Over the centuries the notion of a fall of humanity from a state of primeval bliss and communion with God has been, faute de mieux,
a convenient theological coat-rack to hang such important Christian
doctrines as the origin of evil and death, original sin, human moral
weakness, the Incarnation of Christ and baptismal theology.
The problem,
as we pointed out in an article in 2013,
is that it is not possible, despite brave attempts to do so, to
reconcile a historical understanding of the biblical account of paradise
and the fall of Adam and Eve with scientific data and theories. Genesis
1-3 must instead be read as allegory or literary myth, intended to
convey certain fundamental truths, such as the divine origin of creation
and of humanity and the reality of human evil.
In the project of de-historicizing Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden
and the fall, three areas predominate: the nature of human existence;
the origin of evil; and the motivation for Christ’s Incarnation. Genesis
predicates a form of human perfection prior to the fall
(“prelapsarian”), and a much-weakened human existence after the fall
(“postlapsarian”). In the standard interpretation, Adam’s fall
introduced evil (and the decay and death which accompanied it) into
creation. The alternative narrative, we argued, is that God created a
world which was neither perfect nor imperfect, but perfectible; decay
and death, whether on a galactic or microscopic scale, were inherent in
creation from the first moment.
Did God create death? At first blush, the answer is evident: A good
God could not have created something as evil as death; to suggest
otherwise is outrageous, if not blasphemous.
Some strands of ancient thought ascribed the creation of the material
universe to an evil First Principle, with which death could be
associated. Maneuvering between these two unacceptable solutions, the
standard narrative ascribes the introduction of death in the world to a
human agent: Adam’s sin brings death not only for the first humans, but
throughout creation. In the alternative narrative, death exists in the
cosmos from the outset, both the destruction of inanimate compounds, and
the death of living creatures. These are offset by the re-composition
of particles into new compounds and the perpetuation or evolution of
living beings. To exist, to be alive, is to be intimately associated
with change, destruction and death – and resurrection. The cells that
compose the human body are constantly dying and being replaced by other
cells – no one could live without the death and replenishment of cells.
In bringing forth life, God instilled into creation the mechanisms –
laws of chemistry, physics and biology – whereby creatures could live
and assure the continuation of life before dying. By creating life, God
allows death to occur.
But evil is of another order. True evil is a moral category,
contingent on a deliberate act of a creature endowed with free will. In
the absence of the power to accept or to reject divine goodness and
love, evil exists only by analogy, not as an ontological category. There
is no evil in the death of stars, in black holes, the natural
disappearance of species, or predation, disease and death in the natural
world. These events are tragic in a cosmic sense, but there is no moral
evil attached to them. Death is a part of God’s creation from the
beginning, while evil became possible because of God’s gift of free will
to humanity. Evil arose as a result of humanity’s conscious rejection
of God. It is not possible to determine when and how this initially took
place, nor is it particularly important. No cosmic consequences
resulted from “the first sin,” since death was already present in the
world and perfectibility inscribed in human nature as humanity’s
ultimate purpose.
In this alternative narrative, Christ’s Incarnation was not to repair
the damage caused by the first human disobedience, but rather to render
possible humanity’s ultimate perfectibility, Christ as the means to
achieve this perfection, seen as union with God, encapsulated in
Christian notions of theosis, sanctification, holiness and
justification.
Orthodox and Western theologies ascribe different meanings to
original sin. In Orthodoxy, original sin is the sin of the first humans
and is sometimes referred to as the “ancestral sin.”
The descendants of the first humans inherit the consequences of
ancestral sin, typically identified as decay, death and an inclination
towards evil. But they do not inherit guilt derived from the first sin,
because guilt is personal and is not transmitted. Much of Western
theology since Augustine thought of the guilt of original sin as
transmitted to the descendants of the first parents and as abrogated by
baptism. In Orthodox theology, baptism has nothing to do with original
sin, but is the rite of initiation into the Body of Christ. The
alternative narrative obliges a rethinking of the notion of original
sin, which effectively no longer has major theological importance, even
if it signifies that sin and evil are not inherent to human nature and
may retain some pedagogical utility as allegory.
Orthodox faithful recite at every liturgy the creedal formula that Christ “became man (anthropos)
for us and for our salvation.” Orthodox dogma contains no other motive
for the Incarnation. Maximus the Confessor considered that Christ’s
Incarnation was “an absolute and primary purpose of God in the act of
creation” (Georges Florovsky, “Cur Deus Homo? The Motive of the Incarnation”).
The notion that the Incarnation would have taken place even without the
fall occurs in Western theology from Duns Scotus onwards. So the idea
of the Incarnation without the fall is not foreign to Christian
theology, although it remained speculative. The alternative scenario,
discarding the fall as a historical event, builds on the idea that the
Incarnation is not dependent on the fall. Christ’s Incarnation,
teachings, passion, death and Resurrection were necessary to provide the
Way (Christ) and the Means (Christ) by which humans can achieve the
perfection to which they are called. Similarly, speculation on whether
Christ took on original or fallen human nature is of no theological
significance.
No essential elements of Christian theology are threatened as a
result of de-historicizing the Genesis account of Eden and the fall,
although this does require re-formulating aspects of Christian notions
of human existence, the origins of death and evil, original sin, the
motive for the Incarnation and baptismal theology. With a creative
recalibration to eliminate the fall as a deus ex machina solution to difficult theological questions, Christian theology can recover from the fall.
—* I am grateful to Professor Peter Bouteneff (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York) and to Fr. Geoffrey Ready (Orthodox School of Theology at Trinity College, University of Toronto) for comments on an earlier version of this post.
Paul Ladouceur is Adjunct Professor, Orthodox School of Theology at Trinity College (University of Toronto) and Professeur associé, Faculté de théologie et de sciences religieuses, Université Laval (Québec).
Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.