PAPER NO. 103

THE NOETIC EFFECT OF SIN

The Effect of Moral Evil on the Mind of Man

It is the nature of sin (moral evil) to not seek the good, to misunderstand the good, in ignorance to call good evil and evil good, to oppose the good in light of one’s misconception, and to avoid and resist correction by self-deception and self-justification. The effect of moral evil on the mind of man is called the noetic effect. It began with the Fall of man and is removed gradually in the redemption of man.

Scripture (the biblical worldview of creation–fall–redemption) assumes the clarity of general revelation (Romans 1:20). Sin begins in the failure to seek and understand what is clear about God.

This sin is universal (Romans 3:10-11). This sin is deep (Jeremiah 17:9). This sin is destructive (Romans 6:23).

The neglect of not seeking is set against the necessity for seeking: he that comes to God must believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of those that diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). The reward of diligently seeking God is knowing Him. Eternal life is knowing God (John 17:3).

The noetic effect of sin is first seen in the Garden of Eden. Man is called to know God through the work of dominion. Left to himself, man turns from the knowledge of God as the good. When tested (regarding his understanding of good and evil, and life and death) he failed.

He believed the falsehood: you shall not surely die . . . you shall be like God knowing good and evil. The outward act of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil revealed the inward state of not seeking and not knowing God.

He lost sight of the radical difference between God as creator and man as creature in knowing good and evil. He had put himself in the place of God to determine good and evil.

Good for a being is based on the nature of that being. God knows good and evil, not by discovery, but by determining the nature of beings by the act of creation. Adam was to know good and evil by discovering the nature of beings. Man cannot be like God in knowing good and evil because man is a creature, not the creator. He cannot determine the nature of things.

Adam, by not seeking the knowledge of God as the good, failed to understand what is clear about God—that God is the infinite and eternal creator, and that man is a finite, temporal creature. This, the original sin, is the origin of all sin in all men. Sin is the failure to understand what is clear about God.

As the inward act of sin of not seeking and not understanding is exposed by the outward act of unrighteousness (eating), man experiences shame in his nakedness. Shame is the first natural and inward call back from sin. It is the call of conscience. Man avoids this call back through self-deception, by covering his nakedness.

God calls man back a second time, outwardly, by a call to self-examination in asking: where are you? Man resists the second call by self-justification, blaming the woman and God Himself for his own disobedience.

God calls man back a third and final time by imposing on man the curse (toil, strife, and old age, sickness, and death) and by the giving of the promise (the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent). Man responds to the third call by repentance and faith. He is justified by God in being covered with the coats of skin (forgiveness through the death of another), and is to be sanctified through suffering, by expulsion from the Garden to live under the curse.

Sin is permitted by God and is made to serve His purpose. It deepens the revelation of His justice and mercy. If it is removed abruptly, the revelation will not be deepened. If it is not removed, the revelation will not be seen. Sin, as unbelief, is permitted to work itself out in human history in every form and degree of combination with belief. In this age-long and agonizing conflict, good overcomes evil. The seed of the woman crushes the head of the serpent, according to the promise.

Although forgiven in Christ, sin remains in believers, along with its noetic effect. Believers continue to fail to understand what is clear about God from general revelation.

This failure to seek and to understand the clarity of general revelation is overlooked in self-deception and resisted in self-justification. Natural evil (the curse) continues to call men back from moral evil (sin). Suffering calls men to stop and think about basic things, about meaning and purpose, about God and man, about good and evil, about life and death.

Suffering the curse and agonies of the spiritual war of belief vs. unbelief continues as long as the noetic effect of sin remains.

The clarity of general revelation cannot be denied without denying the inexcusability of unbelief. But clarity cannot be affirmed without being required to show the clarity of general revelation.

As a result, the doctrine of clarity has been left in the dark. Believers continue to show a disregard for the clarity of general revelation and a disinclination to show the inexcusability of unbelief. This, and other closely connected doctrines, has been held more or less consciously, and more or less consistently.

Self-deception about diligently seeking to know God continues; self-justification for not knowing what is clear about God continues; the suffering of toil, strife, and old age, sickness, and death continues as God’s call back to stop and think. Insofar as we do not stop and think, our understanding remains in darkness. What we profess to believe becomes emptied of meaning or filled with misunderstanding. One’s entire worldview is affected by one’s understanding of good and evil.

The failure to understand what is clear from general revelation continues in the failure to understand what is clear from special revelation. The divisions in the Church in understanding Scripture reflect the divisions in understanding general revelation.

Sin has affected the entire Christian worldview by distorting understanding of foundational teachings. The following briefly mention some of this misunderstanding, with further explanation below.

Moral evil is not seen as the failure to understand what is clear about God. It is seen as a willful act of disobedience of a command of God. Faith is not seen as based on understanding and evidence. It is seen as a choice to believe above, apart from, or against evidence. The wages of sin is not seen as spiritual death, present and inherent in sin. The wages of sin is seen as hell, which is future and imposed. Eternal life is not seen as the knowledge of God. It is seen as the absence of the curse in heaven.

1. The noetic effect affects our understanding of sin (moral evil).

Sin is the failure to seek and to understand what is clear about God (divine nature) and man, and good and evil (moral law). Sin is not fundamentally the willful outward act of disobedience of a command of God. Adam believed what was false about God and about sin and death before he ate; and he ate because of his unbelief. Sin is coming short of seeing the glory of God. This is the sin which is universal, and of which all must repent. Yet, personally and corporately, the Church repents of fruit sin, but not root sin. We think of ourselves as concerned to know the truth even when we fail to know what is clear. We resist responsibility for knowing what is clear by denying clarity (no one knows), or making it impossible to know (reason is finite/fallen), or irrelevant to faith (deep down everyone knows). The noetic effect of sin is covered by hypocrisy through self-deception and self-justification. Integrity, by self-examination and by discipline, is necessary and sufficient to overcome hypocrisy, and to know what is clear about God.

What can be known of God is revealed by the Word of God. Man, in his fallen state, resists and rejects the Word of God in every form: in himself as reason (John 1:4-5); in creation as general revelation (John 1:10); in history as special/redemptive revelation (John 1:11); in person as Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate (John 1:14).

2. The noetic effect affects our understanding of spiritual death.

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23; Genesis 2:17; Ephesians 2:1), not hell as is commonly conceived. Death here is spiritual, not physical. Spiritual death is present and inherent in sin, whereas hell, as a literal lake of fire, is future and imposed. Hell, in biblical language, is a symbolic representation of spiritual death. It is called the second death (Revelation 20:14). Taken literally, hell, as a lake of fire, is without meaning. Spirits are not affected by physical fire. To appeal to a continual miracle in order to make the literal hell possible is to deny God’s justice and to invite blasphemy (Romans 2:24). The fear of hell (avoiding natural evil) is not the fear of God (avoiding moral evil). There is a necessary connection between sin (not seeking, and not understanding) and death (meaninglessness, boredom, and guilt). Understanding the connection between sin and death creates the fear of the Lord which moves us to diligently seek Him. Thus, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

3. The noetic effect affects our understanding of the curse (natural evil).

The curse of toil, strife, and old age, sickness, and death, is God’s call back from sin, not punishment for sin. There are two kinds of death as well as two kinds of resurrections: physical and spiritual (John 5:24-29; John 11:25; Rev 20:6). The wages of sin is spiritual death, not physical death. It is part of the noetic effect of sin to avoid and resist the curse as God’s call to repentance of failing to see what is clear.

Physical death is not original in the creation. Physical death is not inherent in sin. Physical death is imposed because of sin. It is the third and last call back from sin. (The first call back of shame is avoided by self-deception, and the second call back to self-examination is avoided by self-justification). The noetic effect of self-deception and self-justification objectively require the curse and at the same time subjectively resist the curse. Although the curse is sometimes referred to as punishment and sometimes as chastening, it is not punishment in the strict or absolute sense of the term. Physical death cannot (in the strict sense) be considered punishment for sin, in this life or the next. If physical death were punishment for the believer, then Christ did not bear the full penalty of sin. If physical death were punishment for the non-believer there would be no resurrection for the bodies of non-believers. If the curse were punishment for both believers and non-believers, there would be some proportionality in its manifestation. But the most righteous, for example Job, often suffer more than others, and the wicked often prosper more than the righteous (Psalm 75).

The curse serves several purposes in relation to sin. Its serves to restrain all from sin, to recall non-believers from sin, and to remove the sin remaining in believers. In all the suffering of the curse, there is a call to stop and think deeply about good and evil, about the meaning and purpose of life. It is a call to know God. The curse is intensified in history to become famine, war, and plague. At death, there is no further call back. A person continues in the condition in which they died. The curse is fully removed, not at death, but at the end of this age in the resurrection, when all things have been subdued to Christ (1 Corinthians 15:25-28). The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

4. The noetic effect affects our understanding of eternal life.

Eternal life is to know God (John 17:3). Eternal life is not heaven. Eternal life begins in this life, at regeneration. Heaven begins after this life. God makes himself known through his works of creation and providence (providence includes redemption in history). God is a Spirit, immortal and invisible, whom no man has seen nor can see. God cannot be seen directly in heaven apart from His works. Creation is revelation, necessarily, intentionally, and exclusively. In heaven, after death, and before the resurrection, in the intermediate state, the fullness of blessing is not received but is awaited. Departed believers await the completion of the work given to man in history. Through the work of dominion, the earth is to be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

Dominion (developing the powers latent in the creation—in one’s self and in nature) is necessary for knowledge of the creation. And knowledge of the creation is necessary for the knowledge of God. The fullness of life is not absence of the curse, but the fullness of the knowledge of God. To expect life without knowledge of God is contrary to human nature. To expect fullness of life apart from the completion of dominion is false hope. To expect the work of dominion to be done by Christ at the Second Coming, supernaturally, apart from the Church, is to misunderstand the nature of knowledge through dominion. To expect the knowledge of God through the work of dominion is true hope.

Due to sin and its noetic effect, the work of dominion is not set aside, it is deepened. The noetic effect is opposed by a spiritual war. With the curse in natural evil is given the promise in redemptive revelation: between good and evil (light and darkness, truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief), there is a spiritual war, which is age-long and agonizing, in which good eventually overcomes evil (Genesis 3:15). Every thought raised up against the knowledge of God will be made subject to Christ. Dominion now extends over sin (2 Corinthians 10:4). The spiritual war is fought asymmetrically. Truth uses reason to persuade; falsehood uses threat and slander and the entire range of pseudo-arguments commonly called informal fallacies. There is enmity, hostility, and hatred toward what exposes falsehood. Removal of this hostility requires a redemptive change of heart by regeneration. Truth prevails: “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it or withstand it.” (John 1:5) The rational requirements of human nature cannot be eradicated. The need for meaning, found only in the knowledge of God (eternal life), remains.

5. The noetic effect affects all our basic beliefs.

The noetic effect affects our understanding of faith and reason and the inseparability of the two. It affects our interpretation of Scripture and of literature. It affects our understanding of good and evil, and why there is evil, and how evil serves the good. It affects our understanding of the moral law written on the hearts of all men and how the law serves the good. It affects our view of world history and Church history and human propensity toward apostasy. It affects our understanding of human conflicts and is the source of all conflicts and of every kind and degree of evil (in and between persons, in each household, in and between churches, in and between nations, and most comprehensively summed up between two ways, two kingdoms, two cities: the City of God and the City of man). It affects our eschatology and our interpretation of all of life.

We can progress in overcoming the noetic effect:

1. by acknowledging the nature of sin at its root and its continued existence in us.
2. by acknowledging the curse (toil, strife, and old age, sickness and death) as imposed by God as a continuing call to stop and think.
3. by acknowledging the good as the knowledge of God and the goal of filling the earth with the knowledge of God.
4. by acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth through the work of the pastor-teachers and summed up in the creeds of the Church.
5. by acknowledging the continuing internal and external challenges to the faith as God’s call to take all thoughts captive which are raised up against the knowledge of God.

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