The Fall

Tonight we grappled with one of the more difficult doctrines in Christian belief: the Fall. It is based out of the text of Genesis 1-3, where God creates Adam and Eve, our biological forebears, who promptly get themselves in trouble. As a preliminary note, Judaism, or at least large swaths of it, do not read this passage as implying anything of a radical Fall that affects all humanity; it was merely an individual breach of covenant, from which the people of God would eventually recover through later covenants.

St. Paul was the first to articulate the doctrine of original sin in his epistles, where he acts almost as a rabbi within Judaism would, reinterpreting the traditions in light of the new covenant he believed to have been revealed through Christ. He states in Romans that:

"Through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned."

And in 1 Corinthians, he claims "For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life."

Paul somehow sums up human sin in its very first instance, uniting us in sin to make sense of the solution that Paul sees in Christ. This is later explained by Augustine, who believes that we were all, as a race, present in Adam and in some way accented to his decision. He also goes into graphic detail (see paragraph 36 of http://newadvent.org/fathers/15012.htm and paragraph 20 of http://newadvent.org/fathers/15072.htm ) about how it is that original sin is transmitted; it is nothing short of a genetic disease passed down through the seed of the man in intercourse.

Though it might not make sense today to say that in the instant Adam and Eve sinned, their DNA was restructured from "unfallen" to "fallen," the import of his argument remains important for Christians to maintain. We are all guilty and participate in sin, even before we are able to give an "adult" assent to it. Social sin is, perhaps, related to original sin, but they are distinct and should not be identified. Original is not what is called "actual sin," that is, a sin that an individual personally commits AND for which one is considered culpable. Original sin does imply personal culpability, but it is not a sin that we personally commit; Adam commits it personally, and its guilt is mysteriously (read: I can't explain it any better) attributed to us.

On the topic of the felix culpa, I don't want to grant it unnecessary weight, because it doesn't play that big of a role in the actual life of the Church. It has speculative ramifications, however, that we touched on in class. If one believes (as I tend to) that Christ would have come even if humanity had not sinned (and that is something we can get into later if you'd like), then it is not indeed the case that sin "earned" us anything or anyone, because we still would have had come to have Christ (I just invented a new tense) otherwise. As far as I know, the position that Christ would have come without sin is not something condemned by the Church, and as such, the felix culpa does not follow as a necessary position.

Also, as I said, the felix implies a certain relationship between good and evil that I have problems with. Certainly, God can bring good from evil; this I do not dispute. But to say that God did not intend for us to have just as full an existence with him before sin as God intended for us after sin, this seems to imply that God hadn't planned well enough the first time (It also seems to imply that Eden was the best humanity would have had without sin, which I think is also disputable.) The nature of the Good (contrary to how many philosophers would define it) is such that it is self-sufficient, not needing its opposite to exist in its fullness. To believe that the Good can eventually be improved by contamination with evil seems contrary to this definition. I am inclined to think that the Good God wished for humanity was the same regardless of human sin, and that sin just changed the terms by which this end would be attained. Sin did not improve the Good, because if Good needs evil, then it is not Good.

HOWEVER: assuming for a moment that Christ would NOT have come without sin, then the felix culpa holds in some sense; it is indeed a good that humanity have Christ, and if sin was the only way we would have him, then sin has given us a good we would not have otherwise had. In undergrad this was put to me in the following thought experiment. Suppose there is a married couple, Pat and Sam (call whichever one you like the husband), who have all the happiness they could ever hope for; their marriage is wonderful, they have beautiful children, everything is rosy. However: one day, Pat suddenly cheats on Sam! Things have been destroyed, their marriage seems to have been ruined, and both are devastated. But then, Sam, out of the graciousness of his/her heart, forgives Pat and accepts his/her spouse back. Do not Pat and Sam have a good that they did not have before, namely the knowledge that their love can overcome the circumstances of adultery? Or can this knowledge remain implicit in a relationship and still be just as real? If the former can be coherently argued (and I think it can), the felix culpa has something to be said for it.

We have finished the First Article of the Creed! We're on our way to Jesus, finally!