A couple of months ago I completed Adam, Eve and the Serpent by Elaine Pagels. It wasn’t a really easy read by I did learn quite a bit. She deals with a number of issues in the early church like free will. Generally she is observing how the early church used the creation account of Adam and Eve and their choice to eat the apple.

One of the things that becomes obvious, at least to me, is that one cane use the Genesis account of the origin of man to support most belief systems. I’ve noticed that most belief systems even today make some reference to Gen.1-3. The reason for this is pretty clear. If this is the way God started things in the beginning then that is the way they always should be. No that God ever says that. Jesus speaking on Divorce is as close as it comes to that.

Take naturalism for example.
Naturalist like to point out that God created man and woman naked and they were unashamed in each other’s presence. The clothes people say well they sinned and that nullifies that idea because of sin. We need clothes so we wouldn’t lust after each other ignoring that those clothes haven’t stopped anyone from lusting. OK many a few but not in the aggregate. Yet the fact remains that most societies have warn clothes from that day to this.

There is still a number of levels this can go on. I like that man made his own clothes yet they did him no good. The man made clothes still didn’t cover his sin. So Adam and Eve hid when God showed up. So God made Adam and Eve clothes just before he kicked them out of the garden.

So it looks like its wrong to wear man made clothes. We should only be wearing clothes that are made by God. What’s more since God made clothes of animal skin, I’m sure any clothes that one might claim to be made by God that are of cloth are really made by Satan whole wants to counterfeit what God does.

So I still love to be able to say my theology is consistent with the way God created the human race to live. It’s clear to me that everyone can find a way to do that no matter what they believe. So have fun with your theology of origins. But love fulfills the law and it isn’t love to beat someone up with ones belief system.

dayhiker

Interesting... interesting...

I guess that just about any belief system could use the Adam and Eve creation account, but it's faulty to say that just because God made them any certain way, or they acted any certain way, that that that's how we should live today. That may have been the ideal, but they fell, and because of that fall we are in a sinful world. As such we can't act like we're in the Garden again. We can try and capture some of the things that we lost- in this space the most relevant thing would be non-sexual nakedness- but we can't have it the way that it was. Not yet, anyway.

And when you said "Take naturalism for example", did you mean "naturism"? The two can overlap, but a naturalist would most commonly be thought of as a "tree-hugger" , while a naturist is someone who most people would label a nudist (I know those two terms aren't necessarily symomymous, but you know where I'm going...).

Okay, now for the more interesting points...

You said that you liked that the clothing that Adam and Eve made wasn't good enough; that they had to rely on God to provide tham with sufficient clothes. That's great, and I actually agree with that theologically, but most people seem to misunderstand that whole passage. From what I understand, the word for what Adam and Eve made for themselves would be best translated as something like "apron" or even "blanket". They weren't simply making clothes- especially the little loin-cloth things that most people think of- but they actually made something big enough to hide themselves under. They weren't clothing themselves at that point, but rather trying to cammoflage themselves under a leaf-blanket so that God couldn't find them.

There's alot of speculation about the death of the animal(s) and the resultant blood when God clothed Adam and Eve being foreshadowing to the blood and sacrifice of Christ, but personally I think that it's a stretch. To say that the animal skin was to cover the sin of Adam and Eve is to say that their bodies were sinful. I understand that there needs to be blood to atone for sin, but most people actually say that it's the skin of the animal that covered the sin- i.e. their bodies, not the blood sacrifice that did it. That's where I disagree, I guess.

The clothing itself that God made seems to me to be for their protection in the harsh world that He was casting them into. The blood sacrifice of the animal(s) may have covered their sin, but the skin was simply for their comfort. Nowhere that I have seen does it say that those clothes were to be manditory, and only in the last couple hundred years has that idea even been introduced. Until then people were practical enough, and had enough common sense, to know when they needed to dress and when they could go without. "Civilization" has really improved things, huh?

Lucky for us all, isn't it, that one day we WILL all be dressed only in clothes that are made by God- His rightousness.

"So have fun with your theology of origins. But love fulfills the law and it isn’t love to beat someone up with ones belief system." I agree with you here, BUT... too many Christians think that this means that they should remain totally silent so that they don't offend anybody. WRONG. We will definately offend some people, but as Christians we are commanded- not asked politely or suggested to, but commanded- to go and tell others what we know. It's our duty to tell others about Jesus Christ. Yes, we shouldn't beat them over the head constantly, but we are supposed to tell them the Truth, including correcting them when they are wrong. They'll get mad, yes, and call us names, sure, but ironically that's when we know that we're doing what we're supposed to. Cool, huh?


Okay, I'm done...

God Bless
Kevin

Here is one of the things that popped into my thoughts while reading your message, Kevin.

People assume that because they were clothed by God, the clothing is a mandate for a "Godly Life" in the world but nudity is acceptable between married couples.

It would seem to me that that argument is baseless because Adam and Eve were the only ones in the world at the time. Who else would they have been seen by?

I think you are saying in the long run that the arguement that clothing is to cover our bodies because of sin is faulty because we still sin and that we still lust in spite of our coverings.

That is correct.

But to say that it is wrong to wear clothing because of what Jesus said about divorce, "in the beginning it was not so" so we must go back to the beginning to be nude because "clothing is not the orginal plan" is not a valid arguement. Why? Jesus wore clothes and never said that it is wrong to wear them or that God wants us to stop wearing them.

We can keep going with this idea and say that only clothing can be made from animal skin because that is what God made them from. I have used that arguement to show the faulty reasoning we use to say that we must wear clothing at all times because God made clothing.

Clothing is not a sign of belief or disbelief, sin or sinlessness, law or lawlessness, faith or faithlessness. Clothing is just that, clothing. Where it becomes a problem is where we use it as a tool of righteousness.

Where we naturists (not naturalists) need to be aware of is when we use nudity for the same reason. We can become just as theologically incorrect about our nudity as we can be about clothing.

However, to be nude to the glory of God is valid. But again, we must do all things to His Glory.

BTW, could you please explain this line? "OK many a few but not in the aggregate." Does this mean "some more than others, but not necessarily everyone"?

Boyd

Hi Boyd,
Ya, you got what I was saying. Clothes may keep some from lusting, but fo the most part if a person has lust in their heart they will lust no matter what the girl is wearing in my opinion.

dayhiker