Derf... you are an amazing listener and stellar peacemaker... by God's will! This is clear. As you note... I'm bowing out... but your last response here nailed it! You got my gist. I'll lay it out succinctly to verify your suspicions.
As promised, I wanted to review some of your assertions. I'll call these my "Yes, but" responses.
1. God creates all of His Creations "Innocent" and with "Neutral Free Will".
Yes, but Adam and Eve had a part in creating all of the men and women that followed them. So if God created all of His creations "Innocent" and with "neutral free will", but man created all of his creations with something else, there would be a mixture of the two, somehow. After all, [Gen 5:3 KJV] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and
begat [a son] in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
2. Evil results from abuse of "Freewill", but is allowed by God to foster sincere Love.
I agree.
3. Evil was present in the Garden
Agree.
4. Adam and Eve were swayed by Evil... away from their innocence.
Agree.
5. God's personal standards of Righteousness and God's Knowledge became a burden that the Devil could impute against mankind... and per 1 Corinthians 15:54-56 ... use to separate a human being from God... as well as kill the flesh.
Yes, but is "separating a human being from God" any different from "killing the flesh"? For instance, if Adam and Eve were separated from God by their act, why did God visit with Cain? This may support your view, but why, then, do we all not have some personal encounter with God, apart from Jesus Christ. It seems that most people, prior to meeting Jesus Christ, do not have any kind of personal relationship with God, so doesn't' that mean they are separate from God?
6. If the subjection of a person to carnal death implies a "tainted nature"... then Jesus would have been with "Sin"... because He "Died"... thus the very idea is defunct and immediately disproven.
Yes, but Jesus died from a different reason than everybody else. (I talked about this before, so no more here)
7. Carnal influence only had sway over Spiritual fate... until Jesus paid our "Ransom".
Not sure what you're getting at, here. Carnal influence has sway over more than spiritual fate, but what is "spiritual fate", anyway?
8. Men like Enoch and Elijah being "taken up... support my "theory"... as they "walked by faith" and were never grasped by Satan. They were never "Sinless"... but they clearly maintained Faith... without waiver... and thus... they maintained "innocence" in the eyes of God from birth to being "taken up".
Yes, but if they were NEVER sinless, then were they not born with sin somehow applied to their accounts??? Why is this different than @Lon's view? And how is it possible that they can have faith before or as they are being born that counteracts, somehow, the sin they are born with? Especially if you think they at some point need to make a choice?
9. All men eventually deviate from the perfection of God... "miss the mark" EXCEPT the Son of God and Man... God the Son.
Yes, but "eventually" seems too open-ended, allowing for people that stay sin-free until they die carnally. If that is the case, then does the death of Christ really apply to them? If so, why? If not, was He really the savior of all mankind? If the Word says "All have sinned...", but it only means "All that have come to the point of sinning have sinned", don't we dilute the gospel, since there then must be people out there that it doesn't really apply to, at least not yet? And some may die before they get to that point.
Or another option is that in order for the "All have sinned" from Rom 3:23 to be true, it would mean that for those that will die early (for whatever cause), God has to MAKE them sin in order to make sure the verse is true, thus becoming the author of sin.
Hebrews 2:14 explains that Jesus freed us from Deaths grasp in us and though carnal death continues... mankind is freed from the Spiritual impact of sin.
Over arching points...
A. Mankind has choice and starts with "innocence
B. Only Jesus lived a life in "the flesh" without committing a single sin or succumbing to the Devil.
Yep!
Yes, but there's still that issue of whether someone can make it some length of time in life before failing--and what if they die before that happens?
D. Jesus was condemned by Satan as a transgressor... and because this made Satan a "False Witness and False Judge"... he lost his "self appointed" "wrongfully usurped" "spiritual reign"... and his reign of this ephemeral "dust" will come to a close... as well.
I think Satan made himself a false witness. Was he ever a judge, or just an accuser?
E. God does not condemn a single soul that is innocent or impute sin to a man before it is legitimately present in thought, word, deed or feeling... and thusly... All men are righteously in need of salvation as all men fail.
Except for babies?? Or young kids? Or even some older folks that just haven't got to the point of failing yet? I think this is where there has to be some kind of recognition that as soon as it is possible to fail, all men fail. And if that is so, it's a pretty good indication of a "nature" of sinning. Is it possible that even in the womb, an infant can make some choices for good vs evil? or is there an "age of accountability" after which it is counted against us?
F. Jesus has always been the origin of Good, the solution to Evil and Loving sustainer of all... That has never changed... from before the foundation.
Halleluyah!
G. All men are righteously given a chance... All men fail... all men are equally in need of salvation and all men are provided access to it... BY GOD and HIS WILL.
I have questions about how men that haven't heard the gospel are provided access to it.
All Grace... In Him,
- EE
I hope you see that your assertions don't seem to line up with each other. If there are no people that ever make it without sinning, then there seems to be an innate drive to sin, because otherwise there would be some that make it for a little while without sinning--that "eventually" factor wouldn't be reached if one dies, say, one second after birth, or one second after one reaches the proposed age of accountability.
And if we think all sin at the
very earliest opportunity, aren't we then agreeing with the "Total Depravity" plank of Calvin?
Personally, I'd like it better if we could say that we are all slated to die for the sin of Adam, and most of us have and take multitude opportunities to add our own sins on to that. But whether we add to it or not, we all need a savior--because we all die.
All the best,
Derf
