Theodicy Soteriology, Hermeneutics

SOTERIOLOGY : M. M. NINAN
One of the first consequences of the fall was that Adam and Eve as the first couple were at
loggerheads.
Gen 3:16 To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain
you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
Love no longer held the power to hold the family and God has to order a hierarchical system.
Since there would be no submission without a fight, God ordered the protocol to avoid a
struggle. In the next generation this selfishness bloomed into a murder. As history proceeded,
as men began to increase on the surface of earth the independent individuals with self
assertion began to interact with each other and it created families and communities and
nations which were self centered who were constantly at war with each other. This was the
evolutionary process by the natural selection of survival of the fittest. By one man's
disobedience many were made sinners (Rom. 5:15-19).
Selfishness is sin. Every form of sin flows from this. From that point they lived with this
broken relationship, with every human being and with the environment - physical and
spiritual. In his self-assertion, man became the rival and competitor of his Make. Not that it
mattered to God. But it mattered to the well being of mankind. So God was concerned.
This brought about a peculiar state of affairs. - the struggle between the sinful nature (survival
nature) and the awareness of the need of a change. Everyone knows that this world is a hell
to live in. Every one has to be on the alert lest he be totally stripped of everything he has.
This is true in love and in war. This is not because the earth cannot support all that is on it.
Earth can support a population several times over the present with all its resources. Because
these resources were not utilized or distributed properly poverty and want and disease prevail
on one hand and loneliness, dissatisfaction, unhappiness and wretchedness prevailed on the
other. But no one could save it either. Families and comminutes and countries of the world
tried. There are innumerable experiments in these areas all over the world. But sooner or
later; sooner than later the selfishness and power struggle crept in and destroyed the utopian
dreams. The last addition to it was the Socialist Republics. Sarvodaya Movement of India and
Aurobindashram were the Indian experiments. Dreams of the communism ushering in to a
classless caste-less society turned out to be a worst nightmare of dictatorship. It always
ended up in blood bath and more human suffering. Way back God himself initiated several
experiments and ended up in disaster.
In one case He decided to destroy the whole mankind and keep one righteous family.
Gen 6:13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled
with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
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