Can Original Sin be part of our faith

(-community)?
 

Or:
How can sin lead us to faith?
An “event” through H.R. Niebuhr’s eyes

by Manfred Schreyer

Introduction
Are we as humans guilty as charged as most theologians claim, because tasting the fruit tainted our original roots in the Garden of Eden? Are we still separated from God, and must we ask for forgiveness because Adam and Eve committed the original sin? How can this understanding bring us into a relationship with God as an individual and as a community? How can this gift from God of having a free will later pursue us with a feeling of guilt?
This paper will reflect on the issues through H.R. Niebuhr’s eyes, one of the great American theologians of this century. My arguments in this paper find its roots in his Book “Faith on Earth,” which deals with the social nature of faith.
Following this argumentation, I would like to assess his argument through my theological understanding of “Original Sin.”

WHAT TO BELIEVE
 

All our roots of understanding are based upon traditions and experiences with others within the community we were raised. It is no different with our understanding of God, our experiences of humanity and the interpretation of scripture. We allow reason that penetrates our understanding to enter our belief system through the complex process of perception and conception, distinction, comparison, abstraction, intuition, etc. Today many Christian theologians still believe that we are guilty of sin, because of Adam/Eve who ate the forbidden fruit. Yet, this theological understanding was divided into two camps very early on during the interpretation of Scripture. Some believed in the inherited sin through Adam/Eve, others like Theodorus of Mopsuestia, Celestius (a friend of Pelagius) did not. These early theologians and opponents of the understanding argued that Adam’s/Eve’s sin lead to a physical death but not to a spiritual death. The prevailing understanding today is that we are guilty, must feel guilty and must ask God’s forgiveness, because we encountered a spiritual death through Adam/Eve.
If it is our objective to have a relationship with the Divine God, we must reach a stage of love toward God that in return moves away from sole intellectual understanding (belief in propositions) and possibly moves into voluntary actions. The importance of this argument is that we as humans must arrive at an understanding of our condition by a cause, which is determined by our ability to reason. By accepting a transformation from a dead to a living faith, however, we encounter “objective truth” and “subjective “truth.” The difference in these two different understandings brings us to the point of how we live the term “original sin” in our life. Our relationship with God changes with the acceptance of our brokenness with God as human nature. Nevertheless, how do we know if we in the temporal world perceive nothing that we do not interpret, attend nothing without desire, communicate nothing without the aid of historic language, etc.?



OUR OWN MISERY
All humans probably could agree that our present condition in this world does not exemplify the condition(s) God had in mind when our Creator created us. No matter if we are believers in an Ultimate or not, deep within us we can sense that there must be a better condition than the one we experience in the moments of our lives. We can also assume that humanity makes the same universal experience as generations have made before us. Assuming this proposition is correct, humanity searches for hope outside of their own misery (reality) and proclaims “faith in something” we call a “better world.” Not all could necessarily describe its destination point, but most Christians determine the destination point as eternity or the ultimate condition. If God through Christ proclaims this final ultimate condition to humanity, then God also manifests Himself as the starting point of the perfect condition, whom I describe as the First Cause. With this logic we feel affirmed by Karl Barth, who wrote that faith knowledge is a type of knowledge that is unconditionally bound to its object.
Therefore, excluding traditions, cultural context, history, etc., we can assume that no matter where we are, no matter who we are, and no matter what we are, we rely for the most part on ourselves (experiences, cultural upbringing, sociological environment, etc.), and are able to recognize that we do not live in a perfect world. Some claim that this perfect world is a pure wish, manifested out of logical components and driven by a subjective self. Is God a wish being, because we as humans are unable to produce the perfect condition, as Feuerbach claims?

SO WE KNOW
If we recognize the First Cause being the ultimate, we are also able to trace ourselves back in a linear way to (our) beginning roots. The beginning root for us exemplifies the creation of humanity through Adam and Eve by God. By giving each one of them (and us) a free will, we acknowledge that this First Cause gave creation an unlimited freedom to decide. Before both committed the act of “sin,” each of them trusted the Ultimate, and therefore the conditions around them were perfect. Both of them were believing in that which the First Cause gave to them. Both exemplified their understanding in a personal attitude and activity. They were content in their condition, because it was perfect and no inner desire could persuade them to try the boundaries of their free will. Neither one of them understood consequences of an act they would commit. They simply trusted in something given to them, a proclamation by God not to eat the fruit. A knowledge of the repercussion was not available to them. Additionally, in the beginning they lived in an objective reality. Therefore, subjective and objective truth was not an issue with either one of God’s creation. What both of them recognized was a condition of unfree-freedom by an Ultimate that determines our being. We all know what happens next in the story: Both ate the fruit, God is disappointed (with Himself and His creation), bans both from the Garden of Eden and furthermore institutes death for His creation. The assertion by some Christians that the moment of “sin” was answered by God with the repercussion of physical death is meaningless und unsubstantiated, because even early literature such as Esdras acknowledges the fact that “. . . Adam transmitted to all his infirmity, the malignity, the bad seed of sin.”
One would assume that all of the following generations heard about this beginning of humankind and would acknowledge to trust God. However, the created free will persuaded them and us to follow into undiscovered territories of life. By gaining knowledge in these human discovered territories, we combine our knowledge with the knowledge of others and try to create our own world. Indeed we try to imitate God and play God. However, this pursuit establishes a path of existence in an unsecured ambiguity. The created being changes into a being that struggles in life for self-defense and only lives in the pursuit of survival. Consequently, multiple subjective realities meet and we try to manifest our reality as an objective reality to others. When verifiable experience in others meets, this knowledge then becomes direct knowledge.


SIN AND FAITH
If faith as such is the outcome of knowledge (and is subjective), we must assume that it leads to an objective God, because we can imagine a perfect condition. Looking at our own condition on a very individual basis (I), looking at our condition on a corporate condition (Thou) we have to acknowledge that we are, even under the best conditions bound for failure to conquer injustice, oppression, etc. If we recognize our state of humankind, most of us seek a third entity that possibly can provide the missing ideals in our life, or can provide answers to our human condition. But, two questions arise:
1. Did these ideals (which we can envision) themselves become alienated from us and then were projected onto an ideal being?

or
2. Is faith in the ideal (the process itself) a symptom of alienation?
To answer these question which philosophers like Feuerbach and Marx answered with a ‘Yes’ we must investigate our own being and identify a transmitting cause. If we as individuals recognize our condition, being mutated by a behavior of Adam and find the same understanding in others within a larger community, we can set forth a new path of life. Within the community we find new trust through the common sin experience (if acknowledged as such). This “new” communal experience has the triadic character of “I-Thou-Cause.” The best example for us as Americans is the experience of sin, exemplified in our history as moments of slavery, child labor, oppression of women, etc. Listening to those who have endured these conditions mutated a new understanding of being healed. Personal and corporate gain justified the understanding of oppression, and are a reflection similar to what the serpent promised Eve.
Jesus, exemplified to us what it meant to live in the perfect condition by reminding and teaching us the importance of making distinct choices of our free will by being human. Humanity as such was unwilling to accept this way of life and killed Jesus. By choosing this process, humanity continued to take another bite of the apple. However, Jesus (God) proved the point by the act of the resurrection that God is the First Cause and only cause. Concluding out of this experience, we again have to acknowledge that “an objective perfect condition does exist.” The argumentation of alienation by Feuerbach and Marx becomes watery, because by acknowledging (finding) an objective perfect condition we must assume that there must be a first cause.
When we embrace to live in isolation from a First Cause we become disengaged from others and we trust only in our own self- righteousness. If in fact we are willing to live out our fears, distrust toward others, we are unable to relate to a First Cause and then God becomes our enemy. Reversely, if we trust original sin, we trust in a perfect condition. Consequently, if we relate to others within humanity, and we listen to their experiences of life, we are able to encounter God.
It is interesting to mention that sin is not personal, but sin itself is interpersonal, just like Adam, Eve and God. We (I-You) find ourselves wrong, but we are not wrong from one another. Ergo, we have doubts of goodness around us. In fact, we have the intrinsic belief that acting in goodness is against that which has found itself as the law of our own existence. God knew that and sent Jesus, who embodied the perfect condition and lived out of the perfect condition. Jesus rebelled against the order that we created for us, and to prove our point, we killed such behavior. Yet Jesus rose from the dead to proclaim the destiny of a perfect condition for us.
God is the Determiner of our destiny because His love is greater than our will to believe His ways and His will. Jesus reveals God for us. Original sin and our sense of ourselves leads us to God. Without knowing who we are, we remain lost!



CONCLUSION
I have struggled with the term of Original sin for a long time. I demanded from myself that I erase it from my terminology. H.R.N. has brought a new understanding to this term. He lead me to an understanding that we must look back through our own understanding (subjective) and view God as an objective matter to all in the community. We must see God as the one who created us in love. We as humans denied this love, and still do in our actions by exploring unknown territories to us. The fruit still looks good to us, although we know the story of the Garden of Eden. In fact I believe that we are so far from our given path that we are unable to recognize when we take bites of the fruit. We need forgiveness from the First Cause, but we also need forgiveness from those with whom we live. Consequently we also need to forgive. Faith in a destiny will transform us if we trust in God just as Adam and Eve when they lived in the Garden of Eden for a short period of time. Even if we did not have the scriptures, we would recognize that our miserable condition is self initiated. Thankfully we have those on our side who shared the same experiences that we made.
I believe that sin is a violation of the Divine “law,” not a violation of natural order of reason, because without the knowledge of God it is impossible to offend our Creator. Therefore, it is faith that saves humankind. It is faith that is proclaimed among all who live as humanity here on earth. Grace is the greatest gift that has always been there and given by the One who created us, and lives with us. Grace is given in the encompassing moments of life where we deny God by following the trail of the fruit knowingly or unknowingly.





WORKS CITED

Electronic Catholic Encyclopedia: Electronic Version by New Advent Inc., 1996. Keyword: Original Sin
Niebuhr, H. Richard, Faith on Earth: New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989.

1  H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 4.

2  Electronic Catholic Encyclopedia (Electronic Version: New Advent Inc. 1996), Keyword: Original Sin.

3  H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 6-7.

4  H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 13.

5  All humans can imagine the “better condition.” In fact humans experience moments of a perfect condition and therefore we can assume that the particular moment may find other components of another particular moment and finally arrives at a universal harmony of moments. (The perfect condition.) Each one of these is caused directly or indirectly by human behavior. Jesus does state that God wants us to be perfect. Therefore, we must assume that we are able to create with God’s help “The Kingdom on Earth.”

6  H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 29.

7  Ibid., 28.

8  Unlimited in a sense of time bound. Our limitations are conceptualized in an (our) understanding of not knowing it all. It is also exemplified in our search of (for) our being and that what makes us being. I therefore assume that in our God given reality we have the freedom to choose (just as Adam and Eve), but at the same time we encounter boundaries by simply being humans.
Sharing our experience with others is essential for humanity so that we gain a clearer knowledge of that which we all experience and call life. Out of that limited experience (because it is ongoing) we have the responsibility to convey to others effects we experience by analogies we made. Though these analogies may be subjective, eventually we will be able to recognize “a natural order” or “the will of God” for us.

9  H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 3.

10  Ibid., 66.

11 A book widely read by Jews and Christians and written by a Jew during the first century. This writing illustrates the fall of the humankind (VII, 48) and the bad seed of sin (III,21, 22; IV, 30).

12  H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 39.

¹³  Ibid., 4.

¹⁴  H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 53.

¹⁵ H. Richard Niebuhr, Faith on Earth (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1989), 79.

¹⁶ Ibid., 97.