Cheryl Schatz

gengwall,

Cheryl – we clearly aren’t understanding each other. You keep taking examples from human history but, it seems to me, are trying to read them back into our universal sin nature to say that sin itself is apportioned unequally between men and women.

Well, I do know for sure that are not understanding me. I didn’t say that “sin is apportioned unequally between men and women. I said that

we are all capable of any sin

. It is one “nature” after all and so we have a capability of acting out if we choose to do so. It just so happens that what is in mankind cannot be seen from our heart since no one sees it. Looking at mankind throughout history gives us a fuller picture to comment on what appears in common from one nation to another and one time to another. We both see that.

But I refuse to believe that the general effect of sin on human nature, specifically as it applies to marriage, is biased toward men.

I never said that. The general effect of sin on the human nature is that we all sin and no one gender is freer than the other of that sin.

But maybe we are saying the same thing in different ways. My objection is to any interpretation that elevates women over men morally, just as you would strenuously object to the comp interpretation of the verse which elevates men over women.

Well if we could find those who think that women are elevated over men morally, then we both can “have at them”. I do not believe that women are morally better than men.

If your view holds a bias against men or for women, it would be that bias that I find unreasonable.

I don’t hold a bias against men. Do you hold a bias against women? Just because sin came through the man doesn’t mean that all men are worse than women. After all we are all children of Adam and it isn’t until we become children of the Lord Jesus that we take on a new nature.

By the way, are you one of the ones who disagrees that sin came through Adam and that we have a sin nature because of that or do you think that all of us were born in perfection without a sin nature?

It would not only be unprecedented in scripture when God speaks and teaches about marriage, but it would not accurately reflect the equal impact of a sin nature on Adam’s sons as well as his daughters.

I don’t believe that the silence of Adam at the fall is a teaching about marriage and neither is God’s curse on the earth a general teaching about marriage. I do find a general teaching on marriage in Genesis 2:24. I do not find Jesus or any of the other apostles using Genesis 3:16 as a general teaching on marriage so it must not be foundational to how to function in our God-ordained marriages.

I still see such a bias in your thought process. But I may be reading you wrong.

You are reading me wrong.

A statement that woudl put my mind at ease would be something like “Gen 3:16 teaches that men and women have an equal propensity to engage in sinful actions that are directly harmful to their spouse”.

How could I say this if what Eve did wasn’t sinful? However I do believe that men and women have an equal propensity to engage in sinful actions that are directly harmful to their spouse, although Genesis 3:16 doesn’t teach that. If one wants to make Eve as sinful and having harmful actions toward her spouse, then one would have to back it up by the Scriptures.

“So the question is still in the end, did Eve become a rebellious sinner after she left the garden of Eden?” – I don’t know, and at this point I don’t much care. As I said, I am open to a virtuous Eve as long as she doesn’t predict women as a more virtuous gender.

As I said Eve is unique. All of us are Adam’s children. Her seed alone is Jesus.

“If she did, what proof does the Scriptures give for this rebellion?” – If she did, my response would be “no more than it gives for Adam’s future rebellion.” We disagree sharply on addtional witnesses. Again, I don’t know if we are at the point in the discussion to resume that particular conversation.

You haven’t answered my points but it appears to me that you may be taking this all personally and it isn’t Adam that you are defending but all men.

“And if she did not become rebellious because she had the ability to remain without sin (unlike us), then for what reason would it be important that she remained without sin?” – I’m not following.

I am asking if there is any reason why her sinless nature would be necessary. Would her seed be touched by her sin if she had rebellion? If not, why not? Remember that there was only one seed of the woman, not seeds. Jesus is the only full offspring of the woman. If He could come through a sinful and rebellious Eve, then for what reason would it be necessary that He have no human father?