A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

Faith & Science Conversation
1104

Thanks for this inspiring post. In the light of the Romans passages you refer to I would like to propose the following scenario:

God’s creation of mankind was twofold:

On the one hand God made humans sharing material/carnal/animalistic tendencies and born to die like the other evolved animals in the world, lacking capability to love God and reach eternal life, without awareness of God’s commandment, moral responsibility, and accountability toward God.

On the other hand, he created Adam and Eve of the same material but with special original Grace: they were in a sacred place (whatever that might be) to commune with God, had direct knowledge of God and His commandment, and were called to get eternal life without having to die. As you very well state: “The rest of humanity did not have this”.

As Adam and Eve transgressed God’s commandment, they were not damned to go to hell. By God’s mercy they remained in the world, removed from the sacred space and separated from God (“fallen from God’s Grace”), submitted to death: “the wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). Most important, God granted them the possibility to be redeemed and reach “eternal life (the gift of God)” through the Grace of Jesus Christ (see Romans 6:23), if they freely wanted to.

Thereafter all humans became aware of God’s commandment and God granted them capability to love God and reach eternal life with help of Christ’s Grace , just as “the fallen Adam and Eve”.

From this it follows: After Adam and Eve’s transgression all humans in the world ( including the contemporaries of Adam and Eve ) remained in the very same fallen condition of Adam and Eve, that is, with the animalistic tendencies they had previously, lacking the Grace Adam and Eve had before their fall, but capable of reaching eternal life “through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). In this sense on can say that “all have sinned” and “death reigned from the time of Adam”, even “over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam” (Romans 5:14).

This interpretation seems appealing as it would allow us to go along with two (at first sight opposite) views of “original sin”: 1) as the mere state resulting from human evolution, and 2) the fallen state resulting from the first transgression in human history.

I am keen to know whether you may be happy with this “very Romans based” explanation, and also what @gbrooks9 and @MOls think about.

1105

I am reluctant to synthesize a novel narrative on creation, and instead I have made a number of points that are discussed in Patristic writings, namely:

God created mankind in His image - you should explore this point in some detail, and Gregory of Nyssa discussion on the making of mankind is a good place to start. Mankind was created with attributes that include the material/brutish and the intelligent/spiritual, and capabilities and potentialities are related to the image and physical in toto.

I take Adam (the first Adam) to be the first one to be offered eternal life (placed in Eden as a sacred place), and if he had accepted, he may have been the means by which mankind would be offered salvation - he failed and was banished to be amongst the rest of mankind. The solution to sin and the fall from Grace is Christ (the second Adam) and salvation is by faith in Christ and the Grace of God.

Both Genesis and secular history show how sin caused great misery and harm to mankind and the earth. Mankind became aware of sin and the consequences when they became aware of God through Adam and his decedents, and recorded history and the genealogical/stochastic model show this would occur rapidly.

1106

Many thanks for these points. I seek to understand what you write and dare to ask some questions.

Suppose “Adam had accepted”.
Does this mean that then no other human would have ever sinned?

1107

Adam did not “accept” (he was tempted and deceived) so this point is moot. We may ask, what if anyone did not accept Christ? would he be condemned? what if someone rejected Christ without realizing what this amounted? These matters are in God’s hands.

If we define sin as transgressing God’ command, than those who are unaware of God would not be judged as sinners; but if we define sin as an attribute of our nature, we are all sinners, even if we are not so knowingly and intentionally.

I am contented to try and understand scripture and at this stage of my life, I do not find 'what if … this or that… interesting :smile:.

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1108

This statement deserves a standing ovation! :clap:

Understanding scripture is what I try to do as well.

“At this stage of your life” you look mentally quite fit!
So let us seek to understand what your concept “sin as an attribute of our nature” might mean.

From what you say I infer the following:

  1. Even if Adam had not sinned and generations had passed before the arrival of the first sin in human history, this sin would have had consequences “as an attribute of our nature” as well, just as if it had been the sin of Adam.

  2. After the first transgression in human history “we are all sinners” in the sense that we all share in a sinful condition, but NOT as if we had “knowingly and intentionally” sinned. In particular, and most important, this “sinful condition” of its own does not entail eternal damnation in case of death.

First of all, I would be thankful to know whether these two points correctly interpret your concept of “sin as an attribute of our nature”.

Secondly , I feel that these two points may be tightly related to @MOls idea of Original Sin:

Therefore, I would be thankful if Michelle could comment as well.

1109

Antoine, I’m pretty sure you are aware of the points where our respective worldviews are congruent and where they differ. But I thought Michelle might gain some insight if I ‘rehashed’ mine

It seems likely to me, at least, that the concept of fairness could not reach full flower in the evolution of the primate line until Homo sapiens was established. Indeed, the desire for ‘life to be fair’ can be considered as good a marker as any for a primate to be considered “fully human”. But most likely that occurred as a process over a time period–not as in a single couple that we can refer to as Adam & Eve.

Furthermore, as Christians who adhere to the doctrine that Jesus’ death on the cross was needed to save us from the consequences of an Original Sin committed against God the Father, we struggle to explain how this could be considered as ‘Fair’. Either it must remain a mystery, or, as a scientist would say, “We need a paradigm shift.” For me, the essence of such a paradigm shift is replacing Original Sin with Original Blessing: a Gift given when our Homo sapiens brain evolved to reach the capability of Mind which could then seek to imitate its Creator; or else selfishly seek out pleasure and reject this Gift. (Like pearls cast before swine??)

The full potential of the Homo sapiens species is NOT attained in any one individual (except perhaps for Jesus who is a special case), but only in the societies they formulate. (E. O. Wilson is most famous for describing this (from an atheist viewpoint) for the insect world.) This adds the complication of dealing with ‘Societal Sins’ as well as individual sins.
God bless us in these trying times.
Al Leo

1110

The discussion can become complicated - my starting point is “sin is breaking God’s command/law”. This is so even if we break the Law intentionally or not, or if it is articulated by Moses or some other way. That is why Paul says all have sinned and are without excuse.

We need to obtain greater insight on “the Law of God”. On this site often comments refer to the law of gravity and other notions, so to use such analogy, I would say, what if you or me were to break the law of gravity, even if we did not fully understand it, and others did not seek to break it? The result will inevitably be: planets would get out of orbits, suns may explode, and generally the universe would be broken.

So, this ‘what if’ illustrates the point, that the spiritual law that may lead those with the image of God to lawful attributes, was broken, and instead humanity formed sinful attributes (these are discussed in the bible).

The fairness comes from Christ, who understood that we could not keep the Law (we are deceived), and so He made sure that we can be saved.

1111

However, “Adam’s sin” is “breaking God’s command/law” intentionally, isn’t it?

1112

What is your point? Eve was deceived, as was Adam - they should have known better … and on and on it goes…

1113

My point is that your term ‘sin’ has a twofold meaning:

  1. Adam’s sin was “breaking of God’s commandment knowingly and intentionally”.

  2. This Adam’s transgression resulted in a sin as “an attribute of human nature”, a sinful condition by which “we are all sinners”, however NOT as if we had knowingly and intentionally transgressed .

The condition of “being sinner” in the sense of 2 of its own, does NOT entail eternal separation from God after death.

I would be thankful to know whether you agree to this.

If YES we would have common ground for discussing in depth the really interesting question you raise:

What does “a sin as an attribute of human nature” mean?

1114

I said that the discussion becomes complicated. The complexity and instability found in a community is problematic. A means for addressing the problematical is via the law of God and a discussion is required on the notion of law. This cannot be carried out without a detailed consideration of freedom. A human being is assumed to have a capacity for choice to act in some manner within our understanding of the notion of law. If the law of God is comprehended as active concepts accepted by a human being based on, or because of, intent ‘to love God’, intention and act need to be considered. If we consider a separation of intent and act, this would introduce a possibility of an act actualising different to the intent. For the requirement of a one-ness of intent and act to be met, an additional attribute is required from a human; I use the term for this attribute “of being lawful”.

Such an attribute would require an intrinsic aspect of lawfulness within a human being – i.e. the human being can only be lawful in that he is that person. The Gospel teaches us that all have sinned and have come short of the Glory of God. This shows that even if we view the Law of God as intrinsic via a human attribute, in practice, human beings would comprehend the negation of an attribute (e.g. if a person committed murder, he would be understood as “without a lawful attribute”, i.e. a criminal). Such a negation may be understood within a judgement that intent, and act, were not realised, and the result is comprehension of error (i.e. the person unintentionally killed another human being); otherwise a judgement would be required on the falsehood of a stated intent; for example, if the intent of such a person was to harmed another person, and then denies that intent, such a human would be “without a lawful attribute regarding deceit” by uttering a falsehood, and so on. By this reasoning, the attribute of a person who intended and acted correctly, would be a “lawful attribute”; however, if a person did not intent, nor act, to harm another person, this in itself could also be non-activity (or if an act occurred, an examination for other causes would be warranted). This would require a judgement, and on the possibility of an intrinsic aspect to a human.

1115

I would say thought-provoking, rather than complicated!

The “Gospel quotation” you refer to comes from Romans 3:23-24:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

It is worth matching this passage with these two other Romans’ verses:

God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (Romans 11:32).

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:14).

These three passages together lead us straightforwardly to the following insights:

  1. Adam sinned by “breaking a command of God” and lost the original state of grace in which he was created by God. However, God in his mercy did not damned Adam to join the devil but allowed him to remain on earth to have opportunity to atone and reach justification through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

  2. After Adam’s transgression, God creates everyone short of the glory of God, that is, lacking the original grace offered to Adam. For this reason, after the first transgression, “death reigns over every human person on earth, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam”. In this sense it holds that “all have sinned”, i.e. “everyone is bound over to disobedience” and shares the same fallen condition of Adam.

  3. Most important: The reason why God “bounds everyone over to disobedience” is “to have mercy on them all”, that is, to make it possible that all reach justification. Keeping on earth persons who could feel entitled to claim to be better than others would impair the work of redemption.

So what you call a “sin as an attribute of human nature” means nothing other than a sinful condition all of humanity is bound over to because of Adam’s transgression but for the sake of redemption.

This can be better understood if one keeps in mind that God’s mercy is the ultimate reason for God’s creative act. This means: God’s mercy is an essential ingredient of human nature; you cannot define humanity (even as a biological species) without invoking God’s intervention and thus God’s mercy. So, each sin attempts against God’s mercy, but uselessly because the only thing it achieves is to enhance such mercy even more. The first sin did this and, instead of damnation for the sinner, it elicited “need of redemption” for all!

It is worth studying more in depth the reasons why “keeping on earth persons who could feel entitled to claim to be better than others” would have impaired the work of redemption. I think @Mols has inspiring ideas in this respect:

1116

You make some useful points - the reason I have stated the discussion gets complicated is because we would then need to discuss freedom of a rational agent (human) and how this can be understood within the context of moral/sinful acts, intentions and attributes.

1117

Thanks. You too!

It is interesting to see that Genesis defines ‘human’ not using the category ‘rational agent’ but primarily with attributes like ‘being created in the image and likeness of God’, ‘having awareness of God’s commandment’ and therefore ‘being accountable toward God’.

It is also important to note that without invoking God’s intervention one cannot define humanity.

In a previous post I have quoted the computational biologist Richard Durbin:
It is biologically impossible to establish when the species Homo sapiens begins with anything other than arbitrary criteria.

And somewhere in another thread it has been fittingly remarked:
“To even want to detect ‘a first human being’ in the context of evolution is in the neighborhood of madness”.

In other words, to establish the moment when humanity begins, and hence sharply defining humankind, even as a biological species, requires invoking an intervention coming from outside biology.

Certainly evolution laid the groundwork to God’s intervention by producing a sharp difference between humans and non-human animals. However, this difference would have been meaningless without God’s intervention to define mankind.

It is in this very moment that the category ‘human species’ becomes meaning-ful, and thereby all the other species acquire meaning and can be named: “man gave names to all the livestock”, “whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name” (Genesis 2: 19-20).

As we have seen, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, “is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). All other humans are image of God because they share the same type of body Jesus Christ has.

This means that in the moment God makes a human in the image of God, all other anatomically modern humans living at this time, become the image of God as soon as they are called to love God, and reach eternal life by doing God’s will.

You very well say:

Genealogy is a simple way to express two things:

  1. Humankind (“Adam and his descendants”) is in the image of God because humans share the same type of body Jesus shares.

  2. After the first transgression in human history (“Adam’s transgression”) all humans sharing the image of God are created in the fallen condition of Adam (i.e.: lacking Adam’s original Grace).

On the basis of evolutionary science, we can establish the very same without invoking genealogy.

The amazing thing is that both meanings can appropriately be considered revealed by Genesis: Scripture grows with the new questions we ask as we read it, very much as science does!

1118

Genesis deals with beginnings, especially those leading to Abraham.

Humanity is defined by acts of individuals and communities, and these cannot be based on whatever version of biological evolution (BE) people subscribe to.

The bible deals with works of the flesh and attributes due to guidance from the Holy Spirit. This is how we understand what it means to be human.

I understand (? somewhat) that there may be a need for some Christians to try and ‘fit’ BE into a narrative that meshes it with Genesis; I do not subscribe to such a view. It is sufficient to consider science from first principles (esp maths), intelligibility, and the theology of creation, to establish a harmony of science and faith.

1119

It sounds interesting!
Could you please expand on this?

1120

This would need a new topic and I cannot find the time for that - however, an example that is both interesting and shows the beauty of maths is how the Schrödinger equation is discussed from Newton and Hook’s law, leading us to the wave equation.

1121

Indeed, it is a good example!

Mathematics is the tool God uses to make the ordinary world where we live and move. God uses maths in order we can calculate and predict the world and so live in comfortably.

The richness of maths is unfathomable. It reveals us new truths, when we ask new questions, as the example you give wonderfully demonstrate: Equations that were thought to describe a deterministic world acquire suddenly a much deeper probabilistic meaning in the light of the new data we have today.

My point is that this is very much the case with Scripture too: The Genealogy from Adam to Jesus acquires today a new deeper meaning: humans are humans and in the image of God not because they biologically descend from Adam but because they share a body like the body of Jesus Christ and are called to reach eternal life by doing God’s will.

An even deeper meaning is that humanity cannot be defined without invoking God’s mercy.

1122

In my papers you find a view of “Original Sin” and the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross which is very much related to your idea.

It seems to me that we both take as basic assumption the following:

God wants to redeem the sinners and for this reason they are allowed to remain on earth to have opportunity to atone and convert to God.

I would like to expand on this:

As Scripture tells us the first sin is a sin of pride: The sinner wants “to be like God” but not “to be with God”; he wants to be a lonely God. This is a big delusion, as it arises because the sinner sees only God’s glory and power and overlooks what God really is: interpersonal relationship, love.

So a first point that allow us to better understanding what “Original Sin” is all about may be this: to shape an appropriate framework for overcoming pride God leads the sinner to realize his/her own limits through pain and death. This happens on the physical level automatically (so to speak) once the sinner rejects the primeval gift of God, Original Grace, and can no longer master the animalistic Darwinian propensities and parameters of life. And on the moral level through the experience of evil resulting from human misuse of freedom.

A second point is that God decides “the great sacrifice of Himself, Jesus on the Cross” (as you say), to make it plain: “I am not power but love. If you want to be like God, please come with me on the Cross.” The paramount prove that the cup of pain God ask us to drink during life is not poisoned, is that “on the cross he drank, in front of the whole world, the cup of pain down to its dregs.”

A third point is this: suppose that God had kept on earth people that can claim to be better than other. This would entice the pride of all and impair the work of redemption. To redeem all God bounds everyone over to the “sinful condition” so that no one can claim: “I am unimpeachable”.

I would be thankful to know whether you may accept this line of thinking.

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1123

Hi Antoine, Thank you for reaching out again. I think your formulation makes a lot of sense. Yes, I agree that God is gracious to us, very patient with us, waiting for us to repent and turn towards Him. I also agree that the the Original Sin was pride, and that even today all people have pride and ideas of self-sufficiency within them. We think that we should be independent and do not need to follow any rules except our own. I think this is also one reason why some people become open during times of tragedy and uncertainty (like now during the pandemic). During such times, we realize how vulnerable we are and that we have very limited control over our own fates. Thus, it is comforting to know that we can trust God with our lives. And the promise of eternity with God reassures us that suffering now is only temporary, and will be relieved in the afterlife. And the Cross shows us that justice will also be complete, even if we do not receive justice on this side of eternity. The Cross also shows us that God loves us, and was willing to humble Himself and suffer with us, as a means of bringing us close to Him.

Another question I had for you: What did you think of the chapters towards the end of Joshua Swamidass’ book, where he speculates about how sin propagates through generations? He gave examples of racial and economic inequities and how those consequences affect whole communities throughout generations. The consequences of our sins are both personal, communal and long-lasting

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