ExFundie

Alright. Given the nature of God as fundamentalists see him, who exactly is Man, in their view of things? In the last section, we saw that he was created in God’s image, and recognized two implications of this: 1) that God is understandable by Man; and 2) that communication is possible between God and Man.

Before we go further, we should explain Christian fundamentalists' use of the pronoun "Man," rather than something more inclusive like "humankind." Being biblical literalists, they believe the creation story describing the Man (Adam) as God’s first human creation. Since Woman (Eve) was derived from the man, created to be his companion and helper, Man is the primary human while the Woman is essentially his subordinate, her identity always oriented to his authority, while his identity is oriented toward God’s authority.

I suspect that Islam also looks to this story for similar conclusions, since they accept many stories in the scriptures which Christians call the Old Testament; certainly Islamic fundamentalists have a similar idea about the position of men in the world, and the position of women under their authority. A "man first/woman second-if-that" teaching is typical in most fundamentalisms, though the justifications are sometimes different. (For example, fundamentalist Hinduism may justify women’s subjugation by describing them as so powerful that they need to be controlled and guided by men. The end result in the lives of women, of course, is the same in all fundamentalisms, whatever justification is devised.)

But meanwhile, for Christian fundamentalists, because of the biblical creation story the subordination of women is woven into the very fabric of the created universe, from the beginning. There is no getting around this.

But Man’s authority is not just over the female half of humankind, but over nature as well. We’ll have a closer look at nature in the next section. What is crucial here is that in the beginning he had authority over his own physical being, and over the physical, spiritual and moral fate of his descendants. He stood as humankind’s representative, and every choice he made in that first stage of human history would affect all humans after him.

Most people know the basic story: the Man and Woman were given freedom to do as they pleased in the garden God prepared. They were pretty much vegetarian, and could eat from any tree in the garden, including the tree of life (which implies that they were immortal). The forbidden fruit was from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the serpent persuaded the Woman to disobey that prohibition, and she ate the fruit, and gave some to the Man also.

As a result, God exiled them into the now cold, cruel world. Physical mortality came upon them (though not spiritual mortality; they were created as beings whose spirits could never cease to exist). They would live their lives with hard work, and the Woman would be subjected to the man and give birth in pain. (This was the moment when women’s subjugation became onerous; before this, it was something of a partnership, though the Man still had the final say in everything [e.g. naming all the animals].)

One can debate the details of the story forever, but the important thing is how Christian fundamentalists view the results of the sin Man and Woman committed there.

The original prohibition was fairly light, so the Man was not denied anything he absolutely needed by obeying it. He was capable of the intellectual "knowledge of good and evil" even if he hadn’t eaten from the tree. The reason for the command was that Man would be deciding who was going to be in charge in his life – God, or himself. It was the act of disobedience itself that comprised the experiential "knowledge of good and evil" and began the plunge into further experience of evil.

So Man decided that he himself would be the "lord" of his life, instead of God who had created him. This, for fundamentalists, is the one Big No-No. God is in charge, and any act of independence is not mere "independence" or "self-expression" or anything else – it is morally wrong. Evil, in fact. Man, in effect, had separated himself from God by his disobedience. And since God is the source of life itself, Man had chosen death. (Fundamentalists believe that he deserved to die then and there because of this, but the fact that he continued to live was the first of many mercies God would show him.)

But since Man had been given authority over all of nature, his act had even greater implications. Remember that morality is woven into the very being of the universe. Both Man’s physical being, and all of nature itself, were changed by his choice – physicality itself became morally separated from God, and subject to death. This was the moment when entropy started. Things began to run down. All of life – not just human life, but animal and plant life as well – began to die.

Further, since the Man was representative of all humans who would come after, he plunged all his descendants into the same morass of entropy and death. They never got a choice of their own. He chose for them, and made the wrong choice. From his children onwards, every human would eventually die.

But it wasn’t just physical death. Since Man had chosen separation from God, then when his physical body died, his spirit would continue in separation from God. If something wasn’t done to rectify the situation, his spirit would be separated from God forever, which, since God was the essence of goodness, love, life, and everything nice, would be sheer torture. Forever.

But there’s more. It wasn’t just Man’s physicality that was affected, or his spirit, or nature in general. Man’s physical body, being born in a state of decay and separation from God, was born with a tendency to sin. So every human being is damned from birth, because they’re incapable of doing anything genuinely good. And since one sin is a rebellion against God, and deserving of death, one sin would be all it took for anyone, to separate them from him forever. And being born sinful from the start – well, every human being after Adam was pretty much doomed.

Ah, but there is still more! Because not only was his body and his capacity to choose affected – so was Man’s mind. His very mind, his reasoning power, became corrupted, most especially in the moral realm. So that he can reason things through very carefully and logically and sincerely, with all the best intentions in the world, and decide that something is good – and be totally wrong. In fact, he will always get it wrong. The only time he reasons anything correctly, it is because God has been gracious enough to help him out and remove the veil of deception.

This is why it is so hard to dialogue with fundamentalists. The moment you show them real evidence contradicting their claims, or show them how some idea they teach is simply not logical, they immediately fall back on the claim that of course to you it would seem illogical, because your mind is still "fallen" and sinful, and your reasoning is corrupted. But to those who have God’s constant help because their relationship to him has been restored (i.e. to fundamentalists), it’s all crystal clear because God has shown them "true reason."

The fact that they’re assuming what they’re trying to prove, and then using that assumption to justify itself – well, if you try to point that out to them, it’s merely further evidence of your "corrupted" power of reason.

Here is an example of a "problem" with "Man’s reasoning" versus "God’s reasoning," as a fundamentalist would see it. A few paragraphs ago, I explained that because of Man’s fallen physical and moral nature, he is incapable of doing any good act whatsoever. But one wants to protest against this. Surely human beings are capable of a lot of good! It’s simply inaccurate to say they can only do evil – they do good all the time! But no. You see, any good thing a human being does is now done from a human-centered world view, which means it is separate from God. So that even when a person gives to the poor or heals the sick or saves someone’s life – it is a "good" thing that stems entirely from that person’s self-centered world. It didn’t come from God, because that person is separated from God. Human reason would suggest this was a good act – but purified, divine reason says it was not. Despite everything.

You simply can’t argue at this point. The most dedicated fundamentalists will not budge on this, and will not even be able to conceive a contradiction or error here. This is why they can dismiss mountains of goodness without the flicker of an eyebrow. If the good deeds were not done by a Christian, they were not rightous deeds. Period.

So let’s sum up.

Communication between God and Man is possible and natural, but has been broken because Man chose to make himself lord of his existence, rather than his creator. The results are these:

1. Spiritual death

2. Physical death

3. Corruption of nature; entropy and decay

4. Men are born with an inability to do anything but sin; the tendency to choose sinfully is embedded into their very bodies, probably right into their genes

5. Man’s very power of reason has been corrupted, so that he can carefully and logically reason himself (pretty much inevitably) to the completely wrong conclusions, without God’s help in directing his reason properly

It looks like a pretty bad situation for Man, all around. Clearly, Something Had To Be Done. And in fact, something was.

But before we get to the solution to all this, we need to elaborate a bit more on nature in general, in its now-fallen state. So on we go.

Next: The Nature of Nature

Back to: Who is This God Person Anyway?