Was Man Created Mortal?

I agree -- tree of life in heaven shows that the "biology" does not significantly change so that we are like God having "life in ourselves"-- but rather the life-giving source is constantly available resulting in eternal life.

Since "God alone" is immortal and "posses life in himself" then all mankind and even Angels are limited to how long they can possibly live separated from God - the source of life.

"Living forever in rebellion against God" is not going to happen even though many think it will in the lake of fire.

in Christ,

Bob

 

The OP: no

 

I am curious about something. I wondered if you happened to have scripture showing that mankind and Angles life span are limited to how long they can possibly live separated from God-The source of life.

Just scripture pertaining to this verse. Don't want to hyjack the thread. HP might sqwak haha

This seems to be placing a restriction upon God's abilities stating that one's life is limited because they are separated from God.

If God wishes them to live forever in any capacity, hell or no hell, I believe this is surely possible.

Imho, with God, all things are possible. Unless scripture proves otherwise

 

Well, I would like to comment at this point that I believe Adam and Eve's bodies shone with light from retaining the glory of God's presence. This is why, I've heard it explained, that they didn't know they were naked. Moses and Elijah appeared thus on the mount of transfiguration, recall. They had come from God's presence then.

And since the serpent was in the garden, in God's presence as well, if is told that Eve thought she was talking to a good creature.

Were they all mortal? I'd say yes unless they ate from the tree of life.

skypair

 

cautiously pesimistic -- I agree with Skypair ...

Now that gives me pause for reflection:laugh: - maybe i am wrong this time.raying:


Ps 104 - God clothes himself with light as with a garment.

Possibly Adam and Eve had garments of light.

In the OT it is considere sin to appear before God unclothed.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Each will be conscious forever, whether with God or apart from God. Each will receive resurrected bodies befitting their chosen eternity.

 

Either you have been reading Poltinus or you have bought into 'modern' Eastern Orthodox Anthropology which emphasizes heavily a Neo-Platonist Emmanationsim (i.e. Poltinus and the Cappadocian Fathers Hellenist synergism with the Gospels).

Which one is it? :tongue3:

 

1. It appears you are limited to only direct information in the Scriptures and are wanting in the area of that which is assumed, that which can be drawn from texts or doctrinal conclusions that are determined from both direct and inferred thought.

2. Perhaps in the area of argument good cases for soul and spirit being separate have been made and you are unable to accept them or see them at this time. Maybe a review of all you have considered? Good men, very seasoned and spiritually mature men hold to this view and have offered definitions. Surely in all that you have ever read one of them has offered something you can accept as meritorious and reasonable though you do not agree. But to conclude no such workable definition has ever been made by such a large body of theologically solid men who hold to such a view calls into question the lens through which you are peering.

 

HP
I am limited to casual responses tonight but this weekend I will have more time so I gladly will provide a lengthy response for you though I am persuaded you have read far more than what I will post before, nevertheless on behalf of your request, so be it.

 

Grace and Peace Heavenly Pilgrim,

There are a few Church Fathers (Athanasius, Cappadocian Fathers, Maximos the Confessor, etc) who allowed Neo-Platonism to play far too much of a role in interpreting the Scriptures. The Theory that Man was 'created' mortal and that his immortality 'emmanates' from God is part and parcel with the teachings of Neo-Platonism which heavily enfluenced the Alexandrian School (Clement, Origen and others). You will not find it accepted within the Councils nor will you find it in Christianity outside those enfluenced by the Alexandrian School. I know in our modern day such mystical treatises are very intriguing but where they force one to contradict the normative interpretation of Sacred Scripture we 'must' cease to consider them as nourishing for our journey to Calvary.

As I've stated before in another thread, the Doctrine of Original Sin has been Dogmatized by the Councils (both at the regional synod level and also by two Ecumenical Councils.

Council of Mileum II 416, Approved by Innocent and Council of Carthage (XVI) 418, Approved by Zosimus against the Pelagians

The First Canon States:

All the bishops established in the sacred synod of the Carthaginian Chruch have decided that whoever says that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or whether he did not sin, he would die in body, that is he would go out of the body not because of the merit of sin but by reason of the necessity of nature, let him be anothema.

The Second Canon states:

Likewise it has been decided that whoever says that infants fresh from their mothers' wombs ought not to be baptized, or says that they are indeed baptized unto the remission of sins, but that they draw nothing of the original sin from Adam, which is expiated in the bath of regeneration, whence it follows that in regard to them the form of baptism "unto the remission of sins" is understood as not true, but as false, let him be anathema. Since what the Apostle says: "Though one man sin entered into the world (and through sin death), and so passed into all men, in whom all have sinned" [cf. Romans 5:12], must not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith even infants, who in themselves thus far have not been able to commit any sin, are therefore truly baptized unto the remission of sins, so that that which they have contracted from generation may be cleansed in them by regeneration.

These Carthaginian canons were accepted by the Church at the Ecumenical Council in AD 431. They were received yet again at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (the Second Council of Nicea) in AD 787. These Canons were and 'must not to be understood otherwise than as the catholic and apostalic Church spread everywhere has always understood it.'

Teachings of Theologians:

Nor does this 'Innovation' resemble the works of Simeon the New Theologian (i.e. The First-Created Man, Seven Homilies) who clearly presents the 'orthodox' teaching of "Original Sin"...

In the present life no one has the divine power in himself to manifest a brilliant glory, and there is no one who is clothed with glory before humility and disgrace; but every man who is born in this world is born inglorious and insignificant, and only later, little by little, advances and becomes glorious.

Therefore, if anyone, having experienced beforehand such disgrace and insignificance, shall then become proud, is he not senseless and blind? That saying that calls no one sinless except God, even though he has lived only one day on earth, does not refer to those who sin personally, because how can a one-day old child sin? But in this expressed that mystery of our Faith, that human nature is sinful from its very conception. God did not create man sinful, but pure and holy. But since the first-created Adam lost this garment of sanctity, not from any other sin but from pride alone, and became corruptible and mortal, all people also who come from the seed of Adam are participants of the ancestral sin from their very conception and birth. He who has been born in this way, even though he has not yet performed any sin, is already sinful through this ancestral sin. - The First-Created Man: Homily 37 The Ancestral (Original) Sin and Our Regeneration by St. Symeon The New Theologian

I can appreciate the Coppadocian Fathers just as much as the next guy but I have to admit that they have opted to contradict the normative interpretation of Scripture for Hellenist Philosophies (Neo-Platonism) which have distorted their teachings.

The modern Orthodox Church is so bent to distinguish itself from Catholicism that it has allow that desire to allow them to stray from what Tradition and Scripture has historically taught due in large part by an over emphasis of a few Church Fathers whom appear to have been overly enfluenced by Polintus and others from the Alexandranian School.

 

I would tend to think that Adam, created (not born) in a dispensation of innocency, would have had an immortal body. It is presumed that had he not eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would have lived forever. That which brought death into the world was not the fruit of that tree. Neither the fruit of the tree of life nor the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil have any power in and of themselves. That would be superstition. The fall came because Adam rebelled. He disobeyed God's command. He sinned. There was nothing in that fruit that caused any change in his body or gave him a sin nature. It was his sin that brought a curse on him, the earth, and all mankind. The Lord makes that perfectly clear in Genesis 3 and in Romans 5. The trees are purely symbolic.

Furthermore, we are all immortal. God created us like the angels in heaven, as spirit beings. The difference between them and us is that we have a temporary body that some day will be replaced with a permanent celestial body. Our spirit is immortal. It will live on forever.

Death is separation.
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
How did Adam die? Adam was spiritually separated from God. Restoration or fellowship could only be restored by a blood sacrifice which God himself performed by taking the life of an animal and making "skins" and clothing them. But blood was shed in the process. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.

Ephesians 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
--Death is separation, and here it is spiritual separation as well. They were spiritually dead. Then they were saved. Now Paul says they were made alive (saved). He is talking to physically alive Christians who were once spiritually dead.

James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
--This physical death--the body separated from the spirit. It happens every time someone dies.

The second death will happen at the resurrection of the unsaved. They will be forever separated from God in the Lake of Fire. Death means separation.

Thus each and every one of us are immortal. Our bodies may not be but we are.
The soul and spirit are separate as Hebrews 4:12 points out, but the same verse infers that they can be separated inferring that somehow they are also connected with each other. It is a mystery that we cannot mathematically and scientifically separate. God created us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

 

The bilogy changed enough where Jesus could appear and disappear at will. Also, the tree of life was not needed to sustain life to begin. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the other tree, they would surely die. There was no death designed into them, spiritual or physical.

 

I think that man was created immortal,since death was passed to man after he sinned. And so death was passed to all men for all have sinned.
Thru Jesus Christ we can know that we will have eternal life ,Praise GOD!:jesus:

 

Contracting the Disease of Sin. ​

What has Adam’s guilt got to do with us? Why are we held responsible for his sin when we were not even born when he committed it? Did not God say: “The parents will not die for the children, nor the children for the parents, but the soul which has sinned, it shall die.” (Deut 24:16) How then shall we defend this doctrine? The soul, I say, which has sinned, it shall die. We have become sinners because of Adam’s disobedience in the following manner…. After he fell into sin and surrendered to corruption, impure lusts invaded the nature of his flesh, and at the same time the evil law of our members was born. For our nature contracted the disease of sin because of the disobedience of one man, that is, Adam, and thus many became sinners. This was not because they sinned along with Adam, because they did not then exist, but because they had the same nature as Adam, which fell under the law of sin. Thus, just as human nature acquired the weakness of corruption in Adam because of disobedience, and evil desires invaded it, so the same nature was later set free by Christ, who was obedient to God the Father and did not commit sin. ~ Cyril of Alexandria: Explanation of the Letter to the Romans. (Migne PG 74 cols. 788–89)​

The Benefits of Mortality. ​

How does it follow that from Adam’s disobedience someone else would become a sinner? For surely, if this were so, such a sinner would not deserve punishment, since his sins would not be his own fault. What then does the word sinners mean here? To me it seems to mean liable to punishment and condemned to death. Why was this done? Paul does not say, because it was not necessary to his argument…. But if you want to know what I think, I would say this: Far from being harmed or condemned, if we think straight, we shall see that we have benefited by becoming mortal, first because it is not an immortal body in which we sin, and second because we have countless reasons for living a religious life. For to be moderate, temper-ate, subdued and separated from wickedness is what death, by its presence and the fact that we expect it to come, persuades us to do. But following on these or even before these, mortality has brought many other blessings besides. For it has made possible the crown of martyrdom…. In fact, neither death nor the devil himself can do anything to harm us. Immortality is waiting for us, and after being chastened for a little while we shall enjoy the blessings to come without fear. (See Mt 25:34; Heb 10:36–37; 2 Macc 7:33) This present life is a kind of school, where we are under instruction by means of disease, suffering, temptations and poverty, as well as other apparent evils, in order to be made fit to receive the blessings of the world to come. Chrysostom: Homilies on Romans 10. (NPNF 1 11:403–4)​

 

I woudn't put my trust in Cyril.