinize any novel or apparently novel interpretation of scripture closely.

I think there has been a misunderstanding. I don't shy away from scrutiny, I welcome it. As a matter of fact, I routinely invite it, particularly where essential doctrines are at stake. As someone deeply committed to the Reformed faith, I make a point of testing everything against scripture and guarding against anything that could lead to doctrinal delinquency or compromise.

That being said, the form taken by your initial scrutiny didn't really register as meaningful to me. You said the way in which I reconciled natural history and Genesis was interesting but "not one with much in the way of support from the consensus patrum" (the consensus of the church fathers). But that doesn't speak to the authority structure under which I operate, so it carries little weight in my evaluation. (And the objection seems anachronistic anyway: The church fathers didn't know about the continuity of Earth's biodiversity, much less how old creation was, so it's not that they considered this synthesis and rejected it; they simply never faced the question.)

What I take seriously and look for is theological and exegetical engagement. If my view were to be contradicted by scripture or found to destabilize a core doctrine, especially something Christological, that would give me real pause. But the absence of patristic precedent? That doesn't land.

There already exists a rather good theologuomemnon which reconciles evolution with a non-allegorical interpretation of Genesis chapter 2.

Bait taken. Please direct me to it. I am curious.

Spending too much time on trying to reconcile [evolution] with Genesis ... is simply a distraction from the gospel and from repentence of our own sins, and is related to the inherent Western inclination towards having to neatly explain all aspects of the faith.

I agree.

But, of course, that raises the question: How much time is "too much"?

Also, some people (like me) spend time on questions like this precisely because of the gospel. For starters, since Christ is the last Adam, the historical reality and narrative of the first Adam is relevant and important. Of crucial importance to the gospel is also the doctrine of original sin and the fallen nature of humanity. I could go on but I think the point is made. Willem J. Ouweneel makes a good argument for why this question is important in his book, Adam, Where Are You? – And Why This Matters: A Theological Evaluation of the Evolutionist Hermeneutic (Paideia, 2018). He argues that origins are foundational, not peripheral, to the Christian gospel, and warns that undermining Adam's historicity jeopardizes core doctrines—sin, atonement, image of God, and human identity. I agree with him, although our shared concern deposits us at different conclusions.

You’ve pushed covenant theology past the breaking point, [because] what you are saying is that if one person already alive prior to Adam and Eve killed another, that would not be sinful because of their lack of a covenant relationship with God, which is problematic.

You need to explain WHY it is problematic, and HOW it pushes covenant theology to the breaking point—because it's not obvious.

Rather than mitigating my concerns about the theology weakening the status of Christ as the new Adam by reducing greatly the impact of the fall, [your fuller explanation] has only increased it since we see emergent in this theological conception ... an obliteration of the luminous state of Adam and Eve before the fall.

How does "the lack of a covenant relationship making the pre-Adam humans sinless"

• weaken the status of Christ as the new Adam?
• reduce the impact of the fall?
• obliterate the luminous state of Adam and Eve before the fall?

The problem is that any change to the initial conditions in Genesis risks unforseen soteriological and eschatological consequences in terms of the way people understand the vital truth of the gospel, which centers around the victory of Christ over death on the cross and the provision of the means of salvation to us, so that we might become by grace what he is by nature, heirs according to the promise and partakers of the divine nature, adoptive heirs of the kingdom of God.

What initial conditions in Genesis do you see being changed in my view?

 

[Dale]

Since I haven't invoked the consensus of the fathers, much less said they support my case, nor suggested that any divines of the patristic era share my interpretation, your caution is sort of misapplied (but certainly worth noting for those who require such support before giving a view any consideration).




Since that is a point of historical interest not relevant to my argument, either its conclusion or how I reached it, I regard it as a digression I don't wish to engage. But there is a wealth of information out there charting that movement for those who, like you, are interested in learning more. My position, however, is admittedly a minority view, if I may state the matter generously; the majority view in Reformed theology, influenced by our confessional standards, is that Adam and Eve were the first humans.

But holding that view is unnecessary. The position I am defending, which is largely unknown in Reformed circles, is that Adam and Eve can be our first parents—which is what our confessional standards assert—without being the first humans; arguably, they're our first parents covenantally and genealogically, but not genetically, thus maintaining the doctrines of imago Dei and peccatum originale. This is not doctrinal delinquency because it is consistent with our confessional standards in holding them as our first parents.




Your logic is not clear. How does Adam having contemporaries reduce the status of Christ as the last Adam? To be clear, on my view those people were not "already sinful" and that's because God didn't enter into a covenant relationship with mankind until the first Adam (who was the federal head of the old humanity), which contrasts with Christ as the last Adam (who is the federal head of the new humanity). Sin, in my view, is defined covenantally (vis-à-vis covenant promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities) and passed along theologically via covenantal solidarity, not biologically via the gene pool, precisely because sin pertains to the covenantal relationship between God and man. The idea that those with no genetic relationship with Adam would thereby not inherit original sin only makes sense if sin is genetic—something contained in gametes, something passed along biologically—and I am not aware of any reason for thinking that it is. Both Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness are covenant realities of federal headship, and imputation refers to covenantal solidarity, not biological inheritance. We are fallen "in Adam," inasmuch as we are justified and righteous "in Christ" (cf. Rom 5:12-21).




This is the case in my view, too. It is a strong emphasis in Reformed theology.

You think my idea that Adam and Eve were not the first humans "kind of undermines that," but you did not explain how. It does draw our attention to Genesis, but only because that's the primary text dealing with them.

I can’t follow your reasoning. If God made a specific covenant with Adam and Eve, Genesis doesn’t tell us when this happened or what was in that covenant. That is one of the reasons all of the stories in the first few chapters of Genesis have to be taken as teaching stories. Take Cain and Abel, for example.
The Ten Commandments had not been handed down yet, they were issued through Moses in Exodus 20. What law were Cain and Abel under when Cain slew Abel? I suppose you could say that it was illegal under natural law, but this is arbitrary. It makes far more sense as a teaching story than as literal history.

The churches I attend use no Latin words and I will make no attempt to figure out what Latin words mean.

 

[Dale]

I’m afraid you don’t understand - any novel scriptural interpretation requires much more careful scrutiny than one which is well established, because it is within the realm of novel interpretations that grave theological errors have often been made, in many cases, accidentally. For example, consider Monothelitism, which must have seemed like a cracking good idea at the time, but which wound up getting the Pope of Rome, three Patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarchs of Alexandriaa and Antioch, and the Eastern Roman Emperor anathematized, not to mention several lesser prelates, and caused St. Maximos the Confessor to die after the monothelites cut his tongue out; it was also probably the cause of the schism between the Syriac Orthodox and the Maronites (who later entered into communion with Rome, but only after centuries of isolation).

Likewise all of the Restorationist sects of the 19th century seem based around novel theological ideas that no one had ever thought of or put to paper before that time (but that didn’t stop many Restorationists from inventing anti-Catholic psuedohistories so as to suggest a historical provenance for their idea, much like how certain second and third century sects wrote false Gospels and Acts attributed to the Apostles, for example, the blasphemous Infancy Gospel of St. Thomas).

Now I am not accusing you of any of that; rather, I am seeking to explain why I believe it is incumbent upon us to scrutinize any novel or apparently novel interpretation of Scripture closely.

In the case of your idea, as I believe I said earlier, it was interesting, and I outlined the conditions under which I would be willing to consider it a valid theologoumemnon (a theological opinion that exists in an area where church doctrine is undefined) since it does have the attractive advantage of offering an additional approach to dealing with how to reconcile evolution with a non-allegorical interpretation of Genesis chapter 2, which I believe is important (because while the chapter in question is steeped in Christological prophecy, it derives its potency from its reality, insofar as it describes the origin of ancestral sin, the Fall from grace that makes us solely dependent on Christ our True God for our salvation.

Although since there already exists a rather good theologuomemnon which reconciles evolution with a non-allegorical interpretation of Genesis chapter 2, and also since the whole issue really doesn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things, since evolution is important primarily as a guide to how biological systems will develop, whereas spending too much time on trying to reconcile it with Genesis (or conversely, trying to debunk it in the manner of some creationists) is simply a distraction from the Gospel and from repentence of our own sins, and is related to the inherent Western inclination towards having to neatly explain all aspects of the faith as opposed to recognizing the epistemological mystery that surrounds us and embracing what St. Dionysius the Aereopagite among others referred to as the “dazzling darkness” - the fog like the cloud atop Mount Sinai of the unknown and the unknowable about God, who in His essence is entirely beyond human comprehension, with God being knowable only thorugh His uncreated energies and visible only through the incarnation of the Word.



That’s a result of your hamartiology being integrated with Covenant Theology, which in its Reformed fullness, is unknown to the Orthodox Church or the writings of the early church fathers, but which from my experience as a Congregationalist pastor, I am well aware of its importance to Reformed theology and I am sympathetic towards the idea in general. In this specific case however, you’ve pushed Covenant Theology past the breaking point, in that what you are saying is that if one person already alive prior to Adam and Eve killed another, that would not be sinful because of their lack of a covenant relationship with God, which is problematic, and rather than mitigating my concerns about the theology weakening the status of Christ as the New Adam by reducing greatly the impact of the Fall, has only increased it, since we see emergent in this theological conception, if I am correctly understanding what you have put forward about the lack of a covenant relationship making the pre-Adam humans sinless, an obliteration of the luminous state of Adam and Eve before the fall (unless you were to mitigate this, which you have not done, but perhaps you should, by saying that humans other than Adam and Eve were greatly lacking compared to them before the Fall, and that in their Fall, following expulsion from the Garden of Eden, they were reduced from the blessed state of being they occupied, which was unmatched until the resurrection of Christ our True God, who arising from the grave arose incorruptible and perfected, having been, as the Son of Man, the definitive human being, in which the fullness of God dwelled bodily, the means by which death was swallowed up in victory.

The problem is that any change to the initial conditions in Genesis risks unforseen soteriological and eschatological consequences in terms of the way people understand the vital truth of the Gospel, which centers around the victory of Christ over death on the Cross and the provision of the means of salvation to us, so that we might become by grace what He is by nature, heirs according to the promise and partakers of the divine nature, adoptive heirs of the kingdom of God.

A theologoumemnon? I think you win the prize for the longest word ever used on Christian Forums.

 

[Dale]

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but there are problems with the specific way in which you expressed it.

It is the case that through the transgression of Adam, humanity became corrupt and mortal, and through the salvific work of Christ on the Cross, who, to quote St. Athanasius, became man so that we could become god, that is to say, becoming by grace what Christ is by nature, for He trampled down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestows life at the Eschaton, when we will be raised incorruptible before the Last Judgement.

It is also the case that the Church is the mystical body of Christ.

However, the fall of Adam caused us to become mortal and sinful through inheritance - this understanding of original sin as ancestral sin was explained very well by St. John Cassian, a contemporary of St. Augustine whose anti-Pelagian exposition on hamartiology was strongly preferred by the early church, even the Western church, with St. Augustine venerated for other reasons (his piety, humility and his work The City of God which reassured the people of Rome about the meaning of their lives even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, causing them to realize an important lesson that St. Solomon the Royal Prophet also teaches us in Ecclesiastes, and that Christ teaches us in the Gospels, about the importance of treasure in heaven vs. spiritual treasure.

Conversely, our salvation through Jesus Christ does involve our membership in the Church, which is the mystical Body of Christ, but that does not mean that our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ is a multi-personal compound entity into which each Christian is somehow joined, nor does it mean Adam was that (for if Adam was that, Adam would not be human, and there is no way that he would be able to cause the spread of the disease of sin and death to his offspring). Likewise, if Christ were created of a whole multitude He would be neither human nor God, and thus unable to save us.

Let us pause to remember, according to the Nicene Creed / CF Statement of Faith, Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, begotten of the Father before all ages, who put on our created human nature by means of his miraculous conception through the actions of God the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to John 1:1-18, He is God, the Incarnate Word of God, through whom the Father is revealed. Thus, while He put on our created humanity in order to restore and glorify it, uniting it in one hypostasis with HIs divinity, He remains fully God, an uncreated person, coequal to and coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He put on our humanity, uniting it with His divinity without change, confusion, separation or division (these four key words are the basis of Christological orthodoxy that underlines the faith of the Chalcedonian churches, the Oriental Orthodox or miaphysite churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East*).

If Christ is not fully human, and not fully divine, He would not be in a position to save it, because His salvation of us on the Cross involved remaking us in His image, as the Son of Man, in whom the invisible God dwells bodily, to quote the Gospels of St. Mark and St. John.

Through His incarnation, baptism, transfiguration, passion, resurrection and ascension, Christ our True God put on our humanity and glorified it.

We become mystically united with Him by partaking of His body and blood in the Eucharist - this is what St. Paul meant, if we refer the sections of 1 Corinthians and elsewhere where He describes the Church as the Body of Christ with 1 Corinthians 11 where he describes the institution of Holy Communion in the Cenacle at the Last Supper, in which we participate Eucharistically through the sacrament of Holy Communion (and we see an early example of this in the ending of the Gospel according to Luke, where our Risen Lord became known to the Apostles in the breaking of bread).

Thus, it is incorrect to say that either Adam or Jesus Christ was created as a multi-personal being, and it is even more incorrect to say that Jesus Christ was created at all, for althoug He put on our created nature, He is an uncreated person.

Nestorius tried to argue that there was a difference between the uncreated Christ and the man Jesus, that they were two persons united by a single will (and he did this in order to come up with a theological rationale for suppressing the use of the term “Theotokos” in the Patriarchate of Constantinople), but this clearly contradicts the Nicene Creed which speaks of One Lord Jesus Christ and not two, and interestingly enough it was later discerned from Scripture at the Sixth Ecumenical Synod that our Lord has a human will and a divine will, in response to the heresy of Monothelitism (which itself was in many respects a sort of neo-Apollinarianism; Apollinarius was a fourth century heretic who taught falsely that our Lord had a human body with a divine soul, which is a confusion of His humanity and divinity, rather, it is more accurate to say that He is fully man and fully God, without change, confusion, separation or division, having united humanity hypostatically with his uncreated divinity, thus becoming fully human, (arguably the prototypical human, for on the Cross He recreated us in His image) while remaining fully God.

I hope this helps clarify this point, because what you said was very close to being correct, and indeed much closer than the doctrine of many members who seem to gloss over St. Paul’s description of the Church as the Body of Christ.


*In the case of the Church of the East, this happened, after it realized, during the reign of Mar Babai the Great in the early 7th century that the Nestorian Christology promoted within it by Bar Sauma of Nisibis (the city to which those theologians from Antioch who were allied to Nestorius emigrated after the Council of Ephesus anathematized Nestorianism in 433 AD) who had in the previous century wrested control of the Church of the East uncanonically with the help of the Sassanian Persian king from the legitimate Catholicos, that Nestorianism is inherently flawed, thus Mar Babai the Great essentially translated Chalcedonian Christology into Syriac (there are some differences with regards to terminology that cause some people to accuse the Church of the East of still being Nestorian, but since the Church of the East stresses the unity of Christ in one person, and uses the same four words as the Oriental Orthodox and the Chalcedonians to describe the relationship of His humanity and divinity - without change, confusion, separation or division, it is clear that it is not, and this point was made very clear about a thousand years ago, give or take 200 years, I can’t remember off the top of my head, Mar Gregory bar Hebraeus, a Syriac Orthodox Maphrian (Archbishop with vice-Patriarchal duties in charge of the Eastern half of the Syriac Orthodox church), who sought to foster strong relations with the Church of the East and desired the same happen with the Western half of the church in its relationship with the Antiochian Orthodox (which did eventually happen, in both cases, to the extent that St. Gregory bar Hebraeus when he reposed while travelling from Tikrit back to his monastery in the hills above Mosul, which miraculously survived the ISIS occupation of that city and is still extant, the Monastery of St. Matthew, his funeral was attended by the Patriarch of the Church of the East and 4,000 Assyrian laity).

Liturgist: “Apollinarius was a fourth century heretic who taught falsely that our Lord had a human body with a divine soul, which is a confusion of His humanity and divinity, rather, it is more accurate to say that He is fully man and fully God, without change, confusion, separation or division, having united humanity hypostatically with his uncreated divinity, thus becoming fully human, (arguably the prototypical human, for on the Cross He recreated us in His image) while remaining fully God.”

Nothing in scripture suggests that there was anything special about the physical body of Jesus Christ. The Romans were able to crucify Him. His body was not invulnerable. It looks like Apollinarius was right.

The formulations of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologians are unhelpful. Where I live, I doubt that one Christian in fifty knows what “hypostatic” means. What is the point of training people to recite words they don’t understand?

 

[Fervent]

Liturgist: “Apollinarius was a fourth century heretic who taught falsely that our Lord had a human body with a divine soul, which is a confusion of His humanity and divinity, rather, it is more accurate to say that He is fully man and fully God, without change, confusion, separation or division, having united humanity hypostatically with his uncreated divinity, thus becoming fully human, (arguably the prototypical human, for on the Cross He recreated us in His image) while remaining fully God.”

Nothing in scripture suggests that there was anything special about the physical body of Jesus Christ. The Romans were able to crucify Him. His body was not invulnerable. It looks like Apollinarius was right.

The formulations of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologians are unhelpful. Where I live, I doubt that one Christian in fifty knows what “hypostatic” means. What is the point of training people to recite words they don’t understand?

The Apollinarian controversy makes more sense in a context informed by Platonic realism rather than nominalism as our current dominant paradigm is. The issue wasn't about His body, but about His human nature. Since we don't think of natures as existing in some plane of ideals the controversy makes less sense.

 

[Grafted In]

I hear Christians talking about Adam and Eve.
What did Jesus say about Adam and Eve?
“Adam” is not mentioned in the Gospels.
“Eve” is not mentioned in the Gospels.
The “Garden of Eden” is not mentioned in the Gospels.

Doesn’t this suggest that the Adam and Eve story is less important than many Christians think it is?

I don't believe so.

When I read that area of Scripture , I see that it is rich with types and shadows.

 

[Rose_bud]

The “Garden of Eden” is not mentioned in the Gospels.

Doesn’t this suggest that the Adam and Eve story is less important than many Christians think it is?

The word "garden" is mentioned in the Gospels. It's related to the word "paradise"... as in "today you will be with me in paradise"

Luke 23:42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

43Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Most lexicons define the word having Persian origins, related to a grand garden- like enclosure of a King.

The gospel message is the announcement of the King breaking into this world to invite us into His kingdom. His paradise, its our end time hope as it was for the thief on the cross. Where we will be with Him forever.

 

[The Liturgist]

Nothing in scripture suggests that there was anything special about the physical body of Jesus Christ. The Romans were able to crucify Him. His body was not invulnerable. It looks like Apollinarius was right.

No, Apollinarius was completely in error, ironically for the opposite reason than you suspect - Apollinarianism represents a confusion of the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ, making him half man and half God, rather than fully man and fully God without change, confusion, separation or division.

Rather, the correct answer is that Jesus Christ has a human body, which is part of His human nature, and a human will, but also a divine will, for He remains fully divine, but His divinity is not separate from His humanity; thus, he was able to walk on water even before the resurrection; when crucified, water miraculously poured from his side in addition to blood (this reflects the fact that wine was always mixed with water in the Hellenic world, including Roman Judea, at the time of the last supper in the house of St. Mark the Evangelist, a Hellenized Jew, and thus when he said of the wine in the chalice “this is my blood of the New Covenant”, it was wine mixed with water as was the custom, which has been maintained in all ancient liturgical churches except for the Armenians* and some of the liturgical Protestants (some use a mixed chalice; some don’t; like the Oriental Orthodox, who use a mixed chalice except for the Armenian Apostolic Church, the liturgical Protestant churches such as the Anglicans, Lutherans, Moravians, some Methodists, some Congregationalists, high church Calvinists such as the Scoto-Catholics, Mercersburg Theology churches and Reformed Catholics, and a few others, regard it as adiaphora).

His body, while fully human, did miraculous things (walking on water, bleeding water and wine) because of the hypostatic union of His divinity and humanity; in the resurrection, our Lord also rose incorruptible, his risen human body being glorified past the point of that of Adam before the fall, since Christ is the New Adam; thus, when we are resurrected, our bodies will likewise be glorified. Christ put on mortality so that we might put on Christ and thus immortality; whoever is baptized in Christ has put on Christ (1 Corinthians 15:42-58 , Galatians 3:27 ). However, humanity and divinity still remain distinct, for in His divinity, Christ is of one essence with the Father, who no man has seen at any time (although the voice of the Father was heard on two or three occasions according to the Gospels, and may have been heard on additional occasions in the Old Testament, but we are not sure; all other Old Testament theophanies must, based on John 1:1-18 be regarded as what are technically, and somewhat confusingly called “pre-incarnational appearances of Christ”) or of the Holy Spirit (the pillar of fire, the fire that appeared on a bush without burning it, etc, all bear a resemblance to the known visual appearances of the Spirit as a dove and as tongues of fire).

The Apollinarian controversy makes more sense in a context informed by Platonic realism rather than nominalism as our current dominant paradigm is. The issue wasn't about His body, but about His human nature. Since we don't think of natures as existing in some plane of ideals the controversy makes less sense.

On the contrary - if you care about preserving the ancient faith, that Christ our True God was fully man and fully God, it makes a lot of sense, for if our Lord lacked a human soul He would not be fully human, but rather, half human, or worse, a human body operated by God like a puppet. His experiences would thus have no ontological connection with ours; his suffering on the cross would be performative (since God cannot suffer, at least in a temporal sense, except through communicatio idiomatum, due to divine immutability and impassability).

Of course since many poorly catechized Western Christians who nominally affirm the Trinity in practice tend to think of Jesus Christ is “the Son of God” but not really God, but a lesser being, owing to a large extent to the lack of prayers directed to Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit and the lack of references to Jesus Christ as God in many Western denominations (the phrase “Christ our True God” is seldom heard in many of the less liturgical Western churches, and many poorly catechized Western Christians might not realize the hymn “Arise O God, and let Thy enemies be scattered” is a prophecy of the resurrection of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ on Pascha, and among some liberal Protestant churches this problem has been exacerbated by the increasing toleration of Arianism and other Christological heresy, and promotion of “in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer” as a replacement for the “sexist and Patriarchal” Trinitarian formula of Matthew 28:19, the problem therein being, that aside from making baptisms invalid, it is theologically flawed, since John 1:1-3 makes it clear that it was through Christ all things were made, and the persons of the Trinity according to the ancient faith are inseparable and undivided, hence the Orthodox acclamation “Glory to the Holy, Consubstantial and Undivided Trinity!”

It is extremely important for our salvation that Jesus Christ be fully human in every respect, and also fully God in every respect, with His humanity and divinity united without change, confusion, separation or division. in this manner we are made consubstantial with God, and in this respect we can be said to be made and remade in the image of God through the salvific passion of Christ on the Cross, on the sixth day (Genesis 1 doesn’t just describe the origin of the universe**, it describes is the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ our True God - let there be light!)

*The following historical note is intended for my friends @MarkRohfrietsch @ViaCrucis @prodromos @Shane R @Jipsah @jas3 , @Ain't Zwinglian and other persons interested in church history, who might also be interested in the Christological content of this thread; I don’t know if the member I am replying to would find it interesting, but perhaps he might: who for cultural reasons have always used straight wine and were also historically the only church in antiquity to use unleavened bread; it seems probable that the Roman Catholic adoption of unleavened bread was, like the hymn Agnus Dei, driven by resentment over the Byzantine church council at Trullo, which implemented canons based on Eastern Orthodox usage, which among other things prohibited icons depicting Christ as a lamb of the sort popular in the Western Church and prohibited unmixed wine and unleavened bread because these were Armenian customs and at that point in time Armenian relations with the Eastern Orthodox were at a nadir; they would later recover (there was also an Armenian schism with the other Oriental Orthodox, but for different reasons).

** That Genesis 1 refers to the origin of the universe is not a belief exclusive to Young Earth Creationists I explained in my first blog post on the site back in 2019, which explains how the Book of Genesis is remarkably consistent with what we know about the origins of the universe and of life on Earth: The Startling Accuracy Of Genesis

 

[The Liturgist]

I hear Christians talking about Adam and Eve.
What did Jesus say about Adam and Eve?
“Adam” is not mentioned in the Gospels.
“Eve” is not mentioned in the Gospels.
The “Garden of Eden” is not mentioned in the Gospels.

Doesn’t this suggest that the Adam and Eve story is less important than many Christians think it is?

Read 1 Corinthians chapter 15 - the Pauline Epistle of 1 Corinthians, which like the other Epistles is vital to a proper understanding of the Gospels, hence its inclusion in the canon of Scripture finalized by St. Athanasius in 367 (indeed, it was included among the writings regarded as Scripture from the beginning, and all editions of the Bible and proposed canons that predate the definite 27-book Athanasian Canon which all churches agreed to - unlike the Old Testament canon where sadly such unity was never achieved, either in antiquity, or in the present (since even among Protestants, the Anglicans use a canon that includes some of the deuterocanonical books from Roman Catholicism, and the 39 Articles which limited the use of the “Apocrypha” as the Book of Common Prayer and the complete King James Version labelled these books so as to not be the source of any doctrine, are no longer in effect in the Episcopal Church USA and several other Anglican jurisdictions).

It is also worth noting that the Pauline Epistles are considered by most scholars to be the oldest part of the New Testament, predating even the Gospel According to St. Mark the Evangelist.

 

[The Liturgist]

A theologoumemnon? I think you win the prize for the longest word ever used on Christian Forums.

I’ve used longer words than that, I can assure you.

Indeed, what is widely believed to be the longest word in the dictionary (in most historic dictionaries) is known to occur, not as a joke, or at least not entirely in jest, but with relevance to its original meaning, with some frequency in the Anglican forums, that being antidisestablishmentarianism (which refers to opposition to efforts to make the Church of England cease to be the established church, as happened to the Anglican Churches in Wales and Ireland, which were disestablished in the 19th century.

Additionally, insofar as Thelougoumemnon is a Greek word, and not a particularly long one at that, whereas antidisestablishmentarianism is a typically English synthesis of Greek, Latin and Old French roots, those who have used the latter word really deserve the prize for grandiloquence.

I’ve read several posts by users who are no longer members of the site that display a rhetorical grandeur I have been unable to obtain, with more formal constructs and more poetic usages. This is one reason why I am a compiler and editor of liturgical texts, and not a writer of them, even when the opportunity to do so in the form of new hymns such as akathists, canons for reposed Orthodox Christians likely to be glorified as a saint, and so on; I lack confidence in my skills as a poet.

 

[The Liturgist]

Bait taken. Please direct me to it. I am curious.

Simply, that God created the universe in its existing condition, as if it had existed for as long as science indicates it did, without the need for it to actually exist that long (which is well within his power). In this respect, human beings could have evolved virtually, while Adam and Eve remained the first humans to exist in actuality as opposed to in a virtual sense. Now, as for why God would do this, the ways of God are inscrutable, however, I would propose it might have something to do with prophecy, that is to say, with ensuring that the recreation of mankind by our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ as the New Adam occurred in the same pattern in which the univere was brought into being ex nihlo in Genesis.

Note that as a theologoumenon, which is loosely translated as “theological opinion” this is not official doctrine, it is not a belief of the Orthodox church, and indeed I don’t even promote it, but rather it is merely a possibility that has occurred to me for how to reconcile them that does not appear to my limited knowledge to contradict any Eastern Orthodox doctrine (or for that matter any Oriental Orthodox doctrine). Theologoumemna are pious speculations about possible answers to questions not answered by church doctrine.

 

[The Liturgist]

You need to explain WHY it is problematic, and HOW it pushes covenant theology to the breaking point—because it's not obvious.

Because it declares there were humans who may well have engaged in acts which are obviously sinful, acts which are not aligned with the will of God, who is infinitely loving, but these humans, who according to Genesis 1 bore the divine image, were innocent of sin because of what amounts to a technicality - a lack of a covenant which would define their actions as sinful.

Thus, in that according to your proposal, it is not inherently sinful for a human to commit murder, despite the fact that all humans are created in and bear the divine image, but rather the sinfulness requires a covenant relationship, and makes this not be a mere theoretical observation but an actual reality by declaring there were humans who existed outside of a covenant relationship with God, it takes an already problematic form of covenant theology and renders it inconsistent with everything God has taught us about Himself and about morality.

Also insofar as it ties all hamartia to covenant relationships it is at least unconsciously legalistic in the extreme, on an ontological level, even if with regards to salvation in Christ it recognizes how the New Covenant has freed us from the yoke of the Torah, and thus is not legalistic in practice (but it would be legalistic in practice in the beginning insofar as you have some humans who can sin because of their covenantal relationship with God interbreeding with other humans who cannot sin because of the technicality that they lack such a covenant relationship with God, even though the rational for why each sinful behavior is sinful would remain the same in the absence of a covenant that caused it to be formally sinful.

In other words, there is a reason why it is wrong to murder (violence against the divine image, causation of suffering, unnatural cause of death, and so on), a reason why it is wrong to steal, et cetera, a rationale behind every divine law, which makes sense, since Christ our True God is literally the Logos (a Greek word which means, among other things, reason, hence the word “logic” or the Greek word for people who are unreasonable, “alogoi”, adopted by St. Epiphanios of Cyprus to refer to adherents of a heresy that denied the Gospel according to John was inspired Scripture.

 

[Dale]

I’ve used longer words than that, I can assure you.

Indeed, what is widely believed to be the longest word in the dictionary (in most historic dictionaries) is known to occur, not as a joke, or at least not entirely in jest, but with relevance to its original meaning, with some frequency in the Anglican forums, that being antidisestablishmentarianism (which refers to opposition to efforts to make the Church of England cease to be the established church, as happened to the Anglican Churches in Wales and Ireland, which were disestablished in the 19th century.

Additionally, insofar as Thelougoumemnon is a Greek word, and not a particularly long one at that, whereas antidisestablishmentarianism is a typically English synthesis of Greek, Latin and Old French roots, those who have used the latter word really deserve the prize for grandiloquence.

I’ve read several posts by users who are no longer members of the site that display a rhetorical grandeur I have been unable to obtain, with more formal constructs and more poetic usages. This is one reason why I am a compiler and editor of liturgical texts, and not a writer of them, even when the opportunity to do so in the form of new hymns such as akathists, canons for reposed Orthodox Christians likely to be glorified as a saint, and so on; I lack confidence in my skills as a poet.

I once talked to a girl who was proud that she could spell antidisestablishmentarianism. I asked her what it meant and she had no idea what it means. It means opposition (anti) to the withdrawal of state funds (disestablish) from a state church, such as the Church of England.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Simply, that God created the universe in its existing condition, as if it had existed for as long as science indicates it did, without the need for it to actually exist that long (which is well within his power). In this respect, human beings could have evolved virtually, while Adam and Eve remained the first humans to exist in actuality as opposed to in a virtual sense. Now, as for why God would do this, the ways of God are inscrutable, however, I would propose it might have something to do with prophecy, that is to say, with ensuring that the recreation of mankind by our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ as the New Adam occurred in the same pattern in which the univere was brought into being ex nihlo in Genesis.

Note that as a theologoumenon, which is loosely translated as “theological opinion” this is not official doctrine, it is not a belief of the Orthodox church, and indeed I don’t even promote it, but rather it is merely a possibility that has occurred to me for how to reconcile them that does not appear to my limited knowledge to contradict any Eastern Orthodox doctrine (or for that matter any Oriental Orthodox doctrine). Theologoumemna are pious speculations about possible answers to questions not answered by church doctrine.

Well stated; pious opinion. Adiaphora; things of indifference.

​

.

 

[Fervent]

On the contrary - if you care about preserving the ancient faith, that Christ our True God was fully man and fully God, it makes a lot of sense, for if our Lord lacked a human soul He would not be fully human, but rather, half human, or worse, a human body operated by God like a puppet. His experiences would thus have no ontological connection with ours; his suffering on the cross would be performative (since God cannot suffer, at least in a temporal sense, except through communicatio idiomatum, due to divine immutability and impassability).

In principle, you're correct. It's an important part of the discussion, especially as Platonism has been an incredibly important model to explain the faith and so the controversies that depend on that understanding are worth remembering and perservering in opposition. But in modern western academia universals are generally held to exist in name only, so it suffices to maintain that Jesus was truly human whatever that means. It is only when we introduce the question of universals that a heresy such as Apollinarianism could even persist so to someone who is fully emersed in nominalist culture it simply doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[The Liturgist]

I once talked to a girl who was proud that she could spell antidisestablishmentarianism. I asked her what it meant and she had no idea what it means. It means opposition (anti) to the withdrawal of state funds (disestablish) from a state church, such as the Church of England.

More than just remove state funds; the Established Church is the official religion and the monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England. As the state church, British people are entitled to certain services to the Church of England, and some lands come with certain obligations to the C of E. Specifically, Antidisestablishmentarianism is used primarily in the context of the C of E.
I myself have vaciliated on the issue, because on the one hand, the UK government has pushed the Church of England in a liberal direction, but on the other hand many of the historically larger Dissenting Protestant churches like the United Reformed Church, the Methodists, the Scottish Episcopal Church and others.


There are many countries where churches are financed by the government without being Established (for example, in Germany both the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church get state funding from voters based on which church they were baptized in or are a member of, and this pattern is fairly typical; likewise in Finland both the Lutheran Church of Finland and the Church of Finland (Eastern Orthodox) receive government subsidy without either being more official than the other (although there are more Finnish Lutherans than Finnish Orthodox); this is also why the Church of Finland celebrates Pascha according to the Gregorian calendar - pressure from the state. Indeed while there is a schismatic churches uncanonically formed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Estonia to compete with the canonical Orthodox Church in that country, which is on the Julian calendar, the Finnish Orthodox Church is the only canonical Eastern Orthodox church to use the Gregorian Calendar (which is also used by five Oriental Orthodox churches, including three of the four Armenian churches, and both Syriac Orthodox jurisdictions in India, the Jacobites under the Patriarchate of Antioch, and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, who were united with the former but decided to have an uneccessary schism which was very ugly in the 2010s but is beginning to recover; all Orthodox jurisdictions in Jerusalem, including the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, the Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Jerusalem, et cetera, use the Julian calendar exclusively, which helps to avoid overcrowding at the holy places there except in years like this one when the Julian and Gregorian calendars are in alignment.

Most Orthodox Christians in the US use the Revised Julian Calendar, which uses the Julian Calendar to calculate the date of Pascha (Easter) but the Gregorian for fixed feasts like the Nativity (Christmas), the Transfiguration and all feasts of the Lord not connected to the Paschal cycile, the Holy Apostles St. Peter and Paul (this Sunday, the 29th), the Dormition, Annunciation and other feasts of the Theotokos, the the Holy Cross, the Archangels and other bodiless powers, and the various feasts of the Holy Martyrs, Apostles, Evangelists, Confessors, Ascetics, Wonder-workers, Fools for Christ, Hierarchs, Prophets, Old Testament Patriarchs, and others.

 

[The Liturgist]

In principle, you're correct. It's an important part of the discussion, especially as Platonism has been an incredibly important model to explain the faith and so the controversies that depend on that understanding are worth remembering and perservering in opposition. But in modern western academia universals are generally held to exist in name only, so it suffices to maintain that Jesus was truly human whatever that means. It is only when we introduce the question of universals that a heresy such as Apollinarianism could even persist so to someone who is fully emersed in nominalist culture it simply doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

In my argument, I haven’t referenced Platonism or neo-Platonism; the hypostatic union is a Patristic doctrine, but its not necessary to use the word hypostasis to stress the idea that Christ in the Incarnation put on our humanity, according to St. Paul, and is fully God and fully Man, according to St. John (in his Gospel), simultaneously, without change, confusion, separation or division being the criteria adopted by everyone.

Apollinarianism results in Jesus Christ not being fully God or fully Man, but being a man with a divine soul, thus, half and half, or a mixture of God and Man, which is contradicts the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith that unites us on Christian Forums and unites everyone from Seventh Day Adventists to Eastern Orthodox to Lutherans to Baptists to Anglicans to Roman Catholics to Calvinists.

We don’t need to make recourse to the idea of hypostatic union (which is not actually Platonic in any sophisticated way; the word hypostasis literally means “that which stands beneath” and is used in the sense of “underlying reality”, therefore Christ in His underlying reality has united humanity and divinity, this phrase being used by St. Cyril and (and is thus used by both the Chalcedonians and the Oriental Orthodox) in opposition to Nestorius, who sought to separate the humanity and divinity of Christ in order to justify his violent persecution of those who used the term “Theotokos” to refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

However, some semi-Platonic concepts are inescapable, because they are used in the language of the Gospel, for example, Logos, used by St. John, although with differences from the original Platonic concept, influenced by the Hebrew idea of a Memre, but nonetheless, St. John the Theologian using the word Logos helped Greek readers understand who Christ was in his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The early church fathers were not Platonists nor Aristotelians, but rather selectively used bits and pieces of Greek philosophy, going back to the Socratic idea of the dialectic, as opposed to the Scholastics such as Thomas Aquinas who built their theology on the philosophy of Aristotle as commented upon by Averroes, an Islamic philosopher (which is not to say that Scholasticism is crypto-Islamic; this is by no means the case; as Muslims go, Averroes was not a particularly important theological figure, much less important to their religion than the founder of the four predominant Sunni schools of jurisprudence (the Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki and Shaf’ti fiqhs, or schools of jurisprudence) and various mystics associated with Sufism, and various Shi’a Imams and subsequent religious scholars and clerics.

Piety requires us to assume it was not an accident God chose the period of time when Greek philosophy was widely understood and widely available among the intelligensia for the incarnation of Christ, and since, particularly in the Western church, the early converts to Christianity tended to be of the upper classes and merchant classes, since it was not until the second century under St. Victor that the Bible and the liturgy were translated into Latin, the language spoken by the working class citizens of the Western Roman Empire (a mostly complete Syriac Bible would not appear until the fourth century, although a Gospel harmony, the Diatessaron, dates from the Second Century, and the Vetus Syra translation of the four Gospels translated to replace it after Tatian, the compiler of the Diatessaron, founded a heretical sect of the Gnostic variety; however, the Diatessaron has been reconstructed from information in sermons and other materials about its contents, and the result, like all Gospel Harmonies, is remarkably weak compared to the original, and we also know that a Syriac speaking church existed since the first century, but was relying on oral preaching, an oral tradition and clergy who knew Greek; I suspect the “Gospel of Thomas”, a selection of sayings of our Lord, since it mostly agrees with the synoptic Gospels, is a translation of a corruption by some heretical sect (like the Ophites ,Tatianists, Severians, etc,) of an ancient Syriac reference used by one or more of the churches planted by St. Thomas in Edessa, Nisibis, Nineveh, Seleucia-Cstesiphon and Kerala, and by his disciples St. Addai and St. Mari, of the seventy), since where it differs from the canonical Gospels, it does so in a manner that favors salvation by secret knowledge and other doctrines favored by those heresies.

The combination of Greek and Syriac Aramaic philosophy and language providing an expressive framework for talking about the mysteries of God , the Roman Empire where Greek was usable as a lingua franca in the Eastern half and in much of the Western half, the Aramaic-speaking trade routes through Syria and Mesopotamia to India sailing from Basra, the port city associated with Seleucia-Cstesiphon (sometimes called Bablyon, but Old Babylon was located adjacent to where Baghdad now is located, having been abandoned for a time due to shifts in the Tigris) (and also the southern route down the Red Sea, via Socotra, an island of the coast of Yemen that was a major center for Syriac Christianity of the Church of the East until the Muslims killed all of them in the 12th century) combined to create ideal conditions for the flourishing of Christianity (and the attempted diabolical propagation of rival religions, such as Gnosticism, Manichaenism, Zoroastrianism, Arianism and Neo-Platonism, but Christianity would emerge victorious for God promises us in the Gospel According to St. Matthew the Gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church.

One need not be an expert in Plato to understand Patristic theology; indeed, too much knowledge of Plato or Aristotle can actually cause confusion, because in Plato Logos has a theological meaning subordinate to the creator of everything, the unmoved mover, which is contrary to the Christian faith in the coequality of the three persons of the Holy, Life-Giving and Unidivided Trinity.

But insofar as some Western theologians don’t regard Patristics or the ancient heresies as relevant, they do themselves a disservice, for in Patristics is the key for the reconciliation of separated denominations, such as the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, who are in the process of coming together again after a schism much more complex and less definite than most people realize, and between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, for the Magisterial Protestants, the Scholastic theologians and the Orthodox share in common an interest in Patristics; indeed Anglicans and Lutherans and Calvinists have made enormous contributions to Patristic scholarship; lately Dr. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, being one example of an important Protestant scholar of the early church. Also, insofar as all modern heresies are simply regurgitations of ancient heresies, if one understands the heresies of the early church one can deconstruct a modern cult like the LDS cult and understand why its beliefs are wrong, and why it matters, and also arm oneself with useful apologetics tools if asked about our faith by Mormon inquirers (I don’t advocate sending Christian missionaries door to door in Utah, for that is not our way).

 

[Fervent]

In my argument, I haven’t referenced Platonism or neo-Platonism; the hypostatic union is a Patristic doctrine, but its not necessary to use the word hypostasis to stress the idea that Christ in the Incarnation put on our humanity, according to St. Paul, and is fully God and fully Man, according to St. John (in his Gospel), simultaneously, without change, confusion, separation or division being the criteria adopted by everyone.

Apollinarianism results in Jesus Christ not being fully God or fully Man, but being a man with a divine soul, thus, half and half, or a mixture of God and Man, which is contradicts the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith that unites us on Christian Forums and unites everyone from Seventh Day Adventists to Eastern Orthodox to Lutherans to Baptists to Anglicans to Roman Catholics to Calvinists.

We don’t need to make recourse to the idea of hypostatic union (which is not actually Platonic in any sophisticated way; the word hypostasis literally means “that which stands beneath” and is used in the sense of “underlying reality”, therefore Christ in His underlying reality has united humanity and divinity, this phrase being used by St. Cyril and (and is thus used by both the Chalcedonians and the Oriental Orthodox) in opposition to Nestorius, who sought to separate the humanity and divinity of Christ in order to justify his violent persecution of those who used the term “Theotokos” to refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

However, some semi-Platonic concepts are inescapable, because they are used in the language of the Gospel, for example, Logos, used by St. John, although with differences from the original Platonic concept, influenced by the Hebrew idea of a Memre, but nonetheless, St. John the Theologian using the word Logos helped Greek readers understand who Christ was in his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The early church fathers were not Platonists nor Aristotelians, but rather selectively used bits and pieces of Greek philosophy, going back to the Socratic idea of the dialectic, as opposed to the Scholastics such as Thomas Aquinas who built their theology on the philosophy of Aristotle as commented upon by Averroes, an Islamic philosopher (which is not to say that Scholasticism is crypto-Islamic; this is by no means the case; as Muslims go, Averroes was not a particularly important theological figure, much less important to their religion than the founder of the four predominant Sunni schools of jurisprudence (the Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki and Shaf’ti fiqhs, or schools of jurisprudence) and various mystics associated with Sufism, and various Shi’a Imams and subsequent religious scholars and clerics.

Piety requires us to assume it was not an accident God chose the period of time when Greek philosophy was widely understood and widely available among the intelligensia for the incarnation of Christ, and since, particularly in the Western church, the early converts to Christianity tended to be of the upper classes and merchant classes, since it was not until the second century under St. Victor that the Bible and the liturgy were translated into Latin, the language spoken by the working class citizens of the Western Roman Empire (a mostly complete Syriac Bible would not appear until the fourth century, although a Gospel harmony, the Diatessaron, dates from the Second Century, and the Vetus Syra translation of the four Gospels translated to replace it after Tatian, the compiler of the Diatessaron, founded a heretical sect of the Gnostic variety; however, the Diatessaron has been reconstructed from information in sermons and other materials about its contents, and the result, like all Gospel Harmonies, is remarkably weak compared to the original, and we also know that a Syriac speaking church existed since the first century, but was relying on oral preaching, an oral tradition and clergy who knew Greek; I suspect the “Gospel of Thomas”, a selection of sayings of our Lord, since it mostly agrees with the synoptic Gospels, is a translation of a corruption by some heretical sect (like the Ophites ,Tatianists, Severians, etc,) of an ancient Syriac reference used by one or more of the churches planted by St. Thomas in Edessa, Nisibis, Nineveh, Seleucia-Cstesiphon and Kerala, and by his disciples St. Addai and St. Mari, of the seventy), since where it differs from the canonical Gospels, it does so in a manner that favors salvation by secret knowledge and other doctrines favored by those heresies.

The combination of Greek and Syriac Aramaic philosophy and language providing an expressive framework for talking about the mysteries of God , the Roman Empire where Greek was usable as a lingua franca in the Eastern half and in much of the Western half, the Aramaic-speaking trade routes through Syria and Mesopotamia to India sailing from Basra, the port city associated with Seleucia-Cstesiphon (sometimes called Bablyon, but Old Babylon was located adjacent to where Baghdad now is located, having been abandoned for a time due to shifts in the Tigris) (and also the southern route down the Red Sea, via Socotra, an island of the coast of Yemen that was a major center for Syriac Christianity of the Church of the East until the Muslims killed all of them in the 12th century) combined to create ideal conditions for the flourishing of Christianity (and the attempted diabolical propagation of rival religions, such as Gnosticism, Manichaenism, Zoroastrianism, Arianism and Neo-Platonism, but Christianity would emerge victorious for God promises us in the Gospel According to St. Matthew the Gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church.

One need not be an expert in Plato to understand Patristic theology; indeed, too much knowledge of Plato or Aristotle can actually cause confusion, because in Plato Logos has a theological meaning subordinate to the creator of everything, the unmoved mover, which is contrary to the Christian faith in the coequality of the three persons of the Holy, Life-Giving and Unidivided Trinity.

But insofar as some Western theologians don’t regard Patristics or the ancient heresies as relevant, they do themselves a disservice, for in Patristics is the key for the reconciliation of separated denominations, such as the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, who are in the process of coming together again after a schism much more complex and less definite than most people realize, and between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, for the Magisterial Protestants, the Scholastic theologians and the Orthodox share in common an interest in Patristics; indeed Anglicans and Lutherans and Calvinists have made enormous contributions to Patristic scholarship; lately Dr. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, being one example of an important Protestant scholar of the early church. Also, insofar as all modern heresies are simply regurgitations of ancient heresies, if one understands the heresies of the early church one can deconstruct a modern cult like the LDS cult and understand why its beliefs are wrong, and why it matters, and also arm oneself with useful apologetics tools if asked about our faith by Mormon inquirers (I don’t advocate sending Christian missionaries door to door in Utah, for that is not our way).

You may not have directly referenced it, but the question of ontological relationship you based your argument on requires a Platonic understanding of ontology to some degree. Natures have to exist in a real sense as some kind of universal, unlike in nominalism where the idea of a "human nature" is simply a convenient way to categorize similar expressions of individuals. Western philosophy has leaned so heavily into nominalism that the error of Apollinarianism doesn't make sense to someone who doesn't believe universals exist in any real sense.

 

[The Liturgist]

You may not have directly referenced it, but the question of ontological relationship you based your argument on requires a Platonic understanding of ontology to some degree. Natures have to exist in a real sense as some kind of universal, unlike in nominalism where the idea of a "human nature" is simply a convenient way to categorize similar expressions of individuals. Western philosophy has leaned so heavily into nominalism that the error of Apollinarianism doesn't make sense to someone who doesn't believe universals exist in any real sense.

Once again, you accuse me of a dependency on Platonism that I don’t have, and indeed, purposefully avoided. I never once spoke of the human nature or the divine nature of Christ, and the reason for this is because the Oriental Orthodox are miaphysites, believing our Lord exists from two natures, human and divine, whereas Chalcedonians believe our Lord exists in two natures, human and divine.

What unites both, and also the Church of the East, since it adopted a Syriac psuedo-Chalcedonian system based on qnume instead of nature or hypostasis, a different nominal construct altogether, is that all of the above believe Christ our True God is fully Man and fully God, without change, confusion, separation or division.

It is possible to differentiate between mankind and God, and to identify humanity without resort to Platonic ontology: homo sapiens as a distinct biological species identified through our DNA, which is different from that of all other animals. According to Scripture, God created us; He created us male and female, and He created us in His image, and when we fell into Sin he caused us to be mortal, limiting our lifespan according to Orthodox theology as a mercy, since indefinite existence in this fallen world would be intolerable. There exists a scriptural, Biblical definition of humanity which in no respect requires use of Plato.

God, on the other hand, is also scripturally defined: He is infinite, His name means “I am that I will be”, He is unchanging, He abides in the Father, who no man has seen at any time, the only begotten Son and Word of God, our savior, Jesus Christ, who is God with Us (emanu-el), in whom fullness of the invisible God dwelled bodily, and through whom we can see the Father, and finally the Holy Spirit, who has been made our Comforter and Paraclete, but in contrast to the Father, who no one has seen at any time, the Holy Spirit has only ever been seen, and also experienced otherwise, for in baptism we receive the life-giving Spirit. The early church fathers used the Greek word prosopon to refer to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, which is a good choice of a word since it literally translates into Latin as person, but originally in Greek referred to mask, and had the implication of persona, personality or visage; slaves in the ancient Roman Empire had no prosopon - their personhood was denied, whereas Christianity requires us to treat our neighbor as we would be treated, so we have no right to deny anyone personhood.

The Gospel of John makes it clear that Jesus Christ is fully God, as defined scripturally, without recourse to a Platonic ideal of God, and fully Man, as defined scripturally, without reference to a Platonic ideal, although in a sense St. Paul and the other Apostles made use of the concept in describing our Lord as “the New Adam” in inspired writings, and St. John does refer to Christ as the Logos, and his divinely inspired use of the word Logos has much in common with the Platonic idea of the Logos, but it has more in common with the Memre, and it specifically derives from the claim of Christ to be the Truth, the Way and the Light.

This is also what the Nicene Creed / CF Statement of Faith says. The Nicene Creed makes use of the Hellenic word “ousia” to say that our Lord is of one essence with the Father, but this is Aristotelian and not Platonic.

If Nominalism is taken to an extreme where you accept Apollinarianism, which requires rejecting the idea that a human must have a human soul, and also requires saying that God has a soul in the same way we do, which is also a problematic statement since Scripture makes it clear that God is inscrutable, and the word soul in its ancient context is defined to specific concepts, and so the idea of God having a soul which could inhabit a human body requires us to say a lot of things about God that are not contained in Scripture, including denying His infinity, then Nominalism starts to become a problem.

However I myself approached this issue not using Platonic philosophy any more than the Nicene Fathers, but using a Nominalist approach, because the differences between Chalcedonian Christianity, Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Church of the East are nominal, since all three of them define Christ as being fully human and fully divine, without change, confusion, separation or division.

Apollinarianism is one of a number of theologies that confuses the humanity and divinity, causing Christ to cease to be fully God and fully Man, preventing Him from being the new Adam, which is why it was anathematized directly in the new Creed, which declares that Jesus Christ is begotten, not made, begotten of the Father before all worlds, of one essence with the Father, very God of very God, who for us men and our salvation became incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man.

The Christian Forums Statement of Faith, which includes the Nicene Creed, also summarizes this brilliantly:

“Faith groups and individuals that deny the full, eternal deity of Jesus Christ or His incarnation whereby He, as God, took on human flesh (becoming fully God and fully man in one person), are considered non-Christians at CF.”

Thus Nestorius and Apollinarius would both be considered non-Christians, because Nestorius denied that Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and Apolliinarius likewise, but where Nestorius advocated a Christology where the human Christ was one person and the Divine logos another, united by a single will (requiring, ironically, Monothelitism)*, Apollinarius reduced the humanity of Christ to having a human body, ignoring the importance of the soul in human beings, which is doctrinally important in all Christiaan denominations, to the extent that both Western and Eastern churches, presbyters are charged with the cure of souls, hence the title Curate for a priest not a rector or vicar.

Insofar as Scripture uses Adam and Christ to represent the ideal of the human race, with the Gospel According to St. John having Pontius Pilate say “Ecce Homo”, there is an inherent compatibility between it and Platonism, and some ideas of Plato were good ideas worth using, and it would change Christianity into something else if we tried to remove anything that had an analogue in Platonic thought; the early Church Fathers were right to use Plato, however, in the case of the Oriental Orthodox vs. the Chalcedonians, the concept of physis was taken too far, and the Oriental Orthodox were falsely accused of the Monophysitism of Eutyches, who Pope Dioscorus had anathematized as a heretic. The Monophysite sect went on to degenerate into Tritheism, since it was the only way they could preserve the idea of Jesus Christ as God while believing that in His nature humanity and divinity were comingled and had been changed into a hybrid in the Incarnation.

Thus we return to the importance of “Fully God, and fully man, without change, confusion, separation or division” the formula that all three Christological groups agree on - the Chalcedonians, who have been accused of Nestorianism by Oriental Orthodox (primarily Ethiopian monks) who believe that saying our Lord abides in two natures is the same as saying He has two hypostases or exists in two persons, and the Miaphysite Oriental Oriental Orthodox who have been accused of Monophysitism by Chalcedonians who fail to recognize that the hymn which the Chalcedonians use to define Christological orthodoxy in a fifth century sense, Only Begotten Son, was composed by St. Severus of Antioch and is the Introit to all Syriac Orthodox liturgies and is used by all Oriental Orthodox churches, and who have also been accused of Monothelitism by Chalcedonians unaware of the fact that the Oriental Orthodox recognized this as a heresy, and it was Monothelitism that is believed to have been the belief harbored by Maronites that lead to their Schism) and the Assyrians of the Church of the East (who have been accused of Nestorianism by both Chalcedonians and Miaphysites who attempt to impose Platonic categories on a Syriac Aramaic word, and based on their history, and also on the unfortunate fact that they continue to venerate Nestorius, a legacy of the period when a Nestorian uncanonically seized control of the Catholicosate of the East, some time before Mar Babai became Catholicos and implemented the current Syro-Chalcedonian Christology).


*Of course later in his pretentious memoirs, the Bazaar of Heraclides, Nestorius attempted to throw some gasoline onto the fire of schism between the Oriental Orthodox and the Eastern Orthodox, between Alexandria and Rome, for it was Pope St. Cyril of Alexandria and Archbishop St. Celestine of Rome that had anathematized him, and Chalcedon was a clash between Pope Dioscorus of Alexandria and Pontifex Maximus Leo I of Rome (remember, Roman bishops were not yet called Pope; that began in the 6th century, and I am pedantic enough to insist on referring to them using only their styles, but Leo I did adopt the title “Pontifex Maximus” meaning “chief bridge builder” which had previously been used in the now suppressed Roman state religion and which was once held by Gaius Julius Caesar, whose conquests inadvertently facilitated the spread of the Roman Empire (and who interestingly might have been saved by our Lord according to the Pacific belief in the Harrowing of Hell, along with anyone else who died before the Crucifixion, when God remade man in His image on the Sixth day).

 

[DialecticSkeptic]

I can't follow your reasoning.

In order to clarify my reasoning, I would need to know where it breaks down for you. My argument hinges on three premises:

1. Sin is defined by a covenant relationship between God and man.

2. That covenant relationship had a beginning.

3. Humans have existed for over 200,000 years.

Prior to Adam and God's covenant relationship with mankind, which he established with Adam in Eden, there was no such thing as sin. The reasoning seems clear to me. Where does it break down for you?

If God made a specific covenant with Adam and Eve, Genesis doesn't tell us when this happened or what was in that covenant.

First, my argument holds that God made a covenant with mankind, not just Adam and Eve. Second, he established it through federal headship with Adam in the middle of the garden, so Genesis does tell us when it happened (~6,000 years ago) and what was in that covenant (the promise, condition, penalty, and sacramental sign). For a fuller presentation, I would direct you to Louis Berkoff, "Man in the Covenant of Works," in Systematic Theology (1939; repr., Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), 211–218.

Keep in mind that my argument presupposes covenant theology or takes it for granted; it does not defend it. (My argument takes a host of things for granted, including the existence of God.) If you take issue with covenant theology, that is outside the scope of my argument.

That is one of the reasons why all of the stories in the first few chapters of Genesis have to be taken as teaching stories. Take Cain and Abel, for example. The Ten Commandments had not yet been handed down; they were issued through Moses in Exodus 20. What law were Cain and Abel under when Cain slew Abel? I suppose you could say that it was illegal under natural law, but this is arbitrary. It makes far more sense as a teaching story than as literal history.

First, they were under God's moral law by virtue of being image-bearers in Adam's covenantal line (e.g., Genesis 9:6; cf. 4:6-7, "sin is crouching at the door"—sin was in the world before the law was given, Rom 5:13). Second, a teaching story and literal history are not mutually exclusive, so arguing for the former does not obviate the latter. I would suggest it is both literal history and a teaching story.

The churches I attend use no Latin words and I will make no attempt to figure out what Latin words mean.

Suit yourself.