OK, so I really want to get this off my chest before I even start talking seriously about LOST...
"How does a wooden ship destroy 80% of a giant stone statue?"
Thanks
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This weeks episode of LOST was really good. We finally learned what some of the mystery surrounding Richard Alpert is all about - why he doesn't age, how come he speaks for Jacob, etc...
More importantly, we learned some very interesting things about the island and the motives of both Jacob and the Man-In-Black.
When Richard meets Jacob the two sit on the beach and share some wine and conversation. From that talk we learned that Jacob did bring the Black Rock to the island, as he also seems to have brought Flight 815 to the island.
Then, Jacob told Richard to think of the wine in his bottle as hell, or malevolence, evil, or darkness. That is the MIB. The wine swirls in the bottle and yet can't get out, "because if it did, it would spread." He said the cork is the island. He put the cork into the bottle and flipped it upside down, showing how the cork (the island) "is the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs."
Jacob said The Man in Black believes people are corruptible because it's in their nature to sin, and Jacob brings people to the island to prove him wrong, "and when they get here, their past doesn't matter." Richard asked what happened to the others he'd brought to the island before him. "They're all dead," Jacob told him. He said he didn't help them because he wanted them to help themselves, "to know the difference between right or wrong without me having to tell them." He said it was meaningless if he had to tell them, if he had to step in.
WOW! Lots of info to digest. Assuming that Jacob isn't talking a load of horse manure - we just got some great insight into where things are going and how the writers and producers of the show see the world, or at least the world of LOST.
I was immediately struck by the Pelagian tone of the comments that Jacob made. Pelagianism was a Christian heresy in the early 400s that taught several odd things, primarily the idea that "Original Sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil by the exercise of rational thought and without any special Divine aid."
It is basically super-free will. We are blank slates, neither good nor evil in our core until we choose to be one or the other. It makes man the supreme decider of his fate. Mike Horton says "According to Pelagius, Adam was merely a bad example, not the father of our sinful condition-we are sinners because we sin-rather than vice versa. Consequently, of course, the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, was a good example. Salvation is a matter chiefly of following Christ instead of Adam, rather than being transferred from the condemnation and corruption of Adam's race and placed "in Christ," clothed in his righteousness and made alive by his gracious gift. What men and women need is moral direction, not a new birth; therefore, Pelagius saw salvation in purely naturalistic terms-the progress of human nature from sinful behavior to holy behavior, by following the example of Christ."
I think we can see strong biblical evidence that Pelagianism is not the theology of Christianity at even a cursory glance of the Scriptures...
We are by nature sinners (Eph. 2:3; Psalm 51:5). We all have sinned because sin entered the world through Adam: "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12). Furthermore, Romans 3:10-12 says, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” Therefore, we are unable to do God's will (Rom. 6:16; 7:14).
We were affected by the fall of Adam, contrary to what Pelagius taught and Jacob espouses. Nevertheless, these developments should make for a great storyline as the last several episodes of my favorite TV show play out!
