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Chapter One

Original sin as taught in
Holy Scripture

'Nothing is so easy to denounce, nothing is so difficult to understand.' So wrote Augustine on original sin.

    To him the doctrine was a battlefield. The controversy has continued unabated through the centuries. The leaders of the Reformation, with the exception of Ulrich Zwingli, renewed the emphasis on the Augustinian view. It was included in the main confessions of faith in the Reformation churches, such as the Forty-two Articles framed by Archbishop Cranmer for the Church of England in 1553. The arguments have not subsided; Protestant liberals carry on the various attacks against the doctrine of original sin which the Socinians and some Anabaptists had launched in the sixteenth century. The perpetual conflict probably witnesses both to the difficulty of the arguments and to the stakes involved.

    A new stage was reached (and new heights in subtlety and sophistication) in the first half of the twentieth century with the powerful neo-orthodox reinterpretation of the doctrine. In the wake of Kierkegaard's elusive The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Karl Barth, Emil Brunner and Reinhold Niebuhr — who praised Kierkegaard's analysis as 'the profoundest in Christian thought' (Niebuhr 1941:182 n. 2) — again preached original sin, but not without making far-reaching changes in their understanding of it.

Among evangelical theologians, John Murray's series of short, sharp articles, published under the title The Imputation of Adam's Sin (1959) and G. C. Berkouwer'sSin (first Dutch edition 1959-60) illustrate two contrasting kinds of original thinking within orthodox bounds: the former with rigour and careful argument; the latter with well-informed sensitivity and openness to the concerns of contemporary theology — but still confessing, in a softer, more sympathetically nuanced tone, the main tenets of Reformed tradition. Both contributions still deserve our full consideration.

    Has controversy cooled since then? After years of comparative neglect, at least in Protestant circles, there are signs that interest in the doctrine may be awakening. Feminist process theologian Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki has set out a vigorous reply to Niebuhr on original sin (Suchocki 1994). The American Lutheran professor Ted Peters does theology in a lively, thought-provoking way, raising deep questions on the subject of original sin (Peters 1994). Professor David L. Smith in Canada (though an heir to the US Southern Baptist tradition) has produced a most user-friendly presentation (Smith 1994), which follows in the train of Bernard Ramm's moderate synthesis of evangelical substance and modern ideas a decade earlier (Ramm 1985) — the first token, maybe, of attention being paid to the old doctrine again. The contributions of these competent scholars are not great in number; they are, rather, wide-ranging, and semi-popular in style. They leave enough room, therefore, for a more concentrated study, one which may also take more notice of the work of Roman Catholic theologians from continental Europe.

    There is no urgent need to rehearse the history of the doctrine. It has been covered in a number of monographs, and Norman P. William's classic (1927), though sorely lacking in sympathy for Augustine, offers sufficient resources. My aim, as my sub-title suggests, will rather be to illuminate the riddle. Original sin is a riddle, certainly, and I dare hope that this book will cast some light upon it (audentes fortuna juvat!); even more importantly, however, the human phenomenon is a riddle, and I trust that the doctrine of original sin will illuminate that phenomenon.

    This book will be an exercise in dogmatics, not apologetics -- in this, I agree with Kierkegaard, who insisted that original sin comes under the jurisdiction of dogmatics (1980: sub-titles 9, 23 and passim). 'There may be some incidental apologetic benefits, but the central question will be: what are we to believe, in the obedience of faith? Since the first concern of evangelical dogmatics, in grateful obedience to its 'external principle of knowledge', is agreement with Scripture, I shall enquire first (chapter 1) about the general support which may be found in the whole Bible for the church dogma, that is, the 'Augustinian' doctrine, of original sin. I shall be wary of the enticements of those who follow Karl Barth's lead and draw their theology of sin from Christ and the cross directly. Though apparently most 'Christian', this procedure conceals a subtle snare: the selection and abstraction of the relevant elements of Christology, a complex field of study, is bound to be arbitrary. If one starts with the cross, the character of Christ's work as a remedy for sin, as redemption, is obscured; simply to read the meaning of original sin off the Christ-event is to act as if we were masters of revelation. Far from it! We are mere disciples, and cannot afford not to start with the teaching of God. Sound theological method requires that we listen to Scripture as a whole, according to the analogy of faith, and only then perceive how precisely the doctrine is proclaimed and, so to speak, reinforced in the Christ-event.

    The path to be travelled by this volume is fairly easy to mark out. Once the biblical survey is completed, we shall turn to the 'origin' passage, Genesis 3, asking whether we should read it as history or as myth, saga or symbol (chapter 2). Then the other scripture upon which the doctrine of original sin was founded, Romans 5, will engage our scrutiny (chapter 3); against all the odds, will a new proposal break through the deadlock of interpretations ancient and modern? In the next chapter (4), we shall observe how the doctrine of 'original sin' unveils human experience, unlocks the enigmas of life and sets them in proper perspective. Finally, we shall confront the core difficulty of Augustine's construction: the hereditary transmission of what is a most personal exercise of freedom, namely, sin.

    First, though, we need some idea of just what it is we are talking about. Calvin's definition offers as good a starting-point as any. Original sin, he writes in the Institutes, is that 'hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls "works of the flesh" (Gal. 5:19)' (II.i.8). By way of developing and commenting on that definition, we may note the following four points. First, original sin is universal sinfulness, consisting of attitudes, orientations, propensities and tendencies which are contrary to God's law, incompatible with his holiness, and found in all people, in all areas of their lives. Secondly, it belongs to the nature of human beings (it is also called peccatum naturale), 'nature' being that stable complex of characteristics typical of the class of creatures known as 'human', and present from birth (natura comes from nasci, 'to be born'). Thirdly, since it belongs to our nature, it is inherited; hence its usual name in German, Erbsünde, literally 'hereditary sin'. Fourthly, it stems from Adam, whose disobedience gave original sin a historical beginning, so that the present sinfulness of all can be traced back through the generations, to the first man and progenitor of the race.

    The 'origin' of original sin is touched on in John 8:44, which speaks of the arche of the devil' murderous lie. This is the 'enemy' whom Revelation calls the 'original (archaios) serpent (12:9; 20:2). Augustine preferred 'original' to 'natural' as a qualifying term in order to stipulate that universal sinfulness had a historical beginning and cause. The famous Genevan theologian François Turretin, who won the title of the 'Protestant Aquinas', made the perceptive remark that sin is not radically original, since it derives not from the first origin (creation) but from a second one; yet, he maintained, the term is apt because original sin flows from the originating sin, propagates itself in each person's origination, and becomes the origin of actual sins (1847:569 [IX.10.4]). 'Actual sins' are all other sins, though the demarcation line is hard to draw, as older divines recognized. In Judaism, we are told, 'a distinction was drawn between the original stock or capital (so-called original sin; Heb. qeren) and interest (individual sins)' (Hensel 1975: 721). It is probably wise therefore to think of both in the closest possible organic conjunction.

    Actual sins incur guilt. The traditional Augustinian line is that original sin does too, and Calvin's definition, 'liable to God's wrath', implies it clearly. But not all are so tough-minded. Many have doubted whether, in the Christian tradition, there is a concept of true original guilt. If we speak, as Cyprian did, of an alien sin, is not the phrase 'alien guilt' a contradiction in terms?

    The scandal seems even greater when heredity is the stated mode of transmission. Karl Barth vehemently rejects the idea, and with it the term Erbsünde.' "Hereditary sin" has a hopelessly naturalistic, deterministic and even fatalistic ring. If both parts of the term are taken seriously, it is a contradictio in adjecto in face of which there is no help for it but to juggle away either the one part or the other' (1956: 501). Even those who hold to the traditional thesis still have to think how sin and guilt can be inherited.

    To the law and the testimony! Does Scripture support, at least in broad terms, the doctrine I have just delineated?

Universal sinfulness

That a bent towards sinning does affect all humankind, and that it cannot be isolated as belonging to any one part of the person, has been agreed on all sides, or nearly so, in the twentieth century. Even those who oppose the church dogma of original sin concur in this basic assessment of our reality. It would be hard to close one's eyes to the data of experience. The value of solidarity, highly prized in the modern scale of values, forbids one to draw radical distinctions between individuals, and the renewed perception that the individual is a psychosomatic unity does not favour a division between 'parts' of the person with regard to sinfulness.

    The witness of Scripture fully warrants this consensus. It majors on sinfulness as the human problem, which alone causes separation between the Creator and his creatures (Is. 59:2). It stresses that none escapes the reign of sin and that no part of the human person is left untainted (Pr. 20:9; Ps. 14; and Paul's quotations in Rom. 3:10ff.). But it does not formally distinguish our proneness to evil from our sinful acts or failures to act. Yet the twofold universal spread of actual sin (that is, throughout the whole race and within the whole individual life) could hardly obtain without an equally universal bent, or corruption. The Bible itself explicitly follows that logic.

    Illustrations abound. As early as the case of Cain, sin is depicted as 'crouching at the door', implying an impulse or desire which Cain ought to master (Gn. 4:7). For Paul also, sin, ever ready to cause all manner of evil, is 'lying there' (parakeitai, Rom. 7:21), a tyrant 'indwelling' his members (v. 17); a few verses earlier, sin resembles a snake, apparently lying dead within the person, which springs to life in the presence of the commandment (w. 8-11). James's letter highlights the process that gives birth to particular sinful acts; the source is the person's own epithymia, 'concupiscence' or inordinate desire (Jas. 1:14). Ligier (1960: 106f.) interprets the 'stubbornness' of the heart, which Jeremiah so often denounces (3:17; 7:24; 9:14; 11:8; etc.), as a passionate impulse of freedom, an anarchic unloosing which cannot but issue in disobedience. The same idea of the existence of sin before sins are committed is suggested by the metaphors of sin written upon the heart (Je. 17:1), of heart and ears uncircumcised (Je. 6:10, 9:25f.; cf. 4:4 and Dt. 10:16; 30:6; Acts 7:51) and of the heart being of stone (Ezk. 11:19). Our Lord himself stressed that all the things that truly defile people originate in their hearts (Mt. 15:19f. and par.), and that evil words flow from what fills their hearts, and evil deeds from what is stored up within (Mt. 12:34ff.).

    In somewhat analogous fashion, Judaism developed the theme of the 'evil imagination' or 'impulse' in human makeup, yeser ra'. The phrase was taken from Genesis 6:5, 'every inclination [or impulse, or imagination, yeser] was only evil all the time'. Murray's comment on that passage is worth quoting:

There is the intensity — 'The wickedness of man was great in the earth'; there is the inwardness — 'the imagination of the thoughts of his heart', an expression unsurpassed in the usage of Scripture to indicate that the most rudimentary movement of thought was evil; there is the totality — 'every imagination'; there is the constancy — 'continually'; there is the exclusiveness — only evil'; there is the early manifestation — 'from his youth' (1962: l191f.).

    The last trait comes from Genesis 8:21, a verse which shows that the truth of the statement in 6:5 is not restricted to the situation before the flood. Intertestamental literature elaborates the theme, sometimes with a good impulse in view too. As early as the book of Ecclesiasticus, the pathetic question is raised: 'O evil imagination [enthymema], whence were you formed to cover the land with deceit?' (37:3). At the end of the first century AD, 4 Ezra uses, in the extant Latin text, the words 'malignant heart' (cor malignum) as a probable equivalent: 'The First Adam, bearing the malignant heart, trespassed and was defeated, and [so were] all those who are born of him; this weakness [infirmitas] has become permanent ...' (3:21f.); 'the malignant heart has grown within us; it has turned us away from [your] commandments, and led us into corruption and on the ways of death ...' (7:48). The theme may also be found in the Qumran hymns:

No-one will be justified in your judgment.
Nor be shown innocent in your trial.
A human being proceeding from a human being, can
he be righteous?
A man coming from a man, can he deal wisely?
And flesh coming from the evil inclination, can it share
in glory?
(1 QHIX. 14d-16)

    In several New Testament passages, the presence of the yeser may be detected as the underlying theme. It may be the original word behind the 'evil thoughts' of Matthew 15:19; it may be represented by 'the mind of the flesh' in Romans 8:5ff. and by the 'thoughts' whose 'wills' we used to fulfil as 'children of wrath' in Ephesians 2:3. Philo's somewhat different language is probably indebted to the same concept (Williams 1927: 82f.). Rabbinical theology did not relinquish that tradition, and often opposed two symmetrical inclinations, evil and good; but it remained unsystematic, and was hesitant as to the neutrality or perversion of the yeser hara', and on its original implantation.

    How deep and strong is the tendency? Augustinians affirm and Pelagians (or semi-Pelagians) deny that it entails an inability to turn to the true God. The diagnosis of a bent towards sinning is closely linked with whatever stand is taken on free will, whether it is lost or preserved. In this respect, among the Jews, the Sadducees would appear as the forerunners of Pelagius; the Essenes would be on the opposite side, and the Pharisees in between (the 'semi-Pelagians'), if we trust Josephus's well-balanced model of the three sects. We shall not settle the age-old issue here, but only observe the remarkable force of the language of Scripture. When actual sins (at least) are taken together with the propensity to sin, the Bible speaks plainly of bondage and of the impossibility of change. Jesus himself aroused the anger of his hearers when he insisted that all sinners are slaves to sin (Jn. 8:34), a metaphor which Paul took over and exploited (Rom. 6:19f.). Jeremiah warned his people that they could not do good, any more than an Ethiopian could change his skin or a leopard his spots (Je. 13:23). Paul confirmed that the sinful mind (flesh) does not submit to God's law, 'nor can it do so' (Rom. 8:7), and that human beings left to their own resources (psychikoi) cannot understand the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14). No-one can come to the Lord Jesus unless the Father draws or drags (helkyse) him or her (Jn. 6:44; cf. 65). This suggests that the universal inclination is no superficial trait. On the contrary, it holds a dreadful sway over human life.

    Does the bent entail guilt? Since the bent is universal, it is found in those many individuals who are ignorant, or even unconscious, of the divine standards of the good. Do infants deserve condemnation for the propensity which is born in them? Many thinkers are indignant at the mere idea, though it has long been affirmed by the church. Williams (1927: 330) has to invoke 'the crude lights and hard shadows which the burning sun of Africa casts upon its desert sands' to account for Augustine's incredible harshness. Nearer to orthodoxy, and to us in time, David Smith emphatically, though ambiguously, denies that there can be guilt where there is no consciousness of God's standards:

Children are born innocent, but as they approach adolescence they are increasingly able to handle abstract ideas, and ultimately, the realisation of sin and guilt. It is the awareness of guilt that causes sin to kill spiritually ... When we couple that awareness along with Romans 5:12ff., what do we find? Sin is not imputed against innocents. Until there is awareness of guilt (i.e., of breaking the law), the penalty for sin — eternal death — is not imposed. It is evidently covered by the Saviour's atonement (1994: 297f.).

    The ambiguity lies in the joint affirmations of innocence and of the role of atonement. If the infant is not to be charged with sin, where does the need for atonement come in? Innocence does not need to be 'covered'. One could also question the correlation of awareness with the handling of abstract ideas. But the main concern is clear, and it finds some echoes in most people's sensitivities: to avoid attaching guilt to tendencies in children or in other morally unconscious persons.

    The burden of proof, I suggest, rests with those who would sever the connection between evil inclinations, sin and guilt. Nowhere in Scripture do we see the link between them broken, or even slackened. Guilt is the human correlate of the constant reaction of the absolutely Righteous One, who cannot tolerate the sight of evil. How could the righteous and holy God accept a tendency in human hearts towards the things he abominates, when the first and great commandment is that we should tend towards him with the whole of our hearts and souls and 'intensities'? When James vividly describes the process of temptation (Jas. 1:14f.), he does not deny the sinfulness and guilt of the enticing 'evil desire' (epithymia); far from wishing to exonerate the propensity, he brands it as the real culprit. Formally, epithymia must be defined as sin, for it breaks the tenth commandment, 'You shall not covet ...' In Romans 7, Paul in no way suggests that dormant sin could be considered guiltless and remain without charge. 'I lived once' (v. 9) merely expresses his unreliable feeling at the time of his ignorance, not the truth of his state, as if he had enjoyed spiritual life in God's eyes. Rather, the apostle's aim in the passage is to showy how the expressed commandment increases what is already the case: sin becomes superlatively sinful, kath' hyperbolen hamartolos (v. 13).

    The presupposition of those who deny 'original guilt' is that guilt requires a distinct and deliberate exercise of personal will. Does Scripture concur? It seems to teach a broader, more inclusive, view. Sins of omission are real sins (Jas. 4:17), and we usually slip into them unawares. Unconscious sins need divine forgiveness (Ps. 19:12) and may come under God's judgment (1 Cor. 4:4). Unintentional sins must be atoned for, as the law of Numbers 15:27ff. stipulates; the Septuagint used the word akousioi here, corresponding to 'unintentional', as Turretin noticed (1847:537 [IX.2.4]). (Heb. 10:26 distinguishes deliberate [ekousios] sin as just one sort of sinning.) Turretin also refers to Romans 7:16: the fact that the man does what he does not want to do does not excuse him; it only adds to his wretchedness under the condemnation of the law.

    The biblical witness, then, taken at face value, associates bondage and guilt with the universal bent of humankind. This deserves to be called sin with the full force of the word.

Natural sinfulness

If sinfulness is universal in humankind, and present 'from youth', should it be predicated of human nature? The Augustinian dogma does take that apparently natural step, and not without predecessors. Philo frequently used cognates of the Greek word 'nature' (physis) to stress the impregnation of evil; he stigmatized the 'adulterous nature' and spoke of the 'innate [or, co-natural] evils of our race', and of 'sinning innate [or, co-natural] in everyone who is born'. Even earlier, the apocryphal book of Wisdom refers to the Canaanites' malice as emphytos:, implanted in them, part of their nature. It speaks of their 'genesis' as evil, and to their seed (sperma) as accursed (12:10f.).

    Does canonical Scripture agree? The actual word 'nature' is found once with reference to guilt or liability to divine wrath: 'We were by nature [physei] children of wrath' (Eph. 2:3). Several have attempted to loosen the Augustinian grip on this remarkable 'proof-text'. Didymus of Alexandria (c. 311-396) reduces the meaning to 'really, in truth', but the antithetical term which one would then expect (something like 'but according to appearances we were ...') is totally absent. Others oppose 'by nature' to the phrase 'by grace', several verses later (v. 8). But that reading sounds somewhat anachronistic, betraying the influence of the later 'nature-grace' conceptual scheme. By far the most attractive exegesis connects the word with the apostle's theme in the whole chapter, indeed in the whole development of Ephesians 1 - 3: that of Jews and non-Jews made one. Physei refers to ethnic origin, birth, and lineage, just as it does in a close parallel passage, Galatians 2:15. 'Nature', therefore, does not bear the precise technical meaning given to the term by philosophers or later theologians, but the implications are essentially the same as those of the church doctrine. The whole emphasis of the paragraph points to the same interpretation, as Ramm (1985: 45f.) skilfully brings out: we were children of wrath, sons of disobedience, dead in trespasses and sins, and led by the tendencies (thelemata) of the flesh.

    The use of the loaded term 'flesh' provides powerful support for the concept of 'natural' sinfulness. Indisputably, the word frequently approximates to 'human nature', while a related meaning evokes kinship or family ties. The link between 'flesh' and guilty propensities to evil is significant for doctrine. This link is not obvious in the Old Testament, despite the term's connotations of frailty, transitoriness and vulnerability, and whatever might be suggested by Genesis 6:4, 'for he is flesh' — an enigmatic text. In Qumran, the Community Rule prescribes the striking confession, 'I belong to wicked humankind, to the communion [sôd] of sinful flesh.' Paul's extraordinary development of the idea, whereby the flesh becomes the seat and power of indwelling sin, even the hypostasis of sin's tyranny, maintains continuity with previous usage; 'being fleshly' (sarkikoi) equals 'walking in the human way' (kata anthropon) and 'being human beings' (1 Cor. 3:3f.). This language describes the fact that human nature concretely is at enmity with God; hence the meaning attached to 'flesh'. Johannine usage is not far removed from this; Jesus' word in John 3:6, contrasting flesh born of flesh with kingdom requirements, does imply a radical human inadequacy and inability in spiritual matters. Berkouwer (1971: 488) underestimates the import of that verse, failing to notice that our Lord refers to birth or conception (gennao) to account for the prevailing state of affairs — not to the event of birth as such, but as signifying the transmission of human nature. The mention of birth is not incidental, since the conversation with Nicodemus focuses on that very theme.

    Other passages are interested in the question of the origin of sin in the individual. Job 14:4 does not require the amplification of the Vulgate, 'Who can make pure what was conceived of impure seed?', to point in a direction similar to that of the passages just discussed (so Nicole 1986: ad loc.). Job 15:14 and 25:4 echo the same thought, almost proverbial in tone. The mother's ritual impurity (Lv. 12:2ff.) may be in the background; it would then function as a symbol of that sinfulness that adheres to nature as it is transmitted.

    The locus classicus is Psalm 51:6. A literal rendering could read: 'Indeed, in [or, with] iniquity was I born, and in [with] sin was my mother warm of me.' Two misguided interpretations may be put aside without further ado. First, virtually no-one today follows Augustine in viewing the procreative act as sinful per se (in our fallen condition). Such a view finds no support anywhere else in Scripture, and the synonymous parallelism of the verse contradicts the idea, since the delivery of the child ('I was born') could not be considered sinful even in Augustinian eyes. Secondly, those who would charge the psalmist's mother with a specific sin, such as adultery or promiscuity, are on no surer ground. The only argument of Maillot and Lelièvre (1966: 12f., 22) is based on the highly negative connotation of the verb 'being warm', perhaps 'being in heat' (yaham). But this is merely hypothetical, with only two other occurrences (Gn. 30:41; 31:10), and is criticized by able linguists. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that David's mother had misbehaved, and if one doubts the authenticity of the psalm's superscription, the fact remains that Israelites ascribed its language to David and recited the psalm as a common confession. Ligier's sophisticated version, which identifies the 'mother' with the generation of the exile, or even with Jehoiachin's mother (on the basis of Je. 22:26), suffers from the same deficiencies and fails to carry conviction. Luther had rightly observed that the text does not say: 'My mother sinned when she conceived me' (quoted by Berkouwer 1971:535 n. 178). David is not trying to accuse his mother in order to excuse himself! Actually, mentioning the mother follows the rules of Mediterranean rhetoric, whether in abuse of others or in humble reference to oneself: 'Your handmaid's son' just means 'Your servant'. David confesses his own sinfulness, in a spirit of true repentance.

    Far from attempting to downplay his guilt, David refers to his birth and conception in the clear realization that his very being is shot through and through with the tendencies that produced the fruits of adultery and murder. As far back as he can go, he sees his life as sinful. Therefore, this radical confession issues in his request for purification in the innermost parts of his person (v. 7). Even the 'man according to the Lord's heart' has to acknowledge that he is corrupt and guilty 'by nature', like others -- like the wicked who are wayward 'from birth', 'from the womb' (Ps. 58:3).

    In addition, we may recall once more Jeremiah's comparison (13:23) of his fellow countrymen's expertise in the practice of sin with an Ethiopian's colour of skin and a leopard's spots — both 'natural' features. It is striking, too, that Jesus deliberately works back from the fruits to the nature of the tree (Mt. 7:16ff.; 12:33; cf. Jas. 3:12); he denounces 'broods of vipers' and makes 'being evil' the cause of the foul talk from which there is no escape (Mt. 12:34). Melanchthon argued forcefully that the apostolic description of actual sins as 'the fruits of sin' indicates that original sin is what determines human nature. It would be difficult biblically to countenance the rather bold counter-position of Trent: 'This concupiscence, which sometimes the Apostle calls sin [Rom. 6:12ff.], the Holy Council declares that the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin because it is, in the regenerate, truly and properly sin, but because it stems from sin and inclines to sin.'

    At the same time, Scripture can marvel at the beauty and wisdom evident in the way the human being is constituted: 'I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful' (Ps. 139:14, NIV). The provocative sage Qohelet agrees: 'God made humankind upright ...' (Ec. 7:29). Nature, in the strict sense of what makes men and women human, the essence of being a particular kind of creature, cannot be termed evil. The phrase 'natural sinfulness' conceals a paradox, which Tertullian (De anima 41) noticed ('The corruption of nature is another nature'). Calvin deliberately developed this thought: 'We say, then, that man is corrupted by a natural viciousness, but not one which proceeded from nature' (Institutes II.i.11). Sinfulness has become our quasi-nature while remaining truly our anti-nature.

Inherited sinfulness

Are the quasi-nature and anti-nature of sin inherited in the same way as nature? John 3:6 ('What is born of the flesh is flesh' and cannot see the kingdom of God) and kindred passages strongly suggest a positive answer. Flesh begets flesh. This is the law of heredity, and one could expect it to apply when 'flesh' takes on a sinful aspect. Transmission from forebears is mentioned once (the futility of life being one of the faces of sin; 1 Pet. 1:18); but the word used there (patroparadotos) may suggest social rather than biological modes of inheritance.

    Further evidence pointing to the hereditary transmission of sinfulness may be found in the strategy of prophetic rebuke. Indictments often follow the pattern: 'You are truly the children of your parents ...' tracing perversity back to the ancestors of the accused. Hosea castigates his fellow Israelites by recalling Jacob's deviousness from his mother's womb and up to the mysterious nocturnal fight at Peniel (Ho. 12:3f.; the mention of Jacob's tears, however, may suggest his conversion there, an example for his descendants to follow). Hosea contrasts Jacob's behaviour with the Lord's action through his prophet Moses, which illustrated Israel's perennial opposition to God's designs and to his prophetic agents (12:12f. — Jacob left the land, God through Moses brought Israel back to the land; Jacob had to do hard service and care for sheep, Israel under Moses enjoys the benefit of being cared for). Isaiah makes the blunt charge: 'Your first father sinned', a fact that shows the falsity of the people's case (Is. 43:27); most commentators think Jacob is the father, but some see a reference to Abraham, and Alexander (1953: ad loc.) to Adam, the very first patriarch? Ezekiel insists on the racial connection, reminding Jerusalem that 'Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite', and quoting the proverb 'Like mother, like daughter' (16:44ff.). Scharbert too (1968: 80ff.) has noticed the phenomenon; in addition to Ezekiel 16, he quotes Hosea 9:10; 10:9; Amos 2:4, 7; Isaiah 1:4; Jeremiah 2:17; 11:6ff. (9:12ff.). He also mentions the curse which rests on some family lines, such as Eli's (see 1 Ki. 2:27, referring back to 1 Sa. 2:30-35) (p. 87). One cannot miss the idea of inherited sinfulness in the Old Testament.

    At the same time, Scripture draws back from the rhetoric of traditional theology. Nowhere does it approach such crude expressions as Anselm's: 'Of leprous parents, lepers are born; the same of our first parents.' Nowhere does it reduce the transmission to such narrow terms as in David Smith's bold language: 'We may assume, then, that each infant born into the world possesses that gene, as it were, that predisposes toward sin' (1994: 369), comparable to genes that would predispose to shyness, alcoholism, depression, or to the HIV virus (p. 371). Writing of the so-called 'Yahwist', Scharbert stresses that 'the guilt of humankind is not for him a merely biological, but even more an ethical, datum' (1968: 76). Turretin emphasized that 'the mere law of nature, after which, as man begets man and the leprous begets the leprous, corrupt man begets corrupt man' is not enough to safeguard the truth and justice of sin's propagation (1847:562 [IX.9.21], my translation). His reservations reflect the distinctive restraint of Scripture.

Adamic sinfulness

Since forebears are brought into the dock when the prophets denounce the people's sins, what about Adam (and Eve)? Does Scripture trace the corruption of nature back to Adam? Is he singled out for a special role?

    Two passages, Genesis 3 and Romans 5:12ff., play such an important role in this debate that I shall devote a chapter each to a fuller study of their logic and intention. Here, however, we must be content, provisionally, with a quick sketch of a possible answer.

    Several critics deny that these passages can bear the weight in biblical thought that Augustine has placed upon them. They argue from the lack of echoes and references elsewhere in Scripture, and try to minimize their doctrinal importance. Paul Ricoeur (1967: 237f.) brilliantly summarizes this position: 'In every way the addition [of Adam] is belated and, in certain respects, non-essential ... The Prophets ignore him ... Jesus himself never refers to the Adamic story.' As to Romans 5, it is an artificial construction; Paul is really interested in Christ, not in Adam; he contrives a homiletical symmetry, but Adam's part constitutes 'only a flying buttress', 'only a false column' (p. 239).

    These arguments look formidable, but they can be unmasked as paper tigers. Scharbert (1968:19) incisively criticizes the current opinion (e.g. Lohfink's) about the 'isolation' of Genesis 3 in the Old Testament. With Vriezen, he maintains the validity of the traditional interpretation of the chapter. Even if the Bible contained no echoes at all of that passage, frequency of occurrence could not be the sole measure of importance; its place in the canon is significant. It is obvious that the Eden story is no peripheral anecdote or marginal addition; it belongs decisively to the structure of Genesis and to that of the Torah. It has a major aetiological intention, with the following chapters showing the results of the inaugural tragedy, and chapter 11 recounting a kind of socio-political duplication of that tragedy after the flood (similarities in language between Genesis 3 and the Babel story are striking). Turretin (1847: 571, [IX. 10.8]) appealed to Genesis 5:3 as implying the change from divine to Adamic likeness.

    Beyond Genesis, allusions to Adam's fateful action are by no means impossible to find. An ear finely attuned to Scripture does detect distinct echoes of it. Using source-critical labels (in which I would not follow him), Scharbert (1968: 12) sees allusions to Adam in the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Priestly Document, the Deuteronomist, the Chronicler and Jesus ben Sirach (Ecclesiasticus). We shall review other pieces of evidence in the Prophets and the Writings. Suffice it for the moment to point to Clemens's (1994: 5ff.) recent interpretation of the book of Ecclesiastes as almost a 'commentary' on Genesis 1 - 3.

    In Judaism, the Old Testament seeds of the doctrine began to germinate, although the import of the Eden story was eclipsed for a time by explanations based on Genesis 6 (the 'angelic watcher' theory). The responsibility of Adam or Eve was affirmed, mostly regarding death, but also regarding the cause of corruption and 'fallenness'. Among the books of the Apocrypha, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus focus on two of the Genesis 3 protagonists; Wisdom 2:23f. teaches that 'it was the devil's spite that brought death into the world' (NEB) — and Williams himself has to acknowledge here 'an embryonic doctrine of Original Sin' (1927: 55). Ecclesiasticus 25:24 expresses the author's misogyny: 'Woman is the origin of sin, and it is through her that we all die' (NEB). The Qumran hymn quoted earlier provides a remarkable reference to the 'first transgression', peša' rîšôn: 'I was comforted regarding the first transgression.' Despite its strong and familiar emphasis on free will and the responsibility of each individual (54:19 and, earlier, 15), 2 Baruch sees our first parents as the fountain-head of corruption and death; Adam plunged 'many' into darkness (18:2; 56:8f.) and brought death upon humankind (23:4; 54:15). There is pathos in the question put to him:

O Adam, what hast thou done to all those who are
born of thee?
And what will be said to the first Eve who hearkened to
the Serpent?
For all this multitude are going to corruption;
Nor is there any numbering of those whom the fire
devours (48:42-43).

    4 Ezra (= 2 Esdras) goes even further, raising Adam's responsibility for human death and unrighteousness to a position of crucial importance. 'For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam's heart from the beginning, and how much ungodliness it has produced ...' (4:30). And the lament is more consistent than in 2 Baruch's case:

O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, this fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants [qui ex te advenimus]. For what good is it to us, if an eternal age has been promised to us, but we have done deeds that bring death? (4 Ezra 7:118f.)

    Such utterances warrant the conclusion that ideas of 'original sin' were probably not totally foreign to the New Testament Jewish context. Against the background they provide, possible allusions in the New Testament gain probability; we may be right to see echoes of this material in them.

    There are possible allusions and echoes of the Paradise story in the New Testament — more than many imagine. Since the next chapter will attempt to sift the evidence for relevant data, it will be sufficient to state here that even the synoptic gospels are not devoid of traces of interest in the Genesis origin of sinfulness; Jesus' comments on divorce are impressive in this regard. The Johannine corpus contains several major references to the Eden drama, although they focus on protagonists other than the first couple. Paul's letters reveal on many occasions (in addition to Rom. 5) that Genesis 3 was on his mind. In his discussion of the way in which Paul uses the passage, Williams states that it may be 'safely inferred from St. Paul's confident assumption of the Adam-doctrine ... that no other theory of the origin of evil was in possession of the Gentile-Christian field at the time when he wrote'.

    We may therefore confidently pass over the pessimistic evaluations of various scholars. Romans 5 is no isolated monument, and certainly not a 'false column' in the temple of biblical teaching.

     Yet we can readily concur that the apostle's elaboration of the magnitude of Adam's role far exceeds any other reference to Genesis 3, both within and without the Scriptures. His discernment is a gift of divine inspiration, and it offers us an example of rigorous, sober, responsible yet daring inventiveness in fulfilling the theologian's calling. Anselm spoke of fides quaerens intellectum ('faith seeking understanding'); the theologian thinks through and between revealed truths, in the service of the whole truth. We are called to emulate Paul's example, though our sketching of truth is fallible and imperfect. But we have the gracious promise that the Spirit who inspired him will assist us in our task.