The nature of man…

We learn in Genesis that God created man in his image. My thinking on this is that man, like God, has 3 aspects for lack of a better word. God is triune, He consists of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Man consists of body, soul and spirit. The body is evident. This is our physical self, our flesh, bone, muscle, blood, etc. While many, perhaps most, believe soul and spirit are interchangeable, I believe they are different. The soul is a non physical aspect. It is our personality, our emotions, our thoughts, our memory, etc. Body and soul are unique aspects in each of us and are what is used to identify us and interact with our fellow people. Our spirit then is the aspect of us that allows us to relate to God. It is really the most important aspect because with a dead spirit, we have no means to relate to God, we are separated from him, and if our body and soul die, never having gained a quickened spirit, we remain separated from God for eternity- in Hell.

God created Adam and Eve. They were absolutely perfect. Absolutely no genetic flaws or defects. It stands to reason they would have been magnificent physical specimens and had intellects beyond anything we can imagine, after all, they communed directly with and stood in his presence. Some believe they would have been of giant stature too, and why not? Why would God create mental and physical pygmies? We were created a little lower than the angels yet crowned with honor and glory.

Something happened since then and it is this something that I am going to direct this thread along but before I continue, I would welcome views from others on creation or the beginning of man and what we were like early on…

I see no more separation between us and God than I do between us and the rest of Nature.

It’s all one thing, manifesting itself as “different” things, in order to pass the Eternity.

God is us. We’re just not Him.

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What’s your belief regarding eternity? Do we die- end of story, or something else?

Definitely something else. I believe “we” have always, and will always be here. Every possible experience that can happen, will happen, and must happen.

What do you mean by every possible experience? And why will and must they happen?

Because that’s the nature of Infinity, and this Universe is very much alive, and very much eternal. It’s constantly changing too (having different experiences).

You’re probably right. I wasn’t in the best of ways when I wrote that.

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Wait: this is hannity.com. You must double-down! No reflection allowed!

It would be great if we could Auto-Tune our social media posts before sending them out. :slight_smile:

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Are you talking about individual experiences or collective?

I suppose both, as one doesn’t really exist without the other. Lots of names have been giving to it - Multiverse, Many Worlds, Eternal Expansion, Simulation, Dream, etc…

My favorite is Lila, or Divine Play.

Since “God is Spirit”, I would say that man’s spirit was made in God’s image. God, existing as three omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent Persons, has always experienced communication (sharing), communion (agreement/fellowship) and community (joint action toward common goals), and man is designed to experience the same.

In the fall Adam and Eve accepted false communication, disagreed with God, and struck out towards a different goal from God’s. In so doing their spirits became distorted and out of synch with what is and with He who is good.

Human communication, communion and community in relation to God, man and creation were broken. Jesus came to repair these.

Interesting…. But what do you believe about sin? God told Adam and Eve that in the day they ate of the tree they would surely die. Since they didn’t physically die, either something DID die or God is a liar.

After the fall, we see two things happen right away. First, we see a separation occur with God. They were ejected from Eden, and as far as I know never got to stand directly in Gods presence again. Second, they immediately began to age, and did in fact die hundreds of years later.

In Is. 59:2 we read “ But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”

It seems that the “death” God was talking about was not just the physical death, but a separation from him, caused by our sin.

This idea of sin causing separation is continued in the New Testament as well. Romans 6:23 says “ For the wages of sin is death…” Again, death pertaining to a separation.

I believe what died in Eden was our spirit, which is that aspect of us that allows us to commune with God. Our spirit is dead in sin and only Jesus Christ can quicken our spirit and restore our communion with God. He did this by shedding his blood on the cross, thus paying the debt we owe. Everyone has access to this reunion with God, but we must choose to accept it by repenting and asking Jesus to forgive our sins and accepting his sacrifice on our behalf…

If they were perfect, they wouldn’t have been cast out of the garden of eden.

“Whatever is not of faith is sin.” God and His words are life. To disbelieve God’s words is to disbelieve God. “Can two walk together unless they agree?” To disbelieve God is to reject life and to leaved one dead.

Sin is simply what we do when we are not in agreement with God.

Adam died physically on the day he sinned. "A day with the Lord is as one thousand years " All died within 1000 years of sinning. Sin distorts our ability to comunicate clearly with God. But it dies not completely end communication. Cain still communicated with God.

We can still commune with God in what we agree with God over. Noah still heard from, agreed with and coopersted with God in building the ark.

We can still enjoy community with God in cooperating practically with his plans.

Our memories of faithlessness and sin prevent us from bold communication, communion, and community with God. Jesus paid for all our breaches of trust so “we can boldly enter God’s presence” with “no conscience of sin”.

They were created perfect and with free will. The perfection began to decline over time and got worse with each generation.

Which brings us to this…I’ve never been a believer, just never added up to me, even as a youngster, because of questions such as these. Where did Cains old lady come from?

Scene from one of my favorite movies…

An age old question. It had to be incest.
Today, and really throughout most of history, this has been taboo and even illegal. We know the genetic issues that happen when people too close to each other interbreed.

We also have a cultural aversion to it, just as we have a cultural aversion to very young women, or even girls marrying. I believe these aversions are right and even necessary for our society today, but these practices were acceptable and necessary in the period.

One big issue with incest is the genetic problems. This would not have been an issue for many generations after creation. As Adam and Eve were genetically perfect, their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren etc. would have been passing down perfect genes as well. This also accounts for the life spans back then that allowed people to live for centuries.

My belief is also that prior to the flood, the earth itself was radically different. Due to the decline of man (a large factor being the moral decline), God changed things at the time of the flood, including the earth….