The Beginning

The Bible is God's infallible word to mankind. The Bible tells us about God and about us and I presuppositional assume that the Word of God is infallible at every point on which it speaks. The message of the Bible is covenantal—meaning that it describes our relationship with God. Everything in the Bible directly or indirectly speaks of God's covenants with man. Along with my presupposition of infallibility, I believe that every time God speaks, His Word is true. The Bible is not the only way God speaks, however. God spoke through His prophets and in the last days, God spoke through His son Jesus. The test of a prophet was given in the Bible—the prophet must speak completely accurate. To say otherwise is to make God a liar which would be a self-contradiction.

The Nature of Man

This is a work in progress... Total Depravity means that mankind has a natural inclination toward sin since the Fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. Once having firmly believed this doctrine, I am now reexamining it (I never would have thought I would do this). Adam was tempted and sinned, we are tempted and sin. Why do we inject this belief that Adam had a reasoning capacity better than ours? We sin knowing fully that it is sin, just as Adam did. When we think that Adam was different than us, does that make us feel unable to obey God? Adam did not obey God even when he was made perfect. Surely this is a depressing thought that we are unable to obey God because we now have a propensity toward sin that Adam did not have. Perhaps it is more accurate to consider the Fall as separation from the Grace of God. Adam's sin brought covenant judgement to all men who would come after him. Romans tells us that Adam brought the death and Jesus gives us life. Not just the concept of death, but the death, according to the greek text. Does not the life that Jesus gives exceed the death of Adam? I certainly hope so! As Christians, we do not live under the death, but we certainly still sin. Therefore, the Fall was covenantal and the Death that Adam experienced was separation from God. Furthermore, we know that Adam experienced separation from God in the day that he ate of the forbidden fruit, and we also know that Adam did not experience physical death until years later. In fact, I am not aware of any portion of the Bible that speaks to a physical change to the Earth as a result of the Fall.