The Nature of Fallen Man

[IMINXTC]

Considering the rationale behind such institutions as infant baptism for the removal of "original sin," per example, one cannot but warily suspect the formation of doctrines - devised after the NT, Apostolic era - intended to define and classify elements of the human condition since the fall.

I will attempt to merge and touch on these related topics and invite all insight in the upcoming thread.

What does the Bible actually say?

Work in progress. Chill.


Merry Christmas! Stephen

[Athanasius]

I was reading Feser recently, and what he had to write some 10 years ago is relevant to the larger discussions we've been having http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-and-original-sin-part-ii.html?m=1.

[RandyPNW]

Considering the rationale behind such institutions as infant baptism for the removal of "original sin," per example, one cannot but warily suspect the formation of doctrines - devised after the NT, Apostolic era - intended to define and classify elements of the human condition since the fall.

I will attempt to merge and touch on these related topics and invite all insight in the upcoming thread.

What does the Bible actually say?

Work in progress. Chill.


Merry Christmas! Stephen

It's a good subject, which you know we've been addressing lately. Thanks.

I was raised a Lutheran and was infant baptized. Since I was raised in a Christian family, it was felt by Lutherans in general that a family should not wait to raise a child a Christian until they "come of age." You think?

So what this really means is that Infant Baptism isn't really biblical baptism. It is really Infant Dedication, which I think is perfectly legitimate. Baptism was given for people who had been living a sinful life, and not for babies just starting out in life. My thoughts only....

[RandyPNW]

I was reading Feser recently, and what he had to write some 10 years ago is relevant to the larger discussions we've been having http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-and-original-sin-part-ii.html?m=1.

Well, to be honest I sort of scooted through this, but found it very interesting. Thanks for that. There is a lot there I can identify with, with respect to my own position.

As I've said from the start, I do not argue a Sin Nature from a biological point of view--I do not argue for a Sin Gene. But I do argue for a Sin Nature from the pov of a Spiritual Inheritance. Your reference argues this as a Supernatural endowment that is lacking in those who choose to disobey God. But I would argue it as a Natural endowment springing from a Supernatural Choice--we choose either for or against the Supernatural God.

And the end is similar, I think, to how your reference describes it in "Hell." People are not roasted over ovens, but rather, they lose their supernatural benefits in fellowship with God, and are tormented by this loss. However, they still enjoy the blessings of Natural Creation to some degree--they are tormented, but not tortured. They regret, but they can still serve God in more menial ways.

After all, when we punish people in this world, we don't confine or whip them forever. But God does follow through with a complete separation with people who have chosen to go the non-Supernatural way.

They are "whipped," but this is a temporary infliction. The suffering is the loss of all of their possessions and presence in God's paradise--it is not the torture of being burned continuously for all eternity.

God would have to be a monster to do that, and the Scriptures portray Him as good and kind--not a monster. The torment is the thought of a final separation from paradise, and the reduction of blessing that entails.

But it is a temporary "whipping," which is how Jesus seemed to describe it, as "few or many beatings." It does not last forever. The "eternal punishment" is the eternal separation, which even the Jews practiced in their relationship with pagan neighbors. But allow me to return to Sin Nature.

Just from the letter of James today I saw good arguments for a Sin Nature. Let me briefly share these.

First, let me start with the reference Paul makes to "nature," and they show how James uses this same argument in arguing for a natural judgmentalism were all have. James seems to argue that we are born with these qualities, which seems to jibe with Paul's statement about our good and bad natures.

James 4.11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Romans 2.14 Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.


Note how James argues that there is only one legitimate judge, namely God. This delegitimizes the entire human race as judges, unless they act in concert with God. And why? It is, as Paul argues, a matter of human nature, which sometimes accuses men, when they don't repent, because Sin is upon their hearts and consciences, ie within their nature.

For other references to James' assumption that we have this sinful bent, or "nature," I would add these just for interest....

1) James 1.14 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

2) James 1.19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

3) James 1. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

4) James 2.12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.

5) James 3.2 We all stumble in many ways.

6) James 3.6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

7) James 4.1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?

8. James 4.5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace.

[Athanasius]

Well, to be honest I sort of scooted through this, but found it very interesting. Thanks for that. There is a lot there I can identify with, with respect to my own position.

As I've said from the start, I do not argue a Sin Nature from a biological point of view--I do not argue for a Sin Gene. But I do argue for a Sin Nature from the pov of a Spiritual Inheritance. Your reference argues this as a Supernatural endowment that is lacking in those who choose to disobey God. But I would argue it as a Natural endowment springing from a Supernatural Choice--we choose either for or against the Supernatural God.

I do wonder, though, if your view falls within the caricature Feser calls out. If we make some changes...

Many people seem to think that the doctrine of original sin says something like this: Adam and Eve were originally made for the eternal bliss of Heaven, but because they ate a piece of fruit they were told not to, they came to merit instead eternal torture at the hands of demons sticking pitchforks into them as they roast over hellfire.  Though Adam and Eve’s descendents had no part in their fruit-stealing, they are going to be held accountable for it anyway, and merit the same eternal torture (demons, pitchforks, hellfire and all).  For [Sin is transmitted from generation to generation by the word of God], which will automatically transfer them into the custody of the pitchfork-carrying demons straightaway upon death unless God somehow supernaturally removes it.  For some reason, though, this [theology is beyond contentious], and its [truth] must be taken on faith.

There are two aspects to the caricature:

1) The transmitted sin gene
2) Torture at the hands of demonic actors

If we swap out 'sin gene' for 'sin nature as a spiritual inheritance' then we arrive at much the same view.

Feser, on the other hand, argues that original sin entails as privation of God's supernatural gift. In this case, 'supernatural' refers to God creating humanity, and giving Adam and Eve "a good that went above or beyond what our nature required us to have". In other words, postlapsarian humanity is humanity as God created us, but without His supernatural gift. Original sin doesn't entail a corrupted nature, but, as mentioned, a privation of God-given goods. The loss of the beatific vision specifically.

Given what you've written over the last little while, it's difficult to see how this meshes with your own view unless you drop the notion of an ontic sin nature, which you go on to argue for below.

And the end is similar, I think, to how your reference describes it in "Hell." People are not roasted over ovens, but rather, they lose their supernatural benefits in fellowship with God, and are tormented by this loss. However, they still enjoy the blessings of Natural Creation to some degree--they are tormented, but not tortured. They regret, but they can still serve God in more menial ways.

After all, when we punish people in this world, we don't confine or whip them forever. But God does follow through with a complete separation with people who have chosen to go the non-Supernatural way.

They are "whipped," but this is a temporary infliction. The suffering is the loss of all of their possessions and presence in God's paradise--it is not the torture of being burned continuously for all eternity.

God would have to be a monster to do that, and the Scriptures portray Him as good and kind--not a monster. The torment is the thought of a final separation from paradise, and the reduction of blessing that entails.

But it is a temporary "whipping," which is how Jesus seemed to describe it, as "few or many beatings." It does not last forever. The "eternal punishment" is the eternal separation, which even the Jews practiced in their relationship with pagan neighbors. But allow me to return to Sin Nature.

Yes, I have a similar notion of Hell.

Just from the letter of James today I saw good arguments for a Sin Nature. Let me briefly share these.

First, let me start with the reference Paul makes to "nature," and they show how James uses this same argument in arguing for a natural judgmentalism were all have. James seems to argue that we are born with these qualities, which seems to jibe with Paul's statement about our good and bad natures.

James 4.11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Romans 2.14 Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.


Note how James argues that there is only one legitimate judge, namely God. This delegitimizes the entire human race as judges, unless they act in concert with God. And why? It is, as Paul argues, a matter of human nature, which sometimes accuses men, when they don't repent, because Sin is upon their hearts and consciences, ie within their nature.

For other references to James' assumption that we have this sinful bent, or "nature," I would add these just for interest....

1) James 1.14 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.

2) James 1.19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

3) James 1. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

4) James 2.12 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.

5) James 3.2 We all stumble in many ways.

6) James 3.6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

7) James 4.1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?

8. James 4.5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace.

Okay, but how does this support the idea that Adam's sin corrupted human nature? This fits with what Feser is saying, but I'm struggling to see how it fits in with what you've been saying, because Feser isn't arguing for a corrupted nature. Here's Feser's relevant bit, which fits in quite well with James:

As with other creatures, nature provides human beings with what they need in order to realize these goods, at least in a general way.  For example, we need food, and nature is set up in such a way that we can acquire it – by hunting and gathering, through basic farming, and also by the more sophisticated agricultural methods and economic institutions familiar from modern life, which our natural rational capacities have made possible.  We need knowledge of God, and philosophical investigation gives us such knowledge.  But as with other creatures, while nature provides the means to our ends, she doesn’t guarantee that every one of us will in fact realize those ends.  Due to misfortune, some of us sometimes go hungry.  Due to intellectual error and the complexity of the philosophical issues, some of us sometimes fail properly to understand the main arguments for God’s existence, or mix all sorts of errors into whatever knowledge of God we do have.  Due to the weaknesses of our wills, we also fall into moral error.  And when moral and intellectual errors multiply throughout a culture, the resulting general social environment may make it difficult for a given individual living within it to avoid more numerous and more serious moral and intellectual errors than he otherwise would have been prone to.  (Modern Western society provides a good example, insofar as the secularist portion of it is much farther from understanding the basic truths of natural theology and natural law than perhaps any other culture ever has been.  I have explored the contingent historical and philosophical reasons for this elsewhere.)

So, human beings in their natural state have only a limited capacity to realize the ends their nature requires them to pursue in order that they might flourish.  They have the raw materials needed for this pursuit, but the finitude of their intellectual, moral, and material endowments entails that there is no guarantee that each and every individual human being will in fact realize the ends in question, or realize them perfectly when they do realize them at all.  Nature has granted us what it “owes” us given what we need in order to flourish as the kind of creatures we are, but no more than that.  This is the situation Adam, Eve, and their descendants would have been in had God left the human race in its purely natural state.

[RandyPNW]

As I've said from the start, I do not argue a Sin Nature from a biological point of view--I do not argue for a Sin Gene. But I do argue for a Sin Nature from the pov of a Spiritual Inheritance.

I do wonder, though, if your view falls within the caricature Feser calls out. If we make some changes...

To be clear, I'm arguing for a "spiritual inheritance" that is transferred via *human spirituality.* We were created both spirit and body. Both are material substances, in the sense that both a real substances.

Spirit is sometimes posited as something immaterial, and I wish to avoid that sense of the word. Yes, "spirit" material is different that physical material. But it is nonetheless part of the human substance, just a Deity has a non-physical substance that unites the 3 Persons of the Trinity. God is a real substance, and not merely the absence of physical substance.

Many people seem to think that the doctrine of original sin says something like this: Adam and Eve were originally made for the eternal bliss of Heaven, but because they ate a piece of fruit they were told not to, they came to merit instead eternal torture at the hands of demons sticking pitchforks into them as they roast over hellfire.  Though Adam and Eve’s descendents had no part in their fruit-stealing, they are going to be held accountable for it anyway, and merit the same eternal torture (demons, pitchforks, hellfire and all).  For [Sin is transmitted from generation to generation by the word of God], which will automatically transfer them into the custody of the pitchfork-carrying demons straightaway upon death unless God somehow supernaturally removes it.  For some reason, though, this [theology is beyond contentious], and its [truth] must be taken on faith.

There are two aspects to the caricature:

1) The transmitted sin gene
2) Torture at the hands of demonic actors

If we swap out 'sin gene' for 'sin nature as a spiritual inheritance' then we arrive at much the same view.

I don't believe "spiritual inheritance" is the equivalent of the "sin gene" in order to compare. You could do this except that Feser begins by defining "spiritual inheritance" very different from how I define it. He seems to define it as the absence of physical substance, and therefore, something "Supernatural" and something that can be cancelled without impugning God's character in designing human nature.

This renders Man's choice to remain strictly "Natural" free of God's original design, and not guilty of producing a "Sin Gene" impacting future generations that did not originally Sin. But I believe God did in fact make future generations vulnerable to the first sin, even though they did not themselves commit that sin. They were made to be possible victims not just of the consequences of the 1st Man, but also to the inheritance of a Sin Nature.

Having a Sin Nature does not, however, immediately consign them to Hell. Rather, it means they've inherited an unclean condition that God in advanced planned to provide cleansing for. It may seem wrong to inherit a Nature that sins. However, it is what it is. We remain free to choose against the sins that we incline towards. And even though we are dirtied even by bad thoughts, we can still choose not to act on those thoughts.

Feser, on the other hand, argues that original sin entails as privation of God's supernatural gift. In this case, 'supernatural' refers to God creating humanity, and giving Adam and Eve "a good that went above or beyond what our nature required us to have". In other words, postlapsarian humanity is humanity as God created us, but without His supernatural gift. Original sin doesn't entail a corrupted nature, but, as mentioned, a privation of God-given goods. The loss of the beatific vision specifically.

Yes, I believe we weren't made to be strictly Natural with an option to pursue the Supernatural God. Rather, we were made to add, of necessity, this Supernatural element to our Natural creation. We were given a spiritual nature that requires the supernatural nature of God to exhibit God's image, for which we were created.

The choice to remain Natural was not just a dismissal of a Supernatural option, but more, the corruption of our created nature. It immediately transferred us from pure creation to impure creation, with a corrupted spiritual nature that inclines against God's word, while still knowing we were created to do good.

And this is the crossroads we all live at, to choose against our inclination to disobey God's word. Crossing our will we throw all kinds of tantrums.

Yes, I have a similar notion of Hell.

I'm so happy you've thought through this! So many just default to what they think is Christian orthodoxy. This has actually had much more of a history to it than many think. And I think we're on good ground in our positions.

Just from the letter of James today I saw good arguments for a Sin Nature. Let me briefly share these.

Okay, but how does this support the idea that Adam's sin corrupted human nature? This fits with what Feser is saying, but I'm struggling to see how it fits in with what you've been saying, because Feser isn't arguing for a corrupted nature. Here's Feser's relevant bit, which fits in quite well with James:...

Yes, I read it, and found it very interesting. Thanks again. I'm working on trying to answer you better. My quotes from James is assuming the existence of a corrupted *spiritual* nature, as in the "human spirit," which is as transferrable from human to descendant, as DNA is.

[ross3421]

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth

For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof:


so how is it possible for sin to be trasmitted unto all creation, n wonder christ had to shed and clense us in his blood.

[RandyPNW]

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth

For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof:


so how is it possible for sin to be trasmitted unto all creation, n wonder christ had to shed and clense us in his blood.

My view, which is already being discussed, is that the human spirit has the capacity for inheritance transfer. When Adam's spirit was poisoned in the garden, his spiritual inheritance was picked up by his descendants--not by physical DNA but by some kind of transfer from Adam's human spirit to his descendants' human spirits.

The blood is merely representative of energized physicality. Without the blood our physical beings die. Christ cleansed us by spiritual transfer, from his human spirit to our human spirits. His perfection had life in his blood that had not been contaminated by sin. Thus, his death was undeserved, and is able to transfer to us, spiritually, unworthiness of death, as well.

[RabbiKnife]

Any scripture at all to suggest such a thing?

[ross3421]

The blood is merely representative of energized physicality. Without the blood our physical beings die. Christ cleansed us by spiritual transfer, from his human spirit to our human spirits. His perfection had life in his blood that had not be contaminated by sin. Thus, his death was undeserved, and is able to transfer to us, spiritually, unworthiness of death, as well.

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

[RandyPNW]

Any scripture at all to suggest such a thing?

What, that we are spirit beings, and not just material flesh?

Gen 2.7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

That life is in the blood is just common sense. When someone bleeds out, they die. The blood carries oxygen, along with nutrition, to the brain, and the brain needs that to live. And so yes, life is in the blood.

That the human spirit transfers sin from generation to generation, we read the following:

Gen 5.3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.

We carry characteristics, DNA, that are passed on to our children. Science knows that, and the Bible knew it. The traits of sin, not just by environment but also by heredity, are carried in the same way.

Num 14.18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’

How do we benefit from the human Jesus, who we know already is a combination of human spirit and human body?

Rom 5.9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

We know that Christ has given us of his Spirit, not just bequeathing upon us God's forgiveness and virtue, but also his own spiritual characteristics as a human.

Eph 4.15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

We benefit from what Jesus did as a man, who as a man suffered our abuses, and as a man was then able to forgive our offences.

Rom 5.17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

For me these things are not absolutely clear. But I think they're worth thinking about and considering.

[IMINXTC]

The "original  sin," which is not a Biblical term, belongs logically to Adam, the initiator of the fall.


While we know that every human child born will  subsequently die as a result of the fall, scripturally his/her death is associated with Adam's sin, not sin particularly committed by the child. Adam's sin, the original sin, destined all of Adam's offspring to death.


So, historically and logically, original sin is that sin which separated man from God - Adam's sin.


The notion and tradition that infant Baptism will reverse that sentence  for the assumed guilty infant is erronous, confusing and uneccessary.


My grandmother lived out her days in guilty agony, being told by clerics that her son, who died as an infant, would spend eternity in "Limbo," because she had failed to get him to the "sacrament" on time


So, an important, initial question: Is every human guilty with sin before actually having commited sin?

[RandyPNW]

The "original  sin," which is not a Biblical term, belongs logically to Adam, the initiator of the fall.


While we know that every human child born will  subsequently die as a result of the fall, scripturally his/her death is associated with Adam's sin, not sin particularly committed by the child. Adam's sin, the original sin, destined all of Adam's offspring to death.


So, historically and logically, original sin is that sin which separated man from God - Adam's sin.


The notion and tradition that infant Baptism will reverse that sentence  for the assumed guilty infant is erronous, confusing and uneccessary.


My grandmother lived out her days in guilty agony, being told by clerics that her son, who died as an infant, would spend eternity in "Limbo," because she had failed to get him to the "sacrament" on time


So, an important, initial question: Is every human guilty with sin before actually having commited sin?

First, allow me to give my sympathy to you for what your Grandma went through. It's outrageous for someone to make that kind of judgment, which has only do with external ceremonial performance.

Second, I don't believe Infant Baptism is real biblical baptism. Real biblical baptism is the expression of a sinner that he or she is turning from a life of sin to embrace Christ as the way, truth, and life. Infant Baptism, to me, is a form of Child Dedication. The parents are promising to raise the child in the faith.

Finally, to answer your question, guilt by itself implies have committed conscious wrong. But Sin, in my view, is a contaminant that does indeed preclude one from obtaining Eternal Life apart from the grace of Christ.

Sin is both a conscious act and a contaminant that induces us to commit sins, for which we are indeed guilty in various degrees.

So sin is an attachment to humanity that necessarily leads to acts of sin. It is a contaminant that inclines towards rebellion against God's word.

We are born with this contagion, whether we are stillborn or suffer a serious mental disability. There are extenuating circumstances that mitigate our actions at times. But we all have the Sin Inclination, as the Jews call it.

[Athanasius]

To be clear, I'm arguing for a "spiritual inheritance" that is transferred via *human spirituality.* We were created both spirit and body. Both are material substances, in the sense that both a real substances.

Spirit is sometimes posited as something immaterial, and I wish to avoid that sense of the word. Yes, "spirit" material is different that physical material. But it is nonetheless part of the human substance, just a Deity has a non-physical substance that unites the 3 Persons of the Trinity. God is a real substance, and not merely the absence of physical substance.

Did I write something to make you think I thought you had something else in mind?

I don't believe "spiritual inheritance" is the equivalent of the "sin gene" in order to compare. You could do this except that Feser begins by defining "spiritual inheritance" very different from how I define it. He seems to define it as the absence of physical substance, and therefore, something "Supernatural" and something that can be cancelled without impugning God's character in designing human nature.

Feser doesn't define 'spiritual inheritance' in the post I linked to. What he does define is 'supernatural' as it relates to God's supernatural gift (the beatific vision), which I provided the definition of in my previous reply. This isn't properly thought of as the 'absence of physical substance', or at least, we wouldn't say 'Adam and Eve walked and talked with God, but it's so strange there was an absence of physical substance, right?'.

The comparison is made between the inheritance of sin that another committed, whether that inheritance is passed by a physical sin gene or a spiritual something-or-other. He makes this point in the analogy of the landowner:

Similarly, we inherit the penalty of original sin, not in the sense that we’ve got some “original sin gene” alongside genes for eye color and tooth enamel, but rather in the sense that the offer of the supernatural gifts was made to the human race as a whole through their first parent acting as their representative.  Inheriting this penalty from Adam is more like inheriting your father’s name or bank account than it is like inheriting his looks or his temperament.  And there is no more injustice in this inheritance than there is in the landowner’s not planting a vineyard for Mr. and Mrs. Adams’ descendants.

Or, if we adjust this to the view you're presenting:

Similarly, we inherit the penalty of original sin, not in the sense that we’ve got some [spiritually inherited original sin nature] alongside [our original human nature], but rather in the sense that the offer of the supernatural gifts was made to the human race as a whole through their first parent acting as their representative.  Inheriting this penalty from Adam is more like inheriting your father’s name or bank account than it is like inheriting his looks or his temperament.  And there is no more injustice in this inheritance than there is in the landowner’s not planting a vineyard for Mr. and Mrs. Adams’ descendants.

So, it's not the mechanism of transmission that matters as much as it is this idea that some stain, or corrupted nature, is being transmitted instead of the more proper idea that original sin results in a privation of God's gift to humanity that humanity was not owed.

This renders Man's choice to remain strictly "Natural" free of God's original design, and not guilty of producing a "Sin Gene" impacting future generations that did not originally Sin. But I believe God did in fact make future generations vulnerable to the first sin, even though they did not themselves commit that sin. They were made to be possible victims not just of the consequences of the 1st Man, but also to the inheritance of a Sin Nature.

You're saying much more than that. You're saying that God determined, or partially determined, or saved 144,000 or some other number of elect while leaving the rest to Satan, and so on.

But what does it mean to say that 'God did in fact make future generations vulnerable to the first sin'? Specifically, God did in fact make? This is a new claim. Is this concordant with your other claim that the spiritual inheritance is passed by the Word, i.e., God engages in double-predestination via the Word who made future generations (following Adam) vulnerable to the first sin?

Having a Sin Nature does not, however, immediately consign them to Hell. Rather, it means they've inherited an unclean condition that God in advanced planned to provide cleansing for. It may seem wrong to inherit a Nature that sins. However, it is what it is. We remain free to choose against the sins that we incline towards. And even though we are dirtied even by bad thoughts, we can still choose not to act on those thoughts.

Yes. This is a caricature in Feser's view as the introduce of a 'sin nature' in humanity would result in an alteration to the 'ends' of their nature:

So, human beings in their natural state have only a limited capacity to realize the ends their nature requires them to pursue in order that they might flourish.

If a sin nature corrupts this end, then no, humanity is quite compelled to sin, albeit humanity would not be compelled to commit this-or-that sin. Again, we can return to Feser's outline of a caricature to see that this idea of an inherited nature (physical or spiritual) falls within it.

Yes, I believe we weren't made to be strictly Natural with an option to pursue the Supernatural God. Rather, we were made to add, of necessity, this Supernatural element to our Natural creation. We were given a spiritual nature that requires the supernatural nature of God to exhibit God's image, for which we were created.

The choice to remain Natural was not just a dismissal of a Supernatural option, but more, the corruption of our created nature. It immediately transferred us from pure creation to impure creation, with a corrupted spiritual nature that inclines against God's word, while still knowing we were created to do good.

And this is the crossroads we all live at, to choose against our inclination to disobey God's word. Crossing our will we throw all kinds of tantrums.

Unfortunately, this idea of a corrupted nature is not found in Scripture.

I'm so happy you've thought through this! So many just default to what they think is Christian orthodoxy. This has actually had much more of a history to it than many think. And I think we're on good ground in our positions.

This may surprise you, but I've thought through many things.

Well, keep in mind I said similar, not the same. I found Lewis' discussions of hell fascinating, and so I lean heavily on him.

Yes, I read it, and found it very interesting. Thanks again. I'm working on trying to answer you better. My quotes from James is assuming the existence of a corrupted *spiritual* nature, as in the "human spirit," which is as transferrable from human to descendant, as DNA is.

Transferred by the Word, you have said. But you're importing this assumption into the text. You've decided upon the idea of a sin nature, and so any discussion of the ills of human beings must be explicable by that nature, even if a given text doesn't discuss it -- it must be assumed. James assumes no such nature.

[Redeemed]

How many threads is this being discussed in? Geez.