Life Immortal

Seph

For those of you who know me well enough, you'll know that a great deal of my worldview, my 'theology', my spirituality if you will, hinges on the Genesis story up 'til what is commonly accepted as the fall of man. (Although my take on it is somewhat different).

But here's a somewhat scary interpretation on it. Quite a different one I should think.

"The traditional, orthodox Christian view was that man was created perfect, innocent, foolish and happy, living naked in the Garden of Even. Then came knowledge and wisdom and the Fall of Man, to which the sufferings of man are due, notably (1) work by the sweat of one's brow for man, and (2) the pangs of labor for women. In contrast with man's original innocence and perfection, a new element was introduced to explain his present imperfection, and that is of course the Devil, working chiefly through the body, while his higher nature works through the soul. When the "soul" was invented in the history of Christian theology I am not aware, but this "soul" became a something rather than a function, an entity rather than a condition, and it sharply separated man from the animals, which have no soul worth saving. Here the logic halts, for the origin of the Devil had to be explained, and when the medieval theologians proceeded with their usual scholastic logic to deal with the problem, they got into a quandary. They could not have very well admitted that the Devil, who as Not-God, came from God himself, nor could they quite agree that in the original universe, the Devil, a Not-God, was co-eternal with God. So in desperation they agreed that the Devil must have been a fallen angel, which rather begs the question of the origin of evil (for there still must have been another Devil to tempt this fallen angel), and which is therefore unsatisfactory, but they had to leave it at that. Nevertheless from all this followed the curious dichotomy of the spirit and the flesh, a mythical conception which is still quite prevalent and powerful today in affecting our philosophy of life and happiness.

"Then came the Redemption, still borrowing from the current conception of the sacrificial lamb, which went still farther back to the idea of a God who desired the smell of roast meat and could not forgive for nothing. From this Redemption, at one stroke a means was found by which all sins could be forgiven, and a way was found for perfection again. The most curious aspect of Christian thought is the idea of perfection. As this happened during the decay of the ancient worlds, a tendency grew up to emphasize the afterlife, and the question of salvation supplanted the question of happiness or simple living itself. The notion was how to get away from this world alive, a world which was apparently sinking into corruption and chaos and doomed. Hence the overwhelming importance attached to immortality. This represents a contradiction of the original Genesis story that God did not want man to live forever. This Genesis story of the reason why Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden was not that they had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, as it popularly conceived, but the fear lest they should disobey a second time and eat of the Tree of Life and live forever.""Lin Yutang, "The Importance of Living", pg. 15-16.

God did not want man to live forever.
The Heaven of the afterlife? Immortality?

And what if God has never intended for Man to live forever... in any way or form; That there is no immortality in the afterlife - either Heaven or Hell. That man's soul is not innately immortal... and never will be.

Would Christians still be 'good' and 'do the right thing' if there were no reward, no immortality of the afterlife, no Heaven - no carrot. What would you do?

And if there was no goal at the end of the race, would we still race? Wouldn't that make us spiritual hedonists?

I like Lin Yutang's take on the Garden of Eden story because it answers questions that the more traditionally accepted version doesn't and can't answer.

Marvin

This certainly is a relevant discussion, and I might have a different tentative interpretation of the garden of Eden crisis making use of Martin Buber's concepts: The "I-Thou" and the "I-It". If the entire climate in the Garden of Eden consisted in only I-Thou relatedness, then it was God's intention in making the prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to maintain that kind of relatedness. The introduction of any I-It relatedness would have ruined the entire garden. Adam and Eve had no conception of anything other than the I-Thou. There was nothing DE-sacrilizing in the garden. when the prohibited fruit was eaten, the serpent became a De-sacrilizing agent; the tempter, and I-It form of relatedness was introduced into the garden. Adam and Eve became aware of the sacredness and profane dichotomy and because of that they looked at themselves as an I-It. I know that this view is not logically tight, but I could say some more about it when I have time.

ringnut

Seph said:

God did not want man to live forever.
The Heaven of the afterlife? Immortality?

And what if God has never intended for Man to live forever... in any way or form; That there is no immortality in the afterlife - either Heaven or Hell. That man's soul is not innately immortal... and never will be.

Would Christians still be 'good' and 'do the right thing' if there were no reward, no immortality of the afterlife, no Heaven - no carrot. What would you do?

And if there was no goal at the end of the race, would we still race? Wouldn't that make us spiritual hedonists?

I like Lin Yutang's take on the Garden of Eden story because it answers questions that the more traditionally accepted version doesn't and can't answer.

CS Lewis actually raised questions like this in one of his books. I think it was 'Reflections on the Psalms', but i'm not sure. It's a question i often ponder. Would i do the right thing even if there was nothing in it for me? Would i love God just because he is - even if i only had one human lifetime to do it? Some people do. OK, an atheist might not think s/he loves God, but still does so by loving their neighbour/world/environment. And with no hope of a reward in the afterlife. That's true love.

MJG791

On Donald Miller's twitter he recently posted something to the effect of "As a Christian leader who is fairly prominent, I know that I will be scrubbing toilets in heaven."

I rarely concern myself with thoughts of heaven and hell. Perhaps because I often feel as if I reside in heaven already.

I don't know if an eternity of service to God's people is a carrot or a stick, nor am I sure if it is either one or the other, what is on the other end of the line?

ringnut

MJG791 said:

I rarely concern myself with thoughts of heaven and hell. Perhaps because I often feel as if I reside in heaven already.

Wow, that's a whole new discussion itself! What is your concept of heaven (no hijack intended)?

MJG791

I like to sing, but I'm not one a person would like to listen to. People say I don't have a bad voice, but I have no training and have no idea how to sing in the right key.

And my image of heaven fits in with a hymn we sing in the Moravian church.

Sing hallelujah praise the Lord, sing with a cheerful voice,
exalt our God with one accord and in his name rejoice.
Ne'er cease to sing, O ransomed host; praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost
Until in realms of endless light, your praises shall unite.

There we to all eternity shall join the angelic lays
And sing in perfect harmony to God, our Savior's praise
He has redeemed us by his blood and made us kings and priests to God
For us, for us the lamb was slain! Praise ye the Lord! Amen.

I really like this because it means that I will be getting to simply do something I enjoy and praise God with hundreds of others who will make the bad parts of my voice sound as if I was in perfect harmony the whole time.

If Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven has come near, he didn't end all suffering or make the streets gold or anything. I believe the kingdom of Heaven will be filled with following Jesus and making the world around us good.

I think I posted this already, but Donald Miller recently tweeted a thought on the fact that the first shall be last and the last shall be first... and that this meant he thinks he'll be scrubbing toilets in heaven. I like the thought because there is still work to be done, even in heaven.

ringnut

I like that a lot. The picture of a choir singing that is. And yeah, there will always be work to do, won't there? After all, God still works, why shouldn't we?

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