VIIIOriginal Sin

91. The descent of the sin of the first parents to the whole human race : prefatory remarks. Adam's fall was the cause of the original sin. The exposition of the original sin is preceded by two different opinions. Some, the rationalists, regard original sin as nonsense and assume that diseases, sorrows, and death are the properties of human nature, and that man is born innocent. "Others, the Eeformers, fall into the opposite extreme by exaggerating too much the consequences of the original sin in us : according to this teaching, the sin of our first parents entirely aboHshed freedom in man, and his divine image, and all his spiritual powers, so that the nature of man became tainted by sin : everything which he may wish, everything which he may do, is a sin; his very virtues are sins, and he is positively unfit for any good. The first false teaching indicated above, the Orthodox Church rejects by its doctrine of the actuahty in us of the original sin with all its consequences (that is, original sin taken in its broad sense); the latter it rejects by its doctrine about these consequences."

As always, there is an exposition in the form of a heretical teaching which cannot be understood otherwise by any man in his senses. The fact that all men are by their natures subject to diseases and death, and that babes are innocent, is represented in the form of a heresy, and an extreme heresy at that. Another extreme is the teaching of the Eeformers. The church teaches the middle way, and this middle way is supposed to be this, that by

218 CRITIQUE OF DOaMATIC THEOLOGY original sin is to be understood "that transgression of God's command, that departure of human nature from the law of God, and consequently from its aims, which was committed by our first parents in Paradise and which from them passed over to us. * Original sin/ we read in the Orthodox profession of the Cathohc and Apostolic Eastern Church, ' is a transgression of the law of God, given in Paradise to our forefather Adam. Tliis original sin passed from Adam to the whole human race, for we then were all in Adam, and thus through the one Adam the sin has spread to all of us. For this reason we are begotten and born with this sin.' The only difference is that in Adam this departure from the law of God, and consequently from its destination, was free and arbitrary, but in us it is inherited and necessary : we are born with a nature which has departed from the law of God; in Adam it was a personal sin, a sin in the strict sense of the word, — in us it is not a personal sin, not really a sin, but only a sinfulness of our nature as derived from our parents; Adam sinned, that is, he freely violated the law of God and thus became a sinner, that is, caused his whole nature to deviate from the law of God, and consequently became personally guilty toward God, — but we have not sinned personally with Adam, but have become sinners with him and through him : By one man's disobedience many were made sinners (Eom. v. 19); receiving from him our sinful nature we appear in the world as children of the wrath of God (Eph. ii. 3).

"Under the consequences of the original sin the church understands those consequences which the sin of our first parents produced immediately upon them, and which pass over from them to us, such as the dimming of the intellect, the abasement of the will, and the proclivity to do evil, diseases of the body, death, and so forth, (pp. 493 and 494.)

"This distinction of the original sin and of its conse- quences must be firmly borne in mind, especially in certain cases, in order that the doctrine of the Orthodox Church may be properly understood." (p. 494.)

92. The actuality of the original sin, its universality and manner of dissemination. "The sin of our first parents, the Orthodox Church teaches, with its consequences, spread from Adam and Eve to all their posterity by means of natural birth and, consequently, exists unquestionably." (p. 496.)

All that is proved by Holy Scripture, for example like this : "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? not one, even though he hath lived but one day upon earth (Job xiv. 4, 5). Here, evidently, an unclean thing is meant, from which no man is free, and that, too, from his birth. What is this unclean thing ? Since, according to Job's description, it appears as the cause of the calamities of human life (verses 1, 2) and subjects man to the judgment of God (verse 3), we must assume that a moral uncleanness is meant and not a physical one, which is the consequence of the moral uncleanness and cannot in itself make man subject to the judgment before God, — what is meant is the sinfulness of our nature, which passes over to all of us from our first parents. To the passages of the second kind belong : (1) the words of the Saviour in his conversation with Nicodemus : Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John iii. 5, 6)." (p. 498.)

It is also confirmed by Tradition : - "For according to this rule of faith the babes, who have not yet committed any sin, are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, that through the new birth there may be purified in them what they have received from their old birth. Utterances of the individual teachers of the church, who lived before the appearance of the Pelagian heresy, such as (a) Justin : ' It has pleased Christ to be born and to suffer death, not because he himself had any need of it, but on account of the human race, which through Adam (dTro tov 'A8a/x) was subject to death and the temptation of the serpent.' (b) Irenseus : * In the first Adam we offended God, by not fulfilling his command; in the second Adam we made peace with him, becoming submissive even unto death; we were under obligation not to any one else, but to him whose command we had violated from the beginning.' (c) Tertullian : ' Man was from the start seduced by the devil to violate the command of God, and so is subject to death; after that the whole human race was made by him a participant (traducem) in his judgment,' "and so forth, (p. 500.)

"We do not quote similar utterances of many other teachers of the church, who lived at that period, as what we have adduced is sufficient to show the whole senselessness of the Pelagians, both the ancient and the modern, who assert that St. Augustine invented the doctrine of original sin, and, on the other hand, to cause the recognition of the whole justice of the words of the blessed St. Augustine to one of the Pelagians : ' I have not invented original sin, in which the Catholic Church has believed since olden times; but you, who reject this dogma, are no doubt a new heretic' Finally, of the actuality of original sin, which has come down to us from our first ancestors, we may convince ourselves in the light of sound reason, on the basis of incontestable experience." (p. 502.)

What convinces us of it is the fact "{a) that within us there exists a constant struggle between the spirit and the flesh, between the reason and the passions, between the striving after the good and the attraction of the evil; (h) in this struggle the victory is nearly always on the side of the latter: the flesh vanquishes in us the spirit, the passions rule over our reason, the attractions of evil overpower the striving after the good; we love the good according to our nature, wish for it, and rejoice in it, but find no strength in us to do good; we do not love the evil according to our nature, and yet are irresistibly drawn to it; (c) the habit of what is good and holy is acquired by us after much effort and very slowly; but the habit of doing wrong is acquired without the least effort and exceedingly fast, and vice versa; (d) it is exceedingly difficult for us to discard a vice, to vanquish in us a passion, no matter how insignificant; but in order to change a virtue which we have acquired after many exploits, the smallest temptation is frequently sufficient. The same predominance of evil over good in the human race, that we observe now, has been observed by others at all times."

Evidences from the Old Testament and the Epistles that the world is merged in evil. And farther : "Whence comes this discord in human nature ? Whence this unnatural struggle of the forces in it and that striving, that unnatural predominance of the flesh over the spirit, of the passions over reason, that unnatural inclination toward evil, which outweighs the natural inchnation toward the good ? All the explanations which men have thought of for this are inconclusive, or even irrational; the only explanation which fully satisfies us is the one revelation offers us in its teaching about the original, ancestral sin."

Then follows an analysis of these supposed explanations which men have invented. On the question of the original sin, of the sources of evil in the world, and of those explanations which the church offers, we must dwell at a greater length.

Among the number of the dogmas of the church, which have already been analyzed in the preceding parts and which will be analyzed farther on, we meet with dogmas about the most fundamental questions of humanity, about God, about the beginning of the world, about man, by the side of perfectly useless, perfectly senseless propositions, such as the dogma about the angels and the devils, and so forth, and so we will omit what is useless and will necessarily dwell on the important ones.

The dogma about the original sin, that is, about the beginning of evil, touches a fundamental question, and so we must attentively analyze what the church has to say about it. According to the teaching of the church, the struggle which man feels in himself between the evil and the good, and the proclivity to do evil, which the church asserts as an adjudged case, are explained by the fall of Adam and, we must add, by the fall of the devil, for the devil was the inciter of the crime and, having been created good, must have fallen before. But, in order that Adam's fall may explain our proclivity to do evil, it is necessary to explain the fall of Adam and of the devil who tempted him. If in the story of the fall of the devil and of Adam there should be any explanation of that fundamental contradiction between the consciousness of good and the propensity to do wrong, as the church says, then the recognition of the fact that this contradiction, which I am conscious of, is an inheritance from Adam, would be an explanation for me; but here I am told that Adam had just such freedom as I feel in myself and that, having this freedom, he fell, and so I have the same freedom. What, then, does the story of Adam explain to me ?

We are all ourselves occupied with that struggle, and we feel and know by internal experience what, as we are told, took place with the devil and later with Adam. Precisely the same takes place in us each day and each minute that must have taken place in the soul of the devil and in that of Adam. If in the story of the freedom of the devil and of Adam, of how they, the creatures of the Good, created for bliss and glory, fell, there were given the slightest explanation of how they could have become evil, since they had been created good, I should understand that my propensity to do evil is the consequence of their special relation to good and evil; but I am told that in them took place precisely what is taking place in me, with the only difference that in them all that happened with less reason than in me: I have a mass of temptations which did not exist for them, and I am deprived of those special cooperations of God which they enjoyed. Thus the story about them not only explains nothing, but even obscures the whole matter; if it comes to analyzing this question of freedom and to explaining it, would it not have been better to analyze it and explain it in myself, rather than in some fantastic beings, like the devil and Adam, whom I am not even able to imagine ? After some quasi-refutals of those who are supposed to say that evil is due to the limitation of Nature, to the flesh, to bad education, the author says :

"The most satisfactory solution of all these questions, as far as reasoji is concerned, the correctest explanation of the evil which exists in the human race, is offered by the divine revelation, when it says that the first man was actually created good and innocent, but that he sinned before God and thus injured his whole nature, and that thereupon all men, who come from him, are naturally born with the original sin, with an impaired nature, and with a propensity to do evil."

There are many errors and many consequences of these errors in this reflection. The first error is this, that if the first man, who was in such unusually favourable conditions for innocence, impaired his nature and did so only because he was free, there is no need for explaining why I impair my own nature. There cannot even be such a question. Whether I am his descendant or not, I am just such a man and have just such freedom, and just such, or even greater, temptations. What is there here to explain ? To say that my proclivity to do evil is due to the inheritance from Adam, means only to roll the guilt from an ailing head on one that is sound, and to judge by traditions, which, to say the least, are queer, about what I already know through inward experience. Another error it is to assert that the propensity to sin is due to Adam, for that means to transfer the question from the sphere of faith to that of reasoning. A strange quid jpro quo takes place here. The church, which reveals to us the truths of religion, recedes from the foundation of faith, that recognition of a mysterious, incomprehensible struggle which takes place in the soul of each man, and, instead of giving by the revelation of the divine truths the means for the successful struggle of the good against the evil in the soul of each man, the church takes up a stand on the field of reasoning and of history. It abandons the sphere of religion and tells the story about Paradise, Adam, and the apple, and firmly and stubbornly sticks to the barren Tradition, which does not even explain anything or give anything to those who seek the knowledge of faith. The only result of this transference of the question from the chief foundation of any religion, — from the tendency to know good and evil, which lies in the soul of each man, — to the fantastic sphere of history is above all to deprive the whole rehgion of that only foundation on which it can stand firmly. The questions of faith have always been and always will be as to what my life is with that eternal struggle between good and evil, which each man experiences. How am I to wage that war ? How shall I hve ? But the teaching of the church, in place of the question as to how I should live, presents the question as to why I am bad, and replies to this question by saying that I am bad because I became so through Adam's sin, that I am all in sin, that I am born in sin, that I always live in sin, and that I cannot live otherwise than in sin.

93. The consequences of the original sin. This article expounds, with proofs from Holy Scripture, that the original sin is in all men, that all are filled with uncleanness, that the reason of all men is dimmed, and that the will of all men is more prone to do evil, and that the image of God is blurred.

How would workmen work if it were known to them that they are all bad workmen, if they were impressed with the thought that they cannot work well, that such is their nature, and that, to accomplish their work, there are other means than their labour? It is precisely this that the church does. You are all filled with sin and your bent to do evil is not due to your will, but to your inheritance. Man cannot save himself by his own strength. There is one means : prayer, sacraments, and grace. Can a more immoral doctrine be invented ?

Then follows the moral application of the dogma.

Only one moral application of this dogma is possible, and that is, to look for salvation outside the striving after what is good. But the author, as always, not feeling himself bound by any logical train of thoughts, throws into the article of the moral application everything which happens to occur to him and which has some verbal, external connection with what precedes.

94. The moral application of the dogma. There are ten such applications : (1) to thank God for having made us to perish; (2) the wife should submit to her husband; (3) to love our neighbour since we are all related through Adam; (4) to thank God for creating us in the womb of our mothers; (5) to praise God because we have a soul and a body; (6) to care more for our soul; (7) to preserve in us the image of God; (8) to please God — "May the high purpose toward which we are obliged to strive always be before our eyes, and may it, like a guiding star, illuminate our whole murky path of life ! "(p. 514.)

(9) Not to violate the will of God, because "it is terrible to fall into the hands of the living, just God." (p. 514.) "(10) The origiaal sin, with all its consequences, has passed over to the whole human race, so that we are all begotten and born in iniquity, impotent in soul and body, and guilty toward God. May that serve us as a liviQg, uninterrupted lesson of humihty and in the recognition of our own weaknesses and defects, and may it teach us — "you expect to hear "to be better," but no : "may it teach us to ask the Lord God for his succour of grace, and thankfully to make use of the means for salvation which Christianity offers to us !" (p. 514.)

With the moral application of the dogina of the voluntary fall ends the chapter about God in himself, and the following chapter of the Theology speaks of God in his general relation to man and to the world. It is impossible to understand the meaning of this whole chapter, if we do not keep in mind those controversies which must have been evoked by the strange doctrine about the fall of man and the consequent doctrine about grace and the sacraments. In this chapter the Theology tries to remove the contradiction in which it has placed itself by the history of Adam and of redemption : a good God created men for their good, but men are evil and unhappy.