[spirited irish]

AG: I perceive Adam was created in the spiritual realm before he was banished to mortality, the physical realm, and his mortal calendar/clock began

Spirited: Unless my understanding of your stated view is incorrect, what it appears to be saying is that Adams’ fall was from spirit into matter. If this is so, then it is similar in many ways to Western pagan, Gnostic, and Eastern views.

For your consideration, here is what Catholic philosopher Thomas Molnar, now-deceased Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Yale University has to say about this view in his widely-acclaimed, “The Pagan Temptation.”

Molnar reveals that from Plato to Plotinus, it was held as axiomatic that the fall of spirit/souls into the material realm was either inexplicable or explained as punishment. At any rate it was a plunge from being as one with or an aspect of the Divine Substance into the material realm of distinctions, or binary.

In “Against the Christians” (frag. 77) Porphyry, disciple of Plotinus and Arnobius, writes:

“How can one admit that the divine should become an embryo, that after his birth he is put in swaddling clothes, that he is soiled with blood and bile, and worse things yet?” (The Pagan Temptation, Thomas Molnar, p. 27)

In “Adversus nationes” (2.37) Arnobius complains:

“If souls were of the Lord’s race…They would never come to these terrestrial places (and) inhabit opaque bodies and (be) mixed with humors and blood, in receptacles of excrement, in vases of urine.” (ibid)

As all things are aspects of (in contiunity with) the Divine Substance by whatever name it goes, i.e., watery abyss, Nu, chaos, then human beings have a share of the Divine substance. The fall then is into evil matter and binary. The body being matter it is perceived as a tomb, a receptacle of excrement, from which spirit must escape that it can become one with, or be reabsorbed into, the Divine Substance. Salvation is reabsorption.

Molnar notes that the closest pagan thinkers came to Incarnation was with a purely negative connotation in the teachings of Pythagoras and Empedocles. They taught that souls fallen from the divine Substance are subsequently incarnated in animal forms as punishment.

Incarnation of soul in animal form and then into another form and so on is the basis of evolutionary thinking, fatalism, determinism, reincarnation, karma.

Pre-Christian and early Christian Gnostics were more directly influenced by Eastern systems than were Greek thinkers. The leaders of the Gnostic movement–Valentiunus, Basilides, Arnobius and others—taught that the world and bodies are the work of the devil (Yahweh) who holds the Divine Substance (good God..Lucifer) in bondage. Gnostics, or Pneumatics, possess the secret gnosis of escaping this evil world so as to be reabsorbed into the divine substance. Since matter is evil and reabsorption salvation then procreation is evil because it produces more earthly suffering by trapping divine sparks within bodies.

The similarity between Greek and Upanishadic doctrines is striking said Molnar. The Upanishads teach that souls are aspects or particles of the totality. The fall of souls is into bodies. This cosmic rupture is a state of misery for the separated souls because in the body they become limited and divided into individuals, male and female. Rather than oneness (wholeness) there is a binary system of opposites which must be eliminated:

” The foremost “binary” is the distinction between the Creator and the creature. Other binaries then fall like dominos—the binary of right and wrong, for example. “We must beware of thinking of good and evil as absolute opposites,” says a leading theorist. Modern psychologists tell us that a binary view of reality (as made up of opposites) produces guilt, the hallmark of neurosis. The Hindu notion of Advaita, “not two,” dominates spirituality and “non-dual spirituality” is taught even in some “evangelical” schools. Lesbian activists ask: “Can We Put an End to the Gender Binary?” (The Advocate.com) because “there is no one way a person should be.” (May 9, 2012: The Official End of Christendom, Dr. Peter Jones)

Atomists such as Epicurus taught that the “all that exists” is the void and matter, and that human beings, their intelligence and volition, are an evolved accident of chance. Everything is void and matter, therefore first principles, eternal ideas, souls, spirits, divine reason and afterlife are absurdities. Only reason is left, but reason is active only because sensations (i.e., firing of neurons, chemical interactions) stimulate it.

Epicurus’s materialist teachings are the basis of all materialist systems, including the West’s contemporary version, scientific matierialism and its main doctrine, biological evolution.

In contrast to pagan evolutionism, Christianity teaches that the supernatural God is the Ultimate Thinker, the living, personal Creator who called all things into being from nothing—creation ex nihilo. He creates all souls individual and immortal. They are not mere aspects of an unthinking, impersonal substance, but rather they belong to the supernatural God Who speaks:

“Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, the same shall die.” Ezekiel 18:4

Again in contrast to pagan doctrine, the Bible traces all human sinfulness to the fact that Adam and Eve sinned. Adam, as the head and father of the human race, is important not only for his own sin, but because in Adam we all sinned. The Genesis account also teaches that God’s judgment on that sin has cosmic effects.

Molnar writes that despite the rise of Christianity a pagan influence persisted underground and in the fourteenth century onward to our own time it has grown increasingly coherent, interconnected, organized and assertive. In the twentieth century the pagan influence and its’ evolutionary account of origins is so pervasive and seductive that Westerners are increasingly turning from Christianity to seek meaning, salvation, and spiritual powers in pagan spirituality and the occult.

Though the theory of evolution has not captured the hearts and minds of the vast mainstream of American Christians this good news is only for a short time, said Dr. Albert Mohler. And this is because Christians do not know what evolutionary theory really is. Nor do they have any:

” understanding of the Bible’s message of creation and redemption. We have not only a failure to connect the dots; in too many churches we have a failure to teach the basic truths that will be dots we might want to connect….Doctrinal illiteracy has infected much of evangelicalism, where experience seems to rule over knowledge, and intuition seems to dominate over true intellectual engagement. This bad news gets worse, because generation by generation there will be a greater acceptance of naturalism and evolution simply because the younger generation is so steeped in the educational process and in a secular culture where that’s taken for granted.” (Creation and Redemption: A Conversation with Albert Mohler, interview with Lael Weinberger, creation.com )

[Alamo-Girl]

Unless my understanding of your stated view is incorrect, what it appears to be saying is that Adams’ fall was from spirit into matter. If this is so, then it is similar in many ways to Western pagan, Gnostic, and Eastern views.

I'm saying that Adam was banished to mortality at the top of Genesis 4 - that his existence before that was in the spiritual realm. As evidence, the tree of life is in the midst of the Garden of Eden which is Paradise.

And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. – Genesis 2:9

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. – Revelation 2:7

Whether my beliefs have any counterpart in Western pagan, Gnostic, and Eastern views is irrelevant to me. That many belief systems have a form of the golden rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you - does not invalidate it in Judeo/Christian belief.

My concern is the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and the words of God in Scripture.

Adam was sown into corruption. And he was the first sown into corruption.

So also [is] the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit. The first man [is] of the earth, earthy: the second man [is] the Lord from heaven. As [is] the earthy, such [are] they also that are earthy: and as [is] the heavenly, such [are] they also that are heavenly.

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. - I Cor 15:42-49

I truly cannot say whether, upon banishment, Adam's soul was enfleshed into an existing creature's fleshy body or whether he brought his own fleshy body or was given a new one. Likewise, I cannot say whether the spiritual realm intersects the physical realm in reference to the Garden of Eden, the Temple, the Holy Mountain and the Ark of Covenant - or whether the earthy was a type of the heavenly.

Some Jewish mystics believe the firmament of Genesis 1 is not geometric but rather a boundary separating the spiritual from the physical, i.e. that the spiritual and physical co-exist in the same space. If one were able to cross the boundary, he could appear any where or when, e.g.

Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. And this [is] the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. - Daniel 5:24-25

And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. - Mark 9:4

Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. - John 8:59

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: [then] came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace [be] unto you. - John 20:26

But I can say that Adam was sown into corruption. That does not mean earthy=evil, heavenly=good - after all, Satan was in heaven and Jesus was in the earth.

However, it does mean that but for Christ we would be dead, body and soul.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness. - Romans 8:9-10

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. - John 3:18

And again,

But now is Christ risen from the dead, [and] become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man [came] death, by man [came] also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. - I Cor 15:20-22

The Catholic Church does not reject evolution and, as I recall, sees Adam as the first ensouled man.

And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. - Genesis 2:7

And Christ is God enfleshed.

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. - Luke 1:35

And again,

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. - Romans 5:12-14

Obviously I have serious problems with evolution per se because information (successful communication), autonomy, semiosis, inertia, etc. cannot be explained by natural causes and every attempt sounds like a "just so" story. Nevertheless, I am not threatened by such theories.

My faith is built on the Person Jesus Christ not any scientific theory or the debunking of any such theory.

But I do not expect anyone else to see things the way I do.

God's Name is I AM.