The concept of inherited sin is only a Pauline misinterpretation

The Muslim thinking on atonement is broad based and is not literally linked to the story of Adam and Eve as narrated by the Jewish/Christian scriptures:-


• All human beings are born innocent. After birth or more pertinently after the age when a person is mature enough to distinguish right from the evil, every person is responsible for his actions sinful or otherwise. If he repents before God for his sins and resolves before Him that he would not do it again; God in his mercy and in his sole discretion could pardon him. If God pardons then the person is like the one who has done no sin.

• All prophets -the perfect men; are innocent and not sinful and that is why they are chosen by God as His messengers to humanity (from Adam to Abraham to Moses to Jesus, from Krishna to Buddha to Muhammad) all prophets of God are respectful persons and innocent and not sinful.

My present submissions are not intended against the factual person Jesus s/o Mary -the perfect human being; but it is intended against the mythical Orthodox Christian faith who deify Jesus and present him as Son of God or God. This is solely done to bring such person to realize the points where they made the mistakes so that they could update their faith based on facts, scientific knowledge, reason and rationality.

I agree on many points with the views of certain moderate Christians who believe that God does not play favorites. He loves all His children equally. No just parent would hold their children accountable for what the children did not know .But unlike the orthodox Christians, the moderate Christians do not believe that people who are not Christians are condemned automatically.Their thinking is very close to the human psyche that has not changed much from the time of Adam to date.

To elaborate the point I present what Mirza Tahir Ahmad has stated on the issue:-

Muslims believe that all divine books are based on eternal truth and none can make any claims contrary to that. When we come across inconsistencies and contradictions in any so called divinely revealed book, our attitude is not that of total denial and rejection but that of cautious and sympathetic examination. Most of the statements of the Old Testament and the New Testament, which we find at variance with the truth of nature, we either try to reconcile by reading some underlying cryptic or metaphoric message, or reject part of the text as the work of human hands rather than that of God.

While Christianity itself was true, it could not have contained any distortions, unacceptable facts or beliefs giving a lie to nature. That is why we started not with the textual examination but with the fundamentals themselves, which through centuries of consensus have become indisputable components of Christian philosophy. Rudimentary among them are the Christian understanding of Sin and Atonement. I would much rather believe that someone, somewhere during the history of Christianity, misunderstood things and tried to interpret them in the light of his knowledge and misled the following generations because of that.

The reader must be reminded here that this concept of inherited sin is only a Pauline misinterpretation. It cannot be rightfully attributed to the teachings of the Old Testament. There is an over-whelming evidence t to the c contrary in many books of the Old Testament.

In the fifth century, Augustine the Bishop of Hippo; was involved in a confrontation with the Pelagian movement, concerning the controversy of the nature of the fall of Adam and Eve. He proclaimed the Pelagian movement as being heretical because it taught that Adam’s sin affected only himself and not the human race as a whole; that every individual is born free of sin and is capable in his own power of living a sinless life and that there had even been persons who had succeeded in doing so.

Those in the right were labeled as heretics. Day was denounced as night and night as day. Heresy is truth and truth heresy.

From the above, it becomes comfortingly clear that the concepts of Inherited Sin and of Crucifixion are based only on the conjecture and wishful thinking of Christian theologians at a later date. It is quite likely that it was born out of some pre-Christian myths of a similar nature, which, when applied to the circumstances of Jesus Christ, tempted them to read close similarities between the two and create a similar myth. However, whatever the mystery or paradox, as we see it, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Christian philosophy of Sin and Atonement was based on anything which Jesus might have said or done or taught. He could never have preached anything so contrary to, and so diametrically opposed to human intellect.

http://www.alislam.org/library/books/christianity_facts_to_fiction/index.html

http://www.alislam.org/library/books/revelation/index.html

http://www.alislam.org/

Jesus cannot atone possibly

The atonement and the related issues have been discussed by Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad and analyzed as under:-

How could Jesus be born innocent when he had a human mother? If the sin of Adam and Eve had polluted the entire progeny of this unfortunate couple, then as a natural consequence, all male and female children must inherit the same genetic propensity to sin.

Females were perhaps more likely to because it was Eve who as the instrument of Satan enticed Adam. Therefore, the responsibility of sin falls squarely on the shoulders of Eve rather than of Adam.

In the case of the birth of Christ, obviously it was a daughter of Eve who contributed the major share. The question that very powerfully arises is whether Jesus inherited any gene bearing chromosomes from his human mother or not. If he did so, then it was impossible for him to escape the inevitable inherited sin. If he did not inherit any chromosomes from his mother either, then indeed that birth would be doubly miraculous.

Only a miracle could produce a son who neither belongs to his father nor to his mother. What remains incomprehensible is why those chromosomes, provided by Eve, did not carry the innate tendency to sin to the child Jesus.

Suppose it happened somehow, and Jesus had that innocence needed to carry the sins of mankind, on condition that they believed in him and not otherwise, another problem would arise: what happened, one may ask, to the progeny of Adam and Eve that died before the dawn of Christianity? How many billions of them might have got scattered throughout the world over five continents generation after generation. They must have lived and died without hope or even the possibility of ever hearing about the Christ their Saviour who was not yet born.
In fact the entire humanity between Adam and Christ seemed certainly to be doomed for ever. Why were they never given even a remote chance to be forgiven? Would they be forgiven retrospectively, by Jesus Christ? If so, why?

In other parts of the world, much larger by comparison to the tiny land of Judea, where people had never heard of Christianity even during the life time of Jesus Christ, what happens to them? They never did, nor ever could, believe in the ‘Sonship’ of Jesus Christ. Will their sins go unpunished or will they be punished? If they go unpunished, for what reason? If they are punished, again by what logic? What chance did they have anyway? They were totally helpless. What a distorted sense of absolute justice!

http://www.alislam.org/library/books/christianity_facts_to_fiction/index.html

Jesus for Jews; not for Christians - the gentiles

Paarsurrey says:

Hi Bud Press!

Thanks for your remarks on my above comments. Sorry, I don't agree with your following points mentioned by you.

“Jesus Christ died for you on the cross (Romans 5:6-9).”
“Salvation and eternal life cannot be obtained through world religions such as, Animism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or cults such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormonism. Your salvation and eternal welfare rests in the Jesus Christ of the Bible.”

Firstly, Jesus never died a cursed death on the Cross, in my opinion; and secondly, there is no relationship between the sins one commits and the death of a third person for the sins of another person.

Maybe you like to read my following posts in this connection:

http://paarsurrey.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=163
http://paarsurrey.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=67

I love Jesus, Mary and Muhammad

Regards

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim


In response to remarks of of our friend Bud Press dated August 15, 2008 at 9:22 am
http://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/discerning-gods-word-study/


“Jesus Christ died for you on the cross (Romans 5:6-9):”

“Salvation and eternal life cannot be obtained through world religions such as, Animism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or cults such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormonism. Your salvation and eternal welfare rests in the Jesus Christ of the Bible:”