A LIMITED GOAL
These moves resolve some theological questions, but they raise new ones. The genealogical hypothesis probes scientific understanding. In a similar way, speculation probes our theological understanding.
Just like the traditional account, this experiment does not aim for airtight coherency, such that all the details fit perfectly.15 The traditional account comes with lacunae, and this narrative seeks to fill in the places of silence with reasonable inferences. This narrative is not the traditional account, per se, but it contains the traditional account through one of its periscopes. In this way, the narrative accounts for something that other traditional accounts do not: evolutionary science, and, with it, the people outside the Garden. Most of historical theology is not concerned with people outside the Garden, and their existence is not a major factor in any other texts of Scripture. Without this larger narrative, however, traditional accounts struggle to engage what scientists are discovering about our deep past, and this is a major challenge.
I am not claiming airtight coherence, and neither does the Genesis account itself. Instead this experiment is a narrative framework within which we can think through other theological questions. There are still questions that arise about the people outside the Garden. For example, did they go to heaven when they died? Hell? Or nonexistence? These are interesting questions, but Scripture and historical theology do not tell us one way or another. This narrative experiment nonetheless gives us a starting point from which to engage these questions together.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FALLING INTO EXILE
RATHER THAN THE IMAGE OF GOD, the Fall might be the key to understanding the era before Adam. How does Adam and Eve’s exile disorder the world? This, it seems, is the salient question. What is the nature of the Fall?
In human origins, especially when engaging science, it is common to focus on the image of God, but this may be misdirected. At times, people look for the uniquely human traits in order to locate Adam and Eve in our history. This focus may be misdirected. It is an open question whether or not the people outside the Garden are in the image of God. As understood by vocationalists, the image of God would not even be associated with markers of human uniqueness anyway. The Fall, however, is unequivocally associated with Adam and Eve. Approximately matching the timeline of Genesis, our ancestor’s world is totally reordered with the rise of civilization, a change that amplifies our capacity for both good and evil. The ancient sin of Adam sin affects us all. Somehow, this single act disorders the good world that God created.
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. (Rom 5:12)
From this passage, and others, the Fall is understood in many different ways. There is a large range of views across different traditions.1 Discussion often fixates on original sin, perhaps because, paradoxically, this is how the racist theology of polygenesis was rejected. For this reason, in a positive sense, original sin has become synonymous with affirming the unity of all humankind.
Here, however, I want to emphasize that the Fall is more than merely original sin, thereby moving beyond the narrow question of original sin and its relationship to polygenesis. How should we understand the Fall?
■ The questions that the Fall raises are not merely parochial; they approach grand questions about the nature of civilization and human beings, engaging the tensions between justice, mercy, and inheritance.
■ Exile is a pervasive theme of Scripture, surfacing the tensions between inheritance, justice, and mercy. Understanding the Fall as exile situates it firmly in the narrative of Scripture, linking these two concepts into a cohesive whole.
■ Ideally, we understand the Fall as the natural spread of consequences from Adam’s original act of disobedience. For this reason, somehow, Adam and Eve must sit at the “headwaters” of all humanity, and somehow the consequences of his sin spread to all of us.
■ I propose understanding the Fall as the spread of three consequences of Adam’s sin, each of which spread in different ways. A lost chance at immortality affects everyone instantly. The distorted dominion of a power-driven civilization spreads contagiously. The inherited debt from Adam spreads by genealogical decent.
This understanding is worked out under the hypothesis that there are people outside the Garden. The Fall affects them too.
Before going further, I confess some trepidation. The Fall is among the most complex doctrines in theology. I am merely a theologically engaged scientist, so my aim is modest. Rather than answer every question with an airtight account, I hope to lay out a starting point to move beyond initial objections, while encouraging further discussion and development. Sorting everything out will require scholars with far more expertise than me. Knowing my deficiencies here, I encourage refinement, correction, and even wholesale revision of this proposal.
THE QUESTIONS OF THE FALL
The Fall raises complex questions that will require the attention of theologians to resolve. The Fall also touches on the central questions of the human condition, questions that anyone might ask. In our ancient past, Adam’s sin had consequences that propagate to affect all of us today. The Fall invites contemplation on complex tensions about our nature: society and civilization; justice, mercy, and inheritance; and the meaning of good and evil. These tensions and questions guide my approach.
Is our world the best version of the world? The Genesis narrative seems to teach that there could have been a better world. It was within grasp, even present in some ways, and then it was lost. This fall, however, was not inevitable. It could have been a better way.
Are we good or evil? We see ourselves as heroes of our stories, just as we see Adam as a hero of the Genesis story. What if, however, we are the villains? What if we are the antiheroes of the larger narrative?
What is the meaning of death? Does it have a purpose? Is it inevitable? What would be the moral requirements to justly deserve immortality?
Is technological progress essentially good or evil? Of course, the world is progressing, improving, and growing. There are clear benefits to improved technology, but progress also increases the scale of wrongdoing too. Is progress ultimately good or evil?
How do we think about justice in a world with inheritance? When does ill-gotten wealth become clean? Does taking care of our own families make a fair world or not?
These are the sorts of questions that come into focus as we contemplate the Fall. These questions are all linked to the grand question of what it means to be human, so we should not expect facile or simple answers.
EXILE ECHOES THE FALL
Exile echoes the Fall, and the theme of exile echoes through Scripture. Understanding why Israelites are not in the Promised Land is the central theological question of much of the Old Testament. Joseph, Esther, Daniel, and Nehemiah are all faithful followers of God in exile, not for their sins, but for those of prior generations. For this reason, the tension between inheritance, mercy, and justice also underlies much of theology. Perhaps exile is one of the consequences of sin we inherit from Adam. These grand themes are where I want to ground my understanding of the Fall.
There is an undeniable link between our current circumstances and the actions of our ancestors. We inherit, in some senses, consequences and outcomes of their decisions. For example, I was born in California because my parents immigrated to the United States. Had they remained in India, I might be speaking a different language, married to a different person. I might not even exist. We inherit important things, good and bad, from our parents. This is the natural order of the world. When we inherit brokenness and debt from our ancestors, we rightly wonder about justice and mercy. This lands us squarely on a difficult question about the nature of good and evil. What is justice in a world inherited from imperfect ancestors?
David murders Uriah to cover up his adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. The consequences of this sin are severe. His son with Bathsheba di
es very young, as an infant (2 Sam 12:14-31). The rest of his children inherit an irrecoverably broken family. God’s justice seems simultaneously merciful on David and unfair to his children. This is the complicated reality of inheritance. In a world with inheritance, how can we even imagine true justice and mercy? What would fairness even look like? Israel is sent into exile because of the sins of one generation. In the next generation, Daniel finds himself in Babylon, exiled from the Promised Land, even though he himself is faithful. God’s justice is dealt out because of the sins of his ancestors, but this judgment affects him. Is this really justice? These questions arise repeatedly in Scripture, and in our world too. Scripture itself enters straight into this complex reality, juxtaposing the frustration of inheritance with a good and merciful God.
The relationship between inheritance, mercy, and justice weaves a central tension that runs through Scripture. The paradoxical explanations of ancestral sin bring these tensions into focus. On one hand, God visits the sins of the father on their children (Deut 5:9-10; Jer 32:17-18). On the other hand, God does not hold children responsible for their ancestors’ actions (Deut 24:16; Jer 31:29). How are we to make sense of this tension? Perhaps the natural order of the world is to inherit a broken world of debt and corruption from our parents. The just God of mercy responds to rebellion by exiling us from generational blessings, a judgment that is linked to mercy. The aftermath of mercy and sin spills over from generation to generation. God, nonetheless, plans to transcend this natural order of inheritance. Justifying his mercy, satisfying his justice, an act of unmitigated grace will return us home from exile.
THE REASON FOR NATURAL HEADSHIP
Does evolutionary science challenge the doctrine of the Fall and of original sin? Opinions are divided on this question.2 “Natural headship,” which I will explain in a moment, seemed ruled out if Adam and Eve were recent. In its place, the “representative” or “headship” model of original sin has commonly been put forward as a solution to the “original sin problem” caused by the supposed fact that we all do not descend from Adam. Adam represents all humanity as our “federal head,” and this is how we are affected by his sin.3 How and why are we connected to Adam? How does he become our proper representative? Why is he our federal head?
Faced with these questions, some propose more or less arbitrary representation of Adam by drawing analogy to Jesus’ headship of the Church.4 There are at least two important distinctions that undermine this justification for arbitrary headship. First, the headship of Jesus is an act of grace authored by God, but the headship of Adam is a tragic disaster authored by a man.5 Second, Jesus is in a covenantal relationship with the Church. In contrast, there is no currently visible covenantal community by which everyone across the globe is bound to Adam.6 The theologian C. John Collins echoes these objections to arbitrary representation, concluding that Adam and Eve, somehow, must be at the “headwaters” of humankind.7 For Adam to represent us as our federal head, he needs to be situated in history such that he is connected to all of us.
The polygenesis controversy also implicates natural descent from Adam, explaining why arbitrary representation is often received as heterodox. The argument for the unity of humankind starts from the fact that Adam’s fall spread to everyone. We presume that God did not intend for original sin to spread to everyone, and this means everyone is connected to Adam independently of God’s miraculous work. Understanding this connection as natural descent, the inference was that we all descend from Adam and Eve, thus polygenesis was rejected. Inserting arbitrary headship in place of natural headship by descent, however, breaks this argument. This theological argument, moreover, is implicated in the Church’s legacy in resisting racist polygenesis. Departing from natural descent from Adam and Eve, for this reason, is a large and, for some, untenable departure from tradition.
Some object that genealogical descent is arbitrary too. It does not seem fair to suffer for the sins of our ancestors. Though it is often unfair, we directly observe that the actions of our ancestors affect us. I live in the United States because my parents immigrated here before I was born. Born in California, I am a citizen of one country, and not the other, because of my parents’ decisions. Inheritance is just the natural order of the world. The apparent unfairness of original sin by natural descent is not reason enough to reject it. Original sin by natural descent is linked to a central and readily observable tension of inheritance and justice. Within Scripture, this tension is most visible in the recurring themes of exile. The sins of one generation leave the next one displaced, coping with life in a land that is not their own. How do we think about justice in a world of inheritance? Perhaps the natural order of the world is to be subject to the mistakes of our ancestors, including Adam’s original sin. We are born in exile, but God’s intention is to redeem us.
So, then, relying on natural law alone, how did original sin spread to everyone? How are we connected to one another? Scientists call these the “mechanistic” questions. These questions are the focus of a natural headship understanding of original sin.
What is the mechanism by which Adam’s sin spreads by the natural consequences of the regular operations of the world? We might, perhaps, rely on aspects of God’s nature too, but we do not want to make God the intentional author of sin. A natural mechanism solves the conundrum thusly: the natural consequences of Adam’s sin caused the Fall to spread to all of us. The spread of the Fall should be explained by something in the nature of reality.
THREE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL
The doctrines of the Fall and original sin teach that all of us are suffering from the consequences of one man’s ancient disobedience. The consequences include some combination of the following:
1. Physical corruption guarantees every one of us will die, while if Adam had not sinned, we would live forever. Within this class, original sin can be understood as a lost chance at immortality.
2. Moral corruption guarantees every one of us will do wrong, if given the chance to live perfectly. All of us are sinners, because all of us will sin.
3. Imputation of debt is on everyone, even before we personally sin. All of us are born with a debt we cannot pay.
Both the Eastern and Western churches have taught moral and physical corruption, but the Western church has also taught an inherited debt.8 Some formulations do not rely on a historical Adam. Perhaps Paul merely meant that “all of us sin,” rather than “all of us sin because Adam sinned.” There are several theological traditions, and it is not possible to fully review them comprehensively here.
How did the Fall spread to everyone? Scientists call this the “mechanistic” question. Most would agree God did not want us to be subject to original sin. So, then, how did it spread to us? At least three general classes of mechanisms have been offered:
1. Instantly by some method of representation by Adam. Original sin spreads instantly across the globe, perhaps even back in time, to apply to everyone.
2. Contagiously by social and cultural interactions. Perhaps original sin spreads like a virus across the globe from Adam, not by biological contact, but by cultural exchange.
3. Inherited by natural descent. Perhaps original sin spreads to the biological descendants of Adam and Eve by a mechanism of genealogical inheritance.
Many theological traditions have held that natural descent is important, but others do not agree. There are, therefore, different ways of understanding the Fall and different ways of understanding how it transmits. From this set of starting points, I propose each component of the Fall is transmitted in a different way.
The first component is physical corruption that spreads instantly. Everyone instantly across the globe loses our chance at immortality in the Garden. When Adam and Eve are exiled, no one can enter the Garden. We are connected to Adam because we all inhabit the same physical world as he once did.
The second component is moral corruption that spreads contagiously. The Fall, in this sense, would spread contagiously by w
ar, conquest, and socialization across the globe. A distorted dominion of Adam would spread across the globe, altering our relationships with each other and with the natural world around us. We are connected to Adam because his influence on society spread cultural pollution that ultimately affected us all.
The third component is imputed guilt or debt that spreads by genealogical descent. We can understand this through existing theological models. Perhaps Adam broke a “covenant of works” with specific terms about the consequences of disobediences to his lineage. Perhaps there are some metaphysical or spiritual qualities about original sin that cause it to be traduced by descent. In the coming chapter, alongside these options, I will propose an understanding of natural headship that understands debt as the natural consequence of God extending mercy to reproducing creatures.
This is how Adam’s sin affects us all. All of Adam’s natural descendants would also be subject to all three components of his fall. Depending on which component of the Fall we emphasize, we might emphasize different consequences of Adam’s sin and emphasize its transmission in different ways. Either way, all components are acting simultaneously, and propagating by natural law, not divine action or intent.
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