What I am asking you to consider is that sin also entered the human race which is why death also entered and spread to all mankind.
And because I respect you, I have been pondering this subject the past few days.
- Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world
Let's ponder that. Scripture relates the soul as a garment, and let's say this garment is pure white. And let's say that sin is represented by a glass of red wine. I am not saying wine is sin, but only using it as an example. If that wine gets spilled on the garment, it will leave a permanent stain but prior to being spilled, the garment is pristine.
Now, before I go any further, I must confess my bias. This topic is near and dear to me and for the reason I am about to give, and I do speak for many others who have experienced the same. I no longer carry the weight of what I am about to write, but I have not forgotten the weight nor the pain and don't wish anyone the burden I carried.
I lost my firstborn when she was four months old. This is a pain I wish on nobody. I have a cousin that is Catholic, and I did have minor Catholic influence on my life growing up and one of the things I wanted for my child, because I loved her so much, was for her to be baptized as an infant. Please do not look at the act but look at my heart. I wanted my child to know God, and I wanted to be obedient to God. Right wrong or indifferent, my heart was in the right place.
A few months after her death, I was speaking to my cousin who was Catholic and I asked, "Do you think Amanda is in heaven"? Her reply was, "She wasn't Baptized, so we really don't know". Not only did I suffer the physical loss of my beloved daughter, but the spiritual pain that came from not knowing if she was with Jesus and the visual of her being tormented was a weight that I carried for many, many years and this gave me a skewed perspective on who God is.
I must also make another confession. I want to believe that my daughter and every child that died prematurely or was aborted is in heaven. I cannot even begin to entertain the thought that even one should be in hell for eternity separated from God. Now, truth be told, the doctrine of the sinful nature came from St. Augustine while debating the Universalist and one thing they all agreed on was baptism as part of one's salvation (agree or disagree, it's what the early church taught). St. Augustine leveraged this common belief against the Universalists, and it was woven into his doctrine on sinful nature which was again leveraged by John Calvin and permeates much of Christianity regardless of denomination.
What I realize now is that I rail against certain Catholic and Calvinistic doctrines (rightfully so, I believe) but in doing so, I may be blinding myself to certain truths on the very matter of the sinful nature.
We both agree that no infant will be tormented in hell for perhaps different reasons, and we both back our perspectives with scripture. In this area, I have never been in disagreement with you, although we put our emphasis in different passages. What's important, is we both draw the same overall conclusion and how we get there is extremely similar.
So yes, do me the honor of pondering what I've written and please bear with my ramblings.
The analogy I used about our soul being a garment stained with sin does not carry through to conceiving a child as told above. However, and to your point when a male and female come together, and a child is conceived, that child is very much the biological product of the parents. However, I must say within the same breath that the child is also the product of God because every soul has the spark, or as some say, the "breath of God" within them.
With the above understanding, how then do I make the jump that sin is in us and a part of us from conception without cracking the door with the thought that any child should perish in eternal damnation and from the perspective of one who has had a child naively aborted, should they carry the weight of believing they are the reason their child suffers in torment for their actions?
I have laid myself bare to you and my inquiry is genuine. I am not out to win an intellectual battle but in reality, I am simply desiring to have peace within my soul for a life experience I live with. I have laid my bias bare before you because I know that our bias can blind us from God's truth at times, and if I am blinded, I wish to reconcile God's word to know it's fullness, for it is only in God's fullness that we are truly set free.
With that, I have been convicted on the matter through science, and perhaps that's an entry point. I said earlier that science has shown that if a parent has a traumatic experience, it actually imprints that into your DNA. That imprint actually transfers to the child at conception. Most traumatic experiences are caused by sin and could have been avoided. So, in this case, we see sin leaving a genetic mark within our DNA which can pass from generation to generation if not resolved. In this since, the child inherits this marker from its parents.
Going back to the fall, I believe Seth to be the firstborn from Adam's line after the fall. Both Adam and Eve experiences some pretty traumatic things, including being exiled from the presence of God, displaced from the garden to a land that could bring you thorns when you planted corn and not only that, but they experience the loss of a child to the grave which occurred through their other son who was then exiled and marked that he would not be killed. Want to talk about a dysfunctional family full of pain, disappointment and crushed dreams. All of this had to of paid its toll on both Adam and Eve which genetically would have been passed onto Seth.
With an open mind, could this then be what we know as the 'sinful nature'? Is it simply the DNA marker that is passed from generation to generation that binds us as keeps us captive.
I don't know... and if you've stuck around long enough to read all of this and understand where I'm at then I want to thank you for taking the time to actually read this. I know it was long, but I felt it had to be said and it exposes my bias.
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