Thoughts on Original Sin

Originally posted on Facebook May 11, 2009

The Pastor at the Church I attend has started giving the congregation “Action Items” during his sermons. Basically it’s a broad task he wants us to do or think about between Sundays, presumably to encourage people to incorporate faith into their lives beyond just attending Sunday morning services. One of these “Action Items” (two weeks ago I think) was to do something uncomfortable on behalf of our faith. This blog is in response.

I have been accused occasionally of withholding my beliefs from people in the course of philosophical/theological discussions (From here on out I’m just going to call it theology. It always ends up being about morality or mortality when it’s philosophical, which in turn always takes us back to the question of God.). There is a lot of truth in this accusation. Basically the intention behind my questions and statements in these discussions is often to find out why the participant believes whatever they believe while revealing as few of my own beliefs as needed. Sometimes I’ll even play devil’s advocate and discuss from a position I don’t actually support in order to more fully understand what is being presented to me. Frequently I find myself most interested in the ideas I flat out disagree with. There are several reasons why I do this. First, I don’t want my opposite to modify what they are saying based on their perception of what I believe. Second, I don’t want my opposite to feel challenged. Often a simple statement is taken to mean “you’re wrong”. In a sample discussion, if my opposite states that they are Buddhist, and I follow by identifying myself as a Protestant Christian, the words “I’m a Protestant Christian” are not an attempt to invalidated Buddha and the 2500 years of tradition he inspired. I have simply made known the beliefs I subscribe to. The biggest reason behind my reluctance to boldly make statements of belief is by far the most embarrassing however. I’m loosely known by some for being “spiritually strong”, “wise”, or “smart”. And the truth is I’m just a big idiot.

My spiritual journey (please forgive the pop-psych term, it’s just an accurate way to describe it if a little hokey) has been an extremely organic process, which to use the journey metaphor has been less like the famous walk in the sand and more like stumbling through a forest at night. Every so often, just when I think I’m doing well, I break my face on a tree. Or, to describe it another way, though I am secure in my faith as a Christian I feel like a caveman in a modern day Caribbean resort. I know I’m in a wonderful place but if it’s not a rock or a stick I really don’t understand it. The worst part about all this is the “What was I thinking?” moments. You know what I’m talking about. You’re in a discussion, firmly defending a statement in spite of numerous appeals to your sanity, and then two days later you’re in the bathroom on the commode and intelligence finally catches up with you. One day you are stanch in you own cerebral superiority, the next you think the toilet paper is staring at you like you’re an autistic chimp in a Mensa conference. Not a pleasant feeling. There are few things in life as disheartening as appalled toilet paper. Or there is this wonderful conversation:

“Wait a minute. When we were talking two months ago, you said this. In fact you pretty much convinced me of it.”

“Wait, I said that?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Oh yeah, I did. Yeah, I was wrong. Really really wrong.”

I have had to eat so much crow in my life I should publish a cook book.

To sum up this extremely longwinded introduction, I’m gonna spill some of my beliefs about Original Sin. I hope Mike will accept this as my something uncomfortable, because as I write this I feel a little uneasy about the exposed vulnerability that comes along with it.

Before I dive into my theories and arguments, I feel the need to identify some basic core beliefs that may (or may not) put my positions into perspective.

1) I believe the God originally described by the Hebrews is the only God, and the creator of all existence.

2) I believe that Jesus, in his time on Earth, was more than just an enlightened Rabbi, but had a divine aspect and his actions continue to affect us on a spiritual level.

3) I believe that Man as a species is imperfect, and the sole identifiable perfection is God.

I’m not asking my audience to believe in these three statements, in fact I suspect that some of you emphatically do not (and some of you don’t believe these statements went far enough), but from here on out this blog will be written with the assumption that these three things are facts that are understood.

The first thing I would like to express about Original Sin is my frustration with the conversation I have most frequently encountered: the literalness of the Apple Story. It seems that when most people wish to dive into the topic of Original Sin the foremost thing they wish to do is defend or detract the actual tangible historical existence of Adam, Eve, and a ridiculously nutritious apple (Gen 3). While I tend (I guess) to lean more towards the mythological interpretation and I’m willing to make allowances for the literal interpretation (leaving it open for possibility), the truth is I really don’t care. I find the discussion to be a pointless exercise because in my opinion, by engaging in this discussion, the participants are choosing to ignore the purpose of the story. It is my belief that the purpose of this story, and it’s presence in the Old Testament, is the presentation of the concept and theme of Original Sin. This has value regardless of the literalness of the story and should not be over shadowed by other details and interjected meanings. For example take the focus of Eve as downfall of humanity thereby associating the feminine gender with temptation and evil. I want to pay this idea only cursory attention, but I’d like to point out that in the Old Testament Eve is not described as tempting Adam into eating. It merely says she offers and he eats (Gen 3:6). No, the temptation described is that of the Serpent tempting Eve into eating, the Serpent being referred to as “he” and later being associated with Satan or the Devil, the penultimate personification of evil who I would like to add is also masculine (Gen 3:1-7). Ultimately, whether you choose to use this story to vilify the fairer sex or not, something everyone gets out of this story is that things changed for humanity once Adam and Eve tasted granny smith.

Okay, so having eaten the apple what are the consequences? God makes the serpent a snake, gives women birth pains, and man now has to work for his dinner (Gen 3:14-19). But what I’m interested in is the fact that the apple comes from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and that Adam and Eve have been told (before they have their famous afternoon snack) that if they eat of it they will die (Gen 2:17). Now at the end of this story, when God is kicking mankind out of Eden, he mentions that one of his motivations for doing so is to prevent them from nibbling at the Tree of Life and therefore gaining immortality (Gen 3:22-23). From this we can see that Adam and Eve are not immortal, have never been immortal, Apple of Knowledge or not, and were not intended to be immortal at this time. So why the threat of death, why is Adam told that if he tastes the Apple he will die? He clearly does not die as a consequence of his tasting the Apple and neither does Eve; instead he lives to a ripe old age of 930 before passing of presumably natural causes (Gen 5:5); a fact that comes as no surprise given her established mortality. I think instead the consequence of eating the Apple was knowledge of the fact that she was to die. It’s the awareness that her presence on earth was temporal that God warns her against.

So why is this knowledge an issue? One of the central questions that almost all religions are forced to deal with, and in some cases one could argue were created to deal with, is what happens when we die. Is it over? Do you just cease to be? For me nonexistence is a horrifying possibility, one that has kept me awake more than one night. As thinking self-aware creatures we want to believe that something comes next, that there is something after we die, a way for our cognation to continue. Faith provides an answer, an assurance that there is more. Unfortunately for many, myself among them, even in possession of strong faith there are moments of doubt. And the problem with doubt is that it’s corrosive to faith. And that is what I think God was warning against. Adam and Eve, mortal as they may have been, did not have the burden of the knowledge of their death. Because they did not have that burden they had no reason to question faith. No basis for challenging God. Of course, the fact that he is described as walking around with them in the Garden helps too. It’s kind of hard to question the existence of God when he’s standing right next to you.

So what else came about from the Apple? Genesis states that having eaten the Apple, Adam and Eve have knowledge of Good and Evil. As someone who loves learning new things at first glance this seems to be a benefit. Great, we know new things. The more I think about it however, the more I realize that this knowledge is not a benefit at all. I think it’s worth clarifying that the Apple did not grant free will. Adam and Eve were created with free will, or else they would not have been able to eat the Apple in the first place. No, what eating the Apple did is put free will into perspective. All of a sudden, Adam and Eve have the understanding that there is Good and there can be Evil. It’s the awareness that we have the ability to be wrong. There is now a qualifier attached to free will. Again what this does is introduce doubt. Having the understanding that any decision that you make could be incorrect destroys the stability of your world. All of a sudden you find yourself questioning you actions and your words. Did I do the right thing? Was that the right thing to say? This also leads us to question others. Can I believe him? Because there is still the possibility that he could be wrong. Not terribly upsetting when applied to a used car salesman, but when applied to a preacher, a father, or even worse the Apostle Paul, Moses, or Isaiah this possibility can be earth shattering. This is the Original Sin, the consequence: doubt. Where before there was no need to question, absolute confidence in the path we were on, now we call everything into question. The world becomes filled with maybes.

I believe in a universal morality. The world is black and white. The problem is, now that this sin, this doubt is part of humanity, we see grays. We have lost the ability to separate the blacks from the whites in our perception. This is our imperfection.

So how have we as mankind tried to deal with this imperfection? We demand proof. Show me where it says that in the Bible. No, no, you’re not pregnant until you pee on a stick and it changes color. Where is the mathematics that supports the existence of gluons? This desire for proof is understandable, even appropriate because we are fallible. People make mistakes, and unfortunately there is no shortage of people who will deliberately mislead others, so caution is a natural response. The problem is when this desire for proof extends into spiritual life. No, I can’t prove the existence of God with a slide-rule. I have no lab tested empirical evidence that Jesus walked on water. A great number of people react to this lack of empirical proof with dismissive skepticism. It’s very easy to state: there is no spiritual anything. Because we can’t make God jump through a hoop like a trained monkey he must not exist. It is interesting to me, as someone who believes in the existence of God, that dealing with people who take the dismissive skepticism route never causes me to question the existence God. You think it would. We’ve all been in situations where someone else’s doubt infects you. You’ve got the milk jug halfway to your lips (because cups are for sissies) and someone says, “What’s the expiration date on that milk?” and you freeze. It’s perfectly understandable. But when I’m confronted with someone who demands proof that God exists all I feel is frustration. It’s pretty easy for me to show someone that 2 + 2 does not equal 5. When they insist that 2 + 2 equals yellow I got nowhere to go with that.

In my time talking to intellectuals and idiots alike I have never run across a person who will deny that humanity is imperfect. Everybody can at least agree on that point. The problem usually comes with what that imperfection entails. By admitting that we are imperfect, we are admitting that not only do we have the ability to be wrong but we also have the inability to fully understand creation. We’re never going to get it all. There are aspects of reality that we can never know fully and in some cases at all. In spite of how we may evolve, or how powerful a computer or tool we create, or how long the collective has to ponder we will never have all the answers or all the questions. Ask any current astronomer why the universe is accelerating and chances are he’ll open his response with a sigh. As any physicist if the laws of quantum mechanics can be applied to pyramid building and he’ll more than likely throttle you. These are mysteries that we may resolve in the future but at some point we reach the boundaries of human capability. Outside of those boundaries, is God. We will never fully grasp the concept of God, it’s just too vast and on too many levels and in too many directions for use to get anything more than just a piece of the whole.

This limitation on humanity is not something that is easy for us to cope with. History and modern science is filled with examples of mankind balking its perceived limitations. We don’t have wings, but we decided we were going to fly. Sure enough that’s what we did. We are bound to the earth. At least up until we finally figure out rocket science, then we’re out to the moon baby. And when it comes to knowledge we follow the same path of determination. Why is the sky blue? I’m on it. I’m gonna get this figured out. Got it! It’s all about light and refraction. The difference is on the physical side we are willing to accept our limitations. We’re never going to build a device that lets us journey into and then out of a black hole. It’s not happening. Likewise we’re not heading to the center of the sun anytime soon. And you know what? We’re okay with that. Ask what was there before the Big Bang, or even what triggered the Big Bang, and you run into a limitation that’s a little harder to accept.

Unfortunately the easiest response to this knowledge limitation when applied to God is denial. Occam’s Razor buddy – God simply does not exist. To the people who have firmly made this decision there is no issue. To the people like me who have firmly rejected this decision there is no issue either. It’s those people in between. Those people who don’t want to accept this decision but quietly fear that it’s true. Doubt again proves to be our undoing. (By the way, take Occam’s Razor and go back to the Big Bang questions I mention. See? God’s around after all.)

Ultimately, based on the ramblings above, I believe that Original Sin boils down to the doubt brought about by our knowledge. With free will I believe we’ve always had the ability to turn away from God. Doubt gives us a reason, a motivation to do so. Because of this I wonder if the death that God warns Adam of in Genesis Chapter 2 is actually a spiritual death; creating the temptation to turn from God. We’ve all heard stories of tests of faith, and perhaps you as an individual have had an experience that you have identified as a test. A trial for what you believe. Like when Indiana Jones steps off the ledge towards the end of Last Crusade, just hoping that there is going to be something solid under his feet. Some of you have had moments like that. If it weren’t for doubt, there wouldn’t be a need for tests of faith. We would all just get it. For me personally, every moment is a test of faith. Every moment of my life no matter how dull or mundane calls me to put my faith in something I cannot control, something I cannot prove - God. I wish I could say that I passed all tests, but I don’t. Pass or fail though, I believe I’m on the right path. And I believe that simply being able to recognize that I failed a test of faith gives me hope that I’ll pass the next one.

That’s what I have to say. I know it was hardly complete or even fully explained, and I may have lost some of you on some sudden turns, but this was just intended to lay out some beliefs not serve as an example of sanity or coherence. Okay, let’s see if I met the criteria here: Uncomfortable to write – check. Written with the intention to share part of my relationship with God – check. Feel vulnerable and exposed by the end of it – check. Made an ass out of myself – double check. Made firm statements that I may completely reverse on in the future – check.

I’m not gonna apologize for my beliefs or for wanting to share them with you, but I will apologize if I came across as preachy or foaming at the mouth. Mine is an arrogance that is hard to conceal, but I try to make the effort.