Age of Accountability - scriptural foundation and a few questions?

Keachian said:

By siding with Pelagius in the controversy you are denying that there is any need whatsoever for a saviour, because that is ultimately where Pelagianism leads an inept god upon whom we do not depend.

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Please name the Greek or Latin philosopher.

Wordkeeper said:

Please name the Greek or Latin philosopher.

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Word keeper is the "friend" referenced above

Keachian said:

Word keeper is the "friend" referenced above

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Please don't avoid the questioning of your claims. Who is the Greek or Latin (sic) philosopher. You can't avoid answering questions. It's called the logical fallacy of avoiding the issue and obfuscation.

Wordkeeper said:

Please don't avoid the questioning of your claims. Who is the Greek or Latin (sic) philosopher. You can't avoid answering questions. It's called the logical fallacy of obfuscation.

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It's still you, you are asserting that the reason why Augustine formulated the doctrine is because of his philosophical background, when in reality it's largely against those of your ilk who want to strip the Cross of any meaning that Augustine formulated the doctrine as it is largely accepted today in Western Theology. Are some of the things Augustine said wrong? Quite possibly but not to the detriment of the necessity of the Cross it would be tweaking towards the Judaic or Eastern Orthodox understanding of sin if anything, not what you are proposing, which is largely Pelagian in nature and unorthodox in every way.

Keachian said:

It's still you, you are asserting that the reason why Augustine formulated the doctrine is because of his philosophical background, when in reality it's largely against those of your ilk who want to strip the Cross of anywhere else again.ing that Augustine formulated the doctrine as it is largely accepted today in Western Theology. Are some of the things Augustine said wrong? Quite possibly but not to the detriment of the necessity of the Cross it would be tweaking towards the Judaic or Eastern Orthodox understanding of sin if anything, not what you are proposing, which is largely Pelagian in nature and unorthodox in every way.

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I am not Greek or Latin, whatever the latter means. You've proved your inability to participate in a normal discussion. I don't see any point in carrying on the study with you. I suggest you read through a few books on argumentation before you jump in anywhere else again.

Wordkeeper said:

I am not Greek or Latin, whatever the latter means. You've proved your inability to participate in a normal discussion. I don't see any point in carrying on the study with you. I suggest you read through a few books on argumentation before you jump in anywhere else again.

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You're funny.

You have made proposition A
A = Augustine's arguments that formulated his doctrine of original sin are Greek in nature rather than Biblical

You have augmented proposition A with proposition B
B = Augustine didn't know Greek, only Latin

Meanwhile I'm talking about C
C = The theological climate in which Augustine formulated the doctrine of original sin was the Pelagian controversy.

To further substantiate my position I propose D and E
D = The consequent of the Pelagian denial of original sin is that there is no necessity for the Cross.
E = The result of D ultimately results in the loss of the Sovereignty of God.

That is the conversation in a nutshell, I believe I have represented you fairly and while you may not hold D or E to be true, it is ultimately to the inconsistency in your theology that you hold such a view.

Wordkeeper said:

There is nothing in Scripture that says the Fall changed men. God created man and said it was good. If you say man is now a sinner, you have stated that the unchanged man God created is a sinner. Dualism.

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That is a straight-up misuse of the term dualism. Dualism is the belief that the body and the soul are two distinct entities. And even if you were using the definition correctly, and even if Greek philosophers taught that, it still wouldn't necessarily invalidate the position. It isn't as though Greek philosophy and biblical theology can't have some degree of overlapping truth. It would be more surprising if they didn't.

But that is all beside the point, because the difference between pre-fall Adam and corrupted humanity is NOT dualism.

In any case, there are TONS of testimonies in Scripture that the fall changed man. Psalm 51, Romans 1-2, Romans 5 are just whole chapters off the top of my head.

As PV already said:

PaladinValer said:

Dualism is not being understood right.

Furthermore, the Holy Writ plainly states that those who say they are without sin deceive themselves.

Furthermore, being in a fallen state doesn't mean being in a state of actual sin. Even in a state of grace, we're still fallen because it is human nature that fell, which happened after creation.

Your argument is therefore rendered invalid.

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GratiaCorpusChristi said:

In any case, there are TONS of testimonies in Scripture that the fall changed man. Psalm 51, Romans 1-2, Romans 5 are just whole chapters off the top of my head.

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Romans 7, Most of the discussion in the Songs of the Suffering Servant, Leviticus as an entire book, John 6, John 10 (esp. where Christ calls the Jews illegitimate)

GratiaCorpusChristi said:

That is a straight-up misuse of the term dualism. Dualism is the belief that the body and the soul are two distinct entities. And even if you were using the definition correctly, and even if Greek philosophers taught that, it still wouldn't necessarily invalidate the position. It isn't as though Greek philosophy and biblical theology can't have some degree of overlapping truth. It would be more surprising if they didn't.

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A legend in Orphitism explains why men are prone to evil action. A spiritual being hiding in a material body was killed. a creature , man, rose, from its ashes. From then on, all the efforts of the good, spiritual component of man is spent on escaping that material body that is bent on doing evil.

The doctrine of Original Sin holds that Adam was created pure, able to choose to do both good and evil. Because Adam fell into temptation, he sinned, causing an ontological change in his composition. From then on, he is helpless in all his efforts to be righteous, good, trapped as he is in a body bent only on doing evil. Only through God's grace can Adam and his descendants ever do the good his soul desires to do.

This is how the body becomes an evil entity in the Doctrine of Original sin. Therefore this view is dualistic, as it pits the body (matter) against the soul (spirit).

The Eastern Orthodox Church believes the same, except they don't believe the guilt of Adam is shared by his descendants and the propensity to sin is removed by infant baptism.

But that is all beside the point, because the difference between pre-fall Adam and corrupted humanity is NOT dualism.

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Pre-fall Adam corresponds to Zagreus/Dionysius, son of Zeus, and corrupted humanity corresponds to Zagreus' decendants, all of Mankind.

In any case, there are TONS of testimonies in Scripture that the fall changed man. Psalm 51, Romans 1-2, Romans 5 are just whole chapters off the top of my head.
As PV already said:

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Not really relevant.

Keachian said:

You're funny.
You have made proposition A
A = Augustine's arguments that formulated his doctrine of original sin are Greek in nature rather than Biblical

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Actually the doctrine was formed before Augustine was born.

Quote
Origen was another of the church fathers who taught a doctrine of original sin. He was a student of all the current philosophies and far outstripped Tertullian in wild philosophical speculation. His theology bears the unmistakable marks of both Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism.

Origen taught the preexistence of souls and that all men sinned and fell in a former existence. His belief was that men, before their existence in this world, were spirits without bodies, and that the material world was created by God for the disciplining and purifying of these fallen spirits. Fallen man had been banished into material bodies to be disciplined and purified. He taught that this estrangement of fallen spirits would some day come to an end, and all men would be saved. Even the devil and demons would someday be restored to God. Origen believed in a purgatorial fire where souls would be punished and prepared for the presence of God. In the end, all spirits in heaven and in earth including the demons, would be brought back to God, after having ascended from stage to stage through seven heavens. Origen believed that sin is rooted in the human nature of man. He believed that sin is a necessary consequence of man's material nature. Origen later assumed the existence of a sort of hereditary sin originating with Adam and added this idea to his belief in a preexisting fall. And he, like Augustine after him, supposed that there was an inherent pollution and sinfulness in sexual union.

Origin andHistory of the Doctrine of Original Sin

You have augmented proposition A with proposition B
B = Augustine didn't know Greek, only Latin

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My observation is relevant. He had baggage from the Greek philosophy that he used to follow. He latched on to Scripture that seemed to support his views but actually did not. His lack of Greek led to his error.

Meanwhile I'm talking about C
C = The theological climate in which Augustine formulated the doctrine of original sin was the Pelagian controversy.

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Original sin was taught by the early church even before Augustine was born, although he was the first to use the Bible to support his theory:

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But Augustine did not devise the concept of original sin. It was his use of specific New Testament scriptures to justify the doctrine that was new. The concept itself had been shaped from the late second century onward by certain church fathers, including Irenaeus, Origen and Tertullian. Irenaeus did not use the Scriptures at all for his definition; Origen reinterpreted the Genesis account of Adam and Eve in terms of a Platonic allegory and saw sin deriving solely from free will; and Tertullian’s version was borrowed from Stoic philosophy.

Though Augustine was convinced by the arguments of his earlier patristic peers, he made use of the apostle Paul’s letters, especially the one to the Romans, to develop his own ideas on original sin and guilt. Today, however, it is accepted that Augustine, who had never mastered the Greek language, misread Paul in at least one instance by using an inadequate Latin translation of the Greek original.

The Original View of Original Sin


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To further substantiate my position I propose D and E
D = The consequent of the Pelagian denial of original sin is that there is no necessity for the Cross.
E = The result of D ultimately results in the loss of the Sovereignty of God.

Irrelevant. I don't need to discuss Pelagius to prove Original Sin is Greek dualism. Original sin was believed in before Pelagius was born.

The sovereignty of God is also irrelevant to the discussion.

That is the conversation in a nutshell, I believe I have represented you fairly and while you may not hold D or E to be true, it is ultimately to the inconsistency in your theology that you hold such a view.

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Is English your first language? This

"it is ultimately to the inconsistency in your theology that you hold such a view"

sounds like a word for word translation from an East Asian language.

Wordkeeper said:

A legend in Orphitism explains why men are prone to evil action. A spiritual being hiding in a material body was killed. a creature , man, rose, from its ashes. From then on, all the efforts of the good, spiritual component of man is spent on escaping that material body that is bent on doing evil.

The doctrine of Original Sin holds that Adam was created pure, able to choose to do both good and evil. Because Adam fell into temptation, he sinned, causing an ontological change in his composition. From then on, he is helpless in all his efforts to be righteous, good, trapped as he is in a body bent only on doing evil. Only through God's grace can Adam and his descendants ever do the good his soul desires to do.

This is how the body becomes an evil entity in the Doctrine of Original sin. Therefore this view is dualistic, as it pits the body (matter) against the soul (spirit).

The Eastern Orthodox Church believes the same, except they don't believe the guilt of Adam is shared by his descendants and the propensity to sin is removed by infant baptism.




Pre-fall Adam corresponds to Zagreus/Dionysius, son of Zeus, and corrupted humanity corresponds to Zagreus' decendants, all of Mankind.



Not really relevant.

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Well that's hogwash. You'd have to both demonstrate that that sort of thinking was actually prevalent in Greek philosophy, and that that sort of Greek philosophy was influential in Christianity. Neither can be done, but especially the first; it's based on weird psychological theories of sloppy nineteenth century readings of Greek intellectual history.

To add: Original Sin doesn't postulate a pure soul trapped in a sinful body. But rather a sinful human person of body-and-soul who is trapped beneath the weight of sin, and in need of grace. Not grace for the soul to escape the body, but grace to redeem the man, body and soul, in and on account of Christ.

-CryptoLutheran

Wordkeeper said:

Actually the doctrine was formed before Augustine was born.

Quote
Origen was another of the church fathers who taught a doctrine of original sin. He was a student of all the current philosophies and far outstripped Tertullian in wild philosophical speculation. His theology bears the unmistakable marks of both Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism.

Origen taught the preexistence of souls and that all men sinned and fell in a former existence. His belief was that men, before their existence in this world, were spirits without bodies, and that the material world was created by God for the disciplining and purifying of these fallen spirits. Fallen man had been banished into material bodies to be disciplined and purified. He taught that this estrangement of fallen spirits would some day come to an end, and all men would be saved. Even the devil and demons would someday be restored to God. Origen believed in a purgatorial fire where souls would be punished and prepared for the presence of God. In the end, all spirits in heaven and in earth including the demons, would be brought back to God, after having ascended from stage to stage through seven heavens. Origen believed that sin is rooted in the human nature of man. He believed that sin is a necessary consequence of man's material nature. Origen later assumed the existence of a sort of hereditary sin originating with Adam and added this idea to his belief in a preexisting fall. And he, like Augustine after him, supposed that there was an inherent pollution and sinfulness in sexual union.

Origin andHistory of the Doctrine of Original Sin

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Considering none of that is relevant to the discussion of Original Sin as it stands today, (do you know how it is formulated and what it proposes?) You're just committing Proof by Verbosity a fallacy which rests upon throwing as much information out as possible and hoping some of it is relevant. Further Mr. Overstreet in my opinion fails to reference his primary material, could it be that he is not dealing with the primary material and merely operating on hearsay? Such a charge of heresy from hearsay is quite astounding.

My observation is relevant. He had baggage from the Greek philosophy that he used to follow. He latched on to Scripture that seemed to support his views but actually did not. His lack of Greek led to his error.

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But you fail to account for the theological clime in which he formulated his case, he was seeking the necessity of the Cross and Paul, indeed the whole weight of the Scriptural witness points to Man's sinfulness and change from innocence as a result of the fall, it is not a postulate of "sex is dirty" but a postulate of "man is wicked and in rebellion to God"

To further substantiate my position I propose D and E
D = The consequent of the Pelagian denial of original sin is that there is no necessity for the Cross.
E = The result of D ultimately results in the loss of the Sovereignty of God.

Irrelevant. I don't need to discuss Pelagius to prove Original Sin is Greek dualism. Original sin was believed in before Pelagius was born.

The sovereignty of God is also irrelevant to the discussion.

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Well no they're not, the result of your denial of man being in need of a saviour (that's where this consistently leads) will consistently lead to the denial of the Sovereignty of God. In light of the atrocity and beauty of the Cross I beg you to open your eyes to this.

Is English your first language? This

"it is ultimately to the inconsistency in your theology that you hold such a view"

sounds like a word for word translation from an East Asian language.

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Doesn't to me and this is beside the point, you want to talk about falacies, ad hominem right here.

Actually there's no need to prove anything. Greek philosophy was offered as a possible reason for the formulation of the doctrine of original sin. Translation error was demonstrated as another possibility for the wrong Scriptural basis offered for the support of the view.

The issue is that an attempt at an apologetics defense against atheist views about the reason for the existence of evil proving that there is no God led to theorising about what happened to Adam after the Fall, which in turn turned into a view that labelled new born infants as sinners.

Here then is the scenario.

People understand that situations exist where moral judgment is lacking: insanity, handicap and youth, requiring immunity from criminal prosecution.

How can anyone view infants as culpable when Scripture describes their status as that of lacking knowledge of good and evil?

Even Calvinists believe that lack of understanding of God's requirements prompts Him to overlook infractions:


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John MacArthur concludes that up until a point of real saving faith in a child's life, God in His mercy would save that child if that child should die.^[3]^

http://www.theopedia.com/Age_of_accountability


As for Scriptural references for the view of an age of accountability, nothing direct exists. That condition didn't prevent theologians from formulating the doctrine of the Trinity, did it?

It was formulated from inference. Inferences like this:


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Since all people are the “offspring of God” (Acts 17:29), they come into this world innocent of sin. That is why Paul, in pointing out that God preplanned to bring Christ into the world through Jacob rather than Esau, stated that the decision was made prior to the birth of the boys: “[F]or the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil” (Romans 9:11, emp. added). Likewise, God declared that the King of Tyre, like everyone else, had come into the world guiltless, but had become sinful due to his own choices: “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you” (Ezekiel 28:15). If, at conception, God “forms the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1), why would anyone wish to insist that man’s spirit is, nevertheless, corrupt?

Apologetics Press - The Age of Accountability