Forsaking the Fall: Original Sin and the Possibility of a Nonlapsarian Christianity [1 ed.] 9781003346913, 9781032388137, 9781032388144

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition
1. Original Sin: A Historical and Theological Retrieval
2. Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man”
3. Romans 5:12–21: Adam or Christ?
PART II: Orthodoxy without Original Sin?
4. Sin: The Biblical Understanding
5. Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy: Whence Sin?
6. Salvation: Means and End
7. On Orthodoxy
8. Conclusion
References
Index

Citation preview

‘This bold new monograph invites us on an extended thought experiment: imagine we removed Original Sin and the Fall from Christian theology. Would the result still be recognisably Christian theology? This fascinating work will make its readers rethink the prospects for what Spencer calls a “non-lapsarian” theology.’ Oliver Crisp, Principal of St Mary’s College and Head of the School of Divinity, University of St Andrews, UK ‘Completely at home in the world of scripture, patristics, modern theology, and analytic philosophy, Spencer draws on materials and authors from an astoundingly wide range of genres and eras. He has constructed a formidable argument I hope both academic and ecclesiastical theologians will grapple with earnestly.’ Ron Highfield, Professor of Religion, Pepperdine University, USA ‘Forsaking the Fall is a rigorous, clear-headed and paradigm-shifting analysis of whether the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin are essential to Christian faith. The depth and range of its engagement with biblical scholarship, the church fathers, Aquinas and contemporary theology are unmatched by any other modern study of this key question. Simply outstanding!’ Alan J. Torrance, Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology, University of St Andrews, UK

Forsaking the Fall

Forsaking the Fall argues along exegetical, theological, and philosophical lines that the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin need not be understood as integral components of orthodox Christianity. By engaging biblical studies, systematic theology, and analytic philosophy, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of the most important issues at play in the Original Sin debate, as well as offers a set of tools for helping readers to think critically about the essence of the Christian faith and its relation to Original Sin. Crucially, it lays the theoretical groundwork for an orthodox nonlapsarianism and advances a novel theory vis-à-vis the Fall and Original Sin in Christian theology. This innovative and provocative book will be of interest to scholars of theology and philosophy, specifically analytic theologians and philosophers of religion. Daniel H. Spencer received his PhD from the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, UK. He is a minister in the Church of Scotland, having served most recently at Menzieshill Parish Church, Dundee.

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Impeccability and Temptation Understanding Christ’s Divine and Human Will Edited by Johannes Grössl and Klaus von Stosch Forgiveness and Atonement Christ’s Restorative Justice Jonathan C. Rutledge The Church and the Problem of Divine Hiddenness Mirrors of God Derek S. King Theological Perspectives on Free Will Compatibility, Christology, and Community Edited by Aku Visala and Olli-Pekka Vainio For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Routledge-Studies-in-Analytic-and-Systematic-Theology/book-series/ RSAST

Forsaking the Fall

Original Sin and the Possibility of a Nonlapsarian Christianity

Daniel H. Spencer

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Daniel H. Spencer The right of Daniel H. Spencer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-38813-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-38814-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-34691-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913 Typeset in Times New Roman by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

To my wife, Sara, and to our children, Perpetua, Valentine, and Sofia, the spelling of whose name is now set in stone.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgementsx Introduction1 PART I

The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition

11

1 Original Sin: A Historical and Theological Retrieval

13

2 Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man”

44

3 Romans 5:12–21: Adam or Christ?

68

PART II

Orthodoxy without Original Sin?

91

4 Sin: The Biblical Understanding

93

5 Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy: Whence Sin?

114

6 Salvation: Means and End

134

7 On Orthodoxy

158

8 Conclusion

181

References Index

187 201

Preface and Acknowledgements

The thought of writing this book originated on an empty, late-night bus to the Edinburgh Airport in December 2016 when I was still an MLitt student in St. Andrews. My wife of (then) only five months listened intently as I launched into a full-scale monologue, expatiating on a theological idea I had been kicking around for some time past. Knowing well my disinclination to exuberance, she could hardly fail to detect a certain animation in my voice, my features, my gesticulations, as I struggled to express “the thought” to her in any semi-articulate manner. Should I stay on for the PhD, she said, I had my thesis sorted. After the PhD began in September 2017, it took a further five months of slogging through an unrelated project I was less than enthusiastic about for me to realize this for myself. In due course, I notified my supervisor of my intention to shift gears and focus on the dialogue between hamartiology and evolutionary biology; to my surprise (and great relief), he seemed just as enthusiastic as I was. The original thesis outline was, of course, spectacularly overambitious; after writing the first chapter it was plain I had bit off perhaps four times more than I could reasonably chew in a single thesis. The evolutionary biology component would have to wait; the thesis was now about the Fall, Original Sin, and the very feasibility of an orthodox nonlapsarian project in the first place. That, in short, was the book’s origin; now a word of thanks must be extended to all of those who helped along the way. I am grateful, first of all, to Alan Torrance: in addition to (a) persuading me to study at the Logos Institute in St. Andrews and (b) encouraging me to apply to the PhD program, (c) the enthusiasm you consistently showed towards my project and (d) your unfailing moral support were crucial in seeing this work through to its completion. Similarly, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Josh Cockayne: your careful scrutiny of each and every bit of my thesis, as well as your supervisorial directive to rewrite one chapter and add a seventh, have resulted in a much better work. I would also like to thank Andrew Torrance and Gavin D’Costa for all the work that went into examining my thesis; in addition to carrying out graciously the manifold responsibilities typically levied upon examiners, you passed along some exceptionally helpful

Preface and Acknowledgements xi feedback which improved the overall quality of the book appreciably. I am grateful also to Oliver Crisp for several valuable conversations about this project, and to Ron Highfield who offered some very constructive feedback I was able to implement before sending in the final manuscript. A number of conferences, anonymous referees, work in progress sessions, and informal conversations also contributed to the production of this book. I thank the organizers of the Oxford Symposium on Religious Studies and Engaging the Contemporary 2019 in Valletta for the opportunity to present and receive vital feedback on parts of the book. Similarly, my thanks goes out also to the organizers of the Helsinki Analytic Theology Workshop, where I was able to present an early version of Chapter 6; I am grateful, too, to OlliPekka Vainio, Rope Kojonen, and Fellipe do Vale whose incisive questions and enthusiasm for my project in Helsinki were much appreciated—certainly you increased my confidence that I had something worth saying. I thank as well the organizers of the Evolution, Original Sin, and the Fall conference (virtually) in St. Louis for enabling me to present the argument of this book in a nutshell, and for helping to expose a number of the book’s (many) weak spots. I thank, too, various anonymous referees who provided much-needed feedback on earlier drafts of some chapters and the book proposal. I extend also a massive word of thanks to all those in St. Andrews whose comments, criticisms, encouragement, and camaraderie over the years contributed much to this work; in a very particular order I thank: Dennis Bray, Ewan Davies, Andy Everhart, Euan Grant, Parker Haratine, Preston Hill, Dru Johnson, Matt Joss, Kim Kroll, Joanna Leidenhag, Mitch Mallary, Christa McKirland, Ryan Mullins, Kevin Nordby, Stephanie Nordby, Tim Pawl, Jeremy Rios, Jonathan Rutledge, Tom Savage, Jason Stigall, Taylor Telford, and Koert Verhagen. I am also grateful to Matt Guillod for his moral support over the years, as well as for offering some very useful feedback on a chapter. Perhaps now the book is in print, he will make good on his intention to read it. Most importantly, I thank my wife Sara who, in many respects, sums up all the gratitude I have expressed here. She (supremely) ticks all the boxes: provider of moral support, provider of the encouragement necessary to apply to the MLitt and PhD, attend conferences, submit papers, etc., pedantic critic of my work, pair of listening ears, passionate question-asker, and so on and so forth. Thank you, dear. Finally, I want to convey my gratitude to J. T. Turner, Tom McCall, and Jordan Wessling, editors of Routledge Studies in Analytic and Systematic Theology, for agreeing to consider this work for publication in the series; in particular I would like to thank Jordan for walking me through the process and fielding a host of (probably amateurish) questions. To my commissioning editor Katherine Ong, and my production editor, Adam Guppy: you have been fabulous throughout—thank you for all your hard work. I also thank Iman Hakimi and Yuga R. Harini at Routledge, as well as anyone else there whose labor has gone into the production of this book.

xii  Preface and Acknowledgements The last thing I shall say is this: I am all too keenly aware that there are some relevant conversation partners I have not engaged in this work; in any academic composition the author is, unfortunately, forced to make difficult decisions about what to include and not include, whom to engage and not engage, and so on. With this is the related acknowledgement that the work is transparently imperfect in many respects, and that the inadequacies inevitably to be found within the text are, of course, all of my own doing. In great fear and trembling, then, do I relinquish the ability to make further alterations: quod scripsi, scripsi; let the work be what it will be. Daniel Spencer Menzieshill Parish Church July 2022

Introduction

The present work is at bottom a sustained, if somewhat lengthy, thought experiment. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the traditional doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin are mistaken. Would this state of affairs prove pernicious to the Christian faith more generally? In this book, I shall argue it is plausible to think the answer to this question is decidedly negative: a rejection of Original Sin is ultimately compatible with a realist, broadly orthodox Christian theology. Put somewhat more precisely, I shall attempt to demonstrate along exegetical, philosophical, and above all theological lines that it is reasonable to conclude the essence of the traditional Christian faith can remain unperturbed in the absence of the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin. The abandonment of Original Sin in Christian theology is, of course, by no means a novel idea. While relatively recent developments in, say, cosmology or evolutionary biology might be seen further to inspire a rethinking of Original Sin, the basic conceptual difficulties many encounter in the doctrine have been present from the very beginning. So, for instance, Tertullian, Ambrose, and Origen each tell of Marcionite bewilderment with respect to the Fall doctrine: “[they say] nothing of that sort could have happened if God had possessed these attributes of goodness and prescience and omnipotence” (Tertullian 1972, 2.5).1 Similarly, we find Augustine himself struggling mightily to make sense of what John Hick (1979, 180) calls the “self-creation of evil ex nihilo” in the lapse of the first sinner’s will from conformity with the good (Augustine 1887b, II.27.48). These objections and others have enjoyed revitalization in the modern period, both from within and without explicitly Christian theological circles.2 My primary concern here has precious little to do with the internal cogency of the doctrine of Original Sin. As such, I shall be prescinding from such questions here—for my purposes it may be assumed from the outset that all objections against the doctrine can indeed be answered satisfactorily. What I aim to accomplish, rather, has to do with the necessity of Original Sin in Christian dogmatics in the first place—how true is it, as Thomas McCall (2019, 203) has recently asserted, that “the fact of original sin is beyond dispute” for Christian theologians? DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-1

2  Introduction Understandably, recent scholarship involving the doctrine of Original Sin has often taken one of two general approaches. There is, on the one hand, what we might call the apologetic approach, a tactic embraced almost instinctively by orthodox Christian theologians. On these lines, one either attempts to establish the dogmatic necessity of Original Sin against theological revisionists,3 or else seeks to demonstrate that, rightly understood, some traditional version of the doctrine is defensible, consistent with the deliverances of other academic disciplines, be it philosophy, psychology, biology, or theology itself.4 What is essential to this perspective, it seems to me, is the insistence on the inalienable primacy of certain interpretations of special revelation, whether manifesting itself in established readings of various biblical texts, or in the authoritative teaching of the magisterium. Whatever the results of other disciplines, however doubtful the prima facie plausibility of Original Sin, the fundamentals of orthodoxy have been set and must therefore resist substantive modification, to say nothing of forthright rejection. On the other hand there is what I shall dub the (strongly) revisionist approach.5 As the name suggests, its proponents often seek eagerly to adjust the substance of the Christian faith in light of contemporary intellectual currents, frequently contending that whatever is meant by “traditional Christianity” can no longer be believed. Over against the apologetic stance, advocates of this approach are often candid in their disregard for the biblical or magisterial witness surrounding Original Sin, calling out boldly and unabashedly in Voltaire’s famous catchphrase, écrasez l’infâme! So, for instance, we find a (not inconsiderable) number of Roman Catholic theologians who heed Teilhard de Chardin’s call for a superseding “hyper-orthodoxy” (1979, 183) necessitating an “extensive metamorphosis of the notion of original sin” (36), thus helping to fashion a theological vision quite alien to that of the mainstream Christian Church down through the ages.6 Should a scientific discovery or widely held philosophical opinion call into question this element of historical Christianity, they say, so much the worse for orthodoxy. What is largely missing from the academic literature, however, is a middle course between these two options, one which at once holds in high regard the scriptures and doxastic traditions of the church, yet also is open to the possibility of serious theological adjustment with regard to Original Sin. The question which has not, to my mind, received sufficient attention, then, is this: is there a way to reject the Fall and Original Sin whilst simultaneously remaining faithful to the orthodox Christian faith (broadly speaking)? Is a nonlapsarian Christianity exegetically, philosophically, and theologically viable?7 In this book, I intend to answer these questions in the affirmative, if only tentatively and provisionally: it is plausible that a rejection of Original Sin is compatible with a high estimation of the authority of scripture and with the traditional Christian faith more generally. Put more succinctly, my thesis is this: an orthodox nonlapsarianism is a legitimate possibility for Christian theology. This book should not be mistaken for an exhaustive, systematic rebuttal of each and every possible objection a nonlapsarian project faces;

Introduction 3 rather, I intend only to take a first step in this direction and address what I take to be the foremost concerns raised by any theological construct which rejects the Fall and Original Sin. And, as some of these concerns pertain to the foundations of an orthodox nonlapsarianism, this investigation will involve much more than mere response to various objections. In addition to this latter element, we shall also be inquiring into several key presuppositions such a project takes for granted—in effect, what sorts of questions need to be asked and answered before serious nonlapsarian theorizing begins?

Book Outline and Methodology This brings us to the structure and methodology employed in this study. In terms of structure, I shall proceed in two parts, the first of which contains three chapters and the second four chapters. Part I is dedicated to an investigation of the doctrine of Original Sin in scripture and tradition— what precisely has been meant by Original Sin, and what is its source in Christian theology? And granted that Original Sin is rooted at least to some degree in biblical teaching, how can a theologian desirous of remaining faithful to scripture dare to abandon the doctrine? The first step, I think, is to be as precise as possible about what we mean by Original Sin. If the ultimate aim is to establish the feasibility of a nonlapsarian Christianity, we ought to be crystal clear about what is—and is not—being rejected. A working knowledge of whence the doctrine arises in Christian theology—its sources and aspirations, motivations and aims—is likewise indispensable. Moreover, if the doctrine in question is one which seems to have secured the unanimous support of the church universal, awareness of this fact will underscore the importance of treading very carefully indeed. In short, Chapter 1 is devoted to a historical and theological retrieval of the doctrine of Original Sin—what is meant by it and where it comes from. Methodologically, I shall proceed by isolating the three most prominent currents of traditional thought on Original Sin and seek to extract from them their underlying unity. This kernel, or essence, of Original Sin to be uncovered will serve as our definition throughout the remainder of this study. Armed with an improved understanding of this venerable doctrine, we will advance to an evaluation of the two main biblical texts which, until recent times, have been taken almost universally by Christian theologians to ground the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin in scripture. Chapter 2 is dedicated to an investigation of the story of the “Fall” in Gen. 2–3 in conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gerhard von Rad, and Claus Westermann. There it will be argued not simply that the traditional reading of the narrative is problematic, but that any—even allegorical—interpretation which takes sin or rebellion to be the principal theme is vulnerable to several potent criticisms. Thus I will attempt to show that Original Sin finds at best an insecure basis in Gen. 2–3. The chapter will then conclude with a positive

4  Introduction (if controversial) suggestion as to the correct sense of the text. Exegetically, my approach in this chapter will presuppose the unity of the final redaction of Gen. 2–3 which we possess today. This synchronic approach may be expanded to include all of scripture if need be—the conclusions reached will hold even if it is insisted that Gen. 2–3 be read, say, in light of the revelation of God in Christ. Diachronic analysis of individual elements need not be eschewed—nor will it be here—but it is the text in our possession today which I take to be authoritative. The operative question throughout will be: how might this text have been understood by its authors and redactors? How by its original audience? If it can be shown plausible that Original Sin is not the subject matter of the text, it becomes appreciably less likely to suppose the doctrine finds support here. After this, in Chapter 3, we will turn our attention to the great Pauline proof text for Original Sin, Rom. 5:12–21. I shall begin, in fact, by arguing against the view which seems to be taken for granted by many today, viz., that St. Paul had no strong conception of Original Sin. I will contend that good sense can be made of Paul’s words only under the assumption that something very much like Seminal Identity or Corporate Personality is at play in this text. But if this is so, the widespread notion that Paul knows nothing of Original Sin is shown to be false, and so an alternative course around this biblical hurdle to the legitimacy of a nonlapsarian project must be charted. Exploring and defending the hermeneutical requirements involved in locating such a course is, in brief, the chief aim of Chapter 3. A key finding which will emerge from this discussion is that grounding Original Sin on Rom. 5 (and texts like it—e.g., 1 Cor. 15) hinges crucially on an oft-unstated hermeneutical presupposition which, if consistently applied, would likely lead to exegetical conclusions few would be inclined to accept. In terms of method, this chapter begins with a first-order evaluation of the text as written (which propositions are affirmed by the Apostle here?), and then moves on to engage critically the second-order hermeneutics we bring to bear on our reading of scripture: which propositions among the results of our first-order evaluation are to be taken as theologically authoritative, and on what grounds? Having considered these questions in some depth, the claim that Original Sin finds authoritative grounding in Rom. 5 will appear somewhat doubtful, or so I argue. The general conclusion of Part I will thus be that, though the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin are ostensibly vital to the theological tradition, the scriptural authority behind them is likely unstable. Inasmuch, therefore, as the traditional consensus is based on these two standard proof texts, the Christian theologian is not compelled to accept it. But there is more to the rejection of Original Sin than this; we must also ensure that the integrity of the Christian faith is not compromised. In particular, there is still the question of sin simpliciter: what is sin if not wanton insubordination, as some versions of Original Sin would have us believe? There is also the very germane question pertaining to the whence of sin

Introduction 5 absent a Fall doctrine: how might sin and evil enter a “very good” world created by a morally perfect God without a Fall? And, we must ask, does the rejection of Original Sin preclude a traditional understanding of the salvation we enjoy in Christ? These are the questions to which we shall address ourselves in Part II of this study. In Chapter 4, we shall inquire what the word “sin” is meant to connote in the first place, for here we fail to find a definite consensus amongst theologians. This is perhaps the more alarming given that sin is, for the biblical authors, supposedly the “main human trouble” (Plantinga 1995, 3). In an attempt to clear up some confusion surrounding this most basic of Christian doctrines, then, I shall endeavor to exhume the biblical definition, or doctrine, of sin. For, even if we may safely do away with Original Sin, the idea of actual sin must be retained, and, for my purposes here, retained in such a way that both does justice to scripture and proves congenial to a nonlapsarian representation of the faith. What, then, is meant by sin, that enigmatic conditio sine qua non of redemption? The methodology employed in this chapter is straightforward. Using the Old and New Testaments as my sources, I survey the various usages of châṭâ’ and hamartia to be found in scripture and argue for a conceptual unity underlying these usages. With respect to these two words and cognates, no stone will be left unturned: while due to considerations of space much of the more tedious material will be omitted (the reader will be thankful), each and every biblical instance of châṭâ’ and hamartia will have undergone painstaking collation and categorization. From this I hope to nail down something of the essence of sin according to scripture, as well as to demonstrate its fundamental compatibility with a nonlapsarian Christian faith. But an even more pressing difficulty remains. Since the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin have often been employed with an eye to supplying a rational theodicy, to eliminate these might seem necessarily to entail that God is ultimately responsible for evil. Granted that sin and evil exist, where do they come from in a nonlapsarian creation? Chapter 5 is dedicated to a detailed discussion of these issues. Reviving an early twentieth century, nonlapsarian theory of the origin of sin, I will contend that there are no fewer than two possible ways out of the argument that rejection of Original Sin renders God unpalatably responsible for sin and evil. I shall focus my attention on the second of these two paths, arguing that the nonlapsarian theorist is no worse off than the defender of the Fall doctrine when it comes to theodicy. The chapter avoids committing the tu quoque fallacy insofar as no attempt is made to discredit the Fall theory or to assess its theodical (de)merits. The claim to be advanced is far more modest: theodicy does not become more problematic along nonlapsarian lines, as the objection contends. I shall therefore conclude that the obvious theodicy question is indeed answerable by the theologian who doubts the Fall and Original Sin. In Chapter 6, I shall address the question of a nonlapsarian soteriology: does such a project preclude an orthodox understanding of salvation in

6  Introduction Christ? Building on the insights gained from Chapters 4 and 5 specifically, I shall suggest that a participatory account of the atonement and the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis provide us with one very natural means of conceiving the ultimate fate of sin and redeemed human beings, respectively, within a nonlapsarian framework. This shall be no more than a suggestion, however, as contemporary debates surrounding these issues are notoriously complex and require far more attention than what I am able to provide in this book. This penultimate chapter, rather, will serve primarily to show that there is a readily available—and unmistakably orthodox—soteriology for anyone who wishes to tread the path of a nonlapsarian Christianity. The proposition here is merely a compatibility claim, intended to show that traditional Christianity is not inconsistent with a rejection of Original Sin on the soteriological front. Finally, Chapter 7 is dedicated to addressing a question which will doubtless occur to the reader throughout the book: what precisely is meant by “orthodox” Christianity? The question is, of course, a particularly thorny one, and on many conventional accounts of orthodoxy the suggestion of a nonlapsarian project would be positively laughable. In this final chapter, then, I propose a standard for orthodoxy which, though fairly broad, nevertheless preserves (indeed demands) the realist theological core which both gave rise to the worship and mission of the early church, and, eventually, sought shelter in the ecumenical councils and creeds. I shall here utilize and expand Cyril O’Regan’s account of biblical narrative grammar and Sameer Yadav’s account of Christian doctrine as ontological commitment to a narrative to serve as the foundation for orthodoxy, employing in particular the work of N. T. Wright on the historical Jesus to bolster the aforementioned two accounts. After exploring this standard, or rule, in some depth, I will conclude with a word on the commensurability of orthodoxy so understood with a nonlapsarian theology. And so shall our expedition come to its appointed end. Before we begin, a brief word on some of the general theological positions this book takes for granted. In a work of this length, it is of course inevitable that not all such presuppositions will be adequately spelled out; some of these presuppositions I have touched on elsewhere, and others are merely intuitive or perhaps uncritically inherited, to be defended explicitly at a future date. An assessment of the cogency of these theological beliefs I leave to my readers; my task at present is only to state them plainly so as to forestall any confusion or objections which might arise along the way. First, I make two key assumptions about scripture. (1) By “scripture” I mean, for better or for worse, the Protestant Bible. I am confident my arguments may be sustained with the use of other canons, too, but for my purposes here I shall simply stipulate that “scripture” refers to the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible and the 27 books of the traditional New Testament canon. (2) I assume that scripture is in some strong sense authoritative and foundational for our theologizing. A precise doctrine about the inspiration

Introduction 7 of scripture is not needed for my argument to succeed, but the rationale for including some aspects of this book (most notably, Chapters 2 and 3) involves, I think, some fairly robust idea of biblical inspiration, whatever that may ultimately mean. Secondly, I take for granted that God is good (or Goodness itself), and that he desires our good and therefore is concerned preeminently with moral rectitude in the human sphere. This should not be controversial, but it is a presupposition all the same and so I state it here (it will come out especially at the end of Chapter 4). Third, it has been pointed out to me that various aspects of this project imply an appreciably high view of God’s sovereignty and providence.8 With this is the related presupposition that God is metaphysically ultimate and therefore not finite in any respect; I am not sure how germane these final theological assumptions will be for the argument of my project as a whole, but I bring them to the attention of the reader all the same. Lastly, I shall emphasize that I make no pretentions of providing anything minutely resembling a contribution to the problem of evil and its solution; such an endeavor would, needless to say, take us much too far afield. The closest I come to such a discussion is in Chapter 5 where the issue of theodicy features centrally; there, however, I seek only to show (1) that an evolutionary account of sin’s origin does not necessarily make God responsible for individual instances of human evil, and (2) why the Fall doctrine, too, leaves the problem of evil substantially unaddressed. The issue of attempting to justify God’s choice in actualizing this particular world I leave wholly untouched, save for a brief remark pertaining to the fundamental inscrutability of this choice to the human mind. This is what I mean when I say I shall be prescinding from questions of theodicy. As will be evident from the chapter summaries above, this book sits at the intersection of biblical studies, philosophy, and theology. As I see things, the former two disciplines are absolutely essential when it comes to reflection on and clarification of the content of revelation (that is, theology): as we shall see in Chapter 7, our understanding of the self-revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the gospel of the kingdom the latter established and proclaimed, hinges critically on a certain definite rendition of the narrative and propositional content enshrined within the pages of the Old and New Testaments; accordingly, should our theological positions conflict with (or, in the present case, fail to be decisively supported by) the biblical data, it may be reasonable to rethink them. Once the propositional content gleaned from scripture has been clarified, the tools of analytic philosophy are especially handy in spelling out the relevant ontological and metaphysical commitments implied; they are also useful in demonstrating which theological a prioris may or may not be warranted. For instance, Chapter 5 will employ analytic philosophical methods to show that a common theological assumption surrounding nonlapsarian projects is largely unwarranted. Put simply, to admit the importance of the biblical data, clarity of thought, and

8  Introduction logical rigor in our theologizing just is to endorse exegetically and philosophically engaged theology. That is the sort of project I am attempting here: an analytic-exegetical theological exploration of the dogmatic necessity of Original Sin. As we begin, I should also like to stress that this study is intended to be, above all, edifying. As Kierkegaard (2008, 1) says, the work that fails to edify is “for that very reason un-Christian,” and so I implore the reader to proceed with this in mind. With these disclaimers in place we may safely embark on the journey succinctly outlined above.

Notes







1 See Stevenson (1957, 105) for Ambrose and Origen on Marcion’s disciple Apelles. 2 From within, see, e.g., Schleiermacher (see Pedersen [2020], 37–46) and Tennant (1902), 1–39. From without, see, e.g., Kant (1934, 38–39). 3 A classic example of this may be consulted in N. P. Williams’s (1929) magisterial Brampton Lectures (see lectures VII and VIII, as well as Additional Note E). For a concise rehearsal of some of these issues in more recent discussions, see, e.g., Reeves and Madueme (2014) and Smith (2017). See Blocher (1997) for a more exegetically minded argument to this effect. 4 The literature which may be cited here is vast. For recent analytic work on the subject, see, e.g., Rea (2007), Kemp (2011), Hudson (2009), Hudson (2014), Crisp (2015), Green and Morris (2020), Macdonald (2021), and Loke (2022). 5 As Gavin D’Costa has (correctly) urged, there is a very real sense in which my own project is also “revisionist,” especially if considered against, say, Roman Catholic orthodoxy (hence the qualifier “strongly”). 6 “No older religious form or formulation,” Teilhard pronounces, “can any longer (either factually or logically) satisfy to the full our need and capacity for worship …. [S]o true is this, that a ‘religion of the future’ (definable as a ‘religion of evolution’) cannot fail to appear before long: a new mysticism, the germ of which … must be recognizable somewhere in our environment here and now” (1979, 240). For a similar current in two of Teilhard’s theological heirs, see Haught (2008, 145ff.); Delio (2011, 104). 7 Two recent works are notable for suggesting this via media as a potential way forward. Daniel W. Houck’s (2020) “new Thomist view” explicitly allows for nonlapsarian theorizing (see Chapter 7), while, even more recently, William Lane Craig (2021, 5–6) has spoken positively about the possibility of a nonlapsarian orthodoxy. It would seem there is a growing consciousness of the possibility, even desirability, of the nonlapsarian option among orthodox philosophers and theologians. 8 Joshua Cockayne brought this to my attention very early on in this project— many thanks to him for making this explicit.

References Augustine. 1887. On Marriage and Concupiscence. Translated by Peter Holmes and Robert Ernest Wallis, and revised by Benjamin B. Warfield. In Nicene and PostNicene Fathers, First Series, edited by Philip Schaff, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co.

Introduction 9 Blocher, Henri. 1997. Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. Craig, William Lane. 2021. In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Crisp, Oliver D. 2015. “On Original Sin.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17 (3): 252–266. doi: 10.1111/ijst.12107. Delio, Ilia. 2011. The Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Green, Adam, and Joshua Morris. 2020. “Living Within Our Limits: A Defense of the Fall.” Journal of Analytic Theology 8: 371–389. doi: 10.12978/jat.2020-8. 061713121418. Haught, John F. 2008. God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. New York: Routledge. Hick, John. 1979. Evil and the God of Love. Glasgow: William Collins Sons. Houck, Daniel W. 2020. Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, Hud. 2009. “Fission, Freedom, and the Fall.” In Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, edited by Jonathan L. Kvanvig, vol. 2, 58–79. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hudson, Hud. 2014. The Fall and Hypertime. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1934. Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. Translated by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co. Kemp, Kenneth W. 2011. “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85 (2): 217–236. doi: 10.5840/acpq201185213. Kierkegaard, Søren. 2008. The Sickness Unto Death. Translated by Alastair Hannay. New York: Penguin Books. Loke, Andrew. 2022. Evil, Sin, and Christian Theism. London: Routledge. Macdonald, Paul A. Jr. 2021. “In Defense of Aquinas’s Adam: Original Justice, the Fall, and Evolution.” Zygon 56 (2): 454–466. doi: 10.1111/zygo.12692. McCall, Thomas H. 2019. Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Pedersen, Daniel J. 2020. Schleiermacher’s Theology of Sin and Nature: Agency, Value, and Modern Theology. Oxford: Routledge. Plantinga, Cornelius. Jr. 1995. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Rea, Michael C. 2007. “The Metaphysics of Original Sin.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter Van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman, 319–356. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reeves, Michael, and Hans Madueme. 2014. “Threads in a Seamless Garment: Original Sin in Systematic Theology.” In Adam, the Fall, and Original Sin: Theological, Biblical, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Hans Madueme and Michael Reeves, 209–224. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Smith, James K. A. 2017. “What Stands on the Fall? A Philosophical Exploration.” In Evolution and the Fall, edited by William T. Cavanaugh and James K. A. Smith, 48–64. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Stevenson, J., ed. 1957. A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church to A.D. 337. London: SPCK.

10  Introduction Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. 1979. Christianity and Evolution: Reflections on Science and Religion. Translated by René Hague. New York: Harcourt. Tennant, F. R. 1902. The Origin and Propagation of Sin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tertullian. 1972. Adversus Marcionem. Translated and edited by Ernest Evans. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Williams, N. P. 1929. The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: A Historical and Critical Study. London: Longmans, Green and Co.

Part I

The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition

1

Original Sin A Historical and Theological Retrieval

We shall begin with an approximate definition of Original Sin to be clarified at length in this first chapter. By “Original Sin” I mean, roughly, that family of views which aims to account for the ubiquity of sin, evil, death, and suffering through an appeal to a primordial “Fall” from an initial state of innocence, goodness, or perfection, whether this Fall be taken in an allegorical sense or no.1 It might be supposed that the removal of such a doctrine (or something very much like it) would be to dismantle a central pillar of Christianity, and with it, perhaps, the edifice of the Christian religion as a whole.2 The purpose of Part I is to contest this claim along biblical lines. In order to accomplish this, however, it is first necessary to spell out in depth what exactly Original Sin is, and, what is equally important, to uncover its biblical and extra-biblical foundations. Only then may it be possible safely to discard the doctrine in question, if indeed this can be done at all. In one sense, then, my enquiry in this study will proceed along the following three lines: (1) The nature of Original Sin—what is meant by it? (2) The biblical foundations of the doctrine—where does it come from? Are these foundations sound? (3) The repercussions of abandoning Original Sin—does its rejection damage the substance of the Christian faith? The present chapter is concerned mainly with (1). Chapters 2 and 3 are dedicated to a critical evaluation of the primary biblical foundations of Original Sin, thus pertaining to (2). This will then serve as a springboard for addressing (3) more fully in Part II of this study. Space constraints will not, of course, permit an exhaustive overview of the development of the doctrine in question.3 Alongside this disclaimer I must add that the present chapter is not to be mistaken for an essay in the history of ideas; we are, rather, concerned with a historical and theological retrieval of a general concept, which has well-nigh woven itself inextricably into the very heart of Christian self-understanding. As retrieval specifically rather than historical investigation, I will limit my discussion to the three most prominent approaches to the doctrine which, fortuitously, can be seen to represent, in ethos if not in actual fact, the three great branches of the universal Church that together constitute nearly the entirety of the world’s Christian population:4 the Greek view, or the approach of the Greek DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-3

14  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition Fathers, whose general “doctrine”—inasmuch as it may be so called—is that of Eastern Orthodoxy; the Augustinian view, which corresponds very roughly to traditional Protestantism—or, more precisely, those branches which stem from Luther, Calvin, and the Anglican Church; and what I call the Privation view, which in its refined form remains the teaching of Rome to this day. From these three traditions will emerge the contours of a broader and more ecumenical account of the doctrine—that is to say, a general theory of Original Sin whose formal elements would be embraced by the overwhelming majority of leading Christian thinkers throughout history. A specific theory, such as that of Augustine, would fall under this wider category of Original Sin as species to a genus; it is the genus to which the name “Original Sin” will apply throughout the course of this study. To the first of these species we turn without further ado.

1.1  The Greek View 1.1.1  Preliminary Considerations Establishing a precise doctrine of Original Sin as articulated by the Greek Fathers5 is rendered problematic by the confluence of several related factors. There is, on the one hand, the difficulty raised by Tatha Wiley (2002, 6) that, prior to Augustine, there was not so much a rudimentary shared understanding of Original Sin, eventually to be formalized in more exact terms, as there was an assortment of relatively discrete “fragments” of a later tradition.6 These fragments, though doubtless harmonizing with one another in various important respects, were rather too sporadic and incidental to the primary focus of a given text to count as genuine systematic investigation into the roots of human sinfulness.7 Even so, I think it is clear that later generations of the Greek Fathers ultimately arrived at sufficiently robust ideas about the Fall and Original Sin, and so I work under the assumption that, in spite of sustained disagreement concerning particulars, there is adequate warrant for extracting a generalized “spirit” of Original Sin from their writings. My hope is that by the end of this section, the reader will rather easily be able to detect this spirit I have labeled the Greek view. But more fundamentally, there is a very serious question pertaining to the suitability of employing the expression “Original Sin” with reference to the Greek Fathers at all. It is frequently remarked, for instance, that the East has no conception of what has become known as “Original Guilt”—that is, the theory that holds “the sin of the first man is legally imputed to his descendants” such that each human is born “subject to the personal guilt of and responsibility for the primal sin” (Williams 1929, 72–73). Accordingly, it is argued, there can be no talk of a genuine Eastern doctrine of Original Sin.8 But two things must be said here, both of which will be demonstrated more fully in due course. First, it is far too narrow-minded to insist that the doctrine of Original Sin cannot exist apart from its more ostentatious

Original Sin 15 Augustinian expression. Original Sin, I contend, in no way necessitates Original Guilt; therefore, in the relative absence of the latter, a Western version of the doctrine might well approximate the Greek view at least as closely as it does the Augustinian view the Orthodox are specially keen to disavow. Second, and more controversially, it is not entirely clear that Original Guilt is wholly absent from Greek thought in the first place.9 Consequently, a key aim of this chapter is to dispel the illusion that East and West are fundamentally at odds on the question of Original Sin.10 One can reasonably maintain there is, for instance, an “unbridgeable chasm” dividing the moral optimism of the Greeks and the pessimism of the Augustinians (Julius Gross quoted in Vandervelde 1981, 7n35), but to conclude from this that there is no trace of Original Sin in the Greek Fathers seems to me to beg a rather important question. For it may be the case that the Greek view differs from the Western doctrines only in degree and not in kind, the truth of which claim I intend to make plain here. To this end, we will consider but three very different thinkers who, despite considerable diversity in the specifics, manifest an underlying unity of thought all the same. 1.1.2  Tatian the Assyrian We begin our investigation with the second century disciple of Justin Martyr and composer of the Diatessaron, Tatian the Assyrian. Though fairly sparse, Tatian’s writings on Original Sin supply a natural starting point for our inquiry inasmuch as he is, in the words of F. R. Tennant (1903, 278), “the first ecclesiastical writer to ascribe consequences other than mere physical death to the fall of the first parents of the race.”11 Tatian’s doctrine, found in Oratio ad Graecos, begins with an anthropological consideration. He avers that there are two varieties of spirit in human beings: the soul (psyche), which in itself is mortal, and the image and likeness of God, the higher “immortal principle” through which we can be said to “[share] in a part of God” (Tatian 1885, 7; cf. 12, 13). However, when the first man freely capitulated to “one who was more subtle than the rest” (7)—a clear allusion to Gen. 3:1—the higher spirit departed from the recalcitrant soul, and so humans became mortal and forfeited all but a mere “spark” of the divine image (7, 13). Now, especially in light of his exhortation to “seek for what we once had, but have lost” (referring to the Holy Spirit) (15), some commentators have insisted that Tatian held “almost exactly” to a Scholastic doctrine of Original Sin (Williams 1929, 176), with the emphasis resting squarely on the “donum superadditum of the presence of the Holy Spirit” (Tennant 1903, 279). While this is unquestionably one possible reading, there is another which is, I think, strongly implied by Tatian’s dual-spirit anthropology outlined briefly above: there does appear to be some indication that the higher spirit, the image of God, was at the first an integral part of human nature qua human.12 Thus, we read that man is not “merely a rational animal, capable of understanding

16  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition and knowledge …. But man alone is the image and likeness of God” (Tatian 1885, 15). There thus may be, in Tatian’s mind, an unfallen state subsequent to which humans must live bereft of an essential component of their nature. If this is correct, we may say that in Tatian we encounter a faint anticipation of an Augustinian-cum-Reformation corruption of nature in addition to, perhaps, a Scholastic privation view in embryonic form. In short, there is very clearly something in Tatian’s thought, which evokes the more familiar Western doctrines of Original Sin. But, in line with the majority of early Greek writers, human free will appears to remain largely unimpaired after the Fall: while we have “manifested wickedness” and in some sense have become enslaved to sin, we are nevertheless “able again to reject it” (11). 1.1.3  Irenaeus of Lyons From here we move on to the treatment of the Fall and Original Sin propounded in the writings of Irenaeus. While his discussion of these is certainly far more comprehensive and developed than what we find in his predecessors, it must be emphasized that, in Irenaeus, we are still very much in the business of compiling and synthesizing somewhat unconnected “fragments.”13 Accordingly, the Bishop of Lyons is not always totally selfconsistent; moreover, his lack of complete perspicuity has had the effect of driving equally able interpreters to radically different conclusions.14 Still, upon close examination, several main themes clearly emerge, enabling a definite sketch of Irenaeus’s thinking about the Fall of the human race. Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of the Irenaean doctrine is the repeated emphasis on our first parents’ naïveté and, consequently, their attenuated culpability for the primal sin of disobedience to the divine command.15 Never, it must be urged, does Irenaeus imply that Adam and Eve’s transgression was anything other than sin; sin it certainly was, a judgment virtually necessitated by his unflinching allegiance to St. Paul and, in particular, the latter’s remarks in Rom. 5 (see, e.g., 1885a, III.18.7, III.21.10, III.23.8). But this observation must be heavily qualified by the sheer innocence Irenaeus attaches to the primordial couple: “man was a child, not yet having his understanding perfected; wherefore also he was easily led astray by the deceiver” (1920, 12). And again, “there was in them an innocent and childlike mind. … they were not ashamed, kissing and embracing each other in purity after the manner of children” (1920, 14; cf. 1885a, IV.38.1). Thus, we are not surprised to find Irenaeus attributing the bulk of responsibility for the Fall to Satan (1920, 16; 1885a, III.23.1), the “ringleader of the apostasy” (1885a, IV.40.1); nor, for that matter, are we particularly startled when he suggests that the sin of Cain is far more egregious than that of the first man (1920, 17). In short, we are dealing with a largely amoral Adam, one who cannot as yet effectively discriminate between good and evil, and not the glorious, angel-like being of later speculation. We may thus cautiously approve the words of N. P. Williams (1929, 195) when he says, “the Adam

Original Sin 17 of Irenaeus belongs, in respect of his moral status, to the category of hominidae or ‘sub-men’ rather than to that of homo sapiens.” He must, it seems, learn obedience only gradually, and in cooperation with God’s love “overcome the substance of created nature” (Irenaeus 1885a, IV.38.4).16 Innocuous though the first sin might formally have appeared, however, the consequences of Adam and Eve’s disobedience proved quite serious, not to say disproportionately so. For as a result of their transgression, the man and his wife were cast out of Paradise (1920, 16)17 and procured the sentence of death for all their posterity (1885a, III.22.4, IV.22.1; 1920, 31).18 Moreover, their sin brought forth all manner of suffering and toil (1920, 17), enslaved mankind to the devil (e.g., 1885a, III.8.2), and perhaps even effected man’s general condition of sinfulness as well.19 Here, we step decisively away from what Harnack has called Irenaeus’s “apologetic and moralistic” approach (Tennant 1903, 285–286)—wherein Adam’s sin is light and practically inevitable—and come to the famed doctrine of recapitulation (anakephalaiosis). An extended quotation will, I hope, give us the gist of this idea: For as by one man’s disobedience  sin  entered, and death obtained [a place] through sin; so also by the obedience of one man, righteousness having been introduced, shall  cause life to fructify in those persons who in times past were dead (Rom. 5:19). And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil … and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for all things were made by Him, and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating  Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself]. (Irenaeus 1885a, II.21.10) In short, who the first man was and what he did is “summed up” or recapitulated in the second man of heaven, that is, Christ. This notion of “recapitulating Adam” leads Irenaeus, in Book V of Against Heresies, to conceive of humanity as a unified organism which, in some sense, fell collectively in the first man: he speaks of his descendants being “all dead” in Adam (V.1.3), and later surmises that we have offended God in Adam (V.16.III). He goes on to assert that we sinned against God in the beginning (V.17.1), and that “by means of a tree we were made debtors to God” (V.17.3 [emphasis mine]). And so on (e.g., V.12.3, V.21.1). As Tennant (1903, 289) points out, Irenaeus is not necessarily wedded to this idea in a realistic sense—rather, he may only mean to align himself with St. Paul’s apparently “mystical” intentions in Rom. 5 vis-à-vis redeemed humanity’s collective incorporation under the head of Christ. However this identification be rationalized, though, it is difficult to escape the impression that Irenaeus is at least in part presaging the Augustinian theory of “Seminal Identity”: “Adam represented humanity precisely because, at the time of his Fall, he was humanity” insofar as the entire human race was present in his seed (Williams 1929, 197). This is where

18  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition Williams again departs from Tennant: “I must needs think,” he says, “that a rude and inchoate form of [Seminal Identity] is implicit in [Irenaeus’s] frequent use of the phrase ‘in Adam’ to describe the rationale of man’s subjection to sin and death” (1929, 197).20 While to attribute to Irenaeus anything too extravagant here would be to commit a serious anachronism, Williams’s judgement appears to be sound. As with Tatian, then, there is also in Irenaeus at least a modest association with later, Western formulations of Original Sin.21 As we “sum up” the Irenaean doctrine, it is only fair to tip the scales back the other way slightly. For what we have not yet had occasion to touch on is the bishop’s staunch commitment to a high estimation of humans’ freedom of will, rather a commonplace in what we have dubbed the “Greek view” (Vandervelde 1981, 3–7). For Irenaeus, the “ancient law of human liberty” is absolute: “all men are of the same nature, able both to hold fast and to do what is good; and, on the other hand, having also the power to cast it from them and not to do it” (1885a, IV.37.1–2; cf. IV.4.3, IV.39.3). We retain the power of choice between good and evil; furthermore, any potential guilt our incorporation in Adam implies must be carefully balanced with the passages indicating that each person brings sin upon himself.22 Consequently, any hasty identification of Irenaeus with future generations of Western thinkers is bound to miss the mark. The relative innocence of the first human pair, the theme of gradual moral development, and the inviolability of human freedom together are enough to distance Irenaeus from a thinker like Augustine. That said, his close adherence to a traditional reading of Gen. 3 and Rom. 5 and his rudimentary doctrine of “Seminal Identity” amply attest to an underlying kinship with the latter’s thought. We can therefore say with confidence that Irenaeus is, as far as Original Sin is concerned, an important bridge between East and West. 1.1.4  Gregory of Nyssa To round out our discussion of the Greek View, we turn to the youngest of the three Cappadocians, Gregory of Nyssa. While Gregory does not leave us without some ambiguity regarding his opinions on Original Sin, he can justly be credited with investigating the doctrine more systematically than any Greek Father before him, excepting Origen and, perhaps, Irenaeus. The main difficulty in assessing Gregory’s conclusions can be attributed to a shift in theological orientation sometime shortly after the publication of his treatise De Opificio Hominis. Whereas the latter was largely philosophical in nature and was intended to supplement the work of his brother Basil, Gregory’s Great Catechism was written with blatantly apologetic motives, aspiring to repel above all the advance of various gnostic heresies (Gregory of Nyssa 1893a, prologue; Williams 1929, 274). With this “orientation shift” in mind, we will follow Williams in adumbrating briefly these two differing strands of thought.23

Original Sin 19 One striking feature of De Opificio Hominis is Nyssen’s hesitancy and circumspection about the Fall doctrine. He insists, for instance, that we are here dealing with “conjectures and similitudes,” urging that we “not set forth that which occurs to our mind authoritatively” (1893b, 16.15; cf. 16.4, 17.2). This caution, we shall soon see, makes way for apologetic assurance and necessity. Speculating largely on the significance of the imago Dei in Gen. 1:27, Gregory begins by arguing that only those qualities and attributes predicable of divinity can be said to pertain to the divine image in mankind (5; cf. 18.1). But this immediately raises a pressing issue: “How then is man, this mortal, passible, shortlived being, the image of that nature which is immortal, pure, and everlasting?” (16.4) The answer is, though by no means obvious, relatively straightforward: there are two creations of human beings spoken of in Gen. 1:27, and not just one. There is the “Prototype” or archetypal imago Dei, the immortal, everlasting, and sexless being (16) of whom Gregory can only speak as virtually angelic (17.2–5); and then there is the departure from the Prototype: the intermingling of the divine, rational nature with the “irrational life of brutes”—that is, the sexually differentiated, passible sort of human life with which we are well acquainted today (16.9; cf. 8.4–6).24 Man is, for Gregory, “a Janus-like creature, with two faces, one bearing the ‘image of God,’ the other the image of the brutes” (Williams 1929, 272; cf. Gregory of Nyssa 1893b, 18.3). What prompted the “second creation”? Here, too, Gregory is clear. Knowing through his foreknowledge that human will would fail to “keep a direct course to what is good,” God “formed for our nature that contrivance for increase which befits those who had fallen into sin, implanting in mankind, instead of the angelic majesty of nature, that animal and irrational mode by which they now succeed one another” (1893b, 17.4). It was God’s anticipation of humanity’s “declension from the angelic life” (17.4) and His enduring desire for the multiplication of humankind, then, which occasioned the “second creation.” Moreover, Gregory indicates that the reason for this “declension” was an “inclination to material things” (17.5; cf. 20). While we might expect here a strong distaste for the animal “passions,” Gregory is in fact remarkably moderate. He recognizes, for instance, that the brutes are reliant on various passions for self-preservation (18.2), and even suggests, in a highly Platonic fashion, that virtue is born when reason “assumes sway over such emotions” (18.5). It is only when passion is unaided by the operations of intellect that evil arises (18.4). Nyssen’s earlier doctrine therefore denies that the inborn disorder of the soul is immediately attributable to the Fall, the consequences of which position will be discussed presently. Lastly, we might add that, in step with the main current in Greek thought, a robust freedom of the will is recognized (16.11). This characteristically Hellenic doctrine, however, would not suffice to counter the Oriental dualists, and so Gregory was promptly forced to rethink his position. In De Opificio Hominis, it would seem that the question of God’s relation to evil is not completely resolved. For if sin is, to a considerable extent,

20  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition tied inextricably to the passions of a created animal nature, it is arguably only a short step to the conclusion that the Creator Himself is ultimately responsible for evil.25 Having worked this out under heavy pressure from the gnostic menace, Gregory in his Great Catechism achieves a near reversal of his former diffidence with regard to the Fall doctrine. He now much more explicitly tracks the trajectory laid out in Genesis and is emphatic to the point of over-animation that sin and evil are in no way attributable to divine causation but are introduced through the misuse of free will. Sometimes the first man is charged as the culprit (e.g., 1893a, 5, 22); on other occasions, blame is cast upon “a certain power ordained to hold together and sway the earthly region,” that is, Satan (6). Evil is thus conceived of time and again in this work as a privatio boni, a willful “retrocession of the soul from the beautiful” (5).26 Thus, The Great Catechism is an excellent early example of the classic “Free Will Defense,” which at once combats both “amoral monism” and metaphysical dualism.27 Because a finite will alone is now ultimately answerable for the introduction of evil, Gregory is far more comfortable than he was previously in drawing out the disagreeable consequences of the Fall. Littered throughout the Catechism we find remarks which begin to approach Augustinianism in their willingness both to affirm a hereditary state of sinfulness, as well as to amplify the depravity of the first sin.28 The following few examples should suffice: sin has “fixed itself in the nature of mankind” (29) as a “congenital tendency to evil” (35). Humanity is spoken of as having “by a motion of our self-will … contracted a fellowship with evil” (8) and “revolted to the opposite side” (20). To this we can add that, in general, the sin attached to human nature is considered repeatedly in conjunction with the words “disease,” “sickness,” and “poison.” In sum, we have in Gregory a fairly robust expression of the Fall and Original Sin, neatly encapsulated in the final line of Chapter 6: “Thus it is that humanity is in its present evil condition, since that beginning introduced the occasions for such an ending” (6). It is therefore hard to disagree with Tennant (1903, 324) when he concludes that Gregory stood “at the threshold of the Augustinian era, and used the categories more akin to those of the great Father of the West.” While he patently did not go quite so far as Augustine, still we are obliged to concede that his thought ultimately tended in that direction.29 A Greek through and through, St. Gregory of Nyssa’s doctrine, too, bears indelible marks of the soon to come Latin formulations of Original Sin. 1.1.5  Concluding Remarks Before closing this segment of our study, it behooves us to consider the extent to which we may extract from the three writers surveyed above an approximate theory of Original Sin to serve as a fair representation of the Greek view. It will have been noted already that each “take”—for “theory” is perhaps too strong a word—is vastly idiosyncratic in the details. One

Original Sin 21 reason for my selection is precisely to highlight this diversity and expose the inadequacy of speaking of the Greek view as if it were a monolithic and clearly defined reality, developed meticulously through precise formulae and agreed upon by all. This it most certainly is not. As we have seen, the nearest approximation to precision came only as a result of staring the heretic directly in the face. Hence, due to the uniqueness of each individual—as well as our inability to examine other Greek Fathers for want of space—any alleged representation of the “Greek view” will be defective in many respects. That said, to hold there are no similarities, or that there is no fundamental agreement on the essentials would be profoundly to misapprehend the Greek mind on Original Sin. There is quite clearly an underlying spirit, at any rate, and anyone even vaguely acquainted with spirit well knows that, though it blows where it pleases, it always possesses the same unmistakable character. The most palpable manifestation of the Greek spirit can be mentioned first. Though we have not dedicated a sizeable amount of space to this, it should be clear that the Greek Fathers were rather sanguine about our postlapsarian moral capacities. Tatian, Irenaeus, and Nyssen, each in his own way, took an approach to free will, which from a Western perspective positively smacks of semi-Pelagianism. As to one central reason for this moral optimism, Vandervelde is insightful: Especially in view of the prevalence of Manichean and gnostic dualism of that time, it was of essential importance that the Fathers break the moral strangle hold of determinism. They succeeded in doing so mainly by falling back upon a certain goodness that man, as the image of God, retains. Although some of the Fathers speak of man’s likeness to God as being lost, except perhaps for some sparks, most hold that man’s natural image, usually equated with the powers of intellect and free will, remains essentially intact. (Vandervelde 1981, 3–4) This retention of a vigorous freedom of will is, I would maintain, the main point of contention between the Eastern and Western doctrines of Original Sin—it is the defining feature of the Greek view.30 To my mind, all other alleged disparities amount to a mere difference in emphasis, which is the second and more subtle indication of the presence of the Greek spirit. We can, perhaps, take the doctrine of Original Guilt as an illustration. It is possible to point to a writer like Tatian and, finding no trace of a hereditary imputation of Adam’s guilt, suppose that the East has nothing to do with the doctrine. Confirmation of this conclusion is then obtained by observing that Gregory of Nyssa does not share Augustine’s “heartless fanaticism” in consigning deceased, unbaptized infants to hell (Williams 1929, 297; cf. Kelly 1965, 349).31 But I see no reason to suppose such fanaticism really is a necessary component of Original Guilt: all that is needed is

22  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition our participation in Adam’s sin, a sharing—however obscure—in responsibility for the Fall. And this we patently encounter in Irenaeus, and even, to a degree, in each of the three Cappadocians themselves.32 Once again, I do not mean to overstate the similarities here—some Greek Fathers expressly repudiate Original Guilt (Weaver 1985), and we will soon see the Augustinian variety is comparatively extreme. But an extreme is an extreme of something, and presently this “something” is simply sharing in personal liability for the first sin, a belief we emphatically do witness percolating in the Greek mind, even if it is a considerably weaker and more rudimentary version of that claim.33 This relative mildness of the Greek view can be further corroborated by what we have already had occasion to relate. While at times the first man (or archetype of man as the case may be) is endowed with immortality, superhuman wisdom, and various other “angelic” attributes, one dominant trend in the East is to envision him as akin to a mere babe, “still feeble and undisciplined in the practice of things pertaining to God” (Irenaeus 1885a, IV.38.2). This, of course, tends toward the view that human responsibility for the introduction of sin and death is not terribly pronounced, a far cry from the later peccatum radicale motif we find, for instance, in the early Reformers (Schwöbel 2016, 33). We might add to this the general failure of the Greek Fathers to investigate Original Sin in any systematic depth or clarity, a datum that points unambiguously to the well-attested fact that they simply were not concerned with the issue in the way the Latin church came to be. The interests of the Greek Fathers were predominantly soteriological, and so in the absence of direct confrontation with heretics of various kinds, questions of Adam’s Fall and his legacy could only ever play an auxiliary role, or even vanish almost entirely behind the curtain before which the great drama of salvation in Christ was performed (Wiley 2002, 54–55). If the primal sin was not particularly important, it could not be catastrophic either. But, once more, the care and attention dedicated to Original Sin increased proportionally to the intensity of the threat posed by the Oriental dualists, and so it was only natural that, in time, the thought of some Greek Fathers would begin to resemble more and more the views that have come to characterize the West. They were able to do so precisely because the later conclusions were already there, in potentia, from the start. It might not be unreasonable to suppose, then, that, had the Greek Fathers been more concerned systematically to think Original Sin through, they may very well have found themselves alighting on Latin shores. Whatever we might wish to conclude about the details, however, all of the Greek Fathers took a unanimous stance on the bare bones: human beings have in some sense fallen from a previous state of innocence and effected the reign of sin and death.34 The biblical proof texts were always—and could only ever really be—from Gen. 2–3 and Rom. 5, as well as 1 Cor. 15. There was also, as we witnessed in Gregory, the occasional employment of Gen. 1:27, but this was both extraordinarily speculative and rare, and it tended at

Original Sin 23 any rate to weave itself seamlessly into the narrative of Gen. 3. Thus we have the Greek view—or, if you prefer, the Greek spirit—which, when all is said and done, can only honestly be seen as but one rather gentle version of the ecumenical doctrine of Original Sin.35

1.2  The Augustinian View It is now time we turn to that version of the doctrine we have already mentioned in passing several times before, the one typically understood when the words “Original Sin” are uttered, to wit, the famous theory of St. Augustine and his theological heirs. We are indebted to the Bishop of Hippo for being the first thinker intentionally and systematically to expound a bona fide doctrine of Original Sin. Under the roof of his theological mansion, we no longer find ourselves in the realm of fragment-collection and tentative extrapolation, but have rather a substantial corpus of easily accessible material relating directly to our subject matter.36 For this reason, it will not be necessary to consider at length the gradual procession which found its culmination in the thought of Augustine, nor need we spend too much time on his successors, most of whom possessed an attitude towards Original Sin which differed only triflingly from that of the great African Doctor. For the sake of increased consistency of thought as well as concision, we will consider his doctrine mainly as it stood later in life, tried by the fires of Pelagianism. In outlining the Augustinian view, we will discuss its three central components individually: (II.2) the original state and sin of the first human pair (peccatum originale originans); (II.3) the penalty of the first sin—that is, the condition into which subsequent generations of human beings are born (peccatum originale originatum); (II.4) Original Guilt and Seminal Identity in Adam. Before we proceed to discuss these, however, a brief explanation of concupiscentia in Augustine’s thought is in order, as his doctrine as a whole simply cannot be properly understood apart from it. 1.2.1 Concupiscence While a cursory read through some of his writings might indicate otherwise, the concept of concupiscence in the writings of St. Augustine is by no means wholly negative. At its most basic level, the word simply means “desire,” a translation of the Greek epithymia which is used no fewer than six times in a neutral or positive sense in the New Testament canon.37 Moreover, when used negatively in the New Testament, it is typically qualified either by adjectives such as evil, harmful, worldly (Col. 3:5; 1 Tim. 6:9; Tit. 2:12) or else with reference to sin or the “flesh.”38 Augustine is, in fact, well aware that concupiscence is not always debased: he tells us in On Marriage and Concupiscence, for instance, that there is a “concupiscence of the spirit against the flesh, and a concupiscence of wisdom” which “call for boasting” (1887b, II.10.23).39 It is, rather, carnal concupiscence40 that is both the source

24  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition of today’s personal sins and the guilt-laden punishment for the first sin, and therefore the special object of Augustine’s reprehension. This carnal concupiscence has been not inaptly defined as “the disordering of the whole person, body and soul” (Couenhoven 2005, 374; cf. Augustine 1957, V.4.17), and as “the bias or tendency towards sin” (Williams 1929, 328), where “bias” and “tendency” are understood as overwhelming desire against the good, in the soul no less than in the body. It is in this insistence that the soul, too, is disordered by carnal concupiscence that Augustine is able decisively to forswear the Manichaean dogma of the soul’s unadulterated goodness over against the depravity of the physical body. Now, despite Augustine’s emphasis on the presence of carnal concupiscence in all variety of sin,41 he pays special attention to sexual concupiscence, as it is, to his mind, the clearest manifestation of concupiscence on offer. Couenhoven elucidates this masterfully: for Augustine, Our sexual desires are not merely animal or biological …; they reach our deepest inner being. Yet these desires come and go without the permission or direction of the conscious will, and they are not properly oriented towards higher goods. Instead, they resist and distort reason. Indeed, at its height sexual pleasure prevents the use of reason at all. (Couenhoven 2005, 374) Since these desires lack orientation and “come and go” without direction, Augustine takes the essence of sexual concupiscence to be motus inordinatus or motus indecorus—“inordinate and indecorous motion” (1887b, I.8.9; cf. van Oort 1987, 384).42 These “rebellious movements” are uncontrollable (Augustine AJ III.21.49; cf. van Oort 2018, 8): reason and will are virtually impotent before the unruly passions. And because this applies uniformly to all manner of carnal concupiscence, St. Paul can equitably say, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Rom. 7:19) and, “I see in my members  another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Rom. 7:23; cf. Augustine 1887b, I.27.30; 1957, III.26.61). Concupiscence simply is the assortment of passions and desires by which the flesh wars against the spirit (1957, III.26.62). It only remains to be mentioned explicitly that, perhaps unsurprisingly, we do witness in Augustine a general revulsion towards man’s animal passions which can be said to approach, to some degree, the Manichaeism he formally renounced after ten years a practitioner (van Oort 2016; 2018).43 This, it will be noted, stands in sharp contrast to the rather moderate stance espoused by thinkers like Gregory of Nyssa, a view we had occasion to sketch above. 1.2.2  Peccatum Originale Originans Having tersely searched Augustine’s mind on concupiscence, we may now commence our exposition of his doctrine of Original Sin, beginning with

Original Sin 25 the original state and sin of Adam and Eve.44 We are informed that our first parents lived in a state of untold bliss, “agitated by no mental perturbations, and annoyed by no bodily discomforts” (1887a, XIV.10), and that they were totally free of carnal concupiscence (1887b, I.1.1, II.13.26; 1957, IV.14.69, V.15.55; cf. 1999, IV.26–27). Their initial constitution was unqualifiedly good as coming from the hand of their maker; consequently—and crucially—their will, too, was originally created upright (1887a, XIV.11).45 Furthermore, while not immortal by nature, Adam and Eve were nevertheless able not to die (poterat non mori) provided they remained in subjection to the will of the creator (Augustine 1982, VI.36; cf. 1887a, XII.21; 1887c, I.2; 1957, V.15.55; 1999, I.71). They were exceptionally wise and confirmed in virtue, and contained within themselves the potential never to sin—posse non peccare (Williams 1929, 362). In the beginning, then, Adam and Eve lived in a condition of unmitigated ecstasy and goodness in every respect for the simple reason that everything created by God must be wholly good, containing no admixture whatever of the privatio boni we call “evil” (1957, I.8.36). Precisely on account of the perfection of the original creation—and in particular the fact that the will was already oriented towards the good— Augustine can conceive of the first sin only as an act beyond all reason, an inexplicable lapse of righteousness and therefore a sin of unfathomable proportions (Couenhoven 2005, 366).46 So enormous was Adam’s sin, in fact, that by it human nature deservedly “became commensurately changed for the worse,” both for Adam and for all subsequent human beings (Augustine, 1887b, I.32.37; cf. 1887a, XIV.12; 1957, II.1.3). Because (carnal) concupiscence was absent before the Fall, the first sin was certainly a failure of will rather than an inability to tame the passions. And while this “evil will”47 must have preceded the transgression itself, Augustine considers that the evil will could only possibly have arisen through a movement of pride (superbia) in the soul (1887a, XIV.13).48 He muses, And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the  soul  abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. (1887a, XIV.13). If not for a prior incurvatus in se, the serpent’s temptation would have been coolly disregarded and disaster evaded—but alas, man had “already begun to live for himself” (1887a, XIV.13). This motif of prideful autonomy encapsulating the Fall narrative would henceforth enjoy a long and distinguished career in the history of Christian thought right through to the present day, a theme which will occupy our full attention in the next chapter. For now, however, it is enough simply to note that this primordial, tripartite sin— consisting of superbia, the deformed will, and the transgression of the divine

26  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition command—is what Augustine means by peccatum originale originans: it is the originating sin upon which all other sins follow49 and because of which we live in the unenviable condition to be discussed presently. 1.2.3  Peccatum Originale Originatum That the first sin unleashed widespread evil, suffering, and death in our world is taken for granted in the thought of Augustine. This follows not only from his interpretation of the relevant biblical passages but also from the perceived unseemliness of a benevolent deity inflicting shortcomings or imperfections upon a created nature from the first (1957, III.6.13). But the deleterious ramifications of the Fall stretch well beyond this for Augustine. He speaks not simply of an inborn weakness or malaise as do many of the Greek Fathers, but a veritable corruption of human nature.50 Though not utterly corrupt in the sense that there is no semblance of goodness remaining, still human nature has been vitiated to such a degree that only a sinful, quasi-human nature remains (1957, IV.9.54).51 The question as to the ontology of this corruption has been raised often enough: does Augustine merely speak of a revocation of certain divine gifts granted to our first parents, or has human nature itself become truly contorted?52 To this question I find I must concur with Couenhoven: while there does appear to be some forfeiture of what the Scholastics would call the donum superadditum (such as immortality and superhuman wisdom), nevertheless human nature itself is clearly “harmed in its very constitution” (2005, 367); hence, for instance, Augustine’s skepticism vis-à-vis a Ciceronian natural law approach to ethics (Augustine 1957, IV.3.19). The nature we perceive currently is but a shadow of the True; this true human nature, though formerly possessed by our first parents, is made known to us at present only in the person of Jesus Christ (1957, V.15.55). The reader will have predicted already that the constituent par excellence of this fallen human nature is carnal concupiscence, which, for Augustine, is intimately related to his concept of sin. If sin is, at bottom, “a turning away from the Creator” (Couenhoven 2005, 372),53 then concupiscence is that perversity by which the “turning” is both effected and confirmed in the individual human being.54 But, as we saw above, this perversity is allinvasive—the fallen human being is born with an intrinsic and insurmountable bias away from God, and therefore towards created beings in general and the self in particular.55 Ensnared in our amor sui, we are completely impotent with regard to virtue: we cannot not sin (necessitas pecandi) (Augustine 1999, V.50–51; Wiley 2002, 65).56 Even so ostensibly noble an act as clothing a naked man is sin if not performed devotionally, springing from amor Dei (Augustine, 1957, IV.3.30). Augustine never tires of citing St. Paul in this connection: “for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (Rom. 14:23). Thus morally depraved and totally at the mercy of concupiscence’s caprice, the human race persists as a massa perditionis,57 destined to

Original Sin 27 suffer eternal separation from God but for the saving intervention of Christ. Notoriously, this massa includes infants who die never having committed a personal sin at all, but we shall reserve this latter point for the next section. The last item I shall mention here is that, in addition to the introduction of carnal concupiscence, the intellect, too, is in some sense darkened as a consequence of the Fall (Couenhoven 2005, 381). But because for Augustine it seems so minor a concern relative to carnal concupiscence, I shall leave it as a general observation and move on, noting only that in the darkened intellect, too, we may well see the practical outworking of Augustine’s corruption doctrine, an important contrast with the Privation View to be discussed below.58 In any event, the foregoing remarks will suffice as an explanation of Augustinian peccatum originale originatum, that is, “Original Sin” as the inherited state or condition attaching to postlapsarian humanity. 1.2.4  Original Guilt and Seminal Identity We now turn finally to the oft-maligned doctrine of Original Guilt which, though by no means wholly foreign to the minds of earlier theologians both East and West, reaches its full flourish in the thought of St. Augustine. It will be recalled that Original Guilt is, at base, simply the belief that Adam’s sin and guilt are legally imputed to all successive human beings. Closely related to this theory and, indeed, its logical terminus a quo is the notion of humanity’s Seminal Identity in the first man Adam: we are subject to Adam’s guilt precisely because we were in some sense Adam, “seminally present” in his loins (cf. Heb. 7:9–10) when he revolted (Augustine 1887b, II.5.15).59 While it is certain that the widespread practices of infant baptism and exsufflation also suggested to the Saint the reality of an inescapable connatural guilt, this appears to be an altogether secondary consideration next to the biblical witness which, for Augustine, plainly articulates Seminal Identity, and therefore Original Guilt as well (see, e.g., 1957, IV.15.77).60 As is well known, Augustine is excessively fond of citing what he takes to be a “most fundamental teaching of the Apostle” (1957, VI.24.75), a lone verse from Rom. 5: “as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned (in quo omnes peccaverunt)” (v. 12).61 Here, Augustine argues, we are taught that the entirety of the human race was somehow present in Adam when he sinned; accordingly we are all complicit in his great sin and thus share in his guilt. With the amount of attention given to this verse in Augustine studies, it hardly need be mentioned that the italicized phrase above is, in all likelihood, a mistranslation of the Greek eph ho pantes hemarton—“because” or “inasmuch as all have sinned.” While, to forestall charges of incompetence against the likes of Jerome and Augustine, it is one possible—even plausible—translation,62 the consensus amongst scholars today is that the “eph ho pantes hemarton” clause is best rendered otherwise than what Augustine supposed (Moo 1996, 321–323).63 Still, “in quo omnes peccaverunt” was the translation

28  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition in the latter’s possession—and the one he defended explicitly against Julian of Eclanum’s more accurate translation (Augustine 1957, VI.24.75)—and so we should not be surprised to find that it exercised considerable influence over Augustine’s thought on Original Sin as a whole. But, if it might be granted me to indulge in a defense against the relentless onslaught of obsessive Augustine-bashers, we must never forget two things. First, blame for the “in quo omnes peccaverunt” mistranslation can hardly be cast exclusively upon the Bishop of Hippo: it is first the translation of Ambrosiaster, of Jerome and St. Ambrose; and, as I say, it is far from a preposterous translation of “eph ho pantes hemarton” in any case. Second, and more importantly, it is manifestly not the case that apart from Rom. 5:12 Augustine would have been unable to derive his radical version of Original Guilt. Much more shall be said along these lines in Chapter 3, but for now we can simply point out that the whole of Rom. 5:12–21 might be seen strongly to imply the doctrine.64 This is especially the case in verses 18 and 19, where we read that “one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people” and “through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners.”65 There is, furthermore, the point belabored not entirely unfairly (though not entirely fairly either)66 by Augustine himself: “It was not I who devised [Original Sin],” he says; on the contrary, the doctrine has been an axiom of the Catholic faith “from ancient times” (1887b, II.12.25). In defense of this thesis, he cites as embracing Original Guilt not solely Latin predecessors such as Cyprian, Hilary of Poitiers, and Ambrose, but also several Greek Fathers: Irenaeus, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom, along with various other Eastern bishops.67 Even so, it is clear that Augustine’s variety of Original Guilt is rather more severe than what we find in the East, if, indeed, its presence in the East be conceded at all. The clearest indication of this is what he has to say about infants who die prior to baptism: while their condemnation will be of the mildest variety (1887c, I.16.21), still they are “captive in the power of the devil” (1887b, I.20.22) and “strangers to this salvation and light, and will remain in perdition and darkness” until adopted as children of God through baptism (1887c, I.27.41). Though tempting to adjudge this “ruthless severity” and a “pitiless dogma” (Williams 1929, 405, 376, respectively), it must once again be emphasized that Augustine was in large part reflecting on the de facto practices of the ecumenical Church and following his premises through to their logical conclusions: that infants universally are exorcised, exsufflated, and baptized attests conclusively to an inheritance of Adam’s guilt (e.g., 1887b, II.2.4; 1957, III.3.8; 1999, I.50); moreover, it is not reasonable to suppose a just God would subject infants to suffering and death were they guilty of no crime (1957, VI.5.11). It is the Pelagian, he argues, who embraces a pitiless dogma: by “praising” the infants’ condition, he denies them salvation in Christ (1887b, II.35.60).

Original Sin 29 1.2.5  Concluding Remarks This concludes our review of the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin. While it would be something of an exaggeration to declare that this theory “has expressed the almost unanimous mind of the Church” (Tennant 1902, 4), still its massive influence is unmistakable, not least insofar as central components of the Augustinian doctrine were unequivocally endorsed by the Councils of Carthage (418) and Orange (529), and therefrom became the standard doctrine right through to the end of the eleventh century (Williams 1929, 397–398).68 Despite the slight—and then increasingly significant— modifications introduced by the likes of Anselm and the later Schoolmen, Augustinianism would ultimately preserve and even intensify its radical character, preeminently in the thought of the early Reformers and the subsequent denominational confessions of the 16th and 17th centuries. To sum up the Augustinian view: the first man and his wife were initially constituted in absolute purity, bliss, and goodness (Original Righteousness). Through the deceit of Satan and the mutiny of pride, they rebelled against their Creator (peccatum originale originans). This sin resulted in the revocation of certain divine gifts and, more seriously, the positive corruption and disordering of human nature, as well as the forfeiture of freedom vis-à-vis performing the good (peccatum originale originatum). Existing seminally in the first man (Seminal Identity), the human race inherited the guilt which proceeded from the aforementioned sin (Original Guilt), and ever stands in desperate need of a redeemer, without whom, again, the individual human person is utterly enslaved to the powers of sin and darkness (necessitas pecandi). This we might call the “classic” doctrine of Original Sin, though, I will emphasize once more, it is but one view of potentially many.

1.3  The Privation View The final version of Original Sin we shall investigate here is what I have called the Privation view, which is, in its essentials, the authoritative teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.69 While certainly every bit as important as the views we have already considered, we shall nevertheless dedicate comparatively little space to its formulation, and this for two reasons. In the first place, there is never any debate surrounding the categorization of the Privation view as a genuine theory of Original Sin. While it is popularly neglected by writers whose chief aim is to distance themselves from the “real” doctrine of Original Sin (i.e., Augustinianism), it is never argued that Aquinas, Scotus, or Bellarmine, say, fail to qualify as proponents of the doctrine;70 therefore we need not set aside any space for a defense of this thesis as we did for the Greek view. Secondly, the Privation view is neither the theory most people understand by “Original Sin” nor the one frequently subjected to particularly acrimonious criticism, and so no word of apology is required. We can, therefore, without too much hesitation simply trace its

30  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition main features and development. Excepting a brief note on the influence of St. Anselm, we begin with a consideration of Original Sin in the thought of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. 1.3.1  Thomas Aquinas The decisive turn away from the purely Augustinian conception of our doctrine, first lucidly expressed in the writings of St. Thomas, took the form of a gradually increasing emphasis on the privation or lack of what was originally afforded the human race in Paradise. The earliest significant step in this direction can be said to pertain to Anselm,71 who was anxious to define peccatum originale originatum primarily in terms of the absence of an owed “Original Justice”—an “uprightness-of-will which is kept for its own sake” (Anselm 2000, 3)—which our first parents enjoyed before the Fall (2–3, 27).72 While this move formally shifted the focus from the Augustinian positive emphasis on corrupted human nature73 to a negative non-possession of an original good, still Anselm’s thinking follows Augustine in the main, and so, while I agree with Vandervelde (1981, 29) in maintaining that Anselm “marks the point of transition” towards the Privation view, we cannot justly class him as a “privationist” through and through. For this we must wait for Thomas Aquinas, though even then it is not always completely clear just where his Augustinianism leaves off and his privationism begins.74 In his discussion of Original Sin in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas wonders to what extent the identification of concupiscence and Original Sin (understood as peccatum originale originatum) can be maintained (IIa, qu. 82, art. 3). Against three objections, he upholds the identification, but only in a manner which appears ultimately to distance itself significantly from the Augustinian understanding. In a typically Aristotelian fashion, Thomas declares that there is both a formal and material element to Original Sin. The formal component and therefore cause of Original Sin is “the privation of original justice whereby the will was made subject to God” (IIa, qu. 82, art. 3). But because it is the function of the will to order the other parts of the human person towards its telos, a crippled will results inevitably in the disorder of every other power of the soul. And this disorder whereby the soul turns “inordinately to mutable good” is precisely what Aquinas means by concupiscence, or, at any rate, concupiscence in the sinful sense of the term (IIa, qu. 82, art. 3). Thus he concludes, “original sin is concupiscence, materially, but privation of original justice, formally” (IIa, qu. 82, art. 3). But, as we will see in more detail below, this is far from a simple restatement of the Augustinian position: on the contrary, concupiscence is natural to man, commendable and necessary for our wellbeing until it “trespasses beyond the bounds of reason.” Only then is it “the concupiscence of Original Sin” (IIa, qu. 82, art. 3; cf. IIa, qu. 85, art. 3). Aside from the inherent neutrality of concupiscence, however, in what way has Augustinianism been compromised by this distinction between the

Original Sin 31 formal and material elements of Original Sin? The answer can be determined through consideration of Aquinas’s threefold “goods of human nature” discussed in IIa, qu. 85, and thence a more complete investigation into Original Justice. He tells us the three goods of human nature are (1) human nature itself with its various powers and faculties; (2) the inclination to virtue; (3) the gift of Original Justice. It is Aquinas’s view that the first of these cannot in any way be impugned by sin, a rather patent rejection of the Augustinian belief that human nature is vitiated such that it cannot properly be instantiated apart from Christ: “nature’s good is not taken away by sin” (1955–1957, IV.51.10; cf. 1920, IIa, qu. 85, art. 2: “sin does not diminish nature.”). The second of these is only diminished by sin, and this through mere habit: “Because human acts produce an inclination to like acts,” sin will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, tip the scales away from virtue and towards vice, however minutely (1920, IIa, qu. 85, art. 1). Moreover, this is not to be understood in any sense as a genuine wound inflicted upon human nature itself: all Aquinas means to say is that, given that rational beings sin, the proper ordering of the will to virtue is ipso facto flouted. The third of these, the gift of Original Justice, however, is “entirely destroyed through the sin of our first parent” such that not even a hint remains (IIa, qu. 85, art. 1). And what, precisely, does Aquinas mean by Original Justice? We have seen that one aspect of his definition has to do with the rectitude of the will. But it seems he wants to go considerably further. We are informed that, in Paradise, a supernatural grace was bestowed upon man through which reason was fully “subject to God, the lower powers to reason, and the body to the soul” (I, qu. 95, art. 1). Thomas continues, Now it is clear that such a subjection of the body to the soul and of the lower powers to reason, was not from nature; otherwise it would have remained after sin. … Hence it is clear that also the primitive subjection by virtue of which reason was subject to God, was not a merely natural gift, but a  supernatural endowment of  grace. … Hence if the loss of grace dissolved the obedience of the flesh to the  soul, we may gather that the inferior powers were subjected to the soul through grace existing therein. (I, qu. 95, art. 1; cf. IIa, qu. 85, art. 3) It is here especially that we find an unambiguous affirmation of the Privation view over against that of Augustine: in Eden, special gifts of divine grace (donum superadditum) were granted in addition to the gift of human nature our first parents had by right qua human beings; it is the loss of these gifts which forms the backbone of peccatum originale originatum (cf. Williams 1929, 401–402). We see also in this passage that, according to Aquinas, a corruption of nature in the sense that something metaphysically essential to humanity might be revoked on account of the Fall is in fact

32  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition an impossibility, indeed, an injustice of which the Creator is not ultimately capable: if the ordering of body to soul and lower powers to reason were natural to humanity, they could not justifiably be taken away.75 Thus Aquinas’s rather serendipitous idea that, sans sanctifying grace, it is perfectly natural for the human being to find himself with untamed passions and a will vacillating with regard to the good.76 In wrapping up this section on Aquinas, it must be noted that this is not, of course, all he has to say about Original Sin.77 We have not, for example, touched on such important matters as the nature of the first sin, the mode of Original Sin’s transmission, or the role of Original Guilt in Thomas’s thought (which, in certain places, he categorically affirms [e.g., 1955–1957, IV.50–52]). Intrinsically valuable as these are, however, the goal in this section is merely to present the general idea behind the Privation view as distinguished from the Augustinian view. And what is most essential to the former is simply the impression that Original Sin consists principally in the loss of Original Justice or certain donum superadditum. Insofar as this theme in the thought of Aquinas has been exhibited, our goal has been attained. With this clarification out of the way, we can proceed briefly to discuss a further development—or refinement, perhaps—of this view. 1.3.2  Trent and Beyond While it is worth mentioning in passing that the “revolt against Augustinianism” (Williams 1929, 408) took an especially vivid form in Franciscan thought,78 it is to the Council of Trent and beyond that we must go to complete our discussion of the Privation view. What ensured the irreversible move away from the Augustinian approach in the Catholic Church was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the fact that the Reformers had taken a strong, almost extreme Augustinian stance on Original Sin. Three points of Martin Luther’s teaching in particular were attacked at Trent: the conflation of Original Sin and concupiscence,79 the inherent sinfulness of concupiscence, and the “insistence on the total corruption of human nature and the utter impotence of the human will regarding salvation” (O’Malley 2013, 103).80 As John O’Malley points out, the Augustinians present at the Council were, of course, not totally convinced that Luther seriously erred in these regards (2013, 104); still, they were far from having their way. In an attempt to conciliate between the competing Catholic factions (of which Augustinianism was but one) (Jedin 1961, 151), the Council refrained altogether from formulating a definition of Original Sin and opted instead merely to describe its effects (Vandervelde 1981, 33).81 In so doing, the sacramental remedy of baptism and its complete efficaciousness was stressed; as a consequence the Augustinian-Lutheran identification of concupiscence and Original Sin was condemned in the strongest of terms (Vandervelde 1981, 38–42). For, it was reasoned, if anything odious remains in the baptized without the consent of the believer, it seems the very effectiveness of baptism is called into question.

Original Sin 33 Thus, while Trent did not formally sanction the Privation view, one can easily understand how it eventually conduced to a more thoroughgoing privationism. It is, once again, Vandervelde who explains this with brilliant clarity, and so I unapologetically quote him at length once more. In the thought of Robert Bellarmine, for instance, since the remedy for original sin is the sacrament of baptism, and since by this sacrament sanctifying grace is infused, original sin must entail the privation of sanctifying grace. Thus, by one ingeneous [sic] stroke, the laborious procedure of determining the nature of original sin that had become prevalent in scholastic theology is obviated. That of which man is deprived in the condition of original sin need no longer be derived by tenuous speculation regarding that which man possessed in his original state, but can be derived from the ecclesiastical teaching regarding that which man possesses in his present (sanctified) state. (Vandervelde 1981, 41–42) This, we might say, is the fully developed Privation view. In the Fall, our first parents lost precisely what we have now regained in baptism: Original Sin simply is the absence of this sanctifying grace which alone enables us to abstain from sin.82 And, if it be permitted me to state a clear advantage of the Privation view, the claim that Original Sin is merely the absence of sanctifying grace dissolves a perennial worry for the doctrine: it is not apparently unjust that we are born liable to disorders of body and soul, suffering, and death as it might seem to be on the Augustinian view. We do not deserve the donum superadditum—they were originally granted only on the condition that Adam remained obedient to the divine will, which he did not. We suffer no injustice—only the lack of a gratuitous gift we might have had si integer stetisset Adam. Once again, we must highlight the fact that the minutiae of the Privation view—or views—have not been investigated. Nor need they be, as the central feature has been made plain. Suffice it for concluding purposes to say simply this: if not for the standard biblical proof texts (Gen. 2–3 and Rom. 5) and, more importantly, the magisterial tradition of Original Sin which is itself based on these texts, it would not have been possible for the Privation view to arise in the first place. We have spent the majority of our time in this section enumerating the ways in which the Privation view differs from that of Augustine; clearly, however, it stems from the same traditions, uses much of the same vocabulary, and even, to a degree, looks to Augustine as its primary authority and founding father. I am convinced no reader will opine otherwise, but it will be helpful to state the following explicitly all the same: the Privation view is every bit as much a theory of Original Sin as the classic version, and to deny this would be to commit the same mistake as that committed by many passionate proponents of the Eastern doctrine: namely, that of dogmatically asserting that Augustine alone possesses a monopoly

34  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition on Original Sin. Again I appeal to Kelly: “It is imperative to get rid of this prejudice” (1965, 350).

1.4 Conclusion At the beginning of this chapter, we said that Original Sin is “that family of views which aims to account for the ubiquity of sin, evil, death, and suffering through an appeal to a primordial Fall from an initial state of innocence, goodness, or perfection.” While, as we have seen, there will be objectors to the attachment of this somewhat broad predicate to the term “Original Sin,” it is worth noting that few will take issue with the idea itself, that is, so long as the intention is to stay firmly rooted in one’s denominational commitments. For, as Williams has shown at length, this general Fall narrative is ineradicably inscribed upon the incorporeal pages of the Vincentian Canon—that which has been believed by the faithful ubique, semper, and ab omnibus. The present chapter has also verified this conclusion. While each of the individual thinkers considered have diverged sometimes even radically in the particulars, each testifies unambiguously to the common narrative of a Fall and ensuing inheritance of a disagreeable condition from which humankind requires redemption. Inasmuch as this is believed, one is committed to the doctrine of Original Sin as far as I am concerned. A few more points may be made. First, something has gone seriously wrong if the reader has emerged with the impression that every formulation of Original Sin is really just a riff off the Augustinian view. This would be totally to miss the point of the preceding pages.83 Rather, I have labored to show that Augustinianism is merely one species under the genus “Original Sin,” and that if it is approximated by other theories, it is usually because they are all operating within the same biblical and theological framework, and not—at least not primarily—because Augustine has simply set the agenda. This is especially true of the Greek view which, of course, developed in large part prior to and apart from Augustine; but the Privation view, too, is much more than a simple extrapolation of purely Augustinian ideas. Thus my hope is that the reader can now clearly see how these three views are at the same time both unique and, at bottom, fundamentally the same (cf. Crisp 2015, 256–257). I will explain further what exactly I mean by this and then conclude. We have said our three approaches differ in degree and not in kind. Hence, while the Greek view has been characterized by an overarching mildness and thus lack of Augustinian “fanaticism,” still we have seen tendencies in Tatian, Irenaeus, and Gregory of Nyssa which distinctly point in the direction of the two Latin theories discussed. Likewise, for the Augustinian and Privation views: there are, clearly, certain resonances between Thomas and Nyssen, between Augustine and Bellarmine. But despite these commonalities and mutual traces to be found of one another, still there is a basic driving force behind each of the three views which render each irreducible

Original Sin 35 to any other. For the Greeks we have said this is mildness, entailing above all a definite pattern of moral optimism; for Augustine the driving force is concupiscence and a corruption of human nature; for the Privation view it is the forfeiture of supernatural gifts originally conferred “on top” of human nature. But, once again and despite these differences, they all concur on the fundamentals: a biblically inspired Fall from a state we ought to have retained, and the consequent universal inheritance of sin, evil, suffering, and death. That is to say, all agree there is such a thing as Original Sin. In the next chapter, we will commence our critical analysis of the two primary biblical texts cited to corroborate the doctrine of Original Sin. But as to a theological and historical retrieval of the doctrine, we can consider our task accomplished. We now know in detail what is meant by the doctrine and whence it arises. A theological project is nonlapsarian, then, if it denies the claim that sin, death, and suffering, weakness and ungodliness—all those unfortunate realities which plague our present existence—are attributable to a fall away from an original state of innocence and freedom from these ills. The challenge before us is this: how can one dare to reject this doctrine if it has been almost universally affirmed by Christians through the ages? It is this great cloud of witnesses which affords us no small amount of trepidation as we proceed to contest this consensus opinion. But contest it we will, and this even despite Augustine’s dreadful imprecation: “Whoever tries to undermine these foundations of the Christian faith will be destroyed” (1957, VI.4.10).

Notes





1 This definition, the attentive reader will perceive, includes both the originating sin (peccatum originale originans) and the ensuing condition of sinfulness— original sin as originated (peccatum originale originatum). As I am using the term, then, some understanding of a Fall is an essential component of any genuine doctrine of Original Sin. While some will no doubt object to this usage, such a protest is, to my mind, unjust: the combined weight of historical custom and the theoretical implications of the name itself is simply too much to vie with (cf. Spencer [2021b, 301n43]; Tennant [1902, 8–10 with note 1]). 2 See, for instance Collins (2018) and Collins (2011, 133–135). 3 For this I would turn the reader’s attention to Williams (1929) and Tennant (1903). The latter, however, deals only with pre-Augustinian thought. For rather pithier treatments of the development of Original Sin, see Wiley (2002) and Vandervelde (1981, 1–42). 4 Though there are some exceptions. Three pointed out by Ian McFarland (2010, 22n1) are the Socinians, Quakers, and Latitudinarian Anglicans. 5 By “Greek Fathers” I mean those Greek-speaking theological elites of the first few centuries of the common era. I use the term in a somewhat imprecise sense, though there should not be too much dispute about the group of writers surveyed here. Tatian will be the most controversial representative; one may wish rather to classify him with J. E. Ryland (1885) as “half Father and half heretic.” Tatian’s Oratio ad Graecos, however, in all likelihood antedates his association with the Encratites and, in any case, is praised by Eusebius (1890, IV.29.7): it is “celebrated” and “in use among many persons,” the “best and most useful of all his works.” (With thanks to Ewan Davies for asking the right questions.)

36  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition













6 This is especially the case in the East. 7 A good example of this can be found in the work of Justin Martyr, especially in his Dialogue with Trypho (e.g., [1885, chs. 88 and 124]). Williams (1929, 173) says of Justin in this connection, “There is no systematic treatment of the subject, but there are scattered and incidental observations which, when collected, would seem to imply the presence in his thought of something like the Pauline doctrine.” Note the caution evident in his words: when collected, seem to imply, and something like. 8 For example, David Weaver (1983, 187) opines that it is “inaccurate to apply the term ‘original sin’ (originalis peccatum) to the ideas of the Greek-speaking authors, since this term represents a concept that has a well-defined content in the terms of Latin theology but does not have an exact parallel among the Greeks.” 9 While some Greek writers are definitely eager to distance themselves from Original Guilt, others, as we will see, approximate it quite closely indeed. 10 Cf. Kelly (1965, 350): “The customary verdict [that Original Sin is not found in the East], however, seems unjust to the Greek fathers, perhaps because it depends on the assumption that no theory of original sin holds water except the full-blown Latin one. It is imperative to get rid of this prejudice.” More recently, Reeves and Madueme (2014, 209n1) have suggested much the same. 11 I understand Tennant to be referring only to extra-biblical writings here, of course. 12 Tennant (1903, 279–280) actually seems to allow for this possibility. 13 The most systematic (and intentional) treatment of the Fall and Original Sin is to be found in a few short paragraphs in Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching (chs. 11–17), where the Genesis story is tracked quite closely indeed. 14 Tennant (1903, 291), for instance, holds that Irenaeus “is not impelled to seek in the Fall an explanation of human infirmity and of man’s sinful tendencies”; Williams (1929, 190) thinks the opposite: “that there is a causal connexion of some kind between Adam’s sin and the sinfulness of his posterity…[is such a commonplace] of his teaching that it is unnecessary to refer to individual passages.” 15 A similar view was also held by Irenaeus’s contemporaries Theophilus of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria. See, e.g., Bouteneff (2008, 228, 71), Williams (1929, 176, 203), and Tennant (1903, 280–282). 16 See here the sustained argument in (1885a, IV.37–39). For an in-depth treatment of this theme, see Brown (1975). 17 The Paradise of Irenaeus was located, we are told, in “a place better than this world” (1920, 12), or, as Williams (1929, 192) puts it, on “some transcendental super-terrestrial plane.” It is possible this is the first crucial step along the way to Origen’s doctrine of a “pre-natal” Fall which, on account of its unpopularity among later Fathers, we cannot examine here. 18 It is also worth mentioning that Irenaeus is not fully clear as to the question of Adam and Eve’s initial mortality. In Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 15, he seems to imply original immortality, but Against Heresies III.20.1–2, IV.38.4, and V.3.1 ostensibly indicate otherwise. In Irenaeus (1885b), Fragment 14 strongly suggests Adam and Eve are to be understood as mortal by nature, but this must be balanced (if indeed it is to be balanced at all) with the assertion in Fragment 12 that human bodies dissolve into the earth “because of the primeval disobedience.” What seems beyond dispute, however, is that the first sin involved all subsequent human beings in the necessity of death, and thus can be traced back directly to Adam and Eve’s disobedience. 19 Though this latter point is contentious. We can definitely cite Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 31 and 37, but the paucity of solid statements of this in Against Heresies is cause for some doubt. Tennant (1903, 291), as we

Original Sin 37











have seen, rejects this conclusion; Williams (1929, 190) and Kelly (1965, 171) not only affirm it but are, in my judgment, wildly optimistic: Williams here provides no citation, and Kelly adduces Against Heresies III.18.7.—a passage of questionable utility, insofar as the relevant bit is a paraphrase of Rom. 5:19. I would invite the reader to make up his own mind on the matter. 20 Vandervelde (1981, 5–6) seems strongly to agree. 21 This conclusion is reinforced in McCoy’s (2018) outstanding essay published around the time of my writing. After ably critiquing the popular view that “Irenaeus has an ‘apparent indifference to Original Sin or any theology of the Fall’” (163–64), he closes as follows: “Over against how he is sometimes read, Irenaeus does not affirm that sin originates in God’s purposes for the development of creation, nor that sin and evil can be understood simply as immanent aspects of the evolutionary process. The Irenaean doctrine of recapitulation makes this distinction crucial” (172). 22 See especially (1885a, IV.37). 23 For Williams’s full treatment, see (1929, 269–282). 24 As Bouteneff argues, however, the Prototype may be “purely conceptual” (2008, 160). 25 Much more will be said about this in Chapters 5 and 6 below. 26 Cf. (1893a, 7): “no evil of any kind lies outside and independent of the will.” 27 This via media between monism and dualism is, in fact, a main focus of N. P. Williams’s (1929) monumental study. 28 Pace, e.g., Kärkkäinen (2004, 22). See also Tennant (1903, 321–324). 29 Three key differences can be mentioned: (1) Gregory was far from the admittedly more severe Augustinian version of Original Guilt; (2) He still appears to understand the Gen. 3 tale allegorically (see 1893a, 8). (3) He maintained to the end the unenslavability of the will (e.g., 1893a, 30). Kelly (1965, 350), however, points out that Gregory elsewhere says “men ought to ask for forgiveness daily since they share in Adam’s fall” (emphasis mine). He notes further that the race’s participation in Adam’s transgression was taken for granted by Basil and Nazianzen as well. Thus there was a certain consciousness of Original Guilt, but, again, it was by no means equivalent to its Augustinian counterpart. 30 And, therefore, significantly, not the issue of Original Guilt. Cf. Vandervelde (1981, 6–7 and notes). 31 We may here note in passing an interesting remark made by Aristides (1896) in Apology 15: “if moreover [a child] happen to die in childhood, [the Athenian Christians] give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins.” It would probably be overhasty to cite this as definite evidence against the presence of Original Guilt in the (early) Athenian Christian mind, but it is at least highly suggestive. 32 See note 29 above. Kelly seems comfortable ascribing some version of Original Guilt to the Cappadocians (1965, 350–351); Vandervelde is a bit more hesitant. Despite his assertion that the Greek Fathers “left little room for an idea of original sin conceived of as a culpable reality in Adam’s posterity,” however, he appears to side ultimately with Kelly (1981, 6n31; see also 5–6). 33 Weaver’s assertion that the Greek writers “without exception” resisted Original Guilt is thus seen to be, if not totally baseless, very unlikely indeed (1983, 188). John E. Toews’s claim is a bit stronger: “Without exception among the Greek theologians, the inheritance from Adam’s sin was mortality and corruption only” (2013, 60). We have seen that this is simply untrue—it is tempting to suspect a particular narrative is here being pushed without proper regard for the full scope of the evidence. For yet another slipshod assertion to this effect, see Ward (2008, 64).

38  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition 34 A possible but unlikely exception would be Clement of Alexandria, who “conveys the impression of one who is rendering lip-homage to an idea which has too much traditional and Scriptural authority to be totally discarded, but which is really alien to the general direction of his own thinking” (Williams [1929, 207]). 35 Kelly concludes, “Though falling short of Augustinianism, there was here the outline of a real theory of original sin” (1965, 351). 36 Though, as Jesse Couenhoven (2005, 360) points out, this is not to say the doctrine is not complex and even, at times, untidy. 37 Mk. 4:19, Lk. 22:15 (twice), Jn. 8:44, Phil. 1:23, 1 Thess. 2:17. Cf. Smith (1953, 161–163). 38 This latter usage is largely Pauline: see Rom. 6:12, 13:14; Gal. 5:16, 24. See also Eph. 2:3, 1 Jn 2:16. 39 Cf. (1957, II.10.33, V.15.56, V.16.63). Libido is oftentimes used interchangeably with concupiscentia (cf. Couenhoven [2005, 375]). 40 It is also variously termed “shameful concupiscence,” “disgraceful concupiscence,” and “evil concupiscence.” 41 See, e.g., (1957, III.26.62, IV.14). Cf. (1999, 4.28): “concupiscence is, of course, recognized in whichever sense of the body the flesh has desires opposed to the spirit.” Emphasis mine. 42 Of course, something can be inordinate only with reference to the ordinate; the latter is, for Augustine, to be found in ‘human nature’ healed by Christ. As such we do not currently have full epistemic access to ‘true’ human nature (see Augustine [1957, IV.3.19]). 43 van Oort argues that such a view of (sexual) concupiscence is not peculiar to Augustine but rather stems from his North African milieu (2018, 9–12). 44 Needless to say, Augustine’s doctrine of the Fall comes straight from the narrative enshrined in Gen. 2–3, or, at any rate, his interpretation of it. 45 This is the doctrine of Original Righteousness, in defense of which he cites Eccl. 7:29. 46 It is difficult to perceive how Augustine can escape the charge of incoherence—and therefore very easy to see why he falls back on mystery. An attempt is made in (1887b, II.27.48) to account for the alteration of Adam’s good will, but this ultimately ends in prevarication. He recognizes that blaming the devil for the evil will of Adam only pushes the problem back a step, upon which realization he is forced sheepishly to restate his thesis without really having answered the question: “The devil’s work has penetrated the work of God.” We are left wondering how a good will can turn to evil, and it is not clear how an appeal to pride will solve the problem. Cf. Kant (1934, 38–39). John Hick (1979, 180) criticizes this “self-creation of evil ex nihilo” as explaining obscurum per obscurius (see also 68–70, 314–16). 47 See, e.g., (1887b, II.5.14, II.27.48); (1957, I.8.37, III.24.55); (1999, V.21–22, 41.2); (1887a, XIV.13). 48 Here he quotes Sir. 10:13: “pride is the beginning of sin.” Cf. (1887c, II.17.27); (1957, III.6.13). 49 Excepting, of course, the sins of the devil, at whom Augustine is never slow to point the finger. 50 For exemplary statements of this theme, see (1887c, II.23.37); (1887b, I.23.26, II.8.20); (1957, IV.4.34); (1999, II.177). Augustine is fond of likening humanity to a “good” olive tree which, due to the Fall, has become a wild olive tree ([1887b, I.32.37, II.34.58]; [1957, VI.6–7]). 51 Cf. Couenhoven (2005, 367): “Discord between flesh and spirit becomes our new nature.”

Original Sin 39 52 Williams (1929, 363) takes Augustine to be ambiguous here: “It appears safest to say that Augustine never made his mind decisively up with regard to this point, and that the germs of both opinions—that of the Schoolmen, who distinguished the donum superadditum from the pura naturalia, and that of the Reformers and Baius, who identified them—are to be found in his writings.” 53 Couenhoven is here quoting Augustine’s To Simplician. 54 Cf. Augustine (1999, I.71.6): “it urges and—so to speak—orders us to sin.” 55 See Ramsey (1950, 146–152) for a helpful and concise discussion of amor Dei and amor sui in the thought of Augustine. 56 Augustine (1999, V.50) reads, “This one who says, I do the evil that I do not will shows that he does evil by necessity, not by will.” 57 Cf. Augustine (1957, V.4.14): “massa perditionis et damnationis.” 58 With thanks to Gavin D’Costa for emphasizing this point. 59 He says, “By the evil will of that one man all sinned in him, since all were that one man, from whom, therefore, they individually derived original sin” ([1887b, II.5.15]; emphasis mine). 60 There were also certain proof texts which immediately suggested Original Guilt, for instance, Ps. 51.5: “I was shapen in iniquity; and in  sin  did my mother conceive me”; Job 14:4: “no one is clean, not even if his life be only that of a day” (cf. Augustine 1887c, I.24.34). 61 This excessive fondness is best seen in his short work On Marriage and Concupiscence where he quotes this verse in its entirety no fewer than ten times. 62 See the discussion of this clause in Blocher (1997, 70–72). F. F. Bruce (1974, 130) contends that, “although the Vulgate rendering…may be a mistranslation, it is a true interpretation.” 63 Moo does, however, note that the evidence for the ‘because’/‘inasmuch as’ reading “is not nearly as strong as some suggest” (1996, 322). 64 Cf. Caballero (2014, 133): “It is not necessary to read ἐφ' ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον as ‘all sinned in Adam’ in order not to compromise the relationship between this text and the doctrine of Original Sin. Verses 15–21 leave no doubt about the universal causality of Adam’s sin, especially verse 19. …[T]he sin of Adam affects us by the mere fact of being descended from his line” (translation mine). 65 Yet another passage Augustine quotes frequently in defense of Original Guilt. 66 See, for instance, Weaver (1985, 140–143), where it is clearly shown that Chrysostom in fact repudiated Original Guilt. 67 For the full appeal to these thinkers see (1957, I.3–7). For Augustine, Original Sin entails Original Guilt; therefore, while he doesn’t here explicitly use the words ‘Original Guilt’, he quite clearly means it, as is evident from his selection of quotations. 68 For an excellent summary of these Councils’ pronouncements on Original Sin, see Vandervelde (1981, 21–26); see also Wiley (2002, 71–75). 69 Contra the claim recently made by Pinsent (2018, 138–139) that this accolade belongs to the Augustinian view. To be fair to Pinsent, however, it seems this suggestion stems primarily from a conflation of the Augustinian and Thomistic views on Original Sin (see 140). Michael Rea, however, gets this right in what is a superb one-page summary of the Privation view (2007, 323–324). 70 If only because it is assumed these thinkers simply must follow Augustine and thus have no original thoughts of their own on the matter. 71 Or, perhaps, to Odo of Tournai, depending on who first influenced whom. See Resnick (1994, 25–26). 72 Cf. the emphasis on privation evident in Anselm (1926, I.24). 73 An element Anselm nevertheless retained. See Anselm (2000, 1–2).

40  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition 74 That such an ambiguity obtains in the thought of the early privationists is hardly surprising given their deference to the magisterium in general and St. Augustine in particular. 75 A similar idea of putative divine impotence was found repugnant to William of Ockham, as it seemed to call God’s omnipotence into question. Many contemporary historians of ideas tend to see in Ockham’s nominalist reaction the seeds of modern philosophy being planted, and, indeed, the first contraction which would eventually give birth to the modern world. See, e.g., Gillespie (2008) and Dupré (1993). 76 It will be recalled that a similar view of the passions was espoused by Gregory of Nyssa. 77 For the full story, see Houck (2020, chs. 2–4); for a recent summary of Aquinas’s position, see Macdonald (2021, esp. 455–456). 78 John Duns Scotus, for instance, held that both concupiscence and Adam’s initial sin were quite natural and almost pardonable; this he coupled with a robust privationist account of Original Sin. For an exceptional treatment of this Franciscan reaction to Augustinianism, see Williams (1929, 408–418). 79 And, in particular, this belief’s tendency to entail that the stain of Original Sin persisted even after baptism. 80 Regarding the last of these, Trent followed the precedence set by the Second Council of Orange of 529: “free-will, although weakened and attenuated, is by no means extinguished” (Williams [1929, 461, 465]). 81 According to Vandervelde (1981), this mostly took the form of reiterating what was declared in previous councils and ecclesiastical pronouncements. See 32–42 for a fine overview of Trent on Original Sin. 82 Cf. Bellarmine (2016, 203–204): Bellarmine enumerates seven gifts bestowed upon Adam and Eve in Paradise and lost through the Fall; Original Sin is “enmity with God and a loss of divine grace.” 83 If I have conveyed this sense in any way, it is due solely to the fact that I have followed the popular current in understanding the Augustinian view as the “classic” one.

References Anselm. 1926. Cur Deus Homo. Translated by Sidney Norton Deane. Chicago, IL: The Open Court Publishing Company. Anselm. 2000. The Virgin Conception and Original Sin. Translated by Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson. Minneapolis: The Arthur J. Banning Press. Aquinas, Thomas. 1920. Summa Theologiae. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Aquinas, Thomas. 1955–1957. Summa Contra Gentiles. Translated by Anton C. Pegis, James F. Anderson, Vernon J. Bourke, and Charles J. O’Neil. Edited by Joseph Kenny, O.P. Aristides. 1896. The Apology of Aristides. Translated by D. M. Kay. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9, edited by Allan Menzies. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Augustine. 1887a. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. In Nicene and PostNicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, First Series, vol. 2. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Augustine. 1887b. On Marriage and Concupiscence. Translated by Peter Holmes and Robert Ernest Wallis, and revised by Benjamin B. Warfield. In Nicene and

Original Sin 41 Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, First Series, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Augustine. 1887c. On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants. Translated by Peter Holmes and Robert Ernest Wallis, and revised by Benjamin B. Warfield. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, First Series, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Augustine. 1957. Against Julian. Translated by Matthew A. Schumacher. The Fathers of the Church, vol. 35. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Augustine. 1982. The Literal Meaning of Genesis. Translated by John Hammond Taylor, S.J. In Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, edited by Johannes Quasten, Walter J. Burghardt, and Thomas Comerford Lawler, no. 41. New York: Paulist Press. Augustine. 1999. Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian. Translated by Roland J. Teske. In The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, edited by John E. Rotelle, pt. 1, vol. 25. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999. Bellarmine, Robert. 2016. Doctrina Christiana: The Timeless Catechism of St. Robert Bellarmine. Translated by Ryan Grant. Post Falls, ID: Mediatrix Press. Blocher, Henri. 1997. Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Bouteneff, Peter C. 2008. Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker. Brown, Robert F. 1975. “On the Necessary Imperfection of Creation: Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses IV, 38.” Scottish Journal of Theology 28 (1): 17–25. Bruce, F. F. 1974. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans. London: InterVarsity Press. Caballero, Juan Luis. 2014. “Rm 5,12 y el Pecado Original en la Exégesis Católica Reciente.” Scripta Theologica 46: 121–140. Collins, C. John. 2011. Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why It Matters. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Collins, C. John. 2018. “Adam as Federal Head of Humankind.” In Finding Ourselves after Darwin: Conversations on the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil, edited by Stanley P. Rosenberg, 143–159. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Couenhoven, Jesse. 2005. “St. Augustine’s Doctrine of Original Sin.” Augustinian Studies 36 (2): 359–396. doi: 10.5840/augstudies200536221. Crisp, Oliver D. 2015. “On Original Sin.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17 (3): 252–266. doi: 10.1111/ijst.12107. Dupré, Louis. 1993. Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Eusebius of Caesarea. 1890. Church History. Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, vol. 1. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Gillespie, Michael Allen. 2008. The Theological Origins of Modernity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gregory of Nyssa. 1893a. The Great Catechism. Translated by William Moore and Henry Austin Wilson. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Second Series, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Gregory of Nyssa. 1893b. On the Making of Man. Translated by H. A. Wilson. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Second Series, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co.

42  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition Hick, John. 1979. Evil and the God of Love. Glasgow: William Collins Sons. Houck, Daniel W. 2020. Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irenaeus. 1885a. Against Heresies. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Irenaeus. 1885b. Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus. Translated by Alexander Roberts. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1.  Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Irenaeus. 1920. The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. Translated by Armitage Robinson. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Jedin, Hubert. 1961. A History of the Council of Trent, vol. 2. Translated by Dom Ernest Graf. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons. Justin, Martyr. 1885. Dialogue with Trypho. Translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Kant, Immanuel. 1934. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. Translated by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson. La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing Co. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. 2004. One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. Kelly, J. N. D. 1965. Early Christian Doctrines. London: Adam & Charles Black. Macdonald, Paul A. Jr. 2021. “In Defense of Aquinas’s Adam: Original Justice, the Fall, and Evolution.” Zygon 56 (2): 454–466. doi: 10.1111/zygo.12692. McCoy, Andrew M. 2018. “The Irenaean Approach to Original Sin through Christ’s Redemption.” In Finding Ourselves after Darwin: Conversations on the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil, edited by Stanley P. Rosenberg, 160– 172. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. McFarland, Ian A. 2010. In Adam’s Fall: A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. O’Malley, John W. 2013. Trent: What Happened at the Council. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pinsent, Andrew. 2018. “Augustine, Original Sin, and the Naked Ape.” In Finding Ourselves after Darwin: Conversations on the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil, edited by Stanley P. Rosenberg, 130–142. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Ramsey, Paul. 1950. Basic Christian Ethics. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Rea, Michael C. 2007. “The Metaphysics of Original Sin.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter Van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman, 319–356. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reeves, Michael, and Hans Madueme. 2014. “Threads in a Seamless Garment: Original Sin in Systematic Theology.” In Adam, the Fall, and Original Sin: Theological, Biblical, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Hans Madueme and Michael Reeves, 209–224. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Resnick, Irven M. 1994. Introduction to On Original Sin and A Disputation With the Jew, Leo, Concerning the Advent of Christ, the Son of God, 1–36. Translated by Irven M. Resnick. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Original Sin 43 Ryland, J. E. 1885. Introduction to Address to the Greeks. Translated by J. E. Ryland. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Schwöbel, Christoph. 2016. “Changing Places: Understanding Sin in Relation to a Graceful God.” In Sin, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation: Christian and Muslim Perspectives, edited by Lucinda Mosher and David Marshall, 23–39. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Spencer, Daniel. 2021b. “Does St. Paul Believe in Original Sin? Yeah, but so What?” Journal of Analytic Theology 9: 291–313. doi: 10.12978/jat.2021-9.030011181517. Tatian. Address to the Greeks. 1885. Translated by J. E. Ryland. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 2. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Tennant, F. R. 1902. The Origin and Propagation of Sin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tennant, F. R. 1903. The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Toews, John E. 2013. The Story of Original Sin. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. van Oort, Johannes. 1987. “Augustine on Sexual Concupiscence and Original Sin.” Studia Patristica 22: 382–386. doi: 10.1163/9789004417595_026. van Oort, Johannes. 2016. “Was Julian Right? A Re-Evaluation of Augustine’s and Mani’s Doctrines of Sexual Concupiscence and the Transmission of Sin: Part 1.” Journal of Early Christian History 6 (3): 111–125. doi: 10.1080/2222582X.2016.1284974. van Oort, Johannes. 2018. “Was Julian Right? A Re-Evaluation of Augustine’s and Mani’s Doctrines of Sexual Concupiscence and the Transmission of Sin: Part 2.” Journal of Early Christian History 8 (2): 1–15. doi: 10.1080/2222582X.2017.1391675. Vandervelde, George. 1981. Original Sin: Two Major Trends in Contemporary Roman Catholic Reinterpretation. Washington, DC: University Press of America. Ward, Keith. 2008. The Big Questions in Science and Religion. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation. Weaver, David. 1983. “From Paul to Augustine: Romans 5:12 in Early Christian Exegesis.” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 27 (3): 187–206. Weaver, David. 1985. “Exegesis of Romans 5:12 among the Greek Fathers and Its Implications for the Doctrine of Original Sin 5th–12th Centuries.” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 29 (3): 133–159. Wiley, Tatha. 2002. Original Sin: Origins, Developments, Contemporary Meanings. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Williams, N. P. 1929. The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: A Historical and Critical Study. London: Longmans, Green and Co.

2

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man”

The aim of the last chapter was to explain what precisely is meant by Original Sin and where it comes from. We came away from this discussion with, inter alia, a general conclusion regarding the biblical basis of the doctrine: Original Sin historically has found its primary scriptural support in Gen. 2–3 and Rom. 5.1 But there is rather more to the story than simply this, for these biblical foundations depend vitally on particular readings of these texts, readings which have indelible overtones of sin, rebellion, guilt, and a “Fall” away from humanity’s original estate. It is the argument of the present chapter that such a reading of Gen. 2–3 specifically is difficult to sustain; in Chapter 3 we will address the further question of St. Paul’s language in Rom. 5. We will thus arrive at our preliminary conclusion that the doctrine of Original Sin is, at best, inconclusively grounded in scripture, and so might be seen to lose its prima facie claim to a sure place in any orthodox expression of the Christian faith. Insomuch as it pertains to the biblical witness, then, the justification for affirming the dogmatic necessity of Original Sin will be more or less neutralized. Once again, it is the traditional reading of Gen. 2–3 as the story of the Fall to which Original Sin is largely indebted. On this understanding, humankind’s first parents were created innocent and (on some models) perfect, and were summoned to enjoy the paradise which God had prepared specially for them. This enjoyment, however, was conditional on obedience—the man and woman must not eat from a particular tree. In transgressing the divine commandment, however, they rebelled against their creator, introducing sin and death into the world, as well as a life of pain and toil. On account of the transgression—the primal sin of humankind—then, the man and woman were exiled from paradise, thus setting the stage for salvation history as we know it. It cannot be overemphasized that, though this Fall narrative has often been taken as basically historically accurate, an allegorical interpretation of the Fall does not by necessity eliminate the doctrine of Original Sin. On the contrary, many contemporary allegorical, or “(merely) symbolic and existentialist” accounts, serve precisely to retain the requisite elements for Original Sin whilst simultaneously attempting to remove the Fall from history (see Loke 2022, 124).2 So long as the elements of disobedience and DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-4

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 45 rebellion, guilt and sin are taken to embody the primary significance of the Eden story, a modulated doctrine of Original Sin can still arguably be derived from Gen. 2–3 without maintaining a historical Adam or Fall.3 In what follows, I want to suggest that the ruling motif in the Genesis narrative may not be sin or insubordination, and that, “simple and straightforward” (McCall 2019, 40) though such a traditional reading might seem, understanding the text along these lines risks misapprehending some more subtle elements the narrator intends to convey. I shall argue, rather, that the story has principally to do with the two related themes of knowledge and immortality (cf. Spero 2008, 257): the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil signals an increasing approximation to the divine which remains incomplete on account of the continued inaccessibility of immortality. Vital to this understanding is the pivotal role played by the two trees in the garden—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life—a role often brushed to the margins by even the most distinguished of theologians and exegetes. For this reason, a considerable portion of this chapter is dedicated to an in-depth analysis of the nature of the two trees in conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gerhard von Rad, and Claus Westermann. I hope to show that driving these interpretations—and especially pronounced in the case of the former two—is a rather traditional insistence that the primary thrust of the narrative is to point to humankind’s rebellion against God as the explanation for our unenviable inheritance of suffering, toil, and death.4 To varying degrees, each retains fundamental components of the traditional Fall story, thus (in my view) largely overlooking the central function of the two trees in the narrative. Ultimately, the result is that key elements in the Genesis text have been underplayed such that the doctrine of Original Sin remains insufficiently questioned. Before we begin, a roadmap of what is to come: in section I, we will briefly discuss two general features in the Genesis narrative which appear to belie the traditional “paradise lost” story. This will serve as a backdrop to section II, the main portion of this chapter, where we examine the tree of life and the “tree of knowledge”5 in some detail. Building on the insights there gained, I shall propose in section III an alternative account of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and discuss its ramifications for our understanding of the Genesis text as a whole.

2.1  Two Initial Observations Quite apart from what we will shortly discover concerning the two trees in the midst of the garden, there are several other aspects of Gen. 2–3 which require consideration if we are to provide an adequate assessment of more traditional interpretations. Two of these in particular will be considered; we begin with Gen. 2:7. The text reads: “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Now, as we saw in Chapter 1,

46  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition one central component of much speculation on Original Sin is that man was in the beginning created to be immortal, so long as he “remained in subjection to His Creator as his rightful Lord” (Augustine 1887a, XII.21). Taken in what is often assumed to be an Augustinian direction, this would entail that through its disobedience and subsequent punishment, humanity’s very nature has been corrupted and consequently is no longer immortal essentially.6 On privationist lines, on the other hand, this would mean that the withdrawal of God’s sanctifying grace has led to humans’ natural end, namely death of the body (though not of the soul). In either case, the point remains: the first humans were originally created to live forever, but through their disobedience were consigned to death, they and all their progeny. Recent scholarship, however, has challenged this supposition on a number of fronts, and in my view has shown convincingly that the Adam and Eve of Gen. 2–3 were created mortal all along. First—and this is an obvious point that has been raised often enough—in Hebrew the “breath of life” (nišmaṯ ḥayyîm) simply refers to that which animates a lifeless lump of clay, rather than a divine spirit or immortal soul (Olson 2010, 5).7 A body without this breath of life is thus either a corpse or not yet alive (cf. Walton 2015, 48). This is the clear sense of 2:7 where becoming a “living creature” is the culmination of a two-step process, involving first material formation akin to the work of a potter (Hartley 2000, 59), and thereafter reception of the “breath of life.” That there is no difference in this regard between humans and other animals can be easily proved by a glance ahead at Gen. 7:21–22, where it is made plain that the rest of the animals, too, possess the very same nišmaṯ ḥayyîm.8 Thus, according to the Genesis text, there is nothing distinctive about human beings that would preclude their succumbing to a natural death just like the other animals. Furthermore, to anticipate a possible objection, there is no suggestion that the curses enumerated in 3:14–19 have anything at all to do with death. While it is true that death is mentioned in 3:19, the curse itself extends to the ground rather than to the man; the purpose is to highlight Adam’s “pain and failure in work, toil and frustration in toil,” right up to the day he “[returns] to that same refractory soil which has made his life so bitter” (Barr 1992, 9; cf. Walton, 73–74). The role of death here merely serves to accentuate the inexorable drudgery which will characterize the whole of human life. Put bluntly, the idea that Adam and Eve were created in an original state of deathlessness, whether given with nature or by supernatural grace only, is nowhere to be found in the Genesis text.9 To take J. Richard Middleton’s (2017, 84) words slightly out of context, the widespread belief in the initial immortality of Adam and Eve is “more a function of Christian theological assumptions read back into the text than anything clearly narrated.” There is one other preliminary observation worth mentioning. Following the creation of man, the Lord God plants a garden in Eden (meaning “delight” or “bliss” [Gunkel 1997, 7]) and places man inside (v. 8). This lone verse contains two frequently overlooked facts which demand our attention:

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 47 first, the garden is planted in Eden, such that the vast majority of the created world falls outside of the garden (cf. Craig 2021, 116). Secondly, and along the same lines, the man is not “from paradise,” if I may so put it. God rather “put the man whom he had formed” inside the garden, of course implying he was formed elsewhere.10 Both of these point to the same reality: the garden is merely a local horticultural initiative rather than a paradise encompassing the whole of creation.11 Thus, for the Yahwist narrator at any rate, the world outside the garden is very probably not meant to be understood as idyllic, still less a realm devoid of all manner of suffering and death (cf. Middleton 2017, 77; Westermann 1984, 220). It would be too hasty to draw any definite conclusions at this point, but if this latter suggestion is on target, a clear upshot would be that the Genesis text seems unconcerned with an ontological change in the natural order, a central feature of some popular formulations of the Fall and Original Sin. More than this, it would then be possible to see Genesis as describing an as yet unfinished creation project in need of completion, as in the widespread rabbinic tendency to interpret Gen. 2–3 as taking place on the sixth day, before God takes his Sabbath rest (Collins 2014, 12–15; Spero 2008, 258, 267; cf. Maimonides 1903, 2.30: “All our Sages agree that this took place on the sixth day”). Much more could be said along similar lines.12 The brief comments we have made regarding the creation of humans and the Garden of Eden, however, will have to suffice as a preliminary witness to the questionable grounds of various aspects of the conventional Fall narrative so influential in the theological tradition. That said, to concede these points do not necessarily rule out an interpretation of the Genesis narrative which is nevertheless predominantly traditional in other respects. For this reason, we must now turn to a more central theme in Gen. 2–3 and evaluate the cogency of the established readings we find there.

2.2  The Trees in the Midst of the Garden It is in Genesis 2:9 that we are first made aware of the two enigmatic trees standing “in the midst” of the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These have received diverse interpretations over the centuries, and we shall look at several of these presently. We turn first to the tree of life. 2.2.1  The Tree of Life The initial mystery surrounding the tree of life is its disappearance for a full 46 verses between 2:10 and 3:22. The most common way to account for its absence is by appealing to the widely accepted view that Gen. 2–3 was initially two or more independent narratives which, over time, were gradually woven together into the single narrative we have today. This hypothesis explains several textual irregularities revealed by a close reading.

48  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition For instance, while in 2:9 we are told that both trees stand in the midst of the garden, in 3:3 we are led to believe there is only the one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Appealing to multiple original sources may be right as far as it goes, but I am here concerned with the interpretation of the text considered as a whole. It is not simply that the hypothetical nature of the source material renders an indubitable exposition of each separate fragment impossible, but rather that the final form of the text as we receive it today possesses its own inner coherence which clamors to be heard on its own terms (Rogerson 1994, 26; cf. von Rad 1972a, 42).13 We must therefore take the disappearance of the tree of life as a quite deliberate component of the story. What is being communicated with this, and, more importantly, what precisely is the tree of life? One initially tempting hypothesis is the one offered by Bonhoeffer:14 the tree of life is not named again until the expulsion from Eden because, before his transgression, Adam has life—he already partakes of the tree of life, given as it is with his unsullied primordial existence (Bonhoeffer 1997, 83–84).15 Of course, for Bonhoeffer, this “life” is not simply the biological life which humankind shares with the other animals.16 On the contrary, it is divine life: “The life that comes from God is at the center; that is to say, God, who gives life, is at the center” (83). On this view, then, the tree of life is more or less identified with God himself, which for prelapsarian Adam means that Adam has life in the unity of unbroken obedience to the Creator—has life just because Adam lives from the center of life, and is oriented toward the center of life, without placing Adam’s own life at the center. The distinctive characteristic of Adam’s life is utterly unbroken and unified obedience, that is, Adam’s innocence and ignorance of disobedience. (Bonhoeffer 1997, 84) When Adam breaks the commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge, however, he oversteps the creaturely limitations God has established and becomes sicut deus. The rebellious Adam now stands in the center in place of God, and so he lives a “boundless” life out of his own resources, thus in some peculiar sense striving to become his own creator (111–116). But Adam as sicut deus is dead: attempting to live from himself, he stands “before God as an outlaw, as one who is lost and damned, but not as one who no longer exists” (90). He has deprived himself of his very lifeblood, that divine spirit he received in 2:7. This “death in life” gives rise to Adam’s consciousness of the tree of life for the first time, which, alas, can no longer be tasted (141–144). For Bonhoeffer, then, the tree of life symbolizes the universal human need for a life centered on God: a person lacking the divine life is a halftruth, and so life becomes a living death. Bonhoeffer need not suppose a “historical Fall” here; to arrive at this theological truth and incriminate all

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 49 humankind, all that is required is that Adam stand for “Everyman” in his desire to live from his own center. Now, theologically, there may be little the matter with this claim; as an exegesis of the Genesis text, however, it appears doubtful. First, it is not clear that Gen. 2–3 provides the warrant for such an interpretation—indeed, a straightforward reading seems to rule out much of what Bonhoeffer has to say.17 We might also ask Bonhoeffer why Adam is not permitted simply to take from the tree of life again: he makes much of Adam’s “infinite thirst” for the tree of life, but no explanation is given as to why this cannot be quenched (see 142–144). Is not the tree of life precisely what Adam now needs? These, however, are only minor quibbles next to the primary issue for Bonhoeffer’s interpretation, and that is this: it has become quite difficult in the wake of two centuries of higher criticism to see the tree of life as symbolizing anything other than personal immortality and humanity’s existentially fueled quest to attain it. Central to this insight has been the unearthing of various references to trees, plants, or food18 of life in other literature from the ancient near east, much of which is considerably older than the Pentateuch.19 The plants here routinely function as a symbol for the human “search for that elusive immortality which is the prerogative of the gods” (Davidson 1973, 29). The best-known example is, of course, the Gilgamesh Epic, where we are told of Gilgamesh’s pursuit of immortality following the death of his companion, Enkidu. At the end of the epic, Gilgamesh procures a “plant of heartbeat” named “Old Man Grown Young,” which is then promptly and unceremoniously carried off by a snake, cruelly denying Gilgamesh the eternal life he thought secure (1999, tablet XI, lines 279–309). There appears to be little doubt that the ancient Hebrews inherited this widespread motif of “immortality denied” (and its connection to a plant of life) from existing near eastern mythology, and so we are on solid ground in supposing this to be the correct sense of the Genesis text (Barr 1992, 61; Gunkel 1997, 8; Westermann 1984, 213–214).20 Concluding his own thoughts on the relationship between the plant in the Gilgamesh Epic and the tree of life in Genesis, Westermann (1984, 214) says bluntly, “both conclude that eternal life is inaccessible. Humans have nothing that can save them from death.” Even von Rad—whose overall reticence towards the tree of life is conspicuous—countenances no other possibility than that the tree of life symbolizes immortality, and on the very same grounds (1972a, 78, 97).21 Immortality, it would seem, is an attribute befitting divinity alone. A more obvious point to make, however, is that in 3:22–23, the reason given for Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden is that eating from the tree of life would render them immortal: “Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—.” It is not transparent how this could be taken to mean, “Now, lest he take also of the tree of life and live in ‘unbroken obedience to the creator’” as Bonhoeffer supposes (1997, 84). Many have seen this clearly, though it has not, in my

50  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition estimation, featured as centrally in many exegeses as it ought. Ephrem the Syrian, however, hits the target: “It was now decreed that they should live in toil, in sweat, in pains and in pangs. Therefore, lest Adam and Eve … live forever and remain in eternal lives of suffering, God forbade them to eat” (quoted in Oden 2001, 101).22 As an act of mercy, then, God withholds from humans access to the tree of life—an immortality which would otherwise prove wholly unbearable in light of 3:16–19 (cf. von Rad 1972a, 97). It thus appears that seeing the tree of life as a symbol for immortality is virtually inevitable. In section III, it will be suggested that the narratival significance of this finding is that humanity’s approximation to the divine in this capacity is both conceivable and, in one respect, already underway. But for now we must turn to a rather longer discussion of the meaning of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 2.2.2  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil It was Westermann (1984, 211) who remarked that the two trees have produced a tremendous array of discussion in addition to beautiful fruit; it would have been even truer to say this of the forbidden tree in particular. We might wish to say that if the tree of life has occasioned a downpour of debate and controversy, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has triggered a flood.23 Whereas it is fairly certain that the tree of life can only refer to immortality, with the “tree of knowledge” we are on somewhat shakier ground. I shall now consider at some length two prevailing interpretations, after which I advance several lines of criticism before concluding that an alternative account is the most promising way forward. 2.2.2.1  Gerhard von Rad The first interpretation I wish to consider has enjoyed the support of some fairly eminent Old Testament scholars; it is from von Rad (1972a) in particular that we take our cue. Perhaps the simplest way to expound this construal is by calling attention to the designation given to the tree in question: after a brusque introduction to the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” for purposes of stage-setting, von Rad immediately drops the label and thereafter refers to the tree almost exclusively as the “tree of knowledge.” This is no mere sobriquet—for von Rad, the elongated appellation “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” represents something of an unwelcome addition to a more primitive text; in defense of this thesis, he points to a grammatical inelegance in the combination of hadda’at (the knowing of) with its object ṭōb wārā’ (of good and evil). At some stage before the final redaction, it was only the tree of knowledge. Von Rad places great weight on this hypothetical source (79). Now, this would seem quite blatantly to contravene his previous admonition to “not investigate the earlier history of the material with the expectation of finding what is really ‘authentic’ at the lowest level

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 51 attainable”; as he reminds us, the narrative “never for a moment leaves us in doubt that it does not share this interest in its earliest level” (42; emphasis added). However, von Rad manages to extricate himself from this awkward position by suggesting that, in its original context, “knowledge of good and evil” would have in any case meant knowledge simpliciter, rather than knowledge of anything in particular. According to von Rad, “The Western reader must first of all learn from Old Testament usage that the pair of terms (good and evil) is not at all used only in the moral sense, not even especially in the moral sense. Knowledge of good and evil means, therefore, omniscience in the widest sense of the word” (81). This assertion is certainly abrupt, and he provides little context to help the reader with this hard saying. Lurking in the background, however, is the use of “good and evil” as a Hebrew idiom denoting “all things” or “everything.” In Gen. 24:50, for example, when we hear “we cannot speak to you bad or good” (ṭōb ‘ōw rā’), the most accurate rendering is “we have nothing to say” (Davidson 1973, 35). “Good and evil” thus means “everything,” and so knowledge of good and evil is a roundabout way of referring to “omniscience in the widest sense of the word.”24 At first, von Rad tells us that the reason for the prohibition on the tree of knowledge is not a question that should be explored by the exegete. Such “rationalistic explanations,” he says, result in the destruction of the essential point of the story, which is obedience to the divine commandment (81).25 A key example of this point is the serpent’s attempt to cajole Eve into eating of the tree in 3:1–5: Eve is encouraged to “step out of the circle of obedience and to judge God and his command as though from a neutral position” (88).26 But this inordinate focus on obedience, it seems to me, causes von Rad some serious difficulties up to this point. His end goal is clear enough: he wants at all costs to preserve his interpretation of the text as highlighting the humans’ disobedience and hubristic flouting of the existential limits set on their nature by God—i.e., rebellion (89–90). But to arrive at this conclusion, von Rad is forced to see the serpent’s understanding of “good and evil” as fundamentally different from the “omniscience” interpretation he outlined before. In truth, from the temptation scene on, von Rad jettisons completely the former designation of “good and evil” as referring to omniscience, and adopts instead what might be called a “functional” approach: “good and evil” means “what is ‘beneficial’ and ‘salutary’ on the one hand and ‘detrimental,’ ‘damaging’ on the other” (89).27 This move allows him to solve a couple of problems. First, while previously it was not clear how God’s proclamation in 3:22—“the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil”—could possibly be true (Adam does not become omniscient), we now have an explanation: Adam’s knowing of good and evil as deciding for himself what is beneficial makes the “guiding principle of his life…his autonomous knowing and willing”; he “has really ceased to understand himself as a creature” (97). This new link forged between knowledge of good and evil and Adam’s newfound autonomy serves another purpose as well: the tree of knowledge now takes center stage. Whereas before the tree’s

52  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition omniscience-bearing capacity was an incidental trifle which, if anything, positively distracted the reader from the main thrust of the narrative, it now reifies the lesson to be learned: humanity’s autocratic insistence on pursuing its own “good” apart from God is the very essence of sin. This leads to a third and related point: it is now manifest why the tree was off limits in the first place. Declaring independence from God by electing to seek one’s own “good” would always spell a “grievous disruption” in the very core of human being (91). This seems like an excellent reason for the proscription. 2.2.2.2  Claus Westermann We have just seen how exegetical difficulties compelled von Rad fundamentally to rethink his interpretation of the tree of knowledge. His second, ultimately more fruitful “functional” approach will be looked at more fully here. We will leave von Rad for the time being, however, and turn to Westermann for a more systematic exposition. For Westermann, it is beyond dispute that there once existed a narrative which featured a forbidden tree alone in the middle of the garden (3:1ff.). This tree is not explicitly named,28 though that it is to be identified with what we now call the tree of knowledge is clear from 3:5. This narrative was later combined with the quite separate motif of the tree of life, which in the final version serves to bookend the story about the tree of knowledge, suggesting that the redactor “wanted to say that a similar event was linked with the tree of life as with the tree of the narrative” (Westermann 1984, 213). The mention of the tree of knowledge in 2:9, then, is an editorial attempt to unite more coherently the two independent narratives. Westermann thus underscores the necessity of beginning any exposition of the tree of knowledge not at 2:9 as it stands in relation to the tree of life (pace Bonhoeffer), but rather in Gen. 3 where we find it at home in its narrative of origin (213, 223). As alluded to above, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil receives its name from the serpent’s words in the earlier narrative: “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God [or gods], knowing good and evil” (3:5). But what precisely does this mean? Westermann considers that “the protracted discussion about the meaning of the knowledge of good and evil” has generally neglected two fundamental presuppositions (241). The first of these discloses the essence of the phrase “good and evil”: “This way of knowing is not a knowledge of something, of an object; … it is rather a functional knowledge. ‘Good and evil’ does not mean something that is good or evil in itself, but what is good or evil for humans, i.e., what is useful or harmful” (241 [emphasis added]). This knowledge is therefore about success—specifically “in the context of the struggle for existence” (241)— rather than an abstract knowledge of moral absolutes.29 The second presupposition, subordinate to and following on the first, is that this functional knowledge pertains primarily to the community rather than the individual (242). “Knowledge of good and evil” therefore refers to mindfulness of what

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 53 is propitious or injurious in practical matters, especially as it pertains to the sustained flourishing of communal life. As it stands, this is only a partial explanation of the tree of knowledge. A discussion of two further questions will aid us in fully expounding Westermann’s interpretation. First, why is the knowledge of good and evil subject to a divine prohibition? The next question is this: in what sense exactly have the humans become like God after eating from the tree? We will take these two questions briefly in turn. As to the reason behind the prohibition given in 2:17, Westermann first notes that immediately preceding this, in verse 16, we find what von Rad calls a “great release”: Adam has been authorized to eat of every other tree in the garden, and so there can be no question of him suffering want from being denied access to the tree of knowledge (222; von Rad 1972a, 80). But, as Westermann recognizes, this hardly tells us why this tree alone should be off limits to Adam. To this further probing, Westermann’s response can only be that “it is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the text to ask why God wanted to withhold from man the knowledge of good and evil” (Westermann 1984, 223). A correct understanding rather emphasizes the commandment: the Yahwist’s primary goal is to communicate that the divine-human relationship has as its basis God’s unilateral command to human beings, as well as the humans’ response of faithful obedience (223–224). Just as in 2:15 Adam is directed to till and keep the garden, so here through the command “something is entrusted to the man; he is given an area of freedom which the animals do not possess” (223–224). Once again, we see that the tree’s ability to impart knowledge of good and evil is very nearly an extraneous aside. What counts is the command itself, providing as it does the necessary condition for humanity’s relationship to and consequent responsibility before God: “the command need not be comprehensible, and such is the case here. The meaning is this: the command remains the word of the one who commands. One can only hear it while one hears in it the one who commands and is obedient to him” (224). To hear another voice, then, leads to the infringement of the command that imposes a limit on human beings, thus occasioning a fissure in the divine-human relationship. The result of this is “death”: “To say no to God…is ultimately to say no to life; for life comes from God” (224). This sets the stage nicely for Westermann’s answer to our second question concerning Adam and Eve’s becoming sicut deus. How have the man and woman become like God in 3:22? Westermann takes the text at face value without protest: Adam and Eve “have become God-like in their ability to know good and evil” (272). But why does knowledge of good and evil make them god-like? One answer, which we will have opportunity to discuss below, is that wisdom, like immortality, is a quintessentially divine attribute, and so by coming to know good and evil they have, in a qualified sense, acquired a trait reserved for the gods. Westermann in fact raises this possibility somewhat approvingly (272); it does not, however, seem to be his favored answer. The primary sense in which knowledge of

54  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition good and evil has made Adam and Eve god-like is, rather, that it is employed for transcendence of a creaturely limitation (249), or “mastering one’s existence” (241). This theme is not exceptionally prominent in Westermann’s exegesis, but where it surfaces it is consequential enough—indeed, it is the aspiration which elicits the crime (249). He explains, “‘To be like God’ is not something over and above knowledge, but describes it and all that it is capable of. It is concerned with a divine and unbridled ability to master one’s existence” (249 [emphasis added]). Unlike what we find in von Rad, it is not Adam’s autonomy tout court that makes him god-like, but the possibility of him becoming so. However, he is in agreement with von Rad on a more fundamental point: autonomy (achieved by humans through defiance) is an irreducible element of godlikeness, even if only in potentia.30 This insight seamlessly brings us right back to the start and rounds out our discussion on the knowledge of good and evil in Westermann: the knowledge with which the serpent tempts Eve—the same knowledge that is eventually obtained—is a practical, “functional” knowledge of how to become lord of one’s own life in the place of God.31 2.2.2.3  Objections to von Rad and Westermann The view taken here is that there are serious disadvantages in the approaches we have been considering vis-à-vis the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One problem with von Rad’s initial “omniscience” interpretation we touched on above, namely that Adam patently does not know all things by the end of the narrative. This plainly contradicts God’s announcement in 3:22 that Adam does in fact know good and evil (ex hypothesi everything).32 Then there is the fact of sundry instances in the Old Testament and apocrypha where ṭōb and rā’ used together unquestionably do not denote “everything.”33 Thus even if we concede that “good and evil” can, in certain specified instances, mean “everything,” it by no means follows we must so interpret it here. Finally, we might recall how von Rad was compelled to supplement omniscience with the functional approach due to the former’s inability to play anything but an incidental role in the narrative; but the tree of knowledge is plainly a central feature of the story! The omniscience interpretation, then, seems clearly inadequate. The “functional” approach, too, is susceptible to some powerful objections. To be sure, it is definitely an improvement on the omniscience interpretation, and there are respects in which it harmonizes well with the text. There is, for instance, Eve’s consideration that the tree was “to be desired to make one wise” (3:6): wisdom in the Hebrew tradition deals preeminently with prudence in matters of life and conduct, dovetailing nicely with Westermann’s definition of “good and evil” (Boadt 2000, 1380ff.).34 Despite its positive elements, however, the drawbacks are considerable. There is, in the first place, a rather obvious criticism to be leveled against von Rad, namely, that his reading seems to neglect Gen. 3:22: “the man has

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 55 become like one of us in knowing good and evil.” For von Rad, knowledge of good and evil is not what makes humans like God. Rather, it is Adam’s newfound autonomy wherein his godlikeness consists. This fact doesn’t change if we allow that functional knowledge of good and evil might give rise to this state of independence, for we are still constrained by the text. Gen. 3:22 does not say, “the man has become like one of us in becoming self-ruling and autonomous,” but rather, “the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil”—that is, in knowing what is “beneficial” and “detrimental” (von Rad 1972a, 89). The knowledge of the latter must be what makes Adam like God if we are to stay true to the text. But this is not the case in von Rad’s exegesis, and so it seems he is unable to skirt the objection. There is also the related concern raised by James Barr (1992, 62) which, if not entirely unanswerable, certainly exposes Westermann on other fronts. He complains, “I do not find it clear why the ‘functional’ knowledge of what is useful or harmful, important as such knowledge is, should count as making human beings ‘like God’.” How does this criticism fare? To evaluate this requires appreciable nuance and will not be without some ambiguity, but his critique appears to be an effective one. As we just saw, von Rad is unable to harmonize his reading of the narrative with God’s words in 3:22 due to a disassociation between functional knowledge and autonomy. Westermann’s subtler rendition of godlikeness, however, closes this gap. Adam’s new likeness to God consists in a “divine and unbridled ability to master one’s existence” (Westermann 1984, 248 [emphasis added]). It is this insistence on the possibility of becoming autonomous rather than the actualized reality that distances Westermann from von Rad, and indeed renders our present objection the more interesting. Westermann’s definition of “knowledge of good and evil,” it will be remembered, is a success-oriented cognizance of the useful and harmful. In Westermannian terms, then, we can put the question thus: how does knowing the useful and harmful imply an ability to master one’s existence? (How does knowing good and evil imply godlikeness?) Westermann’s answer would presumably be along the following lines: When a person becomes aware of what is beneficial and harmful, he acquires knowledge of two new options before him. He can, say, eat a banana—propitious, good; or he can eat poisonous berries—detrimental, evil. To choose the latter would be to make a pronouncement that the evil is in fact good, that God’s truthful judgement is false—now the man has crossed into bona fide insubordination. But he need not actually choose evil to become like God— being in a state of knowledge that grounds the possibility for autonomy is enough: again, “‘to be like God’ is not something over and above knowledge, but describes it and all that it is capable of. It is concerned with a divine and unbridled ability to master one’s existence” (248). Knowing good and evil thus puts humans in a situation in which the opportunity for autonomously choosing one’s own “good” arises through mere awareness of various alternatives. Perhaps a Westermannian account of godlikeness and “good and evil” can be so linked. But I am not sure how satisfying this is. In the first place,

56  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition Westermann’s interpretation of godlikeness is highly contentious—indeed, it is tempting to see it as contrived to meet the present objection. Why should godlikeness refer to the mere capacity for autonomy rather than autonomy simpliciter? It is surely more befitting of deity actually to be autonomous rather than merely possess it as an abstract possibility. Von Rad, then, seemed nearer the mark in connecting achieved autonomy with likeness to God rather than the mere possibility of “mastering existence.” If this is the case, however, the gap between knowledge and autonomy is reopened, and Barr’s question remains unanswered. This investigation of Westermann points us also to another purely exegetical difficulty pertaining to what Eve seems to know before eating from the tree of knowledge. What is clear in the narrative is that Adam and Eve have no knowledge of good and evil before they eat (2:25; 3:5, 7, 11, 22), and moreover that this knowledge arises at once only after they do so (3:7).35 But if we assume a functional account of good and evil, a serious problem emerges. For in 3:6, Eve employs what appears to be “functional” reasoning par excellence in her deliberations: “the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” Westermann arguably succeeds in maneuvering around the first and second of these by suggesting that natural human affections only are at play (1984, 249). This is not so, however, for the third deliberation; as he makes clear, what is enticing about wisdom is the intellectually apprehended capacity to “rise above oneself” (249). But how can this be enticing unless the woman has already decided it is “useful”? Knowledge of “good and evil” in the functional sense thus appears necessary for the temptation to get fully off the ground (cf. 241). I am not at all convinced that this difficulty will admit of an easy solution. In light of these criticisms and others, it seems best to explore other possibilities as to the meaning of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We now turn to the final section of this chapter for an exploration of one such possibility against the background of the Genesis narrative as a whole.

2.3  Genesis 2–3 and the Knowledge of Good and Evil Let us briefly retrace our steps: we began this chapter by noting several facets of the Genesis text which do not accord well with the traditional “Fall of Man” interpretation. We then turned to what the present argument takes to be the predominant motif in the narrative, looking at the tree of life and the tree of knowledge in connection with three of their interpreters. Thus far, we have concluded (1) that the tree of life almost certainly symbolizes immortality, and (2) that the readings of the tree of knowledge hitherto examined are likely incorrect. It therefore behooves us, in the final section of this chapter, to offer an improved interpretation of the latter tree whilst tying together the various other strands we have been discussing. Let it be noted explicitly that, in the event my proposed reading fails to convince,

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 57 (a) the accuracy of the critical section above will in no way be affected; (b) the more modest claim needed for the argument of this book will remain intact, namely, that there exist plausible alternative interpretations of Gen. 2–3.36 All that hangs on the following is a certain understanding of the Genesis text which, to my mind, makes the best sense of all the data. I concede this reading may be objectionable on several counts, but I think the pros will ultimately be shown to outweigh the potential cons. Following James Barr and, more recently, such scholars as Mark S. Smith and Ziony Zevit, it seems to me that the most likely rendering of the tree of knowledge is the most uncomplicated one: the knowledge of good and evil refers to “the power of rational and especially ethical discrimination” (Barr 1992, 62; see also Smith 2019, 35–64; Zevit 2013).37 While the “omniscience” and “functional” approaches led mainly to riddles and a proliferation of questions, taking “knowledge of good and evil” simply to mean “knowledge of good and evil” appears to illuminate several former obscurities. On the functional approach, for instance, it is unclear how Eve is able to partake of the tree in the first place, given that every indication suggests she utilizes an already mastered “functional” calculus to persuade herself to do so.38 This is not so on the “ethical” approach, however: since Gen. 3:6 merely describes the fruit on offer as something useful for a certain end rather than something morally “good” or “bad,” ethical knowledge of good and evil is in no way a prerequisite for partaking.39 As it happens, this veritable lack of ethical discrimination provides an alternative—and to my mind entirely more convincing—explanation as to why Eve capitulates to the serpent’s temptation in the first place: she does not know what is good and what is evil, and so she can hardly be expected to regard the divine command as unqualifiedly good and worthy of obedience (Smith 2019, 40). Before the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil, the human pair is innocent: rebellion and moral wrongdoing presuppose this knowledge. Therefore, Adam and Eve’s eating from the tree might not be an instance of conscious rebellion, a quest for autonomy (pace, e.g., Dunn 1998, 83) or an attempt to “[declare] their independence from their creator” (Walton 2015, 147). At worst, the transgression recorded in Gen. 3:6 indicates immaturity, as in the waywardness of a child who is “unaccustomed to and unexercised in perfect discipline,” in the words of Irenaeus (1885a, IV.38.1).40 Perhaps this is the explanation for two further facts worthy of consideration. There is, on the one hand, the widely adduced but seldom heeded curiosity that neither the Genesis text nor the Hebrew Bible as a whole ever refer to Adam and Eve as sinners in any capacity; in this connection we might point out too that the first mention of sin (châṭâ’) comes in Gen. 4:7 following Cain’s act of fratricide, rather than in Chapter 3 as we might expect (cf. Smith 2019, 59ff.; Spero 2008, n9).41 On the other hand, it has not gone without notice that the overall tenor of the post-transgression narrative is hardly one of tragedy, as would be fitting were this truly a cataclysmic and earthshattering incident: “The story has a mildly ironic and comic character

58  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition rather than one of unrelieved tragedy and catastrophe” (Barr 1992, 12). If this is correct, it further bolsters my contention that the elements of guilt and rebellion, so vital to traditional conceptions of the Fall and Original Sin, are rather lacking in the Genesis narrative itself.42 The story, I suggest, is about something else. To see what this “something else” is, a few more comments regarding the tree of knowledge are in order. Let us here examine for the first time what the Yahwist takes to be a pivotal turning point in the story’s progression. In 2:25, before the fruit is eaten, we are told that “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed,” that is, embarrassed or shy.43 Immediately following the eating of the tree in 3:6, in verse 7, we have a very deliberate complement to 2:25: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” The response to this newly surfaced self-awareness is the construction of fig leaf garments to cover themselves even prior to appearing naked before God in 3:10. The obvious insinuation here is that clothing is now needed to compensate for embarrassment at being exposed. Thus, something has occurred to elicit a new consciousness in Adam and Eve; in other words, there is something about knowledge of good and evil44 which gives rise to an awareness and subsequent embarrassment of being naked. To see how this relates to knowledge of good and evil in an ethical sense, it is worth quoting Barr at length: In Hebrew culture clothing was fundamental for normality. In the beginning the first humans were naked and were not disturbed, not embarrassed, by this; they were like the animals. … No consciousness of distinctions [between humans and animals] was necessary, no one gave the matter a thought. The arrival of ‘knowledge’ brought discrimination. Things differed according to various categories. Human was different from animal, and, as within the animal world, so within humanity, there were fences between categories. …Adam and Eve hid among the bushes because they were embarrassed to be naked; they did not want God (or anyone else) to see them like that; it was this, rather than shame at an evil deed, that motivated them. It was not shame caused by wrong-doing, it was rather a matter of propriety. (Barr 1992, 62–63; cf. Smith 2019, 60) For the ancient Hebrews, as for the overwhelming majority of human cultures up to the present day, nakedness was very much a moral consideration: to appear naked was above all an issue of decorum, of what is proper behavior in ordinary circumstances.45 In the Yahwist’s mind, then, the decisive movement away from the state of solidarity with animals towards the typically human experience of transcending the realm of pure animality is, naturally enough, first indicated by a simple moral awareness of one’s nakedness. One of the initial items of which humans become aware, then,

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 59 is their de facto transgression of a somewhat minor ethical constraint, and so they fashion for themselves loincloths as a remedy. Hence, far from the Genesis text recounting a heinous act of moral evil duly punished, it rather “tells a story before sin or evil were actualized” (Smith 2019, 59), relating the attainment of the knowledge of good and evil as the very condition for the possibility of moral agency in the first place.46 Only after the fruit is eaten can there be authentic ethical responsibility before God and other human beings. We might say, then, that Gen. 2–3 deals primarily with the hominization of humankind, with the progression of the human species from an earlier, thoroughly affective existence to a state in which it becomes the more rational, morally responsible and self-determining animal we recognize today. As Smith (2019, 41) puts it, we see in this story “human persons in their process of becoming human persons.” Hence God’s blessing on the desire for clothing (3:21), Cain’s founding of the first city (4:17), and the development of culture and technology among Cain’s descendants (4:20–22).47 Above all, however, these new ethical and rational capacities give rise to a novel sort of relationship with God: with the knowledge of good and evil, and thus the capacity for moral agency, humans are now fully capable of receiving and responding to revelation. The constitution of the human animal is now such that it alone of all telluric creatures can freely and responsibly respond to its God, and of fundamental importance in this regard is, of course, moral accountability. To forestall an obvious objection, it is true that Adam was, by virtue of his ability to name them, already distinct from the other animals prior to the transgression (2:19–20); and, of course, he was able to receive the divine command in 2:17. But, if the above analysis is on target, we see that this preliminary stage of distinction from the beasts stands in need of fulfillment for humankind to become more fully what God intends it to be.48 And what is it that God intends for us to be? This question will be touched on in Part II of this book; however, the answer may be anticipated here as we conclude our investigation of Gen. 2–3. It was pointed out above that immortality, represented in the Genesis text by the tree of life, was in the ancient near east considered to be the divine attribute par excellence. To achieve it would mean that one had ‘crossed over,’ as it were, into the realm of divinity—or in Ronald Hendel’s phrase, “would complete the transition to deities” (quoted in Smith 2019, 41; cf. Westermann 1984, 272). But in fact wisdom held a similar divine status—though not the sort of purely functional, amoral wisdom reviewed above. It is rather the variety of wisdom which features so prominently throughout the Hebrew Bible, to wit, a wisdom which is characterized chiefly by righteousness and uprightness of conduct (Boadt 2000, 1380),49 and therefore knowledge of and discernment between moral good and evil.50 This association is no more clear than in the hortatory address given to the readers of Prov. 1: the following words are “for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just

60  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition and fair” (1:2–3). Such assertions in the Hebrew scriptures of the inextricable link between wisdom and ethical integrity can be reproduced easily enough,51 and so we have no hesitation in agreeing with Westermann’s bold declaration, so long as it is rightly understood: “It is easy to see why [the two trees] have been brought together: wisdom and eternal life are the two qualities that are peculiar to the Divinity and it is conceivable that by means of them human beings can come near to God” (1984, 272; cf. Walton 2015, 124–127). So we see the Yahwist was anything but arbitrary in his selection of the two trees in the middle of the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were deliberately chosen to convey humankind’s perennial search for—and partial attainment of—that which by nature is said to pertain to the gods alone.52 At long last, then, good sense can be made of the words in 3:5 and 3:22 that the man and woman become like God precisely in their acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil: they have obtained a trait customarily reserved for divinity.53 This, we might say, is how the imago dei is born in human persons.54 But at present, this knowledge of good and evil, this loss of innocence and definite step away from the purely animal life, bears heavy natural consequences: there will be pain in childbearing and frustrated relationships (3:16); work will be trying and life a perpetual struggle (3:17–19); human guilt before God and one another will obtain in earnest. But by the mercies of God these days have been cut short: “Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden.” Man has indeed become like God in knowing good and evil, but this fact signals not an end but a beginning. For there is greater godlikeness still to be achieved; human beings in their present condition are not fit for immortality (cf. Smith 2019, 41–45). But at the end of the Christian Bible, in Rev. 22, we witness the reappearance of the tree of life: On either side of the river [was] the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Rev. 22:2–5) Human beings have yet to eat of the tree of life and live forever,55 but according to Revelation they one day will. How much more will it be said on that day, “Behold, the man has become like one of us”?56 From the very first, then, humankind’s increasing approximation to the divine has been a central focus of the scriptures. Reading the Genesis text in this light, the overtones of guilt and rebellion fall away to make room for

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 61 the primary motifs of knowledge and immortality. With the former now in humankind’s possession, the possibility of revelation and therefore salvation are brought to birth. As is evident from the Revelation passage cited above, and as we shall see in Chapter 6, a dominant constituent of salvation in the New Testament is immortality—and an immortality connected with the tree of life at that. Only through Christ, however, is this immortality obtained. Fittingly, then, we turn now to the further question of St. Paul’s Christology vis-à-vis the Genesis text we have been investigating. For, while Gen. 2–3 may say little about the Fall and Original Sin, surely Paul desires to communicate rather more?

Notes









1 This is not to deny, of course, that other texts may be (and have been) marshalled in defense of Original Sin or a historical Adam (e.g., Ps. 51:5, Acts 17:26, 1 Cor. 15, 1 Tim. 2:14, etc.). It is only to suggest that without these two texts, the doctrine’s grounding in scripture is very feeble indeed. 2 Under this heading Loke includes such thinkers as Kierkegaard, Tillich, Niebuhr, and Barth. 3 A Roman Catholic would have a harder time agreeing with this judgement than a Protestant, constrained as he is by the magisterial teaching on Original Sin. Nevertheless, many modern Catholic approaches do seek to eliminate the historical dimension. See Vandervelde (1981, 42–52) for a brief overview and analysis of this situation. 4 Westermann consciously distances himself from the traditional view in many ways; in the end, though, I think it is clear he is more committed to it than he supposes. 5 Unless otherwise stated, I am using “tree of knowledge” as a shorthand for “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” for concision and ease of reading. See, however, Section II.2a of this chapter for an account of how von Rad shortens it for other purposes. 6 See, for instance, Novello (2009, 175). But see Chapter 1, Section II.2 above for a more accurate statement of things. 7 David Bentley Hart (2022, 123) is merely the most recent theologian to get this wrong. 8 Cf. Gen. 6:17, 7:15 where rūaḥ is used. At both 2:7 and 7:22 nišmaṯ ḥayyîm is located in the nostrils (bə’appāw); nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible is the word bə’appāw used. I note also a potential parallel from ancient Egypt indicated by Walton (2015, 86): a spell from the Coffin Texts contain a reference to “breath being put in the throats of human beings, along with all other creatures.” 9 Allowance being made, of course, for the possibility of Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of Life and then living forever (with thanks to Andrew Torrance for pressing me here). 10 This is confirmed in 2:15 and especially 3:23: “therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.” 11 Or, perhaps, a “sacred space” where order was established amidst the surrounding lack thereof. See Walton (2015, esp. propositions 12–14). 12 For a much more exhaustive catalogue of often overlooked features of Gen. 2–3, I would direct the reader’s attention to Walton (2015). 13 For a fine recent argument affirming synchronic coherence across Gen. 2–3 (with special reference to the tree of life), see Heard (2020).

62  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition 14 I acknowledge that Bonhoeffer’s aim is more in the realm of “theological exegesis” than exegesis simpliciter. Still, he is an ideal dialogue partner here for two reasons: (1) he helps underscore the extent to which the traditional interpretation of Gen. 2–3 has become embedded in the consciousness of Christian theology; (2) his interpretation is an excellent illustration of modern theology’s endeavors to remove the Fall from history and yet retain Original Sin. With thanks to Koert Verhagen for pressing me to justify my choice of Bonhoeffer. 15 Presumably, the narrator makes initial mention of the tree of life in 2:9 to introduce the scene to the reader. It is clear in Bonhoeffer’s thought that before his transgression, Adam is completely unaware of the tree’s presence. 16 Though, somewhat confusingly, neither is the “breath of life” simply biological life, as it was for the ancient Hebrews. Bonhoeffer interprets 2:7 as saying that “God breathes the spirit of God into the body of the human being.” He continues: “Other life is created through God’s word, but in the case of human life God gives of God’s own life, of God’s own spirit. Human beings do not live as human beings apart from God’s spirit” (1997, 78). We have seen why this interpretation is mistaken above. 17 For example, the near-identification of the tree of life with God. 18 As is the case for the Myth of Adapa (read: “food”). See Rogers (1912, 69). 19 For a brief discussion of this, see Walton (2015, 120–122). 20 William Lane Craig rightly warns against committing the “depressingly common” fallacy of overgeneralization when interpreting Gen. 2–3: to establish genuine parallels, pointing out similarities at the general level is simply not good enough. Careful attention must be paid to specifics; apart from this, Craig thinks, authentic parallels remain dubious at best (see [2021, 70ff.]). My approach here seeks to avoid this “parallelomania,” but nevertheless takes for granted that similarities between texts within a common milieu may be deeply illuminating (as does Craig—see, e.g., [91–93]). I shall let the reader decide if I have succumbed to “parallelomania.” In any case, I make no claim about the dependence of Gen. 2–3 on other texts. 21 This lack of discussion isn’t without serious ramifications for his exegesis as a whole. The quest for immortality relegated to an incidental curiosity, his interpretation is bound to focus more heavily on Adam’s act of disobedience than on the nature of the two trees. We might wonder if, on von Rad’s reading, the narrative would change in any way were all references to the tree of life omitted (cf. Barr [1992, 59] on the marginalization of the tree of life). 22 According to Ephrem, the fruit of the tree of life was made accessible anew through the Eucharist. See Buchan (2007, 153–154). 23 See Westermann (1984, 242–245) for an exhaustive catalogue of different interpretations circa 1984. 24 A quick caveat: according to von Rad, yada (to know) in the Hebrew sense does not refer only to “intellectual knowing, but rather an ‘experiencing’, a ‘becoming acquainted with’.” von Rad takes great pains to make this clear, and so we would do well to bear this in mind (1972a, 81). 25 He says, “the meaning of life in Paradise consist[s] completely in the question of obedience to God.” This is very much in line with Bonhoeffer’s reading. However, neither von Rad nor Bonhoeffer take this in a voluntarist direction. For the former, we can surmise that the forbidden fruit was somehow inherently deleterious for the humans (1972a, 80ff.); for Bonhoeffer the proscription is in place to keep them from cutting themselves off from an essential aspect of their being, viz. the divine breath of life. 26 Perhaps unsurprisingly, he goes on to quote Bonhoeffer: “Wherever man attacks the concrete Word of God with the weapon of a principle or an idea of God, there he has become the lord of God.”

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 63 27 Berkouwer, too, perceives this shift (1971, 271–272). 28 That is, unless one takes the name given in 2:17 to be a genuine feature of the original narrative. 29 Of course, this view presupposes the existence of an unbridgeable gulf between that which is ‘useful’ or conducive to ‘success’ and that which is ‘good’ in a purely moral sense—this assumption may well reflect an unconscious inheritance of a diluted Kantianism on Westermann’s part. The alternative view that something more akin to a natural law approach might be found in the Hebrew Bible is not without its proponents: see, e.g., Barton (1998, esp. chs. 1 and 4); Novak (2008); Levering (2008). 30 This is, as we saw in Chapter 1, Section II.2, is a deeply Augustinian—and therefore “traditional”—suggestion. Compare the impassioned words of Karl Barth (1933, 168): “Sin is robbery. … It is an assumption of independence in which God is forgotten. It is the sophisticated, pretentious, unchildlike, wisdom of the serpent: Hath God said?—a wisdom to which men attend, and which produces an unreal aloofness from God who is the Life of our life.” 31 This is as pronounced as language of rebellion becomes in Westermann. Though muffled, however, the overtones are still clear: the humans’ realized mastering of their existence is contingent on disobedience to the command. Adam and Eve are exiled from Eden precisely because they disobey the divine command, that is, rebel. It is also clear that Westermann sees in the transgression the first instance of sin (250), even if Adam and Eve don’t immediately recognize it as such (253). It is still, in the final analysis, a “crime against God” and therefore the couple is liable to guilt (255–256). 32 Cf. Walton (2015, 143): “No suggestion is made that they have become omniscient or omnipotent.” 33 For example, 2 Sam. 14:17, 19:35, 1 Ki. 3:9; Deut. 1:39; Is. 7:15; Sir. 17:7. 34 Of course—and this is paramount—wisdom, especially in Hebrew thought, can hardly be divorced from ethical integrity (see Section III of this chapter). 35 As opposed to gaining partial knowledge through the serpent’s beguiling. 3:22 also makes this point clear: “now lest he reach out his hand and take also (gam-) of the tree of life.” The implication is that Adam’s becoming like God stems from his knowledge of good and evil, which in turn comes from eating from the tree (no point is too obvious to make). 36 With thanks to Mitchell Mallary for emphasizing the need to make this point explicit. 37 John Hartley (2000, 66–67) seems to agree, though he takes this to mean Adam and Eve strive to create their own standards of right and wrong. Smith (2019, 38) also cites Moshe Greenberg and Michael Fishbane as proponents of this interpretation (as well as several others). 38 See Chapter 3, Section II.2c above. 39 On this view, Adam and Eve would already have at least some capacity for “functional” discrimination. In prior presentations of this chapter, it has been objected that knowledge of the useful and harmful entails knowledge of moral goodness: to know what something is good for is to know what it is, and hence what is good and bad for that thing (on a broadly Aristotelian understanding, that is). I find this argument unconvincing: an ape is able to make use of tools without necessarily knowing whether its usage will be good or bad; likewise a small child can easily see that “x is to be desired to have fun,” yet is not privy to any ethical issues surrounding x. Such, in short, is my response to this objection. 40 Further to this point, there could be nothing wrong with the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil per se, as there is ample biblical witness affirming that discrimination between the two is both good and necessary (e.g., 2 Sam.

64  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition











14:17; 1 Ki. 3:9; Ps. 37:27; Is. 1:16–17, 7:15; Am. 5:14–15; Rom. 12:9; Heb. 5:14). Cf. Enns (2012, 89). 41 Collins’s (2011, 165) critique of Barr’s nonchalance here is perhaps fair, but it remains an important curiosity nonetheless. 42 As we have seen, these elements are also crucial to the interpretations set forth by Bonhoeffer, von Rad, and Westermann. 43 For a discussion of this see Barr (1992, 63–65). 44 We know it was the knowledge of good and evil which generated this self-awareness from 3:5: the serpent tells Eve that when she eats of the tree, (1) her eyes will be opened; (2) she will be like God; (3) she will know good and evil. The clear implication (not least from the name of the tree), is that the knowledge of good and evil produces this. 45 Cf. Gen. 9:20–27 where Shem and Japheth are blessed for taking care not to see their father naked, and Canaan cursed because Ham did see him. 46 See also Smith (2019, 71): “Chapter 3 portrays primordial elements of the human person, in particular desire, well before sin enters the picture. … As a result of their new knowledge, the two humans become moral agents with responsibility for their actions.” 47 Walton (2015) notes that the Gilgamesh Epic and Myth of Adapa, too, concern themselves with the attainment of reason and development of civilization (110–111 and 120, respectively). He attaches no weight, however, to these parallels, loyal as he is to the ‘autonomy’ reading rejected above. 48 That such a hemi-distinction would have been conceivable is proved by The Epic of Gilgamesh, tablet I, where the “savage” Enkidu, unlike the other animals, is intelligent enough to detect the trapper’s snares before he acquires reason and forfeits solidarity with the beasts, thereby becoming “just like a god” (see lines 130–134, 157–160 for the snares, and lines 188–207 for the seduction of Enkidu and his consequent acquisition of reason). It is well worth noting that, in one version at least, Enkidu is then clothed and follows Shamhat to the city to “[engage] in labours of skill,” a sequence of events highly reminiscent of Gen. 3–4 (Pennsylvania tablet, lines 56–71, pp. 12–13 of George’s translation). 49 See also Anthony Thistleton’s “by no means exhaustive or comprehensive” catalogue of ten moral virtues required for authentic wisdom in the Hebrew tradition (2011, 167–168). 50 As von Rad (1972b) stresses, we should be careful not to impose contemporary presuppositions about morality onto the Hebrew understanding of the connection between wisdom and ethics. This warning heeded, however, von Rad agrees it is appropriate to regard Hebrew wisdom literature as “containing the concentrated deposit of ancient Israelite morality” (75). 51 See, for instance, Ps. 37:27–31; Prov. 3:1–7, 8:12–21. 52 Cf. The Epic of Gilgamesh (1990) where it is the “divine element in mankind’s creation” that accounts for reason, self-consciousness, and human distinction from other animals (see George [1999, xl]). 53 Cf. Barr (1992, 72): “In Genesis 2–3 [the distinctly human mark] lies in the knowledge of good and evil, which belongs to the world of the gods and removes humanity from the ambience of animal behaviour.” 54 I agree with Collins (2014, 12) that Gen. 2 elaborates the account of the sixth day in Gen. 1. But I cannot agree that the breath of life alone makes Adam in God’s image—much more is needed (see section I of this chapter above). 55 It is something of a commonplace to suppose that, prior to the transgression, Adam and Eve would have enjoyed access to the tree of life (e.g., Enns [2012, 67, 90]; Walton [2015, 121]). But this cannot be right: not only does the text not say this, it is clear from 3:3 that Eve is only aware of one tree in the middle of the garden.

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 65 56 Cf. The Epic of Gilgamesh (1990, tablet X, lines 203–204): “In the past Utanapishti was a mortal man, but now he and his wife shall become like us gods!” A common objection to the line of interpretation offered will no doubt take the form of a question: Why did God forbid Adam and Eve from eating of the tree of knowledge? Without entering into detailed discussion, a number of possibilities might be adduced. There is the Irenaean answer that the human pair was created imperfect, and so was not yet mature enough for the knowledge of good and evil, though it would have been granted in due time (see Irenaeus [1885a, IV.39.1–2]). There is also Joseph Fitzpatrick’s (2012, 47–55) intriguing application of Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger: humanity’s acquisition of a divine attribute would represent, in the Hebrew mind, a breach of “basic classifications,” thus resulting in a sort of shattering of the cosmic order. Animals were animals and God was God, and never the twain should meet (cf. a kindred point made by Enns [2012, 48–49] vis-à-vis the ‘sons of God’ and “daughters of men” at Gen. 6:2: such a breach would “threaten the created order established by God”). Or, as Smith (2019, 63–64) suggests, perhaps leaving readers with an unresolved mystery is precisely the Yahwist’s point. Various other explanations might be given as well, and so, even in the absence of a definite answer at present, we see that the objection is scarcely insuperable.

References Augustine. 1887a. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. In Nicene and PostNicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, First Series, vol. 2. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Barr, James. 1992. The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality: The ReadTuckwell Lectures for 1990. London: SCM Press. Barth, Karl. 1933. The Epistle to the Romans. Translated by Edwyn C. Hoskyns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barton, John. 1998. Ethics and the Old Testament. London: SCM Press. Berkouwer, G. C. 1971. Studies in Dogmatics: Sin. Translated by Philip C. Holtrop. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Boadt, Lawrence. 2000. “Wisdom, Wisdom Literature.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by David Noel Freedman, 1380–1382. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1997. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 3: Creation and Fall. Translated by Stephen Bax. London: SCM Press. Buchan, Thomas. 2007. “Paradise as the Landscape of Salvation in Ephraim the Syrian.” In Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, 146–159. Danvers, MA: Rosemont Publishing. Collins, C. John. 2011. Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why It Matters. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Collins, C. John. 2014. “Adam and Eve in the Old Testament.” In Adam, the Fall, and Original Sin: Theological, Biblical, and Scientific Perspective, edited by Hans Madueme and Michael Reeves, 3–32. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Craig, William Lane. 2021. In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Davidson, Robert. 1973. Genesis 1–11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dunn, James D. G. 1998. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. London: T&T Clark.

66  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition Enns, Peter. 2012. The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. Fitzpatrick, Joseph. 2012. The Fall and the Ascent of Man: How Genesis Supports Darwin. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. George, Andrew. 1999. Introduction to The Epic of Gilgamesh, xiii–lii. Translated by Andrew George. London: Penguin Classics. Gunkel, Hermann. 1997. Genesis. Translated by Mark E. Biddle. Macon, GA: Mercer. Hart, David Bentley. 2022. You Are Gods: On Nature and Supernature. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Hartley, John E. 2000. Genesis. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. Heard, Christopher. 2020. “The Tree of Life in Genesis.” In The Tree of Life, edited by Douglas Estes, 74–99. Leiden: Brill. Irenaeus. 1885a. Against Heresies. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Levering, Matthew. 2008. Biblical Natural Law: A Theocentric and Teleological Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Loke, Andrew. 2022. Evil, Sin, and Christian Theism. London: Routledge. Maimonides, Moses. 1903. The Guide for the Perplexed. Translated by M. Friedländer. McCall, Thomas H. 2019. Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Middleton, J. Richard. 2017. “Reading Genesis 3 Attentive to Human Evolution: Beyond Concordism and Non-Overlapping Magisteria.” In Evolution and the Fall, edited by William T. Cavanaugh and James K. A. Smith, 67–97. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Novak, David. 2008. Natural Law in Judaism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Novello, Henry L. 2009. “Lack of Personal, Social and Cosmic Integration: Original Sin from an Eschatological Perspective.” Pacifica 22 (2): 171–197. doi: 10.1177/1030570X0902200203. Oden, Thomas C., ed. 2001. Genesis 1–11. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Olson, Dennis T. 2010. “Genesis.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible, edited by Beverly Roberts Gaventa and David Petersen, 1–32. Nashville, TN: Abingdon. Rogers, Robert William. 1912. Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament. London: Oxford University Press. Rogerson, John W. 1994. Genesis 1–11. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Smith, Mark S. 2019. The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(Out) and Original Sin in the Bible. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Spero, Shubert. 2008. “Paradise Lost or Outgrown?” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought 41 (2): 256–274. The Epic of Gilgamesh. 1999. Translated by George, Andrew. London: Penguin Classics. Thistleton, Anthony C. 2011. “Wisdom in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures: The Hebrew Bible and Judaism.” Theology 114 (3): 163–172. doi: 10.1177/0040571X10395465.

Genesis 2–3 and the “Fall of Man” 67 Vandervelde, George. 1981. Original Sin: Two Major Trends in Contemporary Roman Catholic Reinterpretation. Washington, DC: University Press of America. von Rad, Gerhard. 1972a. Genesis. London: SCM Press. von Rad, Gerhard. 1972b. Wisdom in Israel. Translated by James D. Martin. London: SCM Press, 1972. Walton, John H. 2015. The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2–3 and the Human Origins Debate. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. Westermann, Claus. 1984. Genesis 1–11. Translated by John J. Scullion S.J. London: SPCK. Zevit, Ziony. 2013. What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

3

Romans 5:12–21 Adam or Christ?

In the previous chapter, I attempted to demonstrate that Gen. 2–3 provides at best questionable warrant for the traditional doctrine of Original Sin, whether in its Eastern or Western varieties. But, supposing the arguments there advanced to be sound, even the sympathetic reader will likely find himself faced with a burning issue. It is all well and good, one might reason, if the Genesis text speaks nothing of Original Sin. But St. Paul emphatically does in Rom. 5; even if we grant that his Fall doctrine is altogether mild compared with the likes of the Augustinian view, it cannot honestly be contended that it is not there. Consequently, the thought runs, some version of the Fall and Original Sin must be retained if we are both to do justice to the Apostle’s thought and remain faithful to the biblical witness. How, then, is it possible for an orthodox Christian to disbelieve Original Sin in light of a text like Rom. 5?1 The present chapter is, of course, dedicated to answering precisely this question.2 We will proceed in two stages. First, the apparent intractability of our problem will be intensified through a brief discussion of Rom. 5:12–21 where it will be argued that some doctrine of Original Sin is almost certainly present and, if seriously reflected upon, in all likelihood rather more pronounced than many contemporary commentators are willing to entertain. But we shall not dwell on this conclusion for long. For, in the second stage of this chapter, I shall argue that because the passage in question is chiefly concerned with Christology and soteriology, St. Paul’s personal opinions apropos the nature of the first sin are, plausibly, largely irrelevant. This is, I am well aware, a very strong claim. But central to this claim is recognition of the fact that Paul is not interpreting the Genesis story so much as he is employing one particular interpretation of it in order to make a more fundamental point about Christ. Consequently, I shall argue, it is by no means clear that Paul’s classic statement of “Original Sin” must be taken as theologically authoritative. Ultimately, then, the primary aim of this chapter is to uncover and then defend the hermeneutical principle at play in such an analysis, and thereby to demonstrate how the following claims can be compatible: (1) St. Paul holds to a fairly robust doctrine of Original Sin in Rom. 5; (2) Scripture is a unique and authoritative source for theological reflection; (3) It is possible that the doctrine of Original Sin is false. DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-5

Romans 5:12–21 69 It should be clear, then, that I am not arguing Original Sin cannot be affirmed today on the basis of Rom. 5, but only that it may be disbelieved by the theologian who nevertheless takes the idea of biblical inspiration seriously. With this proviso in mind, we shall waste no further time and proceed straightway to St. Paul’s putative notion of Original Sin.

3.1  Original Sin in Rom. 5:12–21 3.1.1  Preliminary Considerations Let us closely examine St. Paul’s famous argument in Rom. 5:12–21 which, alongside Gen. 2–3, is the locus classicus for the doctrine of Original Sin (Blocher 1997, 63). At risk of oversimplifying things slightly, we may say that there are among commentators two general tendencies exhibited when approaching the question of Original Sin in this passage. There are on the one hand those who affirm the doctrine’s presence3 —at times this is done rather hastily or without expressly mentioning the words “Original Sin,” and on other occasions great pains are taken explicitly to defend this reading.4 On the other hand, of course, there are those who categorically deny that Original Sin is to be found here, preferring at most to speak of “Original Death” (Dunn 1988, 273).5 Among this latter category of writers, however, it is not always plain Original Sin per se really is being rejected; sometimes an explicit statement on the matter is followed by comments which, to all appearances, imply some form of Original Sin, thus rendering the writer’s final position somewhat opaque.6 We are not surprised, then, to find that exponents of both approaches often fail to provide anything like a clear definition of Original Sin.7 Indeed, on both sides it is very commonly assumed without argument that this doctrine connotes basically the Augustinian ideas of Seminal Identity and Original Guilt alone, a datum which, I would submit, is almost certainly the raison d’être of our second group. Before formally entering this debate, a few preliminary observations are in order. Each of these will be quite straightforward and relatively uncontroversial, and so the citations will for this portion flow rather liberally from both camps. We can begin by noting that, whether the initial “therefore” (dia touto) is taken to signal a summing up of 5:1–11 only or the entire argument of Romans thus far, this subsection is without a doubt a central component of Romans as a whole (Dunn 1988, 271). Indeed, as Moo (1996, 317) points out, in light of 5:1–11 especially, it may be more apt to see in this passage the basis for the preceding argument rather than its conclusion: we are enabled to hope and rejoice in God precisely because “whatever we have lost in Adam we have gained in Christ.” Put simply, this is not a text to be dealt with flippantly: tampering heedlessly with the foundations will always threaten to flatten the edifice as a whole. We shall keep this especially in mind when, presently, we begin to do a bit of tampering ourselves.

70  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition There is also what Käsemann calls the “giant anacoluthon” beginning in v. 12 (1980, 146). Paul here begins a comparison (“just as”—hosper) which he fails to carry through to its completion: “just as sin came into the world through one man …”. We should expect soon enough the linking phrase houtos kai (so also), but it never comes in this verse. Though there is still perhaps some ambiguity here, it appears safe to say with the majority of commentators that, after the break, the comparison resumes in full force in vv. 18 and 19. It is thus not altogether unwise to follow Karl Barth’s suggestion of reading vv. 18 and 19 immediately following v. 12 best to grasp Paul’s point (1956a, 7). But the break is important in its own right. As Dunn envisions it, while dictating v. 12 Paul “felt the need to pause and provide some clarification … even at the cost of leaving in suspense the first half of a balanced sentence” (1988, 290). As the argument wears on, Paul is forced to hold off even further on completing the comparison begun in v. 12. Dunn continues, Like someone about to offer a clear-cut definition, who at the last moment realizes the definition is not quite so clear-cut after all, and who before the definition is complete begins to insert qualifying clauses which complicate the simplicity of the definition as originally conceived. So [sic] here Paul, initially struck by the parallel between Adam and Christ as epochal figures, catches himself and before completing the comparison hastens to emphasize the contrast between the two actions and their results. (Dunn 1988, 293) Likewise, Cranfield (1985, 112) speaks of the “vast dissimilarity between Adam and Christ,” save only “in respect of the actual point of comparison.” For Paul, Christ and his salvific effects are in every way superior to Adam and the consequences he wrought; the two figures are comparable only insofar as both are “progenitors” of the human race (Barrett 1971, 114), one bringing death and condemnation, the other justification and eternal life. 3.1.2  The Presence of Original Sin We may now tentatively join the ranks of those who do in fact see a doctrine of Original Sin in this great passage. It will conduce to clarity to consider the arguments of two commentators in particular: I take Cranfield as my delegate for the dissenting opinion, and I follow the argument of Moo for our positive judgment. Additional support will of course be sought where required, but the arguments of Cranfield and Moo are both robust enough to stand on their own and sufficiently representative of the arguments generally given in each camp that we can, for the most part, simply fix our attention here. We shall begin with Cranfield and then, with Moo, offer what I take to be a powerful refutation of the dissenting view.

Romans 5:12–21 71 3.1.2.1  C. E. B. Cranfield The natural starting point for any discussion of our present theme is of course the final clause of v. 12: eph ho pantes hemarton. In line with the preponderance of contemporary New Testament scholars, Cranfield translates eph ho as “because,” yielding “because all (have) sinned” (1980, 269, 274–279; 1985, 113–114). He is quick to point out that this does not immediately imply Original Guilt has no basis in the text: “the question has still to be asked,” he says, “whether ‘sinned’ refers to men’s participation in Adam’s sin … or to men’s own personal sinning” (1985, 113–114). Though he opts for the latter reading, Cranfield reminds us that the former position is “strongly supported by a good many interpreters” (1985, 114),8 giving the lie to the popular claim made by Harrisville (1980, 84), for instance, that the idea behind Augustine’s “in quo omnes peccaverunt” mistranslation is utterly unsupportable by the Romans text. Still, Cranfield rejects this reading on two grounds: first, no indication is given of hemarton being used in anything but the ordinary sense of personal sinning; second, the former reading falsely presupposes that Adam and Christ are in this comparison to be taken as equivalent in every respect. He says, “there is no reason to assume that, because he believed Christ to be the sole source of men’s righteousness, Paul must have regarded Adam equally as being alone responsible for men’s ruin” (1985, 114; cf. 1980, 278–279). Therefore, with regard to the question of Original Sin, the thrust of v. 12 is merely this: “human death is the consequence of human sin” (1980, 281). Death initially enters the world through Adam’s transgression and remains a permanent fixture in the human experience only through the continued sinning of each individual. In other words, it is only because Adam’s descendants themselves sin that they, too, ultimately succumb to death (1980, 281; 1985, 115). Thus far, I see no reason to contest Cranfield’s claims; as we will see, Moo’s rebuttal succeeds even if all this is correct.9 But what does Cranfield make of vv. 18–19? Surely, we think, there is more potential for a doctrine of Original Sin here.10 Cranfield thinks not, however. After skimming over v. 18a as a simple repetition of the protasis in v. 12a (1980, 289), he follows in v. 19 what appears to be a standard trend among the dissenters, maintaining that v. 12 is, in effect, the standard by which Paul’s words in vv. 18–19 are to be judged. For Cranfield as well as for many others before and since, this is the vital move.11 In light of the interpretation given of “eph ho” in v. 12, it is to be assumed that by “the many were made sinners” (v. 19) Paul means “all other men (Jesus alone excepted) were constituted sinners through Adam’s misdeed in the sense that, sin having once obtained entry into human life through it, they all in their turns lived sinful lives” (1980, 290–291; 1985, 121). In short, vv. 18a and 19a are to be understood primarily as restatements of the idea first conveyed and inelegantly elaborated in v. 12. Accordingly, the doctrines of Seminal Identity and Original Guilt are wholly absent from the text, and so it can be concluded that Original Sin finds no place in the

72  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition thought of St. Paul. Of course, I myself am strongly inclined to think only that Cranfield supposes he has disposed of the doctrine; given our broader definition of Original Sin, it is certain he does ascribe to Paul at least a weak version of the doctrine.12 3.1.2.2  Douglas Moo Turning now to Moo’s counterargument, we first note that his thought is entirely consonant with that of Cranfield up to a point. Moo, too, takes “eph ho pantes hemarton” to mean “because all sinned,” and in the very same sense Cranfield defends. Hence Moo (1996, 323), “Paul’s concern in this verse, and throughout the passage, is not with ‘original sin,’ but with ‘original death’.” In v. 12, then, Paul merely claims that “the causal nexus between sin and death … has repeated itself in the case of every human being” and goes no further (323). While this is precisely the point at which our dissenters customarily drop any discussion of Original Sin,13 Moo goes on. For at the end of v. 12, Paul leaves us with a question that demands an answer: what relation, if any, is there between Adam’s sin and ours—and why do all sin? This problem, Moo writes, is only aggravated by vv. 18–19 where we are informed that Adam’s sin led to condemnation for all—more, that by it “the many were made sinners.” Thus, Moo argues, we are confronted with a difficulty: “how can we logically relate the assertions ‘each person dies because each person sins [in the course of history]’ and ‘one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all people’?” (323) Moo then presents four options one might endorse in order to solve this problem. First is the Pelagian view, which denies any relationship between Adam’s sin and ours: we sin “in imitation of Adam, but there is nothing in Adam’s sin that makes it necessary that we sin” (323n51). According to Moo, however, this view is “not very widely held in our day” for the simple reason that “the text so clearly makes the sin of Adam to be, in some sense, the cause of universal condemnation” (324n51). Another tack one might take is simply to leave the tension unresolved; this is in large measure the approach adopted by Dunn (1988, 290): “Paul refuses to be drawn into a more rigorously defined and consistent systematization of his theology, thus leaving space both for the diversity of opinion and the silence of agnosticism,” he avers. This line is not so much rejected by Moo as it is cautiously set to one side: while it is true that one should be careful not to impose an alien theology on the thought of a biblical writer, still it behooves the exegete to “pursue reasonable harmonizations that the author may assume or intend” (Moo 1996, 325). The third possibility Moo cites is especially interesting insofar as it is the one explicitly endorsed by Cranfield (1980, 279; 1985, 114), and this despite the latter’s apparent desire to distance St. Paul from the doctrine of Original Sin.14 How does the trespass of one result in condemnation for the many? For Cranfield, the answer is that Adam’s descendants inherited from him

Romans 5:12–21 73 “a nature weakened and corrupted” (1980, 279). Human nature itself was vitiated by the first sin in such a way that, thenceforth, human sinning and therefore death became an inevitability. This surely resolves the logical difficulty, but only at considerable interpretive cost. For, as Moo (1996, 326) indicates, the plain truth is that it is only via the most egregious of exegetical contrivances that it becomes possible to find something like this present in the Romans text (cf. Morris 1988, 231). Indeed, Cranfield advances this thesis entirely uncritically, providing us with no textual justification for the introduction of a corrupted nature. It is, rather, a purely philosophical move, suggested for the sake of resolving a logical worry which issues from the ambiguous language of the Apostle himself.15 In passing, it would be well to recall that the corruption of human nature which resulted from the Fall is a deeply Augustinian conviction; consequently we see that Cranfield has, at the end of the day, failed to purge St. Paul entirely of his tacit Augustinianism anyway.16 Finally, we come to the solution espoused by Moo himself (1996, 326– 329). If we read v. 12 in light of vv. 18–19—and not exclusively the other way around17—we discover that, short of adopting one of the three aforementioned approaches, we are all but forced to admit a ‘corporate’ element to Adam’s sin: we have all, in some sense, sinned “in and with” Adam (326). Moo explains, This is not to adopt the translation ‘in Adam’ rejected above. The point is rather that the sin [in v. 12d] attributed to the ‘all’ is to be understood, in the light of vv. 12a–c and 15–19, as a sin that in some manner is identical to the sin committed by Adam. Paul can therefore say both ‘all die because all sin’ and ‘all die because Adam sinned’ with no hint of conflict because the sin of Adam is the sin of all. (Moo 1996, 326) To the objection that neither is this idea of “corporate personality”18 obviously at work in the text it may be replied that it is, in fact, both a natural and necessary postulate if we are to make sense of v. 19 at all. It is natural because it would require the addition of no middle term (such as a corrupted nature): the many were made sinners directly because of the one’s disobedience, and not because, à la Cranfield, the one’s disobedience led to a second state of affairs which ultimately culminated in the many becoming sinners.19 Thus the notion of corporate personality would enable the most straightforward reading of v. 19: “Adam is conceived as standing in a causal relation to the subsequent death, sin, and condemnation of his descendants—nothing less than this can be meant” (Williams 1929, 121).20 In any case, this idea was well-known and employed frequently enough in Paul’s day, and so it is not unlikely we should find it at play here.21 And finally, our participation in Adam’s sin is also a necessary postulate inasmuch as it is the only remaining plausible option, that is, if our desire is to render the passage reasonably

74  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition intelligible. Moo’s argument thus appears to be altogether strong; certainly it outshines the argument deployed by Cranfield in defense of the dissenting opinion.22 3.1.2.3  Further Considerations There is, perhaps, one further item to mention before wrapping up the present section, by all appearances a theme only seldom discussed. In his famous Commentary on Romans, Martin Luther spearheads his attack on the Pelagian interpretation of Rom. 5:12 with a characteristically Augustinian consideration: “clearly,” he says, “[Paul] is speaking of original sin; for if death comes by sin, then also the little children have sinned who die. So this must not be understood in the sense of actual (personal) sin” (1960, 77). The thought is transparent enough: if St. Paul here only means to say that the individual dies on account of his own sin, that “all men die because they have personally sinned” (Leenhardt 1961, 144), then we are once again faced with a glaring predicament. The infant, for instance, obviously does not sin—why then does he die (physically or spiritually)?23 It will scarcely suffice to respond, as Cranfield does, that “those who die in infancy are a special and exceptional case” and so we must assume Paul to be speaking of adults (1980, 279). Of course he is speaking primarily of adults. But the point is that, conceptually, we stand in need of an explanation of this grim reality—a reality of which Paul is assuredly well aware but fails explicitly to mention. Unless, then, we are to count the Apostle a singularly shallow thinker, we must suppose that he considered death to be a consequence of rather more than merely individual sin. Were Paul truly of the mind that death, spiritual or physical, would not befall those without personal sin, ample witness to the falsity of his claim would have bombarded him from all flanks. Hence, either Paul is not thinking enormously clearly, or else he has in mind something that points in the general direction of Seminal Identity or even Original Guilt. Thus, it is possible Luther has given us an additional reason to imagine that St. Paul does in fact subscribe to some fairly robust—if underdeveloped and ill-defined—doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin.24 Having said all this, however, surely there is still room to sympathize with Dunn’s judgement that Paul is, intentionally or otherwise, declining to elaborate a fully consistent and orderly account of Adam’s sin (1988, 290, 298). As Robert Mackintosh (1913, 84) puts it, one senses that “St. Paul, instead of stating his views in full, [has] thrown at us shorthand notes in a foreign language which we know very imperfectly.” To anticipate the conclusion of our next section, Paul’s relative nonchalance vis-à-vis the nature of the first sin does appear to indicate his main concern ultimately lies elsewhere.25 Nevertheless, if the foregoing argument is sound, we can see that Paul’s incomplete theory would still rationally necessitate further amplification in

Romans 5:12–21 75 the direction of a more rigorous account of Original Sin. Perhaps Paul’s own mind never progressed substantially beyond an inchoate notion of the adverse effects produced by Adam’s sin; if so, he would upon further reflection be compelled either to drop the notion altogether, or else proceed to develop the doctrine more systematically along the lines indicated above. But granted that his general socio-religious milieu would have all but forced his hand in interpreting the Adam tale along largely historical and realistic lines (see, e.g., Dunn 1998, 84–90; Legarreta-Castillo 2014, 33–117, esp. 96ff.), we can confidently conclude that further reflection would have resulted in the latter possibility. Thus is St. Paul seen in Rom. 5:12–21 to be committed at least implicitly to a more familiar form of Original Sin. If, then, the theological imperative is to achieve doxastic conformity with the biblical writers on every subject (so far as this is possible), it appears likely that belief in Original Sin is inescapable for Christians.

3.2  The Way Forward We have now come to the second stage of our discussion on St. Paul and Original Sin. The argument of this section will be relatively straightforward, and we have already laid out much of the necessary groundwork required for its elucidation above. Supplied with the conclusion that there is, after all, a doctrine of Original Sin to be found in the writings of St. Paul, how can one then deny it is a necessary part of the Christian faith? The problem seems to strike two separate chords. First and most obviously is the issue of authority: Original Sin is, we are compelled to admit, in some sense “biblical.” Thus it would appear that to reject the doctrine outright would be to snub the biblical witness as well. Secondly, we face the issue of doctrinal removal—in other words, heresy, defined by Belloc (2015, 8) as “the dislocation of some complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein.”26 We have already had occasion to mention that the doctrine of Original Sin conforms to the requirements of the Vincentian Canon, and so it might seem just obvious that to remove it from one’s systematic theology would be to court heresy. As a response to this latter charge, I would submit that Original Sin may not be an essential component of the Christian religion. That it can be replaced with no serious harm done to soteriology and even hamartiology I will attempt to show in the second part of this study. For now, however, we will concentrate on the first of these problems and attempt to determine what sort of hermeneutical move is required to ensure that disbelieving Original Sin does not fairly fly in the face of scriptural teaching. In order to arrive at an explicit statement and defense of this move, however, I think it necessary first of all to pinpoint St. Paul’s central focus in Rom. 5. For if it can be demonstrated that Adam is at best peripheral to Paul’s primary concerns, surely the objection under consideration will lose some of its initial bite.

76  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition 3.2.1  The Centrality of Christ To help frame this discussion, it is well worth stating explicitly that the account of Adam’s sin given by Paul in Rom. 5 stems from but one of many interpretations of the Gen. 2–3 narrative in the thought of second temple Judaism.27 There is, for instance, the “scholastic, orthodox, official” (Tennant 1903, 145) view of the Rabbis which saw in Adam’s fall merely the forfeiture of certain (increasingly fanciful) supernatural enhancements and the introduction of death. Also worth mentioning is the view taken by the writer of the Book of Jubilees in which Adam is, through copious revisions of the original plot, “portrayed in a positive fashion as the first patriarch and priest who kept the Law, and as an example to follow for the author’s generation” (Legarreta-Castillo 2014, 70). And, of course, there is also the approach found briefly in 4 Ezra, a tradition ostensibly embodied in part28 by St. Paul himself: “For what good is it to all that they live in sorrow now and expect punishment after death?  O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants” (7:118).29 The variety of interpretations on offer does not, of course, entail that Paul was mistaken; rather, it serves mainly to highlight the contingency involved in Paul holding to his particular interpretation, as well as to unmask the popular notion that there is only one way to understand the figure of Adam. There is thus every reason to suppose one could take a divergent approach to the first sinner and yet concur on the general nature and framework of redemption. More to the point, however, it does seem that in Rom. 5 itself Paul’s understanding of Adam is largely immaterial. All through, the spotlight is fixed firmly on Christ and the redemptive effects he brings: “its focus,” says Moo, “is not on sin, original or otherwise. Rather, it focuses on righteousness and life” (2002, 103). As we have said, Paul takes great pains to emphasize as strongly as possible the utter incommensurability between Christ and Adam, excepting only the present point of comparison (Cranfield 1980, 269–270). Both are, in Dunn’s language, “epochal figures” in the sense that Adam and Christ both represent in themselves the two sole and mutually exclusive existential realities to which any given human being may be said to belong (Dunn 1988, 298; cf. Käsemann 1980, 158). We are, by default, born united to the Adamic humanity which remains captive to the reign of sin and death—but thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, in and through whom we triumph over both and “reign in life” (cf. Rom. 7:21–25; 1 Cor. 15:56–57; 2 Cor. 2:14). This is “the idea which has stood at the center of the whole discussion about Adam and Christ” (Nygren 1952, 229), and it is the conclusion Paul repeats time and again throughout the letter and elsewhere.30 It is en Christo that we are set free from the “law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), able to “do all things” (Phil. 4:13), and “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). Indeed, the great thrust of all Pauline theology can

Romans 5:12–21 77 equitably be said to consist precisely in this. For Paul, “Christ is the thread which runs through all, the lens through which all comes into focus, the glue which bonds the parts into a coherent whole” (Dunn 1998, 726; see also 727–729). It is not Adam with whom Paul is finally concerned—on the contrary, it is Christ. Viewed in this light, it becomes less plausible to maintain that Paul is here promoting, expounding, or, pace Craig (2021, ch.7 passim), asserting a doctrine of Original Sin. True enough, he believes in it—at least this is the conclusion to which we have been driven by a close look at Rom. 5:12–21. But, as Craig too stresses (209, 218), belief in a certain idea hardly entails it is actively being promoted or asserted; on the contrary, in the present case it would be far more accurate to say that Paul is merely employing the doctrine of Original Sin in order to advance a more central and fundamental claim about Christ.31 On this most commentators are agreed (e.g., Dunn 1988, 290; Moo 1996, 315; Scroggs 1966, 81–82; Seifrid 2007, 627–628). Now, based on what the Apostle tells us about Christ’s saving effects throughout both this passage and 5:1–11, it would appear that the lone prerequisite for redemption is an antecedent enslavement of human beings to weakness and ungodliness (v. 6), sin and death (vv. 8, 12, 17, 19, 21).32 As we will see in later chapters, these “prerequisites” can, I think, be obtained in the absence of a doctrine of Original Sin; consequently, the latter need not be posited for the Apostle’s main point to remain intact (cf. Craig 2021, 231). For, to my mind no less than to Paul’s, “Christianity is Christ” and not Adam (Dunn 1998, 729). Twenty centuries hence, then, we may perhaps say this: it is not quite true that Christ removes Adam’s effects—rather, Christ removes a reality the existence of which may be (and has been) explained with recourse to Adam’s primal sin. But since Christ and the salvation found in him can indeed be fully had apart from such a sin, this negative judgment with regard to the necessity of Original Sin need not compromise the essence of the Christian faith (cf. Brunner 1942, 142–143).33 3.2.2  A Hermeneutical Presupposition The present work is not, of course, the place to develop and defend in full a particular doctrine of the inspiration of scripture. Nevertheless, a word or two must be said in this connection, for it is clear that the legitimacy of the above analysis as a faithful reading of scripture depends vitally on a certain hermeneutical maneuver. In this section, we will turn our attention to a more explicit consideration of what precisely that maneuver is, after which we will consider some further applications in its defense. The three most important findings of the preceding section, it seems to me, may be summarized as follows: (1) St. Paul’s view of Adam is (and was) but one plausible interpretation of Gen. 2–3;

78  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition (2) In the context of Rom. 5, Adam and his sin are used to paint a larger picture; they are not being elaborated for their own sake; (3) There is no essential connection between Paul’s view of Original Sin and his soteriological vision—the latter can plausibly be secured without reference to the former. Now, a brief comment on each for clarification: (1) Again, nothing of substance follows from this necessarily. It may be the case that faithful biblical interpretation demands that we strive for doxastic conformity with the biblical writers on every subject (with precedence given, perhaps, to the New Testament where relevant—as it is here). On this view, the abundance of competing interpretations would be completely beside the point: St. Paul is the privileged interpreter who accurately conveys the sense and abiding relevance of Gen. 2–3. This, however, seems problematic for a reason to be explored below, viz., that consistent application of this (or a similar) principle would lead, if not to absurdities, then to some conclusions which must strike us as prima facie bizarre.34 (2) This, we may say, is fairly typical of Paul. As Richard Hays (1989, 156) has pointed out, “for Paul, original intention is not a primary hermeneutical concern.” Rather, “eschatological meaning subsumes original sense.”35 The interest of Adam for Paul in this passage is, we may surmise, basically utilitarian: “Struck by the parallel between Adam and Christ as epochal figures,” we have heard Dunn (1988, 293) say, Paul “sees in it a glowing opportunity to coin a metaphor” by utilizing a text that is, for him, simply given (Hays 1989, 140; cf. 24).36 Once more, it may be emphasized that this does not in principle rule out a tighter hermeneutic such as the one suggested immediately above. But it does indicate, I think, a clear path towards a more flexible one which might consist preeminently in an amplified sensitivity to the rhetorical function and intention of various types of intertextual citation. Which direction, in other words, is the author pointing? (3) If Paul’s understanding of Adam were plausibly the conditio sine qua non of salvation in Christ, a much stronger burden would have to be borne by the nonlapsarian theorist. And perhaps for Paul it was such a condition. But, it seems to me, if it is possible to secure the enemies to be overcome without reference to Paul’s mode of explaining them, then this burden need not be satisfied—that they are in fact overcome is what is important. As William James once said, “here is the real core of the religious problem: Help! help!” (1985, 162). In Christ we have our help indeed; it would be strange (to say the least) to insist that Christ is impotent to vanquish sin and death but for the primal sin of the first man. Let us suppose that these three considerations suffice to ground the legitimacy of a move away from belief in Original Sin.37 What, then, is the

Romans 5:12–21 79 implicit hermeneutical principle at play which enables this move? It is, I think, straightforward enough: (H) When, in a given scriptural passage P, a source external to P is employed in the service of a more fundamental theological point (i.e., used as an illustration), the propositional content of this illustration need not be believed if both of the following conditions are met: (H1) Where another passage from scripture serves as the illustration’s source, other reasonable38 understandings of the source text are available; (H2) The theological point can be true (and have the same meaning) in the absence of the illustration. It will be seen that (H) pertains to (2) above, (H1) to (1), and (H2) to (3). On the whole, this principle appears to be rather minimal, and does not seem to carry with it any glaring, untoward ramifications.39 A very similar principle is, in fact, implied in the distinction Nicholas Wolterstorff (1995) draws between the “noematic content” and “designative content” of a given passage, though it seems to me that (H) goes a bit further in indicating precisely when the distinction may be deployed to advance additional theological claims. For Wolterstorff, the historical situatedness of the biblical writers may, in select cases, require that later interpreters set aside the timebound language and concepts utilized by an author—the noematic content—whilst still affirming the driving theological picture these concepts help to paint—the designative content.40 It is the latter which, in cases covered by (H), is uniquely authoritative and may be said to convey the abiding sense of the passage for later generations of readers. Once more, we see the importance of clearly sifting “the point, or the main point, that the author wishes to make” from “the author’s particular way of making or developing that point” (Wolterstorff 1995, 209). Let us now turn to some potential parallels to Rom. 5 to ascertain how well (H) might serve the theologian desirous of circumventing Original Sin. 3.2.3  Further Reflection on (H) To help gauge the plausibility of (H), it will be instructive to consider the principle in action elsewhere. I want, therefore, to look at three other applications of (H)—one purely fictitious and two taken from other locations in the New Testament.41 I present them in order of increasing analogical commensurability with Rom. 5. To begin, suppose St. Paul had substituted Prometheus for Adam: “For as by Prometheus’s duplicity great pain befell humankind, so by Christ’s integrity and faithfulness the many are made whole.” In this instance, of course, no one would argue that we should feel compelled to accept the existence of the Titans, and I am not sure this would change even if Paul appeared

80  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition to believe in them himself (though I may be wrong about that). This is, I freely concede, a rather crude illustration, but the role of (H) should be evident: a source external to Rom. 5 (Hesiod) is being used to shed light on, or illustrate, a more fundamental point about Christ’s saving faithfulness; (H1) does not apply because the illustration does not involve a biblical text; since Christ’s saving faithfulness, I suspect, is not logically wedded to the existence of Prometheus, (H2) is satisfied. In this case, we may say it is by virtue of (H) that the theologian would be entitled to reject the historicity of the proposition expressed in the dependent clause and simultaneously affirm the truth of the proposition in the independent clause. Let us now proceed to the New Testament itself. One potential analogue to Adam in Rom. 5:12ff. can, I think, be found in the Epistle of Jude. We are informed in v. 9 that the archangel Michael, “contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses.” But here, as in our Romans passage, Jude’s aim is not to articulate what ought to be believed about this unusual tale; rather, exactly like Paul in Rom. 5, he is utilizing an “intertestamental expansion” (Davids 2006, 59) of an Old Testament narrative to serve his true point (H) (Horrell 1998, 107). He is calling attention to certain “ungodly people” in the church (v. 4) who, under the pretext of prophecy, presumptuously “blaspheme the glorious ones” (v. 8).42 But the true saint, following in the example of Michael, would not dare even to blaspheme the devil (v. 9) (Davids 2006, 62). But, of course, Jude’s point remains intact even if we happen to disbelieve the propositional content of the illustration used (H2). (H1), too, is no less evidently satisfied: if the episode in question relies on a gloss on Zech. 3 (Stokes 2017, 200ff.), one may appeal to the existence of variant interpretations of the latter; if Jude utilizes the Assumption of Moses only, then (H1) need not factor into our hermeneutical deliberations at all. In short, (H) authorizes the Christian to doubt the historical accuracy of this legend found in Jude. But if this is right, then he may well be entitled to doubt St. Paul’s ideas about the Fall and Original Sin as well. Even this Jude analogue is imperfect, however. While it does, in all likelihood, involve a “devotional expansion” (Hays 1989, 49) of a contentious Old Testament text, there is not much riding either theologically or philosophically on the historicity of the episode. Moreover, to return to a point raised nearer the opening of this chapter, it is hardly as if Jude’s illustration is wielded at a pivotal moment in a foundational text for Christian theology. This no doubt establishes a serious chasm between the illustrations found in Jude and Rom. 5; whether the chasm is unbridgeable, however, may be considered against the backdrop of another crucial Pauline text. When we turn to the curious “allegory” in Gal. 4:21–31, we find a remarkable parallel to our Rom. 5 text.43 In a radical reworking of Gen. 21:1–10, Paul roundly—and audaciously—declares that Hagar and Sarah are to be understood as figures for the Sinaitic covenant and the older Abrahamic covenant now fulfilled in Christ, respectively.44 But the Apostle goes further

Romans 5:12–21 81 in the unmistakable hope of claiming all the homiletical chips on the table: “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now” (Gal. 4:28–29). I shall allow Hays to describe the situation for us in his own words: If Ishmael is the persecutor of Isaac, then the very persecuting activity of the Torah advocates aligns them with the slave offspring rather than with the child of promise. …The argument is clever, except for one problem: the text of Genesis does not say that Ishmael persecuted Isaac. Indeed, most modern readers of Genesis 21 would surely suppose that it was the freewoman Sarah who, on behalf of Isaac, instigated a persecution of the innocent and powerless Hagar and Ishmael. No doubt Paul’s argument presupposes a longstanding Jewish tradition of exonerating Sarah’s apparently vicious jealousy by supplying a provocation on the basis of Gen. 21:9: “Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing” (mesaheq; LXX adds, “with her son Isaac”). Into the single word playing, later rabbinic commentators read all manner of mischief, including mockery, idolatry, child molestation, and attacks with bow and arrow. (Hays 1989, 117) What have we here, then? Two observations are in order. First, if it is true that it is incumbent upon Christians to affirm whatever theological beliefs St. Paul set forth, we find ourselves presently in a somewhat awkward circumstance. We must apparently believe, for one, not merely that Hagar and Sarah may serve as a useful, if fanciful, theological illustration for Christians today, but that this reading is in some sense the correct one. On the other hand, this strict hermeneutical stance would further require Christians to accept the highly dubious gloss on Gen. 21:9 which at once sees Ishmael as the prototypical persecutor of the people of God, as well as the figurative embodiment of “Judaizers” ancient and modern. While to maintain this in earnest is certainly possible, such a position surely presses the interpreter to the precipice of exegetical integrity. Secondly, note that, in contrast to the Jude passage, Paul’s “hermeneutical miracles” (Hays 1989, 112) here play a crucial role both in the argument of Galatians as well as in articulating a Christian understanding of the relationship between Christ and Law, Church and Israel. In short, we are not here dealing with trivialities of the sort encountered in the examples of Jude and Prometheus. Once more, our proposed hermeneutical principle will grant us the doxastic flexibility needed to evade some potentially disquieting conclusions. As in Rom. 5, we are not forced simply to decide between accepting or rejecting a straightforward Old Testament narrative; rather, we are confronted

82  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition with an “intertestamental expansion” or “homiletical commentary” (Hays 1989, 49) on an Old Testament narrative which is being utilized to furnish a broader theological point (H). Nor can we seriously doubt that Gen. 21:1–10 might admit of other reasonable interpretations (H1). But could Paul arrive at his understanding of Israel and the Church without his whimsical reading of this passage (H2)? I for one don’t see why not.45 Now, I am not so naïve as to suppose that my defense of this hermeneutical principle will be convincing to everyone.46 For others, (H) will be, I imagine, rather obvious and hardly in need of any defense at all. My own personal inclination to accept it stems not simply from skepticism about various peripheral ideas found in scripture but, more fundamentally, from the suspicion that too much contemporary biblical theology implicitly proceeds along scripturally Docetic hermeneutical lines.47 As Enns explains, “What some ancient Christians were saying about Christ, the Docetic heresy, is similar to the mistake that other Christians have made (and continue to make) about Scripture: it comes from God, and the marks of its humanity are only apparent, to be explained away” (2005, 18). On this view, scripture only seems to be human in various regards. But to demand that the biblical text be inerrant in the sense that every one of its claims—including those that serve merely as illustrations for a broader theological purpose—are to be believed would be, arguably, to neglect the indisputably genuine “human marks” of the scriptural witness which are ubiquitous and “thoroughly integrated into the nature of Scripture itself” (Enns 2005, 18; cf. Wolterstorff 1995, 209–211). And, it hardly need be said, such scriptural Docetism would appear to lead inevitably to the simplistic, overly rigid, and thoroughly fundamentalist interpretive rule we have had occasion to discuss already, the sum of which is, “This is what the Bible says. This is what we must believe” (White 1993, 64). Once we take care to recognize these “human marks,” however, the hermeneutical principle we have been defending in fact appears exceptionally modest, and thus the argument of this chapter becomes, to my mind at any rate, quite difficult to resist. In Rom. 5, we might say, it is the “human mark” evinced in Paul’s view of Adam which successfully and compellingly testifies to the divine splendor revealed in the God-man Jesus Christ.48 A final comment may be made, too, on the inclusivity of (H). The principle is deliberately phrased to allow for a wide range of interpretive preferences: “the illustration need not be believed.” In any instance where (H) can be applied appropriately, there may be additional considerations which lead an interpreter to retain the illustration in question. If, to take but one example, an interpreter is swayed by ecumenical consensus—as in the case of Rom. 5 vis-à-vis some doctrine of Original Sin—acceptance of (H) will do nothing to discourage him from continuing to endorse the doctrine. Again, (H) will tell us, maximally, only when it is safe or reasonable to disbelieve, not when it is unsafe or unreasonable to continue believing. This is, perhaps, especially true in the case of the Fall and Original Sin.

Romans 5:12–21 83

Conclusion Hitherto the objective among detractors from the doctrine of Original Sin has been to deny that St. Paul has any serious opinion on the matter.49 But we have seen that this approach is misguided. In the first place, such an argument presupposes an unacceptably narrow definition of Original Sin, a conception under which only broadly Augustinian theories could possibly fall. But even the weakest rendering of Rom. 5:12–21 would still undoubtedly fit the definition offered in this book, and so on these grounds alone we see that the claim is highly problematic. Secondly, the argument that Paul’s ideas about Adam in no way correspond to those of the later (even Augustinian!) tradition is difficult to sustain. For even if Paul did not quite believe the doctrines of Seminal Identity or Original Guilt himself, a strong case can be made that these conclusions would have been reached eventually had Paul been forced into further reflection. But we need not concern ourselves too much with these issues, or so I have argued. For the path away from Original Sin here commences not in an endeavor fully to ascertain the mind of Paul, but rather in the recognition that, for the Apostle, the doctrine of Original Sin is in the end but a minor aide and servant to the centerpiece of his theology as a whole—that is, Christ, and we in him. Such is the path we have tread here. With the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin plausibly out of the way as a biblical constraints, we may now proceed to investigate what becomes of the Christian faith in their absence. In so doing, I hope to show that a Christianity sans Original Sin leaves nothing essential to be missed.

Notes





1 What I have to say here about Rom. 5 will hold mutatis mutandis for other texts, such as 1 Cor. 15. 2 A version of this chapter has been published previously in the Journal of Analytic Theology. I have removed a good deal of non-essential bibliographical material here for ease of reading; interested readers may consult Spencer (2021b) for a fuller range of secondary source citations. 3 Even if sometimes rather different things are meant by “Original Sin.” 4 For example, Moo (1996, 314–350); Morris (1988); McCall (2019, 177–184). 5 For example, Cranfield (1980, 269–295); Barrett (1971, 109–119); Ziesler (1989, 143–153). 6 Käsemann (1980), for instance appears to refuse Original Sin “an anchor in the text,” but goes on to posit a “burdening curse” to which each individual is inescapably subject (147–149). I suspect a clearer definition of Original Sin would have helped to tidy up this ambiguity. 7 This is, of course, true specifically of commentaries and not works on Original Sin. 8 Two such interpreters are Bruce (1974, 129–130) and Morris (1988, 230–232). 9 Cf. Blocher (1997, 71): “The case [for Original Sin] does not (contrary to a superficial understanding of the issues) rest on the rendering of the connecting words at the end of verse 12 for which Augustine finally settled. … Whatever the choice, it does not preclude an Augustinian interpretation of the whole passage.”

84  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition 10 Consider the judgement of Nygren (1952, 222): “It is good here to look back to verse 12. If we be likely to interpret its statement ‘because all men sinned’ to mean that, according to Paul, death has its dominion over all men because they all have sinned, then we meet the direct refutation of any such interpretation in verse 17.” 11 The centrality of this ostensibly minor interpretive preference for the overall exegesis of our passage has only become more apparent since the time of my initial writing. For other examples of ‘dissenters’ who see v. 12 dictating and conditioning vv.18–19, see Ziesler (1989, 151); Scroggs (1966, 82) where these verses are “essentially summaries of what has already been said”; Dunn (1988, 283) where v. 18 is only a “masterly compression” of the preceding verses and v. 19 is a mere “summary” of 12–18. Harrisville (1980, 85–86) doesn’t so much as raise the question, and Christopher Hays has altogether too little to say (2018, 196–198). The same may be said for Käsemann (1980, 156–158), who says virtually nothing about these verses and their potential connection with Original Sin. Barrett, it seems, recognizes there is more fodder for the doctrine in v. 19 than in v. 12, but solves the problem by casually dismissing the idea that Original Sin (by which he means Seminal Identity) might be present (1971, 111). Even McCall, an interpreter highly sympathetic to Original Sin, does not make much of these verses (2019, 178–182). It is as if the protases in vv. 18 and 19 say nothing new and are, as it were, contained analytically within v. 12. But there does seem to be a genuinely new piece of information given at the end of the passage. From v. 12 alone, it would be incorrect to conclude Adam’s sin had any effect on his posterity; this verse is fully consistent with Pelagianism. In vv. 18–19, however, we are informed that the Pelagian reading is mistaken: something about Adam’s sin itself makes, or helps to make, the many sinners (i.e., it cannot be mere imitation). On account of the new piece of information given in vv. 18–19, then, I am disinclined to sympathize with Craig’s judgement that vv. 18–19 “ought more naturally to be read in light of v. 12” (2021, 232). 12 And this even in the absence of what he will go on to say (see the following section below). 13 See note 11 above. 14 I deliberately passed over this in the preceding discussion in order to introduce it more appropriately here. 15 Cf. Tennant (1903, 261): “it is quite plain that a mental interpolation of some kind is necessary, if we are to extract any definite meaning at all from S. Paul’s language”; also Dunn (1988, 290). 16 See the discussion of this theme in Chapter 1, Section II.3. 17 Again, see note 11. 18 For this idea see, e.g., Bruce (1974, 126); Dodd (1932, 80); de Boer (1988, 160– 161); Moo (1996, 327). Dunn (1988, 272) argues negatively that it is “more of a hindrance than a help here.” 19 Cf. Morris (1988, 240): “It does not mean that sinless people were compelled to become sinners, but rather that Adam’s sin constituted them as sinners” (emphasis mine); also Moo (1996, 326). 20 Contra Dunn (1998, 95): “the causal connection implied here by ‘made’ (katestathēsan) may be nonspecific and very loose, ‘made’ functioning simply as equivalent to ‘became’ (egenonto).” If Dunn is right, one is left wondering why Paul decided to use katestathēsan to begin with. Once more, it would seem that the interpretation of v. 19 is being controlled unilaterally by eph ho in v. 12d. 21 Moo (1996, 327–328).

Romans 5:12–21 85 22 As McCall (2019, 182) helpfully points out, Moo does not think we can choose between “federalist” and “realist” theories. The crucial commonality, however, is a commitment to something at least approximating Original Guilt (see also 161–170). 23 Several recent interpreters have attempted to make the case that Paul is here talking about merely spiritual death (e.g., Craig, [2021]; Loke [2022]; McCall [2019]). I remain unconvinced. As McCall (2019, 322) himself indicates, this view plainly “relaxes the connection between sin and bodily corruption, on one hand, and, on the other hand, between salvation and bodily resurrection” in the thought of Paul—even if such a reading has the advantage of sitting more comfortably with what we know from evolutionary biology. Clearly there are instances where thanatos is used metaphorically to connote condemnation and separation from God, but equally clear is the frequent usage of the word in the literal, physical sense (see, e.g., Rom. 4:24, 5:6ff., 5:21 where “grace reigning through righteousness” leads to [indicated by eis] but does not constitute eternal life; 6:9–10; 6:21–22 where the end [telos] of our shameful practices is death (rather than these practices constituting spiritual death, as they surely do); and so on. Similarly for 1 Cor. 15: while vv. 42–49 do seem to correlate Adam’s mortality to his creation, a rather different picture is painted in vv. 21–22 where we read that death came through (dia) Adam; thanatos here is meant physically, as the contrast is with Christ’s resurrection. At best we can say the matter is unsettled, though I think even this is something of a stretch. Even so, as Loke (2022, 134–136) recognizes, Luther’s argument is no less forceful in relation to infant spiritual death: the infant does not sin; why, then, does he spiritually die? Hence Loke ends up adopting a Cranfield-type solution: all die (spiritually) because each sins personally, and each sins personally (or would if given the opportunity) because they inherit a corrupted nature from Adam. While Loke argues such a view helps make sense of Paul’s language elsewhere in Romans, it is hard to resist the suspicion that, like for Cranfield before him, the motivation is predominantly philosophical rather than exegetical. See Loke (2022, ch. 6). 24 The same argument is made by Aquinas (1955–1957) in Summa Contra Gentiles (IV.50.2–3); (much) more recently, Houck, too, has endorsed this line of thought (2020, 216–218). 25 Cf. Tennant (1903, 253): “the indefinite language of the apostle necessarily appears ambiguous to generations which have attempted to advance to [sic] precise and definitely formulated views on the subject upon which he touches but incidentally.” 26 The word ‘heresy’ comes from the Greek haireo: I grasp, seize, or take away (Belloc [2015, n1]). For my own approach to orthodoxy and heresy, see Chapter 7 below. 27 For further reading, see Tennant (1903, chs. 5–10); Legarreta-Castillo (2014, ch. 2); Williams (1929, lecture 2, esp. 53–60, 70–84). For a much shorter summary of such interpretations, see Enns (2012, 99–103). 28 But, as Bruce (1974, 129) reminds us, “none of these writers (i.e. Ben Sira and the authors of Wisdom and 4 Ezra) sees anything of the deeper significance in the fall of man which is now unfolded by Paul.” 29 Add to this the fact that the “Watcher-legend” of Gen. 6 evidently predated the traditional Fall story as an explanation for death and universal wickedness, and we see further that the elimination of one particular interpretation by no means places an entire religious system in jeopardy (see [Williams 1929, 20ff.]). 30 For example, Rom. 6:5ff., 7:21–25, 8:9ff., 8:37–39; 1 Cor. 15:12ff.; 2 Cor. 5:16–21; Phil. 3:8–11; Col. 2:13–15.

86  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition 31 To be more precise, we might stress that he is utilizing one vision of Adam in particular by which his theological point about Christ may best be made. We may here cite James Barr’s judgement: “Paul was not interpreting the story in and for itself; he was really interpreting Christ through the use of images from this story” (1992, 89). 32 Cf. Enns (2012, 123): the “three core elements” of Paul’s thought here are death, sin, and the death and resurrection of Christ. 33 We will explore this claim in more depth in Part II, and esp. Chapter 7. 34 See Section II.3 of this chapter below, as well as notes 39 and 40. 35 Cf. F. F. Bruce’s (1984, 342) instructive comment on Eph. 4:8: “Paul and other NT writers occasionally give evidence of using targumic renderings [of OT texts]…especially where such renderings are better suited to the argument to which they are applied than the Hebrew or Septuagint wording would be.” 36 This quote is taken, in fact, from Hays’s discussion of Paul’s use of Ex. 34 in 2 Cor. 3. In addition to its felicitous transposition into our Rom. 5 context, it serves also as an example of this strategy being “fairly typical of Paul.” 37 As it relates to Rom. 5, of course. 38 Of course what might count as “reasonable” would be difficult precisely to demarcate (not to mention controversial), but I take it most would agree that there are some objective standards in the matter. For our purposes here, I would submit that a certain reading is known to be reasonable if it can readily be found endorsed in the relevant scholarly literature (e.g., in academic commentaries on Genesis, will we commonly find interpretations of Adam and the Fall other than Paul’s own?). In the main, the primary question would be: are there other ways the original audience of the source text might have understood the author’s intent? 39 A further question would be the extent to which (H) might be applied to certain sayings of Christ (e.g., Matt. 24:37–39: “For as were the days of Noah, so also …”.) The intricacies involved in this discussion would take us too far afield as far as the present chapter is concerned, but see the conclusion of this book for a brief consideration of the potential difficulty. Suffice it to say that, for many, considerably more is at stake in the case of Christ holding false (peripheral) exegetical or theological beliefs, and, more generally, Christ is to be taken as sui generis. 40 As an example, Wolterstorff cites the geocentric cosmology operative in Ps. 93: “The world is established; it shall never be moved. Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.” The important thing, Wolterstorff thinks, is the affirmation that God is “from everlasting”—the erroneous cosmology is certainly utilized to predicate something true of God, but the falsity of the former in no way impugns the truth of the latter. Presumably, then, Wolterstorff is hinting at something very much like (H2); this is confirmed in a further illustration of his I freely adapt here: If I point to an ailing sapling, exclaim, “that elm needs water right now!” and proceed to water it, it would be of little practical significance to tell me the tree was really a sycamore and not an elm. My misidentification is, in this case at least, irrelevant to my saving the tree. What is relevant is the correct identification of some sort of tree and the diagnosis of its need for water. And, I think, the same may plausibly be said mutatis mutandis of Original Sin in Rom. 5 (and other similar texts). See Wolterstorff (1995, 209–211). 41 This is, of course, in addition to the examples already cited in notes 39 and 40. 42 Among other things. Note also that the “glorious ones” (doxas) are probably (good) angels (see Davids [2006, 56 and 62]; cf. Horrell [1998, 121–122). 43 I here follow Hays (1989, 84–121).

Romans 5:12–21 87 44 Paul does not say, as the ESV misleadingly renders, “this may be interpreted allegorically”; rather, hatina estin allēgorumena—“these things are allegorical” or “figurative”. 45 Craig (2021, 208–220) helpfully cites a number of other NT texts that likely apply here: 2 Pet. 2:4–10; Jude 6–7, 14–15; 2 Tim. 3:8; 1 Cor. 10:4. 46 Hans Madueme has objected to an earlier, more simplistic formulation of this principle on the grounds that it might prove positively acidic, burning through virtually every view expressed in scripture, and not just the ones I have proposed. Whatever the merit of this objection to my earlier formulation, it will not work here. Take the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 (proposed by Madueme himself). Surely the fundamental theological point has more to do with not hoarding personal finances than the odd tale of divine retribution? An analysis of (H) will show where this objection misfires: (H) First, it is not at all clear that the authorial intent is to make a larger theological point—it reads very much like Luke intends to recount something that genuinely happened, in line with the rest of Acts. More to the point, however, there is no external text involved here: the purported ‘illustration’ is the story itself. Acts 5 thus falls decisively outside the methodological net of (H). The cases where (H) might legitimately apply are actually few and far between. 47 For “scriptural docetism” see Enns (2005, 18ff.). 48 For further reflection on hermeneutics from an analytic perspective, see Richard Swinburne’s (2010) insightful discussion on the import of the Bible’s “literary, social, and cultural contexts” for faithful biblical interpretation today (209). 49 One recent example of this approach worth highlighting is Hays (2018). It is curious that, though he takes time to discuss Paul’s non-use of a verb in vv. 16 and 18, no mention is made of katestathēsan in v. 19, the fulcrum around which the argument for Original Sin in this passage turns (see 197).

References Aquinas, Thomas. 1955–1957. Summa Contra Gentiles. Translated by Charles J. O’Neil. Edited by Joseph Kenny, O.P. Barr, James. 1992. The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality: The ReadTuckwell Lectures for 1990. London: SCM Press. Barrett, C. K. 1971. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. London: Adam & Charles Black. Barth, Karl. 1956a. “Christ and Adam: Man and Humanity in Romans 5.” Translated by T.A. Smail. Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers 5. Belloc, Hilaire. 2015. The Great Heresies. Milwaukee: Cavalier Books. Blocher, Henri. 1997. Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Bruce, F. F. 1974. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans. London: InterVarsity Press. Bruce, F. F. 1984. The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Brunner, Emil. 1942. Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology. Translated by Olive Wyon. London: Lutterworth Press. Craig, William Lane. 2021. In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Cranfield, C. E. B. 1980. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

88  The Fall and Original Sin in Scripture and Tradition Cranfield, C. E. B. 1985. Romans: A Shorter Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Davids, Peter H. 2006. The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. de Boer, Martinus C. 1988. The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Dodd, C. H. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1932. Dunn, James D. G. 1988. Romans 1–8. Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated. Dunn, James D. G. 1998. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. London: T&T Clark. Enns, Peter. 2005. Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005. Enns, Peter. 2012. The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. Harrisville, Roy A. 1980. Romans. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House. Hays, Christopher M. 2018. “A Nonhistorical Approach: The Universality of Sin Without the Originating Sin.” In Finding Ourselves after Darwin: Conversations on the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil, edited by Stanley P. Rosenberg, 187–202. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Hays, Richard B. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989. Horrell, David G. 1998. The Epistles of Peter and Jude. Peterborough: Epworth Press. Houck, Daniel W. 2020. Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. James, William. 1985. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Penguin Books. Käsemann, Ernst. 1980. Commentary on Romans. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. London: SCM Press. Leenhardt, Franz J. 1961. The Epistle to the Romans: A Commentary. Translated by Harold Knight. London: Lutterworth Press. Legarreta-Castillo, Felipe de Jesús. 2014. The Figure of Adam in Romans 5: The New Creation and Its Ethical and Social Reconfiguration. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Loke, Andrew. 2022. Evil, Sin, and Christian Theism. London: Routledge. Luther, Martin. 1960. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Translated by J. Theodore Mueller. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Mackintosh, Robert. 1913. Christianity and Sin. London: Duckworth & Co. McCall, Thomas H. 2019. Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Moo, Douglas J. 1996. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Moo, Douglas J. 2002. Encountering the Book of Romans: A Theological Survey. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Morris, Leon. 1988. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Nygren, Anders. 1952. Commentary on Romans. Translated by Carl C. Rasmussen. London: SCM Press. Scroggs, Robin. 1966. The Last Adam: A Study in Pauline Anthropology. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press. Seifrid, Mark A. 2007. “Romans.” In Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, 607–694. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Romans 5:12–21 89 Spencer, Daniel. 2021b. “Does St. Paul Believe in Original Sin? Yeah, but so What?” Journal of Analytic Theology 9: 291–313. doi: 10.12978/jat.2021-9.030011181517. Stokes, Ryan E. 2017. “Not Over Moses’ Dead Body: Jude 9, 22-24 and The Assumption of Moses in Their Early Jewish Context.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 40 (2): 192–213. doi: 10.1177/0142064X17740003. Swinburne, Richard. 2010. “What Does the Old Testament Mean?” In Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham, edited by Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray and Michael C. Rea, 209–225. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tennant, F. R. 1903. The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, J. Benton. 1993. Taking the Bible Seriously: Honest Differences about Biblical Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. Williams, N. P. 1929. The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: A Historical and Critical Study. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1995. Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim That God Speaks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ziesler, John. 1989. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. London: SCM Press.

Part II

Orthodoxy without Original Sin?

4

Sin The Biblical Understanding

In the first part of our study we investigated the traditional doctrine of Original Sin and the extent to which it may possess a legitimate claim to an anchor in the standard biblical proof texts. There it was argued that Gen. 2–3 may be about something quite other than Original Sin, and, while it was conceded that the doctrine may indeed be found in the thought of St. Paul, we nonetheless suggested this fact to be of minute relevance next to the primary focus of Paul’s theology. But, as was indicated above, however we might respond to the issue of scriptural authority in relation to the Rom. 5 text, the issue of “doctrinal removal,” or heresy, too, demands serious attention. Accordingly, we shall now, in the second half of this study, consider the allegation that the Christian faith becomes compromised in the absence of Original Sin. To begin this venture, however, it is essential first of all to ask what is meant by the word “sin.” For, if the concept cannot plausibly be detached from a theology which takes Original Sin for granted, it will follow that this nonlapsarian thought experiment has failed. The concept of sin has, of course, always stood at the heart of orthodox Christian teaching. As Biddle (2005, vii) says, sin is for Christianity the primary “problem with human existence” in need of rectification. Cornelius Plantinga (1995, 3) concurs: it is “the main human trouble.” The Book of Acts alone catalogues seven individual episodes in which the apostles proclaim Christ as, above all else, the one in whom the forgiveness of sins is to be found.1 Similarly, St. Paul delivers to the Corinthians “as of first importance” the message he, too, received: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). In a word, while the doctrine of Original Sin may perhaps be discarded whilst remaining faithful to biblical teaching, it is evident that sin simpliciter may not be. Unfortunate though it may be for a host of different reasons, the Christian Bible all through simply assumes the existence of sin in all its manifold varieties, and treats of it continually in relation to the saving acts of Israel’s God in history.2 But simply to recognize its ubiquity in scripture is by no means equivalent to understanding what precisely sin is—indeed, over-familiarity with the term may well result merely in the veneer of understanding. Nor will a survey of contemporary writers on sin necessarily prove helpful; by all appearances, DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-7

94  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? there is virtually no consensus as to a working definition of the term.3 Is sin, perhaps, a falling short of the “true humanity” exemplified by Christ? (Biddle 2005, 63)4 Or is it standing in “pathological relationship to God”? (McFadyen 2000, 37) Common enough is the motif of superbia and autonomy we encountered in Chapters 1 and 2: “Sin is defiance, arrogance, the desire to be equal with God, emancipation, a deliberate severance from the hand of God” (Brunner 1942, 129).5 In light of the massive range of such definitions,6 G. C. Berkouwer’s (1971) hesitancy to apply a catch-all term to the concept of sin appears altogether sensible. There is, after all, appreciable wisdom in his words: “It is incorrect to say that these biblical expressions [of sin] ‘complete’ each other. At the same time, they are mutually illuminating and ought to be seen as such” (256). But, between mutual completion and mutual illumination there stands a third possibility, namely, that all such “biblical expressions” of sin instantiate a more universal genus to which alone the name “sin” properly applies. Consequently, it would follow that, though the desire to be equal with God would count as an instance of sin, it would not constitute all sin. This is the approach I will take here. In order to ascertain this overarching definition of “sin,” however, it will not do simply to review the definitions of sin which have in fact been offered by theologians, nor may we uncritically trust the a priori convictions about sin which we all ineluctably smuggle into our theology in one way or another. On the contrary, we must go right back to our sources. Our present attention will therefore be occupied with a retrieval of the biblical conception of sin. In short, we are endeavoring to address the following question: what does scripture tell us about the essence of sin? The answer that emerges is this: according to the Bible, “sin” is, fundamentally, resistance to the purposes of God and what he desires one to be. I shall elaborate on this definition and connect it more fully to this nonlapsarian project after attempting to lay bare the biblical mind on sin.7

4.1  The Old Testament View: Chât.â’ In the Hebrew Bible, it is the word châṭâ’ and its cognates (chêṭ’, chaṭṭâ’th, et al.) that are most commonly rendered “sin” in English translations.8 While it is true that ‘ âvôn (customarily translated “guilt,” “punishment,” or “iniquity”), too, can tell us a great deal about the Hebrew conception of sin,9 for our purposes we can focus primarily on châṭâ’ without any harm being done. There are two reasons for this choice, quite apart from space constraints. First, the clear preference of the LXX translators was to treat hamartia as the closest equivalent to châṭâ’ and, significantly, not to ‘ âvôn: while the latter is rendered by hamartia (and cognates) in the LXX 72 times, it is more commonly translated adikia (“injustice,” “unrighteousness”; 121 occurrences) or anomia (“lawlessness”; 80 occurrences). Châṭâ,” by contrast, becomes hamartia (with cognates for both) around 500 times.10 Secondly, the two terms are, according to the eminent James Strong, “virtually

Sin 95 synonymous” in any case (2010, Heb. and Ara. 206). That is, where the sense of ‘ âvôn appears to be “sin” (“iniquity”) rather than “punishment,”11 “it is not especially easy to identify the exact nuances of difference” between châṭâ’ and ‘ âvôn (Sklar 2016, 4).12 For these reasons it seems appropriate to investigate châṭâ’ alone at length. Châṭâ’ means, fundamentally, “to miss,” or “to miss a goal or way” (Jefford 2000, 1224).13 The original sense of the word can be observed in Judg. 20:16 where we read of 700 warriors who “could sling a stone at a hair and not miss” (yaḥâṭiḥ wəlō). Etymologically, then, it can be said that sin implies the missing of some mark. But this will scarcely do as a definition of sin—obviously to miss the mark in, say, archery does not qualify as sin in the biblical or theological sense, nor does it indicate the extent to which sin may involve a deliberate act of the will (cf. Walton 2015, 141). Then again, neither are we given an unambiguous characterization of sin in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, at every turn a vague acquaintance with the concept is presupposed, such that it is quite simple to point to an individual act and identify it as sinful, but rather more difficult to arrive at even a provisional definition therefrom.14 Nevertheless, the working hypothesis of this chapter is that it is indeed possible to discover a satisfactory definition of sin from both the Old Testament and the New. It therefore behooves us at present to consider precisely how châṭâ’ is used in the Hebrew Bible. In the Old Testament, there appear to be three principal designations of the word châṭâ’ (henceforth simply “sin”). Sin refers to: (1) the contravention of a generally accepted ethical rule—that is, a basic moral infringement; (2) an act which breaks an explicit divine command or law; (3) a failure to follow God more generally. This third category may then be divided into three main subheadings to be discussed below. Finally, to solidify our grasp on the Old Testament’s idea of sin, we will briefly attend to the terms and phrases which are presented as conceptually opposed to sin (4). 4.1.1  Sin as Basic Moral Infringement Sin as basic moral infringement is doubtless peripheral to the overall idea in the Hebrew Bible, appearing for the most part in Genesis and the wisdom literature only. Nevertheless, this usage features often enough to warrant brief consideration here. The book of Genesis in particular provides us with an interesting case study, as it catalogues various instances of sin which occur hypothetically prior to the giving of the Law at Sinai. Gen. 20, for instance, recounts an incident in which Abimelech’s “taking” of Sarah is adjudged to be sin, both against God (v. 6) and, ostensibly, even without immediate reference to him (v. 9).15 Likewise Joseph considers engaging in sexual relations with Potiphar’s wife to be a “great wickedness” and “sin against God” (Gen. 39:7–10).16 In these two cases it is made plain that sin against another human being may also be sin against God (cf. Berkouwer 1971, 244n25). In Chapters 40–42, however, we encounter the direct refutation of

96  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? the widespread supposition that sin is always primarily against God, that for something to be identifiable as sin reference must be had to God.17 In 40:1 and 41:9, we read of sin (ḥāṭə’ū and ḥăṭā’ay, respectively) committed against Pharaoh, which the NIV, ESV, and NRSV, to take but a few examples, misleadingly render “offense,” “shortcoming,” or “fault.”18 While it is possible the “sin” was little more than the flouting of an arbitrary preference of a capricious king, it is still, according to 41:9, clearly understood as a transgression against an accepted behavioral norm. Finally, referring to selling young Joseph into slavery, we witness Reuben in Gen. 42:22 asking nine of his brothers, “did I not tell you not to sin against the boy?”19 Once again, there is the clear implication that sin need not be “against God” truly to count as sin. Other instances of this strictly moral connotation of sin may be cited, too.20 While this usage is certainly not especially prevalent in the Hebrew Bible, to ignore it or to gloss over it with alternative, theologically prejudiced translations would be to do a massive injustice to the text and, insidiously, to distort the authentic biblical understanding of sin. 4.1.2  Sin as Transgression of Divine Law The second category of sin to be investigated, the transgression of a divine law or command, manifests itself regularly in the Hebrew Bible.21 Straightforwardly to identify sin with breaking a commandment of God does not, I reckon, get one to the heart of sin in the Hebrew understanding; nevertheless, a quick survey of this usage will simultaneously respect the full range of biblical thinking on sin and, of course, conduce to greater familiarity with the concept ourselves. In Lev. 4, sin is tightly connected with actions forbidden by the commandments of the Lord. Four times (4:2, 13, 22, 27) it is all but equated with doing “any one of all the things that by the commandments of the Lord… ought not to be done” (4:22), applying in the present context also to unintentional sins.22 In each case, the sin brings guilt upon the transgressor and consequently renders him in need of restitution by way of animal sacrifice. Thus the progression of sin and guilt is clearly laid out: a person breaks the Law of God and thereby sins; guilt for the act is incurred, and so the sinner stands in need of atonement. Only through the appointed means of expiation will he then be forgiven.23 Similar identifications of sin with breaking the commandments of the Lord can be found scattered throughout the Pentateuch.24 This theme is closely followed in the Nevi’im and Ketuvim as well. In Josh. 7, a calamitous fate befalls Achan when he sins by transgressing the commandment of the Lord to devote all enemy spoil to destruction. Likewise, after Samuel rebukes Saul for failing to carry out the Lord’s decree of destruction, the king cries out, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord” (1 Sam. 15:24). Nehemiah perhaps comes the closest to a pure identification of sin with transgression of God’s law: “I and

Sin 97 my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses” (Neh. 1:6–7; cf. 9:29, 13:25–27). Finally, if the people inquire of Jeremiah and ask, “What is the sin that we have committed?” he will reply, “your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord… and have not kept my law;” moreover, “every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me” (Jer. 16:10–13). Other such passages can be replicated endlessly, whether attesting to this second category of sin quite explicitly or by strong implication only.25 All that said, however, it does not appear to be transgression of God’s law per se which epitomizes sin for the Old Testament authors; rather does transgression point away from itself toward a more fundamental conception of sinfulness, which brings us to our third grouping. 4.1.3  Sin as Failure to Follow Yahweh In the overwhelming majority of cases which aid us in indicating its essence, sin in the Hebrew Bible is bound centrally to the idea of failure to follow Yahweh in the widest sense of the term. Due to this breadth of usage, it will be beneficial to consider this motif under three separate subheadings. Within the umbrella category of failure to follow God, sin can be (a) the failure to trust God, disbelieving God, or breaking faith with him; (b) contempt for or rejection of the Lord; (c) opposing God’s purposes. 4.1.3.1  Failure to Trust An excellent example of sin as deficient trust in God comes from a tale referred to several times throughout the Old Testament, introduced to the reader first in Num. 13–14. Here, the Lord commands Moses to send twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan. Upon their return, they report that, though the land does indeed flow with milk and honey, it is nonetheless “a land that devours its inhabitants” (13:32), occupied by fearsome men of tremendous physical stature. Despite the assurances of Joshua and Caleb that the land will be the Israelites’ if only they trust in the Lord, the congregation yields to fear and the negative testimony of the ten, curses Moses, Aaron, and Yahweh, and attempts to stone Joshua and Caleb. Shortly thereafter in 14:40, the congregation confesses, “we have sinned,”26 a verdict which is confirmed in Deut. 1:41 where this episode is recalled. It is clear that the sin here is none other than faithlessness, a blatant lack of trust in the God who had promised to give the Israelites the land and had already proved his faithfulness in countless ways since the flight from Egypt (Noth 1968, 108– 110).27 In this same connection, it is also noteworthy that the sin of the congregation is contrasted with the faithfulness of Caleb, who “wholly followed the Lord” (Josh. 14:14).28 Other instances of this variety of sin may be found abundantly.29 In short, faithlessness and disbelief emerge time and again

98  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? as both cause and essence of what outwardly and immediately appears the mere transgression of law. 4.1.3.2 Contempt Closely related to sin as faithlessness—and more colorfully articulated—is the theme of contempt, rejection, or rebellion. Within this category there are varying degrees of intensity, from the rather mild “everyone turns to his own course” (Jer. 8:6)30 to the more ostentatious opening words of the prophet Isaiah: “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity (‘ âvôn), offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged” (Isa. 1:4). In 1 Sam. 2:17, we read that the sin of the sons of Eli was “very great,” for they “treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.” Later in the same book, we are informed of the “wickedness” (rā‘aṯḵem) and “evil” (rā‘āh) Israel has added to their sins by demanding a king (1 Sam. 12:17–19). The crux of the sin can be gleaned from a glance back at 1 Sam. 8:7–8: the Lord declares to Samuel, “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” Jeremiah and Ezekiel, too, call Israel to account for its rebellion,31 with Hosea summing up the matter: Israel sins “more and more” (13:2), as the people are “bent on turning away” from the Lord (11:7).32 4.1.3.3 Opposition Lastly, we turn to the least-represented characterization of sin under the present heading: sin as direct opposition to a plan of action initiated by God. I find at most four episodes in which this seems to be the primary sense of the word châṭâ’, but in the spirit of thoroughness I include it here. It is perhaps in Ex. 9–10 that we see the paradigm case of categorical opposition to God’s purposes. Here we read of the ten plagues, unleashed to persuade Pharaoh to allow the Israelites to leave Egypt. After the seventh plague devastates the land Pharaoh appears to relent, telling Moses and Aaron, “this time I have sinned (ḥāṭāṯî); the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong” (Ex. 9:27). But as soon as the hail and thunder cease, he sins again (laḥăṭō), “hardening his heart” against the Lord (Ex. 9:34; see also 10:16–17). Thus we see that to set oneself in opposition to the Lord, to “harden the heart” against his plans, is to sin. This same general conception of sin seems also to be indicated in Num. 21:7, 22:34, and Jer. 8:4–14. 4.1.4  Antonyms for Sin Finally, we consider what the Old Testament writers understand to be functionally opposed to sin. Though others may well be mentioned, there are

Sin 99 two ideas which stand out as especially prominent in this regard: goodness (ṭôḇ) and righteousness (ṭšḏāqâ),33 and following the Lord and his commandments. Needless to say, these two ideas are conceptually intertwined in the Hebrew mind: we read in Deut. 6:25, for example, that “it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he commanded us;” again in 2 Sam. 21, David sings, “The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness…for I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God” (vv. 21–22; see also 23–25). Hence, to follow the commands of the Lord is to do righteousness; properly to do righteousness one must follow the Lord. The Old Testament positively abounds with such examples of this intimate connection.34 But there are also several occasions where these two ideas are understood as theoretically independent. Thus the author of Proverbs plainly contrasts the righteous with the sinner (11:31, 14:34), and Qohelet twice does much the same: “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecc. 7:20); “as the good one is, so is the sinner” (Ecc. 9:2). The sins committed by Jerusalem make Samaria appear altogether righteous (Eze. 16:51), and it is the one who does “what is not good” that shall die for his sins and iniquity (Eze. 18:18).35 And so on.36 Various texts may also be adduced which present sin as antonymic to obedience to Yahweh. Caleb, for instance, refrained from sin where the others stumbled precisely insofar as he “wholly followed the Lord” (Num. 14:24, 32:12; Deut. 1:35; Josh. 14:8), and in Solomon’s prayer of dedication the remedy for sin is turning to the Lord and acknowledging his name (1 Ki. 8:33).37 We may also call attention to the psalmist’s juxtaposition of the “way of sinners” with the one whose “delight is in the law of the Lord” (1:1–2). Lastly—and to my mind quite significantly—the criterion by which the rulers of Israel are judged in Kings and 2 Chronicles is the extent to which each individual is “wholly true to the Lord his God” after the example of David.38 Either the king, as Josiah, does what is right in the Lord’s eyes, walking “in all the way of David his father (2 Ki. 22:2),” or else he abandons the Lord, refuses to walk in his way (e.g., Amon in 2 Ki. 21:22), and thus follows the sins of former contemptible kings.39 Once more we see that sitting diametrically opposed to sin is faithful adherence to the ways and commands of Yahweh.40 4.1.5 Conclusions Having surveyed the Hebrew Bible on the concept of sin, the question with which we are now faced is this: can the myriad individual instances of sin be brought under one common heading without distorting the biblical data? To this I must unhesitatingly answer in the affirmative. To see how this is so, I shall consolidate the conclusions we have hitherto reached. According to the Hebrew Bible, a sin is one, two, or all of the following: (1) a basic moral infringement (e.g., selling an innocent brother into slavery); (2) an

100  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? act which transgresses a specific divine command (e.g., worshipping Baal); (3) faithlessness, disbelief, or opposition towards the purposes of God (e.g., succumbing to fear when there is good reason to suppose God will come through). The task, then, is to discern as far as possible a common theme underlying all three, the golden thread which runs equally through them all. But such a task should not be particularly difficult in light of (4) above, where it was demonstrated that, in the Old Testament, sin is oftentimes conceived of in negative terms as the opposite of obedience to God and doing righteousness. To commit a breach of what I have called “basic morality” (1) would ipso facto constitute a breach of righteousness, and to break a commandment of God (2) just is, quite obviously, to disobey him. And inasmuch as the purposes of God are known, to have deficient trust in him, or to oppose him, would also doubtless be to disobey him—in effect, it would mean to stop when he bids us walk, to shrink when he bids us stand on our own two feet and fight. As far as I can see, then, the Hebrew Bible is quite self-consistent in its teaching on sin. Though there are innumerable unique instances of the general phenomenon we call “sin,” they go by the same name precisely because it is this general phenomenon which is instantiated.41 And this universal, we may say—the definition we find in the Old Testament—is simply this: sin is the refusal to do and to be what God desires; or, positively, sin is doing and being what is contrary to the purposes of God. The question of culpability will be taken up briefly below; for now we must turn to the New Testament and assess the extent to which its teaching on sin coheres with that of the Hebrew Bible. In the background, of course, the reader is advised to begin questioning whether or not the notions of sin discussed here are compatible with a nonlapsarian theology.

4.2  The New Testament View: Hamartia It was observed above that the translators of the LXX favored hamartia as the most appropriate rendering of the Hebrew châṭâ’; the various authors of the New Testament likewise appear to have a strong preference for this word. While both adikia and hamartia are frequently employed in the New Testament’s overall doctrine of sin, adikia and cognates are found no more than 70 times, while hamartia and cognates are used nearly four times as often, totaling around 270 occurrences. Moreover, once we consider that the former is “less specific and more varied in its nuances of meaning,” it becomes evident that hamartia is “the main idea” (Günther 1978, 3, 575). Thus we esteem the judgment of C. Ryder Smith (1953, 143): “when a New Testament writer wanted one compendious word for ‘sin,’ he used hamartia.” Accordingly, we shall adhere to the procedure followed before and fix our concentration chiefly on hamartia to identify the concept of sin found within the New Testament. Like its Hebrew counterpart châṭâ’, hamartia in its most literal sense means simply “to miss the mark” (Danker 2000, 49). Hence the iambic poet

Sin 101 Hipponax, “I have two right hands and don’t miss with my punches” (ouk hamartano) (Hipponax 1999, 452–453).42 But, once more, this etymology is largely forgotten in the New Testament (Strong 2010, Gk. 16), or, if not quite forgotten, then it is at any rate often taken in a much more specified sense. Consequently, any attempt to demonstrate the meaning of sin in the New Testament must begin within its pages rather than without, and so we at once continue our exploration of the biblical text. This undertaking is made somewhat laborious, however, by the unfortunate fact that the various usages of sin in the New Testament prima facie appear to be rather more diverse than what was unearthed in the Old Testament. Indeed, notwithstanding the passing comment made in Gen. 4:7,43 sin never features in the Hebrew Bible as, say, a semi-personal, “enslaving cosmic power,” as it does for St. Paul (Gombis 2016, 105). On the contrary, we saw that each instance of sin fit rather neatly within three distinct—though often overlapping— categories. Things are not so straightforward with the New Testament, however: to consign hamartia to but three possible meanings would be to neglect several other important aspects of the New Testament doctrine. Even so, when all is said and done, I think there is sufficient unity across each usage of hamartia to warrant abstraction and thence concept-formation—more, our New Testament definition will be seen to match beautifully the definition offered above with regard to the Hebrew Bible. We shall proceed as follows. In Section II.1, we shall consider sin as it occurs most commonly in the New Testament, namely, as wrongdoing, misstep, or transgression, either against a universally recognized moral law or divine command. This corresponds well with the Hebrew Bible classifications (1) and (2) elucidated in Sections I.1–2 above. Included in this contingent will be identifications of sin with “unrighteousness” (adikia) and “lawlessness” (anomia).44 Section II.2 will be devoted to two episodes which, after some exegetical work, will disclose once more sin’s close association with opposition to the purposes of God. Finally, in Section II.3, we shall note two further instances of sin whose usage does not immediately fall comfortably within the purview of the first two sections but are still needful to consider. 4.2.1  Sin as Wrongdoing It is largely on account of the New Testament’s linking of hamartia and moral evil that Tennant (1912) is able to define sin as “an attitude or activity contravening a law or an idea which the agent…has been enabled to recognise, if he will, as binding” (43–44). Indeed, we find substantiation of this definition quite commonly: upon learning that Jesus had been sentenced to death, Judas Iscariot cries out, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” (Matt. 27:4). We know from each of the synoptic writers that, in Jesus’s mind, sin and righteousness stand directly opposed to one another, for he comes not for the sake of the righteous (dikaious) but for sinners

102  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? (Matt. 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32). In Matt. 18:15 and Luke 17:3, we see that sin can apparently function in a relatively benign sense, potentially requiring only a shake of the hand for rectification of a wrong committed (Nolland 1993, 838: “In view is personal wrong of one against another…and correspondingly repentance has an everyday sense”). Turning away from the gospels, we find that sin is possible apart from and prior to the Law given through Moses. St. Paul in Rom. 2:12–15 makes this clear: “all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law” (v. 12), going on to indicate that sin may, provisionally at least, be identified with failing to do what the universal moral law requires (v. 14) (cf. Moo 1996, 144–150). In Rom. 5:12–21, a passage we have already investigated at length, Paul closely links sin with “transgression” (parabasis)45 and “trespass” (paraptóma),46 indicating that Adam’s sin was, to recycle Williams’s words, an act willfully committed in defiance of a recognized law of God (cf. Gal. 2:17–18; Eph. 2:1). Similarly in Rom. 7:21–25, Paul contrasts the “law of God” (v. 22) with the warmongering “law of sin” (v. 23), and in 1 Cor. 6:18 appears to come very close indeed to identifying sin straightforwardly with what the common man would term immoral behavior tout court. Further corroboration of this point may be found in the lists provided of some of the more obvious sins: murder, sexual immorality, lying, drunkenness, and so on.47 Finally, we may note two near-definitions of sin presented in the New Testament. One is supplied by James and the other by John, both of whom put the matter very simply. For James, sin is failing to do what is known to be the right thing (4:17), while for John “sin is lawlessness” (anomia) (1 Jn. 3:4).48 4.2.2  Sin as Opposition to God In this section, we shall examine but two texts which present sin as resistance to the objectives of God: (a) the “eternal sin” of Mark 3:28–30 and parallels (Matt. 12:31–32; Luke 12:10); and (b) Christ’s famous rebuke of Peter in Matt. 16. 4.2.2.1  The Eternal Sin We encounter this intimate association between sin and rejection of God’s purposes once more in the case of the enigmatic “eternal sin” mentioned by Jesus in the synoptic gospels. “All sins will be forgiven,” says Mark’s Jesus, “and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (3:28–29). As Berkouwer (1971, 328) points out in connection with this verse, the sin against the Holy Spirit cannot of course be blasphemy per se—“for blasphemy also falls under the heading of those sins which ‘will be forgiven’.” On the contrary, it is a peculiar variety of blasphemy, a special sort of sin, which alone may not be excused (cf. Biddle 2005, 87; Black 2016, 76). Identification

Sin 103 of this unforgivable sin is to be found within the immediate context provided by the first two synoptists. Though in Mark’s gospel this episode is not immediately preceded by an exorcism as it is in Matthew, nevertheless we find certain scribes proclaiming that it is only “by the prince of demons [that Jesus] casts out demons” (Mark 3:22). It is this accusation which elicits Jesus’s response: “How can Satan cast out Satan?” (v. 24) Rather, Jesus is he who enters Satan’s domicile from without, “binds the strong man,”49 and “plunders his house” (v. 27). Hence it is not “by the prince of demons” that Satan is cast out, but by the Holy Spirit—that is, Jesus’s ministry of exorcism is carried out precisely in the power of the spirit of God (Shively 2014, 142). To mistake the operation of God, then, for the agency of diabolical forces and to treat it as such is to commit an unforgiveable sin. It is neither here nor there for our present purposes to speculate why this sin is unforgivable.50 What is significant, however, is that, according to the synoptists, the vilest sin of all is rejection of God, “antipathy against the acts of Christ by means of the Spirit and the finger of God” ( Berkouwer 1971, 329; cf. Schoonenberg 1976, 10–12 ). Put succinctly, the lesson is this: “To reject Jesus is to sin” (Smith 1953, 143).51 4.2.2.2  Get Thee behind Me In Matt. 16 we confront Jesus’s memorable question to his disciples at Caesarea Philippi, “who do you say that I am?” (v. 15). Simon Peter is the first to respond: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). Of course neither the disciples nor anyone else shared the idea of messiahship present in Jesus’s mind,52 and so they were fated to misunderstand what Jesus was about to reveal. “From that time,” Matthew tells us, “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things…and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (v. 21). Then comes Peter’s rebuke: “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (v. 22), to which Jesus censoriously rejoins, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block (skandalon)53 to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (v. 23). Now, the fact that Jesus here calls Peter ‘Satan’ is important in its own right. Harking back to Jesus’s rebuke of Satan in Matt. 4:10, Peter is here issued a “public reprimand” (France 2007, 634) for adopting the role of the adversary and failing to “concur with the ways of God” (Davies and Allison, Jr. 1991, 2:664). This alone may be enough to justify deeming Peter’s attitude to be sinful (cf. Shively 2014, 137). But more may be said, for what is key in this passage for the biblical doctrine of sin lies with the word skandalon. True, things would be considerably more straightforward were Jesus deliberately to have used hamartia, but I think this same general sense can still be gathered from the use of skandalon. Consider first Matt. 5:29–30: “If your right eye causes you to stumble (skandalizei), tear it out and throw it away. …And If your right hand causes

104  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? you to stumble (skandalizei), cut it off and throw it away.”54 As Gustav Stählin (1971) demonstrates, it is well-nigh impossible here to draw much of a distinction between the implied skandalon and hamartia: since Matthew “puts the saying in antithesis to the 7th commandment [prohibiting adultery] in 5:27–32, it follows that the meaning he presupposes for σκανδαλίζω is ‘to entice to sin’” (7:352). We see much the same later on when skandalon and cognates are used six times in Matt. 18:6–9 where hamartia might well be expected.55 Clearly, no New Testament author would have much trouble labelling lust or sexual immorality as “sin”;56 and, as we have just seen, to oppose Christ is conceived by the gospel writers as sin par excellence. Hence Schoonenberg (1976) on Matt. 18:6: “he who scandalizes the little ones, or, literally, who puts a stumbling-block before their faith in Christ, deserves to be mercilessly thrown into the sea. [Such] are the greatest sins” (11). Moreover, when we turn to Luke 17 we see both skandalon and hamartia at work at close quarters: skandalon is retained in vv. 1–2 where Matt. 18:6–7 and Mark 9:42 are paralleled, yet in vv. 3–4 Luke switches to hamartia: “If your brother sins… and if he sins against you seven times…”. The hypothetical source material for vv. 1–2 and vv. 3–4 is totally irrelevant even if they can be proven to differ, for Luke clearly intends to articulate vv. 1–4 in such a way that skandalon and hamartia may be understood as effectively synonymous. Thus, while a strict equation of skandalon and hamartia may not be wholly appropriate in every circumstance, one can very clearly see how it would be here: “You are tempting me to sin,” or “you are sinning against me,” Jesus might have said to Peter, “for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”57 4.2.3  Further Considerations We may therefore confidently conclude that the material from Mark 3 and Matt. 18 reviewed here testify to the centrality in the New Testament of sin as opposition to God. Before rounding out our discussion on sin in scripture, we may turn briefly to two further considerations which are doubtless germane to the present study. I should first like to mention two texts from the gospel of John which at first blush appear to impart a strong volitional component to the concept of sin.58 In John 9:41, Jesus states quite plainly to some Pharisees, “If you were blind, you would have no sin;”59 similarly, in 15:22–24 Jesus says that people would “not have sin” were it not for his words and the works he performed among them. As Tennant observes, rightly in my view, Christ here “expressly associates sinfulness only with opportunity for sufficiency of knowledge, and excludes sinfulness if such knowledge be not forthcoming or cannot be looked for. Sin, he implies, is co-extensive with responsibility” (1912, 32).60 While this seems to be essentially correct, at the same time we must be careful not to modulate the Johannine teaching on sin and imply that sin is somehow less than disastrous for all people.61 For the fact is, for

Sin 105 John, “the world has already conducted its ‘trial’ of Jesus and found him guilty and deserving of death” (Burge 2016, 84). It is probably too much to infer that this “repudiation of God’s arrival” (84) implicates all human beings equally, but it would likewise be overhasty to ascribe to St. John too robust a belief in the modern maxim “innocent until proven guilty.”62 Still, Jesus’s words in the gospel of John must be taken seriously and show, at the very least, that in Jesus’ mind sin is not imputed where a revelation of God’s will is not clearly set forth.63 We may therefore tentatively conclude that sin is something which must be consented to against a background of relative moral and spiritual enlightenment.64 Finally, we turn to the argument St. Paul lays out in Rom. 1–3, a text which seems to breathe new life into the characterization of sin as “missing the mark.” Paul begins in 1:16–17, declaring that the euangelion is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” The function of this introduction is to emphasize, in the words of Richard Hays (1996, 384), that “the gospel is not merely a moral or philosophical teaching that hearers may accept or reject as they choose; it is rather the eschatological instrument through which God is working his purpose out in the world.” And what, we may ask, is the eschatological goal for human beings? According to Paul, it is the Christotelic superabundance of the glory bestowed in the beginning: the “glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) conveyed through the imago Dei (Gombis 2016, 98; cf. Dunn 1998, 93–94). But “all have sinned and fall short” of this glory (3:23)65 —that is, all are “under sin” (3:9) and fail to mirror the beneficent nature of God, the primary evidence of which is the “diseased behavior” catalogued in 1:24–32 (Hays 1996, 385). To quote Gombis at length, Paul is pointing to God’s original intention for human beings: they were created to function as God’s glory by embodying and reflecting the very character of God in and through interdependent human relationships. This function of humanity entailed bodily conduct that had a telos, behavior that pointed beyond humanity itself to its creator. It was the glory of humanity to be the glory of God, to acknowledge and to make manifest that the one who created and upheld all of creation, including humanity, of course, was indeed the one true God. (Gombis 2016, 98)66 Thus to be under the dominion of sin within this context just is to leave one’s true telos unfulfilled and thereby “miss the mark”;67 sin is to fail fully to be what God intends for humanity, deficiently to reflect the goodness of God into his creation and thereby “worship and serve the creature rather than the creator” (Rom. 1:25). This view thus portrays sin fundamentally as idolatry (cf. Dunn 1998, 91–92; McCall 2019, 111). When this happens, human beings are “given up” (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28) to sin, characterized and personified by Paul as an enslaving power which seizes control, deceives, and kills (Rom. 7:8–11), “an entity with a will, aims, intentions, and a strategy to

106  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? fulfil its goals” (Gombis 2016, 106). Hence sin both frustrates the fulfillment of the human being’s true end and describes this failure. This, at any rate, is the image utilized by Paul to paint a theological picture of sin. 4.2.4 Conclusions As is now doubtless evident, it is extremely unlikely that one might simply happen upon something called “the New Testament definition of sin.” Indeed, having surveyed the range of different meanings there emerges a moderate temptation to throw up one’s hands and confess that there is not so much a concept of sin as various interrelated, though nevertheless distinct, ideas to be found here. Once more, however, I think that a quick consolidation of our findings will reveal a clear alternative to despair, a path which intersects most serendipitously with the conclusions already reached through our investigation of the Hebrew Bible. We have seen that, in the New Testament, hamartia is used when either: (1) a moral law or divine command is transgressed; (2) God’s purposes are opposed more generally. Moreover, we noted (3) Paul’s close linking of sin and failure to bear the divine image which, of course, tallies very nicely with (2), insofar as resistance to the image-bearing vocation marks an unwillingness to be what God commissions one to be. We ask, then, the same question as before: what, if any, is the feature common to each of these three categories of sin? Once again, the answer is not especially hard to come by: granted that God desires moral goodness from his creatures, each paradigm of sin exemplifies, to varying degrees, resistance to and defection from the aims of God. Hence, we may repeat that for the New Testament as well as for the Old, sin is the refusal to do and to be what God desires; or, positively, sin is doing and being what is contrary to the purposes of God. Here I find that Schoonenberg (1976) has come very close indeed to the mark in his discussion on the essence of sin. Sin, he says, is “an opposition to God’s salvific activity and to his creation” (47); it is “a negative reaction, a refusal and a resistance. Sin is a No of the human person, who shuts himself off and hardens himself when openness and self-donation are expected” (20). To take but one trifling illustration, to betray an innocent man for pecuniary advantage is to pronounce a unilateral No to the law of human nature, created by God, which underpins the stability and flourishing of human society; qua creature, then, by breaking the moral law, the instantiation of this nature (i.e., the transgressing human) counters the purposes of his creator. It follows from this that there is no act of immorality which is not also sin. At the same time, however, one may do well to follow the moral law and yet be a sinner: though the whole law be kept from youth, the invitation to enter the eschatological kingdom of God may yet be rejected: “No,” says the rich man of Mark 10:17–22, “I refuse to see what your “salvific activity” may produce in me” (cf. “blamelessness” towards the law in Phil. 3:6). Hence we see that in sinning, one rejects one of two things: God

Sin 107 or his creation. This closely reflects what Jesus indicates in his reference to the two greatest commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37–39; Mark 12:30–31; cf. Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). Insofar, then, as we fail culpably to fulfil the perfection68 of these twin duties, we miss the mark—that is, we sin. Once again, there is little indication to support the contention that sin, necessarily and without qualification, “in its unity and totality is always pride” (pace Barth 1956, 413). It is not arrogance, after all, that compels men to turn down the banquet invitation, but worldly attachments and concerns (Luke 14:15–24).69 But then neither may sin simply be defined as a mere falling short of Christlikeness. While this usage is doubtless helpful in many respects, it can tend to make a mockery of the Johannine emphasis on personal responsibility for sin. To reecho the words of Luther (1960, 77), such a conception would entail that “also the little children have sinned” simply by virtue of their non-attainment of maturity in Christ.70 Rather, as we argued above, it is only when there is sufficient illumination with regard to the moral law and purposes of God that sin may be present in the fullblown sense.71 Here we have, then, the concept of sin. It is, at base, a culpable No to God and his purposes for his creation. It is this understanding of sin which is consistently revealed in the pages of the biblical text, and therefore what Christians are, I think, required to believe. And, somehow, though the details remain tantalizingly hazy, it is this conception of sin that provides the terminus a quo for the salvation revealed in and imparted by the risen Christ. But to explain the existence of this phenomenon does not seem prima facie to require the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin; all that is needed is (1) a plan or purpose of God, and (2) creatures who freely and consciously resist these purposes or reject them. Even if this is right, however, the adequacy of a nonlapsarian theology may still be contested on theodical and soteriological grounds. We shall take up the issue of our salvation in Chapter 6; for now, we turn to the exceedingly urgent question of how such opposition to God as we have been exploring here might come to exist in a nonlapsarian creation.

Notes

1 2:38, 3:19–20, 5:31, 10:43, 13:38, 22:16, 26:18; cf. Matt. 1:21, 26:28; Luke 1:77, 24:47; John 1:29; 1 Cor. 15:3, 17; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; 1 Tim. 1:15; Heb. 7:27; Heb. 9, 10:12–14; 1 Pe. 2:23, 3:18; 1 Jn. 1:7, 2:2, 3:5; Rev. 1:5. 2 Cf. the resignation in the opening words of Sklar (2016, 3): “Sadly, sin is central to the Bible’s story. If the goal of a story is to solve a problem, then ‘sin constitutes the problem that God resolves’.” 3 Which is not to say these definitions cannot be harmonized or brought beneath a common heading. 4 This is one of many “definitions” to be found throughout the work.

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5 Vladimir Lossky agrees: “the attitude of Lucifer reveals to us the root of every sin: pride as revolt against God… the thirst for self-deification” (1989, 81–82). 6 Other definitions worth noting are Williams’s (1929, 457): “a conscious act carried out with full purpose and deliberation in defiance of a known law of God”; Anselm’s (1926, I.11): “not to render to God his due”; Cornelius Plantinga’s (1995): “the breaking of covenant with one’s savior” (12), or “culpable disturbance of shalom” (18); and (one of) Häring’s (1974, 24): “total alienation from God, from faith, from adoration, from knowledge of God and from our fellowmen.” As is perhaps evident, the list could go on ad nauseam. 7 For another recent (and exceptional) overview of the biblical doctrine of sin from an analytic theologian, see the second chapter of McCall (2019). 8 Though, as Sklar (2016, 3) points out, there are perhaps 50 different words in the OT which could accurately be translated as ‘sin’. 9 Gary Anderson (2009), for instance, very skillfully shows how the use of ‘ âvôn in the Hebrew Bible undergirds the primary OT metaphor of sin as a weight, “a burden to be borne,” as his chapter title suggests (15–26). 10 For these figures I rely on the work of Smith (1953, 69–70). 11 This is the case particularly in the context of mercy. See Anderson (2009, 18). 12 Much the same can be said for pêsa’ (commonly rendered ‘transgression’). 13 Similarly, ‘ âvôn—from the root ‘avah— “points to a twisted situation, to something amiss” (Jefford [2000, 1224]. See also Schoonenberg [1976, 2] and Strong [2010, Heb. and Ara. 206]). 14 Cf. the judgement of Ansberry (2016, 45) on sin in the Ketuvim specifically: “the Writings do not conceptualize sin in a monolithic way. Sin has many faces, and the diverse texts within the Writings profile the contours of sin’s silhouette from distinct vantage points, through different literary forms and within a variety of frameworks.” Much truer is this of the Hebrew Bible as a whole. 15 Further, though Abraham’s deception is not explicitly referred to as sin, given the context it would hardly be gratuitous to label it as such—it is, after all, a thing “that ought not to be done.” 16 For an engaging discussion of the two aforementioned episodes and their potential ramifications for the presence of a Natural Law ethic in scripture, see Novak (2008, 47–55). 17 The claim is frequently made. See, e.g., Berkouwer (1971, 242, 254–55); Mackintosh (1913, 2–3); Brunner (1942) implicitly makes this claim frequently, e.g., at (129, 133, 135, 148, 155). 18 In the other 16 occurrences of these two words, there is no trouble translating them as “sin.” 19 Again the NRSV misses the mark: “Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy?” As they say, every translation is an interpretation. 20 See, e.g., 1 Sam. 19:4, 26:21; 2 Sam 11–12; 2 Ki. 18:14; 1 Ki. 8:31/2 Chron. 6:22; Prov. 1:10–19, 14:21, 24:9 where sin is almost defined as “the devising of folly”; Ecc. 8:12. Nota bene: many English translations deliberately avoid translating châṭâ’ as ‘sin’ in some of these passages. 21 Cf. the definition of sin offered by Sklar (2012, 468): “By sin, I mean any contravention of the Lord’s law.” 22 As Sklar (2012) points out, one can ‘sin unintentionally’ when (a) a person is privy to a law but does not know he is breaking it, or (b) a person is unaware of the law and, consequently, does not know his actions are wrong (469–470); cf. Num. 15:22–29. 23 See Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35. This applies also to the community as a whole (Lev. 4:13–21). 24 For example, Lev. 26:14–24; Deut. 9:15–16.

Sin 109 25 For example, Num. 5:6, 15:22–31; Judg. 10:10; 1 Sam. 12:10; 2 Ki. 17–18; Ps. 119:11; Is. 31:7; Jer. 9:13–16; Ez. 20:1–32; Dan. 9:5, etc. 26 It is also worth noting that twice in Num. 14 this apostasy is referred to as ‘ âvôn (vv.19, 34). 27 Cf. Olson (1996, 89): “the old wilderness generation failed to learn the fundamental lesson of the first commandment—to fear, love, and trust God above anything else.” 28 Cf. Num. 14:24; Deut. 1:35–36. Caleb and his descendants will “see the land,” but not the other men of that “evil generation.” 29 For example, Josh. 22:15ff.; 2 Ki. 17:7ff.; Job 1:22; Ps. 78:8, 32; Eze. 14:13, etc. Boda (2016, 35–36) notes that Israel and Judah’s lack of trust in Yahweh is “an issue that dominates Isaiah 6–55.” 30 Jer. 8:6 is connected with sin explicitly in v. 14. See also v. 9 here. 31 For example, Jer. 32:33–35, 33:8; Eze. 2:7, 3:27. 32 For further examples of this theme, see, e.g., 1 Sam. 15:24–26; 2 Sam. 12:10–14; Is. 30:1–12. 33 Where ṭšḏāqâ carries a strong ethical connotation, signifying, very roughly, to do what is right, proper, or just, especially within Israel’s covenant with Yahweh. See Reumann (2000, 1129) and Tooley (2000, 757). See also the discussion of ṭšḏāqâ with regard to comparable terms in the ancient near east in Ringgren (2003, 12:240–243). 34 For example, Deut. 12:28; Deut. 13:18; 1 Ki. 14:8–16; Ps. 1; Ps. 25:7–10; Ps. 103; Ps. 112; Eze. 18. 35 Note that “iniquity” (‘ăwōnōw) is here being used in exactly the same sense as “sin” in vv. 14, 20, 21. 36 For example, Eze. 3:20, 28:15–16, 33:14–16; Dan. 4:27. 37 Likewise we see in 1 Sam. 15:31 that the appropriate response to sin is to “bow before the Lord” in submission. 38 See, e.g., 1 Ki. 15:3–11 and 2 Chron. 17:3, to take a couple of examples at random. 39 For example, 2 Ki. 13:2, 14:24; 2 Chron. 28:1–2, etc. 40 It would also be well briefly to note three words that are commonly found together with châṭâ’ in the Hebrew Bible; the lists given will be anything but exhaustive. We have mentioned ‘âvôn above; in close connection with châṭâ’ it may be found in, e.g., Job 10:6; Ps. 32:1–2; Prov. 5:22; Isa. 1:4, 59:2; Jer. 18:23; Lam. 4:22; Eze. 18; Hos. 9:9. For pêsa’ (transgression), see, e.g., Lev. 16:16; Josh. 24:19; Job 13:23; Ps. 51:1–3; Eze. 33:10; Amos 5:12; Mic. 6:7. For rā’ (evil), see, e.g., 1 Sam. 2:23–25; 2 Ki. 21:11–12; Neh. 9:28–29; Prov. 21:4; Ecc. 8:12; Isa. 3:9. 41 Thus I must part company with Bernard Häring (1974, 23) when he says that sin “is never abstract and timeless.” While he is correct to say that each sin possesses its own sitz im leben, for us to recognize each sin as sin, it is necessary to postulate a universal which, I fear, must be—at least relatively—“abstract and timeless.” 42 ἀμφιδέξιος γάρ εἰμι κοὐκ ἁμαρτάνω κόπτων. 43 The famous passage in which sin is said to desire Cain, to be “crouching at his door.” But even this image of sin is far tamer than what we find in St. Paul. 44 As we pointed out above, these latter two terms correspond closely to the Hebrew ‘ âvôn. 45 To “walk beside” or “overstep” a standard or norm; to “transgress, neglect” (Günther [1978, 3:583]). 46 A “misstep.” Cf. Schoonenberg (1976, 3–4). 47 See 2 Cor. 12:21 and 1 Tim. 1:9–10 with explicit reference to sin. For other such catalogues which quite obviously merit inclusion in this category but do not explicitly say hamartia, see, e.g., Rom. 13:12–13; Gal. 5:19–21; Eph. 5:3–5;

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Col. 3:5–9; 2 Tim. 3:1–5; Rev. 21:8. We know, to take but one example, that the “works of the flesh” (erga tēs sarkos) in Gal. 5:19 must be sinful, for in Rom. 7:13–25 Paul closely consociates sarx with hamartia. As he says in Rom. 7:25, “with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” 48 Schoonenberg’s (1976) treatment of this verse is curious: he argues that while etymologically anomia signifies the transgression of a law, “this connection with ‘law’ disappears in the biblical context.” Hence he concludes that anomia and hamartia are synonymous: anomia is “‘sin’ without further reference to the law” (5). If this is correct, we must take St. John to be saying, in essence, “everyone who practices sin also practices sin, for sin is sin,” which is at best massively uninformative and at worst a hopeless tautology. Better, then, to follow Danker (2000) and retain at least a semblance of the original meaning: anomia would then denote “without adherence to a moral code” (85)— whether that of God or another—the opposite of which would be dikaiosune. 49 An echo of Isa. 49:24–26. See Shively (2014, 142). 50 Though a tempting explanation is given by Black (2016, 76): “identifying as diabolical the one who conveys God’s holy spirit is a peculiar blasphemy, beyond the pale of normal remission, because one thereby drives oneself away from the true agent of forgiveness. To stretch the metaphor … one will never surrender to therapeutic surgery if one is so deluded that she thinks her physician is a homicidal monster.” 51 John, too, picks up on this theme at 16:7–11: the Paraclete will convict the world “concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.” Burge (2016, 84) here quotes Keener approvingly, “the sin is the world’s unbelief in the Son.” 52 Hence “he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ” (v. 20). Cf. Keener (1999, 431); France (2007, 631). 53 Where skandalon, stemming from the ancient Hebraic milieu and not Hellenic, commonly implies a temptation to sin, or transgress a law. See Danker (2000, 926) and Stählin (1971, 7:344). 54 The ESV and NRSV both translate skandalizei ‘sin’; the NASB has ‘stumble’ with a note: “I.e. sin”; the NIV has “stumble” and no note. Cf. Mark 9:43–47. 55 Here the ESV alone renders skandalon “sin.” Cf. Luke 17:1–4. 56 Cf. Matt. 5:27–30 and note 47 above. 57 See 1 Cor. 8:9–13 for another example of skandalon and hamartia being used more or less interchangeably. 58 Tennant (1912, 31–32), for instance, lays appreciable emphasis on these verses. 59 Here the NASB and NRSV get it right; the ESV misleadingly translates this, “you would have no guilt.” 60 Cf. Bruce (1983, 221): “Had they lived in darkness and found no way out into the light, their plight would have been sad but no blame would have attached to them.” 61 Cf. 1 Jn. 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” 62 Carson (1991, 526) is keen to emphasize this point. It is not “as if the coming of Jesus introduced for the first time sin and its attendant guilt before God,” but rather that the “most central and controlling of sins” (rejection of God) is now possible in an exceptionally explicit way. Even so, we must heed Jesus’s words: had sufficient light not been given, they would not “have” this “most central” sin. 63 Cf. Matt. 23:14 (some MSS); Mark 12:40; Luke 20:47. If this is not so, we might well ask: why should the religious experts receive the greater condemnation? It can only be because they have been provided with the tools to know better than most. Bruce agrees: “The greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility” (1983, 314).

Sin 111 64 And this despite the issue of unintentional sin raised in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Lev. 4 and Num. 15:22–29), as well as some of the more severe language of St. Paul (e.g., Rom. 5:12–21; 7:15–20). Cf. Smith (1953, 147–148): even for Paul, “For the purpose of judgement the definition of sin is not ‘anything contrary to God’s will’, but ‘anything known to be contrary to His will’.” 65 Cf. Biddle (2005, 65): “What does the ‘glory of God’ mean here? It is clearly the object, the standard that defines sin or some aspect of it. To fall short of it, to miss it, is sin.” 66 What remains unclear to me is why Gombis later insists on driving a wedge between moral rectitude and faithful reflection of God’s image. 67 Cf. Moo (1996, 226): “Paul, then, is indicating that all people fail to exhibit that ‘being-like-God’ for which they were created.” 68 See Matt. 5:48: esesthe oun humeis teleioi—be ye perfect, complete, having fulfilled your telos—as your heavenly Father is perfect. 69 Cf. the Parable of the Sower, esp. Matt. 13:22; Mark 4:19; Luke 8:14. 70 Such a notion clearly does not find itself at home in the either the Old Testament or the New, though, notoriously, St. Augustine seems to think “little children” actually sin (see 2008, I.7.11). 71 Cf. Tennant (1912, 32). Of course, only God will know what counts as “sufficient illumination” for each individual at any given time.

References Anderson, Gary A. 2009. Sin: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ansberry, Christopher B. 2016. “Writings.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin, edited by Keith L. Johnson and David Lauber, 45–60. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Anselm. 1926. Cur Deus Homo. Translated by Sidney Norton Deane. Chicago, IL: The Open Court Publishing Company. Augustine. 2008. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barth, Karl. 1956. Church Dogmatics IV.1: The Doctrine of Reconciliation. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Berkouwer, G. C. 1971. Studies in Dogmatics: Sin. Translated by Philip C. Holtrop. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Biddle, Mark E. 2005. Missing the Mark: Sin and Its Consequences in Biblical Theology. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Black, C. Clifton. 2016. “Synoptic Gospels.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin, edited by Keith L. Johnson and David Lauber, 61–78. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Boda, Mark J. 2016. “Prophets.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin, edited by Keith L. Johnson and David Lauber, 27–43. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Bruce, F. F. 1983. The Gospel of John. Basingstoke: Pickering & Inglis. Brunner, Emil. 1942. Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology. Translated by Olive Wyon. London: Lutterworth Press. Burge, Gary M. 2016. “The Gospel and Epistles of John.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin, edited by Keith L. Johnson and David Lauber, 79–95. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Carson, D. A. 1991. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

112  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? Danker, Frederick William, ed. 2000. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Davies, W. D., and Dale C. Allision Jr. 1991. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, edited by J. A. Emerton, C. E. B. Cranfield, and G. N. Stanton, vol. 2. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Dunn, James D. G. 1998. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. London: T&T Clark. France, R. T. 2007. The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Gombis, Timothy G. 2016. “Paul.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin, edited by Keith L. Johnson and David Lauber, 97–109. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Günther, Walther. 1978. “Sin.” In Pri–Z, 573–585. Vol. 3 of The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, edited by Colin Brown. Exeter: Paternoster Press. Häring, Bernard. 1974. Sin in the Secular Age. Slough: St Paul Publications. Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Hipponax. 1999. Fragments, In Greek Iambic Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, edited by Douglas E. Gerber, 352–499. Translated By Douglas E. Gerber. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jefford, Clayton N. 2000. “Sin.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by David Noel Freedman, 1224–1226. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Keener, Craig S. 1999. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Lossky, Vladimir. 1989. Orthodox Theology: An Introduction. Translated by Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Luther, Martin. 1960. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Translated by J. Theodore Mueller. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Mackintosh, Robert. 1913. Christianity and Sin. London: Duckworth & Co. McCall, Thomas H. 2019. Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. McFadyen, Alistair. 2000. Bound to Sin: Abuse, Holocaust and the Christian Doctrine of Sin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moo, Douglas J. 1996. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Nolland, John. 1993. Luke 9:21–18:34. Dallas, TX: Word, Incorporated. Noth, Martin. 1968. Numbers: A Commentary. London: SCM Press. Novak, David. 2008. Natural Law in Judaism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olson, Dennis T. 1996. Numbers. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press. Plantinga, Cornelius. Jr. 1995. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Reumann, John. 2000. “Righteousness.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by David Noel Freedman, 1129–1130. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Ringgren, Helmer. 2003. “ṣāḏaq; ṣeḏeq; ṣeḏāqâ; ṣaddîq.” In Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, edited by G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, Pāsaḥ – Qûm, 239–243. Vol. 12. Translated by Douglas W. Stott. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Schoonenberg, Piet. 1976. Man and Sin: A Theological View. Translated by Joseph Donceel. London: Sheed and Ward.

Sin 113 Shively, Elizabeth. 2014. “Characterizing the Non-Human: Satan in the Gospel of Mark.” In Character Studies and the Gospel of Mark, edited by Christopher W. Skinner and Matthew Ryan Hauge, 127–151. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Sklar, Jay. 2012. “Sin and Atonement: Lessons from the Pentateuch.” Bulletin for Biblical Research 22 (4): 467–491. doi: 10.2307/26424334. Sklar, Jay. 2016. “Pentateuch.” In T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin, edited by Keith L. Johnson and David Lauber, 1–25. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Smith, C. Ryder. 1953. The Bible Doctrine of Sin and of the Ways of God With Sinners. London: Epworth Press. Stählin, Gustav. 1971. “σκάνδαλον, σκάνδαλίζω.” In Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Friedrich, Σ, 339–358, Vol. 7. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Strong, James. 2010. The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. Tennant, F. R. 1912. The Concept of Sin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tooley, Michelle. 2000. “Just, Justice.” In Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, edited by David Noel Freedman, 757. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Walton, John H. 2015. The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2–3 and the Human Origins Debate. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. Williams, N. P. 1929. The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: A Historical and Critical Study. London: Longmans, Green and Co.

5

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy Whence Sin?

And so sin remains. But, as was made plain in the first chapter of this study, one primary operation of the doctrine of Original Sin is to counter the charge that God is in some important way responsible for the sin and evil endemic in the created order. Thus, by rejecting the Fall and Original Sin, it seems the indictment is back on the table. For the two propositions and naturally invite a question about the one who purportedly created such a world: did God create a sinful world, or at least a world in which sin would prove virtually inevitable? In short, the present chapter deals with questions surrounding theodicy (and, by extension, the doctrine of creation), the whence of sin absent a veritable Fall. If it is not the case that “sin came into the world through one man” (Rom. 5:12), where, then, did it come from?1 An altogether satisfactory answer to these questions would require a far more extensive treatment than what I am able to give here. Still, at least a preliminary attempt to respond is necessary, for if the elimination of Original Sin commits us to supposing God is the author of evil, it may be far better simply to retain the doctrine in question. In the present chapter, then, we shall address these concerns head-on. To this end, we shall begin by revisiting an early twentieth century approach to the origin of sin which proved infamous for its rejection of the Fall and Original Sin, and follow with a discussion of the criticisms this theory immediately occasioned. With this task complete, I shall then consider the question of God’s responsibility for moral evil along quite different lines, arguing that, whatever one concludes about the aforementioned theory, the Fall doctrine, too, will fail convincingly to exempt God from the authorship of such evil for precisely the same reasons—that is, so long as the Molinist account of providence, or anything stronger, be admitted.2 Fall doctrine or no, I suggest, we are left with the same serious questions about God and the world he elected to create. It is not nonlapsarianism, that is, which causes problems for theodicy, but the actualization of any world in which evil comes to exist at all. Without further ado, then, we turn to F. R. Tennant, longtime Cantabrigian DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-8

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 115 and avid admirer of Huxley’s famous Romanes Lecture, Evolution and Ethics (Brannan 2007, 188–190).

5.1  F. R. Tennant on the Origin of Sin 5.1.1  Tennant’s Evolutionary Theory It would be remiss not to mention at the outset that the publication of Tennant’s 1902 The Origin and Propagation of Sin “created a theological sensation,” in the words of one early reviewer (“At the Literary Table” 1903– 1904, 79). The critics in particular abounded,3 most of whom doubtless would have concurred with the judgement that “Mr. Tennant’s Hulsean Lectures smelt strongly of heterodoxy” (“Notes on Books” 1905–1906, 363). As should be clear, this is a charge I myself take very seriously, and so a central task of the present chapter will be to defuse this understandable accusation. To Tennant’s “evolutionary account of the origin of sin,” then (Tennant 1902, 92). Tennant begins by signaling the occasion for his then-novel hypothesis: the treatment of the origin of sin in theological and philosophical speculation has been altogether unconvincing, and in any case demands reformulation in light of the results of the physical sciences. “What logic thus suggests,” he says, “science has begun to demand” (80). Furthermore, what lies behind the apparent intractability of resolving the origin of sin puzzle is the PelagianAugustinian antinomy, “the difficulty of reconciling the two propositions that, on the one hand, evil is so universal as to suggest a common origin for the sinfulness of the whole race …. Whilst, on the other hand, our sense of guilt demands that each one is ‘the Adam of his own soul’” (79).4 To Tennant’s mind, an acceptable theory as to the origin of sin must make sense of both the practical inevitability of sin and our sense that each individual is personally responsible for bringing it upon himself. It is here that he leaves off with the preliminary groundwork and proceeds to develop his positive account with an initial statement of his hypothesis. It will conduce to lucidity to quote Tennant in full here; the portion cited I take from his first lecture where the same hypothesis is advanced more poetically: What if [man] were flesh before spirit; lawless, impulse-governed organism, fulfilling as such the nature necessarily his and therefore the life God willed for him in his earliest age, until his moral consciousness was awakened to start him, heavily weighted with the inherited load, not, indeed, of abnormal and corrupted nature, but of non-moral and necessary animal instinct and self-assertive tendency, on that race-long struggle of flesh with spirit and spirit with flesh, which for us, alas! becomes but another name for the life of sin. (Tennant 1902, 11; cf. 81)

116  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? In short, perhaps sin—for Tennant synonymous with “moral evil”—finds its source merely in the intrinsic difficulty of subjugating the established passions to the newly discovered moral law, only recently arisen in the agelong process of biological evolution. That is, perhaps the origin of sin is simply to be found in our ambiguous creaturely constitution as brutes but lately awoken from an amoral, unselfconscious slumber. Reason dawns, conscience emerges: only now may the “race long struggle of flesh with spirit” truly begin (cf. 94, 106). Hence Tennant quotes Archdeacon James Wilson approvingly: “To the evolutionist sin is not an innovation, but is the survival or misuse of habits and tendencies that were incidental to an earlier stage in development…. Their sinfulness lies in their anachronism: in their resistance to the evolutionary and Divine force that makes for moral development and righteousness” (82 [emphasis added]). The task of the human being qua rational animal, then, is to tame the non-moral “crude material of natural disposition” (100) in accordance with the moral law, the result of which domestication we customarily call character (107). The foregoing is, I take it, the kernel of Tennant’s theory, though more might be said regarding his account of the nature and genesis of conscience.5 Conspicuous to this theory in terms of Christian theology will doubtless be the absence of any sort of Fall doctrine: rather than the human race defecting from an original state of goodness, we see instead a more or less “natural”6 state of sinfulness which, due to the overwhelming power of instinctual, inborn obedience to the animal appetites, almost inexorably manifests itself in actual sin once conscience emerges (cf. Tennant 1902, 107). Sin, he says, is “empirically inevitable” (110 [my emphasis]). Thus does Tennant account for the Augustinian insight in the initial antinomy, the felt certainty that we are all enslaved to the power of sin and find it impossible to pull ourselves away from it. As for the Pelagian end of the antinomy, this too can be explained readily enough. “No natural impulse,” Tennant declares, “is itself sinful, unless present through our volition, and therefore through our fault. It is the deliberate refusal to reject the impulse, the wilful surrender of the government of conduct to the non-moralised sensibility, in which evil takes its rise” (102 [my emphasis]; cf. 107–108). As the appetites are inherently neutral and serve as the raw material for both virtue and vice, something more than the mere presence of impulse is needed for moral culpability to obtain. That is, sin cannot exist prior to or apart from the freedom to respond appropriately to the impulses; consequently, the Pelagian insistence on personal answerability for the existence of sin, too, is upheld.7 To sum up Tennant’s position: “The Fall is exchanged for an animal origin and a subsequent superposition or acquisition of moral rationality. Taint of sin is replaced by normal self-directed [evolutionary] tendencies, once very naturally, but nowadays very wrongly called sinful” (112). But “man’s performance lags behind his aspiration” (112)—a reality for which, given free will and apprehension of the moral law, the human person is himself ultimately responsible. It now remains to be seen how Tennant attempts to maneuver around the natural

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 117 charge that he has failed to indemnify God against liability for the existence of sin and evil in the world. 5.1.2  The Responsibility Argument “The great objection the Christian consciousness must make,” rejoins W. Mackintosh Mackay (1903–1904, 345), “is that [Tennant] practically makes God the author of sin.” N. P. Williams, despite being more sympathetic to Tennant’s overall approach than Mackay, is on this score rather more emphatic: Dr. Tennant’s position does not logically exempt the Almighty from the responsibility of causing evil, as the Fall-theory does. …We must conclude that the will of God immanent in organic evolution has brought man into existence with a secret flaw in his soul which sooner or later betrays him into actual sin. If man’s nature is a ‘chaos not yet reduced to order,’ and if the hypothesis of a ‘Fall’ of any kind be ruled out, we can only suppose that man started his career as a ‘chaos’ because God willed that he should so start; and if this his ‘chaotic’ condition involves the ‘empirical inevitability’ of sin, then God must be deemed to have laid the foundations of human nature in such a way that sin inevitably results. (Williams 1929, 532)8 Indeed, as Williams goes on to indicate, Tennant does plainly affirm that God positively wills for humans to be in their current “chaotic” state; at least this is the only sense that can be made of the latter’s assertion that the conflict between natural desire and moral end “is the inevitable condition of human life and the expression of God’s purpose” (Tennant 1902, 115).9 The argument, which we shall dub the “Responsibility Argument,” boils down simply to this: (1) If God wills and creates x, God is fully responsible10 for the existence of x. (2) God willed and created a being for which sin is empirically inevitable.11 (3) Therefore, God is fully responsible for the existence of a being for which sin is empirically inevitable. Seen syllogistically, it will be observed immediately that the argument as it currently stands doesn’t quite perform all the work it is meant to. For the conclusion is not, as the critics desire, , but only the somewhat weaker claim . Another premise is needed here to arrive at the former, which, of course, constitutes the nub of the objection raised by Mackay and Williams. I think we can fill in the gap easily enough, however, with the following premise:

118  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? (4) If God is fully responsible for x, he is responsible for the things x inevitably does. From this it would seem to follow immediately that (5) Therefore, God is fully responsible for the fact that the being in question sins.12 I trust that (4) will be uncontroversial enough. After all, there would not be much trouble in affirming that God is responsible for the fact that Jones grows tired; nor, for that matter, could it cogently be maintained that God causes a star to exist but is not responsible for the heat it emits. But if this is correct, then Mackay and Williams are in possession of the missing premise and thus have what prima facie appears to be a formidable objection to Tennant’s theory. Or perhaps not. To see where this argument might go wrong, it will help to consider Tennant’s proleptic response to this sort of objection elucidated in the final lecture of The Origin and Propagation of Sin. For, despite the triumphalism evinced on the part of the critics considered above, it is an objection with which Tennant was already well familiar, and to which he evidently felt a certain degree of sensitivity at the time of first publication. After briefly recapitulating its main points, he explains that his theory posits that “the possibility of sin and the opportunity for its realization exist … independently of the individual’s choice” (1902, 119). This opportunity, he continues, stems both from our “inherited organic nature” and our social environment, the former of which “belongs to the ordinary course of nature, whose only cause is an immanent God” (119). Thus, insofar as sin proceeds from the failure to subject the organic nature to the rational nature, God must at least cause the conditions which, when volition is present, give rise to sin—that is, “responsibility for the possibility of moral evil and for the opportunities for its realization lies with God” (119). But, since free will is required for the existence of sin, “responsibility for the actuality of moral evil lies with man” (119). Thus it is plain that Tennant would not take issue with (1) and (2) above. God has indeed created the human animal as a “chaos not yet reduced to order,” in the slightly tendentious words of Williams. Accordingly, it appears Tennant would be happy to maintain (3), that . But neither would he doubt the proposition expressed in (4), namely that full responsibility for a thing entails answerability for whatever the thing inevitably does. The issue, rather, is that (5) does not really follow from (3) and (4) at all; the soundness of the hypothetical syllogism here rests on an ambiguity in the word “inevitable.” Tennant does not claim that sin is absolutely inevitable, but only “empirically inevitable,” by which he means simply that all our experience corroborates the Pauline testimony that all have in fact sinned (109; cf. Rom. 3:23). He writes, “if this account of sin sees in it something empirically

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 119 inevitable for every man,—which of course accords with all experience,—it by no means implies that sin is theoretically, or on a priori grounds, an absolute necessity” (110).13 Rather, Tennant’s view would only imply that it is immensely unlikely that someone should remain sinless, practically speaking an impossibility.14 Thus, for the objection to succeed, (4) would have to state (4)* If God is fully responsible for x, he is responsible for the things x practically (empirically) inevitably does. However, this revised premise, too, has considerable intuitive plausibility. Though it is not, perhaps, absolutely inevitable that a human being, say, fall asleep or blink, it would not be much of a stretch to say that God is the author of sleep or blinking. Though Jones may choose if and when to sleep, given his natural constitution it is a practical inevitability that he will fall asleep eventually. And while we would not hold God responsible for the precise time Jones elects to sleep, still it would not be foolish to suppose God is responsible for the fact that Jones will sleep at some time. Similarly, though such-and-such a sin at such-andsuch a time might not be directly referable to God’s activity, that Jones will sin eventually might well be. Then again, perhaps one could reply in an Aristotelian fashion by appealing to the final cause of the various human activities: the reason we suppose God is responsible for our sleep is not per se because it is a practical inevitability, but because sleep is a practical inevitability which serves a purpose in human life and possesses its own telos; consequently one ought to sleep, as it is necessary for the flourishing of the nature which has been determined by God alone. Sin, on the other hand, is not like this: if sin is an anachronistic misuse of habits which now, theoretically under the dominion of reason and conscience, must be controlled to ensure the proper overall functioning of the rational animal, then there is no telos for it to fulfil; on the contrary, sin would positively frustrate the ends which surface with the onset of rationality. It would be, as we said in the previous chapter, a failure to be what one is meant to be, in the present case an animal whose appetites are moderated and set in order by the intellectual faculty. But if this reply is on target, then (4)* may not be as secure as it initially appeared. Perhaps it is only true that (4)** If God is fully responsible for x, he is responsible for some things x practically inevitably does. But then the clear path to (5) would be obstructed, and the objector left with some further work to be done. Either he must indicate precisely why sin ought to be regarded as one of the practically inevitable things for which God is responsible, or else look for another way forward. We shall not, however, run this argument into the ground with all the potential back and forth that would entail; for our purposes it suffices merely to show that there is likely a way out of the Responsibility Argument via a disputation of (4)*. Thus the Fall doctrine dissenter has

120  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? at least one strategy for defending himself against the Williams-Mackay objection. But there is, I think, an alternative means of addressing the theodicy concerns raised by Tennant’s general thesis, though I fear it will require the elimination of our primary fallback option should it (and the above argument, too) prove unacceptable for one reason or another.

5.2  Middle Knowledge and Responsibility for Sin What the Williams-Mackay objection highlights, I think, is the widespread sentiment that we must either accept the Fall and Original Sin, or else ascribe to God the authorship of sin and evil (e.g., Madueme 2021). In this section we shall tread a path divergent from what is perhaps expected, arguing not that this is a false dilemma,15 but rather that on the Fall doctrine, too, God appears to be equally responsible for the existence of sin. Or, stated more plainly, if there are problems for theodicy latent in a theory like Tennant’s, they are there for the traditional Fall doctrine as well: they sink or swim together. 5.2.1  The Responsibility Argument Revisited Recall, first, the Responsibility Argument as it stood after necessary amendments were made to (4). (1) If God wills and creates x, God is fully responsible for the existence of x. (2) God willed and created a being for which sin is empirically inevitable. (3) Therefore, God is fully responsible for the existence of a being for which sin is empirically inevitable. (4)* If God is fully responsible for x, he is responsible for the things x empirically inevitably does. (5) Therefore, God is fully responsible for the fact that the being in question sins. It seems clear that if (4)* is correct, Tennant’s theory is shot, that is, so long as he remains desirous of upholding God’s ultimate innocence vis-à-vis the existence of evil. Perhaps, we have said, there is an escape from the force of (4)*. My basic contention here, however, is that even if (4)* is true, an exactly parallel argument may be constructed against the defender of Original Sin such that he, too, might appear vulnerable to the very same sort of objection. Indeed, I think this argument may be levied against any proponent of the traditional Fall doctrine, so long, that is, as we suppose God’s providence to include (minimally) what has gone by the name of middle knowledge.16 Let us see how this might work. Following Luis de Molina, we may think of God’s providence as encompassing three fundamental types

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 121 of knowledge. First, in his “natural knowledge”, God knows all necessary truths which, ipso facto, obtain in all possible worlds and are true independently of any free creative action God might take. In his “free knowledge”, by contrast, God knows contingent truths which depend on his free actualization of a certain world; for instance, by his free knowledge God knew17 the initial rate of expansion of the Big Bang: it could have been otherwise (contingent), and it is God who freely chooses to actualize a world in which the rate of expansion is what it is. In between these two sorts of knowledge, we might think, stands a third whereby God foreknows truths that are both contingent and true independently of God’s free will. This third category is Molina’s scientia media or “middle knowledge”. Doubtless the most easily recognizable object of God’s middle knowledge is, for us, the various courses of action to be freely taken by creatures.18 It is only contingently true, for instance, that on October 23, 2019 I drive my car home; but, at least if our libertarian intuitions are correct, it is also my choice to do so and therefore not God’s, and so it can be readily appreciated why Molina considers middle knowledge to be quite distinct from both God’s natural and free knowledge. Distinct though it is, however, as an object of knowledge it is still infallible: through his middle knowledge, my free, contingent choice to drive my car home on the aforementioned date is foreknown by God. Now, because of this obvious application of scientia media to God’s foreknowledge of free creaturely actions, it is little wonder the debate has centered almost exclusively around the Molinist entailment that “God knows with certainty what every possible free creature would freely do in every situation in which that creature could possibly find himself” (Adams 1977, 109). And it is precisely this entailment that interests me here, for with it, I maintain, it is possible to construct a parallel Responsibility Argument which demonstrates that the defender of Original Sin is in the same hot water as Tennant if premise (4)* goes through. To see how this is so, we can begin once more with the observation that, through his middle knowledge, God knows how a creature would freely act in any given circumstance. That is, God knows not only what Jones in fact does, but also what he would freely do in every possible situation. These “counterfactuals of creaturely freedom” may be stated thus: (cf. Craig 2011, 144). Now, if God does have knowledge of all such counterfactuals, the import for the Fall doctrine should be apparent: God knew perfectly well he was actualizing the agents and circumstances which would result in Adam’s disobedience, as well as everything that would follow from it. But this is likely only the tip of the iceberg. For, given free will—and prior to any hypothetical necessitas pecandi—S will always have a choice between Ag or Ae (good or evil). Granted that it is

122  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? genuinely possible for S to choose Ag in the first instance C, S, having elected Ag, now finds himself in another C in which the choice between Ag and Ae becomes possible anew. And so on ad infinitum. Thus, even if it is incalculably unlikely that S always choose Ag, such a state of affairs is at least a logical possibility; and if it is a logical possibility for S, it is a logical possibility for all agents, too. But this is just to say that there is some possible world in which the good is always chosen by free creatures—in other words, a world in which potentially sinful creatures never fall into actual sin.19 As J. L. Mackie classically expressed the thought, If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good? If there is no logical impossibility in a man’s freely choosing the good on one, or on several occasions, there cannot be a logical impossibility in his freely choosing the good on every occasion. God was not, then, faced with a choice between making innocent automata and making beings who, in acting freely, would sometimes go wrong; there was open to him the obviously better possibility of making beings who would act freely but always go right. (Mackie quoted in Plantinga 1974, 167–168) It is clear, then, that there exist possible worlds in which free agents never sin—nay, worlds in which free agents only ever choose the good, no matter how fierce the temptations to evil. But then why didn’t God choose to actualize such a world? If he was able to do so but did not, the conclusion that God is in some robust capacity responsible for sin seems inescapable: he rejected each world which contained nothing but “beings who would act freely but always go right”; he deliberately elected to actualize those creatures and events whose convergence he was certain would result in (often monstrous) moral corruption. True, on Molinism it is still ultimately our choice to go wrong, but the actualization of the relevant circumstances are (often) not. As William Mann says in this connection, it is appropriate—even needful—to ask “not why God passively allows evil to exist but rather why he actively wills evil to exist, brings evil about, is a willing conspirer in the evildoer’s activity” (1988, 206).20 The Molinist account of providence—or any stronger model for that matter—compels us to pose the latter question. Why this world when a literally infinite array of less depraved options were available to God? Or, more to the point, why the circumstances he knew would occasion Adam’s Fall rather than others that would not? Hence, given God’s knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, it appears possible to construct the following “Responsibility

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 123 Argument” which ought to trouble the defender of Original Sin no less than it does the likes of Tennant: (6) If God wills and creates x, God is fully responsible for the existence of x. (7) God willed and created a being for which sin is in some sense inevitable. (8) Therefore, God is fully responsible for the existence of a being for which sin is in some sense inevitable. (9)* If God is fully responsible for x, he is responsible for the things x in this sense inevitably does. (10) Therefore, God is fully responsible for the fact that the being in question sins. In what sense, however, is it inevitable that creatures sin on the Molinist account? It is clearly not absolute, metaphysical inevitability, nor are we speaking of empirical inevitability. The sort of inevitability I have in mind, rather, is best captured by further elaboration on (7). God’s freedom to actualize any feasible21 world coupled with his knowledge of all true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom entails that . This, I think, is what premise (7) ultimately intends to express, and it is really not so different (and may be even stronger) than Tennant’s “empirical inevitability.” On Molinist lines, then, sin is inevitable in the sense that, no matter how many times the universe is recreated, S in C will always go wrong with respect to A, and the existence of S in C is ultimately at the behest of God alone. Surely this is some variety of inevitability rather than simply loose speak—for purposes of convenience I shall call it St Andrews inevitability.22 A closer look at (4)* and (9)* will corroborate the final commensurability of the two Responsibility Arguments. To assess the truth of these two premises, it must be asked what makes it the case that S inevitably sins, whether “empirically” or “St Andrewsly.” In the case of empirical inevitability, it seems, the aggregate culprit is the conjunction of the free act of a morally frail nature and God’s free choice to actualize this nature and attendant circumstances. There are, to say the least, many ways God could have prevented the occurrence of evil; consequently, it would be difficult to deny the prima facie plausibility of (4)*. But, I think, the very same may be said of (9)*, and this despite the Molinist’s rightful insistence that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are determined by creatures themselves. For, when we ask what makes it the case that S in C sins inevitably in the “St Andrews” sense, the answer comes back clear as day: it is the conjunction of a true counterfactual of creaturely freedom—the free act of an apparently morally frail nature—plus God’s free choice to actualize S and C. Once more evil could have been avoided in sundry ways, and so we are led to the conclusion that, mutatis mutandis, the two Responsibility Arguments

124  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? perform substantially the same kind of work. Given a reasonably strong23 view of God’s providence, therefore, the doctrine of Original Sin fares no better as an aid to theodicy than does the nonlapsarian theory propounded by Tennant. 5.2.2  Transworld Depravity? It will, of course, be objected that on Molinism God cannot actualize just any logically possible state of affairs. Because counterfactuals of freedom are contingent, and since their truth is determined by agents themselves, God is only able to create those possible worlds in which all counterfactuals of freedom are in fact true. Only these feasible worlds are under God’s power to actualize (see Flint 1998, 46–54). It is at this juncture that Plantinga famously introduces the concept of “Transworld Depravity” (TWD) to defend the (possible) truth of the proposition that there is no feasible world containing moral good but no evil.24 An agent S would suffer from TWD if he committed at least one evil act in all the feasible worlds in which S existed; perhaps all agents do so suffer (1974, 184–189).25 But if TWD is true, then it would be outside of God’s power to actualize the “obviously better possibility” Mackie proposes. As Robert Adams (1977, 116) points out, however, Plantinga is not in the least concerned with the plausibility of such a hypothesis. Indeed, since the latter employs TWD only to establish the logical possibility of the coexistence of God and evil, the likelihood of its truth is, for Plantinga, neither here nor there (at least in the initial formulation). So long as it might be the case that all persons are transworld depraved, Plantinga has what he needs for his argument to succeed.26 But of course the question of TWD’s plausibility is deeply significant.27 Even if we cannot quite concur with the judgement that TWD is strictly impossible (e.g., Meslar 2015, 210–215), it must strike us as highly unlikely at an intuitive level: surely the feasibility of a world in which free creatures only ever go right is far more plausible than its negation. Moreover, TWD seems clearly ad hoc: no positive evidence could ever be marshaled in its defense, and is taken seriously only insomuch as it helps to secure the cogency of the Free Will Defense. For those without a stake in this debate, therefore, TWD will necessarily appear gratuitous. But, more fundamentally, criticisms of TWD are actually beside the point here. For, even if TWD turned out to be true, this would do nothing to undercut premise (7) above: it will still be the case that God willed and created beings for which sin is St Andrewsly inevitable. The argument of this chapter turns on the commensurability of the two aforementioned Responsibility Arguments, and not necessarily the feasibility of a world without moral evil, helpful though the latter is to stating the case. For these reasons, then, an appeal to TWD is unlikely to vitiate the nonlapsarian position.

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 125 5.2.3  The Free Will Objection The more salient debate for our purposes revolves around the very possibility of God’s having middle knowledge in the first place. While I do not of course expect to settle this hotly contested issue in a few short paragraphs, several comments are in order nonetheless, as my argument takes as its central presupposition the presence of such knowledge in the divine mind.28 As far as I can tell, the case against middle knowledge rests primarily on the claim that true counterfactuals of freedom do not exist, in defense of which thesis two main objections are advanced.29 Presently, we shall only discuss the “free will objection” to middle knowledge, as the “grounding objection” would take us too far afield.30 After considering this objection, we shall conclude with a quick word on the relationship between the defender of the Fall doctrine and the question of middle knowledge to which our discussion here must point. In brief, the “free will objection” to the existence of counterfactuals of freedom states that “insofar as such counterfactuals are true, they are not counterfactuals of freedom” (Hasker 1986, 556); that is, if it is true that S in C would perform A, it would seem to follow that S in C is not in fact free with respect to A. In keeping with the bribe theme common in the literature (e.g., Merricks 2011, 60ff.; Plantinga 1974, 173ff; Wierenga 1989, 137–138), suppose that, upon meeting Judas Iscariot for the first time, Jesus becomes privy to the conditional (J) . But if this counterfactual is true months or years in advance of the money being offered to Judas, it is difficult to see how he is free to reject the bribe. If he accepts it, the counterfactual is shown to be true after all; if he rejects it, the counterfactual is shown to be false. But if, ex hypothesi, the counterfactual is true, there is no sense to be made of the suggestion (J)* . Thus we must either deny counterfactuals of freedom any grounding in reality, or else abandon our commitment to libertarian free will. One way to tackle this objection is to follow Edward Wierenga (1989, 140– 143) in distinguishing between three different interpretations of the word “may” in the conditional (J)*. The libertarian defender of middle knowledge, too, desires to affirm (J)* , and that this proposition is compatible with (J) may be proved by recognizing that the modal auxiliary at play here is ambiguous between three possible readings, namely (J1)* Judas has it within his power to turn down the offer; (J2)* It is logically possible that Judas turn down the offer; and (J3)* Judas might turn down the offer.

126  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? But, thinks Wierenga, it is arguably only (J3)* that is strictly incompatible with (J): surely Judas retains the physical and psychical power to refuse the bribe (J1)*,31 and there is some possible world in which Judas refuses to accept the money, too (J2)*. Thus may the proponent of middle knowledge “reject [(J3)*] as the proper interpretation of our libertarian intuition, accept either [(J1)*] or [(J2)*] as an adequate reading thereof, and thereby completely evade the force of the argument” (Flint 2011, 38). In other words, the free will objection is only an apparent difficulty for middle knowledge: once the critique is met with the right sort of syntactical parsing, the alleged incompatibility between free will and middle knowledge disappears entirely.32 Perhaps such a response is an effective one.33 Whatever we make of it, however, it will scarcely settle the debate in favor of middle knowledge, if even move it an inch—the intuitions which undergird both the Molinist and anti-Molinist positions are simply too strong. As in the case of TWD surveyed above, my favored response to the standard objections to middle knowledge would not be simply along the lines of showing precisely where the critics have gone wrong (though this, too, is indispensable), but rather would I point to the counterintuitive ramifications of denying the existence of true counterfactuals, as most opponents of Molinism invariably do. As Adams—no friend to middle knowledge himself—is forced to admit, there is no uncertainty about what a butcher would do were he asked to sell me a cut of meat; but if the free will objection to middle knowledge is on target, the counterfactual cannot be true.34 I would agree that our knowledge of this counterfactual, if knowledge it be, is based on prior familiarity with the butcher’s “character, habits, desires, and intentions, and the absence of countervailing dispositions” (Adams 1977, 115–116): the job of a butcher is to sell meat, and in this case, we may suppose, I know the butcher to be a decent and honest man who will gladly sell to anyone who asks. These factors influence my overall understanding of the situation (C) in which the butcher (S) will presently act (A); hence it is by virtue of my knowledge of C and S that I know the counterfactual to be true. Thus Adams is also correct to point to the probabilistic nature of my “middle knowledge” in this case: qua fallible human being with reasonably reliable perceptual and intellectual faculties, I do not possess absolute certainty the butcher will sell to me, but only a very high degree thereof. Consequently, in the present case it behooves us to say, if nothing else, there is an excellent chance the counterfactual in question is true, even prior to my act of inquiry. But what of God’s perfect knowledge of C and S? Surely he cannot misjudge these and thereby be in the dark about the truth-status of the counterfactual as I might be.35 If omniscience means anything, God must know all the facts pertaining to the case at hand, both the circumstances external to the butcher and the inner-workings of the latter’s mind, his thoughts, temper, and inclination to act or refrain from acting, the secret conversation within which, for one reason or another (also plain to God), might ultimately

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 127 propel the butcher towards an otherwise unforeseen refusal of my request. Thus, even if we concede for the sake of argument that true counterfactuals do not technically exist prior to the free act of S, in the divine mind it must be as if they existed, for to be mistaken about what S would do in C bespeaks only ignorance of what an omniscient being ought certainly to know, viz. everything about S and C.36 If this points to something like a concretization of Suarez’s habitudo37 of which Adams has “[no] conception, primitive or otherwise” (1977, 112), so be it. The property may be too hokey to predicate of S, but it represents, I think, something in S which is indisputable, namely S’s “character, habits, desires, and intentions,” his thoughts, temper, and so on—that is S himself. But God knows S absolutely; therefore he knows his habitudos, too. Even in the technical absence of true subjunctive conditionals, then, it seems middle knowledge will remain essentially intact. And so we may conclude that, “prior” to creation, God would have foreseen the Fall and the sin of all creatures in the actual world, and that he deliberately selected this one instead of a morally superior, “Fall-less” world it was well within his power to actualize. But this appears to entail that (7) God willed and created a being for which sin is St Andrewsly inevitable, and so we are back with Tennant, failing, that is, a convincing response to the Responsibility Argument put forth by Williams and Mackay. 5.2.4  Concluding Reflections Now, it may be the case that everything I have said in the foregoing paragraphs is totally off base—perhaps middle knowledge is indeed impossible. Even so, the very fact that there is a discussion to be had surrounding these issues bears heavy implications for the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin. Recall once more the Responsibility Argument of Section I.2. This argument surfaced as a response to Tennant’s innovative theory which appeared tacitly to make God responsible for the existence of sin and evil. It was then seen, albeit briefly, how the objection as formulated by Tennant’s critics was not quite as airtight as it was purported to be, and that even after the argument was cleaned up, purged of its logical fallacies, and put into a more rigorous analytic form, it still appeared eminently contestable. Accordingly, we might think a nonlapsarian Christianity à la Tennant seems a realistic possibility. But, if not, the Responsibility Argument is to Tennant’s theory what the argument from middle knowledge is to the Fall doctrine: if God has middle knowledge, then a parallel case can be made for the conclusion that God is ultimately responsible for the Fall, and thus for the existence of sin and evil, too. Assuming our discussion of this latter argument indicates at least that the question has yet to be fully resolved, it follows that we have a significant reason to oppugn the compatibility of the Fall doctrine with the existence of

128  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? an omnibenevolent God. Therefore, if it be maintained that Tennant’s theory cannot be endorsed without having successfully rebutted the Responsibility Argument, neither may the Fall doctrine simply be taken for granted as if it uniquely succeeds where Tennant’s theory fails (e.g., Madueme 2021, 491). Either one must allow both hypotheses to be uncritically held, or else take up a defense of the one by seriously engaging with the arguments leveled against it. It may be said, then, that there is no neutral ground here, no default hypothesis upon which to fall back in case all else fails. The doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin are every bit as much an attempt to meet the Problem of Evil as is the model set forth by Tennant, and so we are unsurprised to find that, for both theories, an easy resolution is anything but forthcoming. But, finally, would such a nonlapsarian account of the origin of sin call into question the basic biblical conviction that God’s creation is categorically good? If human sin is in some sense the (practically) unavoidable by-product of evolutionary development, the thought runs, it is not clear how “good” the creation of humankind is (see, e.g., McCall 2019, 133–135). Is there not something essentially gnostic at play here? Two things may be said in response. First, it seems to me there may be an equivocation on the word good. When we hear the divine pronouncement that God’s creation is very good, it is not clear this should be understood in the moral sense. If, as seems plausible, “good” here is taken in an axiological or teleological sense (i.e., roughly synonymous with valuable or functional according to God’s design38), the moral ambiguity of these creatures is neither here nor there: if all other animals (which, if bestowed with reason and self-consciousness, would certainly be guilty of sin) can be declared good, then so can morally frail human beings. Secondly— and very much in line with what I have just argued—it is by no means clear that the original constitution of Adam in (most) traditional Christian teaching merits the predicate “good” any more than humans on a nonlapsarian model. True, his will may have been initially ordered towards the good, but the fact of his fall into sin when, theoretically, it should have been quite simple to remain steadfast is deeply suggestive. In Williams’s words, Adam must have been “brought into existence with a secret flaw in his soul which sooner or later [betrayed] him into actual sin” (1929, 532).39 So, once again, it is questionable whether the Fall doctrine itself is able to guarantee the “goodness” of humanity in the sense envisioned by this objection. As far I can tell, then, the nonlapsarian option creates no special problems here either.40

Conclusion What, then, may we say about the problem of problems that Original Sin has always sought to address? How is the existence of sin and evil to be reconciled with a perfect and holy God and his good creation? An answer to this question would, needless to say, transport us well outside the scope of the present study. A concluding word may be said in this connection, however, as it seems to be the natural culmination point of the course this chapter has taken.

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 129 We inhabit, we must say, a world in which the opportunities for sin lie— and always have lain—ready at hand. The Fall doctrine, though conventionally an attempt to account for these realities, itself raises questions about the ultimate origins of sin, questions it cannot through its own resources even begin to address (cf. Macdonald 2021, 464–465). Fall doctrine or no, then, we are still left with the Problem of Evil. But it seems to me (though I will not argue this here) this problem is ultimately unresolvable this side of the eschaton—for the time being the answer must remain shrouded in mystery. That said, so long as it is logically possible for God and evil to coexist, the Problem of Evil is resolved in a certain sense: though we may not possess the epistemic capacities required to trace out the precise reason God has actualized a world in which sin and evil obtain, we know from the goodness of God that such a reason does and must exist. For now, however, our lot is this: to “leap into the fire” (Climacus 1959, 1.9) of our moral-cum-religious struggle to overcome the practical inevitability of sin, all the while rejoicing in the hope and knowledge that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” (Julian of Norwich 2015, 74–75)—for God’s redeeming future has been brought forth to us now in the resurrection of Christ and our Spirit-enabled participation in the inaugurated Kingdom of God on earth. Viewed from this perspective, we might suspect our questions about theodicy make little sense sub specie aeternitatis; but, just like Dostoevsky’s “foolish Mitya” frantically inquiring after the cause of poverty and misery, still we certainly want to ask about the origin of sin in just the way we have here—and we “should ask in just that way” (Dostoevsky 1990, 507–508). Penultimate bemusement notwithstanding, we have, I think, sufficiently addressed the theodicy objection to a nonlapsarian theological project. There is indeed a likely rebuttal to the Responsibility Argument and, if it flounders, still the nonlapsarian theorist will be no worse off than the defender of Original Sin. Nonlapsarianism, I conclude, is not uniquely problematic on this front, and so we can safely turn to the objection from soteriology.

Notes

1 An earlier version of this chapter has been published previously in Forum Philosophicum. For details see Spencer (2020). 2 I will not here deal with what is called the problem of natural evil. This is a wider topic which would, needless to say, take us quite beyond the purposes of this project. 3 See Brannan’s excellent catalogue of critiques (2007, 199–209). 4 Another cause of this intractability is the tendency to regard all sin as radical, conscious rebellion against God, though this is not as central to the development of his theory (see 78–79). 5 This I take to be the most contentious part of his theory, though I do not think it is needed for his overall argument to work. Briefly, I would object that for something to be sin, it is too general to speak in terms of “an ideal” or “a moral

130  Orthodoxy without Original Sin?











law,” as Tennant does—then anything could conceivably count as sin or moral transgression (99, emphasis mine). In general, his account suffers from adherence to the (in my view) wholly unacceptable idea that “ethics is to be based on psychology and sociology rather than on metaphysics” (87n), which all but compels him to adopt a largely relativistic conception of sin (pace Brannan [2007, 195]). But these errors can be corrected without harm done to the overall thrust of his evolutionary theory, and so we shall leave them to one side. 6 A very slippery word—hence the inverted commas. 7 Though Tennant prefers to speak of himself instead as “transcending” the antinomy (112; cf. 117). 8 Convinced of the force of this objection himself, Williams, it should be noted, ends up endorsing an “ultimate Fall” theory which posits the “free, personal, and self-conscious” rebellion of the primordial “life-force” (i.e., world soul) against the will of God (1929, 523–526). The Fall of this world soul, of course, antedates sinfulness in the animal sphere, but it is still on account of the former that the latter obtains. Tennant’s response to Julius Müller’s Origenistic Fall doctrine would be equally apt against Williams: such theories are “accepted not for [their] intrinsic cogency and naturalness, but rather as an only alternative: a last resource, the sole remaining chance of rational satisfaction in which [the mind] can find a refuge” (1902, 55). 9 See also (92–93): “If man’s physical nature is necessarily endowed with instincts, appetites and impulses, with self-assertive tendencies … it contains abundance of raw material for the production of sin, as soon as these native propensities are brought into relation with any restraining or condemning influence. …[These native propensities] belong to man as God made him (emphasis mine). Cf. also (11), as well as Williams (1929, 532). 10 We will here use the “commonsense” definition of moral responsibility, following the lead of Michael Rea (2007, 320): “A person P is morally responsible for the obtaining of a state of affairs S only if S obtains (or obtained) and P could have prevented S from obtaining.” Similar terms such as answerability or liability should be taken as synonymous with responsibility. 11 Note that this is not to say . Rather it means that God intends this “chaotic” condition absolutely. 12 It does not follow that all sins may be traced back to God’s operation, but only sin which stems from a certain inevitability. 13 Hick (1979, 322) speaks in this connection of sin’s “virtual inevitability,” and in a footnote finds validation from William Temple’s words: “It is not utterly necessary that this [i.e. human self-centeredness] should be so; and therefore it is not true to say that God made man selfish, or predestined him to sin. But that it should be so was ‘too probable not to happen’.” 14 On this view, sinlessness would not necessarily mean perfection: pre-moral animals, too are sinless, though it would be inappropriate to call them “perfect.” Moral perfection presupposes that one is a moral being in the first place. 15 Though I of course think this can be done, too, as the foregoing section makes plain. 16 For the following characterization of middle knowledge I am indebted to Flint (1998, esp. chs. 1 and 2) and Flint (1988), as well as to Freddoso (1988). 17 I use the past tense for ease of reading; nothing about Molina’s theory, of course, entails God exists within time. 18 Though as Flint (1998, 42–43) makes clear, it is far from the only one. 19 Hick considers this to be damning for what he calls the Augustinian theodicy: it is, he says, “hard to clear God from ultimate responsibility for the existence

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 131









of sin in view of the fact that he chose to create a being whom he foresaw would, if he created him, freely sin” (1979, 75; cf. 68ff.). 20 Compare with the case of a cocaine addict who, having just checked out of rehab, comes home to a bag of cocaine left by his friends as a welcome home gift. While, on Molinism, the truth of the counterfactual is determined by the man himself, no one would contest that the friends bear a considerable amount of the responsibility for the relapse: after all, it was they who actualized the relevant circumstances. And, of course, their responsibility only increases in proportion to the degree of their knowledge of the aforementioned counterfactual. 21 See Section II.2 of this chapter below. 22 We have Oxford commas and Cambridge change, so I thought it fitting to continue down the line. 23 By which I mean any view of providence which allows God knowledge of future contingents (or near-knowledge—“as if” knowledge [see Section II.3 of this chapter below]). 24 Or, in Plantinga’s own words, “among the worlds God could not have actualized are all the worlds containing moral good but no moral evil” (1974, 185). 25 This simplified definition includes the revised account of TWD Plantinga adopts in response to Richard Otte. For this amended definition see Plantinga (2009). 26 See Plantinga’s conclusion to this section: “it is possible that every essence suffers from [TWD]; so it is possible that God could not have created a world containing moral good but no moral evil” (1974, 189 [emphasis mine]). 27 Adams here reads my mind: “religious thought must seek an account of the relations between God and evil that is credible,” not merely logically possible (1977, 116 [emphasis added]). 28 Or, to reemphasize, something providentially more robust, such as the Thomist position that the truth or falsity of counterfactuals of freedom ultimately depends on the divine will. See Flint (1998, 84–94); Freddoso (1988, 56–57). 29 See Hasker (2011) for a brief anti-Molinist discussion of the two main contemporary objections to Molinism (and Thomas Flint’s [2011] snappy response in the same volume). 30 For my part, I sympathize with William Lane Craig’s (2001) judgement that the grounding objection depends vitally upon a certain ontology of truth which (a) requires more careful elaboration and (b) prima facie appears to be more doubtful than the existence of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. 31 Else, among other things, he could not be convicted of sin. 32 Cf. the similar discussion in Loke (2022, ch. 6). 33 Flint (2011, 38) evidently thinks this reply decisive. He says, “it’s rather astounding that [the free will objection] continues to be offered by otherwise admirable philosophers—astounding because Edward Wierenga said all that needs to be said to defuse it more than twenty years ago.” 34 Nor can it be false. The only thing that can truly be said is (cf. Hasker, [2011, 25n1]). 35 Whether this divine ‘seeing’ takes place in eternity or in time, prior to creation or at the moment of S’s decision makes no difference. 36 If this still seems a problem for free will, then so is my knowledge in the butcher example. The latter clearly isn’t, so neither is the former (we may say these cases differ merely in degree and not in kind). 37 Defined by Adams (1977, 111–112) as “the property of being a possible agent who would in [C] freely do A.”

132  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? 38 This stands in need of qualification, of course. In one sense, obviously human beings are not yet what God has designed them to be—that is what sin is all about (see Chapter 4 above). Teleological goodness, then, would have to be interpreted to mean , viz., image-bearing sons and daughters of God. Human beings qua rational animals have the capacity for a relationship with God and the bestowal of grace unto sonship (Brunner’s Offenbarungsmächtigkeit [capacity for revelation]); all that is needed is the operation of God’s grace in the creature to bring this regeneration about. 39 Macdonald’s (2021) response to this “Paradisical Motivation” (462) problem to my mind positively underscores the difficulty for Fall theories: “Admittedly,” he says, “none of what I have argued here suggests that it was likely that Aquinas’s Adam would fall” (464). Just so. As for the deeper question this chapter has sought to ask: “[This] is where explanation ends. In fact, trying further to explain Adam’s sin only leads to a theological dead end: trying to find a positive reason for sin itself, when sin has no such reason, no ultimate justification” (464). I repeat: if the Responsibility Argument and “goodness of creation objection” are problems for a nonlapsarian theory, they are for Fall theories, too. 40 A side note: God’s declaration of the creation as ‘good’ comes from Gen. 1, a separate creation account to the story of Adam and Eve. As I suggested in Chapter 2, the Yahwist might himself be simply elaborating the creation of humanity which, axiologically/teleologically, is still “very good.”

References 1903–1904. “At the Literary Table.” Expository Times 15: 79–92. 1905–1906. “Notes on Books.” Expository Times 17: 362–367. Adams, Robert Merrihew. 1977. “Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil.” American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (2): 109–117. Brannan, Daniel K. 2007. “Darwinism and Original Sin: Frederick R. Tennant’s Integration of Darwinian Worldviews into Christian Thought in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science 1: 187–217. Craig, William Lane. 2001. “Middle Knowledge, Truth-Makers, and the ‘Grounding Objection.” Faith and Philosophy 18 (3): 337–352. doi: 10.5840/faithphil200118329. Craig, William Lane. 2011. “Yet Another Failed Anti-Molinist Argument.” In Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, edited by Ken Perszyk, 144–162. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. 1990. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Flint, Thomas P. 1988. “Two Accounts of Providence.” In Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, edited by Thomas V. Morris, 147–181. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Flint, Thomas P. 1998. Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Flint, Thomas P. 2011. “Whence and Whither the Molinist Debate: A Reply to Hasker.” In Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, edited by Ken Perszyk, 37–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Freddoso, Alfred J. 1988. Introduction to On Divine Foreknowledge (Part IV of the Concordia), 1–81. Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Concerning a Nonlapsarian Theodicy 133 Hasker, William. 1986. “A Refutation of Middle Knowledge.” Noûs 20 (4): 545–557. doi: 10.2307/2214984. Hasker, William. 2011. “The (Non-)Existence of Molinist Counterfactuals.” In Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, edited by Ken Perszyk, 25–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hick, John. 1979. Evil and the God of Love. Glasgow: William Collins Sons. John, Climacus. 1959. The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Translated by Lazarus Moore. New York: Harper & Brothers. Julian of, Norwich. 2015. Revelations of Divine Love. Translated by Barry Windeatt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Loke, Andrew. 2022. Evil, Sin, and Christian Theism. London: Routledge. Macdonald, Paul A. Jr. 2021. “In Defense of Aquinas’s Adam: Original Justice, the Fall, and Evolution.” Zygon 56 (2): 454–466. doi: 10.1111/zygo.12692. Mackay, W. Mackintosh. 1903–1904. “Mr. Tennant’s Theory of the Origin of Sin.” Expository Times 15: 342–346. Madueme, Hans. 2021. “The Theological Problem With Evolution.” Zygon 56 (2): 481–499. doi: 10.1111/zygo.12690. Mann, William E. 1988. “God’s Freedom, Human Freedom, and God’s Responsibility for Sin.” In Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, edited by Thomas V. Morris, 182–210. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. McCall, Thomas H. 2019. Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Merricks, Trenton. 2011. “Truth and Molinism.” In Molinism: The Contemporary Debate, edited by Ken Perszyk, 50–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meslar, Sean. 2015. “Transworld Depravity and Divine Omniscience.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 77 (3): 205–218. doi: 10.1007/s11153-014-9499-5. Plantinga, Alvin. 1974. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974. Plantinga, Alvin. 2009. “Transworld Depravity, Transworld Sanctity, & Uncooperative Essences.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (1): 178–191. Rea, Michael C. 2007. “The Metaphysics of Original Sin.” In Persons: Human and Divine, edited by Peter Van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman, 319–356. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spencer, Daniel. 2020. “Evolution, Middle Knowledge, and Theodicy: A Philosophical Reflection.” Forum Philosophicum 25 (2): 215–233. doi: 10.35765/ forphil.2020.2502.15. Wierenga, Edward R. 1989. The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Williams, N. P. 1929. The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: A Historical and Critical Study. London: Longmans, Green and Co.

6

Salvation Means and End

Supposing, then, the argument of the foregoing chapters is sound, it would seem nonlapsarianism is a more viable option than is commonly assumed. Still, there is a legitimate question to be asked about the potential soteriological repercussions of such a project. In short: does the elimination of Original Sin have detrimental implications for the Christian doctrine of salvation? C. John Collins, Michael Reeves, and Hans Madueme certainly think so: in failing adequately to reckon with sin as an “alien invader that affects all people” (Collins 2011, 134) the biblical ideas of atonement and propitiation become seriously threatened. Furthermore, as nonlapsarianism might appear to tend toward the trivialization of sin—“treating it as a merely functional problem of basically neutral people choosing badly” (Reeves and Madueme 2014, 221)—any such theological project will likely fail to address the “deeply ontological” nature of sin which can be seen “channeling and driving the very wills that make our choices.” Without this, Reeves and Madueme think, there is no need for a “supernatural regeneration of my heart and very being” which (I agree) is the bedrock of any orthodox soteriology (221).1 The objection is straightforward: any nonlapsarian story one chooses to tell will do insufficient justice to biblical and traditional ideas surrounding the atonement and salvation. In this chapter, I will attempt to tell a nonlapsarian story which does take seriously this biblical and traditional data. To do so, I shall argue that the definition of sin offered in Chapter 4 may be neatly paired with something very much like Tennant’s evolutionary account of the origin of sin we investigated in the foregoing chapter, a most fertile marriage whose consummation appears quite naturally to yield a “deeply ontological” account of ingrained human sinfulness and impurity before God in the first instance, and then, in the more strictly soteriological realm, seems to suggest the venerable concept of theosis or deification.2 I shall not be arguing that a nonlapsarian theology must share this salvific vision; rather—and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough—my sole aim here is to demonstrate that a robustly orthodox understanding of atonement and salvation is emphatically available for any theologian who wishes to tread a nonlapsarian path. That is, in short, DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-9

Salvation 135 the Christian who doubts the reality of the Fall and Original Sin suffers no soteriological want of necessity. To begin, I shall give a clearer statement of the anthropology implicit in the evolutionary view propounded by Tennant and connect it more explicitly to the theological project of this book. This very rough sketch of the human animal will then be left to one side in order to present the participatory account of the atonement and the related concept of theosis as viable options for a nonlapsarian soteriology. But, since a Christian theology shorn of the Fall and Original Sin does not necessitate such a soteriological vision, I shall conclude with a brief suggestion as to various other soteriological directions nonlapsarianism may be taken. Thus shall we reach our ultimate conclusion that, very plausibly, the rejection of Original Sin leaves nothing theologically essential to be desired.

6.1  A Nonlapsarian Picture Recall that, for Tennant, the theological term sin refers to “the survival or misuse of habits and tendencies that were incidental to an earlier stage in [evolutionary] development” (1902, 82 [here quoting Archdeacon James Wilson]). As moral consciousness emerges, the human mind gradually becomes aware of a new and higher law to which it is subject, a rule of right action according to which it is obliged to reorder its natural animal passions and self-assertive proclivities. To comply with these stringent ethical requirements is to live in a state of moral rectitude whose end is confirmation in virtue; to yield instead to the more lurid and irresistible demands of primal animal appetite is to “gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16) and thus to fall short of performing the truly human vocation qua rational animal. And so we are all, given our common evolutionary heritage, inescapably involved in a losing battle—dead in our sin, following the course of the world, living in the passions of the flesh and carrying out the desires of the body (Eph. 2:1–3). This is the “race-long struggle of flesh with spirit” which is “but another name for the life of sin” (Tennant 1902, 11). To see how this model might work out in practice, it will be beneficial briefly to consider the vice of pride (superbia), one of the cardinal sins according to traditional Christian teaching. Thomas Aquinas, following Isidore of Seville, defines pride as the desire “to appear above what [one] really is”; its sinfulness consists in its opposition to right reason, as the human will ought to “tend to that which is proportionate to him” (1920, IIb, qu. 162, art. 1). Augustine (1887a, XIV.13) concurs: “what is pride” we have already heard the African bishop ask, “but the craving for undue exaltation?”3 In his Confessions, Augustine repeatedly identifies superbia and vanitas as evidencing his deep involvement in sin and rebellion against God. In his quest “to love and to be loved” (2008, II.2.2), Augustine desired to “distinguish [himself]…for a damnable and conceited purpose, namely delight in human vanity” (III.4.7). Having been “inflated with pride” (III.3.6), he confesses to

136  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? having “pursued the empty glory of popularity, ambitious for the applause of the audience” (IV.1.1). But, he later reflects, You cured me in the first place of my lust for self-justification…you repressed my pride. [He continues] Lord you alone exercise rule without pride (typho). …The temptation is to wish to be feared or loved by people for no reason other than the joy derived from such power, which is no joy at all. It is a wretched life, and vanity is repulsive. This is the main cause why I fail to love and fear you in purity. (Augustine 2008, X.36.58–59) For Augustine personally, then, it is above all the vainglorious4 pursuit of human approval which invigorates his amor sui,5 thus perpetuating his alienation from God and inability to rest in him alone.6 To the sociobiologist or evolutionary psychologist, however, these selffocused inclinations do not indicate moral depravity, but only (at worst) a mildly inflated but otherwise healthy sense of self-concern or social insecurity, both of which, we are told, are vital to the reproductive fitness of the human organism.7 Since all standard human emotions are, on a sociobiological model, “fitness-maximizing affective mechanisms that coordinate a suite of cognitive, motivational, physiological, behavioral, and subjective feeling responses to recurrent environmental events of evolutionary significance” (Cheng e al. 2010, 334),8 it would seem to follow that the ubiquitous drive for personal glory and appearing “above what [one] really is” must also carry some kind of selective advantage.9 In particular, pride—in both its “hubristic” and “authentic” dispositions10 —has been shown to conduce to the attainment of elevated social status, and thus to the overall fitness of the individual more generally (.g., Cheng et al 2010, 339, 341–344). To put it simply, in a world such as our own in which Darwinian selective forces are given free rein, an exaggerated sense of self-importance will in many cases result in the attainment of such status vis-à-vis the relevant group in the long run; consequently pride, far from a vice to be eschewed at all costs, emerges rather as an adaptive advantage—not, of course, to be abused, but certainly profited from once already present, and to be welcomed—even actively pursued—by the self-aware individual desirous of social promotion. Such, at any rate, is the positive function of pride on an evolutionary model: “Pride is the best kind of adaptive emotion,” for it “fuels our identity and motivates us toward socially and evolutionarily beneficial behavior. In other words, it increases our fitness for survival” (Kochan 2018, 272).11 For the sociobiologist, then, Augustine is simply behaving as healthful, successful primates do, and his intransigent “wish to be feared or loved by people” for the joy of power suggests not a corrupted nature, but rather a normal, inherently socially competitive human nature (cf. Sznycer and Lukaszewski 2019, 396).12

Salvation 137 Now let me be very plain about what I am and am not proposing. I categorically do not mean to suggest that Augustine and Aquinas are mistaken about the sinfulness of pride, and I certainly do not wish to argue that the task of Christian ethics is simply to identify and then encourage fitness-enhancing behavior. Rather, I intend only to highlight the accuracy of Tennant’s evolutionary theory in the case of superbia specifically: pride— sometimes even hubristic pride—does indeed appear to be an essential element in human evolutionary development, and so we must treat it as an instinctive, non-moral appetite which is simply given with human existence as such.13 As a rational animal in possession of a higher moral consciousness, the peculiarly human vocation, then, is to subjugate this natural passion to the authority of “right reason,” whether the latter be understood morally, religiously, or otherwise.14 And, just as for pride, so also must we treat the various other appetites customarily deemed vicious, those “passions of the flesh which wage war against [our souls]” (1 Pe. 2:11). On such a view the Fall is, of course, rendered more or less obsolete. While we might be inclined to posit a Fall which, at some point in this evolutionary scheme, arrested or diverted the proper course of human development, such a hypothesis is unnecessary.15 This is because the evolutionary model of the origin of sin appears to provide a compendious account of all the data peccatum originale originatum was formerly intended to explain— death, suffering, and solidarity in our enslavement to concupiscence and thus sin and moral evil. It is not simply that we find inadequate warrant for Original Sin in scripture, nor only that the Fall doctrine itself raises some of the very questions it was meant to solve; rather, its unique explanatory power has been forfeited as well. What we find, therefore, is a picture of the human animal remarkably similar to the post-“Fall” Adam we encountered at the end of our second chapter: in terms of cosmic time, awoken only seconds ago from a prerational solidarity with the brutes, yet somehow morally responsible: distinctly aware of some higher moral law yet unable fully to grasp it or follow it, like a wisp of smoke that can be seen and smelt but not caught hold of; reflexively self-aware and thus prone to a rabid compensatory and anticipatory insecurity; fearful of death, repulsed by empty toil, a foreigner to heaven and earth alike.16 Yet behold—the man has become like a god: as a person he now possesses the requisite moral and rational capacities to enter into an entirely new sort of felicity, a hitherto untasted17 destiny which calls down from on high, offering “immeasurable riches” (Eph. 2:7), grace and peace in abundance (2 Pe. 1:2), a share in the glory of the eternal creator (Rom. 8:17). John Hick here expresses my mind far more eloquently than I am able: By an exercise of creative power God caused the physical universe to exist, and in the course of countless ages to bring forth within it organic life, and finally to produce out of organic life personal life; and when

138  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? man had thus emerged out of the evolution of the forms of organic life, a creature had been made who has the possibility of existing in conscious fellowship with God. (Hick 1979, 291)18 But, Hick goes on, “the second stage of the creative process is of a different kind altogether” (291). The human being now possesses the freedom either to labor for the attainment of this all-surpassing supernatural end,19 or else to remain as it now is: a competitive animal blessed (or cursed!) with self-awareness and a relatively high intelligence, generally swayed by the passions and desires programmed into it through countless millions of years of natural selection, but little—if anything—more. There is, in short, the option of stepping “out” of nature and into supernature,20 if I may so (clumsily) express it.21 And this movement from the natural life of Bios to the divine life of Zoe22 is not to be understood as some sort of inevitable step immanent within the evolutionary process itself, as some writers have invariably supposed (e.g., Teilhard de Chardin 1979, 90). Rather, as C. S. Lewis (1980, 186) memorably puts it, “I should expect the next stage in Evolution not to be a stage in Evolution at all: should expect [that] Evolution itself as a method of producing change will be superseded.” Accordingly, he continues, “century by century God has guided nature up to the point of producing creatures which can (if they will) be taken right out of nature, turned into ‘gods’” (188 [my emphasis]). That is, we are here dealing with a cosmic development in relation to which the physical world is entirely impotent, saving (arguably) only for the power of human freedom either to accept or else refuse the offer at hand. It is a new creative (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal 6:15) activity on the part of God, a decisive divine inbreaking into the natural world which demands a response from God’s free creatures: either a submissive response of grateful love or else a rejection, a (perhaps understandable) preference to follow instead our natural self-centered inclinations and desires.23 Finally, it will be recalled from Chapter 4 that sin, according to the Christian scriptures, may be defined as a culpable No to God and his purposes for his creation. Insofar, then, as it is acknowledged that the big picture of God’s purposes with humanity consists largely in transforming natural men and women “of dust” (1 Cor. 15:47) into “supernatural” “Sons and Daughters of God,”24 we see that to resist this advancement into holiness by “crucifying the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24) instantiates the very essence of sin.25 But neither is it, of course, within our power to raise ourselves to this supernatural life; our lone and highest possible contribution is to offer ourselves perpetually as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1), to consent to be so raised (pace, e.g., Reeves and Madueme 2014, 221).26 Hence, while on the view being advanced it is technically a mistake to predicate “fallenness” of human beings, we are well within our rights to use the term as a metaphor for our natural inability and refusal to rise to the life

Salvation 139 that God has in store for his children. Original Sin may be unnecessary for contemporary theological reflection, but an “original sinfulness”27 is, as Alan Richardson once said, more or less “an empirical description of human nature” (quoted in Peacocke 1979, 191). This, I submit, is the basic theological anthropological framework towards which a nonlapsarian theology will naturally tend. We now find ourselves compelled to turn to the most decisive question of this chapter: is an orthodox soteriology able to accommodate this representation of the Christian faith?

6.2  Participation and Theosis My affirmative judgement shall proceed in two stages. First, I shall briefly introduce Tim Bayne and Greg Restall’s participatory model of the atonement, after which I shall enter into a more detailed discussion of the concept of divinization. Both, I hope to show in Section III below, are very natural concomitants to the nonlapsarian theological anthropology outlined above. This, however, is a secondary objective. The primary aim at present is merely to demonstrate the fundamental compatibility between these two orthodox soteriological ideas and a theology which disowns the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin. Stated otherwise, should a participatory account of the atonement and deification both be proved to sit comfortably within a nonlapsarian theological scheme, we will have what we need to show that the soteriological objection under consideration falls flat. 6.2.1  Atonement by Participation: Bayne and Restall Bayne and Restall (2009) begin their exposition of the “participatory model” in terms most agreeable to the mind of the exegetical theologian: while contemporary philosophy of religion has started to take the atonement seriously, they say, the literature has nevertheless generally neglected the work of theologians and biblical scholars, focusing instead on the development of a theory of atonement which meets “Abelard’s constraint,” that is, the requirement that a given model prove “neither unintelligible, arbitrary, illogical nor immoral” (150). This is, of course, something of a problem, and so they rightly insist that “any account that is not so informed either by scripture or by tradition forfeits its right to be thought of as a Christian account of the atonement” (150). Accordingly, Bayne and Restall dedicate their constructive project to a no-nonsense philosophical elucidation of St. Paul’s mind with regard to Christ’s atoning work: not, they stress, a new model of atonement, but the rehabilitation of “an old model that has been undeservedly neglected” (159).28 The essence of their proposed model may be summarized succinctly.29 In sharp contrast to the primary concerns of deontologically focused conceptions of the atonement, a more satisfactory model will take as its starting

140  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? point the “ontological and relational” configuration of St. Paul’s thought (159). This configuration, they argue, positively abounds in the writings of the Apostle: “Paul’s frequent references to Christ as ‘the Second Adam’” and his vision of the “Christian’s participation in the death and resurrection of Christ” through baptism and the Eucharist each, in their own way, testify to the central Pauline idea that, in Christ, “there is a deep sense in which we are really new creatures” (160). It is not merely that God has, through a curious act of self-sacrifice, come to overlook our former sins; on the contrary, God in Christ is commencing a radical remaking of the human person, a veritable change in ontology: he is abolishing “sin as a part of the human (indeed: cosmic) condition,” “inaugurating a new human nature” entirely (160). This is the work of God, in Christ and through the Spirit; but how does atonement take place—that is, how is sin dealt with? For Bayne and Restall, the remission of sin is primarily a matter of identity: If the sinner is the ‘old person’, and the old person died with Christ on the cross, then there is no one who ought to be regarded as guilty for their sin. The moral debt we owe to God is not punished or forgiven, nor is satisfaction or reparation made for it. Instead it is dealt with by changing the identity of the sinner: in the sense that matters, the person who is in the wrong before God no longer exists. (Bayne and Restall 2009, 160)30 This is not, of course, to say that moral accountability is thereby abolished, nor do Bayne and Restall mean to suggest that the “old person” literally ceases to exercise any power or influence over the individual (163). The point, rather, is to highlight that our sin nature, corresponding to a former identity, simply drops off as we participate in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus: through baptism and the Eucharist, through fellowship with Christ’s ecclesial body and, more generally, a reoriented identity centered around the commitments, values, and projects of the risen Christ (160–161, 163; cf. Crisp 2020, 169–173). In terms of faithful adherence to (some of) scripture, we must admit that this participatory model is superb. While it does not of course account for the full range of biblical teaching on atonement theology, it is not clear that this is a setback, nor, indeed, that attempting to do so with a single model is even a realistic possibility.31 To my mind, the fact that the church has never settled on an official doctrine of the atonement instead attests to the preferability of respecting the wide variety of “necessary, fitting, and mutually complementary theories of Christ’s saving work” to be found in scripture (Johnson 2015, 6). If this is correct, however, it is no sound objection to Bayne and Restall’s theory to protest the lack of explicit engagement with, say, Mark 10:4532 or Col. 2:14.33 What is being offered is a model which helps to make sense of sin’s defeat, and that is all, I think, we are entitled to ask for.34

Salvation 141 This participatory model has, moreover, the appreciable advantage of strongly and straightforwardly satisfying what Adam Johnson (2015, 38–43) takes to be five desiderata for any acceptable atonement theory35 —or it easily could, at any rate, with further development. Bayne and Restall have, in the first place, a biblically informed cast (1) with the person and reconciling work of Jesus Christ clearly standing center stage; as for the accentuated divine attributes (2) we find a sonorous emphasis on God’s (re)creative power and also, plausibly, the love and goodness he displays in deigning to “become what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is” (Irenaeus 1885a, V, preface). Next, it is plain that the enemies of God overcome by Christ (3) are sin and death, and that the reality from which Christ saves us (4) is the “old person,” our sinful, alienated, and corruptible human nature which stands in need of redemption. Finally, the Bayne-Restall model is equally sharp on the question of what Christ came to save us for (5): through our participation in Christ, we receive a “new human nature” (Bayne and Restall 2009, 160), a “share in his sonship and righteousness” (Morna Hooker, quoted in Bayne and Restall 2009, 159).36 Hence we have in this Pauline participatory model a robust—and clearly orthodox—theory of atonement which at once meets Johnson’s requirements and, as a serendipitous bonus, very plausibly fulfills Abelard’s constraint.37 There is, needless to say, still plenty of work to be done in terms of spelling out the metaphysical presuppositions at play in this model, but our present concerns will have to put this larger project on hold for the time being. For the purposes of this book, our elucidation of the Bayne-Restall model is intended to serve chiefly as a preliminary witness to the availability of an orthodox soteriology for a nonlapsarian theology. And it is, I think, clear enough that no serious problem emerges when we unite this participatory model of the atonement with the evolutionary picture of the Christian faith we sketched nearer the opening of this chapter: the evolved human animal is now such that it can, if it consents, be transformed into a new creature through imitative, sacramental, and ecclesial participation in the aggregate Christ event. To undergo this transformation just is to atone for sin—that is, it is to overcome the evolved creature’s natural opposition to God’s purposes precisely by stepping into them. With this participatory account in place, we arrive at our consideration of the ancient Christian notion of theosis, at the heart of which idea we find, naturally, participation. 6.2.2  Partakers of the Divine Nature “Deification,” writes Georgios Mantzaridis (1984, 12), is “God’s greatest gift to man and the ultimate goal of human existence. …It is that which from the beginning has constituted the innermost longing of man’s existence” (cf. Kärkkäinen 2004, 1–4). To the average Western Christian, such a declaration might appear somewhat mystifying, if not flatly heretical.38 Coupled with Athanasius’s (1892, 54.3) no less perplexing summation of the

142  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? Christian faith in the words, “[God] was made man that we might be made God,”39 it would perhaps be unsurprising to find that the idea of theosis has in recent centuries proven quite controversial, and that its status as a useful soteriological concept in Christian dogmatics has been, in the West at least, repeatedly called into serious question.40 Despite this ambivalence in theological reception, however, theosis has made a decisive comeback in Protestant and Roman Catholic systematic theology. Whether Aquinas,41 Luther,42 Calvin,43 or Edwards44 (to name but a few)—each, it has been contended, have advanced the doctrine of divinization in one capacity or another, a reality which has, historically, gone generally unnoticed. The objective here will not, however, be to survey any of these Western models of theosis, if genuine models of theosis they be. Rather, I will present an outline of what I understand to be the prevailing Eastern Orthodox idea of deification today, which follows Gregory Palamas45 in making a crucial distinction between the divine essence and energies (cf. Williams 1999, 139ff.).46 The following should not be taken as a full-fledged endorsement of this theory— indeed, some aspects do, in my view, require considerable refinement; the goal, the reader will recall, is simply to find one possible soteriology which (1) is in line with traditional Christian teaching and (2) favorably lends itself to a nonlapsarian theology. It is my contention that the Palamite “type”47 of theosis will do the job splendidly. The central component of any true expression of the deification theme is, I would submit, the affirmation that somehow, by grace, the redeemed human person becomes in some sense divine, a “partaker of the divine nature,” in the words of 2 Peter 1:4.48 Thus John Meyendorff (1974, 116), “what God grants [the Christian] in sacramental grace is uncreated divine life”; “by participation in God Himself, in His uncreated grace man himself becomes God” (118). Anything short of this would constitute a dilution of the better part of Eastern Christian thought on the matter and, we might think, fail to live up to its name.49 Right out of the gate, however, we must make an essential clarification. Saying that the human being becomes “divine” must not be understood in such a way that the all-important ontological chasm between creature and Creator is breached, or that human beings are subsumed into divinity in the sense of strict identity à la Eastern introvertive mysticism or gnostic enlightenment. Rather, They are never gods in an ontological sense, as only God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the true meaning of the term, possesses authentic aseity, that is, is the only one who is eternal and without generation. Being a god, a deified human being does not cease to be human, as the Logos after the Incarnation did not cease to be consubstantial with the Father. Athanasius in one place emphasizes, ‘Things which partake cannot be identical or similar to that whereof they partake.’” (Kharlamov 2008, 166)

Salvation 143 Theosis therefore demands that we respect the unique status of God as self-sufficient creator and sustainer of all originated being, without thereby circumscribing his power to bring creation into the most intimate of fellowships with himself. “We become gods, but never will we be identical with God” (Kharlamov 2008, 166; cf. Mantzaridis 1984, 122; Christensen 2007, 28–29). This is, in the end, perhaps the only satisfactory way of putting it. But what, we might protest, could possibly be meant by “we become God” if we do not really become God? This is a fair enough criticism from an analytic standpoint. Stated simply, one might argue: (1) Qua deified humans, either we are identical with the uncreated triune God, or we are not. (2) We are not, qua deified humans, identical with the uncreated triune God. (3) But God is identical with the uncreated triune God. (4) Therefore, qua deified humans, we are not God. Why, then, the misleading language? Is all this divinization talk mere rhetoric? (It seems to be at least partially so [see Kharlamov 2007]). It is here that the distinction between the essence and energies of God, the “focal point of Palamite theology,” will be of particular use (Meyendorff 1983, 20).50 For Gregory, there is on the one hand the utterly unknowable, incommunicable, and ineffable essence of God which ipso facto remains ever inaccessible to everything save Godself (cf. Finch 2007, 234). It is also imparticipable, even in the eschaton: “If man could share in God’s essence, then it would be tri-hypostatic no longer, but innumerable in its hypostases, for … ‘the hypostases of an essence are as many as are the beings who share in it’” (Mantzaridis 1984, 109). But, clearly, God has communicated himself to the world, preeminently through the incarnation of the Logos (cf. Meyendorff 1983, 21). Gregory is therefore compelled to follow several of his predecessors in postulating the existence of various divine energies which, though inseparable and flowing from the divine essence, are nevertheless distinct (Mantzaridis 1984, 104–105; Palamas 1983, III.1.24). It is through these uncreated energies that God “goes forth from himself, manifests, communicates, and gives himself” (Lossky, quoted in Finch 2007, 234); the divine energies are God in revelatory and participatory action. These energies, moreover, would come to be identified with the divine attributes more generally,51 a suggestion which would lead eventually—and in my view probably fairly—to the charge of crypto-ditheism (Mantzaridis 1984, 110; Meyendorff 1974, 122). This, in brief, is the main thrust of Palamas’s attempt to reconcile apophaticism with the God of Christian experience. God acts and is known in the world through the divine energy, yet, in his essence, “he remains above it” (Meyendorff 1974, 122). It is on account of this distinction that Gregory is able to formulate his concept of deification.

144  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? For the Palamite conception of theosis, we have seen, Christians do not participate in the divine essence in any sense—not now or ever.52 Consequently, the radical transcendence of God is upheld and the possibility of a monistic mingling of divine and human is ruled out—indeed, the primary impetus for retaining the controversial distinction between essence and energies was and is precisely this.53 However, Palamas still categorically desires to retain the language which has come to typify statements on the deification theme: “the prize of virtue,” he quotes approvingly, “is to become God, to be illumined by the purest of lights, by becoming a son of that day which no darkness can dim” (Palamas 1983, III.1.34).54 This he seeks to do by appealing to the energies/essence distinction: while the divine essence remains forever beyond the grasp of all originated nature, the uncreated energies issuing therefrom render actual the Christian’s participation in God: through “communion in His divine energy…man may share in God’s glory and brightness” (Mantzaridis 1984, 122). As Kallistos Ware (1979, 27–28) points out, these energies need not be understood as emanations from God in the neo-Platonic sense of an intermediary between the One and the many; rather, as God’s own act and self-manifestation, the divine energy enables human beings to “know and participate in God himself.” Thus, for Eastern Orthodoxy, the doctrine of the divine energies is critical. It provides the basis not only for mystical theology, but also, more importantly ecumenically, for the doctrine of grace: “it is union with God in His energies, or union by grace [that enables us to] participate in the divine nature, without our essence becoming thereby the essence of God” (Lossky 1991, 87). What this “partaking of the divine nature” means, however, is not especially easy to articulate (nor, importantly, are we told how it works). The definition of deification offered by Gregory Palamas is a quotation from Maximus the Confessor: theosis is “a mystical union with God, beyond intellect and reason, in the age when creatures no longer know corruption” which allows the Christian to “[observe] the light of the hidden and more-than-ineffable glory, [and] become themselves able to receive the blessed purity” (Palamas 1983, III.1.28). But even this is unclear—the most we can glean from this definition is that deification somehow involves unity, incorruption, light, glory, and purity.55 But perhaps this lack of clear definition is for the better; as the Apostle says, we know now only in part, through a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:9–12).56 What is expressed plainly, however, is that there is a real communication of God’s energies at play in a way proper to the human creature. Thus Mantzaridis, perhaps with a touch of hyperbole: In Gregory Palamas’ teaching, God’s deifying grace or energy is not only itself uncreated, but renders uncreated those who share in it. Insofar as man does not partake of deifying grace he remains a created consequence of God’s creative energy…. But when man shares the uncreated divinizing gift, he acquires supranatural attributes. Without

Salvation 145 ceasing to be created as regards his nature, he is nevertheless placed beyond the category of created things because of the grace within him. (Mantzaridis 1984, 111–112) Just as in the Incarnation God is “enhumanized” (Mantzaridis 1984, 27), so through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit humans are divinized, made “co-heirs of the divine nature, gods created after the uncreated God” (Lossky 1991, 65). Thus can we begin to make sense of some of the more ostensibly scandalous remarks which have been uttered in this connection: “we have not been made gods from the beginning,” Irenaeus (1885a, IV.38.4) says, “but at first merely men, then at length gods.” Again, Basil of Caesarea (1895, 9.23) tells us that through the indwelling of the Spirit comes not merely the promise of heaven, but also “joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and, highest of all, the being made God.” Thus “becoming God,” the Christian is “transfiguratively changed and made capable of the ceaseless vision and contemplation of God face to face, along with everlasting participation in divine glory” (Kharlamov 2008, 165). But, once more—and despite the sometimes vexing rhetoric—we shall never find in these Orthodox thinkers Bayazid Bastami’s “I am He” (see Zaehner 1980, 162–164) or the famous tat tvam asi of the Chandogya Upanishad—the essence/energies distinction expressly forbids it. Rather, “Our deified humanity is still humanity just as Christ’s was and is. But it is more than mere, ordinary humanity. It is humanity energized, empowered, and transformed within the divine presence” (Olson 2007, 194). Crucially, as Maximus says, we become God by the strongest of possible analogies only: deification is communicated to creatures “in a manner analogous to them” (quoted in Meyendorff 1974, 39; cf. Crisp 2020, 173). This, in sum, is the soteriological vision which goes by the name of theosis or divinization. It is, in its earliest definition, “the attaining of likeness to God and union with him so far as is possible,” attributes and all (Gavrilyuk 2009, 651).57 But, as the example of Palamas makes clear, we are in the end able to speak of this only in figures, in images and metaphors. We shall one day “shine like the sun,” Christ tells us, in the same way he himself was transfigured on Mount Tabor (Matt. 13:43; cf. John 17:22, 1 Jn. 3:2). St. Paul can only report that, beholding the Lord’s glory, we ourselves are being “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18) and that our inheritance in the general resurrection shall be a “spiritual body” characterized by power, glory, incorruptibility, and a magnificence unsurpassed by any purely material body (1 Cor. 15:35ff.).58 But this is all we are told. It is true enough that the New Testament’s vision of the ultimate destiny of the human person—and, indeed of the whole creation (Rom. 8:19–21)—is one of immense splendor, but we are not explicitly given much in the way of specifics. The theme of theosis as articulated by the Orthodox churches, however, provides us with a set of useful, if imperfect,

146  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? tools for understanding the things pertaining to our salvation, the sum of which, on this model, is this: “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2).

6.3  Constructive Reflections and Other Directions Let us quickly retrace the steps taken in this chapter. First, it was argued that a nonlapsarian project seems naturally to suggest a specific vision of the Christian faith in which the evolved human animal is found standing at a crossroad. Recently emerged from a purely affective existence, human beings are now given the opportunity to be reborn, remade after the image and likeness of their creator so as to be fit for eternal fellowship with him. This is, I argued in Chapter 2, the existential situation subtly illustrated by the story of the “Fall” in Gen. 2–3. We then went on to consider the BayneRestall participatory model of the atonement, which posits along Pauline lines that Christ’s atoning work consists largely in the abolition of sin in the Christian through the latter’s imitative, sacramental, and ecclesial participation in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Our intention here was to introduce a traditional model of atonement which is congruous with a nonlapsarian picture of the Christian religion. And, finally, we turned to the East for an example of an established soteriology that might also prove amenable to our project; this was found in the concept of deification, specifically as espoused by the tradition centered around Gregory Palamas. We shall now conclude this chapter with a brief word on (1) how it all might be seen to tie together, and (2) some other ways an orthodox expression of salvation might be united with a nonlapsarian theology. 6.3.1  Constructive Reflections At this point, one might well question the acceptability of connecting the evolutionary “nonlapsarian picture” of Section I above with the soteriology envisioned by participation and deification. For, as was demonstrated in our first chapter, Original Sin is a doctrine common to Christians Western and Eastern alike. And given that a Fall doctrine is part and parcel of Original Sin more generally (specifically peccatum originale originans), it is clear that traditional Eastern Orthodox theology cannot sanction the argument of this chapter in its entirety; simply put, there is no nonlapsarian Christianity in the East (cf. Lossky 1989, ch. 3). While this is no doubt correct, my objective here is not to present a vision of the Christian faith which conforms to the standards of a prevailing orthodoxy (clearly), but rather to argue that a historically unorthodox theological system—viz. nonlapsarianism—can, in the appropriate circumstances, be brought under the umbrella of orthodox Christian expression. In so doing, I isolate one aspect of Eastern Orthodoxy, in this case the concept of theosis, and employ it to help substantiate my broader thesis. But does this operation succeed?

Salvation 147 I think it does, and for the following reason. First, recall the argument advanced in Chapter 3. It was there suggested that, though St. Paul in all likelihood does subscribe to a doctrine of Original Sin, his primary purpose in Rom. 5:12–21 is rather to exalt Christ than to expound a dogmatic account of the first man and his sin. Closer to the task at hand, it was then suggested further that the achievements of Christ and the enemies he overcame can be secured and accounted for, respectively, without recourse to the doctrine of Original Sin (Chapters 4 and 5 aimed further to confirm this hypothesis). Consequently, it was argued, it is plausibly needless for Christians to follow Paul on the issue of Original Sin. But if this is correct, then the very same may be said, mutatis mutandis, of the present situation, too: the realities which the Fall and Original Sin are intended to explain in Orthodox theology can be fully accounted for by the evolutionary picture here offered; and this can be done, moreover, without thereby impugning the soteriology which naturally flows from the doctrine of deification. It only remains to incorporate the latter more explicitly into the overall portrait of the Christian faith we have been considering. This final task, however, is not an especially difficult one; indeed, the marriage of participation and deification with our evolutionary picture was implied—nay, presupposed—in our elucidation of Section I of this chapter. For there it was proposed that, according to the Christian religion, the “next stage” in human evolution, so to speak, is to be “taken right out of nature, turned into ‘gods,’” to repeat the words of Lewis (1980, 188). But this, we now know, is theosis language.59 We are now enabled, in other words, freely and consciously to participate in the divine life which came decisively into our space-time universe two thousand years ago in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are called to die to our natural, purely biological selves and instead participate in Christ—through imitation, through the sacraments, through fellowship with Christ’s body which is the church—and thereby to have finished with the sinful “old man” with its insatiable passions and desires. We are to become instead “partakers of the divine nature”—that is, to become gods: radiant, glorious, and immortal Images of God after the prototype of the resurrected God-man Jesus Christ, the first-fruits of the new heavens and the new earth. On this view, humankind’s approximation to the divine initiated in Gen. 3 is magnificently accomplished: “to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7 [KJV]). This—and nothing short of it—is the goal of all human existence, “the hope to which he has called us…the glorious inheritance of the saints” (Eph. 1:18 [paraphrase]). Consciously to resist this development, as we have said, is to refuse the divine intention for human creatures—it is to sin in the fullest sense of the word: to fall short of the destiny envisioned by the creator. This, at any rate, is one vision of the Christian faith which seems to align nicely with the various conclusions reached in this investigation. And such a vision is made possible through the use of traditional

148  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? soteriological resources, namely a participatory model of the atonement and the Eastern concept of theosis. A story emphatically can be told, then, which does justice to traditional and biblical ideas surrounding the atonement and salvation. To suggest otherwise, we may conclude with William Lane Craig (2021, 5), is overreach: “the denial of the doctrine of original sin does not undermine the doctrine of atonement” or salvation. 6.3.2  Other Directions Such an understanding of salvation is not, however, a necessary postulate of a nonlapsarian theology. Indeed, I think any number of soteriological designs may be called upon once the relevant background work has been accomplished; and this background work was, of course, the primary focus of the preceding chapters. For our purposes we may simply say that any orthodox vision of salvation may be grounded minimally on the following three affirmations: (1) There is an “old creation” in which sin and death reign, and from which we are to be rescued and redeemed; (2) There is a “new creation” in which sin and death are decisively overcome; (3) It is through Christ alone that this new creation is inaugurated and creatures come to participate in it.60 Once these three conditions have been secured, however, it seems to me an abundance of soteriological images readily present themselves at our disposal, and often without necessitating any linguistic emendations to exclude diction relating to the Fall. I note but two alternative directions a nonlapsarian project may be taken in tandem with an orthodox soteriology; as I say, there are potentially countless others, but due to considerations of space and the desire not to come across too repetitious, I shall content myself with enumerating the following two only. We may, first of all, point to the mirifica commutatio motif employed by Calvin in his Institutes IV.17 and hinted at in, for instance, Luther’s De Libertate Christiana (1883).61 Insofar as we form one body with Christ, Calvin argues, everything pertaining to Christ becomes our own: This is the wondrous exchange made by his boundless goodness. Having become with us the Son of Man, he has made us with himself sons of God. By his own descent to the earth he has prepared our ascent to heaven. Having received our mortality, he has bestowed on us his immortality. Having undertaken our weakness, he has made us strong in his strength. Having submitted to our poverty, he has transferred to us his riches. Having taken upon himself the burden of unrighteousness with which we were oppressed, he has clothed us with his righteousness. (Calvin 1996, IV.17.2)

Salvation 149 But this illustration of the Christian’s salvation in Christ does not seem to require a defection from an original state of goodness such as the doctrine of Original Sin posits. On the contrary, it is clear that the sole prerequisites here are humans’ (a) “earthliness,” (b) mortality, (c) weakness, (d) poverty, and (e) unrighteousness. Granted that our evolutionary picture of the human animal (or a nonlapsarian substitute for it) can sufficiently account for each of these five properties, we are in a position to affirm Calvin’s “wondrous exchange” and reject Original Sin at one and the same time. We have, in short, exactly what we need for an orthodox soteriology: the old order of weakness, sin, and death (1), and the new order of strength, righteousness, and immortality established in and through Christ [(2) and (3)]. It is only if genuine “fallenness” is predicated of the “old man” that we stand in need of a slight linguistic modification; but if, as we have argued, this predication is exegetically, philosophically, and theologically unnecessary, such an alteration will be of negligible consequence in the final analysis. Another soteriological direction to take a nonlapsarian faith might involve the theme of the high priesthood of Christ as articulated in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Indeed, such a project might prove highly invigorating in light of the recent work undertaken by David Moffitt to demonstrate that, for the author of Hebrews, atonement is completed through the presentation of the resurrected and ascended Christ before the Father in the heavenly sanctuary, rather than effected through Christ’s death alone (see Moffitt 2011, 2017, 47). In so doing, the “holy, innocent, unstained” (Heb. 7:26) high priest is able to finalize the “once for all” sacrifice (Heb. 10:10), thus purifying us from all sin and enabling us to access God’s holy space (Loader 2018, 277). It would be difficult, perhaps, adequately to spell out this atoning activity of Christ in a way that would intuitively appeal to us today. That it can be done, however, I do not doubt; and in any case, for now it is needful only to point out that Original Sin would not be an essential prerequisite for this task. All that is needed is some degree of human guilt and sinfulness, as well as a robust conception of our “impurity” in relation to God’s holiness and perfection. But, again, our evolutionary picture is able to account for the former, and impurity, if taken as a relative notion, may perhaps be understood in terms of a lack of the holiness to which we are called in Christ—though this latter point probably deserves a book-length treatment of its own. Once more, then, we have located an orthodox soteriology which may be taken along nonlapsarian lines: we require redemption from the old order of sin, death, and impurity (1), but now we are rescued from them all: “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19) [(2) and (3)]. No doubt there is much further work to be carried out here, not least as it pertains to sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. What, for instance, might “unrighteousness” or “impurity” look like on an evolutionary model? And what could it possibly mean for the sinless Christ to “become what we are” if the human animal is both unfallen and, at base, concerned ultimately

150  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? with maximizing reproductive fitness? Such questions I hope to address in the future, though it is safe to say that a lifetime of inquiry along these lines would scarcely scratch the surface of all the riches to be excavated here. But then, to add to this veritable mountain of potential scholarship, what we have said about Calvin’s mirifica commutatio and the function of Christ’s high priesthood in Hebrews may be applied to virtually any orthodox understanding of our salvation in Christ. Even if a given model of salvation lays great emphasis on the Fall, it seems to me we may simply drop the lapsarian imagery and still affirm the fullness of the victory won in Christ, that is, so long as the conjunction of (1), (2), and (3) above are retained. In short, the possible directions a nonlapsarian project may be taken are virtually limitless. For, as we said in Chapter 3, it is not Adam with whom we are ultimately concerned, even if we do find it convenient to appeal to him as an explanation for our unenviable inheritance of sin, suffering, and death. As I shall argue in the final chapter, Christ alone is the substance of our faith, the immovable and immortal rock around which all else revolves. If, therefore, it is possible to partake of the fullness of Christ without an appeal to Original Sin, the latter is shown on these grounds alone to be an inessential component of the Christian religion. Never, I repeat, is the theologian entitled to do away with the “old order” of sin and death which is one fundamental presupposition of Christ’s saving action. But he may, perhaps, leave to one side the ancient explanations for the existence of this old order which might appear rather ill at home in the twenty-first century. I have attempted to show that the Christian faith need not suffer a fatal blow thereby; consequently, it may be provisionally concluded that the orthodox Christian may indeed abandon the Fall and Original Sin—so long, that is, as we are in possession of a reasonably clear idea as to what is meant by “orthodoxy.” To our final task we therefore proceed—the demarcation of an exceedingly elusive term.

Notes



1 See also the conclusion of this book for some further reflection on this purported trivialization of sin. 2 These two words shall be used interchangeably, along with the word “divinization.” 3 Cf. Steinvorth (2016, 24–26). Kent Dunnington (2019, ch. 2), however, has recently argued at length that Augustinian pride involves rather more than this, extending to all self-conceptions and identities outside of Christ. 4 For Aquinas, vainglory (inani gloria) à la Augustine is sinful insomuch as it “does not refer the desire of his own glory to a due end, such as God’s honor, or the spiritual welfare of his neighbor” (1920, IIb, qu. 132, art. 1). Augustine would, I think, agree with this; he says (to God), “be our glory. Let it be for your sake that we are loved, and let it be your word in us which is feared” (Augustine [2008, X.36.59]). 5 Pride’s rootedness in self-love is the essence of the Augustinian conception of superbia. See, e.g., MacQueen (1973, 239).

Salvation 151











6 For the central theme of resting in God in Augustine’s Confessions, see, e.g., I.1.1, I.5.5, IV.12.18, VI.16.26, IX.4.11, XIII.8–9, XIII.36–38. Note, too, that the entire work is plainly bookended by this motif. 7 For an excellent discussion of the evolutionary utility of pride, see Kochan (2018, 272–283). 8 See also Tracy and Robins (2007, 149); Petersen, et al. (2012, 397–398): emotions “constitute an array of distinct and sophisticated information-processing mechanisms, each designed by natural selection to solve specific problems facing our ancestors.” 9 While we may not intuitively think of pride (or vainglory) as an emotion, it clearly counts as an “affective mechanism” which coordinates feeling responses to evolutionarily significant events. 10 “Hubristic” pride is associated with narcissistic and domineering qualities, and thus seeks status-attainment via group dominance. “Authentic” pride, on the other hand, is associated with prosociality, high self-esteem, and extroversion, seeking status-attainment via prestige. Both, of course, have the same end goal (see Cheng, Tracy, and Henrich [2010, 335]). 11 It would be well to note that Kochan is praising the “authentic” modality of pride here, and it seems clear that this—and not “hubristic” pride—is in fact the vice at which Augustine takes aim. 12 Sznycer and Lukaszewski’s words deserve thoughtful consideration: “The pride system is designed to motivate the achievement and advertisement of socially valued acts or traits so that others place more weight on the individual’s welfare. …When triggered, the pride system advertises one’s achievements, motivates continued investment in the courses of action that bring about achievement, and demands enhanced valuation from others” (396, emphasis added). Augustine, it seems clear, would have been an avid Facebook user. 13 Pride, moreover, appears very early on in the life of an individual. For a brief account of some recent studies on pride and dominance hierarchies in children, see Weisfeld and Dillon (2012, 22–24). 14 To explain what this might mean is a long-term project I hope to undertake in the future; for an appealing initial proposal along these lines, see again Dunnington (2019). 15 Cf. Hick (1979, 287–289) on N. P. Williams’s (1929) “ultimate Fall” theory. 16 Cf. Peacocke (1996, 57): “when one reflects on the balanced adaptation of other living organisms to their biological niche, the alienation of human beings from non-human nature and from each other appears as a kind of biological anomaly within the organic world.” See also Barbour (1990, 190–191) and Peacocke (1979, 191–192, 197). 17 So far as we currently know, that is. 18 John Haught (2012, 301) considers the termination of this progression in self-conscious life to be “the most dramatic development ever to have occurred” in the history of the universe. I would only add one word to read: “the most dramatic natural development”—surely the launching of new creation in the resurrection of Christ is more dramatic. 19 Which is not to say it hasn’t already been given by a free act of grace; see Olson (2007, 190). 20 By “supernature” and “supernatural” I mean only that the created nature in question receives something nature itself does not have to give. Mantzaridis (1984, 112) puts it thus: “man shares the uncreated divinizing gift, he acquires supranatural attributes…. He is now in possession not only of his created nature but of an uncreated and indwelling grace.”

152  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? 21 By no means should this be interpreted as a rejection of nature; I would strongly insist on the classic Thomistic maxim, “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it” (Aquinas [1920, I. qu. 1, art. 8]). 22 For this precise usage of Bios and Zoe I am following Hick (1979, 293) and C. S. Lewis (1980, 139–140, 187) before him. 23 Note that I deliberately take no stance on the question of the imago Dei. For excellent discussions of the intersection between paleoanthropology and the imago Dei, however, see De Smedt and De Cruz (2014, esp. 137–139) and Putz (2009, esp. 619–621). 24 See, e.g., John 1:12; Rom. 8:14; 2 Cor. 6:16–18; Gal. 3:26; 1 Jn 3:2. 25 Peacocke (1979, 192–193) here is exceptional: “In the perspective of evolution, then, man’s ‘sin’…[is] a perennial failure to become what God intends him to be.” 26 As Bernard of Clairvaux (1977, I.2) succinctly states the interplay between operative grace and free will, “to consent is to be saved.” 27 I take the phrase ‘original sinfulness’ from a helpful article of Richard Swinburne’s (1985) by the same name. I prefer not to use the term, however, as it tends to cause even more confusion around the doctrine of Original Sin. 28 In Oliver Crisp’s (2020) recent endorsement of participatory models, the suggestion is made that such theories might suffer insofar as they are “novel” and therefore not traditional. While in one sense this may be true, Crisp rightly indicates at the bottom of the same page that the idea of atonement by participation is manifestly “steeped in the biblical witness” (176). It is hard to be more traditional than that! 29 Indeed, virtually all of the most salient points are touched on in the (nearly) half-page block quotation of Morna Hooker (see [159]). 30 Crisp (2020, 169), too, is exceptional here: “A real change is the foundation of the moral and legal change in our relationship to God. God unites us with Christ so that we participate in his saving work, and, as a consequence of this, he is able to treat us as those justified in his sight. Our real union with Christ in salvation brings about our moral and legal change of status in the sight of God” (my emphasis). 31 Cf. Hill (2004, 29): “No single description, whether by metaphor or by plain speech, can comprehend the fullness of the revelation of what God has done in Christ in reconciling the world to himself.” 32 “The Son of Man came to not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 33 “…canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” 34 Bayne and Restall in fact state explicitly that their model does not obviate the need for other atonement theories (163); cf. now Crisp (2020, 179). 35 Johnson stipulates that “these are necessary criteria for a full and sufficient theory of the atonement, …standards for analyzing and critiquing any given theory” (39). 36 In my estimation, Bayne and Restall are unfortunately not as forceful about this as they should be—hence the choice to resort to Hooker’s words in order best to drive home the point. 37 It is obviously not arbitrary, illogical, or immoral; for Bayne and Restall’s twofold response to the charge that their model is unintelligible, see (2009, 161–163). For a development of this account with additional metaphysical apparatus, see Crisp (2020, 163–180). While Crisp’s elucidation involves the doctrine of Original Sin insofar as it hypostatizes ‘Adamic’ humanity, the lapsarian element may be dropped with no overall harm done to the model itself: Adamic humanity may be substituted for, say, ‘fleshly’ humanity, or something of the sort.

Salvation 153 38 Kärkkäinen (2004, 6) points out that the writings of Gregory Palamas, for instance, are catalogued as gnostic works by the Library of Congress. 39 As Gavrilyuk (2009, 651) points out, however, the precise meaning of this famous “exchange formula” is far from clear. 40 See Gavrilyuk (2009, 647–649) and Olson (2007, 187). Barth, Olson relates, “scoffed at the idea of deification” and Brunner “considered it mystical and therefore useless” for his purposes. 41 Much recent scholarship has been dedicated to Thomas’s doctrine of deification; I name but two: Williams (1999); Spezzano (2015). 42 The push to recognize Luther as a champion of theosis is most commonly associated with the so-called “Finnish school” based around Tuomo Mannermaa. A brief overview of the latter and Luther’s relationship to deification may be found in Linman (2007, 189–199); see also Kärkkäinen (2004, ch. 4). 43 For example, Billings (2007, 200–218). 44 For example, Strobel (2012). 45 Billings (2007, 200, 208) laments that contemporary studies on divinization tend to regard Palamas’s doctrine as the only genuine doctrine of theosis. While Billings is certainly right to push back here, it is equally worth noting—and perhaps resisting—the opposite move to broaden theosis to include all forms of participation in God (see now Gavrilyuk, [2009, esp. 651–654]). 46 We will thus sidestep the contemporary debate surrounding the necessity of this distinction for a bona fide doctrine of deification. 47 Once more, it would be altogether inapt to call this a “doctrine.” Vladimir Kharlamov (2008, 161) seems to think that even the contemporary Eastern Orthodox ‘consensus’ on theosis may be more imagined than real. 48 This verse and Ps. 82:6 are the two leading proof texts for the presence of divinization in scripture. While we shall not be analyzing the cogency of these exegeses here, it would be highly remiss of me not to direct the reader to James Starr’s (2007) outstanding chapter. 49 Cf. Michael J. Christensen (2007, 29) on the dilution and domestication of theosis. 50 For a concise synopsis of the “uncreated energies,” see Lossky (1991, ch. 4). 51 See Finch (2007, 235) and Mantzaridis (1984, 107), where mention is made of three discrete energies in particular: the “life-conferring” and “wisdomconferring” energies, as well as the “deifying” energy. 52 Curiously, Kärkkäinen (2004) initially gets this wrong (25), but then rectifies the situation six pages later: “Orthodoxy consistently rejects the idea that humans participate in the essence or nature of God” (31). 53 Palamas was driven to this distinction when the hesychasts were accused of “pretending ‘to contemplate the essence of God with their physical eyes’” by Barlaam of Seminara (see Meyendorff [1983, 20]). For a contemporary argument from an evangelical Protestant to this effect, see Olson (2007). 54 The quotation is evidently attributed to St. Basil. 55 The quotation goes on to identify deification with the Father’s “real adoption” of Christians as sons of God. 56 Williams (1999, ch. 4) helpfully identifies ten principal “cognates” for deification in the work of Palamas: virtue, knowledge, vision, contemplation, light, glory, grace, adoption, participation, union. 57 The definition is from the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius, 1.3. 58 Gk. Soma pneumatikon. For the closest thing to an academic final word on what Paul means (and does not mean) by soma pneumatikon, see Ware (2014a) and Ware (2014b)—and emphatically contra Hart’s (2022) recent non-treatment of the relevant issues. Unfortunately, it seems clear, Hart mistakes unbiased, rigorous critical investigation of the biblical text for “platitudinous theology” (78).

154  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? 59 For an excellent article on the centrality of deification in Lewis’s work more generally, see Jensen (2007). 60 With thanks to Alan Torrance for pressing me to make these points more explicit. 61 Luther says, for instance, “Christ, that rich and pious husband, takes as a wife a needy and impious harlot, redeeming her from all her evils, and supplying her with all His good things” (113–114).

References Aquinas, Thomas. 1920. Summa Theologiae. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Athanasius. 1892. On the Incarnation of the Word. Translated by Archibald Robertson. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 4, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Augustine. 1887a. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods. In Nicene and PostNicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, First Series, vol. 2. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Augustine. 2008. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barbour, Ian G. 1990. Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures 1989–1991 Volume 1. London: SCM Press. Basil of, Caesarea. 1895. De Spiritu Sancto. Translated by Blomfield Jackson. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Second Series, vol. 8. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Bayne, Tim, and Greg Restall. 2009. “A Participatory Model of the Atonement.” In New Waves in Philosophy of Religion, edited by Yujin Nagasawa and Erik J. Wielenberg, 150–166. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bernard of Clairvaux. 1977. On Grace and Free Choice. Translated by Daniel O’Donovan. Rome: Cistercian Publications. Billings, J. Todd. 2007. “John Calvin: United to God Though Christ.” In Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, 200–218. Danvers, MA: Rosemont Publishing. Calvin, John. 1996. The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Cheng, Joey T., Jessica L. Tracy, and Joseph Henrich. 2010. “Pride, Personality, and the Evolutionary Foundations of Human Social Status.” Evolution and Human Behavior 31 (5): 334–347. doi: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.02.004. Christensen, Michael J. 2007. “The Problem, Promise, and Process of Theosis.” In Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, 23–31. Danvers, MA: Rosemont Publishing. Collins, C. John. 2011. Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why It Matters. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. Craig, William Lane. 2021. In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Salvation 155 Crisp, Oliver D. 2020. Approaching the Atonement: The Reconciling Work of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. De Smedt, Johan, and Helen De Cruz. 2014. “The Imago Dei as a Work in Progress: A Perspective from Paleoanthropology.” Zygon 49 (1): 135–156. doi: 10.1111/ zygo.12066. Dunnington, Kent. 2019. Humility, Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Finch, Jeffrey D. 2007. “Neo-Palamism, Divinizing Grace, and the Breach between East and West.” In Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, 233–249. Danvers, MA: Rosemont Publishing. Gavrilyuk, Paul L. 2009. “The Retrieval of Deification: How a Once-Despised Archaism Became an Ecumenical Desideratum.” Modern Theology 25 (4): 647– 659. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0025.2009.01558.x. Hart, David Bentley. 2022. You Are Gods: On Nature and Supernature. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Haught, John F. 2012. “Christianity and Human Evolution.” In The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, edited by J. B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett, 295–305. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Hick, John. 1979. Evil and the God of Love. Glasgow: William Collins Sons. Hill, Charles E. 2004. “Atonement in the Old and New Testaments.” In The Glory of the Atonement Biblical, Historical & Practical Perspectives, edited by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III, 23–34. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic. Irenaeus. 1885a. Against Heresies. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Jensen, Chris. 2007. “Shine as the Sun: C.S. Lewis and the Doctrine of Deification.” Road to Emmaus 8 (2): 40–62. Johnson, Adam J. 2015. Atonement: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. 2004. One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. Kharlamov, Vladimir. 2007. “Rhetorical Application of Theosis in Greek Patristic Theology.” In Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, 115–131. Danvers, MA: Rosemont Publishing, 2007. Kharlamov, Vladimir. 2008. “Theosis in Patristic Thought.” Theology Today 65 (2): 158–168. doi: 10.1177/004057360806500203. Kochan, Donald J. 2018. “Pride & Property: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Their Symbiotic Relationship.” Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 27 (2): 255–313. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2891716. Lewis, C. S. 1980. Mere Christianity. New York: Touchstone. Linman, Jonathan. 2007. “Martin Luther: ‘Little Christs for the World’; Faith and Sacraments as Means to Theosis.” In Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, 189–199. Danvers, MA: Rosemont Publishing.

156  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? Loader, William. 2018. “Revisiting High Priesthood Christology in Hebrews.” Zeitschrift Für Die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 109 (2): 235–283. doi: 10.1515/ znw-2018-0013. Lossky, Vladimir. 1989. Orthodox Theology: An Introduction. Translated by Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Lossky, Vladimir. 1991. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Cambridge: James Clark & Co. Luther, Martin. 1883. “Concerning Christian Liberty.” In First Principles of the Reformation, or the Ninety-Five Theses and the Three Primary Works of Dr. Martin Luther, edited by Henry Wace and C.H. Buchheim, 94–139. London: William Clowes and Sons. MacQueen, D. J. 1973. “Contemptus Dei: St Augustine on the Disorder of Pride in Society, and Its Remedies.” Recherches Augustiniennes Et Patristiques 9: 227–293. doi 10.1484/J.RA.5.102246. Mantzaridis, Georgios I. 1984. The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition. Translated by Liadain Sherrard. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Meyendorff, John. 1974. St Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality. Translated by Adele Fiske. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Meyendorff, John. 1983. Introduction to the Triads. Translated by Nicholas Gendle, 1–22. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Moffitt, David M. 2011. Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Leiden: Brill. Moffitt, David M. 2017. “Jesus’ Heavenly Sacrifice in Early Christian Reception of Hebrews: A Survey.” The Journal of Theological Studies 68 (1): 46–71. doi: 10.1093/ jts/flx085. Olson, Roger E. 2007. “Deification in Contemporary Theology.” Theology Today 64 (2): 186–200. doi: 10.1177/004057360706400205. Palamas, Gregory. 1983. The Triads. Translated by Nicholas Gendle. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Peacocke, A. R. 1979. Creation and the World of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peacocke, A. R. 1996. God and Science: A Quest for Christian Credibility. London: SCM Press. Petersen, Michael Bang, Daniel Sznycer, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby. 2012. “Who Deserves Help? Evolutionary Psychology, Social Emotions, and Public Opinion About Welfare.” Political Psychology 33 (3): 395–418. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00883.x. Putz, Oliver. 2009. “Moral Apes, Human Uniqueness, and the Image of God.” Zygon 44 (3): 613–624. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9744.2009.01019.x. Reeves, Michael, and Hans Madueme. 2014. “Threads in a Seamless Garment: Original Sin in Systematic Theology.” In Adam, the Fall, and Original Sin: Theological, Biblical, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Hans Madueme and Michael Reeves, 209–224. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Spezzano, Daria. 2015. The Glory of God’s Grace: Deification According to St. Thomas Aquinas. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Starr, James. 2007. “Does 2 Peter 1:4 Speak of Deification?” In Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, 81–92. Danvers, MA: Rosemont Publishing.

Salvation 157 Steinvorth, Ulrich. 2016. Pride and Authenticity. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Strobel, Kyle. 2012. “Jonathan Edwards and the Polemics of Theosis.” The Harvard Theological Review 105 (3): 259–279. doi: 10.1017/S0017816012000107. Swinburne, Richard G. 1985. “Original Sinfulness.” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 27 (3): 235–250. doi: 10.1515/ nzst.1985.27.1.235. Sznycer, Daniel, and Aaron W. Lukaszewski. 2019. “The Emotion–Valuation Constellation: Multiple Emotions Are Governed by a Common Grammar of Social Valuation.” Evolution and Human Behavior 40 (4): 395–404. doi: 10.1016/j. evolhumbehav.2019.05.002. Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. 1979. Christianity and Evolution: Reflections on Science and Religion. Translated by René Hague. New York: Harcourt. Tennant, F. R. 1902. The Origin and Propagation of Sin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tracy, Jessica L., and Richard W. Robins. 2007. “Emerging Insights into the Nature and Function of Pride.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 16 (3): 147– 150. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00493.x. Ware, Archimandrite Kallistos. 1979. The Orthodox Way. Oxford: Mowbrays. Ware, James P. 2014a. “Paul’s Understanding of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:36–54.” Journal of Biblical Literature 133 (4): 809–835. doi: 10.1353/jbl.2014.0055. Ware, James P. 2014b. “The Resurrection of Jesus in the Pre-Pauline Formula of 1 Cor 15.3–5.” New Testament Studies 60 (4): 475–98. doi: 10.1017/S0028688514000150. Weisfeld, Glenn E., and Lisa M. Dillon. 2012. “Applying the Dominance Hierarchy Model to Pride and Shame, and Related Behaviors.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 10 (1): 15–41. doi: 10.1556/JEP.10.2012.1.2. Williams, A. N. 1999. The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, N. P. 1929. The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: A Historical and Critical Study. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Zaehner, R. C. 1980. Mysticism Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into Some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7

On Orthodoxy

Throughout this study, I have argued that a nonlapsarian Christianity is exegetically, philosophically, and theologically viable. Of course, for those predisposed to a “sociological” understanding of Christianity which designates as Christian any theological project which claims the name, this thesis need not have been argued for in the preceding pages: for such thinkers, that there are in fact self-described Christian theologians who reject the Fall and Original Sin suffices to establish the legitimacy of the nonlapsarian enterprise. I have, however, consistently qualified my central claim by specifying the precise type of Christianity whose compatibility with nonlapsarianism I wish to defend, viz., orthodox Christianity. The more specific claim, then, is that rejecting the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin need not compromise orthodox Christianity. Immediately this claim is made explicit, however, a further question inevitably arises: what is meant by orthodoxy? This final chapter will be dedicated to an elucidation of (a) what I mean by orthodoxy; (b) where my ideas in this regard find their origin; and (c) how orthodoxy so understood allows for nonlapsarian theorizing. The main reason for my choice (tentatively) to elaborate an account of my own stems from the fact that there seems to be neither agreement nor much precision amongst many Christian theologians when it comes to the demarcation of orthodoxy. Turning our attention to the analytic sector where we should, perhaps, expect the most clarity, the general stream of opinion appears simply to take it for granted that the basic shape of orthodoxy is known in advance by readers. Whatever minutiae of distinction might be involved, it is largely interchangeable with the equally slippery word “traditional,” and is a workable proxy for belief in the sum total of the propositional content found within the ecumenical councils and creeds. So, for instance, William Wood (2016) avers that the “broadly orthodox” analytic theologian is preeminently in the business of developing and defending “traditional Christian doctrines like the trinity, Christology, and the atonement,” creedally understood (255).1 But orthodox designation is sometimes implicitly conferred beyond what is strictly creedal/conciliar: according to McCall (2019), affirming some doctrine of Original Sin is “beyond dispute for Christians” (203) on the grounds that it is “well-established by DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-10

On Orthodoxy 159 Scripture and attested to by the broad Christian tradition” enshrined in the Vincentian Canon (149). Similarly, while Stump’s (1999) careful elucidation of orthodoxy as a general term is admirable, when it comes to its application to the Christian faith there is only a rather vague (if understandable) explanatory indication in the direction of “the tradition” (159–160) and “the Bible and the creeds” (Stump and Kretzmann 1994, 282). Simply put, there is not enough in the way of clarity and precision on the question of Christian orthodoxy, even where we should most expect to find it. Thus considered, this chapter’s argument has much broader import than its location at the tail end of this book might suggest. For, in the slightly amended but nevertheless alarming words of Gavin D’Costa (2016, 108), “there seem to be no apparent agreed or recognisable authorities for judgment upon the legitimacy or otherwise of [certain theological enterprises] or of what actually defines being Christian” (my emphasis).2 My final objective, therefore, is to propose such an “authority” and to see whether its deployment permits or proscribes an abandonment of the Fall and Original Sin. It need scarcely be stated that the ultimate success of my project hinges vitally on the affirmation of the former possibility. Thankfully, the main contours of my thinking have largely been drawn for me, so much of what I have to say will be more in the nature of explication and critique, further elaboration, and analytic sharpening of what has come before than idiosyncratic, dogmatic fiat. In what follows, I shall explore Cyril O’Regan’s concept of biblical narrative grammar and Sameer Yadav’s concept of ontological commitment to a narrative, arguing that, though sound in the main, both stand in need of some amplification if they are to be employed in the service of proposing a standard for orthodoxy. Accordingly, I shall engage the work of N. T. Wright on theology and history to supply what I think is missing, leading to my central dogmatic proposition: a theological project is orthodox—that is, authentically Christian— just to the extent that it is ontologically committed to a specific rendition of biblical narrative grammar (which rendition, or family of renditions, is to be elaborated below). Conversely, a theological project is unorthodox just to the extent that it is not, or cannot be, ontologically committed to this fundamental grammar, whether or not language and concepts which ultimately derive from the Christian tradition remain operative. Finally, I shall conclude with a discussion of the ultimate compatibility of orthodoxy so understood with a nonlapsarian theology.

7.1  Biblical Narrative Grammar and Ontological Commitment In the first part of this Section, I will discuss the concept of biblical narrative grammar as Cyril O’Regan expounds it in Gnostic Return in Modernity, the programmatic text in his multi-volume work exploring the influence of Valentinian Gnosticism on various theological, philosophical, and literary movements in (Protestant) post-Reformation thought. Some of what

160  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? O’Regan has to say vis-à-vis the demarcation of orthodoxy has been suggested anew in a rather different context by Yadav, whose work I will visit in the succeeding part of this Section. I shall then take what I consider to be the ripest fruit from both approaches and develop them further in Section II. 7.1.1 Cyril O’Regan: Orthodoxy as Adherence to Biblical Narrative Grammar While O’Regan’s primary aim is, as I say, establishing a predominantly Valentinian genealogy for various modern thinkers, the method by which he seeks to substantiate this gnostic ascription is enormously relevant for our question of proposing a regula for orthodox Christian theology. Rehabilitating Ferdinand Christian Baur’s thesis of gnostic return, O’Regan contends that it is a misreading of the modern theological landscape to force a choice between “a newly minted rationalism” on the one hand and “an ancient and moribund orthodoxy” on the other (2001, 26). Rather, with Baur, he maintains that A third option is represented by the speculative strand of Christianity in the post-Reformation tradition, which not only has a vitality lacking in more traditional forms of Christianity but also represents the return of ancient forms of thought marginalized by emergent orthodoxy. If the Reformation is the condition of the possibility of this speculative strand of Christianity because of its pneumatic emphasis, it is the theosophic mystic Jacob Boehme who sets in motion a particular stream of Christian discourse that is further developed in Romanticism and German Idealism. (O’Regan 2001, 26–27) Instantiating this “third line” of Protestant discourse (neither orthodox nor liberal/rationalist) O’Regan has especially in mind, after Boehme, Hegel and his theological heirs, various English and German romantics (Blake being the modern Valentinian par excellence) (165), and, in the twentieth century, such figures as Paul Tillich, Thomas J. J. Altizer, and Jürgen Moltmann (5).3 For O’Regan, however, the suitability of this gnostic ascription has less to do with the exhortation to “discover the divine spark within one’s own self” (Wright 2006, 66) and rather more to do with narrative motifs “focused on the vicissitudes of (divine) reality’s fall from perfection, its agonic middle, and its recollection into perfection” (O’Regan 2001, 29). This general narrative arc O’Regan identifies as the golden thread running through the otherwise quite diverse texts of classical Valentinianism, and it is by virtue of compliance with this ontotheological narrative and its linguistic conventions that something will count as properly Valentinian.4 There is, however, an unresolved curiosity: how does a piece of theology governed by this Valentinian narrative grammar become characterized as a

On Orthodoxy 161 piece of Christian theology in the first place? The answer, O’Regan thinks, is given forceful expression by Irenaeus: By transferring [biblical] passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they [i.e., the Valentinians] succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions. Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox. (Irenaeus 1885a, I.8.1) Polemics aside, Irenaeus’ point is abundantly clear: while it is true that the Valentinian Gnostics appeal to the Christian scriptures at every turn for a defense of their speculative positions, they abuse the integrity of the biblical text by conferring upon it meanings that aren’t really there—that is, fundamentally, their reading of scripture is mistaken.5 Eisegesis is, unwittingly or not, prioritized over exegesis, and so the ostensibly intimate relationship that obtains between orthodox Christian and Valentinian narrative grammar does so on the basis of a strongly metaleptic rendering of the straightforwardly read biblical narrative. Metalepsis is, indeed, the heart of the matter for O’Regan (2001, 150): “Valentinianism is defined not only by a transgressive hermeneutic of scripture and an ironic relation to the God who is rendered in the text, but by a disfiguration-refiguration of the salvation history that renders the biblical God” (emphasis mine; cf. now Pearson 2006, chs. 6 and 8).6 Though easily mistaken for Christians, then, proponents of Valentinianism are Christian in appearance only: dressed head to toe in biblical fleece, but underneath ravenous wolves intent on disfiguring and then refiguring the text to fit a prior theological agenda (cf. Irenaeus 1885a, III.16.8).7 The upshot of this is that there is, according to Irenaeus, a proper way to read the biblical text. And, for O’Regan, it is this biblical text properly read which will produce a biblical (or Christian) narrative grammar as opposed to one that is Valentinian (or anything else for that matter). But this is far from an exercise in mere biblicism. Irenaeus himself backs up his orthodox reading of scripture by appealing to a living rule of faith which is said to find its genesis in the teachings of the apostles themselves (see Osborn 2009, 48–51). Briefly, his rule or standard for an orthodox reading of scripture will, according to O’Regan (2001, 162), yield doxastic commitment to: (1) (proto-)Trinitarian divine perfection and fullness which remains ever unbroken; (2) The Father as good and omnipotent creator of all; (3) A Fall of human beings into sin;

162  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? (4) Jesus Christ as incarnate word, “the redeemer who suffers, dies, and is resurrected”; (5) The (potential) inclusion of all in Christ’s objective8 saving work “by faith in Jesus Christ, good works, and hope in the resurrection.”9 As O’Regan points out, however, there is a circularity inherent in the regula which demands rectification: “Something of a hermeneutic circle seems to exist between the summary theological conclusions and the principles of reading with reading oriented toward [certain] summary theological conclusions, and [certain] theological conclusions functioning as the presuppositions for principles of reading” (161).10 Irenaeus seems simply to assume that the “catholic” way of reading scripture, which finds expression across the whole of the Roman Empire and beyond, is the correct way of reading it, and that recalcitrance with respect to these interpretive results bespeaks—well, heresy. For Irenaeus, then, a given piece of theology counts as Christian if it complies with a reading of scripture11 that results in—or at least does not undermine—a realist affirmation of (1)–(5) above. It is here that O’Regan’s positive contributions, copious though they are, terminate in a dead end; for his solution to this Irenaean circularity is nothing if not underwhelming. The first step is right: we must recognize that Irenaeus offers us a “rendition of biblical narrative grammar” rather than its only possible instance (162). But this is the only step O’Regan ultimately takes. The Irenaean circle is overcome simply by “consistently holding to a grammatical view of biblical narrative that has as a correlative recognition that all articulation of biblical narrative is an interpretation” (167). We are left wondering which interpretations are licit, and what precisely it is by virtue of which a given articulation might count as “holding to a grammatical view of biblical narrative”—the only clues given are that (1) genuine biblical narrative grammar takes seriously the “biblical narrative of creation, redemption, and sanctification” (153) and (2) these—indeed all the scriptures—are to be interpreted in a more or less “sober, literal style” (161).12 This, simply put, is not good enough. We need to know why creation, redemption, and sanctification constitute the primary arc of the biblical narrative, what these words actually mean, and, finally, on what exegetical grounds we can be confident these things are so. We need, in other words, to engage more closely with the biblical texts, sensitive in particular to how they would have been understood in their sitz im leben. 7.1.2  Sameer Yadav: Ontological Commitment to a Narrative Yadav (2017), too, gets a good deal exactly right. As he sees things, the key to ameliorating theological tribalism is to recognize that all Christian theologians are one insofar as they are “ontologically committed to a Christian narrative of creation and redemption…a Christian story of creation and redemption through Christ” (76)—where “ontological commitment”

On Orthodoxy 163 denotes affirmation of a real-world state of affairs that makes a given proposition the case (i.e., serves as the proposition’s truthmaker).13 The Christian theological task, then, at least on the “metadogmatic” level, is to determine “the meaning, reference, or significance of some such story” (77). So far, so good. He agrees, moreover, that this story will entail close engagement with scripture and some of its interpretive traditions; due mainly to the scope of the paper, however, there is precious little in the way of suggesting which readings of scripture might be legitimate, which stories are justifiably derived therefrom, and, again, on what grounds these things are so. Yadav is, I believe, correct to underscore the paramount importance of ontological— and not just linguistic or sociological— commitment to a certain narrative in Christian dogmatics. But if we are to take the further step in deciding what counts as an authentic piece of Christian theology, much more work needs to be done. For we still do not have any clear idea of which story is the right story, and, significantly, which Christ the right Christ. As Alister McGrath (2009, 23) helpfully observes in this connection, “Christians do more than simply trust in God or in Christ. They also believe certain quite definite things about them.” We cannot, then, simply leave things hanging at the meta-dogmatic level; to do so would be to consider all nominally Christian theological projects equally worthy of the name, and thus to allow anything and everything to count as properly Christian, so long as it draws—however loosely—on scripture and tradition. Let me explain in a bit more detail what I mean. I quote Yadav at length: Interpreted on my metadogmatic theory, you would thus hold that whereas some look to the relevant Christian story of creation and redemption to derive the propositional or cognitive content it conveys about some objective religious realities, others look to that story as a norm for expressing the content of a Christian religious experience, and others find in it the regulative rules that govern a Christian form of life. In each case, some suitably identified story of creation and redemption is serving as the basis for “doctrine” variously understood. Christian doctrines, therefore, are expressions of whatever the relevant sort of content is that a narrative of creation and redemption conveys as Christian teaching. (Yadav 2017, 78–79) I have two concerns here. First, if we are to utilize Yadav’s theory here, it is far too imprecise to speak of a or some “narrative of creation and redemption.”14 As we have seen O’Regan argue, the Valentinian Gnostics and their theological successors emphatically do identify “some such story”, and they are profoundly biblical in the highly qualified sense that they utilize language and concepts that derive from scripture, and, more particularly, from the orthodox rendering of the biblical narrative (cf. Highfield 2008, 60: “Over and over during the church’s long history, heretics have been able

164  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? to communicate their heresies in the language of Scripture”). Presumably Yadav would want to deny Valentinianism a place at the Christian theological table, but then he does not elaborate on what he means by “suitably identified story” or, indeed, “Christian.” On what grounds is a given narrative grammar deemed (un)suitable? On what grounds does a narrative of creation and redemption merit the predicate Christian? He does not say: his task is metadogmatic. That is for others to debate. As it stands, then, it seems Yadav’s account leaves the door open to far more than he might realize. The second and related problem, however, cuts even deeper. Yadav first isolates one strand of Christian theology which seems especially concerned to preserve a measure of theological realism: these thinkers seek to “derive the propositional or cognitive content [that the biblical story] conveys about some objective religious realities.” He then goes on to enumerate two other theological strands which, we are to presume, are somewhat less concerned with the propositional content expressed in the biblical narrative. The main issue here, however, is that it is precisely the propositional content implicit in a given rendition of the biblical story that grounds the story’s claim to normativity vis-à-vis religious experience, Christian ethics, and so on: it is because the biblical story affirms the real-world ontology of x that y is and can be the case. So, for instance, if my personal estimation of the biblical narrative sweep is broadly mystico-symbolic, I will be inclined to interpret Luke 10:38–4215 as affirming the proposition .16 Consequently, I will, to a certain degree, disdain what Evelyn Underhill (1923, 561) once called “narrow” forms of Christianity—that is, any non-esoteric form of Christianity—and do my theology accordingly.17 Similarly, if I approach biblical interpretation exclusively from the standpoint of nineteenth century higher criticism, the relevant propositional content I glean from the pages of scripture will include very little about the historical words and deeds of Jesus—and so I will be forced to begin my theologizing with various metaphysical and epistemological tools utterly alien to whatever is left of the mangled “biblical story.” Without fundamental agreement on the basic shape of the biblical narrative, and without agreement on the propositional and cognitive content implied therein—without, that is, basic agreement on worldview—theological unity will remain elusive, if not prove ultimately chimeric. In effect, we are being asked to believe that worldview does not count for much in Christian theology, that it is incidental, and not essential, to genuine Christian faith. This is not, of course, to pronounce a harsh judgement on Yadav’s work. There is, in point of fact, appreciably more in his article I would affirm than dispute. I am, for example, very grateful for his noble attempt at conciliation, and his proposed definitions of orthodoxy and heresy are, by my lights, exactly on target (and so I shall be employing them implicitly below).18 But as for offering a sufficient account of what it is that unites all authentically Christian theological projects, I am afraid I must demur. Like O’Regan

On Orthodoxy 165 before him, too much has been left unsaid. He does offer a seriously appetite-whetting indication as to where this conversation needs to go, but comes up well shy of endorsing it full stop. “One” rendition of the biblical story, he says, “might” involve heavy focus on redemption first mediated through the life of Israel and then through the fulfillment of Israel’s promises in the arrival of their promised Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth…[in whose] life, death, and resurrection from the dead, God the Son came to dwell with humankind and remedy the alienation and death brought by human sin…[and so on]. (Yadav 2017, 76) It may be that Yadav considers the relevant propositional content implicit in the preceding quotation to be, in many ways, essential to every project in Christian theology. He has not said so explicitly, but even this is not my main bone to pick. Rather, it is this: the metaleptic door by which the Valentinians entered in O’Regan’s analysis is still very much ajar. What is needed for the airtight preservation of orthodoxy—that is, Christianity— are some clear guidelines as to how “Israel,” “messiah,” “Jesus of Nazareth,” “Father,” “Son,” etc. are to be understood propositionally, and how they tie in with scripture’s narrative so understood. And for this task, we turn to N. T. Wright’s work on theology and history.

7.2  N. T. Wright and the Dominical Micronarrative We now turn to the more constructive contribution of this chapter. Building upon the sound foundations laid by O’Regan and Yadav, I shall attempt in this section to tie up their loose ends and provide an account of biblical narrative grammar which will circumvent the deleterious consequences discussed above. In conversation with N. T. Wright, I aim to elucidate a reasonably clear biblical hermeneutic which will, in turn, sketch the main contours for a “generous orthodoxy” (O’Regan 2001, 13), a middle course between the recommendations of Irenaeus and Yadav. 7.2.1  N. T. Wright on Jesus To indicate up front where this section is going: “Jesus was a first-century Jew, not a nineteenth- or twentieth-century western liberal” (Wright 1996, 447). Of course much more may be substituted for the negative clause in this sentence. Jesus was not, Tertullian would insist, a middle Platonist; he was not, Irenaeus inveighs, an esoteric revealer of the path to gnosis; Jesus was not a modern fundamentalist, a Reformed cessationist, a Hickian pluralist,19 nor, for that matter, was he an obdurate champion of creedal orthodoxy. Jesus was a first-century, second temple Jew, and it is this fact, I propose, which is principally to define the cordoned area within which any

166  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? authentically Christian theological project must work. The hermeneutical suggestion is not, of course, “Jesus (dis)believed it? So be it!” Categorically not. Rather, the suggestion is this: if we are to give a satisfactory answer to D’Costa’s question about what the word Christian actually means, we must first get clear on who Christ was (and is), what he thought he was doing, and what ends he sought to achieve. For, in the words of Aristides of Athens, “As for the Christians, they trace their line from the Lord Jesus Christ” (see Aristides 1896, 2; Stevenson 1957, 56)—a flesh and blood human being with a very real historical existence. Adequately to explore the voluminous contributions of N. T. Wright would, of course, be impossible here. Happily, however, the trajectory of much of his earlier work may be found compendiously summarized in a chapter from his recent Gifford Lectures. As Wright sees it, the problem with much contemporary thought is what he calls “pizzicato theology”: “doing theology … without engaging in the tasks of history is like playing the violin without a bow” (2019, 74).20 Sans serious historical spadework, theology is but a dull imitation of what it could be.21 Failure fully to engage and make theologically central the Jesus of history, Wright thinks, leads naturally to a characterization of orthodox Christianity as basically creedal/conciliar: those who are inclined to defend the theological formulations of, say, Nicaea and Chalcedon are orthodox (cf. 105, 122–124), and those who object to them are not. Consequently, one way or another, the creeds and councils rather than Christ himself become the starting point for our theologizing. Wright does not mean that the creeds and councils are not useful; on the contrary, they are helpful—perhaps even ultimately necessary—for Christian self-definition (cf. 1992, 368).22 But in the end, they omit several key elements of Jesus’ identity, circumstantially located and specifically teleologically oriented as they are (see, e.g., 2012, 10–20).23 They are later, context-specific “attempt[s] to recapture [preserve?] … something central in the early texts” (2019, 122). Beginning with the formulations themselves therefore risks not only the discouragement of fresh theological investigation but, more crucially, risks ousting Jesus the first-century Palestinian Jew in favor of an ahistorical theological abstraction. Simply put, we are in danger of circumscribing the full effect historical investigation of Jesus might have on our dogmatic conclusions (1996, 26; 2019, 124–125). Which Jesus, then, is the right Jesus? According to Wright, we have, in fact, what amounts to genuine historical knowledge of a number of things concerning Jesus of Nazareth (2019, 100, 120–122).24 We know, for one, that he was a prophet-like figure “bearing an urgent eschatological, and indeed apocalyptic, message for Israel” (1996, 150), and we know that the content and significance of this message is to be situated (and thus understood) broadly within the mainstream of contemporary Judaism, aligning nearly enough with the beliefs and hermeneutical norms of the Pharisees (see Tomson 2001). In terms of biblical interpretation, then, there is little room to argue that Jesus’ self-understanding with regard to the scriptures was

On Orthodoxy 167 primarily symbolic, allegorical, or metaphorical rather than “sober” and “literal.” Given the unanimous witness of the earliest Christians, then, it is, for Wright, simply a matter of historical fact that as the (alleged) anointed (Heb. mashiach, Gk. Christos) of Israel’s God, Jesus understood himself and his vocation as quite literally involving, among other things: (a) The summing up in his own person of the historically extended vocation of Israel (and thus, by extension, “the rescue and restoration of the entire creation” [1992, 268]);25 (b) The climax of Israel’s story, the fulfilment of Israel’s hope, and the initial arrival of the eschaton (2003, 726; 1992, 370) in (c) The inauguration of the Kingdom of God over against the kingdoms of the world, with Jesus himself, of course, as king (2012, 127–154; cf. 2019, 100); (d) The reconstitution of God’s covenant people in the community of Jesus’ followers (2012, 105–125). Though more can be said along these lines, (a)–(d) will suffice for our purposes here. We have, then, a fairly good idea of what the historical Jesus said and did, and why he said and did those things. We know, that is, what his intentions were (so Paget 2001, 147–148). The only remaining question is whether these intentions were merely pretensions—whether, like Simon bar Kokhba a century later, his messianic ambitions were decisively thwarted by Roman might, or whether there was ultimately some (literal) truth to his (literal) claims.26 For Wright, of course, the heart of the matter is the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.27 Without this epoch-making event, he thinks, there is simply no historical sense to be made of the phenomenon that is the early church, and certainly no reason to take Jesus’ messianic claims seriously (2003, 683– 738; cf. 2019, 192–198). There could not plausibly be a period of time after Good Friday in which the earliest Christians simultaneously revered Jesus as messiah and kyrios and failed to affirm his resurrection (cf. Bockmuehl 2001). And so, in addition to what we have said in the preceding few paragraphs, (e) the resurrection, too—literally understood—must be marked down as a non-negotiable, indeed the sine qua non of the Christian faith. This is not because Jesus’ resurrection itself is historically certain in the same way his crucifixion is;28 it is, rather, because without it, there would be no even mildly compelling reason to believe any proposition expressed, explicitly or implicitly, in (a)–(d) above. It is an all or nothing affair (cf. Rowe 2016, 93–94, 222–223). I do not, clearly, mean to embark on a full-scale defense of all this here. What should be plain, however, is that ontological commitment to “some” rendition of biblical narrative grammar is not nearly strong enough if we are to think about Jesus responsibly; what’s needed is ontological commitment to a particular (historically tenable) micronarrative within a particular metanarrative, viz., any one of those renderings of the biblical narrative

168  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? which the micronarrative conceptually presupposes (call this metanarrative BMN). In other words, while the dominical micronarrative containing (a)–(e) (henceforth dmn) is foundational for the early Christian movement, dmn itself stands or falls with the general metanarrative of which it is the climax.29 Narrative coherence and believability here cut both ways: without a particular biblical metanarrative which affirms, say, the historical election of Israel by Yahweh and their long-term interactions, the micronarrative consisting of Jesus’ Kingdom proclamation, healing ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension is meaningless; without this dominical micronarrative, there is little reason to concern ourselves at all with Jesus or any biblical metanarrative of which he is no longer a part.30 7.2.2  The Central Proposition With this, then, we have what the previously surveyed accounts lacked. Both, it will be recalled, failed to explain on what precise grounds a given reading of the biblical narrative might be deemed (il)legitimate. I suggest that, for followers and worshippers of Jesus Christ (read: Christians), there is only one family of renditions of the biblical narrative which is licit, namely, the one whose renditions are ontologically committed to dmn and therefore BMN as well. My central proposition, then, is: (CPO): A piece of theology T is authentically Christian—that is, orthodox—to the extent that it is ontologically committed to dmn and BMN Conversely, (CPH ): A piece of theology T is un-Christian—that is, unorthodox or heretical—to the extent that it is not ontologically committed to dmn and BMN Implicit in CPH is also the following claim, more explicitly stated: (CPH*) Any piece of theology T which would entail ~[dmn ⋅ BMN] is unorthodox The upshot here is that T can be unorthodox even if it does not explicitly reject—indeed, even if it nominally affirms—dmn and BMN. On this understanding, Arianism was unorthodox long before it was anathematized insofar as it is committed to a theological view which, once fully worked out, would mean a rejection of some element contained in dmn.31 The same may be said for views which construe the theological landscape too narrowly, plausibly, for instance, Paul’s Judaizing opponents in his epistle to the Galatians (cf. Blomberg 2002, 71–72). It goes without saying that CPO is not exactly minimal, as authentic Christianity so rendered is seen to entail ontological commitment to a good deal that many theologians today would deny. It does at the very least appear

On Orthodoxy 169 to require commitment to a rather strong form of theological realism.32 But neither is CPO terribly restrictive: considerable space is opened faithfully to question a number of erstwhile “orthodox” doctrines that do not seem likely to impinge on dmn or BMN; there is ample room for “significant innovation and even stretching” (O’Regan 2001, 13), as I will argue more explicitly in the next section. Note too how this characterization of orthodoxy and heresy allows for a flexible theological dynamic of exploration and retreat, and this despite what was suggested immediately above. As McGrath (2009) takes great pains to demonstrate, many of the early Christian heresies were only acknowledged as such after decades of theological debate, discussion, and reflection. What ends up as heresy once all potential ramifications are thought through often begins its career as an innocent and heartfelt attempt to articulate in new ways the central truths of the gospel. Hence—please do not misunderstand me—CPO may be understood more as a theological shock collar than a visible fence: sometimes, we will not know in advance which theological or philosophical propositions and formulations are out of bounds. CPO I think positively encourages exploration of these areas, though it will be swift to inform us when we must draw back. At least that is the hope. A brief word concerning the relationship between CPO and the idea of biblical inspiration is also in order. Very few theologians, I take it, would see perfectly eye to eye when it comes to the authority of scripture. One felicitous consequence of utilizing CPO as a standard for orthodoxy, however, is that some of the more contentious questions surrounding the issue of inspiration may be sidestepped while still affording the biblical text a place of theological preeminence. The line of thought runs as follows: if our theological reflection begins with scripture qua inspired word of God, solid, historically engaged exegesis will be highly prized, but there will be few stable guards against arbitrariness when it comes to the applicability of a given text for today. Should same-sex relationships be celebrated in the body of Christ? The answer would depend in part upon the degree of divine inspiration one is willing to concede to a text like Rom 1:18ff. If, à la Hays (1996, 379–406), one is inclined to understand Paul here as tacitly issuing a blanket condemnation of same-sex sexual activity, the game is not necessarily won for Paul’s supporters: one can always argue that some texts are to be taken as more (or less) authoritative than others. It would, of course, be hard not to see such appeals as arbitrary, but it is arguably no more awkward a position to be in than its non-arbitrary alternative, where every single proposition affirmed within scripture is to be affirmed by the Christian, too.33 Thus, if the theological task originates with an a priori assumption of a text as divinely inspired, it seems likely we will wreck on the Scylla of personal say-so and the Charybdis of an extreme sort of biblical inerrancy. On the other hand, if we begin our theologizing with the historical revelation of Jesus, we are in some ways in an analogous position to the New Testament writers themselves: we are reflecting on a reality we have, at a distance, “seen” and “touched” (1 Jn. 1:1), recognizing we may not always

170  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? have the right answers. But this still raises a question of source. What are the texts and traditions that draw today’s readers closest to the authentic Jesus of history? There is, to my mind, no question about it: the various writings which together constitute the New Testament supply us with far and away the best access to Jesus. And this is not because they are presumed to be inspired; rather, it is because they were shaped, shared, performed, and exchanged within communities in which those who knew Jesus intimately had been an unbroken guiding presence and who themselves established the worship patterns the New Testament came later to ratify (cf. McGrath 2009, 79–80).34 CPO will therefore inevitably retain the New Testament as the theological norm of norms, alongside the Old Testament without which text there is no hope of understanding the New. Still, the written word will play second fiddle to the incarnate word. Since the standard I am proposing primarily concerns the historical integrity of Jesus and his mission, various interpretive preferences and views about the inspiration of later (and indeed prior) texts are left open. Hence, on this view, individual theories about the authority of scripture are irrelevant to one’s orthodoxy—unless, that is, it can be demonstrated that one theory or other compromises dmn or BMN (or both). I think it necessary also to highlight the inherently conservative nature, etymologically understood, of orthodoxy as I have presented it here. I hope it is clear that, at base, I take CPO’s aim to be the conservation of the necessary conditions which must be secured if Jesus Christ is to be of any relevance at all—theologically or existentially. If Christ was not approximately what dmn maintains, I do not see much hope for Christian theology. It is, as Alan Torrance (2001) insists, a stark either-or. If we do not commit ourselves ontologically to the Jesus of dmn, the responsible thing to do is to “abandon him to the sands of history” (218). Absent this intrinsically conservative posture, then—and I will be forgiven for speaking plainly—I sincerely wonder what Christian theologians think they are doing. From where I stand, any theological project not ontologically committed to dmn and BMN requires an up-front apologia as to why it still counts as Christian, that is, how it authentically engages a certain historical man from Nazareth. Hence the broader application of this chapter: we as Christian theologians need to think deeply and carefully about what it means to do Christian theology and, more fundamentally, “what actually defines being Christian” (D’Costa 2016, 108).35 By virtue of what does my theological project—or any other—count as an instance of genuine Christian theology? I have given my answer, controversial though it be. Finally, it goes without saying that this account of orthodoxy is merely approximate and, if elaborated for its own sake, would require further development and defense. And there are, of course, a number of questions and objections which might be raised—not least with regard to the proper designation of theological projects which are not (or cannot be) ontologically committed to dmn and BMN, yet are almost universally regarded as

On Orthodoxy 171 “Christian” nonetheless. By no means, then, do I intend to pre-empt further debate and discussion. For the purposes of this book, however, the sketch provided above is, I think, sufficient. We have a rough standard for orthodox Christianity which is theologically capacious and, it should be reemphasized, very closely tracks the realist theological core foundational to the worship and mission of the early church.

7.3  Nonlapsarian Orthodoxy? To sum up the argument of this chapter so far: I have proposed an account of Christian orthodoxy utilizing Cyril O’Regan’s concept of biblical narrative grammar and Sameer Yadav’s general concept of Christian doctrine as ontological commitment to a biblical narrative. I have argued, however, that both stand in need of further development if they are to be of use to us here. Accordingly, I have employed the work of N. T. Wright to argue for a “dominical micronarrative” (dmn) and attendant biblical metanarrative (BMN) which together constitute the formal conceptual matrix for biblical narrative grammar and thus Christian orthodoxy. In fine, a piece of Christian theology counts as orthodox just in case it is ontologically committed to dmn and BMN, and a piece of theology is unorthodox to the extent that it is not or cannot be so committed. It only remains to be seen if this conception of orthodoxy vitiates the argument of my wider thesis, namely, that a nonlapsarian theology is compatible with a robust Christian orthodoxy. 7.3.1  Compatibility Argument To my mind, it is prima facie unlikely that rejection of Original Sin would in any way threaten dmn or even BMN. As was suggested in Chapter 3, Section II.1 while reflecting on St. Paul’s primary purposes in Rom. 5, it would be very strange indeed to reject, say, the resurrection of Christ on the grounds that a human-initiated Fall into sin and death is not tenable. To do so would be to commit the same mistake as the man who insists his ransacked house could not have been broken into on the grounds that the doors were locked and he is in possession of the only key; just as the man fails to consider the possibility of the burglar’s entrance through an open window, so a nonlapsarian objector, confronted with the fact of the resurrection, here fails to consider the possibility of there being other ways sin, death, and corruption might obtain in a world created by the wise and loving God of scripture—in other words, we are back to the Responsibility Argument of Chapter 5. It is, then, implausible to posit Original Sin as a necessary conceptual presupposition for the resurrection of Christ. Similarly for the other elements of dmn: the summing up and climax of the story of Israel, the arrival of the Kingdom of God, the reconstitution of God’s covenant people—all certainly appear to be theoretically compatible with an evolutionary origin of

172  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? sin; certainly there is no evident reason they should not be. So long as we can make sense of God initiating a long-term covenant with a stiff-necked and disobedient people, and so long as we commit ourselves to whatever requisite metaphysical views are needed to ground this interaction, it seems both dmn and BMN can likely be secured. And that is all that is needed for orthodoxy on my account. There is, of course, a serious question to be asked about certain renditions of BMN, as several of these will include the Fall as a central narratival component.36 According to James K. A. Smith (2017, 51), for instance, a “‘catholic’ reading of scripture” demands faithful adherence to the biblical “narrative arc” or plot which runs: “goodness of creation, a fall into sin, redemption of all things in Christ, and the eschatological consummation of all things.”37 The reason for the inclusion of the Fall in this rendition of biblical narrative grammar, however, appears to be an even mix of preserving the goodness of God and remaining in step with the theological tradition constituted by creeds, confessions, and various influential theologians, a tradition which interprets Gen. 2–3 and Rom. 5 in a very particular way.38 I have argued in Chapter 5 that the first of these motives is misplaced; as for appeal to the tradition, a brief word must be said. While I of course agree with Stump (1999, 159–160) that traditional doctrines must be parted with, if at all, only after immensely careful consideration of motives and consequences,39 it seems to me we must take seriously the possibility of the tradition being mistaken in certain respects, as may be the case with the doctrine of Original Sin. Even many conservative theologians, I imagine, affirm this in practice: why, we might ask Smith, is the theological tradition binding in this instance, but not in every instance? Why is the tradition authoritative for this reading of Genesis and Romans but not authoritative when it comes to the question of, say, women in ministry and the relevant biblical texts? If it is the tradition itself which commands authority, there is no reason this appeal shouldn’t apply equally to the Perpetual Virginity of Mary,40 the use of contraceptives,41 homosexuality, and so on. If, however, the appeal is to a more subtle synthesis of biblical interpretation and theological tradition, then it is hard to see how Smith doesn’t fall prey to the aforementioned Irenaean circle himself: an acceptable reading of scripture is one which yields the correct theological conclusions (including the Fall), and the correct theological conclusions are determined in advance by traditional ecumenical consensus. Hence, either way, “the tradition” will stand out as an unassailable bulwark that cannot be questioned, let alone successfully contested; in this case in particular, any interpretive diversity with respect to Gen. 2–3 and Rom. 5 is ruled out a priori, as are all broadly nonlapsarian renditions of the Christian faith. It seems, then, as though Smith is dangerously close to affirming the tradition cannot be mistaken. If so, he should either accept everything else in this tradition, or else provide us with a non-arbitrary reason to think Original Sin is necessary in a way other traditional doctrines are not.

On Orthodoxy 173 But to opt for this latter strategy would be to change the game entirely; the appeal to tradition turns out on analysis to be largely subterfuge. The primary issue, it seems clear, has exceedingly little to do with ecumenical consensus per se, and almost everything to do with the source of a given teaching and the structural position it holds within the overall edifice of Christian theology. Hence the relevant question is not, Have Christians always believed this doctrine or read a given text in such-and-such a way? Rather, the question is this: is this doctrine foundational, and do the biblical texts which are said to buttress it admit of other feasible interpretations? In other words: can an (otherwise) orthodox theology both soundly stand without this doctrine and remain faithful to scripture? It will come as no surprise to the reader to hear me answer in the affirmative. Indeed, this entire book might reasonably be understood as a rejoinder to many of the concerns raised, both implicitly and explicitly, in Smith’s elaboration of scripture’s narrative arc. In essence, Smith has argued that biblical narrative grammar—that is, orthodoxy—includes a Fall doctrine on the grounds that it is both scriptural and foundational to the whole of Christian theology. In this book, I have argued that Original Sin is indeed an ecumenical or “traditional” doctrine (Chapter 1), and so we agree on that much. But I have also, I think, demonstrated that, plausibly, Original Sin is neither necessarily scriptural (Chapters 2 and 3) nor foundational for the rest of our theologizing (Chapters 4–6). Therefore, if my analysis of Smith’s appeal to tradition is right, we have what is needed to ensure the (possible) orthodoxy of a nonlapsarian theological project. Rejecting Original Sin does nothing in itself to challenge dmn and BMN directly, and, if the argument of this book is on target, neither does it entail further consequences that might ultimately throw dmn and BMN into question by a more indirect means. Original Sin is not, as Reeves and Madueme (2014, 210) suppose, an essential thread in the orthodox garment, the pulling of which will result in the unravelling of the garment itself. On the contrary, I submit it is much more like a pocket on the garment of Christian orthodoxy: a very convenient adjunct which has historically served as a temporary shelter for various important theological ideas and concerns, but whose absence ultimately proves inoffensive to the integrity of the overall garment. Tug on the thread, and only the pocket comes off; Christian orthodoxy remains fully intact. The burden of proof, it seems to me, is on the objector to show why the triumph of Christ over sin and death, with all its marvelous effects, cannot be secured without affirming also the doctrine of Original Sin. 7.3.2  Orthodoxy throughout the Book In closing, I would like to lay out briefly (but explicitly and methodically) how the various chapters in this study relate to the question of orthodoxy as construed in this chapter. First, Chapter 1 argued (among other things) that Original Sin is an ecumenical Christian doctrine. One outstanding question

174  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? at the chapter’s end had to do with what we might call the objection from ecumenical consensus: how can a theological project both contradict certain aspects of traditional Christian teaching and remain orthodox? Answer: it is ontological commitment to dmn and BMN that makes a given piece of theology orthodox (CPO), and so any universally held doctrine which does not impinge on dmn and BMN is fair game for interrogation. The remainder of the book, then, attempts to show that discarding Original Sin does not necessarily entail the negative consequences for biblical narrative grammar which are commonly said to follow. Hence, Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the authority of scripture as it relates to a nonlapsarian project. Above (Chapter 7, Section II.2) it was argued that CPO will “inevitably retain the New Testament as the theological norm of norms, alongside the Old Testament without which text there is no hope of understanding the New.” Granted that this is so, a nonlapsarian theology will need to engage closely with the texts that have historically been utilized to ground Original Sin in scripture—in short, what are we to make of Gen. 2–3 and Rom. 5? Then in Chapter 4 we turned to a clearly central feature of dmn, namely the concept of sin. Having spelled out what precisely scripture means by this word, we proceeded to discuss the origin and destiny of sin along nonlapsarian lines. Chapter 5 argued that an evolutionary origin of sin is plausibly no more problematic for the God of dmn than is the traditional Fall doctrine; Chapter 6 elaborated a soteriological account which is both “traditional” and fully consistent with dmn. I therefore conclude that a nonlapsarian orthodox Christianity is very much a live option.

Notes





1 For Wood’s apparent identification of “traditional Christian orthodoxy” with “creedal orthodoxy,” see (257 with note 4). This creedal characterization of orthodoxy abounds in analytic theology. See, for instance, the Flint-Mullins exchange across vols. 3–5 of the Journal of Analytic Theology and the symposium on Jc Beall’s Christ—A Contradiction in vol. 7 of the same. 2 At this stage D’Costa himself appeals to the magisterium of the Catholic Church. Such a standard would not, of course, be acceptable to every Christian theologian today, but it is (in my view) much better than failing to reckon openly with our deep theological divides or, what’s worse, pretending we are all fundamentally engaged in the same sort of task. 3 It should be stated explicitly that I care neither to affirm nor gainsay O’Regan’s individual designations at present. I am O’Regan’s humble messenger and nothing more. 4 Once again, the accuracy of O’Regan’s thesis as it pertains to theogony is neither here nor there for our purposes. David Bentley Hart (2022, 76) may be right to press O’Regan on this point, though it’s not clear to me O’Regan’s proposed genealogy would fail on account of the Bythos/Pleroma split alone: if Hart is correct about Bythos being alone truly divine, this doesn’t preclude the quasi-divine emanations from Bythos (including, importantly, the creator of the material world), themselves plainly involved in an ontotheological narrative, serving as O’Regan’s genealogical wellspring. Moreover, Valentinus was

On Orthodoxy 175

















certainly understood by some of his contemporaries as seeking to explain the origin of God simpliciter (e.g., Tertullian [1885, ch. 7]). 5 This is, needless to say, a recurring theme in Against Heresies. Nonstandard biblical interpretations are, to take but a few examples at random, “perverse,” “non-natural,” “misrepresentations,” “improper,” and “corrupt” (I.3.6, I.9.4, I.20.1, II.28.9, III.17.4, respectively). 6 Gnostic exegesis of biblical texts, Pearson says, is characterized by a hermeneutic of self-conscious “revolt” against more orthodox interpretations. 7 To be sure, O’Regan does not think Boehme, Hegel, Blake et al. are Valentinian in the same sense various Nag Hammadi texts are. Rather, his claim is only that their central ontotheological and theogonic thrusts operate comfortably within a six-part narrative of divine fall and return which bears the hallmark of classical Valentinianism. The obvious disconnects between classical and modern Valentinian discourses O’Regan accounts for by invoking the concept of “rule-governed deformation.” The reigning metanarrative remains basically Valentinian, even if other influences—most notably Neoplatonism, apocalypticism, and the Kabbalah—deform and then reform the project’s overall shape in various ways. See (45, 204ff.). 8 As opposed to a Valentinian interpretation wherein Christ’s passion is primarily, if not exclusively, pedagogic; Valentinianism “systematically denies transformative power of an ontological sort to Christ’s passion and death” (O’Regan [2001, 114]). 9 In my view, Irenaeus would probably insist on making a sixth commitment more explicit, viz., that the same covenanting God and Father is the author of both ‘dispensations’. 10 This circle is especially evident in Irenaeus (1885a, I.9.4 and IV.32.1). 11 I will not here be entering into a discussion of what precisely Irenaeus means by “scripture.” Whatever it is, it is sufficiently close to our Old and New Testament canon to warrant its non-discussion here. 12 At least I take it O’Regan would agree with this—he is here speaking of a “meta-aspect” to Irenaeus’ rule of faith, but I would be very surprised, given the whole thrust of the book, if he did not subscribe to this meta-aspect himself, at least to some significant degree. For Irenaeus’ fragmented commentary on (and endorsement of) “sober” biblical interpretation, see, e.g., (1885a, II.2.5, II.27.1–2, II.28.1–3, III.12.11, IV.35.4, IV.41.4). 13 So, for instance, “if some feature of a Christian story includes a sentence such as ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,’ and if the doctrinal content expressed by that sentence is a proposition that represents God’s being in Christ reconciling the world to himself as an objective reality, then Christians are (or ought to be) ontologically committed to there being something (or some things) that makes (or make) it the case that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (80). 14 Cf. “some such story” on (77) and the various “somes” on (80). Jason Stigall and Preston Hill have helpfully emphasized that the use of words such as “some” and “might” here may only indicate Yadav’s adherence to a stylistic convention. I grant this, but my point remains unaffected regardless of how the words are meant: we need something much more specific. 15 The incidence of this proof text in the Christian mystical literature is simply astonishing—pointing to any one as an example would be both needless and arbitrary (though, on second thought, it may perhaps be most easily located by picking a page from The Cloud of Unknowing at random). 16 For more on this theme and some potential ramifications in the thought of Thomas Merton and Abhishiktananda, see Spencer (2021a).

176  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? 17 It is amusing to compare the judgments of O’Regan and Underhill. For O’Regan, Boehme and Blake are essentially arch-heretics of the Valentinian Gnostic sort; for Underhill (1923), the former is a “cloud-wrapped immortal who must [must!] be rediscovered” in every age (558), the latter a “poet, painter, visionary, and prophet … an impassioned Christian [yet an] outspoken foe of conventional Christianity” who “shines like a solitary star in the uncongenial atmosphere of the Georgian age” (562). It is anything but plain how O’Regan and (at least the early) Underhill can honestly be considered to be “engaged in the same basic kind of work” (Yadav [2017, 75]). 18 He says, “To be orthodox is to be ontologically committed to whatever doctrinal content is expressed by the identity-constituting features of a Christian narrative as well as being committed to the necessary truthmakers of that content. To be a heretic, conversely, is just to deny or refuse the ontological commitments of orthodoxy” (84). 19 For an example of Hick’s rather uncritical appropriation of a bygone generation of historical Jesus scholarship, see (2010, 119–121). Ratzinger’s response is, I think, spot on: “It is not the exegesis that proves [Hick’s] philosophy, but the philosophy that generates the [exegesis]” (2010, 154). 20 Cf. Paget’s (2001) bleak (if slightly overstated) summation of the matter: “Despite the proliferation of historical Jesus studies, theological reflection on the matter is non-existent or perfunctory in tone. … Serious discussion of the role of Jesus research in the construction of a New Testament theology is rarely evidenced” (152). Wright (2019, 119), puts the same point like this: “major twentieth-century advances in our knowledge of the ancient Jewish world, of which the discovery of the Qumran scrolls is just one example, have opened up new possibilities and insights which systematic theology has barely noticed.” 21 Wright advocates for a “critical realist” approach to history. In the end, it boils down to two main propositions: with regard to event E or sequence of events S, (1) something genuinely happened and can be known given the right tools (or at least presumed to have happened with a high degree of confidence); (2) E or S is to be (a) investigated by close attention to then-contemporary data and abduction; (b) executed with an “epistemology of love” or “sympathetic imagination” (2019, 99, 103) which attempts, to the extent possible, to see the world through the eyes (motivations and worldview) of a contemporary of E or S; and (c) carried out under constant awareness of the ever-present specter of subjectivism and bias. It is, in other words, to investigate the past commonsensically. Cf. Wright (1992, 32–46). 22 I myself am of the opinion that Wright rather understates the importance of the creeds and councils. As McGrath (2009) argues, creedal and conciliar pronouncements serve fundamentally to preserve the worship patterns of the church: these formulations are the necessary conceptual presuppositions for maintaining the coherence of what Christians are actually doing when they worship. For instance, Nicaea determined that the universal Christian practice of adoring and praying to Christ conceptually necessitates the homoousion (140–152), and Ebionitism was countered on the grounds that it would make nonsense of the de facto evangelistic thrust of early Christianity (105–111). Generally, “an improper location of Jesus Christ on a conceptual map would be fatal to Christian evangelism and discipleship [and worship, liturgy, etc.]” (105). 23 In case it is unclear what I mean by “specifically teleologically oriented,” I mean a given conciliar or creedal proposition was formulated with a very particular end in mind, such as the anathematizing of non-Trinitarian models of God.

On Orthodoxy 177 24 Though, again, a reasonably high degree of confidence is enough. 25 As Wright says elsewhere—surprisingly perhaps—it is “part of being a faithful Christian that we believe that with the events concerning Jesus of Nazareth the creator God brought Israel’s history, and with it world history, to its single great climax” (2019, 104). 26 I have in mind here one of Wright’s favorite refrains: “a dead messiah is a failed messiah.” 27 Though, according to Wright, to speak of a ‘bodily resurrection’ is redundant. See, e.g., Wright (2003 passim); (2019, 193). 28 Though, for a recent book-length argument that the resurrection is “a case of historical certainty” (203), see Loke (2020). 29 I emphasize that there are potentially many specific renditions of the larger biblical metanarrative, with all their divergences of propositional content, which would do the job—the important thing is that the metanarrative succeed in making sense of dmn (with thanks to Andy Everhart for pressing me on this). 30 Here Rowe (2016) hits the nail on the head. Regarding the necessity of affirming BMN: “The appendage ‘Christ’ … is situated within the history that is the life of the Jews, and its Christian use is nonsensical without this history. Christ is not a general term that conveys superhuman ability or deity in some generic sense but the specific Israel-shaped word that describes Jesus as the awaited Messiah of his people” (216). Regarding dmn and, more specifically, the resurrection, he is appropriately blunt: “the way the Christian story runs to its end is unintelligible without the bodily resurrection of Jesus” (222). In effect, this whole section (215–223) is Rowe offering an account of biblical narrative grammar, drawing in particular on Paul, Luke, and Justin Martyr. 31 For instance, a fully fleshed-out understanding of the Kingdom of God would require that the king of the Kingdom and Israel’s God be in some sense identical (though I will not argue the point here). 32 For a fine analytic piece (highly) critical of anti-realism in Christian theology, see Alston (1995). 33 Cf. Chapter 3, Section II.3 above. 34 Note that this is not to say, pace Smith (2009, 133–139), that worship precedes worldview. The early Christians didn’t simply wake up one day to the realization they were in fact worshipping Jesus, and from this observation proceed to rationalize that worship in terms of beliefs they formerly possessed, if at all, only unconsciously. “Some cognitive set of beliefs” was emphatically “already in place” (136), namely, something like dmn and BMN. There is simply no historical sense to be made of early Christianity without this clearly articulated, if rudimentary, cognitive component: certain beliefs about the fate of a crucified man are (obviously) needed for anyone to start worshipping him. Smith, it seems to me, clearly exaggerates the point he is trying to make, and thus obfuscates these important matters unnecessarily. Nearer the mark is C. Kavin Rowe’s (2016) judgement about Paul’s idea of pistis: “There is content to the faith. But such content is more like the total story of God’s dealings with the world as reflected in Scripture and in Christ [sc. BMN and dmn] than it is, say, a properly numbered set of statements” (104). 35 For more of Gavin D’Costa’s helpful reflections on orthodoxy (specifically with regard to Roman Catholic orthodoxy and the declaration Dominus Iesus), see his exchanges with Terrence W. Tilley and Perry Schmidt-Leukel across vols. 22:1–24:2 of Modern Theology. D’Costa and Tilley are right that the disputation is instructive even for those outside the Catholic fold (see 2007, 464). Another especially helpful source in this connection is Blomberg (2002).

178  Orthodoxy without Original Sin?





He argues that, in dealing with the question of “heresy,” the NT indicates the early church was as focused on not drawing lines too narrowly as it was on drawing them too broadly. Where it pertains to dmn, however, the NT writers are unanimous: while the theological peripheries perhaps require only minor policing, the center—that is, dmn and whatever follows from dmn—must be protected at all costs. 36 The mere existence (or historical dominance) of other Fall-affirming renditions of BMN is, clearly, not problematic for the possibility of a nonlapsarian orthodoxy; the problem would arise only if it could be shown that dmn for some reason conceptually presupposes a Fall. 37 Irenaeus, we have seen, basically concurs (see Section I.1 of this chapter above). 38 Though I hasten to point out that there is nothing in the creeds to suggest the dogmatic necessity of Original Sin. 39 This entire book is a testament to my fundamental agreement with Stump in this regard. 40 The Perpetual Virginity of Mary was established as orthodoxy by the fourth century, and continued to be held by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Wesley, and many others until quite recent times. See Arbour (2020, 28). 41 Though birth control was, before 1930, at least as consistently, universally, and unequivocally denounced by the Christian Church as Original Sin was espoused. See Campbell (1960).

References Alston, William P. 1995. “Realism and the Christian Faith.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 38: 37–60. doi: 10.1007/978-94-011-0417-3_3. Arbour, Benjamin H. 2020. “An Evangelical Protestant’s Reflections on Roman Catholic Mariology.” Perichoresis 18 (5): 21–38. doi: 10.2478/perc-2020-0026. Aristides. 1896. The Apology of Aristides. Translated by D. M. Kay. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9, edited by Allan Menzies. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Blomberg, Craig L. 2002. “The New Testament Definition of Heresy (Or When Do Jesus and the Apostles Really Get Mad?).” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45 (1): 59–72. Bockmuehl, Markus. 2001. “Resurrection.” In The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, edited by Markus Bockmuehl, 102–118. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, Flann. 1960. “Birth Control and the Christian Churches.” Population Studies 14 (2): 131–147. doi: 10.1080/00324728.1960.10406044. D’Costa, Gavin. 2016. “A Roman Catholic Approach to Buddhist-Catholic ‘Dual Belonging’.” In Buddhist Christian Dual-Belonging: Affirmations, Objections, Explorations, edited by Gavin D’Costa and Ross Thompson, 107–122. Farnham: Ashgate. D’Costa, Gavin, and Terrence W. Tilley. 2007. “Concluding Our Quaestio Disputata on Theologies of Religious Diversity.” Modern Theology 23 (3): 463–468. Hart, David Bentley. 2022. You Are Gods: On Nature and Supernature. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Hays, Richard B. 1996. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. New York: HarperCollins.

On Orthodoxy 179 Hick, John. 2010. Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Highfield, Ron. 2008. Great Is the Lord: Theology for the Praise of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Irenaeus. 1885a. Against Heresies. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co. Loke, Andrew. 2020. Investigating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: A New Transdisciplinary Approach. London: Routledge. McCall, Thomas H. 2019. Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. McGrath, Alister. 2009. Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth. New York: HarperOne. O’Regan, Cyril. 2001. Gnostic Return in Modernity. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Osborn, Eric F. 2009. “Reason and the Rule of Faith in the Second Century AD.” In The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, edited by Rowan Williams, 40–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paget, James Carleton. 2001. “Quests for the Historical Jesus.” In The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, edited by Markus Bockmuehl, 138–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pearson, Birger A. 2006. Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. 2010. “Cardinal Ratzinger on Religious Pluralism.” In Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion, edited by John Hick, 149–156. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Reeves, Michael, and Hans Madueme. 2014. “Threads in a Seamless Garment: Original Sin in Systematic Theology.” In Adam, the Fall, and Original Sin: Theological, Biblical, and Scientific Perspectives, edited by Hans Madueme and Michael Reeves, 209–224. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Rowe, C. Kavin. 2016. One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Smith, James K. A. 2009. Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Smith, James K. A. 2017. “What Stands on the Fall? A Philosophical Exploration.” In Evolution and the Fall, edited by William T. Cavanaugh and James K. A. Smith, 48–64. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Spencer, Daniel. 2021a. “The Challenge of Mysticism: A Primer from a Christian Perspective.” Sophia 60 (4): 1027–1045. doi: 10.1007/s11841-020-00822-4. Stevenson, J., ed. 1957. A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church to A.D. 337. London: SPCK. Stump, Eleonore. 1999. “Orthodoxy and Heresy.” Faith and Philosophy 16 (2): 147– 163. doi: 10.5840/faithphil199916217. Stump, Eleonore, and Norman Kretzmann. 1994. “Blindingly Obvious AntiSemitism.” Faith and Philosophy 11 (2): 279–285. doi: 10.5840/faithphil199411220. Tertullian. 1885. The Prescription Against Heretics. Translated by Peter Holmes. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 3. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co.

180  Orthodoxy without Original Sin? Tomson, Peter J. 2001. “Jesus and His Judaism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, edited by Markus Bockmuehl, 25–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Torrance, Alan J. 2001. “Jesus in Christian Doctrine.” In The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, edited by Markus Bockmuehl, 200–219. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Underhill, Evelyn. 1923. Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness. London: Methuen & Co. Wood, William. 2016. “Trajectories, Traditions, and Tools in Analytic Theology.” Journal of Analytic Theology 4: 254–266. doi: 10.12978/jat.2016-4.220812221403a. Wright, N. T. 1992. The New Testament and the People of God. London: SPCK. Wright, N. T. 1996. Jesus and the Victory of God. London: SPCK. Wright, N. T. 2003. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Wright, N. T. 2006. Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Understanding a Newly Discovered Text and Its Contemporary Significance. London: SPCK. Wright, N. T. 2012. How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels. New York: HarperOne. Wright, N. T. 2019. History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology. London: SPCK. Yadav, Sameer. 2017. “Christian Doctrine as Ontological Commitment to a Narrative.” In The Task of Dogmatics: Explorations in Theological Method, edited by Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders, 70–86. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

8

Conclusion

I have concluded that the Christian faith likely does not require the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin. This is not, however, to say that a nonlapsarian understanding of Christianity does not raise further important questions. While the rejection of the Fall and Original Sin may not challenge the substance of the faith, still, it must be admitted, there might be some more peripheral areas which are affected by such a move. To conclude this investigation, therefore, I should like to say a brief word about several additional questions and concerns our arguments will no doubt have provoked. They are taken in no particular order; I will allow the reader to decide for himself which issues are the most pressing. The first and perhaps most obvious issue to raise pertains to what appears to be the implied attenuation of moral responsibility. On the Augustinian variety of Original Sin, for instance, a firm basis could be found for the idea of sin that strongly emphasizes pride and rebellion against God. Augustine himself, we have seen, appealed to superbia as the efficient cause of Adam’s radical sin; and while such a thinker as Emil Brunner might discount the Fall as an actual historical event, still he seeks to extract the “essence” of sin from the Gen. 2–3 narrative, thus yielding the judgement we cited in Chapter 4: sin is “defiance, arrogance, the desire to be equal with God” (1942, 129). Not only have I rebutted the widespread notion that all sin is fundamentally a matter of pride,1 but I have also argued that the “evil” in human beings is, to a considerable degree, simply given with their existence qua evolved biological organism—or, at the very least, “practically inevitably” given.2 But now consider Michael Rea’s statement of what it means to bear moral responsibility: A person P is morally responsible for the obtaining of a state of affairs S only if S obtains (or obtained) and P could have prevented S from obtaining (Rea 2007, 320) On this commonsense view, Adam (P) would be morally responsible for the Fall (S) because he could have prevented the Fall by refraining from DOI: 10.4324/9781003346913-11

182  Conclusion eating of the tree of knowledge. Moreover, if we follow Augustine in considering that Adam’s will was originally oriented towards the good, we can say it would have been, perhaps, quite easy for Adam to obey. But this would increase substantially Adam’s responsibility, since, on this hypothesis, P could have all the more prevented S from obtaining. Moreover, given the doctrine of Original Guilt—or even the currently popular metaphorical identification of Adam with human nature writ large—we all become the “Adam of our own soul,” so to speak, and are thus ourselves liable to the fullness of guilt for each of our reprehensible actions. On the other hand, if it be admitted that what Latin Christians have long called “carnal concupiscence” is to be identified with our natural animal passions, drives, and desires,3 then the sinful “flesh” which we are instructed by St. Paul to crucify is, to put it bluntly, part of who we are intended to be in the first instance, and therefore not evidence of a corrupted nature for which we are in any way answerable. True, we may be called to a higher mode of existence given our apprehension of the moral law and (some of) God’s purposes, but, to return to Rea, in this case P can prevent any selfcaused evil S only with appreciable effort, and, furthermore, the right quantities of self-knowledge, strength of character, and motivation to strive after the good.4 In short, moral rectitude on this evolutionary model is frankly not to be expected: first because it does not always come naturally to animals whose primary concern is to maximize biological fitness, and secondly because it often requires a high degree of concentrated mental, physical, and emotional exertion. Thus on this view, it seems, P’s (non-culpable) natural constitution makes it considerably more difficult for P to avoid S in many instances—that is, in other words, P is considerably less morally responsible than he would be if Original Sin were true. This may be a somewhat weighty consequence in terms of incongruity with some passages in scripture,5 but it is not, I don’t think, ultimately unbearable. If this analysis is correct, however, another upshot follows closely on its heels. No moral responsibility, it might be argued, no hell; no hell, universal salvation (cf. Hick 1979, 377–385). And that is a problem, the objection continues, for universalism is even more difficult to square with scripture. Now, while I agree that this is one possible conclusion and that this progression employs the right set of instincts, it is nevertheless, I think, too hasty an inference. In the first place, I do not doubt that some stroke of human ingenuity will prove eminently capable of reconciling a nonlapsarian theology with a more traditional account of the ultimate judgement of human beings. This is not, of course, my present burden to bear; I only insist that we remain open to this option since it is not obviously a logical absurdity: so long as moral responsibility and guilt remain, in however slight a degree, there is no reason necessarily to rule out the possibility of an individual suffering eternal separation from God. Secondly, if the latter approach strikes one as particularly problematic, an annihilationist position might well be endorsed instead, although, to commandeer the words

Conclusion 183 of Alvin Plantinga (1997, 143–144), this would no doubt carry with it “the considerable disadvantage of being at present both unpopular and heretical.”6 Still, it is a possible alternative to universalism if that is what one seeks. In short, I do not see that a nonlapsarian theology requires any particular view on these matters—indeed, I think a strong case can be made for them all.7 What we have said, however, does point to one further “further consideration” pertaining to the nature and magnitude of repentance and conscious identification with Christ. In William James’s classic The Varieties of Religious Experience, two classes of religious personalities are offered and then surveyed. There are, on the one hand, the healthy-minded “once-born”: these “see God, not as a strict Judge, not as a Glorious Potentate; but as the animating Spirit of a beautiful and harmonious world”; they “are not distressed by their own imperfections” and “of human sin they know perhaps little” (1985, 80–81). Accordingly, repentance and conversion do not mean much to the once-born—there is, for the most part, no ailment from which to repent, and therefore no new religious consciousness to convert to. On the other hand we find the “twice-born” personalities, the Augustines, the Martin Luthers, the Siddhartha Gautamas of the world whose “sick souls” require a second birth in order to find contentment (166). For these, a fundamental change in outlook and orientation, a 180 degree turn round, is the sine qua non of a life well lived. Given what we have said about moral responsibility, it may be supposed that a nonlapsarian project inevitably favors the “once-born” types. This would, however, be a grave mistake. While it is true that a nonlapsarian theology must strongly emphasize the love and patience God has for his creatures, it also might positively intensify the need for a serious, twice-born style of conversion.8 For, we are here dealing neither with an agreeable, healthy nature whose sole “conversion” is to own up to the fact that it is perfectly healthy, nor with a corrupted nature in need of restoration; we are, rather, confronted with a nature that, in itself, is in no way adequate for the task at hand and needs therefore to die. As N. P. Williams has so suitably put it, the saint repents not merely of what he does, but of what he is (1929, 32). In short, a profound repentance on the part of the human animal is required: it must convert from its default amor sui and searching for felicity in the world of created things, and turn rather to amor Dei—thereby crucifying itself to the world, and the world to it (Gal. 6:14).9 On such a model conversion and repentance can never be taken seriously enough. One final objection deserves some attention, a potential difficulty William Lane Craig makes in passing at the beginning of In Quest of the Historical Adam (2021, 7–8). If, as seems likely, Christ himself positively affirmed Adam’s historicity, rejecting a historical Adam would commit us to saying Christ held false beliefs. But, since beliefs are held by persons and the only person in Christ is divine (and therefore omniscient), it cannot be the case that Christ held false beliefs. Hence, Adam must have been a historical

184  Conclusion individual. A couple of responses might be proffered. First, one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens: (1) If Jesus of Nazareth was omniscient, then his beliefs about Adam are true (viz., that he existed as a historical individual). (2) Jesus of Nazareth was omniscient. (3) Therefore, Jesus’ beliefs about Adam are true (i.e., Adam was a historical person). Understandably, Craig wants to affirm the antecedent here, but it is far from unreasonable to deny the consequent instead. Plausibly, we might think, it is false that there was a historical Adam; hence, the man Jesus was not omniscient. This move will of course require a revision of conciliar Christology (though I don’t think this revision need be major), but it would also, as Craig says, “yield a more realistic account of Jesus’s human experience…. Did Jesus as a lad never hear a noise in the next room and think, “James has dropped something,” when it was in fact Joses who made the noise?” (12)10 It is surely reasonable to say in reply, “of course Jesus had such experiences!” But this would just be to affirm Jesus could have, or did, believe false propositions, and thus to deny he was omniscient. Perhaps a slight modification to the traditional understanding of the hypostatic union would be welcome, then. As long as ontological commitment to dmn and BMN is not undermined, a Christology so revised could still count as broadly orthodox. For many, however, this will not be a particularly satisfying reply. Following Craig, another tactic might be to distinguish between propositions Christ believed and propositions he accepted, where the latter connotes mere assent and practical reliance when necessary (12). Perhaps, for instance, Jesus merely accepted Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch for the sake of convenience, falling short of genuine belief (cf. Luke 24:44; Matt. 19:8).11 In this way, it could be suggested that Jesus need not have believed in a historical Adam, but merely accepted it for practical or didactic purposes. This response has the clear advantage of cohering with conciliar orthodoxy, though it might be difficult to spell out precisely how acceptance does not at some level entail belief (or would not, if a counterfactual were introduced). Whatever we make of this proposal, however, I think it does point to a third reply one might offer to Craig’s objection. The text cited by Craig which seems to indicate Jesus’ belief in the historical Adam is Matt. 19:4–6 where Jesus appeals to Gen. 2 to indicate God’s original intention for marriage. But this need not be understood as affirming Jesus’ belief in a historical Adam and Eve: on the contrary, it would seem quite natural to read this as an instance of “truth-in-a-story” (see Craig 2021, 207). “As the story goes,” Jesus might be saying, “God created them thus from the beginning.” While such an understanding would presuppose some level of theological authority and anthropological normativity flowing from Gen. 2, it would not necessitate

Conclusion 185 a historical affirmation of two progenitors of the human race; for instance, Jesus’ appeal to Genesis to establish his point about divorce is consistent with the “Everyman” approach to Adam touched on in passing in Chapter 2. Hence, there is nothing about this text—or others like it (e.g., Matt. 23:35)— that compels us to think Jesus did believe in a historical Adam. Finally, one might wonder if Craig’s reasoning wouldn’t apply to other divine attributes. For instance, it seems plausible that consciousness of suffering, too, is held by persons and not natures; but, since Christ is a divine person and divine persons do not suffer, it would follow that Jesus could have no consciousness of suffering. But this is classic Docetism. If a logically identical argument to Craig’s entails Christ could have no consciousness of suffering, then something may be the matter with the original argument. Much more might be said in response to Craig’s objection (which, it should be clear, I take very seriously), but this sample of replies should suffice to dispel the worry that a nonlapsarian project is doomed to failure in the light of a text like Matt. 19:4–6. Amending Craig’s words slightly, the situation is far from hopeless (12).12 I do not, of course, pretend to have addressed—much less answered— every objection an abandonment of Original Sin might face. Rather, in this book I have sought to engage what I take to be the most pressing difficulties and foundational requirements for such projects. Accordingly, while further work is no doubt needful, I believe I have gone a significant distance in clearing the exegetical, theological, and philosophical ground for a nonlapsarian rendition of the Christian faith. Assuming the argument of the preceding chapters is sound, then, this initial inquiry into the possibility of a nonlapsarian Christianity has proven successful: one can indeed hold fast to the original Gospel proclamation and disbelieve the Fall and Original Sin at one and the same time. Hence, while the Christian may retain the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin if he wishes, I conclude that such a retention is likely not a necessary condition for him to remain faithful to the fundamentals of the Christian religion. In short, I have found the Christian theologian may indeed forsake the Fall. SDG

Notes

1 2 3 4

See Chapter 4 above, esp. Section II.4. See our discussion in Chapter 5, Sections I.1–2. For a brief affirmation of this identification see Williams (2000, 799ff.). Among other things, and most notably what the Yahwist calls “knowledge of good and evil” (see Chapter 2). 5 E.g., Rom. 1:18ff.; Eph. 5:6; Matt. 18:32–35, et. al. 6 Whether it would be “heretical” in my sense of the word is, of course, a different question. 7 It has, for instance, been suggested to me that Eleonore Stump’s (1986) account of hell would likely work along nonlapsarian lines.

186  Conclusion



8 And this quite apart from the biblical texts which seem to support this (e.g., John 3:3–8, 1:13; Rom. 6:3; 1 Pe. 1:23, etc.). 9 This conclusion seems largely to be presaged in an excellent piece by John Hare (2004, esp. 191–193). 10 To be clear, Craig himself makes this comment about Jesus perhaps accepting something as true rather than believing it, not about him holding a false belief (see the following paragraph). 11 Though, it would be interesting to know whether Craig thinks Jesus believed propositions such as . On classic Christological lines, the answer would have to be negative, although (to me) it seems just obvious he (probably) would have affirmed the proposition. 12 Craig’s words are, “Even in the worst-case scenario, according to which Adam did not exist, the situation is not hopeless.”

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Index

Adam 102, 115, 121–22, 128, 132n39, 150, 152n37, 181–82; and Eve 16–17, 25, 36n18, 40n82, 54–56, 132n40, 184; in Gen. 2–3 46–65; as historical figure 45, 61n1, 75, 183–85; as immature 16–17, 22, 36n15, 57–59, 137; in Rom. 5 69–86; in theological history 16–18, 21–23, 27–28, 33, 36–40 allegory 3, 13, 37n29, 44, 80, 87n44, 167 Anselm of Canterbury 29–30, 39n72–73, 108n6 Aquinas, Thomas 29, 39n69, 85n24, 131n28, 142, 152n21; on Original Sin 30–32, 40n77; on pride 135, 137, 150n4 atonement 96, 134–35, 152; by participation 6, 139–141, 146–149, 152n28 Augustine 1, 70, 183; on Original Sin see Original Sin; on pride 135–37, 150–51; on Rom 5. 28, 71, 83n9 Bayne, Tim, and Greg Restall 139–141, 146, 152 biblical inspiration 6–7, 69, 77, 169–170 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 45, 48–50, 52, 62, 64n42 Calvin, John 14, 142, 148–150, 178n40 Christ see Jesus Corporate Personality 4, 73 corruption: of body/soul 37n33, 85n23 141, 144–45, 171; of nature 16, 26–27, 29–32, 35, 46, 73, 85n23, 115, 136, 182–83 councils 6, 158, 166, 176n22; of Carthage and Orange 29, 39n68, 40n80; of Trent 32–33, 40n80–81

Craig, William Lane 8n7, 62n20, 77, 84n11, 85n23, 87n45, 131n30, 148, 183–86 Cranfield, C. E. B. 70–74, 85n23 creeds 6, 158–59, 165–66, 172, 174n1, 176n22–23, 178n38 death 101, 105, 137, 148–149; of Christ 140, 146, 149, 165, 168, 175n8; as consequence of the Fall 13, 15, 17–18, 22, 26–28, 33–35, 36n18, 44–46, 85n29, 137, 150, 165, 171; in Gen. 2–3 46–49, 53; as overcome in Christ 76, 78, 141, 173; in Rom. 5 27, 69–74, 76–77, 84n10, 86n32; as spiritual death 85n23 deification see theosis devil 16–17, 20, 28–29, 38n46, 38n49, 80, 103, divinization see theosis Eastern Orthodoxy 6, 14–15, 142, 144, 146–48, 153n47 Enns, Peter 65n56, 82, 86n32, 87n47 eschatology 78, 105–106, 166, 172; see soteriology evil: natural 129n2; Problem of see theodicy evolution 1, 7, 8n6, 37n21, 85n23, 128, 171, 174, 182; evolutionary psychology; 136–37, 149; sociobiology 136–37, 149; and soteriology 137–38, 141, 146–150, 151–52; Tennant’s evolutionary theory 115–121, 127–28, 130n5–9, 134–35 Fall: as integral component of Original Sin 13, 35n1, 146; as non-literal 3, 13, 37n29, 44, 130n8; objections against

202  Index 1, 38n46, 132n39, 137; as rebellion 25, 29, 44–45, 48, 51, 57–58, 60, 63n31, 130n8; see also Original Sin; see also peccatum originale originans Garden of Eden 45–49, 52–53, 60, 61n10, 64n55 gnosticism 18, 20–21, 128, 142, 153n38, 159–162, 175n6, 176n17 Greek Fathers 13–23, 26, 28, 35–38 Gregory of Nyssa 18–22, 37n29, 40n76 guilt: Original 14–15, 21–22, 27–29, 36–39, 69, 71, 74, 83, 85n22, 182; see participation Hays, Richard B. 78, 80–82, 86n36, 105, 169 heresy 21–22, 35n5, 141, 82, 85n26, 183; demarcation of 162–64, 168–69, 176n17–18, 178n35; and nonlapsarianism 75, 93 Holy Spirit 15, 102–103, 110n50, 129, 140, 142, 145, 147 imago dei 60, 64n54, 132n38, 145–47, 152n23; in the Greek Fathers 15, 19, 21; in Paul 76, 105–106, 111n66 Irenaeus of Lyons 165; on deification 141, 145; on Original Sin 16–18, 21–22, 28, 34, 36–37, 57, 65; on biblical hermeneutics 161–62, 172, 175, 178n37 Jesus: in dogmatics 82, 86n39, 162–65, 183–85; historical Jesus 147, 164–171, 176–77; as instantiation of true human nature 26, 31, 94; as messiah 103, 165–67, 177; as remedy 17, 22, 27–28, 61, 76–78 82, 129, 140–41, 152, 154n61; in scripture 69–71, 76–77, 93, 101–105, 107, 110, 145, 149 Kingdom of God 7, 106, 129, 167–68, 171, 177n31 knowledge: of good and evil see tree Luther, Martin 14, 32, 74, 85n23, 107, 142, 148, 153n42, 154n61, 178n40 McCall, Thomas H. 1, 45, 84n11, 85n22–23, 108n7, 158 messiah see Jesus middle knowledge see Molinism

Molinism 114, 120–124, 127, 130–131; free-will objection to 125–127 Moo, Douglas J. 39n63, 69, 72–74, 76, 85n22, 111n67 mysticism 8n6, 17, 142, 144, 153n40, 160, 164, 175–176 O’Regan, Cyril 159–162, 164–65, 171, 174–76 Original Sin: Augustinian view 14–16, 23–30, 32–35, 37n29, 38–40, 46, 63n30, 69, 73–74, 83, 181–82; as basic Christian doctrine 13, 34, 75, 134, 158–59, 172–73; definition of 13, 33–35, 69; Greek view 14–23, 26, 29, 34–38; Privation view 16, 27, 29–35, 39–40, 46 orthodoxy 93, 134, 175n6, 178n40, 184; as creedal/conciliar 158–59, 166, 174n1; demarcation of 158–161, 163–65, 168–171, 176n18–19; as (in) compatible with nonlapsarianism 1–3, 5–6 8n7, 44, 68, 75, 85n26, 134, 139, 141, 146, 148–150, 158–59, 171–74, 178n36; Roman Catholic 8n5, 61n3, 174n2, 177n35 Palamas, Gregory 142–145, 153 participation: see atonement; in Adam’s sin 22, 37n29, 71, 73; in the life/ kingdom of God 129, 142–45, 147–48, 153 peccatum originale originans 23–26, 29, 35n1, 146 peccatum originale originatum 23, 26–27, 29–31, 35n1, 137 Pelagianism 21, 23, 28, 72, 74, 84n11, 115–16 Plantinga, Alvin 124, 131n24–26, 183 pride: as cause of Fall 25, 29, 38; as essence of sin 94, 107, 108n5, 181; as vice 135–137, 150–51 Protestantism 6, 14, 61n3, 142, 153n53, 159–160 resurrection 85n23, 86n32, 129, 140, 145–46, 151n18, 162, 165, 167–68, 171, 177 righteousness 25, 59, 141, 148–49; in Paul 17, 71, 76, 85n23; as opposite of sin 99–101, 116; Original 29, 38n45 Roman Catholicism 2, 29, 32, 142; see orthodoxy

Index 203 Satan see devil Seminal Identity 4, 17–18, 23, 27–29, 69, 71, 74, 83, 84n11 sin: as anachronism 115–16, 119, 135–37; ‘ âvôn 94–95, 98, 108–109; châṭâ’ 94–100, 108–109; definition of 93–94, 106–108, 138; hamartia 100–107, 109n47, 110–11; as (practically) inevitable 17, 114–120, 123–29, 130n11–13, 181; see also pride Smith, James K. A. 172–173, 177n34 soteriology 5–6, 22, 68, 75, 78, 107, 134–154, 174 Tatian the Assyrian 15–16, 18, 21, 34, 35n5 Tennant, F. R.: as theological historian 15, 17–18, 20, 29, 35–36; on his evolutionary theory see evolution; on Rom. 5 84n15, 85n25; on sin 104, 111n71 Tertullian 1, 165, 175n4 theodicy 5, 7, 107, 114, 117–124, 127–29, 130n19 theosis 6, 134–35, 139, 141–48, 150n2, 151n20, 153, 154n59 Thomism see Aquinas, Thomas

tree 17, 38n50, 53, 64n55, 86n40; of the knowledge of good and evil 45, 50–60, 61n5, 63n35, 64n44, 65n56, 182; of life 47–50, 52, 56, 59–62, 63n35, 64n55, 147 Valentinianism 159–161, 163–65, 174n4, 175n7–8, 176n17 von Rad, Gerhard 45, 49–56, 61n5, 62, 64n42, 64n50 Westermann, Claus 45, 52–56, 60, 61n4, 61n29–31, 64n42 Williams, N. P. 73, 102, 108n6, 183; as critic of Tennant 117–120, 128, 130n8; as theological historian 14–19, 24, 28, 32, 34, 36–37, 38n34, 39n52, 40 wisdom 23, 54, 56, 59–60, 63n30, 63n34, 64n49–50; as component of Original Righteousness 22, 25–26; as divine attribute 53, 59–60, 153n51 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 79, 86n40 Wright, N. T. 160, 165–67, 171, 176n20–22, 177n25–27 Yadav, Sameer 162–65, 175n13–14