Clearly my mother OD’d on Aristotle when she was carrying me.
;-)
I was not thinking of “efficient” cause, of how sin is transmitted.
I was thinking more of what man (and man’s nature) is. The best I can do is that man was not made a sinner, but since the Fall we have not seen man in his uncorrupted nature. It’s a kind of counter-empirical view. We see men, but the true nature of man, which we never see embodied anymore, is not what we see. We see men who are defective.
If the space critters from the planet No’rf infected us with a virus which corrupted the genome so that, ever after humans were born with one leg two inches longer than the other, every man we say would limp, but the limp would not be ‘natural’ to man. Sort of kind of a little maybe like that.
I was going to quit this thread, and will continue to do so as far as discussing Mary’s internal organs is concerned. However, I think some of this concern is bound up with the concept of original sin, and a failure by theologians to read tribal writings as tribal writings.
Paul wrote, “12Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. 15But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass...For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man... 18Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”
Those of us raise in nation-states rebel against the idea that “many died through one man’s trespass”, because in a nation state each citizen is responsible for his deeds alone. But Israel was tribal, and tribal justice is very different.
In a tribe, there is the founder of the tribe, or the family subgroup of the tribe. He is called the “jid”. Outsiders can become a part of his ‘tribe’ or family group, or tribal members can leave, but he is seen as the source of the tribe.
“Specific family bloodlines or lineages are valued highly in tribal tradition and tribal culture. From such bloodlines and lineages, individual and tribes derive such fundamental values as honor (sharaf) and shame (ayb). The primary bloodline and lineage serves as a basis of identity and determines position and areas of authority in the tribe and sub-tribes within the overall tribal structure.”
http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/coinandiwinatribalsociety.pdf
The identification with the tribe rather than as an individual is so strong that it is entirely appropriate, in some cases, to kill members of a tribe for a crime they (in western thought) had nothing to do with, because guilt applies to the entire tribe.
“Western rule of law verdicts emphasize guilt and innocence and punishing the guilty rather than reconciliation. Tribal law verdicts focus primarily on compensation and reconciliation...Depending on the circumstances of the murder, tribes may exact blood from the offending tribe or individual family. These killings can in some cases continue up to seven generations (kham) depending on the seriousness of the situation.”
This sounds horrible to us, but those who study tribes say the end result is less killing and violence than in western states, where conflicts are fewer in number but far more devastating in impact.
As applied to theology, I don’t think Paul had any idea of ‘original sin’ when he wrote about Adam, nor of individual redemption when he wrote, “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
From the viewpoint of a tribal member - and Paul was a member of a tribe - we all DO merit death due to the act of Adam. To repeat, “Western rule of law verdicts emphasize guilt and innocence and punishing the guilty rather than reconciliation. Tribal law verdicts focus primarily on compensation and reconciliation.”
We were separated from God by the acts of the jid - Adam - and if we become a part of the tribe of Jesus, our new jid, we are reconciled to God.
As applied to Mary, it becomes obvious the whole ‘was she without sin’ debate is meaningless. If she had a male father, she was part of Adam and had his corporate ‘guilt’, or separation from God. Provision was made for her as a part of the tribe of Israel and descendant of Abraham to be reconciled temporarily to God, and she was. And when we choose to become a part of the tribe of Jesus by faith, we lose Adam as our jid and gain Jesus as our jid.
While Adam is our jid, we bear corporate guilt which we compound with our individual acts of sin. When Jesus is our jid, his obedience is what matters, not our sin. This is also an important part of the Virgin Birth, because if Jesus had been a son of Adam, he would have been born with Adam’s corporate separation from God.
Mary was a child of Adam, and thus separated from God. But she was also a child of Abraham and Israel, and had been reconciled, at least in part. And she became a part of the tribe of Jesus, and was fully and permanently reconciled to God by the obedience of Jesus.
This way of thinking is totally foreign to us as members of nation-states, but makes perfect sense to an Afghan or Iraqi. The pamphlet I cite was written, not about theology, but to help our troops understand how tribes function still today. And oddly enough, sometimes theologians would do well to study a bit of politics...