THE PRIMARY CONCERN OF CHRISTIANITY IS NOT THE ORIGIN OF SIN BUT THE QUESTION OF WHAT SIN IS AND HOW IT may be overcome. Neither the prophets nor Jesus deal with the former matter. The only reference in the Old Testament is that in Gen. 3, unless one considers the curious story of the "sons of God" and the daughters of men in Gen. 6, a bit of mythology which theologians have usually passed over. Paul has only two references to the fall. His interest, too, is not in a theory of origins, but in the thought of Christ as the center of history, the vanquisher of sin and death, the giver of life, the beginner of a new race. Traditional theology, on the other hand, especially of the Augustinian-Calvinistic line, went to these early stories as a primary source, finding here its doctrines of man and sin, of primal perfection and total depravity.

What is the value of this account for Christian thought? In rejecting its unhistorical and dogmatic misuse it is easy to miss its meaning as an expression of faith. It is not science or history, and modern science does not nullify its value. It is not inspired theology. It is a declaration of faith. It uses picture or symbol, a form which belongs to the highest expressions of human thought as found in poetry and religion. Some have called the Genesis story of creation and fall a myth, a valid term if it be taken to mean not the want of truth but simply the form of its presentation. Here are truths that will abide while scientific theories change.

To the picture form belong the thought of creation in six days and in a specified order, the idea of a central earth, a domelike structure above in which the heavenly bodies are fixed, the story of God walking in a garden looking for a man in hiding. The great truths which enter into this hymn of faith are plain. Basic is the faith in the one God who is before all and over all, the creator God who shaped heaven and earth in power and order and beauty and with gracious purpose. Man appears as the crown of creation, as the creature made in the likeness of God, who can hear God and make answer to him, who is set here to rule, who can choose and can disobey. The purpose of the temptation story is not so clear, and scholars are still in dispute about it. Some would say that its primary concern was to show how man became a mortal creature, subject to death. Others would extend this and find here an early theodicy: the evil of this world, toil, pain of childbirth, suffering, sin, death, all have come from one source, man's disobedience, for which these are God's punishment. The idea of total depravity and an inherited corruption for all the race is not contained here; we are told neither just what is meant by the image of God in man nor what is meant by its loss. It is plain, however, that we have here a lofty moral faith: a good God, sin as man's free and responsible choice, evil as the result of man's wrongdoing.

The Origin of Sin

To describe historically just when and where and how sin came into the world is neither possible nor important. It is inevitable, however, that faith should ask how evil should appear in a world created by a good God. We are not left without light on this question. Much of our difficulty arises from our thinking of the world and man in static fashion, and from supposing that because God is perfect goodness and all power, therefore creation means a world coming from his hand at one stroke complete and perfect. If we hold this, then we shall have to say that "sin proceeds from a wholly inexplicable act of will in opposition to God." ¹ Such a conception, however, is not required by the Christian faith and has no support in scientific or historical knowledge. It is our faith that a good God created this world and that it is dependent upon him, but God's way of work in creation is another matter. The great question is not how evil came into a perfect world but how God has worked to create, in a world which Genesis itself speaks of as once "without form and void," such beauty and order, such life and reason and intelligence and love, as this world shows even in the midst of evil.

The question belongs to a larger discussion, that of the problem of evil. Here it is enough to say: from what we know of the past and of God's working today, his way for his world is that of growth, of struggle and striving, and of an increasing element of freedom in his creatures, becoming rational and moral freedom in man. We cannot say when, in the movement of this growing life, man became truly man, "when the first man stood God-conquered, with his face to heaven upturned." We cannot, indeed, tell in the case of the individual at just what point the life whose growth begins in the darkness of the womb becomes a living soul. We do know, however, that at the beginning, as today, certain forces or factors were present in man which contained the possibilities of good and evil There was, of course, the conditioning environment, physical and social. Our present concern, however, is with the elements in man himself.

1. There is a necessary self-asserting aspect in all life, and man shares this. There are hungers of every kind that ask for satisfaction. There is the desire for self-preservation and, beyond that, for achievement. This is the will to live. It is not of itself evil nor does religion demand its elimination. That demand comes only with an extreme quietism or asceticism, or an extreme mysticism whose goal is the loss of self and absorption in the divine. Christianity appeals, rather, to this will to live. It comes with the offer of life, life that is rich and full and satisfying.

Yet here, in this sense of self and this drive of its needs, there is a place of test and temptation. To this creature of impulse and desire there has been given the vision of that which is higher—God and right and the claim of others upon his interest and effort. So there comes the need of choice and the temptation to set self against God, to put self before others, to follow the lower instead of the higher. This remains the great temptation and source of evil today. Call it egocentricity, self-centeredness, selfishness: it is man against God in disobedience, man against his fellows in selfishness, and in putting the lower before the higher, it is man sinning against himself.

2. But there are other elements in man's nature beside this native self-concern. There is the other-regarding or social side. Man has never lived a merely individual or isolated life. His life is not complete or satisfying without others. This group life rests back on corresponding impulses and instincts. Man has a sensitive awareness of his fellows, especially those who are nearest to him. In the family this means sympathy, tenderness, protectiveness, affection. It is not without significance that the New Testament (Jesus first of all) uses the symbolism of the family to set forth what God is and what man's life should be. In the larger groupings there have developed such sentiments or attitudes as friendship, loyalty, the sense of solidarity, and co-operation. Man says "we" as well as "I."

Here, too, there is the temptation to evil and the occasion for sin. The group life can become a selfish life. Toward those outside there can easily be suspicion, fear, and hatred. Today we have the strife of class with class, of nation with nation, the exploitation of the weaker by the more powerful, the inability to envisage a common good and the unwillingness to work for it. In the group life, as in the life of the individual, there is occasion for temptation as well as opportunity to achieve good.

3. In similar manner man's capacity for self-transcendence is at once the way to the good life and an occasion for temptation. Such self-transcendence is made possible by the appeal of a higher world and man's capacity to respond. That appeal comes in three ways: in man's awareness of higher values and a desire to attain them; in his sense of obligation in relation to these; in his awareness of God and of his need of God. Here is the crucial point in the entrance of sin: man, discerning the higher and its claim upon him, can obey or can refuse.

All three of these aspects of man's nature, his sense of self, of others, and of God, are at once the door to life and the possible occasion of sin and death. At each of these points, including self and fellow man, it is God who comes to man and God whom man rejects. At each point sin appears as the self setting itself against God.

Various theories of the origin of evil can be ruled out. (1) Sin does not belong to man because he is a mere creature, finite and imperfect. (2) Its explanation is not in any dualistic theory which holds that the fleshly and material as such are evil, or which posits a devil and evil spirits in eternal opposition to the good God. (3) It is not explained by the theory of evolution, positing a struggle between man's nature as spirit, with its vision of right and good, and the brute nature with its inherited instincts and passions coming from the long ages of slowly evolving animal life. Tennyson's phrase of "Nature, red in tooth and claw," his summons to "let the ape and tiger die," are as far from the truth as is Thomas H. Huxley's word about the "gladiator show." Prince Kropotkin and Henry Drummond insisted rightly upon the significance of the group life and the struggle for others as one aspect of evolution, and a later work emphasizes the "survival of the truly fittest through love and sacrifice, sociability and cooperation," ² elements especially marked when at length the mammal arrives.

Over against these theories we must say: our real problem is not the origin of evil but the creation of the good. It is no minimizing of sin, of its evil nature and its serious consequences, to say that it can be understood only in the light of the larger issue. In Christian thought the good, the supreme good, is personal and ethical and religious. It is man's free choice of the right and good and his devotion to a good and righteous God. It involves not merely act but inner spirit and achieved character. Its attainment and full expression is possible only in social relations. Like all life it is under the law of growth: growth in knowledge, in wisdom, in devotion, in character. But it has its own special principle, that of moral freedom. Such a life can never be an outright gift, bestowed by some initial creative act. What God gives man is the possibility of achievement. This lies not only in the nature of the world and man as God has created them, but in the truth and grace and help which God offers and which man may accept or reject.

Under these conditions sin is neither an inscrutable mystery nor a necessity. Historically viewed, indeed, it appears to us as an inevitability. Ignorance grows slowly into knowledge, weakness into strength. The lower nature must be made obedient to the higher vision. The way is not one of "natural" growth or mere self-expression but of determined choice between conflicting interests and impulses, with toil and struggle. Progress comes with growing discernment, but every new vision brings a crisis. Man is given not merely strength but power. It may be true, as Lord Acton has said, that "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." But possession of power, power to rule and not just strength, is of the very essence of human nature, this "main miracle, that thou art thou, with power on thine own self and on the world." This is man's God-given ability to rule himself, to control nature, yes, and to rule others. But here again that which belongs to the highest good may easily become evil; power over nature may be for mere self-indulgence and power over others a cruel and selfish domination motivated by pride and greed. ³

In all this there remains the vital truth expressed by the doctrine of the fall and its consequences for man. (1) If there is to be on earth a race of beings who shall know God and live with him and share in his spirit of love and righteousness, then they must have that freedom and responsibility which go with knowing and choosing. (2) Man has misused that freedom by refusing God and his way. That refusal is dramatized in the Genesis story, which sets forth not merely what happened at the beginning of human life but what has been repeated by man in every generation. (3) The choice of sin brings its consequences, as does the choice of good. The evil results appear in the bent of life, the power which evil gains over us, the lessened vision and desire for God and good, as well as in the larger social-historical consequences. The Genesis story only asserts what is plain to everyone who looks upon man and his history.

The Propagation of Sin

The universality of sin and the propagation of sin were explained in traditional theology by the doctrine of original sin and total depravity. Adam's deed brought the instant and total corruption of his own nature, and this evil nature was passed on to the race and all its members. Calvin presents this in through going and consistent fashion. Original sin is "a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all parts of the soul." "No part remains exempt from sin, and, therefore, everything which proceeds from him is imputed as sin." Thus "infants have the seed implanted in them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seedbed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God." ⁴ Sin then comes, in Calvin's phrase, by "carnal descent."

To this it must be replied that sin, like goodness, is not a physical or metaphysical matter. It is found in the realm of the personal-ethical. It cannot, therefore, be passed on by a biological process any more than goodness can. Sin is propagated in the race in the same manner as in the individual. The three important aspects of this propagation are the individual, the hereditary, and the historical-social.

1. Sin is always man's individual and responsible choice. If it is less than this, then it is not sin. In this sense "each man is his own Adam." That is why, alike in Old Testament and New, men are summoned to choose, to decide. However limited and conditioned this moral freedom may be, we should not be human without it. In every man, in every generation, there is a choosing and deciding. It is not by spiritual inertia, nor by the play on man of irresistible forces, but by this continuing choice and affirmation that sin lives and grows from age to age. And it grows in the individual. Sin is organic, not atomistic. It grows with sinning, propagating itself, increasing its power, making the whole life more and more sinful.

2. There is what we may call the hereditary aspect. Man is not born "good," for moral goodness is an achievement. Nor does he come into the world as a passive or neutral being. Though he is at birth neither (morally) good nor bad, there are powerful forces native to him. This is the instinct-impulse side of his nature as already considered. Moral freedom is seen in the direction which he gives his life, but it works in and through these drives, and these may move him powerfully toward evil. Here is the element of truth in Augustinianism. But there are other drives which move toward the good. There is an awareness of God and good and a desire for them. And man can hear and respond when God speaks.

3. Human life is never merely individual. Good and evil alike live and grow in man's social, or group, life. The evil social life is not merely one of wrong practices. There are wrong attitudes, all too evident in the world's life today: suspicion, fear, jealousy, selfishness, ill will. There is a historical heritage of false ideas and wrong ideals, an evil institutional heritage found in state and industry and social practices. All this evil tends to propagate itself. Men are born into this world of evil, breathe its spirit, are shaped by its ideas. It is idle to ask whether this historical-social heritage is more powerful or less than the psychological-biological. The two form a whole in powerful interaction.

1) Karl Heim, Leitfaden der Dogmatik, p, 47.

2) Geddes and Thomson, op. cit., p. 246.

3) "Every human being is a problem in search of a solution," writes W. F. Ashley-Montagu in On Being Human (New York: Henry Schuman, Inc., 1950), p, 12, a comment which applies to the race as to the individual.

4) The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk.II, ch. I, sees. 7-9.