10/20/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 8 of 21)

0050 In the past three blogs, I discuss how chapters three and five of Haarsma’s work, titled, “Suffering and Death Before Humans (er… Adam and Eve)” and “The Soul, the Imago Dei, and Special Divine Action”, stand on either side chapter four, titled, “Human Evolution”.

Here is a picture of the core of the intersection associated with chapter four.

0051 Chapters three, four and five constitute a pattern, C:D:C’.

Plus, these three chapters point to the Creation Story.

The Creation Story turns familiar conclusions around.

Since Adam and Eve are denied access to the tree of life, and since Paul says that sin and death enter the world with Adam’s transgression, then a believer may readily conclude that suffering and death do not occur before Adam and Eve.

The intersection of chapter four suggests otherwise. The Homo genus evolves in a world full of suffering and death. This is the world of the Creation Story. The imago dei is what we evolved to be.

0051 Chapter four (D) offers a natural history of human evolution.

Human evolution spans millions of years.

Chapter three and five (C, C’) discuss the implications of the theological narrative expressed in the Creation Story, which has the structure of an evolutionary sequence, and ends before the stories of Adam and Eve. The Creation Story contains the first creation of humans. The story of Adam and Eve depicts a second creation of humans.

The following two nested forms apply to before the stories of Adam and Eve.

0052 The Lebenswelt that we evolved in is the single actuality₂ that contains both human evolution₂ and the drama of the Creation Story₂. Since suffering and death are part and parcel the scientific story of evolution, one cannot unite these two actualities without admitting that our hominin ancestors faced suffering and death. Today, we call this suffering and death, “natural evil”.

So, what describes the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

Unnatural evil?

It makes me wonder.

When Does Sin Begin?

0053 As discussed in the last blog, two metaphors stand on either side of the gap between Genesis 2:3 and Genesis 2:4.

One is the intention, creation and blessing of humans as the imago dei, the image of God, discussed in chapter five (C’).

The other is the image of the tree of life (C).

The image of God in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, appears to us, in our current Lebenswelt, as the metaphor of the tree of life.

Even worse, the tree of life appears to be a plant that endows immortality, not life. The tree of life offers a perpetual lack of dying, which is a fairly nasty explicit abstraction from the image of God in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0054 The realness of human evolution (D) forces to admit that the imago dei (C’) is a creation capable of suffering and dying, not like any other animal, but like Jesus (C). Jesus does what humans evolved to do. Humans evolve to come into relation. Humans evolve to sacrifice for one another. Jesus dies for me. No friend is as great as one who lays down his life for another. The full range of self-giving is on display in our hominin ancestors. Every social circle calls for self-giving in different ways.

Haarsma calls adaptive hominin behaviors a mixture of nasty and nice. But, this appellation fails when we consider second-order affects, such as cowardice and courage.

0055 What is cowardice? What is courage?

They are spoken words.

0056 Our ancestors practice hand-talk and hand-speech talk. Our ancestors cannot picture or point to the abstractions, “cowardice” or “courage”. However, they can still see the behaviors of others, operating in moments of danger, and they can draw a judgment, a relation between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’. That judgment becomes a conviction.

0057 The imago dei is an amazing and evocative term.

What does God do?

God the Son manifests heroism when facing suffering and death. God the Son gives His life for each one of us.

God the Father manifests a conviction that cannot be named in speech-alone words. The Father does not convey His judgment through abstractions. The Father posts his convictions in moments of revelation. Genesis 15:12 offers such a vision. A flame passes between split carcasses set out by Abram.

God the Holy Spirit is the Love emanating from The Person of Conviction to The Person Who Heroically Suffers.

This is what our ancestors image.

0058 The imago dei is not about a mixture of nasty and nice adaptive behaviors.

The imago dei is, from the point of view of our current Lebenswelt, calls to mind the metaphor of the tree of life. We are rooted in our willingness to suffer and die for one another. We are immovable in our standing with the one who brings us into relation. We branch out in our convictions to join one another for organizational objectives.

The imago dei and the tree of life are inherently relational.

But, these radically different metaphors for humanity between the Creation Story and the Primeval History indicate that human evolution passes through a singularity.

The imago dei and the tree of life are distinctly different.

0059 Ironically, many readers of Genesis 2:4-11 regard the fruit of the tree of life as a substance that confers immortality. Even the Lord God opines about the danger posed by a substance that provides immortality.

But, keep in mind, “immortality” is a spoken word.

0060 The above intersection makes me wonder.

God banishes the rebellious Adam and Eve from the Garden, lest they take and eat of the fruit of the tree of life.

Does the fruit of the tree of life represent immortality?

Or, does the fruit of the tree of life represent the inherent relationality that characterizes the constrained social complexityof the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the image of God keep the images of God alive. Our ancestors adapt to a world that transcends the material. God sustains our dreamworld. God calls us into the circle-dance. God spins us into social circles. Circles, within circles, encompass the ones who died, the ones who live and the ones who are to come.

In sum, the traditions of our ancestors are timeless. Past, present and future are seamless. Yet, each one of them lives in the ever present now. There is no hand-speech word for the abstraction that we call “time”. Nor is there a hand-speech word for the explicit abstraction that we call, “immortality”.

What type of immortality does the tree of life represent?

Humans live for God and for one another, even before birth and after death.

10/19/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 9 of 21)

0061 Chapter two is titled, “Creation, Evolution and Divine Action”.

Haarsma asks (more or less), “If the scientific evidence for human evolution is correct, then what does that imply about God’s action in intending, creating and blessing humans?”

I expand the query, asking, “If the scientific evidence for evolution is correct, then what does that imply about God’s creative action depicted in the first chapter of Genesis?”

0062 Obviously, the scientific evidence implies that God’s action in creating the world and humans is irrelevant.

Haarsma labels this situation, “dissonance”.

0063 Indeed, dissonance characterizes intersections.

I start with the evolution of the planet and life_2H and the Creation Story_2V.

The single actuality is the world.

The world includes the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

This intersection between evolution_2H and Genesis 1_2V is packed with accidental and essential contradictions. Theologians are capable of distinguishing essential from accidental.

For example, one essential contradiction is this: Each narrative presents a sequence of events in the realization of our world. But, each sequence is unique. How can a Genesis day be the same as an evolutionary epoch? Yet, the two sequences are drawn into a single actuality. They are stuck together in a mystery. I call that mystery, “the world”.

0064 Plus, there is a world within the world.

Genesis 1:26-31 portrays the intending, the creating, the blessing and the feeding of humans as well as the animals that humans keep. This implies that human evolution actually associates to our world, rather than our current Lebenswelt.

If I consider the intersection of all of evolution_2H and the Genesis Creation Story_2V, I arrive at configuration similar to the intersection of human evolution_2H and Genesis 1:26-31_2V.

The single actuality is the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0066 Once these associations are made, then original sin_2V binds to a twist in long-established trends in human evolution_2H. Since this twist_2H does not immediately alter prehistoric natural history or human genetics, the twist must be a cultural adaptation.

The single actuality is our current Lebenswelt.

0067 These intersections do not speak to us of dissonance, per se.

These intersections speak to us of mystery.

A mystery contains irreconcilable contradictions.

0068 One task of the theologian is to separate the accidental and the essential contradictions, in order to clarify the mystery. This is hard work. A mystery cannot be fully explained, partially explained or declared unexplainable. A mystery cannot be resolved by sensible construction. A mystery evokes social construction.

See the e-work, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.

0069 A mystery provides a message. The message is clear. A single realness coalesces from two disparate actualities. The two nested forms are bound. In this message of unity, the normal contexts and the potentials cannot be regarded as fully independent. Two nested forms bind into a mystery.

10/18/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 10 of 21)

0070 Chapter six is titled, “Adam and Eve in Scripture”.

Haarsma asks (more or less), “What is the best way to understand the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2-3?”

0071 Surely, this is a question that humans evolve to ask. Humans want to understand.

We encounter an actuality. We then ask, “What normal context₃ and potential₁ applies to this actuality₂?”

This is the start of understanding. We understand when we construct a category-based nested form.

0072 Here is a picture.

0073 The best way to understand the Adam and Eve story₂ is to locate the most productive normal context₃ and potential₁.

0074 Haarsma begins with the normal context₃ of historical scholarship of the Bible₃.

The corresponding ‘something’ resolves into implications of the words in the text₁.

For example, John Walton concludes that the names, Adam and Eve, are assigned names, not historical names. An assigned name is a name that is assigned by the storyteller. A historical name may be replaced by an assigned one.

Plus, the word, “Adam”, denotes “a man of the earth” as well as a person.

0075 Advocates for historical scholarship argue that Genesis 2:4-11 (unlike other origin stories of the ancient Near East) offers an unparalleled narrative theology. The issue is not whether Adam and Eve exist as historical persons. The issue is the clarity of theological meaning.

0076 The problem?

What about human evolution?

Well, if theologians appreciate the stories of Adam and Eve because of their theological clarity, in contrast to the other mythologies of the ancient Near East, then original sin must be a clear insight that situates the stories of Adam and Eve.

0077 This relationship may be diagrammed as a two-level interscope.

The doctrine of original sin_2b situates the potential of the stories of Adam and Eve_1b in the normal context of a theological transition to our current Lebenswelt_3b.

The situation level clarifies the content level.

The stories of Adam and Eve_2a situate the potential of origin myths, as investigated by historical scholarship_1a, in the normal context of the ancient Near East_3a.

0078 The situation-level is also the nested form that goes into the intersection of our current Lebenswelt. It constitutes the vertical axis.

0079 It makes me wonder, since the underlying content of original sin_2V touches base with the ancient Near East, does the twist in human evolution_2H potentiate the formation of civilization in southern Mesopotamia?

Consider Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

10/17/22

Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 11 of 21)

0080 Chapters two and six, as B and B’, bookend the C:D:C’ pattern of chapters three, four and five. Combining chapter and signifier, 4D concerns human evolution. 3C and 5C’ concern natural evil and the imago dei in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. 2B and 6B’ concern the nature of mystery.

0081 Haarsma wrestles with three mysteries.

The first mystery is the intersection of all evolution_2H and God’s creation_2V. The single actuality is our world₂.

A second mystery resides within the first. The intersection of human evolution_2H and the intention, creation, blessing and feeding of humans (and his animals)_2V yields the single actuality of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in₂.

A third mystery marks a transition from the first mystery. The single actuality of our current Lebenswelt₂ binds a twist in human evolution_2H and the doctrine of original sin_2V.

0082 These three mysteries take this reader into an abduction.

The doctrine of original sin_2V emerges from (and situates) the noumenal stories of Adam and Eve_1V. By “noumenal”, I mean “pertaining to the thing itself”. The thing itself, the initiation of our current Lebenswelt, is captured in this one story that associates to all other origin stories of the ancient Near East.

Does that imply that the potential_1H that underlies the twist in human evolution_2H concerns the emergence of civilization in southern Mesopotamia?

What is the nature of the adaptive change_1H that potentiates the emergence of unconstrained social complexity?

0083 This is the question that frames the fictional narrative, An Archaeology of the Fall.

This e-book, like chapters one through seven of Haarsma’s book, exhibits a semitic textual structure. The greek textual structure strives to eliminate possibilities in order to arrive at an answer that is more correct than any other. The reader is led to the correct answer through the process of elimination. The semitic textual structure uses various tricks, patterns and word play in order to induce an awareness of a possibility. The semitic textual structure asks the reader to recognize a possibility.

The greek and semitic textual structures are discussed in An Instructor’s Guide To An Archaeology of the Fall.

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.