10/14/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 12 of 21)

0084 Chapter one, titled, “Scripture, Science and the Holy Spirit”, and chapter seven, “The Doctrine of Original Sin through Church History”, may be labeled A and A’. Once again, combining numbers and signifiers, 1A and 7A’ bookend the 2B:3C:4D:5C’:6B’ pattern of chapters two through six.

0085 The introduction opens the topic of general and special revelation.

0086 Chapter one of Haarsma’s book (A) describes the difficulty of these two types of revelation in our modern age. Science cannot dictate how we interpret scripture. Theology cannot dictate how to conduct science. Nevertheless, theology and science investigate a single reality.

If science describes only actualities₂, then theology must be offering normal contexts₃ and potentials₁. If science only concerns phenomena, then theology must be offering insights into their noumenon. In this, theology crosses science.

0087 Science cannot situate revelation. Theology cannot situate science. Yet, both belong to a single actuality. This is why the relational structure of the intersection lies just below the surface of Haarsma’s work.

0088 In chapter one (A), Haarsma offers four principles for interpreting Scripture.

First, translate biblical words in their grammatical context. This steps into the second principle.

Second, consider each scriptural passage as part of the Biblical whole. The parts work in concert with the whole.

Third, figure out the literary genre of each passage. This elevates the fourth principle.

Fourth, look at the cultural and historical scope of the original author(s). All Biblical authors scope into the ancient Near East.

0089 The first two principles concern the elucidation of meaning, presence and message of the Biblical text.

The second two principles hold a mirror to the other actuality in the third intersection, the twist in human evolution_2H.

On the one hand, Genesis 2:4-11 holds something in common with all other origin stories of the ancient Near East.

It does not envision humans earlier than their recent creation in our current Lebenswelt.

It does not see the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

It cannot look beyond the first singularity.

0090 On the other hand, of all the currently known literature of the ancient Near East, only one pictures humankind in a setting earlier than the first singularity. That is the first chapter of Genesis, the Creation Story.

Many see the Creation Story as an anomaly.

Why?

Genesis 1 reads like an evolutionary progression, but it is really the building of the tent of the heavens and earth.

Hmmm.

0091 What does this imply?

Is there a reason why Genesis 2:4-11, along with all the other origin stories of the ancient Near East, cannot see past the start of our current Lebenswelt?

There is a twist in human evolution.

The twist corresponds to the start of original sin.

0092 Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

10/13/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 13 of 21)

0093 Chapter seven (A’) traces the history of original sin and completes the single actuality₂, knitting human evolution_2H(4D) to interpretation of Scripture_2V (1A) and the doctrine of original sin_2V (7A’).

0094 Here is a picture.

0095 Saint Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians and to the Romans, calls this interscope into being. The elements are fuzzy. The natural transition is not clear. It is implied.

0096 Saint Augustine clarifies the theological transition. In doing so, he posits a natural transition, whereby the rebellion of Adam and Eve passes to all humankind. Original sin passes to all humanity through direct descent from Adam and Eve. Why? Procreation is bound to desire. Desire is now subject (through Adam and Eve) to concupiscence, which transliterates into “being with Cupid, the love child of Mars, the god of war, and Venus, the goddess of love”.

Yes, that sounds a tad rebellious. With friends like Cupid, who need enemies? We can can get in trouble on our own, when we are subject to concupiscence.

Amazingly, Augustine’s position turns out to be unwittingly scientific. It is so scientific as to be debunked, sixteen centuries later, by modern genetics.

0097 So, the stories of Adam and Eve do not describe a de-novo creation of humans. Instead, the potential of these stories_1V underlies Augustine’s doctrine of original sin_2V as it is held, in the single actuality of our current Lebenswelt₂, in contact with a twist in human evolution_2H, that Haarsma is not aware of.

0098 In fact, at this moment, no modern anthropologist is aware of the hypothesis of the first singularity_2H, arising from the potential of a phenomenal change in one Neolithic culture, manifesting as the Ubaid culture of southern Mesopotamia_1H.

Why?

Semiotics is not the same as science.

10/12/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 14 of 21)

0099 These comments frame the first seven chapters of Haarsma’s book as an exercise in semitic textual structure. The pattern is A:B:C:D:C’:B’:A’.

Haarsma asks the reader to recognize a possibility.

These comments show what that possibility might be.

That possibility is the intersection of our current Lebenswelt.

0100 The natural transition_3H is plainly laid out in The First Singularity And Its Fairy Tale Trace. Implications are discussed in Comments on Original Death and Original Sin: Roman 5:12-19.

0101 The hypothesis is dramatically rendered in An Archaeology of the Fall.

The novel begins with the daughter of an archaeologist recounting the differentiation of Sumerian Gods from a primordial dyad, the waters above and the waters below. The tale appears in Samuel Noah Kramer’s 1961 book, Sumerian Mythology.

0102 The key is differentiation. Differentiation implies symbolization. Purely symbolic speech-alone talk allows the articulation of distinctions. These distinctions become real as artifacts (such as mythologies) are constructed. Artifacts validate speech-alone words. Artifacts validate the distinctions that speech-alone words symbolize.

I know that sounds circular. But, so does most everything else in our current Lebenswelt.

0103 The waters above and the waters below conjugate, and give birth to the air god. The air god separates the waters above and the waters below, before stealing everything they own. He makes their remains the ceiling and floor of his home.

Is this a picture of the Ubaid, Uruk and Sumerian Dynastic archaeological periods?

Is differentiation intrinsic to increasing labor and social specializations?

0104 Is the deception, depicted in the stories of Adam and Eve, another picture of the same archaeological periods?

10/11/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 15 of 21)

0105 Is the Lebenswelt that we evolved in a way to envision the Garden of Eden?

If so, then paradise is full of danger and opportunity. Paradise overflows with belonging. The human body co-evolves with a full range of social circles, intimates, family, teams, bands, community, mega-bands and tribes.

This is the core concept informing the discipline of gene-culture co-evolution. Each social circle offers opportunities and dangers. Hominins adapt to the offers by embracing the opportunities and ameliorating the dangers. In the long run, hominins adapt more and more to the triadic relations inherent in each social circle. Productive and coherent social circles increase reproductive success.

0106 This is our our ancestor’s legacy.

We evolve as images of God. God is relational, actual and potential. From time immemorial, our hominin ancestors take up their suffering as servants to one another. They become more aware of The One Who Signs Nature. God “hand talks” nature, just as our own manual-brachial word gestures image and indicate natural things.

We innately anticipate growing up in a world of social circles, embracing the living, revering the dead, anticipating the ones to come, circles within circles, even including the plants and animals and landscape and the One Who Gives Without Us Knowing Why.

We learn to read nature as the hand-talk of God.See the e-masterwork, The Human Niche.

10/10/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 16 of 21)

0107 Is our current Lebenswelt a way to envision the Garden of Eden?

If so, then humans in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, created as the image of God, associate to a reification, the Tree of Life. The tree of life is rooted in our evolved relationality. The tree of life branches out in cultural practices that maximize the fruits of our evolved relationality.

0108 The term, image of God, offers a vision, where worship conjoins life. Yet, our ancestors could not picture or point either “image” or “God” with hand talk. Just as birds fly, without intellectual awareness of the abstraction of flight, hominins talk to one another with manual-brachial gestures, without intellectual awareness of the abstractions that can be drawn from their discourse. Hand talk does not permit explicit abstraction.

0109 The term, the tree of life, is an abstraction. The meaning, presence and message that we project into the term, the tree of life, produces an artifact that validates our projection. The tree of life is a symbol that validates the word-symbols that compose the term.

Welcome to our current Lebenswelt.

0110 How do we define₃ the tree of life₂? What meaning, presence and message₁ do we project into the actuality of the term₂?

In the epic of Gilgamesh, the reader finds one definition. Gilgamesh obtains, then loses, a plant that confers immortality.

In Genesis 3:22, the reader finds the a similar rendering, uttered by the Lord God.

The tree of life confers immortality, by definition.

0111 But, does this definition represent a projection that reinforces an artifact (a particular interpretation) that validates an abstraction inherent in the spoken term, “the tree of life”?

This circularity is characteristic of spoken words.

Does the tree of life confer immortality because it is composed of the spoken words, “tree” and “life”?

0111 It makes me wonder about the term, “immortality”.

Immortality is just a word.

“Immortality” is also an abstraction.

Can one die and still remain alive?

Are there other meanings, presences and messages underlying the actuality of the term, the tree of life?

10/7/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 17 of 21)

0112 Two nested forms intersect for our current Lebenswelt.

A theological transition_3V brings the doctrine of original sin_2V into relation with the noumenal potential of Genesis 2:4-11_1V.

A natural transition_3H brings a twist in human evolution_2H into relation with the phenomenal potential of an adaptive cultural change_1H.

0113 The twist in human evolution_2H is described in the hypothesis of the first singularity.

Here is a synopsis.

Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. Speech talk is added to hand talk with the appearance of anatomically modern humans (over 200,000 years ago). Hand-speech talk is practiced through the Paleolithic and into the Neolithic. The semiotic qualities of hand-speech talk favor constrained social complexity.

The first culture to practice speech-alone talk is the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia (starting around 7,800 years ago). At the time, all other Neolithic, Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic cultures practice hand-speech talk. Because the semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk unconstrains social complexity, labor and social specialization prospers during the Ubaid. The surrounding (hand-speech talking) cultures see it. The Ubaid exhibits increasing wealth and power. Plus, all the surrounding cultures need to do, in order to imitate the Ubaid, is to drop the hand-talk component of their hand-speech talk.

Speech-alone talk spreads from the Ubaid through imitation.

0114 The twist in human evolution_2H permits increasing labor and social complexity_1H.

But, the semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk also makes the cultural adaptations of the Lebenswelt that we evolved innonsensical.

Even though we innately expect our (hand talk) words to image and point to their referents, in our current Lebenswelt, we project meaning, presence and message into our (spoken) words, then construct artifacts that validate those projections.

How can a tradition in hand-speech talk be translated into speech-alone talk?

It cannot.

10/6/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 18 of 21)

0115 My comments on chapters one and seven, 1A and 7A’, set the stage for original sin_2V.

Chapter one claims that neither science nor theology can situate one another. When two actualities cannot situate one another, then they may intersect. The intersection associates to the potential of message, in the e-masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”.

Chapter seven discusses the formulation of the doctrine of original sin by Augustine. According to Augustine, Adam and Eve are the parents of all humanity. When taken as a scientific hypothesis in human evolution, the proposition fails.

Does that mean that narrative of human evolution_2H and the doctrine of original sin_2V do not intersect?

No, the intersection still stands.

0116 To me, the fact Augustine’s formulation contains a scientific proposition is amazing. How many theological formulations can be debunked by science? Remember, science cannot situate revelation. Revelation cannot situate science.

When Paul links Adam to all humanity in his letters to the Corinthians and to the Romans, Haarsma’s third intersection enters reality. How can this be? Augustine’s solution says that Adam and Eve are the parents of all humanity. For centuries, the nested form for human evolution is covered by Augustine’s proposition. Now, in postmodernity, the hypothesis of the first singularity is the solution.

A scientific twist in human evolution_2H joins the doctrine of original sin_2V in a single actuality, our current Lebenswelt₂.

0117 Chapter eight follows the semitic structure of 1A:2B:3C:4D:5C’:6B’:7A’.

Chapter eight pays tribute to the slipperiness of speech-alone words by asking the question, “What is ‘sin’?”

0118 Of course, “sin” is merely a spoken word.

One needs a normal context₃ and a potential₁ in order to understand this actuality₂.

0119 Here is a diagram.

10/5/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 19 of 21)

0119 Chapter nine asks the question, “What changes when sin begins?”

The doctrine of original sin entails a loss of relationality among humans and between humans and God.

0120 Genesis 2:4-4 portrays the loss in a narrative that may be interpreted in a variety of ways. In particular, for our modern age, two platforms for interpretation stand out, corresponding to the two actualities that constitute our current Lebenswelt.

0121 Standing for the twist in human evolution_2H, the hypothesis of the first singularity_2H, classifies the stories of Adam and Eve_1V as witnesses to the social dynamics of the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia. The Ubaid experiences trends, potentiated by the semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk, toward increasing labor and social complexity. Adam and Eve are fairy-tale figures, depicting a process in which humans, in our current Lebenswelt, innocently and stupidly and selfishly misread the signs of God.

0122 From the vantage point of the doctrine of original sin_2V, one sees Adam and Eve_1V as particular historical individuals who originate humanity’s tragic flaw, a compulsion to negligence, forgetfulness and narcissism.

0123 Augustine’s formulation of original sin_2V is part diagnosis and part deduction.

The diagnosis is that we cannot help but enter into concupiscence. Concupiscence is the desire to put self before God. Concupiscence is the desire to feel good about oneself. Concupiscence is the desire to feel good, period. Really good. No matter what the consequences.

The deduction is that the imputation of the rebellion in the Garden of Eden passes directly from Adam and Eve to all humanity. Adam and Eve are the first humans according to Genesis 2:4-4, even though Cain, their son, finds a wife from who knows where. Augustine can think of no other way to account for the spread of the originated sin from Adam and Eve to all humanity.

0124 Sixteen centuries later, the science of genetics debunks Augustine’s deduction.

Is there no other way to account for the spread of sin from Adam to all humanity?

Now there is.

The hypothesis of the first singularity_2H addresses many of the questions that Loren Haarsma dwells on.

When does sin begin?

Consider the e-masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall.

10/4/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 20 of 21)

0125 Chapter ten addresses the question, “Whose fault is it?”

Subsidiary questions include (more or less), “Why doesn’t God stop sin and suffering?”, “Did God create humans in a way that permitted sin?”, and “Was the Fall inevitable or unavoidable?”

These questions will eventually be leavened with Haarsma’s interscope, containing the hypothesis of the first singularity_2Has the twist in human evolution_2H.

Figure 24

0126 If one looks at the first singularity_2H from the point of view of original sin_2V, one could ask, “Why does God not stop the transition from hand-speech to speech-alone talk?”

Why does God permit it?

If one looks at original sin_2V from the point of view of the first singularity_2H, one could ask, “Was it inevitable or unavoidable that the multi-generational and incomprehensible increase in labor and social specialization in the early Ubaid would naturally give rise to the stories of Adam and Eve?“

Of course not.

So, why does our Creator the speak to us through the depths of the confusion associated with the emergence of unconstrained social complexity?”

Why tell us the stories of Adam and Eve?

Is it a coincidence that the serpent has no hands in which to hand talk?

0127 These are not questions of blame.

These are question of mystery.

0128 Our current Lebenswelt binds the hypothesis of the first singularity_2H and the doctrine of original sin_2V, allowing cross-talk between two apparently independent nested forms. Cross-talk opens our awareness to irresolvable contradictions between the two constituting actualities. Thus, the potential of Genesis 2:4-11_1V is in conversation with the potential of speech-alone talk, in contrast to hand-speech talk_1H.

Spoken words allow abstraction in ways that cannot be imagined in hand-speech talk. Speech-alone talk offers the capacity to exploit and corrupt human relations by manipulating the meanings, presences and messages underlying purely symbolic words.

0129 Indeed, speech-alone talk is a vector for Satanic deception. Consider the serpent’s conversation with Eve. What a demonstration of speech-alone talk in action.

10/3/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 21 of 21)

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 actualities_2V.

For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, it_2V is humans as images of God.

For our current Lebenswelt, it_2V is the tree of life.

Here is a picture.

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 evolution_2H and original sin_2V.

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.

It is beautiful to behold.

0135 Haarsma concludes.

God’s answer is still Christ.

Dissonance gives way to mystery.