Post your case study here: 500-800 words.
This is to be a “real life” case study. Find a person who is willing to sit and talk to you for thirty minutes to one hour. This person may or may not be a Christian. This might be a family member, a co-worker, someone at the gym, or even someone from church.
With notes in hand, you are to teach what you have learned in Humanity and Sin class concerning the doctrine of the Fall of Man.
• Cover these questions before you begin:
1. Do you think that man is essentially good or essentially evil? Why?
2. When you hear the term “original sin” what do you think?
3. In what way do you think the sin of Adam affects us?
• After this, go through the different theories about the fall. Explain the difference between Augustinianism and Pelagianism.
• Then, use your notes to explain what the Bible has to say about original sin.
• Then ask if they think that it is fair that we are held guilty for the sin of another.
• Explain to them the federal headship view as it relates to imputed sin. Use St. Thomas Aquinas’ angel illustration.
The object of this assignment is to present a logical and biblical argument for the doctrine of the Trinity. Your goal here is not to convince someone of the truth (although that would be great), but simply to present the arguments clearly.
After you are done, write a half page to a page summary of the encounter and hand it in. Online student are to post their summary in their class forum. Grades will be based upon the completion of the assignment, not the effectiveness of the presentation. Everyone who completes this will receive credit for the case study.
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November 12th, 2008 at 11:12 am
For this Case study, I interviewed my 15 year old daughter. She is a professing Christian, and was baptized last year. She attends most youth events and Sunday services at our church and she has no formal training in these issues, though we did as a small group go over a lesson with our teenage kids that dealt with Christ’s rescue from the fall so she had recently discussed some related issues.
1. Do you think man is essentially good or evil & why? My daughter took quite a while to formulate an answer to this one, noting that she had reasons for both sides. After much pondering, and even with my encouragement that this was not some test to see if she knew the right answer, she still was unable to decide. She noted that people are good because God created then and yet prone to sin.
2. When you hear the term “original sin” what do you think? Since we had recently discussed Adam/Eve’s sin and how Christ rescues us from the fall (and again I don’t think the lesson we were studying together last week had much about the inheritance or imputation of Adam’s sin), she had not thought a lot about the implications of us being held guilty for Adam’s sin. As was mentioned in class, I think this topic is not a popular one in sermons or teaching in the evangelical church in general, despite the tie to federal headship and Christ’s rescue of us. Specifically, my daughter said that she believes sin exists in all of us, and thought it came from Adam, but was not sure about the inheritance aspect.
3. In what way do you think the sin of Adam affects us? My daughter stated that Adam was the beginning of all sin (we did digress and talk about how Adam is really both Adam and Eve….), and she stated that she believes everyone would have sinned like Adam eventually. She also noted that Adam was not some “super-human” and therefore had the same temptations as we do.
We spent some time going over the different aspects of Pelagianism, Augustinianism, and Arminiainism as they relate to the fall and the will. I then asked her the next question (is it fair that we are held guilty for the sin of another). I was somewhat surprised that this question did not bother her. She stated that sin would have happened anyway as are all sinful by nature, a very Augustinian position on this issue.
Finally, I went over the St. Aquinas angel illustration with her. I actually read the passages from Michael’s paper from the workbook, as I wanted to be sure to setup the premise of the argument correctly. When I was done, I asked her a few questions about what she thought of this and noted that it was an idea, not necessarily a direct quote from scripture. She very much liked the analogy, and understood a bit better why Christ is sometimes called the second Adam. She was able to explain the federal headship view to me after hearing the angel analogy & after asking a few questions, and noted that she found this most helpful. We wrapped up by reading Romans 5:12 to the end of the chapter (I used the NLT to make the text as clear as possible) to see the biblical basis for the federal headship view.
November 21st, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Case Study #2: I chose my brother Stephen, as I’ve done for the last few cases.
Questions:
1. Do you think that man is essentially good or evil and why?
- He found it difficult to say, but leaned toward us being inherently good. He stated that we’ve forgotten the good and we allow evil. I responded that if we allow evil, doesn’t that mean we are inherently evil? I think if we were inherently good, we wouldn’t be as responsive to evil. He agreed and went on to say that our circumstances and nature from Adam dictates our behavior.
2. When you hear the term “original sin” what do you think?
- Sin we’re born with from Adam.
3. In what way do you think the sin of Adam affects us?
- Adam’s fall created our sinful nature. But, I think we need evil in order to appreciate good and for comparison.
I discussed the different theories about the fall.
- He wasn’t at all familiar with Pelagianism, Augustinianism or Arminianism. When I first described the views of Pelagius, he thought that sounded accurate. I explained that I did also. As I went on, he changed his perspective and stated that “it sounds good on the surface, but when you think it through more, it’s not realistic.” He was especially taken with the argument that if we were born neutral, then why hasn’t there been anyone who hasn’t sinned (aside from Jesus). I let him know that I was also swayed by that argument. And conversely, even people who are seemingly evil still have some good in them, as nobody is 100% good or evil.
- He went back and forth between Augustinianism and Arminianism and ultimately feels Augustinianism makes the most sense to him. He feels we can only do what we’re capable of doing. Since we all sin, it is because we have a corrupt nature. His thoughts on Arminianism were that if God has to intervene with prevenient grace, then do we really have free will? This was a good time to discuss “what is free will” and the different views? He agreed that we only have free will in so far as what we are capable of. We can’t always choose our circumstances but we can choose the best of what our circumstances are. He agreed with the Libertarianism view as we cause some of our own circumstances. And agrees with Fatalism as some things are a matter of cause and affect.
I described the biblical view of original sin and also reviewed imputed sin, inherited sin and personal sin. I asked if he thought it was fair to be held guilty for the sin of another. He responded that in general “no”, but went on to say that sometimes our own sins can cause another person to sin, so we’re indirectly responsible for the sins of others’. I thought that was an interesting perspective.
I started to explain the federal headship view of imputed sin using Aquinas’ angel illustration. But wasn’t able to explain it well, so read from the workbook. He thought that was a fantastic illustration.
I always learn a lot when I discuss the lessons for the case studies. And, Stephen loves these discussions….says he continues to think about everything and changes his perspective the more he thinks about it.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Humanity & Sin Case Study 2
I sat down to discuss the case study with a believer. First I asked him if he thought man was essentially good or evil. He stated that he thought that man was essentially evil but through God’s mercy that good is brought out.
I asked him what he thought of when he heard the term ‘original sin’. He said that he thought of Adam and Eve and the sin that they committed.
I then asked in what way the sin of Adam affected us. He said that we are going to die, we are going to be judged and without Christ there would be no hope.
We then talked about Pelagianism and Augustinianism. I explained that Pelagianism basically said that man is essentially good and that we sin because of the bad example set by Adam. He said that he didn’t know about that.
Then explained that the Augustinianism belief was that man was essentially evil and that we inherited Adam’s sin. He said that he supposed that that was so. When I asked him if he thought that it was fair to be held guilty for someone else’s sin, he replied that fair or not that is the way God set it up.
We then discussed the federal headship view. He seemed to generally accept this view but said that it never had been presented to him before.
I think he is in the same place that I use to be before so many of these theology classes. He has beliefs but he cannot explain them or the foundation of them. I enjoyed the discussion of theology with him.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
CASE STUDY 2:
Original Sin
Armand Massie – Fall ’08 (Humanity and Sin)
I completed Case Study 2 with Kim Massie (my spouse). I was not surprised by her answers to the initial questions. We’ve shared the same biblical studies and attended the same churches; sat under the same teachers and Pastors for 25 years. Each of her answers seemed to lead naturally to the next question.
The initial questions were answered as follows:
1. Do you think that man is essentially good or essentially evil? Why?
Kim’s response to the question was that she believed man to be essentially “bad” or evil, that we are born sinners. When asked why she thought that, she replied that it was because we “inherited” the sin nature from Adam.
2. When you hear the term “original sin” what do you think?
Kim’s reply was that “original sin” referred to the sin of Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden; that their fall was the beginning of sin in the world, thus: “original sin”.
3. In what way do you think the sin of Adam affects us?
She had basically already addressed this question in her response to the first question, however, she reaffirmed that Adam’s sin caused all people also be sinners; that Adam’s fall affected everyone else to be born sinners.
After hearing these responses I felt that she and I were definitely on the same page so to speak, so I began from there to explain what the differences are between Pelagianism and Augustinianism. I explained to her that Pelagian’s view contradicted hers in that he had taught that man was basically good and that Adam’s sin and subsequent fall did not directly affect anyone but He and Eve. That every other human being was born with a good nature as Adam’s before the fall and, like Adam, were free to choose either evil or good without any particular bias in one direction or the other. We reviewed the notes together. We reviewed the notes together from the Humanity and Son student notebook and read the related scriptures used for a defense of Pelagianism. We discussed how Pelagian viewed the will as being unaffected by the fall in that we, like Adam, had no propensity toward either evil or good (neutral) but were “free” to choose either.
We continued from there to discuss Augustinianism and how his view would be accepted by the early church and carry on down to the present day (being restored during the Reformation) as orthodoxy. We contrasted the different views of the will and how Augustine showed from scripture that man’s will was free but only within the limits of a fallen, prone to evil, nature; that man could only choose God and truly “good” by the working of God’s grace. We discussed also Arminianism and prevenient grace as liberating the will to be able to choose as Adam was “fee” to choose. We discussed how Pelagianism (during the 4th century and contemporary with Augustine) and Arminianism (during the time of the Reformation and contemporary with Luther and Calvin) were both condemned (Council of Orange and Synod of Dort respectively)
Kim’s comments regarding Pelagian’s view was interesting. She remarked that if some people could not sin and therefore be guiltless then they would not need a savior. She remarked that such a condition in the world would make it unnecessary for ALL people to need the salvation provided through Christ. She had no problem accepting the fact that Adams sin is imputed to all humanity. We discussed imputation and how it works both ways: from Adam to all humanity for sin and condemnation, then from Christ to all who believe for righteousness and eternal life. Aquinas’ theory of the redemption (or lack thereof) for angels helped to illustrate the federalism of both Adam and Christ in affecting all the human race (species). It was a good discussion.