MAN'S FALL

It seems to me that the traditional Christian answer to the presence of pain and suffering and death in the world - that these things are present in our world because of “The Fall” - is simplistic and inadequate.

I do not write only of the hurts we ourselves experience, such as sickness, or the malign blows of fate, or the death of a loved one, but of the devastating hurt and suffering elsewhere that we read about, or see on the TV, or sometimes, witness in our friends and loved ones. In some measure we ourselves suffer pain when we witness at first or second hand, the sufferings of others. Nor do I write here only of the evils that Man repeatedly brings about (through greed, hatred and fear). I write also of the dynamic of pain, suffering, and violent death that Creation itself is founded upon. I contemplate the unimaginable extent of horror that underlies Creation; the infinite extent of suffering built into the very fact of material life. 

Predatory creatures were preying upon weaker creatures from Creation’s very beginning, long before Man appeared on the scene; long before Man’s supposed “Fall.” The teeth of predators such as the cat and dog families are made for rending and tearing flesh, not for grinding and pulping vegetable matter; the teeth of herbivores, their prey, are made for grinding and pulping the plants and herbs that they eat. That the suffering of those defenceless animals that fall prey to sharp-toothed predators exists because of Man’s fall (or that there was a time when the lion, with his teeth made for rending and tearing flesh, existed on herbs and plants), as the Creationists tell me, is impossible for me to believe.

God created us that we may fall: consider these words; God intended that humanity fall, and in having fallen, to be raised up again through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It was in “falling” that we became the fully human creatures that God had in mind when He created us. Sticking to the Biblical metaphor, Eve’s succumbing to the temptation offered to her, and Adam’s willing acquiescence, were necessary, and God knew well that this was so, and that it was inevitable - along with all the woes and evils that it would bring into the world.

To become, to the fullest extent, the human beings that God intended us to be, it was necessary that Man acquire the fullest consciousness of himself, and learn to exercise his will freely. Had he not acquired this self-consciousness, had he not learned to exercise his will freely, he would have remained an idealized creation, unconscious of himself, akin to the brute beasts, his cousins. It was also necessary that the dark passions enter our souls, if we were to become fully human: I think here of fear, anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, lust and shame; I speak of the desire for vengeance, for visiting retribution upon those who have hurt us. These dark passions are as much a part of the human character as are the righteous passions, such as love (caritas, rather than eros), self-sacrifice, compassion, pity, empathy, charity, and nurturing.

Man’s fall was pre-ordained; it was part of God’s plan for us so that we would become fully human. If it is because of “The Fall” that these dark passions have entered into our human natures, these dark passions that cause so much hurt and suffering in the world, then is God Himself not equally culpable? The sin of Adam is as much God’s sin. Except that neither Adam nor God sinned. Adam was fulfilling God’s plan; God Himself is beyond sin.

And, in His becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ as fully human, and suffering and dying for us, was not God seeking to make restitution for His Creation, and for all the pain and suffering that is an inescapable part of Creation? God as Man endured in His own Person all the pains and hurts that so many creatures endure, including a cruel and violent death, but in so doing, He offered us the means to find forgiveness for our own indulgence in the dark passions that are the cause of so much hurt and suffering in the world.

“The Fall” did not bring pain and death into the world. Pain and death were present long before Man’s fall. But Man’s fall made of a world unconscious of the cruelty, violence and death which were an inescapable fact of its existence, a world in which Man, uniquely, became conscious of these evils. The story of Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for Man’s loss of innocence, but without that loss, he could not have become fully human.

It was only when (at much the same time, and in many individual locations within - most probably - the region known today as East Africa) our lineal ancestors - similar in all respects in appearance to us today, probably possessed already of the rudiments of a simple linguistic means of communication, but largely unconscious of themselves as individuals - became conscious of their individuality, conscious of their mortality, conscious of sin, that we became at last fully human; we became Homo Sapiens. (From the Latin: Wise, or intelligent, man).

Ever conscious at a subliminal level of that loss of innocence, humanity experiences at times something like grief and despair. Man seeks ways of freeing himself for a while of the burden of consciousness: alcohol is surely the oldest of these routes to temporary escape from this burden. But some of us, by God’s grace alone, become aware that God Incarnate suffered and died for us, and took upon His shoulders all the world’s sin and pain, and if we would regain something of our lost innocence, we need only acknowledge this sacrifice, and accept the Living God, Jesus Christ, as our Lord.