The Fall, Part 2: Parable and Paradox

“And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God. And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.” (Moses 5:10-12)

“O goodness infinite, goodness immense!
That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good; more wonderful
Than that which by creation first brought forth
Light out of darkenss! Full of doubt I stand,
Whether I should repent me now of sin
By me done or occasion’d, or rejoyce
Much more, that much more good thereof shall spring,
To God more glory, more good will to Men
From God, and over wrauth grace shall abound.”
-Adam (John Milton’s Paradise Lost) [1]

In my last post I reviewed just a few of the major points in the history of Original Sin. The doctrine of Original Sin is one way to interpret the story, one among many. Here I would like to explore some other ways of looking at the Fall of Adam and Eve. I mentioned that some of the problems with traditional interpretation of the story stem from an overemphasis on a literal understanding. It is common for people of faith to defend strict Biblical literalism and assert that everything in scripture happened just as described and that to suggest that passages are metaphorical or parabolic is demeaning to the scripture. However, as a devout believer I feel that strict Biblical literalism that eschews metaphor, parable, and symbolism misses out on the richness imbedded in the sacred text. Stories can be both literal and metaphorical and the degree to which a story is literal is not especially important. The message hidden in the parable is what impacts us and causes us to stretch our minds and to grow. It is useful in the story of Adam and Eve to place ourselves in their place. The name “Adam” is, in addition to a proper name, a Hebrew word for “mankind”. This says to me that we are meant to understand the story in relation to ourselves.

The simplest way to organize anything is to divide it up into clear, distinct, well-defined categories. This approach has the advantages of being very clean and easy to understand. As an engineer I love clear and concise models, formulas and graphs. The Fall could be seen as all bad: disobedience, sin, death, etc. It could also be seen as all good: knowledge, growth, experience, etc. But the Hebrew Bible was not written in this way. It was not written by mathematicians or logicians. If the Greeks had written the Bible it would have been very different. Hebrew authors often wrote or told stories in such a way that interpretations could be more open, sometimes even paradoxical. The Fall could be viewed as good or bad. Maybe some aspects were good and others were bad. But maybe this is still too organized: some aspects of the Fall could be both good and bad. While this kind of approach is not as clear and much more difficult, it also allows you to play with it, work through it and around it, and to shape it and reshape it in several different ways. Like art, it causes you to step back and think about it and ask questions. I think that one of the major lessons from this story is that life is filled with paradox and that part of maturing and coming to grips with your world is to accept and appreciate the paradox and complexity of your universe.

Paradox in literature is defined as “an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight.” [2] For example, in Mormon doctrine, the Fall was part of God’s plan yet he commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I have seen Sunday School teachers and class members all trying to make sense of this and I think it is a lost cause. I will stick my neck out here and say that this just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think it’s supposed to make sense—that’s the point. We live in a world of contradictions and opposition—not just in some things—in all things. In The Book of Mormon, Lehi said “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things...” (2 Nephi 2:11) He then listed several things that exist in dual pairs, defined by their opposites. For example, there can be no such thing as good if there is not also evil. If evil were eradicated, good would be a meaningless term. Thus, the quality of “goodness” depends on evil. The same could be said with righteousness and wickedness, life and death, cleanliness and uncleanliness. This understanding of abstract concepts is organized by division of opposites. But at the same time these opposing concepts depend each other for their meaning.

But some things, can be both good and bad depending on a variety of factors. Lehi said of the Fall: “And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:22-25) If we put ourselves in the place of Adam and Eve we see that we toil, suffer, age and die. Yet from work we progress, from suffering we become compassionate, from age we learn wisdom and the prospect of death makes us value life. From negative things we can find the good.

The latest interpretation I have discovered in this parable is one of maturation. Each person is born into a Garden of Eden. We know neither good nor evil. We don’t have to work. We are not aware of sexuality. We are innocent. But in every aspect of life there comes a time when we have to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Life has risk and just as a child stumbles when he learns to walk, every new step holds danger and the possibility of harm. Everyone needs to spend time in the Garden of Eden. Sometimes children are pushed out of it too quickly—they have the fruit jammed down their throat. But everyone needs to eat of the fruit eventually and if they don’t they cannot function in this world. We don’t live in the Garden of Eden and we can’t live as if we did.

God was right when he warned Adam and Eve of the danger of the fruit. The fruit of knowledge is dangerous because knowledge is dangerous. But the dangers of knowledge can be resolved with more knowledge, developed knowledge. President Hugh B. Brown, First Counselor to President David O. McKay taught a similar concept about freedom: “One of the most important things in the world is freedom of the mind; from this all other freedoms spring. Such freedom is necessarily dangerous, for one cannot think right without running the risk of thinking wrong, but generally more thinking is the antidote for the evils that spring from wrong thinking.” [3] When a child learns the concept of possession it can initially lead to covetousness and stealing. He has gained knowledge of possession but has not yet learned of rights of ownership, earning and work. More knowledge is required. A teenager matures and is no longer “naked and not ashamed” but aware and has knowledge of sexuality. This can be dangerous without the more mature knowledge of chastity and respect for the body. More knowledge is required.

As we grow, acquire more knowlege and face new dangers we must respond in different ways. The variety of situations we may come accross will require more methods than a simple, one-dimensional personality will allow. Every person has within them an Adam and Eve. Adam is our obedient, conforming, safe side. Eve is our curious, adventurous, risk-taking side. We need both sides to function in our lives. We need to be conservative and have a base where we set limits and boundaries. But we also need to recognize the times when limits are too small and break through barriers and expand. We need both parts in our psyche.

These are just a few ways to look at the parable and we can think about it and discuss it endlessly to pull out new and pertinent applications. This story is repeated in a few different places in the LDS scriptures and I think there is a reason for that. We are supposed to be learning from this parable and we can learn something new every time we approach it depending on our needs, our interests or what we are looking for. My next post will treat the Fall in relation to the Atonement and the Grace of Christ.

[1] John Milton, Paradise Lost, 12th Bk, lines 469-78

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_(literature) (retrieved January 26, 2010)

[3] Hugh B. Brown. An Abundant Life. 1999. p. 139

The Fall, Part 1: A History of Original Sin

I am moving right along in my reading of the Old Testament but I want to come back to talk about the story of Adam and Eve. Yesterday my ward’s Gospel Doctrine class was about the Fall of Adam and Eve. As I was sitting in sacrament meeting I was thinking about the story and realized what a important story it is. I thought of several applications the drama of the Garden of Eden could have depending the particular angle you take to analyze it. I want to dedicate a series of posts on Adam and Eve in addition to the few posts I have already done. I hope not to bury the subject too much but I think there is a lot here to investigate. I would like to review in this first post the history of the theological understanding of The Fall. In subsequent posts I will lay out some possible, symbolic interpretations (I think there are many, many viable interpretations).

The earliest history of the story begins of course in Hebrew culture but I would like to begin with the early Christian understanding of the Fall of Adam and Eve—the idea of original sin. To say this was the early Christian view is not entirely accurate. The first three centuries of the Christian era saw little treatment of the idea. It was Saint Ambrose (337-397) and his pupil Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in particular who first formulated the doctrine of Original Sin.

The idea was not conceived in a social vacuum but was a response to the contemporaneous political and ecclesiastical atmosphere. The time of Ambrose and Augustine was a time of the disintegration of the Roman Empire. Barbarian forces were invading from Europe and the fall of Rome influenced Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin [1]. Augustine’s writings were also in a large measure directed in response to another theologian, the British monk Pelagius. Pelagius (354-420) denied both original sin and the doctrine of salvation by grace. His doctrine, now known as the heresy of Pelagianism, affirmed the idea of salvation by merit.

Said Pelagius: “Everything good and everything evil, in respect of which we are either worthy of praise or of blame, is done by us, not born with us. We are born in our full development, but with a capacity for good and evil; we are begotten as well without virtue as without vice, and before the activity of our own personal will there is nothing in man but what God has stored in him.” [2]

The teachings of Pelagius were condemned by the Council of Carthage in 416. He was excommunicated by Pope Innocent I in 417. In the end it was Augustine who would exert the greatest influence on Christian teachings. Augustine taught that God was justified to damn the whole of humanity for the sin of Adam, the father of humanity. He understood that the guilt of Adam was passed down from one generation to the next through the sexual act and that all are thus conceived in sin. This depravity through sexuality he called “concupiscence” [1].

Augustine said: “Banished after his sin, Adam bound his offspring also with the penalty of death and damnation, that offspring which by sinning he had corrupted in himself, as in a root; so that whatever progeny was born (through carnal concupiscence, by which a fitting retribution for his disobedience was bestowed upon him) from himself and his spouse—who was the cause of his sin and the companion of his damnation—would drag through the ages the burden of Original Sin...” [3]

Augustine’s understanding of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden was, at the time, unique and different from that of Jews or Greek Orthodox Christians [4]. The other faiths had never taken such a negative view of the entirety of mankind in such unflinching totality.

Since the time of Augustine, several concepts have held sway regarding original sin. It is important to understand that not all theological positions of Original Sin claim that mankind is actually guilty for the sin of Adam (though that is one view). Most modern Christians ascribe to the idea that Adam and Eve simply caused mankind to become naturally sinful while we are not actually guilty of something done thousands of years ago. LDS philosopher Blake Ostler lists the historical theories of vicarious guilt as follows:

1. Calvinism: “We are guilty of Adam’s sin because we were ‘in’ him as ‘seed’ at the time he sinned and/or because he acted as our ‘federal head’ or representative in his sinful acts.”
2. Arminianism: “We would be guilty of Adam’s sin except that our guilt has been removed through prevenient grace as a result of Christ’s atonement...however, our nature is so corrupted that we inevitably sin, thus endorsing Adam’s sin, thus becoming guilty of it ourselves.”
3. Semi-Pelagianism: “We are guilty only for our own acts... Inevitably, we become guilty of our own sins.”
4. Pelagianism: “We are not guilty for Adam’s sin but only for our own acts. In principle, we could live perfect lives.”
5. Anselmianism: As a result of the sin of Adam, we have all lost the supernatural gift of grace that would have made it possible for us to appropriately order our inclinations... As a result, it is impossible for us to refrain from sin.” [5]

Both Semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism deny the idea of any guilt on our own part for Adam’s sin. Calvinism and, in essence, Arminiansim assert a certain guilt born by the descendants of Adam for the sins of their ancestor. Anselmianism does not claim that humanity shares any of Adam’s guilt, but that we are affected by it in such a way that we are led to sin. The Calvinistic view involves the idea of traducianism, which is to say that the soul of an individual is generated by the souls of his parents (a topic for another post). All these ideas have had influence in Christianity, but what scriptural basis do they have?

Most of the Biblical support for the idea was taken from the epistles of Paul. The passage most important for Saint Augustine was the Epistle to the Romans: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned... For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification... Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” (Romans 5:12-19)

It can be seen here that the understanding of man’s sinful nature is tied to the understanding of salvation by grace. The doctrine that man must be saved from sin through the grace of Christ is accepted by most Christian religions (including Mormonism) to one degree or another. But it is the severity of man’s depravity that determines the extent to which he depends on grace. In Calvinism and Arminianism, man is so base and evil that he is liable to be damned unless God, by his grace, selects an individual to be saved and enables him to become righteous. Such an extreme view stands in direct opposition to Pelagianism. Taken to its logical conclusion it is a doctrine of predestination. This is the view that we can do nothing to even seek the grace of Christ; we must be chosen and can do nothing about it for ourselves.

It is quite possible and evident that Augustine relied upon the Ambrosiaster mistranslation of Romans 5:12. The verse, again, states: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”. In Greek, the text reads “So death passed to all men in that (heth ho) all sin.” However, in the old Latin translation which Augustine read the text read “in whom (in quo) all sinned.” [6] The difference is critical. In Greek, it means that all men sin. In Latin, it means that all men sin in the person Adam.

There are several other doctrines which easily follow from the doctrine of Original Sin. One is the doctrine of Predestination. If we are so naturally evil that we cannot even do good of our own free will then God has already chosen who will be saved and who will be damned, independently of our own participation. Carried further this may entail the idea of Determinism. This is that we have no free will to choose our own fate but everything we do is determined by our nature. Essentially, all the particles that make up the universe are organized and set in motion in a particular way that everything is perfectly predictable and inalterable.

Other implications are more striking. Augustine believed that humanity's guilt for the sin of Adam extended even to children. Thus, he believed infants who died before they were baptized would be consigned to Hell. This, he felt, was supported by numerous Biblical passages: Psalms 50:10; Job 14:4-5; John 3:5; Romans 5:12; Ephesians 2:3. [7] I defer comment to The Book of Mormon: “And their little children need no repentance, neither baptism... little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!... And he that saith that little children need baptism denieth the mercies of Christ, and setteth at naught the atonement of him and the power of his redemption... But it is mockery before God, denying the mercies of Christ, and the power of his Holy Spirit, and putting trust in dead works.” (Moroni 8:11-23)

In such a short space I have hardly been able to give these theologies fair assessment and I in no way mean to disparage the ideas developed during hundreds of years of Christianity. Nor have I scratched the surface of the history. But I think the logical and ethical problems brought about by the idea of Original Sin stem from an overemphasis on the literal understanding of the story of Adam and Eve. In other words, the entire point of the story is lost—the point being embedded in the symbolism.

[1] Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 1993. p. 123

[2] Pelagius, Pro Libero Arbitrio, quoted by St. Augustine in On Original Sin, chap XIV.

[3] Enchyridion 26.27.

[4] Armstrong, 124

[5] Ostler, Blake. Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God. 2006. p. 123-124.

[6] Ibid., 128

[7] Ibid., 127

The Second Creation Narrative: Eve

This is my second post in the two-part series on the creation narratives of Genesis. This second narrative is found in Genesis 2:4-25. After reading the first two chapters I noticed very distinct messages and approaches in each chapter. I also noticed the clear demarcation of in Genesis 2:4 opening a new account: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth...” One detail of note is that in Hebrew the scriptures began referring to the creator as “Yahweh”. The previous creation account referred to the creator as “Elohim”. For this reason, the second creation narrative is often credited to another author called the Jahwist (J). The name “Yahweh” is often translated in English to “Jehovah”. However, Jews prefer not to vocalize the name “Yahweh” when reading the Torah and substitute this name with “Adonai”, meaning “Lord”. The King James Version of the Bible follows this practice with few exceptions. Therefore, the change in the name of the creator can be observed in English by the use of the word “Lord”.

One obvious indication that this is a separate creation narrative is the statement in the fifth verse: “and every plant of the field before it was in the earth and every herb of the field before it grew... and there was not a man to till the ground”. This verse is going back to the time before there were plants or people. Later, in the story we find that there were not yet animals. But in the previous creation narrative God had created plants, animals and man. It appears these creation accounts are not sequential in time but parallel. I see these two accounts portraying the same story but for different purposes.

God creates man “from the dust of the ground”. The word for “ground” in Hebrew is “adhamah” which is something of a play on words. The word “adhamah” is composed of four Hebrew letters: aleph, daleth, mem, he. If the last letter “he” is removed, the three letters that remain form the word “adham” or “mankind”. Thus, in Hebrew, “mankind” is literally taken out of the “ground”. Yahweh then animates the body of man by breathing into it the breath of life so it becomes a living soul.

Now that there is a man to till the ground, Yahweh plants a garden and places the man in it. He plants many trees and is permitted to eat from all but The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He is warned that if should he eat the fruit of this tree he will surely die. The account also gives the geography and rivers of the surrounding area. I will skim over a lot of this to get to the part that I think is the most important part of the story.

Yahweh says “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (verse 18). The word “meet” in Hebrew is “neghedh”, meaning a front, i.e. part opposite; specifically a counterpart, or mate. Yahweh then forms out of the ground every beast of the field and fowl of the air. These are presented to Adam and he names them. All these creatures are created from the same source as man himself, the ground or “adhamah”. But among all these many useful beasts and creatures there is found no aid “meet” for man, or “counterpart” corresponding to him.

Finally, Yahweh causes Adam to sleep and takes part of the man’s own flesh to create a companion: a woman. The woman is made from Adam’s rib, in Hebrew “tsela”, which can also be understood to mean “side”. Adam then says, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (verse 23). This companion is named “ishah”, which is woman, because she was taken out of man, “ish”.

As I have mentioned previously, I don’t think the literal, historical veracity of this story is what is important. I doubt that Eve was literally created out of a rib. But who knows? Maybe it is literal. But I think this story is creating an image to portray an important meaning. The man was alone. He needed a counterpart, an opposite, a mate. All the animals with their many uses were not able to fill this role. They were made of the same materials. The cattle of the field are useful for food and labor. But none of these corresponded to man on the deepest and most important levels. For this, the Lord needed to create a new life out of the man himself—someone who he could connect with as if the two were one soul. This was done by creating woman, the final act of creation.

This is the great lesson of the second creation narrative. Men and women should be connected to each other in every possible way. They are opposite and similar, contrasting and complementing. They are as one flesh though in two separate bodies. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh”.