Judy wrote: > Yes Bill you are the hypocrite on this > one and you need to repent.
I haven't been following the posts the last few days, but I read this one this morning. Judy, please refrain from ad hominem arguments like this. Such only reveals your frustration in being able to communicate and your inability to make your case Biblically. I would like to frame what I think Bill's position is in regards to Augustine and you. Bill is not saying that you have read Augustine. He is saying that you have been influenced by Augustine and have adopted some of his viewpoints without realizing it. How? Because you live in this world and have grown up around ministers and school systems that have been touched by him in one way or another. Let me illustrate this with a non-Biblical terms. If I were to say to you, "Benedict" or "Benedict Arnold," what would form in your mind? Negative thoughts? Why? What do you know about this name? Who taught it to you? Now perhaps you can go to some class in grade school where you learned about a traitor, but even many non-educated people have a concept of this name without formal training. I myself do not know where I adopted the negative thoughts that I have about the name "Benedict," but I am sure that it came through the school system and society along the way. Ultimately, in our generation, there are some historians responsible for developing the kind of view that we have about this name. We may never have read this historian ourselves, but through teachers or the news media or some other secondary source, we adopted a concept concerning it. In other parts of the world that do not share our history, the name "Benedict" has a very positive connotation. Why? Different historians shaped the culture. The point is that Augustine has so influenced our culture and society, that many of his viewpoints become ours through secondary sources. You may never have read him or even heard of him, but there are many ways in which his views could have come down to you. Maybe you just heard a minister explain Genesis and use the term, "spiritual death" along with some Augustinian viewpoints. Perhaps he himself did not even read Augustine directly, but heard the view from someone else. It may be that at the time, the concept resonated with you and made sense. It may also be that at the time you were not really paying much attention, but later as you were reading your Bible privately, these ideas came to mind, having first been planted in your mind sometime before. The third concept is, of course, that the Holy Spirit revealed the truth to you just like he perhaps did to Augustine. >From my perspective, the question of whether or not Augustine is ultimately responsible for your viewpoint is not really all that important. It could be that Augustine was right, and that you, independently, saw the same thing and came upon the same language to explain it. What is important to me is whether the concept is right. Is this concept of "spiritual death" the best way of understanding the truth of what is being discussed. For example, did Adam die spiritually that day, is that the best way to understand his death, or did he actually die physically that same day, not in the sense that he immediately dropped dead (we know that did not happen), but in the sense that he was delivered to death, which began working upon him, such that the aging process began and he became subject to disease, sickness, and death from that very point in time. It could be that if somebody had stabbed his heart with a knife prior to his sin, he would not have died, but if stabbed after he had sinned, he would have dropped dead right there on the spot. In other words, he became mortal immediately on that very day that he sinned. Now if on the other hand Adam died "spiritually" and if people are born spiritually dead and if his spiritual death is passed on through inheritance, there are many implications that such a model would have than if such were not true. Let's take just the situation of inheritance. I understand physical inhertiance pretty well, I think, having taught classes on genetics at the university. What I do not understand is spiritual inheritance, or whether spiritual inheritance even exists in the sense of being passed on from parent to offspring. My viewpoint tends to be one that recognizes spiritual inheritance only as an authority issue, not as something passed on through the act of creating progeny. Sin gives spirits in the air authority over us and over our children. Therefore, they have an effect upon future generations, not because the children inherited some kind of spiritual sin or spiritual death from their parents, but because their parents authority over them has granted authority to evil spirits over their children. It is similar to how the children are sanctified by believing parents, not by some kind of transference in the birthing process, but by way of spiritual authority issues. The passages that shape my thinking on this are Exodus 20:5 & Ezek. 18. In a nutshell, I believe that we inherit the basis for physical sin from our parents, but I do not see our spirits as being inherited from our parents, and therefore, I have trouble seeing any kind of spiritual sin or spiritual death being inherited from our parents. I believe in a concept of curses being passed on to future generations, but not in the same sense of inheritance as we find for physical inheritance. It is only through authority that parents give to evil spirits through their sin that allows curses to be passed on. How else do we understand the Lord's teaching in Ezekiel 18? Ezekiel 18:1-3 (1) The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, (2) What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? (3) As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Ezekiel 18:19-20 (19) Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. (20) The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. Peace be with you. David Miller. ---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org If you do not want to receive posts from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and you will be unsubscribed. If you have a friend who wants to join, tell him to send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and he will be subscribed.
