Some say that, given modern science and how evolutionary biology explains human origins, the Christian teaching about the fallenness of human nature due to sin at the beginning can no longer be believed. But knowledge of humanity’s origins as reconstructed from the empirical evidence does not tell us what it was like to be human in the beginning and as personally experienced. The biological evidence from evolution paints an incomplete picture of humanity as it was meant to be in the beginning. Revising the faith on account of evolution regarding the fallenness of humanity—the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith—is the tail wagging the dog.
Nobody should doubt that humans are the result of a long process, spanning billions of years. But, quoting Pope Benedict XVI, “the clay became man at that moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought ‘God’.” Surely, in this moment, when the first creature created turned for the first time to the creator, God would have responded, loud and clear. And just as clearly, we are no longer this close to God. Indeed, today is set aside to remind us that when God became man, we crucified him.
The beginning of humankind was with the first creature who knew himself to be created. This was a person, someone who asked about himself as himself, not just a lump of clay. This creature’s body was a development in evolutionary history, but the possibility of a personal relationship with God was the result of God inviting this creature into a personal relationship. It is easy to believe that this first individual, loved by God in a personal way, was protected by preternatural gifts; just as easy to believe is, considering humanity’s state in historical times, that this relationship must have ended on account of human sin.
Of course, many lost faith in God. One writer now argues that our belief in God is a side effect of our human tendency to look for mental activities in other creatures and understand them as akin to us. Just as we project human thoughts and emotions on animals, we project them on nature itself, and thus, the idea of a divine being is born. But I am addressing those who do believe and have understood the philosophical arguments why this belief is reasonable, even if God is now distant. I cannot see how one can both believe in God and not believe in original sin. If God drew humans out of an animal existence into a relationship with himself, only the failure of this relationship shortly after it began can explain the rest.
Today is Good Friday, the day we remember that the Word that had become man was crucified and died. The world was deaf to it. Clearly, humankind suffers from the effects of original sin. But we also know that this is not where the story ends.
