Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site trwrba.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!jnelson
From: jnelson@trwrba.UUCP (John T. Nelson)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Whom does God Damn?
Message-ID: <1165@trwrba.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Dec-84 15:45:19 EST
Article-I.D.: trwrba.1165
Posted: Sat Dec  8 15:45:19 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 02:11:21 EST
References: <1114@trwrba.UUCP> <1233@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1137@trwrba.UUCP>, <1354@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 21


	One thing we don't know, for instance, is in what way sin
	causes death.  I have no problems rejecting the "death as
	punishment" theory (on the first death anyway); I'm not
	entirely convinced of any of the alternatives.  To be able to
	answer this question, it seems to me, may require understanding
	of the working of the universe on a par with God's
	understanding.


Sin causes death of the self.  This is not the conventional death.
It's death of what you are, the absence and unfulfillment of the
abundant life that Christ promised.  It is very easy to experience
death without death of the body.

The second death I take to refer to death after one's conventional
demise on earth... but as you say, its a tuff call.



				- John