Part Six: The More We Need to Know
In articles 3-5 of this series, I tried to outline as best I could what human reason can tell us about all the misery that afflicts humanity in this world. Briefly in review: we said that reason or “Philosophy” can indeed shed at least some light on this dark matter. For example, reason can establish that there exists an all-powerful, all-seeing, infinitely good Creator, and that He “took the risk” (so to speak) of giving to humanity the precious gifts of free-will and interdependence, gifts which are the basis for the highest goods that we experience in this life. God knew that to some extent we would misuse those gifts, and bring great miseries upon ourselves, but He also knew that those very gifts (free-will and interdependence) make it possible for us to attain tremendous goods, such as wisdom, love and creativity. He evidently believed it was well worth the risk. Since He is infinitely wise, and we are not, who are we to say that God was foolish to entrust such gifts to us?
We also said last time that human reason can show that our Creator gave other gifts to us as well, a whole “immune system,” so to speak, to help us fight against evil and misery in our lives. This immune system includes, first of all, the gift of the inner voice of conscience in every human heart, to guide our steps to do what is right; second, there is the inner satisfaction and peace of heart that we experience when we actually follow the voice of conscience, especially by showing generosity and compassion for others; third, we said, philosophers sometimes call the whole of human life “a vale of soul-making,” because by living out the dictates of conscience in the face of challenges and adversity, and especially in the struggle to overcome evil and suffering, our souls thereby grow in virtues such as courage, patience, compassion for others, and trust in divine providence.; fourth, we said that if there is a God, then He would provide us with at least some spiritual medicine for our journey, especially the light and strength we need along the way, and that this is the constant testimony of those who believe in God and turn to Him for help in prayer; and finally, we said that it is reasonable to assume that if God gave to each of us an immaterial, immortal spirit (as reason can show), a spirit to face the challenges of evil and suffering, and if He placed us in this “vale of soul-making,” then He would not let our lives be totally cut-off in the end by death; rather, it is reasonable to hope that He intends to complete the soul-making work He started, and lead our souls to a blessed immortality.
All of this, we said, can be discovered by the light of reason alone, reflecting upon creation and upon human life. These are among what the ancient thinker Boethius would have called “the consolations” of Philosophy.
And yet, consoling as these truths may be, they still leave many dark and impenetrable areas of human suffering unexplained. For example, they don’t really help us to understand the terrible sufferings and early death of little children (who were not old enough to be able to follow their conscience and grow in virtue, and so never had a chance to benefit from being placed in this “vale of soul-making”).
Moreover, this inner voice of conscience may be a good gift to us, to help light the way for us, but all of us fail to obey the dictates of conscience, in ways great or small, and we end up carrying around a spiritual ball-and-chain of guilt as a result. Reason alone cannot seem to tell us how we can be freed from that guilt, how to “lay that burden down.”
Furthermore, while we may have a reasonable hope for a blessed immortality of soul at our journey’s end, we may still wonder just how fulfilling that immortal destiny will be. Are we to end up merely as happy, bodiless spirits forever — like Casper the friendly ghost?
In short, Philosophy leaves us with some pretty agonizing, unanswered questions. And that is why we finished the last installment of this series by saying: maybe God has more to say to us about evil and suffering in His world — and His response to it — than Philosophy alone can tell us. If we actually let God speak to us — as He has done through the Holy Scriptures that He inspired to be written, through Jesus Christ His Son, and through the Body of Christ on earth, the Church — I mean (as the great Protestant theologian Karl Barth once said), if we just “let God be God,” if we just let Him say to us what He wants to say in the forms He has chosen to say it, then we may find, for starters, that God never intended there to be human misery and suffering at all.
On this great mystery of divine revelation, allow me to share some passages from a book I co-authored, entitled More Than Myth? Seeking the Full Truth about Genesis, Creation and Evolution (The Chartwell Press, 2014)…
If we go back to the beginning of the human story, our first parents, Adam and Eve, were created in God’s image, and also in a state of intimacy and friendship with God, often termed a state of original “grace” and “justice” (with “justice” here understood as “rightly ordered according to God’s plan”). God filled Adam and Eve right from the start with His own supernatural life, elevating their created human nature to a condition in which they would not be subject to suffering and death, nor to internal disorders of any kind, nor to any disharmony with each other, or with their natural environment. All of this was included in what was meant in Genesis by the paradisial “Garden of Eden” in which our first parents dwelt, and the “tree of life” of which they were welcome to partake. [NB: in More Than Myth, we argue that it is still possible to harmonize the biological and fossil evidence with the biblical claim that all human beings descend from an original couple. In fact, this harmony is possible even if one accepts a Neo-Darwinian understanding of the evolution of the human body from lower life forms.]
As long as our first parents remained in friendship with God, trustfully obedient to His commandments, His supernatural divine life would continue to flow into them, maintaining them in this state of “paradise,” and (according to some Christian traditions) enabling them to grow more and more in their knowledge and love of Him. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes this pre-fall sate of Adam and Eve in entries 376 and 378:
By the radiance of this [divine] grace all dimensions of man’s life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die (Gen 2:17, 3:16, 19). The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman (Gen 2:25) and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called “original justice.”… The sign of man’s familiarity with God is that God placed him in the garden (2:8). There he lives to “till and keep it.” Work is not yet a burden (Gen 2:15, cf. 3:17-19), but rather a collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the original creation.
Almost everyone is familiar with the next part of the story: Adam and Eve were tempted by the talking “serpent” in the garden to distrust the intentions of their Creator and to disobey His commandments (Gen 3:1-5). By eating of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” — the only tree in the garden from which they were expressly forbidden to eat — our first parents cut themselves off from intimacy with God, and the continual inflow of supernatural, divine life that this entailed. Thus, they quickly “hide” from God after their transgression, because they are now “afraid” of Him when they hear him (figuratively) “walking in the Garden” (Gen 3:8-10). The punishments they incur for their act of distrust and disobedience are grievous ones, punishments that God had already warned them about: immediate “spiritual death” (the loss of that continual inflow of divine life) to be followed inevitably by physical death (Gen 2:17). The Catechism sums up the situation in entries 399-401:
The harmony in which they found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relationship henceforth marked by lust and domination (cf. Gen 3:7-16). Harmony with creation is broken: the visible creation has become alien and hostile to man (Gen 3:17-19)…. Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground,” for out of it he was taken (Gen 3:19; cf. 2:17). Death makes its entrance into human history (Rom 5:12).
This is the traditional Christian interpretation of the biblical story of the creation and fall of the human race. It is based on the contemporary Catholic Catechism, but hardly any of it would be in dispute among mainstream adherents of the other great Christian traditions. Down through history there have been minor disagreements about which parts of the story were meant to be taken figuratively and which were to be taken more literally. For example, was “the Garden of Eden” a real, geographically located place, or was it meant to be understood solely in a figurative way to refer to the state of innocence and intimacy with God, and harmony with all creation, enjoyed by Adam and Eve? Was the evil serpent a real talking reptile, or was that just meant to be purely figurative language for the Devil, whom the serpent was traditionally held to represent? Did the fall of Adam and Eve from friendship with God really involve eating “fruit” from a “tree,” or are the trees and fruit in the story just meant symbolically to refer to the special gifts and graces of God? In any case, all of the mainstream Christian traditions would agree with the summary statement offered by the Catechism in entry 390:
The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.
Robert Stackpole, STD
Mere Christian Fellowship
Next Time: The Biblical Diagnosis of Human Misery
