Question 120, from LLG, USA

I have a question about the tree of knowledge? Was the tree an apple tree or a fig tree? I was told that Adam and Eve did not eat from an apple tree because an apple tree can not grow in the Middle East due to the climate, but that they ate from a fig tree instead. Also I was told that Adam and Eve came from Africa. Is any of this factual from a scientific viewpoint?

The account of the ‘Fall’ in Genesis chapter 3 where Adam and Eve disobey God by eating from ‘the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ is probably best understood as being metaphorical. The type of tree (or fruit) isn’t referred to in the text.

The idea that Adam and Eve ate an apple has certainly taken hold in popular Western thought. Possibly this can be traced to (more…)

Question 116, from JG, United Kingdom

This answer is sponsored by Adam Harbinson, author of Savage Shepherds.

I recently read Hebrews where it says if we sin willfully after salvation there is no forgiveness but only judgement to look forward to. Jesus said, “if you love me keep my commandments”. Why do Christians sin after salvation, and will this sin cause us to lose our salvation?

This particular question has been an issue within Christianity since New Testament times. Sin, it seems, was still a problem post-conversion in the earliest church. The apostle Paul famously struggled with his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 7-8) and asked, “why do I do the things I don’t want to do?” (Romans chapter 7, verses 18ff). The New Testament letters to churches are full of admonitions against ‘sinful’ behaviour, and encouragement towards living righteously.

One of the big issues within Christianity as it developed was whether sins committed after baptism could be forgiven. In particular, apostasy under persecution was considered an unforgivable sin, and the debate (more…)

Question 103 – from CP, United Kingdom

In your post about the time lapse between bodily death and resurrection, you say: “The deceased are already resurrected and to them it would have felt instantaneous.” It seems to be your belief that those who achieve a life ‘with God’ and with Jesus in this life are the ones who are resurrected. And The Bible says those who believe in Jesus and ask for forgiveness will be resurrected. However, it seems strange that lots of very ‘good’, charitable, loving and kind people who might not believe in Jesus or might be vague about it will not be resurrected with the others. Where do they go? How about the difficult person who causes a lot of upset to others but who believes in Jesus all along or towards the end? Why would that person be resurrected before the charitable person? I understand to the degree that we ALL inevitably sin in our lives and Jesus is the key to being re-united with God. However, this type of question still puzzles me. How does it all work?

This question in one form or another has perplexed Christians for many years. Loosely speaking there are three basic alternative solutions:
i) universalism – the belief that everybody is granted eternal life,
ii) annihilationism – where the ‘saved’ (or righteous/good) receive eternal life, while the unsaved (bad) cease to exist, and
iii) judgement – where the saved/good go to heaven and the unsaved/bad go to hell.

There are problems with all three doctrinal positions, so it comes as no surprise to discover modified and hybrid opinions as well. However, put simply, universalism does not allow for free choice, because human beings get saved whatever they do. It also has very little Biblical basis. It does, however, emphasise God’s grace, mercy and forgiving nature, and has a long pedigree among freethinking Christians (often regarded as heretics). One notable theologian who adopted this view was the third century scholar Origen, who went so far as to claim that even the devil would eventually be redeemed.

Annihilationism is often argued from the reference in Revelation to the ‘second death’ endured by those who are thrown into the lake of fire in chapter 20, verse 14. As with the more typical ‘division between heaven and hell’ judgement scenario, annihilationism does take human sin seriously. In fact, human sin is the reason why those judged unrighteous are annihilated. However, this goes against the Biblical statements about hell, which seem to infer a continuing, conscious existence (see Mark chapter 9, verse 48).

The judgement scenario has always been very popular in Christian thought, particularly among ‘fire and brimstone’ preachers. In some ways the concept of hell feeds the social insecurity caused by religion, in that while Christians may feel that they are a persecuted and threatened minority, they can at least take comfort in the fact that they will be proved right on judgement day. However, this simplistic approach – that believers automatically go to heaven and unbelievers automatically end up in hell – has intrinsic difficulties, both in its Biblical support and internal logic.

For a start, it has often been pointed out that it was the religious leaders that Jesus warned about hell. Jesus clearly saw a distinction between words and deeds, with words on their own not enough to save a person (Matthew chapter 7, verses 15-23). So it appears that a person who “causes upset” will be judged for it, regardless of whether they have said the ‘right’ formula of words (e.g. a ‘prayer of salvation’).

Reducing the effects of salvation merely to the afterlife takes the emphasis away from doing the will of God in the here and now, which is clearly part of Jesus’ intended message. In Luke chapter 4, verse 18, Jesus launches his ministry with a declaration of intent borrowed from the prophet Isaiah and promises “To preach good news to the poor”, liberate prisoners and the oppressed, and heal the blind. Later in Luke many of these phrases are repeated to authenticate Jesus’ status as the messiah to the imprisoned John the Baptist (chapter 7, verse 22).

In two ways then, the Biblical stories undermine the simplistic heaven/hell divide. There is also the question of rational understanding. If hell is a ‘physical’ place or dimension it must have been created specifically for that purpose, but there is no Biblical record of that taking place. In fact it seems from the Old Testament that the idea of hell ‘evolves’ or develops as time goes on, from ‘sheol’ the grave, through to ‘gehenna’ in the New Testament.

If hell is defined as ‘separation from God’ (as it often is in ‘softer’ versions of the judgement theory), then logically how can any place be separate from its creator? Hell will always bear the creative mark of God. Added to that is the sense that if people are condemned to hell for eternity, then evil has won, and God is not the triumphant victor that Christian tradition has always proclaimed. The question why God would allow human souls to be ‘lost’ is an inexplicable mystery.

Perhaps the best answer to this query is to say that the destiny of unbelievers remains uncertain. In contrast, the future of the believer is assured in the Bible and in Christian theology. While many missionary endeavours have been spurred on by the belief that people are being saved from hellfire, it would be as inspiring to give people the opportunity to replace uncertainty with the certain knowledge of eternal life.

Thanks for your question, CP.

Two questions on a similar theme, now:

The first is from GT, United Kingdom:

What does it mean for God to be all-knowing?

The second, more specific, but covering the same area is from NP, United Kingdom:

Does human free will override divine purpose? If God knew Adam and Eve were going to fall, why didn’t he prevent sin in the first place?

The Christian description of God owes much to ‘classical theism’ developed by the ancient Greek philosophers, which states that God is eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing and everywhere (omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent). The ‘unmoved mover’ and similar ideas of a primal God that is the source of everything (including the pantheon of Graeco-Roman gods) can be found in the works of Aristotle and Plato. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, many leading Christian theologians had been extensively educated in the works of these philosophers, and so the classical conception of God was absorbed into Christian theology.

This view of God does however clash with the Christian assertion that “God is Love” (1 John chapter 4, verse 16), giving rise to the philosophical conundrum known as the ‘Problem of Evil’. This runs as follows: ‘God is omnipotent, omniscient and loving and therefore can prevent evil and would want to prevent evil. Yet evil exists.’ The reason evil exists has been the subject of much debate in Christian theology, with various justifications (‘theodicies’) being made.

If God is all-knowing, then he would presumably have known the results of giving Adam and Eve (or any human being) free will. The Biblical ‘Fall of Mankind’ (in Genesis chapter 3) is a direct result of God’s gift of free will. Under the classical model, God therefore allowed it to happen and so, through giving free will and not preventing the Fall, God becomes indirectly responsible for the state of the world. That is not to say that God is to blame for sin, but it does explain the extraordinary sacrifice of the Incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, who ‘bore the sins of the world’. The death of Christ took the experience of death, which is the punishment for sin, into the eternal Godhead, removing it from creation.

However, another way of viewing God’s gift of ‘free will’ is found in ‘kenotic theology’. This comes from a phrase in Philippians where Christ is described as ‘emptying himself’ during the Incarnation (Philippians chapter 2, verse 6-11, sometimes the Greek word ekenosen is translated as ‘humbled’, but its literal meaning is ‘emptied’). It could be hypothesised that in order for free will to be genuine, the outcome of any action cannot be known. Therefore, in a similar fashion to Christ’s humbling ‘emptying of himself’, God may have accepted a self-imposed limitation on his omniscience. This could be why later in the Genesis narrative of the Fall, God searches for Adam and Eve and does not know where they are (Genesis chapter 3, verse 9).

There are many competing arguments over why God felt it necessary to give human beings free will. By far the most persuasive is the idea that God seeks reciprocal love from created beings, but for such love to be genuine, it has to be the product of independent decision-making creatures. However, the insistence on adhering to the classical view of God being all-knowing, does impact on the belief in human free will. In short, knowing the outcome gives God the option of influencing any decision and it could be argued that as a result human free will is a total illusion because all consequences are dependent on God.

Thanks for your questions GT and NP.

Occasionally on freelance theology dialogues have been published between Jon the freelance theologian and correspondents. Recently a point-by-point critique was sent in by TR of an earlier post regarding the belief in the virginal conception of Mary found in Roman Catholic dogma. Because this response was point-by-point, it is reproduced here with the original material written by Jon the freelance theologian in italic text, TR’s critique in bold, and further comments by Jon the freelance theologian in plain text.
NB: TR uses Hebraic names for Mary, Joseph, Jesus etc. and these have been preserved in the text of the dialogue.

Jon FT originally wrote:
Question from ELC, United Kingdom
I’ve been having some discussions with some Catholic friends about Mary. They argue that Mary must be sinless because Jesus would be tainted by sin if his mother was sinful. As the mother of God she must have a special status in our worship. I would have thought original sin of Mary would help answer the question, but if your first premise is that Mary MUST have been sinless (i.e. an exception) then where do you go?
And of course, her mother must have been miraculously conceived so that no taint of sin was passed on to her so there was no taint of sin for her to pass on to Jesus and her mother’s mother must have been miraculously conceived…
Now, that obvious hole in the argument has been addressed, let’s talk about Mary.

TR’s comment:
The thing here is that I see an obvious hole in your reasoning: In paying close attention to the stories of the Patriarchs, we are confronted with a principle: before an aging person can beget or conceive a promised child (from whom the MESSIAH will descend), a perfecting must occur, that the parent, brought to a State of Grace, may pass on the same Covering of Grace to the one to be brought forth. After the Hagar fiasco, my forefather, `Avraham, had to wait 14 years to, through intense Purification, to be readied to finally receive his promised firstborn, Yits’aq.
Channah, the mother of Miryam, was born as you were, though to parents in a State of Grace. She and her husband, Yo`achiym, had no child until they had been thoroughly purged of their sins. Only in that purified state did they then receive their firstborn, Miryam, from GOD. Had they not been in a State of Grace, their sins would have weighed upon their firstborn also – but, in the environment the Faith of her parents afforded her, Miryam was saved by the Grace of the ONE she would one day bear, in that way knowing HIM as SAVIOR from her conception. No one else could rival such intimate appreciation for the SAVIOR as she did in her Prayer known as the Magnificat [named - though according to Latin translation - in the Hebraic manner of calling a Unit of Prayer, Praise, or Narrative by its opening words].

Jon FT’s response:
The ‘intense purification’ referred to here is presumably the rite of circumcision. However, this is described in Genesis chapter 17 as being a seal on the covenant God is making with Abraham. If it was about personal purification, why does God command that all the males of Abraham’s household be circumcised (chapter 17, verse 10)? Unless of course, you are drawing on some extra-Biblical stories to account for the fourteen years Abraham had to wait to ‘be readied’ for Isaac’s arrival. Similarly the story of Mary’s own special birth comes from extra-Biblical sources, the main one being the Protevangelium of James which dates from the second century.

While the infancy narratives in the canonical gospels are often regarded as historically questionable, the non-canonical works that the infancy stories mentioned above appear in are much less reliable in terms of origin and historical trustworthiness. All that can be said in their favour is that they record some beliefs that were in vogue in the heterodox Christianity of the time, but which were regarded as unreliable when the current canon was assembled.

The Magnificat (Luke chapter 1, verses 46-55) is addressed to God (the Lord in the Greek text usually points to the Jewish name for God, Yahweh) and it is God who Mary calls “my saviour” (verse 47). There is no indication in the text that Mary’s prayerful song of praise is addressed to her unborn child.

Jon FT originally wrote:
Pope Pius IX declared the Immaculate Conception of Mary as official Catholic doctrine in 1854. It has had a long history in Christian folklore before that. Mary, as the ‘first believer’, was accorded a special status and many extra-Biblical stories appeared. Some Christian writers liked to style her as a ‘New Eve’, reversing the sin of the first Eve through her obedience to God. The Immaculate Conception of Mary does away with the question of ‘Original Sin’ being passed onto Jesus. Original Sin is the sin that is passed on, so the thing to note here is that Mary’s ‘sinlessness’ is about Original Sin.

TR’s comment:
She was perceived as the Second Eve from the very beginning. Even GOD referred to her in the presence of the first Eve, in mentioning the Woman and her SEED. In the Gospel, the SEED is referred to as developed into the “FRUIT of [her] womb”. `Elizabeth calls her the equivalent of “Mother of GOD”, calling her either the “Mother of YHWH”, or the “Mother of `ADHONAY”. The NAME used for the LORD here is more exclusive to GOD alone even than the mere term “GOD” ["`ELOHIYM"].
She was the only one that was told that her own heart would be pierced in the Passion of the LORD, in addition to HIS own suffering in It. Either the words to Miryam from the Cross mean that she bore Yoseph no children, or it can only mean that she became a mother in a special way to Yochannan, who already had a living mother of his own.
YESHUA’ passed through all times of life – even old age, upon the Cross – as a MALE. Through her participation with the Life of the REDEEMER, Miryam was the Second Eve, in whose femininity CHRIST showed the first fruits of the redemption of women, prefacing her part in things with the guarantee that she shall be blessed among women. HIS Death was the Sacrifice for all, but the LORD didn’t live as a perfect woman, but made Miryam to.

Jon FT’s response:
It is, of course, the traditional Christian interpretation that the words spoken in judgement on the serpent in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, refer particularly to Jesus Christ defeating Satan. However, this etymological myth may just be to account for the natural ‘enmity’ between Eve’s offspring (i.e. the human race) and snakes. Neither Satan nor Christ are mentioned in the Genesis account by name, and it is a later tradition to associate the serpent of Eden with Satan, just as it is a later theological development to assume that God was referring to Christ.

Elizabeth uses neither of the Hebrew words cited above. In the original Greek text she calls Mary ‘mother of my lord’, using the Greek word Kyriou (Lord). Admittedly this word is probably interchangeable with the Hebrew word Adonai, but the word kyriou was not used exclusively for God – not even in the New Testament.

The fact that Jesus commissioned ‘the beloved disciple’, usually thought to be the apostle John, with caring for his mother does not necessarily mean that Mary had no other children. It is clear from the gospel accounts that Jesus’ own family opposed him and did not recognise his messiah-ship. In Mark Chapter 3, verse 21 ‘his family…went to take charge of him for they said “He is out of his mind.”’ Furthermore, John Wenham, in Easter Enigma, his study of the Easter accounts, lays out a possible hypothesis that James and John, were the sons of Salome. She is named in Mark as being present at the cross Mark chapter 15, verse 40), whereas Matthew describes her as ‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee’ (Matthew chapter 27, verse 56) and John’s gospel describes her as ‘Jesus’ mother’s sister’ (John chapter 19, verse 25). It would seem from this study that John was therefore Jesus’ cousin, and if John was ‘the beloved disciple’, then it would not be completely out of the question for Jesus to commit the care of his mother to a believing member of his family.

The comment that “HIS Death was the Sacrifice for all, but the LORD didn’t live as a perfect woman, but made Miryam to” seems to follow a theological red herring. The point is that Jesus lived as a perfect human being. Men and women did not need to be redeemed separately, for in the Hebrew view of humanity, women were created from men anyway (Genesis chapter 2, verses 21-24), therefore by redeeming men, Christ would also redeem women.

Jon FT originally wrote:
The story of the Immaculate Conception can be traced to third century ‘lost gospels’ (see previous freelance theology answers for more on that topic). Put briefly, the story goes that she was miraculously conceived when her childless aged parents, St Anna and St Joachim, were visited by an angel and promised the child they had longed for. St Anna kissed her husband and was with child.
There is no Biblical basis for this, or for the other great Catholic doctrines of Mary’s perpetual virginity or her preservation from death (the Assumption). Sadly, they seem to have been the product of the very fertile imaginations of Christian storytellers. The power in the stories, however, can be seen in the way they have been absorbed into Roman Catholicism – arguably one of the oldest continuous expressions of Christianity. For example, faith in the Blessed Virgin’s virginity led St Jerome to translate Jesus’ ‘brothers and sisters’ as ‘cousins’ and this translation continues today in some Catholic Bibles.

TR’s comment:
The Assumption is true. The idea of her never having children for Yoseph has never been pronounced ex Cathedra. The Pope has been kept from ever saying such a thing in the Capacity that matters for Dogma. What Providence! As for her Assumption, it is one of many things the Bible doesn’t mention. Was `Eliyahu really born? It sure isn’t mentioned! Did Noach’s wife have a name? Of course not! It’s not mentioned in the Bible! Did Paul die? You guessed it!
So where is the evidence that anyone knew Miryam’s remains to still be on the earth? That speaks volumes!

Jon FT’s response:
Unlike the other examples cited of things the Bible doesn’t mention, none of them have been accorded dogmatic status or pronounced as doctrine, but Mary’s virgin birth has been. The argument that Mary’s tomb doesn’t exist therefore she was assumed bodily into Heaven, would naturally lead to the conclusion that any Biblical character with no recorded resting place was similarly translated without dying. The earliest accounts of Mary’s assumption date from the fifth century, making the Protevangelium of James appear reliable in comparison.

The simple fact is that the early church incorporated a large amount of pagan goddess imagery into Christianity and attached it to Mary. Ephesus – where Mary is reputed to have lived with the apostle John until her death/assumption – coincidentally happened to be a city with a thriving cult of the goddess Diana, and later became a major centre for veneration of the Virgin Mary. Imagery of the Egyptian goddess Isis with her son Horus was copied in iconography of Mary and the infant Jesus. Even haloes around the head resemble the rays of Ra or Apollo as found in pagan art. The title ‘Queen of Heaven’ was appropriated from the pagan cults of such deities as Isis and Artemis.

Jon FT originally wrote:
Non-Catholics also have difficulty with the status given to Mary. She has been regarded as ‘theotokos’ (‘God-bearer’) since the Nestorian controversy in the fifth century. Technically this is incorrect, as she only bore the human incarnation of the divine Son. But the school of thought who wanted to use the term ‘theotokos’ wanted to assert the absolute divinity of Christ against various heresies around at the time that denied it. ‘God-bearer’ thus became part of orthodox Christian belief, when perhaps it should not have.

TR’s comment:
No Catholic says she conceived anything but CHRIST’s Humanity. It is correct to call her Theotikos, because the MAN CHRIST’s PERSON remains that of GOD – borne, but not conceived!

Jon FT’s response:
‘Theotokos’ was a divisive term when it first came into use. True the Council of Chalcedon (451AD) allowed its use because of the unity of Christ’s person, but the stress on Christ’s unity could lead to monophysite christology, which states that Christ only had one nature, a divine-human hybrid. The Chalcedonian definition of Christ being ‘one person with two natures’ remains the norm for orthodox Christianity.

Given the development of Kenotic theology, which see Christ as ‘emptying himself’ or denying his divine nature in order to become human, ‘theotokos’ has come to be regarded as incorrect in non-Catholic theology. It is undeniable that the term strengthened devotion to Mary, especially after it was endorsed at Chalcedon.

Jon FT originally wrote:
Asserting that Mary was sinless goes beyond the Biblical accounts. It is unnecessary and, in a strange way robs her of the honour she is due as the ‘humble handmaiden of the Lord’. If she was sinless, then becoming the ‘God-bearer’ is not the inspiring tale of a young girl being willing to suffer the public disgrace of being unmarried, yet pregnant. It takes away the very humanity that Mary passed on to her son.

TR’s comment:
How is this to be taken as a logical conclusion?

Jon FT’s response:
Because Mary would be more then human – she would be sinless, a potential co-redeemer of humanity and totally unlike every other human being. The sinless Mary cannot be a role model for Christians because there is no way sinful humans could emulate her. The child she bore would share in her version of humanity, but would not be human like everybody else. To quote Gregory of Nazianzus: “What has not been assumed, has not been healed” (Letter to Cledonius). So Jesus Christ must have been completely, naturally, human in his human nature, in order to save the rest of humanity.

Question from NP, United Kingdom

Does human free will override divine purpose? If God knew Adam and Eve were going to fall, why didn’t he prevent sin in the first place?

This is one of the huge debatable areas of theology, namely that of predestination, but couched in slightly different terms. It does of course rely on the ‘classic’ concept of God, namely that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. It may be of interest to know that this view of God was absorbed into Christian theology from ancient Greek philosophy, as Christianity became the dominant religion in the Hellenistic world. Some people get around the problem of God’s foreknowledge of events by denying this classical description of God as being a later intrusion into Christian thought.

However, if we continue to hold what has become the traditional Christian view of God, we are faced with a conundrum. Either God created morally wilful beings and knew that would act immorally, but decided to create them anyway, or he did not know how they would act and therefore ‘sin’ could not be prevented. That leaves Christians with an interesting choice – either God allowed sin to occur, or God was unable to prevent it.

The former solution – that God allows sin as part of his divine plan – reaches its apogee in the hyper-Calvinist doctrine known as double-predestination. This is a view of God’s omnipotence that borders on fatalism, stating that God has predestined the ‘elect’ to eternal life and sinners to eternal damnation. Human free will is virtually negated in this doctrinal position. The latter option is often found in the various ‘free will arguments’, where God is assumed to have limited his own knowledge of what will happen in order to give created beings some kind of free will. Many of these arguments stumble because the ‘free will’ they describe is only ‘free’ because God wills it to be so. Human free will is thus just as tightly dependent on God’s will initially as in predestination.

The Biblical account is equally confusing. Certainly in the Old Testament, the children of Israel seem to thwart God’s intentions to the point where Yahweh gives up on them. In the New Testament there is a strong emphasis on God succeeding despite opposition from contrary spiritual forces or human agency. This opposition is credited with being real and possibly able to affect God’s plans, or at least delay the inevitable.

According to the Bible, God seems to want to work in partnership with human beings and, although wrathful when disobeyed, is portrayed as being unwilling to merely impose his will. The Genesis account, however literally we take it or not, is a touching story which seems to imply that God genuinely did not expect disobedience. That may be why God decided the only way to make amends for the disruption in creation was to enter it as a human being and negate the effects of sin through dying within the confines of the creation He had made.

Question from FC, Japan

I have been reading your website with huge interest, and it occurs to me that I would like to know why exactly the “thought is as bad as the deed”?
Surely wanting to stab my boss in the throat with my ball-point pen can hardly be considered the same as actually doing it!

“I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” – Jesus, quoted in Matthew 5 v28.

Jesus frequently condemned religious hypocrisy, a fact that makes him more endearing to non-religious people. He refers to the Pharisees, the Jewish ultra-religious leaders of his day, as ‘white-washed tombs’ – pretty to look at, but filled with death (Matthew 23 v27). He instructs his disciples to pray out of public view and in secret (Matthew 6 vs5-8).

The main concern behind all this is that Jesus wants his followers to concentrate on their relationship with God, rather than their standing in society. Similarly, God is not fooled. No matter how pious you appear, God knows the truth about what you really think, do and feel. The real danger with such hypocrisy is that it leads to smug self-satisfaction, arrogance, prescriptive legalism and judgemental attitudes.

That is why the ‘thought is as bad as the deed’. Actions originate out of thoughts, so the first step on the road to violence is the thought or fantasy of ‘stabbing someone in the throat’. The point is that stabbing is not really Jesus’ way. It does not sit well with the command to “love your enemies [or boss!] and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5 v44). Similarly, lustful thoughts lead to adultery as is shown in the well-known, tragic story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12).

Internal purity is the essential ingredient in external righteousness. Christians are equipped for this through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean we never think violent thoughts. If, however, we find that our ‘thought-life’ differs drastically from the face we show the world, we should remember that Jesus has little time, and no good words, for hypocrites.

I hope that answer was useful, FC. Thanks for contributing to freelance theology. If you would like to comment or pose your own question, please use the ‘email me’ button.