FALL
(a) DEFINITION.
Theological term that does not appear in the Bible with respect to Adam’s sin, although the fact expressed by this term occupies a central place: the fall of Adam and Eve from the state of innocence to that of sin (Gen. 3; Rom. 5: 12-21; 1 Cor. 15:21-22, 45-47; 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14).
The fall is a turning point in the moral and spiritual history of the human race, with disastrous effects of incalculable magnitude. Chapter 3 of Genesis presents the fall of man as an undoubted fact.
The entire story reflects, with great psychological accuracy, the human experience. The biblical perspective regarding sin and redemption presupposes the fall.
God created the human being, male and female; he gave them “a living, reasonable, immortal soul; he created them in the image of God, that is, intelligent, capable of being just… and capable of falling »(Luther, «Great Catechism», 17).
Left with the choice of whether to do God’s will or not, they succumbed to temptation and transgressed the commandment (Gen. 2:16, 17; 3:1-8). Through their disobedience, they lost their innocence and purity.
The result of the fall is the state of sin in which all human beings are conceived and born, receiving the inheritance of an evil nature (Ps. 51:7; John 3:6; Rom. 5:12). The consequence of sin is spiritual, temporal and eternal death.
However, the doctrine of Roman Catholicism about original sin must be qualified, according to which every descendant of Adam, by the mere fact of his birth, is guilty and lost before God so that “little children who die without baptism do not they can be saved” (Monsignor E. Cauly, “The Catechism Explained”, p. 306).
It is true that all men are sinners “by nature” (Eph. 2:3), but the sins for which he is condemned are his own. Death has passed to all men because of Adam’s sin, but “all” have sinned (Rom. 5:12). The responsibility on which God judges each person is personal responsibility (Rom. 2:1, 6). , 12; 3:9-20; 5:12).
The instrument of the first temptation, according to Genesis, was the serpent, the NT highlights the fact that Satan himself made use of the serpent (Gen. 3:15; 2 Cor. 11:3; Rom. 16:20 and Rev. 12:9).
The passage from Gen. 3:16-24 intensely expresses the consequences of the fall: physical and moral suffering, disunity, curse of the earth and nature (Rom. 8:20-22), hard work, later physical death and also death spiritual by separation from God.
But there is also there the grace-filled provision, the remedy for the fall, the protoevangelium contained in Gen. 3:15; the posterity of the woman (Christ) will crush the head of the serpent!
For Paul there is no need to demonstrate human guilt resulting from Adam’s fall. Adam is the origin of sin and death for the entire race.
At the very beginning of the history of the race, we have Adam and sinful humanity; to its end, to Christ, and regenerated humanity (Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:21, 22, 45-49). (see REDEMPTION).
(b) Critical conceptions of the fall.
Rationalist or evolutionary theologians consider Gn. 3 as an allegory or a myth.
The fall would have been, for them, a necessary stage of man’s moral development, a fall not downward, but upward; the passage from the savage, or animal, state to the knowledge of good and evil, a step towards moral purity thanks to the experience of sin.
But such a concept totally ignores the teaching of Scripture about the essence and terrible gravity of sin: it is only considered a hidden or imperfect good.
Critics believe that our story is inspired by a Babylonian source, and that it has its parallel in the “Myth of Adapa.” Ea, the creator of man, warns his son Adapa not to take the food or drink offered to him by the sky gods of Anu:
«They will offer you food of death: you will not eat it.
They will present you with the water of death to drink: you will not drink it.
They will show you a dress: put it on!
They will put oil before you: anoint yourself!
Do not forget the commandment I have given you.
Hold fast the word I have spoken to you.
It happened later that the gods offered him the food and drink of immortality, but Adapa obeyed his father and, therefore, lost eternal life.
One is surprised that this story could be seen as the source of Gen. 3. The concept of fall is not found in all Babylonian literature: it is totally contrary to their entire system of crude polytheism. According to the Bible, man has been created in the image of a single and holy God.
The Babylonians, as well as the Greeks, the Romans and many other peoples and nations, have made their gods, good and bad, in the image of man.
These divinities hate each other, they beat each other, they make war and they kill each other: How could they ever be attributed the formation of morally perfect beings? A man coming out of their hands would necessarily have had a nature as corrupt as theirs.
He could not have known any fall, since in pagan thought he had known no state of innocence from which he could have fallen. The legend of Adapa certainly speaks of foods of life, as Gen. 3:2 mentions the tree of life.
But everything similar ends here. Adapa loses eternal life not because his pride had led him to disobedience, as happened with Adam, but because he obeys Ea, his creator, who deceives him!
From a story like this we cannot know anything about the origin of sin, nor its remedy, and it has nothing to do with the story inspired by God in Genesis 3.