[This series is part of Section Four, Ethics and the Third Person. An index with links to all parts of the work as they are posted can be found [url=https://forum.evangelicaluniversalist.com/t/sword-to-the-heart-ethics-and-the-third-person/1335/1]here.]
[This series constitutes Chapter 46, “The Children of the First Sinners”. Since I’m running a little behind today, I’m going to post the whole chapter up at once instead of splitting it into two series as I normally would.]
[Entry 1]
I have argued that recorded history–even the history recorded by people who do not follow my own tradition–indicates that the tendency to act intransigently, in willful rebellion against what we perceive to be true, has been a perennial characteristic of our species. Because God would not have created us automatically in rebellion against Him (or against as much of Him as we could perceive), then our progenitors must have fallen into this state; and I think I can argue that the number of these progenitors must have been small, and the percentage of ‘fallens’ within that number must have been large: for the whole human race, as it stands now and as it has stood throughout history, exhibits the characteristics of sinful rebellion.
(I am not arguing this from the worldwide prevalence of stories that suggest humankind was once in a better relationship with God, heaven, Nature, and/or each other, but have since ‘fallen’. These could, I suppose, be explained as the result of an innate human resistance to our actual state of being. (The Fall must be only a fable, because so many cultures seem to remember it?) Even so, such a resistance is interesting. In fact, any ‘resistance’ to what would otherwise be considered a ‘natural’ situation, is significant. At any rate, having arrived at this conclusion on other grounds, I do pause here to acknowledge the existence of such stories.)