Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin” (Part 21 of 21)

0130 In chapter eleven, Haarsma raises other difficult questions.

I would like to elevate my own question for examination.

0131 When does sin begin?

Here is an artistic way to appreciate the answer.

Consider the two interscopes of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and our current Lebenswelt.

0132 Consider the theological actualities2V.

For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, it2V is humans as images of God.

For our current Lebenswelt, it2V is the tree of life.

Here is a picture.

Figure 25

Consider the tree of life as a metaphor for the roots and the branches of belonging, intuitively nurtured by prehistoric humans living out their lives as images of God, 

0133 … then, in order to appreciate the depths of callousness and total depravity implied by the doctrine of original sin,consider the wickedness of plucking the fruit of the tree of life in order to attain immortality.

0134 Loren Haarsma tries to calm the dissonance of two apparently independent actualities: human evolution2H and original sin2V.

In doing so, he creates a semitic textual structure that allows my comments to suggest that these two actualities belong to a single reality.  Two category-based nested forms intersect.  The intersection of two nested forms offers a message.  Here is a mystery.

It is beautiful to behold.

0135 Haarsma concludes.

God’s answer is still Christ.

Dissonance gives way to mystery.