Autism Is Caused by Sin?  🔗 **Source:** [Autism Is Caused by Sin?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0#transcript) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [theology, neurodiversity, biblical-scholarship, disability-theology, apologetics-critique, misinformation] > author: Dan McClellan > source: Dan McClellan (YouTube) > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0 > date created: 2026-06-19 09:30 > --- > # 🏷️ Title: Autism is caused by sin? > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > ### 🔗 References > - [Dan McClellan — YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@maklelan) > - [John 9:1-3 (BibleGateway)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+9%3A1-3) > - [Exodus 4:11 (BibleGateway)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+4%3A11) > - [Isaiah 45:7 (BibleGateway)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+45%3A7) > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened.** Biblical scholar Dan McClellan does a point-by-point rebuttal of a preacher's clip claiming that autism, deafness, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and other conditions are all "caused by sin." Using the Hebrew Bible and New Testament directly, McClellan argues the claim is unsupported by the text it cites and is flatly contradicted by other passages. > - **Why it matters.** The "disability is punishment for sin" theology is widespread, harmful, and aimed at vulnerable people (parents of autistic children, disabled adults). McClellan, who has autistic family members, treats the claim as both bad scholarship and active harm, and models a data-and-text method instead of intuition-driven apologetics. > - **Key stakeholders.** Autistic people and their families, disabled communities, Christians who hold or absorb "sin = sickness" theology, pastors spreading the claim online, and biblical-studies educators. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** The original claim risks shame, false promises of "cures," and faith-based stigma. McClellan's method risks reading as dismissive or combative toward sincere believers, though it is grounded in the same scriptures the preacher invokes. > - **Bottom line.** The Bible does not teach that disability comes from personal or inherited sin; in multiple places it explicitly attributes disability to God's own agency (Exodus 4:11, John 9:3). The "autism is sin" claim is, on its own scriptural terms, self-defeating. > ## 📖 Main Content > - **The claim being debunked.** A preacher asserts that children not talking, deafness, anxiety, depression, ADHD, "bad attitude," and complaining are all "because of sin" — specifically the sin that "entered this world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God." Humans, he says, are born "in the likeness of Adam, which is sin," not in the perfect image God intended, and need to be "born again" to receive "healing and freedom." > - **McClellan's core method.** He repeatedly distinguishes *feeling* from *evidence*: the preacher "likes the taste" of the idea and confuses conviction (a feeling) for knowledge. Throughout, McClellan grounds every counter-point in specific verses and Hebrew terms rather than appeals to authority or personal testimony. > - **Adam and Eve are not historical.** McClellan states there are "no data whatsoever" that the Adam-and-Eve story is anything but ancient fiction, so inherited genetics or "moral culpability" from fictional characters is incoherent. > - **Genesis 2 doesn't say what's claimed.** The preacher reads Genesis 2 as proof God finished creating and made everything perfect. McClellan counters on two fronts: (1) the Hebrew verb *bara* ("create," only ever used with God as subject) is used in Isaiah 48:6-7 and Psalm 102:19 for *new* and *future* creations, so even a univocal reading of scripture contradicts "God stopped creating"; (2) Genesis 1:1–2:4a is a *second*, later creation account written to supersede the earlier one, which actually depicts creation as imperfect (God's "not good," trial-and-error with animals before Eve). > - **"Image" and "likeness" (demut) explained.** McClellan defines *demut* as likeness/form — perceptual proximity and shared functions, not "exact isometry" with divinity. In the ancient Near East, kings were called the "image of God"; Genesis democratizes that representative status to all humanity. So being made in God's image means *representing* God, not being created medically perfect. > - **The decisive counter-texts.** John 9 — the disciples ask whether a man was born blind because of his sin or his parents', and Jesus answers "neither," reframing it as an occasion for God's power; McClellan reads this as a rhetorical rejection of the sin-causes-disability idea current in that period. Exodus 4:11 — God tells Moses, "Who makes the mute and the deaf and the blind and the seeing? Is it not I?" Isaiah 45:7 — God says "I make peace and I create" calamity/evil. The Bible repeatedly assigns disability and calamity to God's own agency. > - **The neurodiversity point.** McClellan states autism "is not a defect or a disease. It is neurodivergence" — meaningful only relative to socially conventionalized notions of "neurotypical." It doesn't vanish when someone is "born again," and preaching a "cure" is harmful to autistic people and their families, including his own. > - **The turn back on the preacher.** The preacher warns Christians to "stop blaming God for those disorders." McClellan inverts it: the Bible itself blames — or rather credits — God for them, so the preacher's own theology of scripture undercuts his claim. > ### 🗒️ Notes > #### ⏱️ [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0&t=0) The claim and the thesis > - Preacher: children not talking, deafness, anxiety, depression, ADHD, "bad attitude," complaining — "It's all because of sin." > - McClellan: "This is an incredibly harmful bit of dogma that is not supported by anything in the real world or even anything in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament both repeatedly reject this idea." > #### ⏱️ [00:00:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0&t=33) Adam and Eve as fiction; conviction vs. evidence > - "There are absolutely no data whatsoever that support the notion that the story of Adam and Eve is anything other than a fiction that someone made up." > - On the preacher's certainty: "You like the feeling of this idea because you have done absolutely no research." > - Conviction is named as a feeling mistaken for knowledge — McClellan's recurring epistemic point. > #### ⏱️ [00:02:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0&t=131) Genesis 2 and the verb bara > - The preacher uses Genesis 2's "rest" to claim God created nothing new since. > - McClellan: *bara* (create, only with God as subject) appears in Isaiah 48:6-7 and Psalm 102:19 for new and future creations. A univocal reading forces a contradiction with the Genesis 2 misreading. > #### ⏱️ [00:03:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0&t=230) Image, likeness, and demut > - *Demut* = likeness/form; perceptual proximity plus shared functions, not "exact isometry." > - Ancient kings were "the image of God"; Genesis democratizes that representative, agency-bearing status to all humanity. > #### ⏱️ [00:05:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0&t=331) "Very good" and two creation accounts > - Genesis 1:31 says God saw "all that he had made" (*asa*) was very good — all creation, not humans specifically. > - Genesis 1:1–2:4a is a secondary account written to supersede the earlier one, which sees problems ("not good") and proceeds by trial and error. > #### ⏱️ [00:07:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6bH0iaFd0&t=434) Seth, John 9, and the rejection of sin-as-cause > - Seth in Adam's "likeness/image" only means he resembled Adam and shared his roles — not that every human is born perfect. > - Joh Autism is because of sin. >> Uh, all right. Let's see it. >> And I need you all to stick with me until the end. See, your children not talking, people who are deaf, that anxiety, depression, ADHD, your bad attitude, and your complaining. It's all because of sin. >> This is an incredibly harmful bit of dogma that is not supported by anything in the real world or even anything in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament both repeatedly reject this idea. >> It's the sin that entered this world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. >> There are absolutely no data whatsoever that support the notion that the story of Adam and Eve is anything other than a fiction that someone made up. It's not historical. We obviously do not inherit any genetics, much less moral culpability for wrongdoing from fictional characters. >> And see, I am convinced of this. >> You're not convinced. You like the feeling of this idea because you have done absolutely no research. You have not been convicted by any rational logical train of thoughts. You came up with an idea that plunked the tuning fork in the loins of your dogmatism and you confused that feeling for conviction because that's what conviction always is a feeling. It's just your intuition saying I like the taste of this and you're leaning into that without having the foggiest idea what you're talking about. People who believe that God created them with autism or any sickness, disease, or disorder, they don't truly know God. >> And you don't truly know what you're talking about. Nor are you in any way, shape, or form whatsoever an expert or an authority on who gets to truly know God. >> Because if they knew him and his nature, his love for all humanity, it would never come from their lips. Now, how do I know this? because you made it up and you like the sound of it and you confuse that for knowledge. >> Because Genesis 2 tells us, "Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished and on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done and he rested." So whether you believe it or not, the Lord has not created another thing or another person since that time. So in addition to the fact that this is not remotely a rational interpretation of that passage, it is precluded by numerous other passages from the Hebrew Bible if you are going to presuppose univocality because you can look at Isaiah 486 and 7 and Psalm 102:19 and a bunch of other passages where the verbal root that is used in Genesis 2 to mean create, ba, which is only ever used with God as the subject, is used in reference to new creations. In fact, in Isaiah 48:6 and 7, it quite explicitly says that there will be new things created by God, things that are created now, not from before. And then in Psalm 102:19, it even talks about people who will be created in the future. And so if you presuppose univocality, which obviously you do, you are forced to negotiate between this ridiculous interpretation of Genesis 2 and all of these passages from elsewhere in the Bible that flatly contradict your ridiculous interpretation of Genesis 2. So I'm not endorsing the presupposition of univocality. I'm just pointing out that your own position on what the Bible is and how it functions and its relationship to God precludes this interpretation that you are asserting. >> Genesis 5 then tells us that in the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Now what is the likeness of God? Well, the word there is demut, which means likeness and refers to physical appearance to form, but by extension can also refer to functions and features related to that form. And this is also used to describe Adam's creation of Seth. The idea is not exact isometry. The idea is a perceptual proximity and then a relationship regarding some functions and features. And in Genesis 2 through5, really what we're dealing with is the notion that humanity is the image of God, the representation of God on earth. And there's also a sense in which it refers to a type of sovereignty that is passed on to humanity. In this time period, kings were frequently referred to as the image of God. in the sense of an animated walking, talking, breathing, speaking divine image like an idol. And the book of Genesis is really democratizing that status as a walking, talking, breathing, speaking divine image for God. So imag likeness, demoot of God refers to humanity's representation of divinity. not exact isometry with divinity but their intended representation. Humanity is indexing deity and humanity is exercising some degree of divine agency and authority as a result of that status. >> It is perfect. It's without blemish, without disease, without disorder or sickness. That's why God called humans very good. That's not a rational interpretation of what's going on in Genesis 2, but also now we're appealing to Genesis 1:31, which does not say that God called humans very good. It says God saw all that he had made a assa and saw that it was very good to that is a reference to all of creation, not just humanity. And it's also a separate creation account. Genesis 1:1 through Genesis 2:4A is a secondary creation account that was composed precisely to replace, to supersede, to improve upon the earlier creation account which actually sees problems with creation and has the human created and then God says, "Oo, this is not good." So, it's not a perfect creation right from the start in Genesis 2. And God has to try to create a suitable helper through trial and error using animals first. And that doesn't work. So then God has to create Eve. And this is all just an ideology for how things got to be the way they were when the story was written down as a fictional tale over 2600ish years ago. So none of this is actually based on the Bible. This is based on someone's rather naive negotiations with the text and their attempts to try to jin up some new idea that makes them feel good. >> But look what Genesis 5 says. What happens now? Adam lived 130 years and begott a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. And all that means is that Seth looked like Adam and had the roles and responsibilities that Adam had. It certainly does not mean that Seth was created perfect. It also certainly does not mean that therefore every human that is ever born is created perfect and without any conditions or challenges or disabilities. That's just demonstrabably false. People are born every single day with all of these things and sometimes they don't survive birth and that's not a product of anybody's sin. And here we can go right to John nine where Jesus's disciples ask him who sinned this man or his parents because he had been born blind and Jesus says neither. Now in that story that blindness is represented as something God put there so that Jesus could show forth the power of God. So it is a kind of discrete accounting of what's going on in that one instance. But this is widely understood to be a rhetorical rejection of the phenomenally harmful and outdated notion that illness and disability is a product of sin which is something that was current in that time period and is something that is just demonstrably false and again incredibly harmful. We have to be careful about creating an entire theology that says God creates a person with disorder or disease. So at least you can acknowledge that you are fabricating a theology. But if you imagine your theology is based on the Bible, then your assertion in that clip directly contradicts what the Bible has to say about where disabilities come from. We already talked about John chapter 9 where Jesus said it was God who caused this man to be born blind and not sin so that the power of God could be manifested through Jesus's healing of the blind man. But it is even more explicitly generalized. We can go to Exodus 4:11 where Moses objects to this prophetic call because he says, "I am slow of speech." And how does God directly respond in the very next verse? God says, "Who gave a mouth to humanity? Who makes the mute and the deaf and the blind and the seeing? Is it not I, Adoni?" According to Exodus 4, God themselves explicitly asserts that they are the one who is responsible for disability. So that flatly contradicts this assertion that you can't fabricate a theology or at least you should not fabricate a theology that blames God for disabilities. The Bible itself repeatedly says God is the one who is responsible for disabilities. >> It's not just incorrect, but it's harmful because it does not match the character of God and it doesn't match how God created mankind. that you and I were created in the likeness of God on day six because God rested on day seven and all creation was complete. >> So that doesn't indicate that it is harmful to say that God is responsible for disability because the Bible itself repeatedly asserts explicitly that God is responsible for disability. That's not harmful at all. It just contradicts your misreading of other parts of the Bible that you have cherrypicked and misinterpreted because you don't know what you're talking about. What is harmful is trying to convince people that their conditions or their states or their disabilities are the product of sin. That is bafflingly harmful and bafflingly uninformed. >> See, when we are born into this world, we are born in the likeness of Adam, which is sin. Which is why we see people born with all kinds of sicknesses and disorders and diseases. Not because God created us that way. Remember, we're created in his image, fully known, perfectly formed in our mother's womb. But you were put into a human body that was born in the likeness of a man who sinned. And now you are born in the same likeness into a fallen and broken world that was cursed because of sin. And that is why we have to be born again. >> Autism is not a defect or a disease. It is neurode divergence which really only means anything in the light of socially conventionalized ideas of what is neurotypical. And it doesn't go away when people feel like they have been born again. And trying to preach this notion that you have the key to curing autism is phenomenally harmful for a variety of different reasons. both in relation to how it makes people with autism like one of my children feel, but also how it makes the parents and other family members of people with autism like me and like other members of my family feel. It's incredibly harmful. It's incredibly ignorant. Stop doing it. And see, as Christians, we've got to own up to this thing and stop blaming God for those disorders and these sicknesses and all this chaos we see in the world. And we must learn who God is. >> No. As Christians, we've got to learn more about how the world around us functions and stop imagining that just because something makes us feel good, it is therefore true. And we should go spread that information on the internet because that's not how reality works. It's certainly not how autism works. It's not even how the Bible works. You couldn't even get the Bible right. >> He is a loving God who only creates things and does things perfectly. If you're going to maintain that position, then you're going to have to acknowledge that people with autism or people who cannot speak or people who are deaf or people who are blind or people who have anyone of a number of different conditions or pathologies or disabilities were created perfectly because the Bible explicitly says that God is responsible for those things. Whatever disorder or sickness you thought God gave you, it did not come from him. >> Not according to the Bible. As we've already seen, God explicitly claims to be responsible for disabilities in multiple different places. And we can also look at Isaiah 45:7 where God says, "I make peace and I create." And you can translate that as evil or you can translate it as calamity. You can translate it however you want. God takes responsibility for that chaos as well. You don't even know your own Bible and you certainly don't know how autism works. >> But the good news is that healing and freedom have been purchased for you and he only wants you to receive it. >> Stop spreading such harmful and such ignorant misinformation. And the fit for this video has been The Amazing Spider-Man., Autism Is Caused by Sin?, Dan McClellan, 01kvg9xqrtabz3q1b5xkjemqqp.