Over the past month, we have explored the original Torah–based Christianity that was centered in Jerusalem and around the person of James the Just, the brother of Jesus.  We then went on to explore the theology in the Gospel of Thomas, and the Johannine theology.  These last two perspectives are almost polar opposites: Thomas focuses on the humanity of Jesus, while John focuses on the cosmic Christ.  Now we turn our gaze to the theology we are most familiar with, that of Paul.

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Paul’s story is a curious one.  He begins his spiritual journey as a Jewish Pharisee.  As such, he was not just opposed to Jesus and his teachings, he was an active persecutor.  A passage in Acts states that he was “ravaging the church by entering house after house, (and,) dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.”  (8.3) 

On his way to Damascus to arrest more of Jesus’s followers, Paul had a mystical experience – a vision of Jesus – who said to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  This experience left him blinded, and three days later, a devout follower of Jesus, Ananias, laid hands on him and Paul’s sight was restored.  From that moment, Saul became a follower of Jesus and changed his name to Paul.

Can you imagine the consternation among the apostles and the followers of Jesus?  This vicious cop, who rages through the Christian community and drags whole families off to prison, has a conversion experience?  Claims to have had a vision of Jesus?  Claims now to be an apostle, equal to the 11 remaining disciples?  What you do with this?  Do you take him at his word or do you throw him and his so-called conversion out into the street?

Paul and his claims posed a serious problem for the early followers of Jesus.  Remember the difficulty of their situation.  Their leader has been arrested, tortured, and executed as a common criminal.  The Jewish establishment – the Pharisees and the scribes – were out for blood.  And this guy, Saul, has Christian blood on his hands.  But now he’s claims to be a new man, with a new name, and he’s suddenly saying that he’s on your side.  Does this really sound credible?

The problem facing the disciples was one of authority: there was no central authority that could pass judgment on the genuineness of Paul’s conversion.  He was certainly regarded with great suspicion, but there was no clear way to get rid of him.  As a result, he was rather grudgingly accepted.

So, that’s how Paul’s Christian journey started.  What is even more amazing is how it ended.  Paul’s understanding of Jesus and his teaching – that is, his understanding of the man whom he never heard, who he never met – becomes the predominant understanding of the Christian church!  Paul’s theology was the winner in the “Christian Theological Sweepstakes,” and it is his understanding of Jesus that most Christians accept as “gospel” today.  What a stunning turnaround!

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So let’s trace, as best as we can, how Paul’s theology developed.  His earliest letter, the first letter to the church in Thessalonica, is apocalyptic in nature.  He proclaims Jesus as the risen Lord and encourages the church there to prepare for his imminent coming and the last days.  You can see how this would follow from his vision.  That’s exactly what he experienced – the risen Christ is coming and is coming right now!

Of course, as we now know, the world was not destroyed in an apocalyptic cataclysm, so Paul’s thinking gradually changes in response.  He is surrounded by most of the original disciples who adhere to a Torah–driven theology, with an emphasis on following the Law.  Paul, on the other hand, is a Roman citizen and has a more cosmopolitan perspective.  He wants to carry his understanding of the message of Jesus to the wider community of Gentiles.  For him, “Jewishness” is no longer at the core of Christian identity.

Paul’s theology, however, is not systematic.  He doesn’t sit down and write a treatise about Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit, and humanity.  Rather, his theology develops in response to various crises in the Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean.  He addresses factionalism within the church, and the charismatic disorder in Corinth.  In Galatians, he addresses the Torah crisis and the identity boundary of circumcision and following the Jewish law.  In later letters he explores the differences between justification by faith versus justification by works, and he breaks with the Torah–boundary logic.

Then, in his most mature work, the letter to the Romans, Paul connects Adam and Christ as part of a master narrative.  Here he states that sin came into the world through the disobedience of Adam.  Conversely, Jesus’s actions – his obedience to the will of the Father – have redeemed humanity.  In effect, Paul has taken the Jewish issue of who to include as a Christian and reframed the problem.  Now it is no longer an issue of following the Law.  Now the issue is a universal one – one that tries to address both our sense of human wrongdoing and the intervention of God’s grace through the person of Jesus.

By adopting Paul’s understanding, the Church frames the problem as a problem common to all humanity.  This positions the Church as an institution that solves our universal problems and as an institution that is open to everyone.

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Now, you might wonder, like I did, how Paul came to link Adam with Jesus.  It turns out that there was an already-existing stream of thought in Judaism that connected Adam’s transgression with death.  In the Torah, in Genesis 3.19, God confronts Adam after the apple and condemns him to death: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Notice that only Adam is condemned to death here; there is no universal condemnation of humanity at all.  In the Jewish line of thinking, Adam’s disobedience resulted in a corruption of the natural Edenic human condition.  This is far different from the Christian notion of an indelible and universal stain.

This was not yet a doctrine of Original Sin.  That would come later, in the fourth century, with St. Augustine.  At this point, there was no fully worked out theory of inherited guilt transmitted by procreation.  There was no defined account of infant guilt.  And there was not even a clear concept of an “original” sin.  In fact, the Jews of that era had no concept of Original Sin. 

Let this fact settle in for a moment.  The people who gave us the story of Adam and Eve did not give us the doctrine of Original Sin.  To this day, Jews do not believe in Original Sin.  The truth is, this doctrine was made up some 400+ years after the death of Jesus by Augustine of Hippo.

While early Christian writers discuss Adam, death, corruption, and the human propensity to sin, the notion of an inherited guilt was not a settled doctrine in the first and second centuries.  The notion of Original Sin is developed by Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries – much later.

Augustine argued that humanity is radically dependent on grace, and he argued for the notion of inherited guilt.  This concept has been widely spread throughout Western Christendom and is a central dogma in most Western denominations to this day.  Of note, Eastern Christendom, while accepting the notion of an inherited mortality as a result of Adam’s disobedience, did not accept the notion of an inherited guilt.

If you will, Paul supplies the raw materials necessary for the doctrine of Original Sin.  Augustine then builds the Western theology of hereditary guilt and salvation through Christ’s actions out of the raw materials which Paul supplied.  Paul was trying to make Israel’s God acceptable to the Gentiles at scale.  To do this, you need a universal anthropology – a doctrine of wrongdoing leading to death that applies to all humanity – to justify a universal remedy, namely Christ.  This new doctrine obliterates the Torah boundary markers and opens the Christian faith to everyone.

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In my understanding, the notion of Original Sin is simply wrong.  It’s based on a misunderstanding between our current understanding of sin and the sin that Jesus spoke of.  He didn't speak to condemn sinners.  He doesn't speak to condemn you or me.  His admonitions, if you can even call them that, are to return to our relationship with God, our connection with the Divine.  He calls us with the deepest love to remember our true nature – to remember that Christ, the son of God, lives within us.  To remember that we, too, are his children.  His beloved children!

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Well, I suspect I have given you more than enough to wrap your head around for this week.  When we sift through the early Christian writings, we can clearly see how our forebearers had to create the Church as they went along.  Without this historical perspective, we simply assume that the Church has a set of coherent and well-thought-out answers that can solve all of our problems.  In actual fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.  

The answers that we accept as dogma today were actually responses to specific problems at specific times and places.  They are not universal answers, suitable at all times for all believers.  Thus, in my view, it is up to each follower to examine the data and to determine for themselves what is true.  

It is abundantly clear that the Church has made many errors throughout its history.  There are so many and they are so obvious that there is no need to attempt an accounting here.  It is sufficient to say that God did not make that bump on the top of our necks just to attract the opposite sex.  He created us with minds to think and with a desire to understand the truth.  To do any less means that we turn our back on the Truth.  To do any less means that we turn our backs on God.

Thank you for your perseverance in reading through these essays.  Please remember to spend some time every day going within yourself and meditating.  As Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is within you.”  It is by looking within that you will find your greatest freedom.  It is by looking within that you will find the everlasting Love of God!

In the peace of God which passes all understanding,

P.S.  These newsletters were written in a particular order, but due to the limitations of our email delivery system, we cannot send them in the order in which they were written.  We can send out the first five in order, but then the system sends out the next one, whatever that happens to be.

So, if you are suddenly moving from issue #5 to issue #whatever, it might be a little jarring.  If this sounds like you, I would encourage you to go back into our archives and do your best to read them in order. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

To access the other newsletter editions of the “Inside The Invisible Newsletter,” or if you’d like to read ahead or go back.

Please Note: These newsletters are meant to be read in order.