It’s not religion, it’s people

Inside Catholic is carrying a repeat of a review of God is not great. Reviewer Benjamin D Wicker suggests it belongs in the 18th Century, when it was still possible to claim that religion poisons everything.

That was before the French Revolution, before Stalin, before Hitler, before Mao, before Pol Pot; in short, before any actual attempt to politically eliminate either Christianity in particular or all religion in general, and set up a regime based entirely on secular foundations. Before it was ever tried in earnest, the intellectual atheist could wade through many a hypothetical reverie of the innocent and Edenic future of practical atheism.

The article explores Christopher Hitchin’s brief response to the appalling record of atheistic regimes, and concludes:

If Hitchens really wants to be an atheist, he should have girded his loins before taking up his pen, and taken a good, long, hard, sobering, honest look at the blood and darkness of the 20th century, almost all of it done in the name of unbelief.

If he had, he would have to conclude that it is not religion that poisons everything, but human beings that poison everything, including religion and atheism. They also poison garden clubs, baseball teams, industrial corporations, moose lodges, academic departments, and charitable trusts. In short, wherever one finds humanity, one also finds inhumanity. But that is a point for Christianity — indeed, a point of doctrine. The doctrine of original sin, noted Chesterton, “is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.”

For both believers and unbelievers, it is a sobering thought that the same kind of hypocrisy, cruelty, sloth, cowardice, pride, short-sightedness, shallowness, injustice, and greed is found among believers and unbelievers. The error of Hitchens is to assume that because he finds all these vices among believers, it is belief that causes vice — even among unbelievers.

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Pope Benedict XVI on original sin

So, does original sin exist or not? To be able to respond we must distinguish two aspects of the doctrine on original sin. There is an empirical aspect, namely, a concrete, visible, I would say tangible reality for all, and a mysterious aspect, regarding the ontological foundation of this fact. The empirical fact is that there is a contradiction in our being. On one hand, every man knows that he must do good and he profoundly wants to do so. However, at the same time, he also feels the other impulse to do the contrary, to follow the path of egoism, violence, of doing only what pleases him even while knowing that he is acting against the good, against God and against his neighbor. In his Letter to the Romans Saint Paul expressed this contradiction in our being thus: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (7:18-19). This interior contradiction of our being is not a theory. Each one of us experiences it every day. And above all we always see around us the prevalence of this second will. Suffice it to think of the daily news on injustice, violence, falsehood, lust. We see it every day: It is a fact.

As a consequence of this power of evil in our souls, a filthy river has developed in history, which poisons the geography of human history. The great French thinker Blaise Pascal spoke of a “second nature,” which is superimposed on our original good nature. This “second nature” makes evil appear as normal for man. Thus even the usual expression: “this is human” has a double meaning. “This is human” might mean: This man is good, he really acts as a man should act. However, “this is human” might also mean falsehood: Evil is normal, it is human. Evil seems to have become a second nature. This contradiction of the human being, of our history should provoke, and provokes even today, the desire for redemption. And, in fact, the desire that the world be changed and the promise that a world be created of justice, peace, goodness is present everywhere: In politics, for example, all speak of this need to change the world, to create a more just world. It is precisely this expression of the desire that there be a liberation from the contradiction we experience in ourselves.

Hence, the fact of the power of evil in the human heart and in human history is undeniable. The question is: How is this evil explained? In the history of thought, except for the Christian faith, there is a principal model of explanation, with several variations. This model says: being itself is contradictory, it bears within it good and evil. In ancient times this idea implied the opinion that two equally original principles existed: a good principle and an evil principle. This dualism was insurmountable; the two principles are on the same level, hence there will always be, from the origin of being, this contradiction. The contradiction of our being, therefore, reflects only the contrariety of two divine principles, so to speak. In the evolutionist, atheist version of the world the same vision returns in a new way. Even if, in such a concession, the vision of being is monistic, it is implied that being as such from the beginning bears in itself evil and good. Being itself is not simply good, but open to good and evil. Evil is equally original as good, and human history would develop only the model already present in the whole of the preceding evolution. That which we Christians call original sin is in reality only the mixed character of being, a mixture of good and evil, according to this theory, it belonged to the very fabric of being. Deep down, it is a despairing vision: If it is so, evil is invincible. In the end, only self-interest matters. And every progress would necessarily have to be paid for with a river of evil and whoever wishes to serve progress must accept to pay this price. Politics, deep down, is based precisely on these premises: And we see the effects. This modern thought can, in the end, only create sadness and cynicism.

And so we ask again: What does faith say, as witnessed by St. Paul? As a first point, it confirms the fact of the competition between the two natures, the fact of this evil whose shadow weighs on the whole of creation. We heard Chapter 7 of the Letter to the Romans, we can add Chapter 8. Evil simply exists. As explanation, in contrast with the dualisms and monisms that we considered briefly and found desolating, faith tells us: There are two mysteries of light and one mystery of night, which is, however, shrouded by the mysteries of light. The first mystery of light is this: Faith tells us that there are not two principles, one good and one evil, but only one principle, the creator God, and this principle is good, only good, without a shadow of evil. As well, being is not a mixture of good and evil; being as such is good and because of this it is good to be, it is good to live. This is the happy proclamation of faith: there is only one good source, the Creator. And because of this, to live is good, it is a good thing to be a man, a woman, life is good. Then a mystery of darkness, of night follows. Evil does not come from the source of being itself, it is not equally original. Evil comes from a created liberty, from an abused liberty.

How was this possible, how did it happen? This remains obscure. Evil is not logical. Only God and the good are logical, are light. Evil remains mysterious. It has been presented in great images, as does chapter 3 of Genesis, with the vision of two trees, of the serpent, of sinful man. A great image that makes us guess, but it cannot explain how much in itself is illogical. We can guess, not explain; nor can we recount it as a fact next to another, because it is a more profound reality. It remains a mystery of darkness, of night. However, a mystery of light is immediately added. Evil comes from a subordinate source. With his light, God is stronger and, because of this, evil can be overcome. Therefore, the creature, man, is curable.; but if evil comes only from a subordinate source, it remains true that man is curable. And the Book of Wisdom says: “the creatures of the world are wholesome” (1:14).

And finally, the last point, man is not only curable, he is in fact cured. God has introduced healing. He entered in person into history. To the permanent source of evil he has opposed a source of pure good. Christ crucified and risen, the new Adam, opposed the filthy river of evil with a river of light. And this river is present in history: We see the saints, the great saints but also the humble saints, the simple faithful. We see that the river of light that comes from Christ is present, is strong.

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Many parents, one sin

Darwin Catholic is also musing about original sin, and has jumped to several points I was going to speculate further down the track. But he has done it so much better than I would have, so I’m just going to quote him. Do read his full post, though, to see how he gets there.

it seems that we have several possible ways we can consider the story of Adam and Eve as presented in Genesis in light of what we currently believe we understand about the history of the human species due to the discoveries of modern science.

1) We could hold that at some point in the distant past, God chose a single pair of humans and made them like himself by infusing them with immortal, rational and moral souls. These first parents fell in some way which was best described to God’s chosen people through the Genesis story. Their children all had souls, and at some points interbred with the rest of the early human population, with the result that at some point in the still quite distant past all humans had “Adam and Eve” as one of their ancestors and possessed a soul.

2) We could hold that at some point in time God infused the entire population of humans with souls, and one couple from among them were tested and fell. Given this eventuality, one could hold either that 2.a) as a result of the sin of the representative couple, all humans were stained with original sin at once or 2.b) only the descendants of this fallen couple had original sin, but through some sequence of events, all of us are direct descendants of them. (It strikes me that this leaves the most room for a really fascinating set of fantasy novel plots.)

3) One could hold that they may well never have been a single couple who went through a fall, but that this mythological story was inspired or guided in development by the Holy Spirit in order to describe to the Israelites (and eventually to us) the fallen nature of humanity and the nature of humanities relationship with God. In this way of thinking, we pretty much have to admit that while there was clearly some “fall” at some point after humans came to have souls and be able to have a moral consciousness and awareness of God, and after which humanity possessed original sin and all that that entails, we really have no idea what it was that happened other than that God chose to describe it and its results to us via the story of Adam and Eve.

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Playing on the motorway in the Garden of Eden

Let’s go back to the question from my correspondent. So far, we’ve been speculating on the first sentence:

“Any thoughts on what the nature of this ‘task’ was to merit so severe a consequence?”

Now I’ve got a couple of comments on the second:

“It seems quite out of proportion.”

Icon of the Resurrected Christ raising Adam and Eve

I think there is a confusion here between the words ‘consequences’ and ‘punishment’. And, yes, I know that St Paul and the early Fathers talked about punishment. But I’ve been looking at what they actually said – and it seems to me they drew a clear difference between the punishment the first couple earned and the consequences they and their descendants received. I think Adam and Eve earned punishment for their set of sins – for pride, for doubt, for failure to obey, for blaming one another. But what happened next was not a punishment but a consequence.

God had told them what would happen if they ate the fruit. “On the day you eat of it you will surely die.” This was the punishment they had earned. But what happened? He sent them out of the garden, clothing them first. He gave them mercy. He told them the consequences of their failure for themselves and their descendants, but He also told them that it would all come out right in the end. He gave them hope.

Consequences are not fair. A child that pulls his hand from his mother’s and runs ahead while she calls him to stop is likely to suffer different consequences in a park than on a busy highway. The consequence of being hit by a truck is quite out of proportion to the transgression of disobeying mother. Similarly, we’ve all heard of stupid actions followed by lucky escapes – ‘you should have been killed’, we say. Again, the consequences are out of proportion (in the other direction) to the transgression against good judgement.

And our faith history tells us that there was a real job that Adam and Eve needed (and failed) to do to make us sons and daughters of God – a job that Jesus came to do instead.

So, in a sense, the task is irrelevant. The consequences – a failure to evolve to the next stage, to put it in modern terms – were not a punishment so much as a continuation of the status quo for our precursor species, but with the promise that the chance would come again.

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Original sin and original grace

I’ve been enjoying an off-line discussion on the origins of humankind, and I want to share some of it with you.

My correspondent is questioning the Catholic teaching that all humankind is descended from a single human couple who failed in some test and passed the consequences of this failure on to their descendants.

Here’s her summary of the key points of conflict between the Adam and Eve story and science:

• a single human couple who sinned against God vs  science can’t say anything about this
• this couple lived in isolation with no other humans anywhere on the earth vs human population never dropped below some ten thousand
• all humanity is descended ONLY from this couple vs the matrilinial and patrilinial most recent common ancestors lived some 70,000+ years apart AND examination of the human genome shows we are descended from a much larger pool of ancestors. There is NO evidence of a early ancestor couple and plenty of evidence that there was NOT a single couple.
• the effects of the sin have been passed that on to all their descendants vs again, science doesn’t have much to say about this apart from the fact that the ancestor pool was never as small as a single couple (so perhaps original grace was passed on too from those ancestors who didn’t sin?! LOL!).

I pointed her to my speculative attempt to reconcile these points. She came back with seven quotes from me followed by her questions. I’ll get to them all over the next few weeks, but here is the first, and it’s a doozy:

“Adam and Eve failed in a task God gave them – a metahistorical event we call ‘the Fall’. “
–> Any thoughts on what the nature of this ‘task’ was to merit so severe a consequence? It seems quite out of proportion. Perhaps God was taking a break from being merciful that day and instead putting all his efforts into exploring the wrathful side of his divine nature? LOL!

This is too big a topic for one post.

For this post, I’d like to tease out two points. The first is to do with the nature of the prelapsarian state; the second with what we mean by original sin. Later, we can look at what the actual task might have been, following the thoughts of various Jewish and Christian commenters.

A word before we start – these are my preliminary ideas: I hope to develop them further with your help.

What was the prelapsarian state?

I love that word ‘prelapsarian’. Pre=before; lapse=the fall – prelapsarian=existing before the fall.

According to Catholic tradition, God gifted Adam and Eve with four privileges. These were the complete mastery of their will, passions and instincts; exemption from death; sanctifying grace; and the vision of God in the next life. Sanctifying grace unites us with God; it is a permanent tendency to turn towards God. Before the fall, then, Adam and Eve were ‘full of grace’.

Note that these were gifts. Adam and Eve did not have an entitlement to them. Further, they were not (yet) natural to humans, as intelligence, humour, story-telling, and an appreciation of beauty are natural.

To make these gifts part of themselves; to accept them and make them inheritable; the first couple (I’m using the term ‘first’ in the royal sense of the word) needed to co-operate with grace and freely choose to do something simply because God told them to. Is this as petty as my correspondent fears? We’ll come back to that point.

What is original sin?

Just before Christmas, Richard Dawkins published a comment in which he lambasted the Pope and the Church for the pernicious doctrine that we were all born guilty of sin. It’s a common misunderstanding, and one that I think results from changes in language as well as from some of the robust language of the early Fathers.

The Church draws a firm line between actual sins – the sins we ourselves commit – and original sin – the hereditary condition of human kind. We are guilty of – culpable for – the first. We are not culpable for the second. There is a sense (clearer to those who think in terms of community responsibility) in which the actions of the head of the community are the responsibility of all members of the community – that is, we are part of the whole of humankind, and so bear a part in both the sinful act of Adam and the redeeming act of Christ. But we can’t be blamed for the first or credited with the second.

Hence, Catholic doctrine supposes no punishment for children who die in a state of original sin. They have done nothing to be punished for. Until recently, the Church has commonly supposed that such children are deprived of the sight of God – one of the four prelapsarian gifts to which we are not entitled. However, most modern thinkers agree with those of the Fathers who held that – while baptism is the only way to Heaven – baptism of desire counts, and God can baptise who He will, before death or after.

Adam’s action deprived us of those four prelapsarian gifts. We are not masters of our will, passion, and instincts. We are not exempt from death. We are born without sanctifying grace. We are not entitled to the vision of God in the next life. So does baptism restore all four gifts when it removes original sin? No, clearly not.  Baptism gives us access to the sanctifying grace we need to achieve mastery and the vision of God, and life after death, but it doesn’t put us back into the prelapsarian state. In our current state, we suffer from concupiscence – concupiscence being a desire of the lower appetite contrary to reason. Concupiscence is not itself a sin, but giving into it often leads to sin.

We are not responsible for the sin of Adam any more than we are responsible for our parents’ decision to settle in the town where we were born. But we are born in that town nonetheless.

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