Theology

Through a mind made dim by sin and what is to come.

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Sometimes when I am groggy from sleep, drifting in or out I find myself behaving like an unthinking animal.  I don’t know if this is unique to me or if any of you have experienced this kind of lack of consciousness or not.  I don’t have any forethought in this state.  It is just beyond sleep and just ahead of being awake.  Those moments are fleeting.  They leave me with a sense of being less than a human.  I wonder if this is how some of the higher functioning mammals think and feel?  Like the gorilla that could do sign language.  She communicated from a mind with a different type of thinking, understanding, and desires.  I don’t like being subject to a lesser state. It is disconcerting.

Before we are saved, we think only as a person can under the noetic effects of original sin and bondage to that sinful state.  We operate in a state that is less than.  Our unregenerate minds can only conceive of evil and it continually.  We see our fellow men lost in the dark and shine a light for them to see.  We hope they will orientate themselves to and by that light.

Even those of us who have been saved still perceive and process from a state of being less than what we are to be.  The noetic effects of sin corrupt us as well.  We wait for glorification one day.  We wait for a time when our abilities to perceive and process without the effects of sin will be fulfilled.  How would we look back on our previous mortal existence?  How would we as creatures know and perceive our Creator in truth?  What would it be like?  I know that I can’t know everything even after glorification.  I also know that I won’t know things the same fallen way that I know them now.  To know Jesus now is a miracle wrought by God.  I can’t imagine what it will be like to know Him without this sinful flesh and corruption of mind.

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The Noetic Effects of Sin, and How it Affects Our Reasoning.

      I know it sounds complex, but trust me it isn’t… or perhaps it is? The word, “noetics” means; the science of the intellect or of pure thought; reasoning. So what we are talking about here today is how our ability to reason has been corrupted by sin. See, I told you it wasn’t that complex, but wait, there’s more! When we start getting into the concept I think we will all be amazed at how affecting this problem is.

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      Adam and Eve were made with good minds. They functioned free of sin. Well, then came the fall. They sinned, and God punished them, and their progeny. (us) Part of what happened is that we gained the knowledge of good and evil. We also gained the corruption of our ability to reason. We became spiritually dead and enslaved to sin. God says in His word;

9What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;

10as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;

11THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;

12ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVEBECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”

13“THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE, WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,” “THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS”;

14“WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING ANDBITTERNESS”;

15“THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD,

16DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS,

17AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN.”

18“THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.”

19Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God;20because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

      So God says there are none who understand or seek God. Think about this, if our reasoning wasn’t corrupted we would objectively reason through problems without pride or anger affecting those conclusions. Have you ever been so angry you couldn’t think clearly and made a bad decision you regretted later? Well that wouldn’t happen if we weren’t sinners. Imagine a mind operating free from sinful influence. Do you know who has a mind like that? I’ll give you a hint, the answer is what every kid in Sunday School says when they don’t know the answer… If you said, “Jesus” you are correct. So if you are not God, then you have the problem of sin affecting the way you perceive, process, understand, and apply everything that comes into your head. That’s right kids; we are all under the curse of original sin.

      Here is another example, have you ever been so enamored with a person that they could do no wrong according to you? Most of us could say yes to that. The problem is that they are just as much a sinner as everyone else. They aren’t the person you perceived them to be. The mind was not able to properly understand and judge the information available because of sins affect on reason.

      Our perceptions are affected by sin. We see what we want to see. We don’t see what is actual. Our reasoning of what we see is affected to. We run everything through a filter that is changing what goes in so that what comes out is not actual. When we are processing the unreal perceptions through a conduit that affects those perceptions we come up with flawed conclusions. These flawed conclusions are then applied to our situations with varying results, none of which are founded on actuality.

      We are so deeply corrupted by sin that we would never be able to repent and have faith in the God of the Bible without His direct intervention in our lives. So think about how you think and if you think the way you thought you thought or if you think the way sin makes you think if you think of sin as a thing that can affect the thinking of thoughts you think. smiley