0009 The actualities of human evolution2 and original sin2 intersect.
Here is the diagram of the intersection for this example.
Figure 03
0010 The intersection is a relational structure. The e-masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues, introduces the intersection. This relational structure associates to the message underlying the term, “religion”.
0011 Note how all the items in Haarsma’s title are captured by elements in the above intersection.
Two transitions (3H and 3V) touch base with the question, “When?”.
Two actualities (2H and 2V) go with human evolution2H and the doctrine of original sin2V. These two actualities join into a single reality, which I currently label as one realness.
The potentials (1H and 1V) are implied. Let me examine each.
0012 The potential of adaptive change1H arises in response to a niche. Typically, the niche involves some material advantage (to be exploited) or disadvantage (to be ameliorated). For our lineage, the niche involves immaterial advantages and disadvantages. How so? The Homo lineage adapts into the niche of triadic relations, as discussed in the e-masterwork, The Human Niche.
0013 The potential of the start of sin1V is not so different than the potential of the Genesis Primeval History1V. For this reason, I enter the potential of the stories of Adam and Eve1V, as the possibility underlying original sin2V. I could also have entered the potential of the letters of Saint Paul1V.
At the same time, the mythological character of the Primeval History comes into play. The stories of Genesis 2:4-11 are set in the Ubaid, Uruk and Sumerian Dynastic archaeological periods.This setting is discussed in the February 2022 blog series at www.raziemah.com, entitled, Looking at Carol Hill’s Article (2021) “Original Sin with respect to Science”.
0014 In the Introduction, Haarsma states that human evolution2H and the doctrine of original sin2V seem dissonant.
0015 All intersections seem dissonant.
Why?
Two apparently independent actualities constitute a single actuality.
0016 I call the single actuality, “one realness”.
What should I label this “one realness”?
0017 Maybe, the term, “our current Lebenswelt”, will do.
The word, “Lebenswelt”, is German for “living world”.
0018 Here is an initial picture of two actualities constituting a single actuality.
Figure 04
0019 The problem?
Original sin2V applies to our current Lebenswelt, the world after Adam and Eve.
Human evolution2H covers a much longer timeline than our current Lebenswelt.
This introduces a wrinkle to the fabric of Haarsma’s work.
The natural3H and theological transition3V marking the start of our current Lebenswelt2 involves only a fraction of the entirety of human evolution. It is like trying to fix one’s glasses with a tool kit designed for automobiles. It is like cutting a handkerchief from a bedsheet.
0020 Haarsma premises his book on the tenet that there are several possible ways to harmonize human evolution and the doctrine of original sin.
Plus, none of them are good.
Why?
None of them raise the following question, coming from the standpoint of original sin2V and addressing experts on human evolution2H.
Why is our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0020 Clearly, a natural transition3H and a theological transition3V contextualize the start of our current Lebenswelt2.
Furthermore, our current Lebenswelt2 arises from two, apparently independent, potentials: an adaptive change in human prehistory1H and a cultural change that is captured in the stories of Adam and Eve1V.
As already noted, these two potentials point to the Ubaid, Uruk and Sumerian Dynastic archaeological periods of southern Mesopotamia2.
According to the e-work, The First Singularity And Its Fairy Tale Trace, these two potentials pertain to a cultural change that potentiates civilization (specifically) and unconstrained social complexity (generally)2. This cultural change marks the start of our current Lebenswelt.
0022 In brief, the doctrine of original sin2V challenges the discipline of modern Anthropology2H, which currently proposes a litany of material causes for the potentiation of civilization, such as the birth of agriculture, or the use of irrigation, or population pressures, or this or that material condition.
0023 Original sin2V forces the Christian to ask the scientist, “What if the natural transition3H to our current Lebenswelt is not material?”
This is the location where Loren Haarsma cannot go, because he values the discoveries of natural history and genetics. For years, he has been working with human evolution writ large.
The result is that the initial intersection is lopsided.
Figure 05
On top of that, natural history and genetics cannot propose a scientific hypothesis for a cultural change in the way humans talk.
0024 The first singularity2H is a hypothesis inhuman evolution2H.
The hypothesis explains why our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
The hypothesis pertains to the start of our current Lebenswelt.
The hypothesis is plainly stated in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
The hypothesis2H is dramatically portrayed, in tandem with originating sin2V, in the fiction, An Archaeology of the Fall.
This produces a balanced intersection.
Figure 06
0025 With this in mind, I digress, in order to discuss two complementarities between the contributing actualities (2H and 2V).
0026 The first complementarity matches the construction of what is in the Positivist’s judgment, as developed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy. What is presents itself as an actuality, composed of two contiguous real elements, characteristic of Peirce’s category of secondness. But, this presentation is an illusion, because the two elements are really the same thing, regarded from two different vantage points.
The real elements are a noumenon (the thing itself) and its phenomena (the observable and measurable facets of the noumenon). According to Kant, a noumenon cannot be objectified as its phenomena. So, the contiguity is [cannot be objectified as].
The two contributing actualities complement one another in the following manner.
Figure 07
The Fall is like a noumenon. The first singularity models its corresponding phenomena.
0027 The second complementarity matches the distinction between primary and secondary causation, which plays a role in Comments on Armand Maurer’s Essay (2004) “Darwin, Thomists and Secondary Causality” (see July 2020 of Razie Mah’s blog).
Secondary causation describes what goes on in the Peirce’s category of secondness, the realm of actuality2.Primary causation describes what goes on in Peirce’s categories of thirdness and firstness, the realms of normal context3 and potential1.
Figure 08
The two contributing actualities complement one another as follows.
Figure 09
0029 This digression into the complementarity between the two contributing actualities reinforces the idea that they should balance.
In chapter four, Haarsma discusses human evolution2H, as configured before the hypothesis of the first singularity. Indeed, he does not place any importance to the start of civilization, which is potentiated by the first singularity.
Does he realize that almost all of human evolution predates the stories of Adam and Eve?
I wonder.
Plus, I chuckle.
0030 Why?
Saint Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval philosopher, argues that original sin is the lack of original justice.
So, the long period of human evolution2H is joined to original justice2H in the single actuality2 of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
Here is a picture.
Figure 10
0031 Wow. The size of the contributions match.
Plus, just as original sin2V asks theorists in modern Anthropology about a recent (and immaterial) natural transition in human evolution2H, which turns out to be the hypothesis of the first singularity2H,original justice2V challenges theorists in modern Anthropology concerning the nature of the ultimate human niche2H.
0032 At present, modern Anthropology has not confronted the concept of an ultimate niche in human evolution, now elucidated in the e-masterwork, The Human Niche. The ultimate human niche is not defined by material conditions. It is defined by an immaterial condition: The realness of triadic relations.
0033 The modern scientific community follows a rule: Actuality is all there is. Models are built from observations and measurements of material actualities. These models are couched in various disciplinary languages. In the empirio-schematic judgment, disciplinary language brings mathematic and mechanical models into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena.
0034 The problem?
Material actuality is not all there is.
0035 This point is obvious in the category-based nested form, derived from the semiotics-friendly philosophy of Charles Peirce. The category-based nested form manifests the realness of triadic relations.
In the nested form, a normal context3 bring an actuality2 into relation with the possibility of ‘something’1. The subscripts refer to Peirce’s categories of thirdness, secondness and firstness.
Material actuality2 is real.
Immaterial normal contexts3 and potentials1 are also real.
But, don’t tell that to modern anthropologists.
As soon as the hear, they will become “postmodern”.
0036 When a human encounters an actuality, the human does not understand. The human can observe and measure the phenomena associated with the actuality. The human may model these observations and measurements. The human may discuss the model using well-defined disciplinary language. But, understanding is not modeling.
Understanding is a triadic relation. Modeling is a dyadic formulation.
0037 Understanding concerns the noumenon, the thing itself. Actuality2 demands a normal context3 and potential1. Figuring out the normal context3 and potential1 leads to understanding.
Humans evolve to understand. Modeling things is only part of understanding.
0130 In chapter eleven, Haarsma raises other difficult questions.
I would like to elevate my own question for examination.
0131 When does sin begin?
Here is an artistic way to appreciate the answer.
Consider the two interscopes of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and our current Lebenswelt.
0132 Consider the theological actualities2V.
For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, it2V is humans as images of God.
For our current Lebenswelt, it2V is the tree of life.
Here is a picture.
Figure 25
Consider the tree of life as a metaphor for the roots and the branches of belonging, intuitively nurtured by prehistoric humans living out their lives as images of God, …
0133 … then, in order to appreciate the depths of callousness and total depravity implied by the doctrine of original sin,consider the wickedness of plucking the fruit of the tree of life in order to attain immortality.
0134 Loren Haarsma tries to calm the dissonance of two apparently independent actualities: human evolution2H and original sin2V.
In doing so, he creates a semitic textual structure that allows my comments to suggest that these two actualities belong to a single reality. Two category-based nested forms intersect. The intersection of two nested forms offers a message. Here is a mystery.
A Christian theologian goes to the doctor and asks, “What is wrong with me?”
The doctor replies, “It might be original sin. The stories of Adam and Eve don’t need to be reconciled with science. But, Augustine and science, that is your problem.”
0005 Clouser relies on an interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 appearing in Joseph Soloveitchik’s book, The Lonely Man of Faith. The title is ironic, since Soloveitchik is lonely in name only. He is one of the leading Orthodox Jewish theologians of the twentieth century.
The things that Soloveitchik writes. Some of them buttress Carol Hill’s argument.
0006 Here is the first point.
The Old Testament does not support the claim that Adam and Eve are the first humans. After all, where does Cain get his wife?
0007 Ah, that goes into the problem of Saint Augustine.
Augustine misreads Paul’s letter to the Romans. Well, actually, his Latin translation of Roman 5:12 has a crucial infidelity to the Greek text. The Latin slippage implies that we are all guilty of Adam’s sin. The Greek original suggests that we are all doomed because of Adam’s error.
The result?
The McGuffey Reader poetically waxes, “In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all.”
0008 Should Augustine have known better? Should the translator be blamed?
These questions step around an issue so tricky that everyone walks around it. Spoken words are slippery.
Augustine slips up. But, the slip serves as evidence for an important point.
0009 Adam and Eve may not be the first humans on Earth. But, they may be the first to rely on the slipperiness of spoken words to come to a conclusion that turns out to be highly problematic.
0010 Is this a theological implication of the first singularity?
Adam and Eve are the first humans in the history of redemption. They are neither perfect nor immortal. So, they screwed up.
0012 How did they do it?
They thought that they understood the meanings, presences and messages latent in their speech-alone words.
Ooops.
0013 This slip up brings Clouser back to Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, where Adam’s covenantal failure is compared to Christ’s covenantal success.
More or less, Paul says that sin enters the world through one man, Adam… but, wait a second… before Moses there is no law, so how can there be sin?
0014 In other words, the actuality of sin2 potentiating death1 in the normal context of the Mosaic law3 must have been functioning after Adam and before Moses, even though Moses is yet to be formally present.
0015 Clouser concludes that this imputation suggests that there are humans contemporary to Adam. Plus, their sins are not held against them, because God has not made Himself known.
0016 However, there are other suggestions that come to mind with the hypothesis of the first singularity.
Before Adam, do humans have access to a (metaphorical, or perhaps, literal) tree of life, which conveys an immortality unfamiliar to what we civilized folk currently imagine?
After Adam and before Moses, are folk, living within our current Lebenswelt, trapped within the imputation of Mosaic law, precisely as Paul notes?
0017 See the e-book An Archaeology of the Fall.
Also, see Comments on Original Sin and Original Death: Romans 5:12-19.
These are available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0018 Paul’s aside fits the triadic structure found in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.
Here is a picture for humans after Adam and before Moses.
Figure 1
0019 The normal context of the imputed Mosaic Law3 brings the actuality of sin2 into relation with the possibilities inherent in death1.
0020 Now, if I erase the normal context3 and potential1 and replace them with items from the stories of Adam and Eve, I produce the following nested form.
Figure 2
The normal context of the Garden of Eden3 brings the actuality of sin2 into relation with the potential of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil1.
0021 These two nested forms complement one another. The theological implications cannot be ignored. The Garden of Eden marks a transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt. The first singularity is a scientific hypothesis concerning the nature of this transition. The Mosaic law associates to our current Lebenswelt.
Adam and Eve are not the first humans.
Adam and Eve are fairy tale figures, standing at the portal to our current Lebenswelt.
0023 A third point supports Carol Hill’s commitment that Old Testament “celebrities” are real people.
0024 Clouser’s terminology is revealing. Adam and Eve are “celebrities”. Are “celebrities” real people?
I can visualize the headlines in the netherworld at the moment when Adam and Eve achieve celebrity status. “Adam and Eve Fall For It.” Read all about it.
0025 The key is “read”.
0026 Undoubtedly, the Pentateuch is a compilation of oral traditions. Once codified, during or after the Babylonian exile, the compilation becomes fixed as canon. Codification raises a host of issues, such as the reliability of the preceding oral traditions.
Or, are these oral traditions already codified in secret documents?
Does the question sound absurd?
Oh, the slipperiness of spoken words.
0027 Am I worried about the reliability of oral traditions or the reality within oral traditions?
0028 The Biblical text itself conveys a reality, in the objective sense of the word, that is assumed by the subjective realities engaged by the underlying oral traditions. Even if Adam and Eve are fairy-tale figures in text, they are real in an oral tradition. Even if Noah is an epic figure in text, he is real in an oral tradition.
0029 Why do the writers of the New Testament take the realness of the Old Testament for granted?
Please do not quote me on what I am about to say.
Despite the fact that the Old Testament is written, the biblical oral traditions are alive and well at the time of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. Everyone knows that the words are now written, so they use the word “scripture”, acknowledging this fact. However, even though Paul can read the written text, the apostles (and most early Christians) cannot.
My conclusion is that Jesus recites the scriptures, with as much precision as the written text. So, does John the Baptist. They draw crowds that already know the oral tradition and marvel at its theatrical articulation. Jesus and John are performers. What a performance they give. They recite the scriptures so convincingly that members of the audiencewhisper to one another, “The kingdom of God is at hand.”
0030 The New Testament is composed while the oral traditions of reciting the scriptures are alive and well. The spoken word renders a subjective reality. In the beginning, is the word, which, dare I say, tells us that spoken words are slippery things. Listen to the stories of Adam and Eve.
The objective reality conveyed in the written word enters the historical theodrama the moment when Christianity spreads from Israel.
Does that bring me back to Augustine’s slip up?
The slipperiness of spoken words also applies to the written text.
0031 Roy Clouser closes with a stern warning that the documentary approach, investigating the alleged secret documents underlying the Old Testament, should only be carried out by experts, who are convinced that their certification protects them from the fact that they, like Augustine, are vulnerable to the slipperiness of spoken words.
His article serves as a witness to a philosophical and theological world that has not come to terms with the implications that will follow once our scientific world comes to terms with the hypothesis of the first singularity.
0032 Surely, Clouser is on target, in that a rabbi is chosen for intelligence, rather than theatrical genius. But, occasionally, both gifts arrive at the same doorstep. Ask the followers of Rabbi Joseph Solovietchik.
0033 I suspect that commentary by Orthodox Jews will swivel on the tiny stone of the first singularity.
Why?
Is this the stone that the scientific builders rejected?
Or, is it a jewel that turns the imagination?
The early stories of Genesis are insider fairy tales about the social trends towards unconstrained complexity in the Ubaid and Uruk archaeological periods of southern Mesopotamia.
Swivel and turn.
0034 Orthodox Jews might appreciate another work by Razie Mah, also available at smashwords and other e-work venues.
Comments on Jeremy Cohen’s Essay (1980) “Original Sin as the Evil Inclination”
This electronic work belongs to the series, Reverberations of the Fall.
Trees are all over the garden. But, there are two notable botanical specimens. There is the tree of life, somewhere in the periphery. There is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, placed right in the center. So, I already know what the woman wants. She wants to be center stage.
0064 The tree in the center of the garden has not attracted Adam’s curiosity, so far. He is happy with a tasty garden, attentive domesticates, and the rib-helper. Wow, she is the most.
0065 Yes, the woman has desire. Sure, the trees are good for food and beautiful to behold. In Genesis 2:9, the author uses the word, “nechmad”, meaning desirable.
0066 Then, the woman enters into conversation with the serpent, who also has desires. Its desire is to manipulate her desire. He wants to pitch a sale. Immediately before Eve seals the deal, Eve notices that the fruit is “ta’awah” (desire) to the eyes and “nechmad” (desirable) to make one wise. Then, the serpent closes the pitch with a promise that the purchase will open her eyes. She will be like the gods, knowing good and evil.
0067 Then, Adam joins in and the eyes of both are opened.
They realize that they are exposed.
0068 This word, “teshuqah” (desire), shows up again in Eve’s chastisement, as well as in the Song of Songs. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the same word gains creepier overtones. The clay, within the human person, desires to return to dust. This is an insight2V.
0069 But, what about the conditions2H?
Is Genesis 3 about human sin?
Or, is it about giving one’s sons and daughters a little hint about the nature of desire?
There is a difference between desirable and desire. Plus, the serpent can close on both.
