In defense of Original Sin
It is commonplace today for religious people to attack the idea of ‘original sin’. Apart from the unseemly connotations some, such as Matthew Fox, have employed the Genesis account to say that sin was not original, rather it was blessing. Sin thus came after blessing as the result of a subsequent fall. Interesting as such thinking is my concern is that we can all too easily lose the central theological insight of original sin. Namely that it is actually the idea of original sin that allows us to reject the notion of a temporally located fall. For in the idea of original sin the fall is inscribed into our very being. The fall is no longer something one can point to and say, “there is where it all went wrong”. In the theological category of original sin one must embrace that moment as ones own. In the theological category of original sin “the fall” becomes “a falling” (as Heidegger understood).
To explain what I mean let us take the almost ubiquitous claim within the church that there was once a type of pre-fall religious community (not in the sense of being perfect, but rather of a community before “the” fundamental mistake). For instance people often refer lovingly to the community of believers that existed before Paul came along and formed the church, or the church before Constantine converted to Christianity or Catholicism before Luther created a schism or the community that Luther founded that was perverted by later protestant sects etc. etc.
Here we witness the logic of anti-Semitism in its abstract form, namely the externalisation of blame onto someone/thing external to us that must be repelled/overthrown/overcome in order for the community to find peace again and a renewed homeostasis. In the anti-Semitic gesture one externalises the fall/obstacle by placing it onto another. Here we see the scapegoat mechanism at work in its most obvious form.
Against this logic of the scapegoat one can approach the notion of original sin as a countermeasure, one that forces us to re-inscribe the fall/obstacle into ourselves. In relation to the above example it can make us embrace the reality of concretely existing Christianity in all its problems as our own, rather than pointing to some external point in time. This does not mean that one cannot point to times when things went wrong within the church or political life. By no means. This is covered by the idea of sin. With ‘original sin’ one is simply prevented from pointing to some idealised perfection that we have lost and which we can return to and repeat in an identical manner – i.e. the common cry that we ought to return to the early church.
Instead, in original sin, the fall is inscribed into the very foundation of all concretely existing Christianity. The point then is not to attempt some kind of return to the early church, the church before it got caught up in X (Platonic concepts, state power etc.) but rather to return to the revolutionary event that gave birth to the early church. Fully embracing the fact that we will fail but working diligently to fail in a better way. We thus avoid the deadend of either sitting back and saying, “everything we create will end up just as bad as what currently exists”, or naively claiming that we can return to the way things used to be, before it all went wrong.
This opening can be seen in relation to Kierkegaard’s use of the term ‘repetition’. Here one attempts to repeat what has gone before but in a non-identical manner. Thus returning, not to the concrete reality of the early church, but rather to that which gave birth to it.
The result of this radical reboot will very likely take a form that is very different to what the church has looked like at other times. And what arises will look like a betrayal of so much of what has gone before. But true fidelity to Christianity involves a deep reservoir of courage that will help us return to the revolutionary source from which the concretely existing church arose. This is a sacrificial act as one is unlikely to find much support (financial, emotional) by walking this road. Indeed one is likely to be sidelined and attacked.
In response then to those who shout, “let us return to the early church”, we must resolutely respond by crying out, “no, let us return to the event which gave rise to the early church”
Tags: event theology, falling, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Matthew Fox, Original Sin, Peter Rollins, scapegoat
July 11th, 2008 at 5:42 am
I agree with Pete that the search for a pure early church form of faith community is indeed futile.I have recently read Frank Viola’s ‘Pagan Christianity’ which advocates such a return to the way it was before Constantine and the early church fathers (mainly converted Greek philosophers) got to corrupt Paul’s model of a faith community.His writing reminds me of some early Plymouth Brethren thesis on returning to pure Christianity and we all know how that one ended up – legalism and exclusivity.I certainly agree with Viola that so much of ‘Chrisendom’ is extra baggage but having spent many of my early years trying to model the early church I and many others painfully discovered that the problem was within (original sin?) – we are wired to try and search for approval from priest type figures or to control others as a ‘loving pastors’.The rewiring of our whole desire life can only take place after an encounter with ‘the other’ (resurrected Christ) and even then the pressures of our culture tries to move us back into the old ways.A very light touch to faith community is a safeguard to falling into the ‘we have it’ model of early church fans.
Charlie
July 11th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Having been a part of one of the many “restoration” movements in American Christianity I especially resonate with the notion of returning, not to the original church, but that original event that gave birth to the church. This point of view also promotes humility by recognizing that we today would not have done any better than those who “corrupted” the early church whether that be Paul, Constantine, the reformers, etc.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Interesting post Pete. I am curious if you have read “God Was In This Place and I, i Did Not Know” by Lawrence Kushner. In chapter 3, Kushner actually suggests that not only is original sin that which we must take ownership of, but that it was necessary for our creation as human beings.
Check this. “What Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden was not a sin; it is what was supposed to happen. Indeed, it has happened in every generations since. Children disobey their parents and, in so doing, complete their own creation. Adam and Eve were duped, not by the snake, but by God. They were lovingly tricked into committing the primal act of disobedience that alone could ensure their separation from God, their individuation, and their expulsion from the garden. … The issue is not sin, guilt, or even disobedience. The necessary price for becoming an autonomous adult is the unending pain of separation.”
My point. We often see ourselves in a vacuum. We remove ourselves from the story of old and think as though we are embarking on new territory, when we are in fact participating in the ongoing creation of humanity. That said, in our becoming human, when do we recognize the evolution of the Church as that which is necessary for our existence/being in the world (and not simply a reaction to methodologies of past generations/nor a means by which we return to some early Church model that tends to be romanticized)?
July 11th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Haven’t read Kushner but find it very interesting. I think he is right to see this gesture in a developmental way, playing out within us all. Thanks for this!
July 11th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Fascinating thoughts, Pete; doubly so since I just read this in Christianity Today about “Why the doctrine of original sin is ‘curiously liberating.’” I tend to resonate with Fox’s primacy of ‘original blessing,’ and also look at the specific, Hebrew-covenant parameters of what ’sin’ means in its biblical milieu. Sometimes I think Christian theology has universalized what had quite specific meaning for its initial hearers. We all have the privilege of eisegesis of course, and sometimes its quite fun and even profound; other times, though, it can enslave us. Nonetheless, you’ve raised an excellent point: ubiquitous guilt is better than scapegoating.
July 12th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Nate to extend on what you’ve said, Wendell Barry writes in his collection of poems “Given”
Original Sin
Well, anyhow, it preserves us from the pride
of thinking we invented sin ourselves
by our originality, that famous modern power.
In fact, we have it from the beginning
of the world by the errors of being born,
being young, being old, causing pain
to ourselves, to others, to the world, to God
by ignorance, by knowledge, by intention,
by accident. Something is bad the matter
here, informing us to itself, handing down
its old instruction. We know it
when we see it, don’t we? Innocence
would never recognize it. We need it
too, for without it we would no know
forgiveness, goodness, gratitude,
that fund of grace by which alone we live.
July 12th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Nice post. Wolf does this well in his chapter on Exclusion in Exclusion and Embrace.
July 12th, 2008 at 5:37 am
LOL, that’ll be Volf, rather than some other Lupine theologian
July 12th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Kester – agreed. I interviewed Volf back in ‘99 and am glad we did the interview via email – his answers had me in tears and I was glad in a way that we didn’t get to meet face to face until years later as crying isn’t exactly a good thing to do while one is interviewing someone.
Also, check out his latest book “Remembering Rightly in a Violent World.” I brought it with me to my trip to Israel last year and thought it was a brilliant exploration of what it means to put theory into practice (or as Caputo says in What Would Jesus Deconstruct, land the plane).
July 12th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Oops – the full book title is “The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World.” My bad.
July 14th, 2008 at 9:36 am
[...] Pete Rollins has an interesting take on “Original Sin” [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Pete – re: the importance of dwelling in the revolutionary event that founds the church, yes!
But re: a need to return to it, no – because surely we never leave it? I mean, we may think we do, but we don’t really: it’s the essence of grace and love and Christ that these things always go before us, even into the dark outlying regions of the other. Reboot, by all means, but when you boot up again, the hardware you have installed on the journey so far remains in place, ready to use.
In fact, surely that’s the essence of our dilemma re: the church and contemporary ‘logos’ culture – culture is not waiting for us to catch up: it is resolutely looking ahead at what is ‘other’ to itself; and here comes the modern church, saying ‘turn round, wait for me, if I can just lasso you, either you’ll pull me up the hill with you, or you’ll turn back and join me’.
And neither need be the case, because none of us, church or otherwise, have left the revolutionary event, perpetual crucible – dare I say hell-fire in paradise even? – that forms us, but equally, Christ has gone before us, and before all the possibilities that lie before us, and the cultures we chase… and brought us with him already into the eschatological event at the end as well as at the beginning of time.
And there was I, going to comment on your use of the word ‘homeostasis’, which I’ve been reflecting on in relation to sin all weekend, in connection with a great book by Antonio Damasio called “The feeling of what happens”, who reckons that consciousness can be understood, in part, as a means to maintain bodily homeostasis, which, I reckon, is a subject right up Kester Brewin’s street, so will recommend it to him on his site, though I’m sure he will have read about it here too.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Hey Steve
I see what you are saying… the only thing I would mention is that when I speak of ‘return’ I do not mean a temporal return. Indeed that is what I am critiquing with the idea of a return to the early church. What I am referring to is more in line with the Kierkegaardian idea of ‘repetition’, i.e. of a non-identical repeating in the present. In short, the event is not historically located and is thus potentially present at every moment. In this way the ‘return’ is a type of turning toward, of orientating oneself, of preparing
July 16th, 2008 at 5:02 am
[...] Pete Rollins has, not surprisingly, a unique take on original sin. Pete’s a super smart guy, but I think I’m tracking with him here. To explain what I mean let us take the almost ubiquitous claim within the church that there was once a type of pre-fall religious community (not in the sense of being perfect, but rather of a community before “the” fundamental mistake). For instance people often refer lovingly to the community of believers that existed before Paul came along and formed the church, or the church before Constantine converted to Christianity or Catholicism before Luther created a schism or the community that Luther founded that was perverted by later protestant sects etc. etc. [...]
July 16th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Pete I agree that ‘original sin’ is vital for are religious/Christian frameworks, but I totally disagree with your interpretation of original sin and your contrasting of the ‘early church’ with the ‘revolutionary event’.
In your blog I see this deep binary opposition of what Caputo claims of the undeconstructable and deconstructable, hence your ‘idea of sin’ and ‘original sin’ and the ‘early church’ with the ‘ revolutionary event’.
I agree with what you say about this dream of getting back to the ‘early church’ as being some perfection, when really it is a perspectival interpretation. But, I would also state that we dont have this ‘revolutionary event’ because all we have is an finite traditional, sociolinguistic, cultural interpretation of this event, so all we have is an deconstructable interpretation of this ‘revolutionary event’ so I would pete argue you are yourself, ‘haunted by the ghost of full presence’, by stating that if we don’t have purity of this event we have ‘fallen’ i.e ‘original sin’.
So I disagree with this binary opposition and see my finite condition of being in the world as a ‘good’ rather than a ‘fall’, because all I can ever do is the finite (deconstructable) simply because I’m not God/infinite (undeconstructable). I hope this is easy to understand because it was done in a rush.
In Christ
July 16th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Hi Pete,
I like the concept of non-identical repetition in the present; the idea that this leaves the revolutionary event potentially present at all times, and that this can form a preparation and orientation. I suspect we’ve been in agreement all along!
Part of the problem is the power of the image of ‘the return’, isn’t it? It implies directional movement in space, and therefore temporality. So the dizzying turn and re-turn and turn again, on the spot, moment by moment, is an effective way of subverting that (makes me think of a Wall of Death, at the fairground, too).
This is pressing the imminence of the revolutionary event in order to reveal its hyper-presence. I wonder if what I was groping towards (above) was a transcendent interpretation of the event, to the same end: the alpha and omega route, with eschatological significance – the return of Christ – betrayal not only at the start of the narrative, and at its centre-point, but also at the end, as reward, the lake of fire before the throne of God in Revelation. Only half way through your new book, so don’t know whether you’ve touched on this already?
All I would say is that if, as you’ve argued in your last book, this God-event is hyper-present, imminent and transcendant both, and if (using the temporal metaphor the Bible uses) original sin becomes an integral part of ultimate blessing, and we live in the presence of both, here and now, then the downside of original sin is always accompanied by, and therefore subsumed by, the upside of the blessing of God. That’s a gospel I can(not help but) share, and it is not only about preparation and orientation, but fulfilment in the present.
Does that help exorcise the ‘ghost of full presence’ mentioned by Garreth Ashe?
July 16th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Hey Garreth – I suspect that you are going to really disagree with my agreement of something you say above. I would argue that you are right – there is (initially) no event, the event is retroactively forged by the effect ‘it’ creates. The event is what ‘dwells’ in the tension of a parallax view. So there is no a-temporal event existing before the formation of the community but rather is retroactively posited in the aftermath. It does then exist but only in so much as it is an (assumed) effect of what it supposedly brought into existence (kind of like a bizarre and somewhat twisted version of the transcendental argument for the existence of God i.e. we are led to assume what we cannot grasp). Asking what the event looks like is thus similar to asking what form light takes.
I should say that I reject both a crude materialistic reading of the event and an idealist one. I embrace a broadly dialectical materialist reading that allows the event to have a meaning beyond materialism while still being rooted within it.
That should answer your initial concerns – but open up others!
July 16th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I agree with what you say above Pete, But i dont see why this has to be interpretated as a ‘falling’, why my finite state has to be overcome, when I cant escape it, its part of what its mean to be human and be-in-the-world.
I believe I only do violence when I hold my beliefs in God or the event as dogmatic (right belief), but when I view language as iconic, I realise that I am pointing towards the trancendent rather than grasping, that language is inadaquate but an essential for worship, so I realise I always see through a glass darkly but my faith is in trusting in the giveness of God rather than theology. I dont see this as a falling, but a celebration of my finite condition as a good.
At the end of the day I cant prove that Jesus reconcilated the world to the father thorugh his life death and resurrection (this is an interpretation and a statement of faith not reason), but I can try to rationally understand this faith statement I make and hold though I will hit mystery sooner than later.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Freud once said something to the effect that his aim was to take despair and depression and replace it with everyday unhappiness. I guess that was said on a bad day. But his point is interesting. He did not think that he could offer some way of escaping real life in all its beauty and horror, but rather a way of living within it and saying ‘yes’ to it. This would mean living a life of joy and suffering, happiness and sadness just like everyone else.
I too am not offering some way to escape the human condition, all I can do is offer ways of living with it, taking responsibility for it and asking people to act with care. Now I don’t think you would disagree much with this (depending upon how much weight you wanted to put on your theological claims). What you seem to disagree with is the word ‘fall’ or ‘falling’. All I can say here is that I mean this term in the way that Gabriel Marcel meant it i.e. that if we see a broken kettle we can work out its broken even though we do not necessarily have a working one with which to compare it. Meaning that we ‘feel’ the world to be broken even though we have nothing to compare it to. This existential ‘feeling’ of being broken is what I mean by falling, though by recognising it and living with it one finds, not delivery from it, but a way of transcending it while remaining within it.
I am thus holding onto the ‘fall’ because I think it is a wonderful, ancient way of describing this existential feeling and the idea that we cannot, in this life at least, escape it.
I am an old traditionalist here and you are the radical!
July 16th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Pete,
Is it possible, however, to accept a view on original sin, such as you’ve presented, and still reject the more traditional “homunculus” version of original sin that so many in the church still seem to perpetrate? Commonplace attacks on original sin seem to me a reaction against a primitive conception of the fall and a resulting homunculus theory of sin (and a primitive view of sexuality). Rather, is it possible to speculate that our natural state of sin is indeed original insomuch as it is that which we are born into, i.e., a sinful world, a place of death, disease, natures bent towards our own preservation, etc – and is not a result of some evil genetic material passed down from our ancestors?
If so, just as you mentioned, we are freed from the problem of necessarily pointing towards the story of Adam and Eve as a primordial moment of sin and our sin becomes that which we must accept as a part of our own nature and not something we can blame on someone’s actions thousands of years ago.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Hey Adam – Absolutely. My defense of original sin is purely an abstract existential defense devoid of any bizarre scholastic theological claims.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
BTW-Have you also explored Jung’s take on this topic? No offense to Freud but I found Jung more helpful when it comes to analyzing “sin.”
July 16th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
[...] Original Sin for non-Calvinists. This is a great post by Pete Rollins. I’d love to hear what you think. [...]
July 17th, 2008 at 5:16 am
Pete I would agree with your existential interpretation of falling, though that is a interpretation because this brokenness could just be easily interpreted as the way the world is (will to power).
But i would also argue that I would see the historical and existential as a both/and rather than an either/or, because through being situated in the world (historically) and being impacted by the outsideness of the world then I have this existential experience of falling/brokenness. Because at the end of the day its not just my existential experience I’m trying to transcend but also to imagine the world differently, so the world also has to be re-ordered, though I dont have a full presence of what this re-ordering looks like, I see thorugh a glass darkly (or maybe this re-ordering simply is loving God and my neighbour is the best place to begin, though there are many interpretation of how this is done in practice).
July 31st, 2008 at 6:50 am
[...] can never go back Pete Rollins on the nostalgia believers often get for some phase of the early church: “The point then is [...]
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:56 am
[...] Church before Constantine, or before Greek thought or before the schisms – see my post entitled In Defense of Original Sin), we have eclipsed the truly revolutionary drive of Christian faith. A drive, not to return to the [...]