I have finished the first few chapters of the book and would like to have some discussion around some of the themes. Don Miller says that we are all self absorbed and that contributes to much of the evilness in the world. What do you think are we born with a bent toward being evil? Are we born evil or is it something that we learn early in our lives?
My thoughts are as follows: I do not embrace the concept of "original sin" as I once did. Because I do believe that Jesus was born without sin I am hard pressed to say that every human is born into sin. I think that this concept of original sin has caused us to develop theologies such as "age of accountability" and infant baptism, which are hard to maintain from scripture and this causes us to rush children to make some sort of commitment to God. I believe that Miller is right on track when he says that we desire to do evil. Evil is very much present in this world and I think that we succumb to the pressure of evil early on in our experience of this world. Evil is so natural because it is visible and so enticing, we are self absorbed people because that gives us satisfaction. We do have animalistic instincts but that is not necessarily evil or sinful, yet this can led us to commit sin. Indeed we are born with the instincts that led us to choose evil but I have come to believe that this is something we are influenced in rather than born in.
3 comments:
Travis, welcome to the blog-world. I look forward to reading your thoughts. Peace.
Sounds like you were predestined to write this in total depravity.
Seriously, though, some good questions. I have to confess I see original sin's evidence in Scripture and life, but ultimately the bottom line is that we all need Jesus... whether it's to clean up a dirty birth or a dirty life.
Original sin has been a part of orthodox christianity for nearly two thousand years. The idea of a modern writer "deciding" a basic tenet of Christianity is not vaild requires more than his or her opinion to be justified. How do you reconcile the idea there is no such thing as orignal sin and Psalm 51: "Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."?
I agree things like infant baptism are unbiblical and "age of accountability" is questionable and debatable, but neither of these two positions equate to denial of original sin. I just don't see the connection of these two and original sin.
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