When is a Transgresion not a Sin???

Every time that I think I am getting a handle on LDS theology I find out something new.  I have always understood that Mormons have a different view of the fall of man and the results of that fall on the descendants of Adam.

There is a discussion ongoing at one of the post on Mormon Coffee concerning the fall.  The LDS commenter made the claim that he didn’t believe that Adam sinned by eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  This came as a total surprise to me.  Another reason that I am not qualified to tell Mormons what they believe.  Thinking about Paul’s explanations concerning the fall of man in Romans 5 I am not sure how this can add up.

When I looked this up on the LDS website, low and behold, Adam did not sin he transgressed (Romans 5:14(KJV)).  One of the quotes I found said,”I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin. … This was a transgression of the law, but not a sin … for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!“  The LDS belief is that if Adam had not eaten the forbidden fruit he would not have been able to fulfill the commandment in Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful and multiply.  The belief that Adam and Eve were unable to fulfill the Genesis 1:28 commands comes totally from modern LDS revelation as far as I can make out, at least I have not seen any explanations except from their standard works.

I thought it would be interesting to look at Romans 5:14 and a couple of other passages to see if there is a distinction made in Paul’s writing between a “transgression” of a command given by God and a “sin”.  Starting with the NET Bible for Romans 5:14 we can see that the word in question in Greek is “parabasis” (Strong’s 3847).  In this passage it is variously defined in other translations a “transgression”, “breaking a command”, “likeness of the offense”, “disobey an explicit commandment” etc.  This word is used by Paul 7 times and is translated as “transgression” or “breaking” in these passages, Ro 2:23; 4:15; 5:14; Gal 3:19; 1Ti 2:14; Heb 2:2; 9:15 in the AV.  The DBL defines “parabasis” as a breaking, violation.

Of importance in looking at this passage is that Paul is referencing Hosea 6:7 where the prophet is comparing Adam’s breaking a covenant with God to that of national Israel breaking the covenant.

But like Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with blood.
As robbers lie in wait for a man,
so the priests band together;
they murder on the way to Shechem;
they commit villainy.

(Hosea 6:7-9)

Another problem that I see with the “Adam didn’t sin” theory is that it is ignores and conflicts with Paul’s teaching on the subject.  If Adam did not sin then who is Paul talking about in Romans 5:12?  Whose are the “one man’s sin” in Romans 5:16 or the trespass in 5:17?

Joseph Smith’s thinking about the fall of Adam does ably answer the question, “If God created man “very good” how did sin get introduced into the world?”  This might also explain why you do not see an infralapsarian or superlapsarian divide in the LDS Church.

The problem with this solution to an age old question is that it creates more problems than it solves.  If you follow Smith, God created mankind with a flaw, they were unable to procreate.  This would be a direct conflict with Genesis 1:31 where God declares everything that he created was “very good”.  Following Smiths instructions on the fall, Adam and Eve could not have been created “very good”, because they were created incomplete and incapable of completing the command of God.  Then, according to Smith, God provides a way out of this galactic pickle of his own creation.  All Adam has to do is violate the Genesis 2:17 command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  According to Smith it would have been a violation of Genesis 1:28 for Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit.  In this Adam finds himself in a catch 22, he cannot win for loosing.

~ by gundek on March 27, 2009.