Anthropogenesis, the Original State of Human Nature, and the Classical Model of Original Sin: The Challenge from Natural Science

Abstract

This article offers a contribution to the scientifically informed theological (Aristotelian–Thomistic) reflection on anthropogenesis, the original state of human nature and original sin. After introductory remarks on the historical-critical exegesis of Gen 1–11 and the Catholic view of the evolutionary and theological anthropogenesis, I develop a critical evaluation of the notion of praeternatural gifts given by God to the first human being(s) (i.e., physical immortality, high level of infused knowledge, impassibility, and freedom from concupiscence). In the next step, I present and discuss the difficulties of the received model of hereditary sin assuming the role of Adam as the “collective singular”, the “virtually multiple”, or the “fountainhead of mankind”. In continuation of this analysis, I refer to alternative models of hereditary sin that see Adam as “actually multiple” or a paradigm example of each human being (Adam as “everyman”). I also analyze the view of those who emphasize the communal aspect of hereditary sin and favor the notion of its propagation that brings together propagation and imitation (rather than seeing them as mutually exclusive). Finally, I offer some remarks on the return to the Irenaean notion of the original state of human nature and original sin in the circles of theologians attentive to the theory of evolution.

1. Introduction

Reflecting on the moral and logical difficulties confounding Augustine’s model of the original state of human nature and its “fall” into sin, Alfred Edward Taylor stated, in 1930, that the doctrine of original sin is “the most vulnerable part of the whole Christian account of the relations of God and man” (Taylor 1930, p. 165).1 While he was clearly aware that some of the difficulties he referred to arose in the context of and in a response to the scientific (evolutionary) account of human speciation, the challenge of offering a meaningful theological response that would bring on board both theological and biological notions of anthropogenesis seems to be even greater today.

Even if some of the scientific data and theories concerning evolutionary aspects of human origins remain conjectural, the level and scope of the scientific consensus in this matter enable us to reconstruct the history of humanity with increasing consistency and accuracy. Consequently, it might be true that developing a scientifically informed critical theological reflection on anthropogenesis, the original state of human nature and original sin, should be listed among the most urgent tasks faced by contemporary dogmaticians.2

Far from trying to develop a new thorough and comprehensive model of original sin, the aim of this paper is much more modest. Approaching the topic from the perspective of the classical Aristotelian–Thomistic school of thought, in openness to the relevant scientific data, it aims to offer a critical reflection on some of the most important elements of the received scenario of human origins, the original state of human nature, and original sin.3

Since the whole theological conversation on the origins of the universe is heavily dependent on the interpretation of the opening chapters of the book of Genesis, the second section of the paper will refer to the reception of the historical-critical exegesis of creation accounts and its consequences for opinions on the historicity of Adam and Eve and the events described in early biblical narratives, for both Protestant and Catholic systematic theology. The third section will concentrate on the scientifically informed theological reflection on the origins of the first members of our species, with reference to the vexing question concerning mono- and polygenetic scenarios of human speciation. The consecutive, fourth section, will be dedicated to a critical reflection on the original state of human nature and the notion of praeternatural gifts. The final, fifth section of the paper discusses some of the most important arguments in the ongoing conversation on the character and consequences of original sin.

The narrative offered in the paper follows the classical distinction of the two central aspects of the original sin. The following acronyms are used throughout the text to mark them: PO = peccatum originale (original sin); POOns = peccatum originale originans (the first personal sin of the first human beings); POOtum = peccatum originale originatum (original sin inherited by all descendants of the first human beings). The category of original justice is abbreviated as OJ.

2. Historical-Critical Exegesis of Genesis 1–11

Historical criticism of the ancient texts, which began in the seventeenth century and gained popular recognition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, had a major impact on the interpretation of Scripture. Concerning the opening books of the Hebrew Bible, the critical approach first (already in the seventeenth century) questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Torah. Next, a critical study of doublets, inconsistencies, and shifts in vocabulary and style in the books of the Pentateuch (that began in the mid-eighteen century) led in 1853 to the hypothesis of the four documentary traditions (sources) and the late (post-exilic) final redaction of those texts, as formulated by German Protestant orientalist and biblical commentator Hermann Hupfeld.

Another important contribution came from biblical archeology and the critical comparison of the biblical accounts of creation with Near-Eastern myths, including those found in the Akkadian epic Atra-Hasis (c. 1650 BC), the Sumerian Poem on Gilgamesh (c. 1200 BC), and the Babylonian poem Enuma Elish (12th–11th century BC). The similarity of some of the central motifs in the opening chapters of Genesis and in those texts urged scholars to suggest that the Gen 1–2 narrative was “written as self-defining document, as a means of declaring the distinctiveness of Israel’s beliefs from those of the surrounding nations”. They think that “[T]he ancient Israelites, in making this polemical case, freely adapted the themes of the much-older stories of the nations around them” (Enns 2012, p. 6).4

2.1. Human Origins and PO—Protestant Interpretations

The historical-critical method of exegesis, as applied to the accounts of creation and of PO in Genesis, inspired the conviction that the biblical text should not be read as a historical account of facts, in the modern sense of history. Concerning the topic of PO in particular, it has gradually led to the abandonment—at first within the strain of liberal Protestantism—not only of the historicity of Adam and Eve but also of the notion of the original perfection of human nature before POOns.5

Indeed, this attitude becomes apparent already in the central work of the father of liberal Protestantism, Friedrich Schleiermacher, who demonstrates an indifference to whether Adam and Eve were historical figures and reinterprets POOns as introducing an impediment on human growth to psychological maturity. He expresses reservation toward the position willing “to ascribe a high degree of religious morality and religious enlightenment to the first pair before their first sin, and … to explain the first sin as proceeding from a perfectly sinless condition” (Schleiermacher 1928, § 72.3). Consequently, he claims that “the state of the first human pair is understood to have been throughout analogous to our own” (Schleiermacher 1928, § 72.5).6

It is no surprise that more liberal theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann or Wolfhart Pannenberg both favor and move forward Schleiermacher’s reading of Genesis. For Bultmann the account of PO is part of the “mythical world picture”, the power of which in a contemporary context is fairly limited, if not entirely shattered (Bultmann 1951, pp. 172–73). Similar is the view of Pannenberg who remains indifferent on the question of the historicity of Adam and skeptical about the account of POOtum explained in Augustinian or federal terms (see Pannenberg 1994, 2:231–75). Concerning the account of St. Paul in Rom 5, Bultmann finds it incoherent. On the one hand, St. Paul assumes the reality of sin in all human beings and sees death as an outcome of individual actual sins. On the other hand, he seems to locate the cause of all sins committed by humans in Adam. The latter is hardly acceptable for Bultmann who moves toward Schleiermacher’s intuition that sin is and always has been the condition of humanity.7

However, it is not only liberal Protestantism that receives the historical-critical approach to Genesis. Similar attitudes can be seen in the neo-orthodox Protestantism developed by Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr. Commenting on the account of human origins in the Hebrew Bible, Barth says “It is not history but only saga”, that should be interpreted in reference to the documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch, which clearly states that the events recounted in it should not be taken at face value. He prefers the later reformed orthodoxy proposal of transmission of POOtum (and original guilt associated with it) by divine imputation, together with the fact of our actual sins, avoiding thus the notion of hereditary transmission. In this way, Barth’s opinion on the irrelevance of the historicity of Adam goes hand in hand with his rejection of the idea that man was ever unfallen (see Barth 1956, p. 508).

The approach of Niebuhr is similar. Taking seriously the reality and inevitability of sin (which he sees as present in nature from the beginning) he finds the traditional Augustinian account mistaken in its supposition that POOns was a historical event that altered human nature once and for all. He thinks it is analogical to pagan myths about a golden age and an idyllic childhood that serve as the criterion to judge all future eras and as the source of knowledge of our true and authentic nature. He is of the opinion that “Christian theology has found it difficult to refute the rationalistic rejection of the myth of the Fall without falling into the literalistic error of insisting upon the Fall as an historical event” (Niebuhr 1996, 1:267–68).

2.2. Human Origins and PO—Catholic Interpretations

Leaving aside the complexity of the way which led Catholic biblical scholarship and the Magisterium of the Church to embrace the historical-critical method of interpretation, its application to the first eleven chapters of Genesis inspired a balanced response that came from John Paul II and Benedict XVI—both pontiffs vividly interested in and aware of the importance of the theology of creation. The former, in his Address to the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences in October of 1981, makes the following statement:

The Bible itself tells us about the origin of the universe and its structure, not to give us a scientific treatise, but to clarify the proper relationship of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture simply wants to affirm that the world was created by God, and to teach this truth it uses the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. … it does not want to teach how the heaven was made, but how the heaven should be looked at

(John Paul II 1981, § 2, translation is mine).8

Earlier on, on a similar occasion, John Paul II expressed an analogous opinion, which contains a more direct reference to the fundamental aspects of theological anthropology:

The theological teaching of the Bible—like the doctrine of the Church which explains it—teaches us not so much about the how but rather about the why of things; it reveals to us God’s plan for all creation, for the visible and invisible universe and for man—the unheard-of and primordial grace that God has given him, his destiny, the mystery of his freedom, the gravity of his sin, and the Redemption. This plan of God, which illuminates Christian anthropology, cannot be deduced from scientific data, nor has it come to the heart of man

(Cf. 1 Cor 2:9) (John Paul II 1986, § 4, translation is mine).

This view was assumed by the Pontifical Biblical Commission in its work on biblical inspiration that had its origin during the pontificate of Benedict XVI. Speaking about the accounts of the origins in Gen 1 and Gen 2, the document asserts:

As “creation accounts”, they do not show “how” the world and humanity began but speak of the Creator and his relationship with what he had created. Much misunderstanding results from reading these texts from a modern perspective, seeing them as affirmations of “how” the world and humanity were formed. To respond more adequately to the intention of the biblical texts, it is necessary to oppose such a reading, but without putting their assertions in competition with the knowledge that has come from the natural sciences of our time

(Pontifical Biblical Commission 2014, pp. 73–74).9

Matthew Ramage notes that this opinion resonates with the approach to the opening chapters of Genesis taken by Joseph Ratzinger (see Ramage 2022, pp. 109–10). In his early university lecture on creation he says that this narrative “does not inform about details of the past” or “expand our knowledge of history into the prehistoric” (Ratzinger 1964, pp. 31, 253, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, pp. 456n5, 493n126, in Ramage 2022, p. 158). Later on, he echoes the same view, stating that “[T]he Bible is not a scientific textbook. … One cannot get from it a scientific explanation of how the world arose” (Ratzinger 1995, p. 4). With an emphasis on the principles of divine pedagogy, he adds, “The Bible is not a textbook about God and divine matters but contains images with perceptions and insights in the course of development, and through these images, slowly and step by step, a historical reality is coming into existence” (Ratzinger 2002, pp. 151–52).10

Applying this approach to the origin of the human species, Ratzinger states that “The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God … does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are [i.e., both material and spiritual creatures with relational capacity]” (Ratzinger 1995, p. 50). Earlier on, he says something similar with respect to the origin of Eve: “The text [on the creation of Eve] does not want to answer the question of how it came to pass that a woman began to exist. Rather, it wants to answer the question of what kind of being the woman is and what mystery lies in the relationship between man and woman” (Ratzinger 1964, p. 185, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, pp. 458–59n12, in Ramage 2022, p. 159).11

Concerning the Genesis account of the original state of human nature, Ratzinger has no doubt that its purpose “is not to recount a piece of empirical history and thus to expand our knowledge of history into the prehistoric, but to express the difference between the God-willed meaning of the creature man and the historically existing being man” (Ratzinger 1964, p. 253, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, p. 493n126, in Ramage 2022, p. 196). Consequently, with respect to the question of monogenism—in the context of PO—we find his important assertion in which he states: “That mankind’s first decision was characterized by a ‘no’ is essential (wesentlich). Whether this beginning was determined by one or more is not so important (ist nicht so wichtig)” (Ratzinger 1964, p. 252, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, p. 484n90, in Ramage 2022, p. 196).

Ramage shows how this claim fits into Ratzinger’s strategy of avoiding two extreme positions concerning POOtum. On the one hand, he strongly opposes those who question its historicity, emphasizing that no human being begins life in a neutral state or a “zero point of nothing”, as the outcome of Adam’s sin that extends “far beyond the mere example” (Ratzinger 1964, p. 246, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, p. 486n102, in Ramage 2022, p. 197). On the other hand, says Ramage, “Ratzinger warns against the commonplace mistake of ontologizing original sin” (Ramage 2022, p. 198):

[I]t would also be wrong to reduce original sin to a mysterious ontological defect [ontologischen Defekt] that mysteriously passes from generation to generation based on an isolated single act of an individual at the beginning of history

(Ratzinger 1964, p. 246, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, p. 487n103, in Ramage 2022, p. 198).

The transmission of original sin does not occur through an incomprehensible infection (unbegreifliche Infektion) of the soul, but takes place in the overall transmission of a human existence shaped by self-rule

(Ratzinger 1964, p. 250, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, p. 491n119, in Ramage 2022, p. 198).

Commenting on these passages, Ramage suggests that while for Ratzinger the account of Gen 3 symbolically describes the fundamental meaning of the first sin committed “at the dawn of our species … it does not authoritatively address questions of when and how this happened or how many people were involved” (Ramage 2022, p. 196). He echoes a similar summary of Ratzinger’s position presented by Sanz Sánchez: “To speak of the sin of Adam and Eve does not necessarily involve the affirmation of a single couple at the origin of mankind, nor that all of mankind has descended biologically from them” (Sanz Sánchez 2018, pp. 451–52).

Summing up the material presented in this section, we may refer one more time to Ratzinger’s early lecture on creation in 1964, in which he states that the literary unit Genesis 1–11 is best described as belonging to the genre of “historical etiology” (Ratzinger 1964, p. 29, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, p. 455n2, in Ramage 2022, p. 143). Referring to this important statement, Ramage explains:

An etiology is a literary device deployed across ancient cultures in which a given reality is explained by linking it to something already familiar to an audience. Often, this ‘cause’ posited is not the real historical or scientific one for the reality in question, and the etiology’s essential point is not married to it. On the contrary, etiology is a poetic, vivid, and therefore memorable way to drive home important points

(Ramage 2022, pp. 142–43).

3. Scientifically Informed Theological Reflection on the Origins of the Human Species

As commonly known, the encounter of theological and biological views on anthropogenesis inspired the most emotional reactions to evolutionary theory and posed a considerable challenge to both biblical exegesis and theological anthropology. We can list at least two fundamental aspects of evolutionary anthropogenesis that seem to have a significant impact on theological anthropogenesis and the doctrine of PO.

3.1. Evolutionary and Theological Anthropogenesis

The first crucial development, based on the evidence gathered in comparative anatomy, biochemistry, paleoanthropology, primatology, behavioral genetics, and evolutionary psychology, is the suggestion that the origin of the human species was not an instantaneous transition from inanimate matter through a direct divine intervention. Rather, it should be seen as an outcome of a complex and long evolutionary transition from animate matter, where the human species shares a common ancestor with apes and belongs to the same subfamily (taxonomic tribe)—hominins (Homininae)—together with chimpanzees and bonobos (Pan).12

The final transition leading to the emergence of Homo sapiens can be defined in reference to a crucial mutation (or mutations) of gene(s) yielding “a language-enabled brain”, cranial morphology and the neural structure that made the brain “language-ready”, or a behavioral innovation grounded in an already-present morphology. What remains crucial, theologically speaking, is that the biological change in question led, most likely in the subsequent generation, to the birth of the first fully human beings.13

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church allows for the acceptance of this position in the encyclical letter of Pius XII, titled Humani generis, as long as one holds that human souls are always directly created by God ex nihilo:

[T]he Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God

(Pius XII 1950a, § 36).

John Paul II confirms this point in his address to the Papal Academy of Sciences: “Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God” (John Paul II 1985, § 5).

In my recent book on theistic evolution, I offer a Thomistic correction of the dualistic overtones of this position, clarifying that the first human soul should not be seen as entering an adult body (organism) of a hominin but as actualizing primary matter in the substantial change accompanying conception, where primary matter underlying ovum and sperm produced by the parental organisms has been properly disposed—in evolutionary processes—to be informed by the first human soul. I also provide a model of the concursus of divine and natural causes in evolutionary transitions in general, and in human speciation in particular (see Tabaczek 2024b, chap. 8).

3.2. Mono- Versus Polygenetic Origin of the Human Species

The second important point coming from evolutionary anthropogenesis holds that the first human beings were most likely numerous and came to be in many families belonging to one population, not as adults but as children, i.e., through regular generation. This polygenetic scenario is preferred by biologists who list a number of critical arguments about the position of monogenism, which states that human beings (one or two of them) came into existence in exactly one hominin family. The list includes the following points:

(1)

Strict monogenism assumes a reduction in the transitional population to exactly one or two organisms. This is highly detrimental to survival, securing energy for brain development, and operation of factors harmonizing biological novelty within a given biological niche.

(2)

Strict monogenism assumes the highest possible level of inbreeding, which radically weakens the genetic material.

(3)

Strict monogenism does not withstand the data concerning genetic variety observed in the human population. Population genetics helps us realize that the number of alleles of many human genes (shared with chimpanzees—which points toward our sharing a common ancestor with them) requires an inter-species window much broader than just one or two organisms.14

While it was, and for some still remains, an object of controversy, the polygenetic model of human speciation seems to be treated as a viable option in Catholic theology.15 Commenting on this topic, in passing, members of the International Theological Commission state: “Catholic theology affirms that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention” (International Theological Commission 2004, § 70).16

Despite this carefully balanced opinion expressed by the International Theological Commission, some scholars who are sensitive both to the classical Christian and the contemporary scientific models of anthropogenesis, strive to develop an acceptable version of monogenism. Probably the most comprehensive Catholic model of scientifically informed monogenesis has been proposed by Kenneth Kemp, in reference to earlier proposals developed by Camille Muller and Andrew Alexander (see Muller 1951; Alexander 1964). Kemp suggests abandoning the strict version of monogenism (for the reasons presented above) and replacing it with a more moderate scenario. He distinguishes between (1) biologically human species and (2–3) philosophically and theologically human species—defining them, respectively, as (1) “the population of interbreeding individuals”, (2) “the rational animal, i.e., a natural kind characterized by the capacity for conceptual thought, judgment, reasoning, and free choice”, and (3) “the collection of individuals that have an eternal destiny” (capable of receiving supernatural grace) (Kemp 2011, p. 230). He then suggests that the first one or two fully human (i.e., biologically as well as philosophically and theologically human) creatures—having received from God immortal human souls (created ex nihilo)—were capable of procreating and producing fertile offspring not only with members of their own species but also with members of the hominin species (i.e., purely biological human species) from which they had descended (see also Kemp 2020, 2023a).

While plausible and worth attention, Kemp’s model of philosophical–theological monogenism within biological polygenism raises some critical comments and questions. I believe it is in need of a further explanation of the cause of the presumably high reproduction success of the first human beings (necessary for the survival and continuation of the new species), and of the difficulty concerning the quality of the genetic material of the hybrid offspring conceived with hominins (while common among plants, genetically strong hybrids are rather rare among animals). I also think that it requires a correction of the dualistic elements of Kemp’s view of human nature and the voluntaristic overtones of his view of divine action in the concluding stages of human speciation.17

4. Scientifically Informed Theological Reflection on the Original State of Human Nature

The juxtaposition of the biological and theological accounts of anthropogenesis inspires a scientifically informed critical analysis of our understanding of the original state of human nature in the first exemplars of our species.

Concerning features and dispositions shared by the first humans with lower living creatures—those that the classical school of philosophy of nature lists under vegetative and sensitive powers of the soul (nutrition, growth, and reproduction, and locomotion, sensation, and appetite, respectively)—the evolutionary approach tends to see them as present and expressed in human beings in ways similar to other species.

When it comes to specifically human features and dispositions, such as self-consciousness, intellectual cognition, and will, as well as esthetic and religious feelings (proper for/grounded in rational souls), evolutionary biology naturally assigns them to the first exemplars and the first generations of animals belonging to our species. At the same time, it maintains that the expression of those dispositions in them was most likely rudimentary.

In addition, the close evolutionary proximity of our species to other primates causes scientists to assume that we inherit from our common ancestors both positive and negative dispositions and behavioral tendencies. The list of the former includes propensities toward virtuous traits such as altruism, sympathy, honesty, care, and love. The catalog of the latter contains tendencies toward violence, physical abuse, murder, selfishness, self-centeredness, self-pleasing, jealousy, and envy. This inheritance is believed to have provided a proper foundation for both our growth in virtue and our descent into sin.

This narrative remains in contrast and tension with the theological tradition stating that apart from OJ—which consists of the supernatural subjection of reason to God through grace (see ST I, 100, 1, ad. 2)—the first human beings possessed praeternatural gifts.18 The Catholic tradition understands them as God-given aids perfecting—instantaneously and to the highest degree—natural dispositions of human nature.19 While some theologians perceive them as flowing from sanctifying grace, others see them as special gifts complementing sanctifying grace in respect to the temporal happiness of human beings.20 The standard list of praeternaturalia includes (1) physical immortality, (2) a high level of infused knowledge, (3) impassibility (freedom from pain and suffering), and (4) freedom from concupiscence of the very first (one or two—assuming monogenism) human beings.21

The account of those special gifts requires a more careful treatment. If we assume that—complementing supernatural sanctifying grace (that elevates human nature beyond its natural capacities and dispositions)—they perfect natural human dispositions to the highest degree, their presence will radically change the original state of the first human beings, with respect to what is suggested by evolutionary anthropology.

4.1. Physical Immortality

The gift of physical immortality appears to be—paradoxically—the least problematic one, if we assume (as many do) that human beings free from PO were by nature mortal, aging, and experiencing physical and mental pain and distress.22 In this scenario, the only supernatural intervention would have been the one providing for their transition from this life to the next, when they would have been about to die—naturally or accidentally.

Understood in this way, the praeternatural gift of immortality is often related to the case of Our Lady and her Assumption, seen as an example of what the transition from this life to the next might have looked like for all humans had Adam not sinned. It is also referred to in the official anti-Pelagian magisterial formula from the synod of Carthage (418) and its most recent confirmation in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):

[W]hoever says that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or whether he did not sin, he would die in body, that is he would go out of the body not because of the merit of sin but by reason of the necessity of nature, let him be anathema

(DZ, § 101).23

Death is a consequence of sin. The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin. (Cf. Gen 2:17; 3:3; 3:19; Wis 1:13; Rom 5:12; 6:23; DS 1511.) Even though man’s nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin. (Wis 2:23–24) “Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned” is thus “the last enemy” of man left to be conquered. (GS 18 # 2; cf. 1 Cor 15:26)”

(CCC, § 1008).

However, speaking of Carthage 418, Benedict Endres notes that while this local synod did receive some approval from Pope Zosimus, it is not clear whether this refers equally to all canons, including canon 1 on Adam’s death (see Endres 1967, pp. 74–75).24 Concerning Gaudium et spes (§ 18), referred to in the reflection on human death offered in CCC, Joseph Ratzinger—a theological advisor at the Second Vatican Council—notes that its authors were well aware of the various problems raised by the traditional stance on Adam’s death. He believes it was for this reason that they rejected a number of proposals to discuss the specifics of the PO and the original condition of the first humans.25

With respect to the Assumption of Our Lady, I believe it is important to note that the formulation of the dogma avoids a precise description of the end of Mary’s life on earth. It states: “We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (Pius XII 1950b, § 44). Moreover, the Apostolic Constitution that defines this dogma refers to both Eastern and Western traditions.26 In one of such references to the Byzantine liturgy we read: “God, the King of the universe […] has kept your body incorrupt in the tomb and has glorified it by his divine act of transferring it from the tomb”.27 That this presupposes the death of Our Lady, goes without saying.28

Consequently, in the post-Vatican II theology we can observe a debate on the proposed distinctions between (1) physical and spiritual death,29 as well as between (2) death experienced as a natural and expected transition to the visio beatifica and death experienced as a painful and unwanted dramatic rupture. Indeed, Ratzinger goes on to say that “[T]he thesis [that man would have been immune from death had he not sinned] in its classical dogmatic form is scarcely intelligible to present-day thought”. He thinks it “could be made [intelligible] by means of an existential analysis of the constitutive features of human life which established a distinction between death as a natural phenomenon and death as seen in the personal categories proper to human life” (Ratzinger 1969, p. 141).30

4.2. Infused Knowledge

Apart from physical immortality—yet in close relation to it (as we shall see in the following section)—the classical reflection on the original state of human nature assumes a high level of infused knowledge bestowed on the first humans. Indeed, Aquinas claims that God created things “in their perfect state”, which in the case of Adam translates into the conviction that “the first man was established by God in such a manner as to have knowledge of all those things for which man has a natural aptitude […] that is, whatever truths man is naturally able to know”. Moreover, Aquinas also believes that “the first man was endowed with […] knowledge of […] supernatural truths […] necessary for the direction of human life in that [perfect] state” (ST I, 94, 3, co.).31

In addition, it is worth mentioning that for Aquinas it is only Adam who possessed the scope of infused knowledge described here. In his reflection the “perfect knowledge” is not attributed to Eve or any other human being that would have been born from the first parents had there been no PO: “The perfection of knowledge was an individual accident of our first parent, so far as he was established as the father and instructor of the whole human race. … [I]n the state of innocence, children would not have been born with perfect knowledge; but in course of time they would have acquired knowledge without difficulty by discovery or learning” (ST I, 101, 1, ad 1 and co.).

This view of the state of knowledge of Adam seems to be excessive even for those who follow the classical school of thought. Matthew Levering agrees that “Admittedly, when Aquinas describes the paradisal condition of Adam and Eve, he imagines them to possess a breadth of knowledge that far exceeds what is plausible or necessary” (Levering 2017, p. 190).32 Earlier on, in the chapter of his book dedicated to the Imago Dei, he says “I accept that the first humans were intellectually primitive hunter-gatherers. A first component of the image of God, therefore, is that it should not require any developed level of culture, because otherwise the first humans could not have been created in the image of God” (Levering 2017, p. 190). When saying this, Levering agrees with C. S. Lewis’s remark concerning the first man: “He may have been utterly incapable of expressing in conceptual form his Paradisal experience. […] I do not doubt that if the Paradisal man could now appear among us, we should regard him as an utter savage, a creature to be exploited or, at best, patronized” (Lewis 2015, p. 74).33

These views may have consequences for possible models of the impact of PO on the first human beings and humanity in general. A confrontation of the classical view, which assumes the high level of infused natural and revealed knowledge given to Adam, with the evolutionary view of anthropogenesis, leads to the conclusion that after Adam’s sin (POOns), humanity was cast down from the heights of intellectual sophistication and plunged into millennia of darkness characterized by primitive and violent behavior, confusion, worshiping celestial bodies, animals and plants, engaging in pagan cults, etc., until the Abrahamic tradition was born. A more modest proposal, dispensing with the praeternatural gift of the highest level of infused knowledge, may be seen as assuming some rudimentary knowledge of who God is on the side of the first human beings. As such, it may be seen as remaining fairly close to a misplaced and confused knowledge of the transcendent reality that leads to the worship of creatures (yet not as close as to preclude a decisive yes to God on the side of the first humans). PO would lead humanity astray toward primitive and violent behavior and those forms of cults and religions until the Abrahamic tradition was born.

4.3. Impassibility

The reader may recall that in the section on physical immortality (Section 4.1) I concentrated on the minimalist version of this position asserting that the first human beings—while protected from bodily corruption (as long as they remained free from PO)—were by nature mortal, aging, and experiencing physical and mental pain and distress.34

However, this version of physical immortality—perceived by many as acceptable in the age of science—is not the one preferred by Aquinas. In addition to freedom from physical death, he thought that man was also free from corruption brought by old age. He thought that this type of corruption—coming from within—was excluded (1) “not because his body had a disposition to incorruptibility, but because in his soul there was a power preserving the body from corruption” (ST I, 102, 2, co., in reference to ST I, 97, 1, co.), and (2) “by food” coming from the tree of life (ST I, 102, 2, co., in reference to ST I, 97, 4, co.).35

Moreover, speaking about Aquinas’s notion of the gift of infused knowledge, we quickly realize that for Thomas it is closely related to both physical immortality and yet another praeternatural gift—the gift of freedom from pain and suffering. Speaking of Adam, Aquinas forthrightly states that “man was impassible, both in soul and body, as he was likewise immortal” (ST I, 97, 2, co.). Now, what impassibility means for Aquinas in this context is not so much a suspension of pain sensors in Adam’s body.36 Rather, he thinks his body would have been preserved from any harm or injury. And this in a very peculiar way: “partly by the use of his reason, whereby he could avoid what was harmful; and partly also by Divine Providence, so preserving him, that nothing of a harmful nature could come upon him unawares” (ST I, 97, 2, ad 4).37

In other words, Adam’s use of the highest level of infused knowledge that he possessed would have been accompanied by numerous providential acts of God, adjusting the physical reality around him in a way that protected him from all harm. In addition, the fact that humans were “placed” by God in the garden of Eden might have been of help, although it is not clear in what way and to what extent this unique and privileged place would have differed from the rest of the earth.38

While meaningful for Aquinas in his time, I believe that from the contemporary, scientifically informed perspective, this view runs the risk of not only attributing to Adam praeternatural gifts but seeing him as altogether praeternatural, i.e., standing, in a way, next to nature rather than being an integral part of its fabric.39

4.4. Freedom from Concupiscence

The last praeternatural gift mentioned in the mainstream of the scholastic tradition is the perfect integration of passions under the power of reason or the lack of concupiscence.40 Here, Aquinas speaks about the “rectitude of the primitive state, by virtue of which, while the soul remained subject to God, the lower faculties in man were subject to the higher, and were no impediment to their action” (ST I, 94, 4, co.). In other words, “[I]n the state of innocence the inferior appetite was wholly subject to reason: so that in that state the passions of the soul existed only as consequent upon the judgment of reason”. As a result, says Aquinas, “Adam had no passion with evil as its object; such as fear, sorrow, and the like; neither had he passions in respect of good not possessed, but to be possessed then, as burning concupiscence” (ST I, 95, 2, co.).41

A critical evaluation of this theological opinion begins with an emphasis on the essential goodness and adequate disposition of human nature, regardless of whether it receives the gift of the praeternatural harmonization of the senses with reason. This argument builds on a fundamental presupposition that human appetites (desires), in principle, do not deprive us of our free will, nor do they obscure reason to such an extent that we cannot know good and evil. Sensitive appetite, being a sensual power that is unable to choose an end, naturally tends to all types of sensual goods, and so it may happen that some sensual good is incompatible with the norm set by reason. Nevertheless, the lack of perfect harmonization of appetite with reason is incompatible neither with the laws of reason or will (as long as the freedom of the latter is not comprised), nor with the nature of the sensual powers. Hence, we can assume that human nature without the praeternatural gift of the perfect integrity of intellect and passions was fully and properly equipped to perform its operations, to cooperate with the gift of sanctifying grace, to avoid sin, and to grow in virtue.

Defenders of the original freedom of Adam and Eve from concupiscence may say that it is precisely evolutionary anthropogenesis that helps us realize the strength of the connection between Homo sapiens and lower hominin species, which includes the inheritance of robust and resilient propensities to violence. Hence, we should all the more agree that, being aware of the weakness of human nature and the ease with which it may fall into sin, God provided Adam and Eve with the praeternatural gift of original integrity.

In response, the critics may note that the same scientific data makes us assume that God, being aware of the natural vulnerability of human nature that is both material and spiritual, invites humans—from the very beginning of the existence of our species—to enter the path of a gradual growth in virtue, in response to and in cooperation with the gift of sanctifying grace. Even if this path leads through the experience of sin, God—who is capable of bringing greater good out of evil—guides the “first man” that is “from the earth” and is a “living being” to grow in perfection in the image of the “last [and true] Adam” that is “from heaven” and is a “life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45–47).42 Praeternatural gifts are not in place since, just as “God’s immediate provision over everything does not exclude the action of secondary causes; which are the executors of His order” (ST I, 22, 3, ad 2), we may say that God providentially establishes for us the path of growth in perfection and patiently guides us through it (both individually and as a species), offering us a perfect example in Christ incarnate. He is pleased to assist us in this way, rather than bypassing it through the praeternatural gift of freedom from concupiscence.43

4.5. Bestowal and Loss of the Praeternatural Gifts

Another critical argument based on the knowledge coming from natural science can be formed with respect to the praeternatural gifts of infused knowledge and freedom from concupiscence. It seems that God’s instantaneous bestowal of these gifts would have to be accompanied by considerable modifications of human biology in itself and in its relationship to the environment. Similar would be the case of the instantaneous loss of these gifts.44

Neuroscience, behavioral genetics, and evolutionary psychology show that and in what way many elements of Aquinas’s anthropology depend on the material aspect of human nature (brain) and may be seen as the products of evolution. These include the following:

(1)

Aspects of sense knowledge—in particular external and internal senses, including common sense, imagination, estimative sense, and memorative sense.

(2)

Aspects of intellectual knowledge—in particular complex sensible species of phantasms.

(3)

Aspects of affective life—in particular sense appetite.

In addition, we should note that intellect and will as such, while not seated in a corporeal organ, still depend on the body indirectly in that, in this life, they always act in concert with corporeal sense knowledge and appetite and depend on them for the quality of their activity.

We need to acknowledge that the changes in matter-dependent aspects of human sense knowledge, intellectual knowledge, and affective (emotional) life—apart from radical and sudden brain damages—are extended in time. I believe this challenges the theory of their sudden change at the moment of POOns. In other words, POOns understood not only as the loss of original justice (caused by sanctifying grace) but also as the loss of praeternatural gifts suggests numerous and radical biological changes—something difficult to envision from the scientific point of view. As Frederic Robert Tennant notes:

Now for a great acquired change in man’s original nature or natural constitution to be transmitted universally there would be necessary a thorough disturbance of the physical constitution, presumably the brain, central nervous system and sense organs, through the immoral act or course of conduct, and then the transmission of that acquired physical derangement from generation to generation. Neither supposition, however, would seem to be a possibility; and certainly neither derives support from a study of the effects of ordinary sins or sinful habits, on ourselves or on posterity

(Tennant 1902, pp. 37–38).45

Naturally, God in his omnipotence can introduce any logically possible change in nature, including human nature. However, the question remains as to the extent to which it would be fitting for him to act in a given way in created reality. Today a growing number of theologians share the opinion that the classical tradition of the praeternatural gifts is excessive.46

4.6. The Irenaean Approach

In light of all the difficulties concerning the original state of human nature that have been mentioned and discussed so far, a number of contemporary theologians suggest embracing Irenaeus’s soteriological model in place of the Augustinian narrative that has been predominant for centuries.47 Irenaeus thinks that Adam was created as imperfect and placed on a trajectory to maturity and fulfillment, immersed in a world laden with potential for growth. He saw him as infantile and inexperienced in perfect discipline: “It was possible for God to have made man perfect from the first, but man could not receive this [perfection] being as yet an infant” (Irenaeus 1885, 4.38.2).48

Obviously, this does not mean that as the first human being, Adam was brought into existence as sinful or not being in the image and likeness of God. Nor did he lack the gift of OJ or needed a first-hand experience of evil to make a genuine moral choice of the good.49 Indeed, we would be mistaken to assume that according to the Irenaean model, Adam’s sin was, in one way or the other, inevitable and/or necessary.50

And yet, Adam’s initial perfection and ability to discern right from wrong were, once again, only seminal and his humanity simultaneously perfect and incomplete. In other words, Adam was morally, spiritually, and intellectually a child.51 For that reason, God placed him on the way toward greater perfection and, ultimately, the glorification of his nature—a way that took into account the possibility of sin:

Now it was necessary that man should in the first instance be created; and having been created, should receive growth; and having received growth, should be strengthened, and having been strengthened, should abound; and having abounded, should recover [from the disease of sin]; and having recovered, should be glorified; and having been glorified, should see his Lord

(Irenaeus 1885, 4.38.3).

Consequently, while scholars agree that both Irenaeus and Augustine assume the necessity of genuine progress or further development of the capacities of the human nature in Adam (and all of his descendants), we can speak about a considerable difference between these two theologians, aptly summarized by Hiestand:

For Augustine, humanity is created perfected in maturity; so too the world. Sin brings about death, which in turn brings about the ruin of a fully matured and perfected humanity, and along with it, the world humanity inhabits. Christ’s redemptive work then, is God’s activity to restore humanity back to Adamic perfection, and to confirm humanity in this perfection. But in Irenaeus’ narrative, humanity is not created in a perfected maturity, but is created with potential to become perfected in maturity. Sin is an interruption of a well-begun upward trajectory, not a fall away from final perfection. Thus in Irenaeus, Christ’s redemptive work is God’s activity to restart the process of maturation that was interrupted by sin and death, and to enable humanity to progress onward toward full maturity

(Hiestand 2018, p. 66).52

One of the most profound aspects of Irenaeus’s model is its Christocentric orientation and the emphasis on the fact that Adam’s humanity is made in accordance with and as consequent to the humanity of Christ—as the perfect model—and not vice versa: “For he made humanity in the image of God; and the image of God is the Son, after whose image humanity was made: and for this cause he appeared in the end of the times that he might show the image (to be) like unto himself” (Irenaeus 2001, § 22). In other words—referring to the categories of image and likeness of God in human beings—Irenaeus thinks that the latter (the likeness, but not the image) was lost as a consequence of PO and is restored in us by Christ. However, says Hiestand, “the likeness humanity is restored to is not the seminal likeness of infant Adam, but rather the mature, perfect likeness of the incarnate Son. In this way, the return is not simply a return to original perfection, but a return to the future, a return to the end toward which original perfection typologically pointed from the start” (Hiestand 2018, p. 60).53

4.7. Summary

The research presented in this section shows the difficulties in assuming the reality of the praeternatural gifts, perfecting human nature in its original state. None of them is necessary for human nature to be what it is in its essence. Moreover, it seems that whether the first human beings possessed them or not is not all that important, as long as they had free will and were able to choose between right and wrong. Having been established in possession of the gift of sanctifying grace, they were originally free from sin and properly equipped to avoid it, and to grow in virtue. In other words, posse non peccare (the ability not to sin)—as distinguished from non posse peccare (the inability to sin, which will be available to us only in visio beatifica)—was a real option for our forefathers, with or without the praeternatural gifts.54

The broader contemporary (scientifically informed) narrative concerning both anthropogenesis and the history of our species—extrapolated in time—seems to be in support of the Irenaean view, suggesting that it is more sound to assume that God established the first human beings with a rudimentary level of the development of their specifically human traits and placed them on the path where they were to grow in virtue. This opinion seems to be preferable with respect to the one that—in relation to the category of praeternatural gifts—seems to be placing our forefathers next to nature rather than seeing them as an integral part of it.55

In addition, the fact that—according to the classical view—praeternatural gifts, once lost through original sin, were not granted back to those who are saved in Christ, causes many to think that they might not have been present as accompanying and perfecting human nature in the way described here to begin with.56 An exception would be the gift of immortality. If truly dogmatized, it should be kept in a less controversial version presented in Section 4.1.57

5. Challenges for the Received Classical Model of PO

A critical biblical exegesis and a critical scientifically informed evaluation of theological anthropogenesis and of the theological notion of the original state of human nature has left many thinkers uneasy about the classical model of PO—a model that has developed over and has been received from more than two millennia of theological reflection and, for Catholics, consolidated at the Council of Trent in 1546. A number of the central aspects of this model have been critically scrutinized within the broader context of the scientific, philosophical, and theological developments that took place over the last two centuries. The remaining part of the article will list some of the more vocal arguments in the ongoing debate on the character and consequences of PO.

5.1. Adam as Virtually Multiple

One of the most difficult and controversial aspects of the classical model of the PO is the assumption that Adam receives OJ (caused by supernatural grace) and praeternatural gifts in the name of all humanity and for all humanity (all future human beings). Accordingly, his sin (POOns) and its consequences, which include being stripped of those gifts and wounded in his natural dispositions, are believed to affect all human beings that descend from him (POOtum)—on the assumption that he is literally the first member of our species.

This view of Adam as the “collective singular”, the “virtually multiple”, or the “fountainhead of mankind”, is traditionally grounded in St. Paul’s assertion that “through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned” (Rom 5:12) and his analogy between one Adam and one Christ: “if by that one person’s transgression the many died … the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one person Jesus Christ overflow for the many” (Rom 5:15). Augustine moves this idea further, speaking about the inclusion of all men in Adam: “The one sin in which all sinned is different, committed when all men were one man in Adam. If we understand, not sin, but the oneness of man in union with whom all sinned, is there anything clearer than this explanation?” (Augustine 1997, I.10.11).58

Scholastic thinkers relate the same idea to (1) Aristotle’s principle of the “causality of the maximum”, and (2) the principle of the “causality of the first exemplar in a genus”. The former is stated in Aristotle (2001, II.1 [993b 24]): “[A] thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well (e.g., fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things)”. Aquinas defines the latter in ST III, 56, 1, co., where he states: “[T]hat which is first in whatever genus is the cause of all that comes after it”. He applies this to the case of Adam and POOtum in ST I-II, 81, 1, co.:

[A]ll men born of Adam may be considered as one man, inasmuch as they have one common nature, which they receive from their first parents […]. In this way […] the disorder which is in this man born of Adam, is voluntary, not by his will, but by the will of his first parent, who, by the movement of generation, moves all who originate from him, even as the soul’s will moves all the members to their actions.

Even before a reference is made to the historical-critical exegesis and to contemporary science, it becomes apparent that the idea of the presence of all humanity in Adam, as defined here, raises difficult questions. The direct application of (1) to the case of Adam and the rest of humanity is not obvious, as it seems to suggest that Adam is “more human” than Eve and all other human beings after him. It is not clear how this should be understood.59 Concerning (2), even if we assume that all humans do descend from one Adam in the aspect of their nature, neither OJ (caused by sanctifying grace) nor praeternatural gifts can be seen as traits (dispositions) belonging that nature simpliciter. Even if they fall under the category of accidental features of human nature, they go beyond it, perfecting and elevating it. This raises a critical question. Could and did Adam reject the gifts of OJ (caused by sanctifying grace) and praeternaturalia in the name of us all? Or should we rather assert that God decided not to offer them to Adam’s descendants after his sin? And if so, is it just for God to treat the entire human species in this way?

Thomists find a response to this query in Aquinas’s notion of the sin of human nature in Adam: “[O]riginal sin is not the sin of this person, except inasmuch as this person receives his nature from his first parent, for which reason it is called the ‘sin of nature’” (ST I-II, 81, 1, co.).60 Rudi te Velde follows this suggestion and—in reference to Aquinas’s analogy of the hand of the murderer acting on his behalf—says that “The whole of the human race is to be regarded as an extended moral self, of which Adam’s will is the primary principle” (te Velde 2005, p. 156). This enables Aquinas to analogically ascribe guilt of POOtum to all participating in human nature, whose principle and “first mover” is Adam: “[O]riginal sin is related to the whole of human nature propagated from Adam as actual sin is related an individual human person, as if all human beings as descendants of the one Adam should be one human being whose different bodily members are different persons” (De malo 4, 6, co.).

I believe that this line of explanation raises the question of hypostasizing a universal category. How can human nature be an agent (in Adam)? Moderate realism about universals seems to preclude such a conclusion. What defines a given nature is a particular kind of substantial form that actualizes all entities that belong to it. In the case of human nature, it is the human soul. But all human souls are created by God ex nihilo (at the moment of conception of each particular human being) as integral and good—they do not come from our parents (as Augustine speculated). Consequently, while all human beings are individual agents capable of exercising their freedom—whether influenced by the community or not—human nature is not an agent. It is shared by and abstracted from individual human beings and as such it should not be hypostasized and seen as “an extended moral self”.

Going back to the analogy of the hand of the murderer, closer examination shows that it seems to be farfetched. Aquinas formulates it as follows:

[T]he action of one member of the body, of the hand for instance, is voluntary not by the will of that hand, but by the will of the soul, the first mover of the members. Wherefore a murder which the hand commits would not be imputed as a sin to the hand, considered by itself as apart from the body, but is imputed to it as something belonging to man and moved by man’s first moving principle

(ST I-II, 81, 1, co.).

At least two critical points can be raised with respect to this analogy. First of all, it takes a synchronic approach in relating “man’s first moving principle” (human soul) to an acting member of that man’s body (the hand)—both of them coexisting in the same time period. The perspective of POOtum is diachronic and makes a connection between the first member of the natural kind, Adam, and all future exemplars of the human species. The causal connection assumed here—i.e., Adam making a decision that has consequences for all human beings across history—is far from being clear. Aquinas strives to clarify his point, saying that Adam “by the movement of generation, moves all who originate from him, even as the soul’s will moves all the members to their actions” (ST I-II, 81, 1, co.). The disparity between a diachronic and a synchronic approach in this statement is apparent, which makes its causal import with respect to Adam and his originating activity in reference to all humanity questionable.

Secondly, the human soul is an immaterial actualizing principle which is ontologically different from all material members of the human body that it informs, while Adam—ontologically speaking—is the same human being as all other humans. In other words, the analogy presupposes rather than explains the special ontological and causal status of Adam with respect to all other members of the human species.

These and related critical comments and questions, asked in the context of the historical-critical exegesis of the Scripture and the scientific notion of anthropogenesis, lead many to reject the notion of the presence of the entire humanity in Adam and his deciding on behalf of all his future descendants (the sin of human nature in Adam). Schleiermacher states that “No one can be asked to believe that in a single individual the nature of the species could be changed … Still less is it possible to suppose that such an alteration of nature should have resulted from an act of the alleged individual as such, since the individual can act only in accordance with the nature of his species, but never can act upon that nature” (Schleiermacher 1928, § 72.3). Similar is the view of Tennant:

If we bear in mind the facts which science and experience supply as to the origin, development, and organic constitution of man, the mode of appearance of his conscience, the nature of his social and physical environment, it will seem to savour of unreality to continue to demand some event of universal or of catastrophic nature to account once and for all for our present state

(Tennant 1902, pp. 111–12).61

When we speak, as we sometimes do, of the race as an organism, and attribute to it a life, a will or a sinfulness, of its own, we use the mode of rhetoric, not that of exact science. Apart from being merely the sum of its individuals the race is but an abstraction; and to make it the subject of sin, in any sense that is inapplicable to the individual, is to depart from the only safe region of the concrete

(Tennant 1902, p. 74).

In the context of Catholic theology, we have seen a similarly critical opinion expressed by Ratzinger, who finds it hardly acceptable to “reduce original sin to a mysterious ontological defect that mysteriously passes from generation to generation based on an isolated single act of an individual at the beginning of history” (Ratzinger 1964, p. 246, after Sanz Sánchez 2016, p. 487n103, in Ramage 2022, p. 198).

5.2. Adam as Actually Multiple

In response to the difficulties of the classical notion of Adam as “virtually multiple” and in dialog with evolutionary anthropology, Karl Rahner suggests two alternative models of PO that assume the polygenetic scenario of the human origins, i.e., the view that Adam is, in a sense, “actually multiple”. According to the first model, it is plausible to suggest that Adam was an alpha male head of the entire group of first human beings. Hence, Rahner speculates, “it is possible, even in an originally polygenetic mankind, that one man decided the issue whether human descendance coincided with a communication of grace or not”. The view of POOtum on this model is based on the presupposition that “only a whole sinless original group can transmit grace to its descendants”. Consequently, “the personal guilt of one individual within the original group of human beings can be thought of as blocking the grace-transmitting function which accompanied human descent from this group” (Rahner 1967, pp. 68–70).

Rahner suggests this scenario is also valid with one couple (not just one man) playing the central role. His category of the “grace transmitting function” of a human population might be considered in sacramental terms (human nature transmitting supernatural grace). Also, it is important to remember that even if this scenario (at least to some extent) goes along the traditional understanding of the transmission of POOtum and the original guilt—it is Adam’s individual decision that affects the “grace transmitting function” of the group—Rahner clearly states that it departs from the strict definition of the physical (biological) transmission of inherited PO. In his understanding, POOtum is passed not from Adam but from all members of the population that has lost its “grace transmitting function”, and is inherited not merely biologically but multidimensionally, as the phenomenon of situating every individual’s freedom by guilt, which becomes an intrinsic aspect of human nature.

[W]e must … eliminate that misunderstanding which treats original sin as if the specifically and strictly subjective guilt element were passed on to those that ‘inherit’ because they are physically descended from the one who committed this subjective sin”

(Rahner 1967, pp. 68–69).

The notion that the personal deed of ‘Adam’ or of the first group of people is imputed to us in such a way that it has been transmitted on to us biologically, as it were, has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian dogma of original sin

(Rahner 1978, p. 110).

An alternative scenario assumes that it was the community that rebelled (sinned) first (as Eve did in the biblical account) and was eventually joined by the alpha male leader, whose decision was crucial for the future of the species as a whole. POOtum would then be passed (through inheritance) by him and all other human beings onto their children. In his further speculation, Rahner considers a variation in this model, which does not assume any leading figure:

“Can one think of original sin as the sin of the whole original group of human beings, polygenetically one, and that this whole group, historically united and the vanguard of mankind, committed collectively what is called peccatum originale originans, original sin at the start, and that this group can be personified as “Adam” because it represents a genuine unit?”

(Rahner 1967, p. 68).62

Rahner answers affirmatively to this question, which enables those who are willing to follow his suggestion to speak about one collective act of sin within a biologically polygenetic population of the first humans.63

This model faces at least three objections. First, on the assumption of the first human population following the sin of its alpha male head representative, it is difficult to see how such a large group (several thousand) unanimously would have followed its leader. Second, the polygenetic scenario assumes that the first human population was established over several generations, which assumes that there were human beings who lived and died without sin and the need for redemption. Third, there is a problem of young children in that population, who were unable to make a conscious decision against God:

“[A]nother problem that confronts theories of a collective original sin is the problem of the small children. A group of any significant size will contain children below the age of reason, who are not capable of committing any sin. What would be their relation to original sin? Original sin is in all human beings. These children could not have participated in the commission of the original sin”

(Kemp 2011).

5.3. Adam as Everyman

Facing the difficulties of both models described so far (Adam as virtually and Adam as actually multiple), yet another scenario might be seen as plausible. Going beyond portraying Adam as a historical figure or the symbol for the first human population, it leans toward the suggestion that the biblical story about Adam’s sin should be seen as a paradigm example of each one of us and of our personal sinfulness. In other words, it is not the human nature but individual humans that have fallen. An early example of this line of reasoning can be found in Schleiermacher who refers it to both Adam and Eve and traces it back to the patristic era:

Without encroaching upon the work of exegesis or criticism, however, we can use the story [of Adam’s sin in Genesis], as the early theologians did, [Augustine 1998, ii.21] in illustration of the universal process of the rise of sin as something always and everywhere the same, and it is in this illustrative quality that, for us, the universal significance of the narrative resides. There we find in Eve, on the one hand, a clear representation of the independent activity and revolt of the sensuous element that develops so readily upon any external incentive by way of opposition to a divine command, and likewise a clear view of how there comes to be conjoined therewith an all too easily effected vitiation of the already developed God-consciousness. On the other hand, in Adam we see how easily sin is assimilated by imitation even without any overpowering activity of sense, and how this presupposes some degree of forgetfulness of God, traceable possibly to mere lack of thought”

(Schleiermacher 1928, § 72.5).

A similar idea can be traced in Barth, for whom the significance of Adam is not tied to his historicity. Rather, we should acknowledge that Adam is everyman. His sin portrays our sin, his fate reflects our status of being outside of Christ: “Adam is not a fate which God has suspended over us. Adam is the truth concerning us as it is known to God and told to us” (Barth 1956, p. 511). In other words, according to Barth, we are not simply in Adam who, as the head and protagonist of the human family, makes a decision that affects the entire human nature. Each one of us is actually and in a real sense Adam. Our lives and decisions—in one way or another—are simply repetitions of his, to the extent that we represent human nature just as he did: “We are what Adam was and so are all our fellow men. And the one Adam is what we and all men are. Man is at once an individual and only an individual, and, at the same time, without in any way losing his individuality, he is the responsible representative of all men” (Barth 1962, p. 113).

Trueman shows that Niebuhr thinks along the same lines: “[H]e sees Adam as the archetypal representative of the way in which all humans sin. In this, it is true that his concern is not primarily with the historical difficulties of maintaining Adam’s historicity but rather with the destruction of freedom that the notion of inherited sin would seem to bring with it” (Trueman 2014, 1:26–64). In other words, for Niebuhr PO has not so much chronological but vertical significance (in terms of his broken relation with God), which makes Adam the paradigm and example of the choice that lies before each one of us, and of the wrong decision that we make in the face of that choice (see Niebuhr 1996, 1:278, 2:268).

One more example is Pannenberg who sees in Adam a model of the psychology of sinful action, i.e., yielding to the deceitful temptation that we can find true happiness and fulfillment in our finite resources:

We engage in sin because of the deception. Our voluntary committing of it is enough to make us guilty. There does not have to be a primal and once-for-all event of a fall for which Adam was guilty quite apart from all entanglement in sin. … In this sense the story of Adam is the story of the whole race. It is repeated in each individual. The point is not Adam’s first state of innocence in contrast to that of his descendants

(Pannenberg 1994, 2:263).64

Among Catholics, a similar view was expressed by Alfred Vanneste who claims that “Original sin is the need of every man for redemption by Christ” (Vanneste 1967, p. 209). He openly declares that his aim is “to free the theology of original sin from the insurmountable difficulties of the traditional historical framework”, in order to remind us that “Original sin is concerned only with salvation history” (Vanneste 1967, p. 213).65

An apparent downside of this model is that it, in fact, seems to do away with POOtum, as Adam’s POOns becomes the paradigm example of POOns of each human being. A personal sin and guilt associated with it, and not an inherited state of nature (POOtum) and guilt analogically transmitted with it. Moreover, it is also unclear what justifies the claim that everyone “has” to commit this sin. While the Protestant thinkers may be motivated by the conviction that innate sinfulness is native to all humans (see note 6 concerning Schleiermacher’s view, discussed above in Section 2.1), Catholics who support this model face a considerable challenge of explaining why and how POOtum, now reduced to POOns, becomes the sin of everyman.

5.4. The Communal (Social) Aspect of POOtum

It seems that at least a partial solution to the problems of the model assuming that Adam is the paradigm example of everyman can be seen in the emphasis on the communal and social aspect of human sinful behavior. On this view, POOtum is grounded in the tendency to sin that is deeply entrenched in human society and culture into which human beings are born. This context makes their individual POOns most likely, if not inevitable, which may be seen as the confirmation of the classical conviction that all humans need salvation offered in Christ.

An early example of a strong advocacy in favor of this reinterpretation of POOtum can be found, once again, in Schleiermacher, who “locates” the sinfulness that precedes any conscious decision of man in the (actual) sin and sinfulness of others (the community) and claims that understood in this way, POOtum is transmitted “by the voluntary actions of every individual to others and implanted within them”, which makes it to be “something genuinely common to all”, i.e., a reality that is “in each the work of all, and in all the work of each” (Schleiermacher 1928, § 71.2).66

Schleiermacher’s radical opinion was criticized for resolving POOtum into the impact of actual sins of all members of human society and for exchanging physical for social heredity. Tennant sees in it a new development of Pelagianism and says that:

[T]he moral solidarity which is thus asserted is of so different a kind from that embodied in the Augustinian theory that for him to speak of hereditary sin at all is only an inconsistent concession to traditional expressions. What Schleiermacher calls hereditary or original sin is by no means a corruption of our nature caused by Adam and physically transmitted to his posterity: it is not of the nature of punishment: it does not presuppose a fall in the head of the race

(Tennant 1902, p. 72).

Having said this, Tennant acknowledges that paying attention to the social context of the sinful condition of man is an important and much forgotten truth. At the same time, he thinks that POOtum represented within the framework of an exclusively social or exclusively individual view of human life remains incomplete. In other words, he thinks that a doctrine of POOtum must contain the notion of both social (sociological) and individual (including physical) heredity. I believe this opinion finds reflection in the possible reinterpretation of the classical disjunctive juxtaposition of the transmission of POOtum through propagation and imitation (see the following section).

Among Catholics, the communal (social) interpretation of POOtum was emphasized in the thought of Rahner, Piet Schoonenberg, and Edward Yarnold. As stated above (in Section 5.2), Rahner sees PO as traceable back to the first group of human beings or Adam as the head of this group. He emphasizes the role of the communal aspect of the first human family in his theological reflection on POOtum. Speaking about its transmission, he draws our attention to the fact of situatedness (contextualization or co-determination) of individual human freedom within the moral condition of the community: “All of man’s experience points in the direction that there are in fact objectifications of personal guilt in the world which, as the material for the free decisions of other persons, threaten these decisions, have a seductive effect upon them, and make free decisions painful” (Rahner 1978, p. 109). Rahner believes that the Christian (Catholic) dogma of PO reminds us that “this co-determination of the situation of every person by the guilt of others is something universal, permanent, and therefore also original. There are no islands for the individual person whose nature does not already bear the stamp of the guilt of others, directly or indirectly, from close or from afar” (Rahner 1978, p. 109).

On a more phenomenological and less onto-dogmatic note, Schoonenberg describes POOtum in terms of the psychological, sociological, and cultural situation humans found themselves in as part of incipient human society. “Sin” designates for him a lack of integration within humanity, a faulty solidarity, and finds expression in the present moment as a “sin of the world”, a collective situation of poverty, imperfection, and underdevelopment (see Schoonenberg 1965). As a free person”, he writes, “I cannot be deprived of my freedom by the free decisions of others, but they may place me in a situation which may determine me inwardly even in my freedom” (Schoonenberg 1975, p. 1584). Yarnold follows this line of reasoning and states that “The sin of the world is a collective will in which I am a partner, a pressure on the individual in which I share and to which I contribute. The sin of the world is original sin” (Yarnold 1971, p. 77).67

Another (more recent) example of a prominent Catholic theologian who puts an emphasis on the social aspect of sin is Ratzinger. He strives to find a middle ground that acknowledges that the stain of PO is an unavoidable aspect of the human condition in this life (against Pelagianism) and yet avoids the language describing it in terms of an “ontological defect” based on an isolated single act of an individual man at the beginning of history. For this, he develops a relational notion of PO.

Speaking about POOns, Ratzinger sees it as a denial of creatureliness and limitations that are implicit to it—a decision that alters human relationship to God, to himself, and to others (Ratzinger 1995, p. 70). I believe all three aspects of relationality mentioned here are assumed in his view of POOtum, even if he puts a stronger emphasis on the relationship to others. Indeed, turning toward POOtum Ratzinger emphasizes that “We receive our life not only at the moment of birth but every day from without—from others who are not ourselves but who nonetheless somehow pertain to us”. Consequently, we may say that “Human beings have their selves not only in themselves but also outside of themselves: they live in those whom they love and in those who love them and to whom they are ‘present’” (Ratzinger 1995, p. 72). He then defines POOtum as follows:

[S]in means the damaging or the destruction of relationality. Sin is a rejection of relationality because it wants to make the human being a god. Sin is loss of relationship, disturbance of relationship, and therefore it is not restricted to the individual. When I destroy a relationship, then this event—sin—touches the other person involved in the relationship. Consequently, sin is always an offense that touches others, that alters the world and damages it

(Ratzinger 1995, pp. 72–73).

In the next step, Ratzinger moves his reflection forward, offering a view complementary to the traditional ontological notion of the propagation of POOtum by nature. Ramage classifies it as a personalistic notion of the propagation of POOtum by (broken) relationships (which, once again, stands as long as all three types of relationships are taken into account—the relationship to God, to oneself, and to others):

To the extent that this is true, when the network of human relationships is damaged from the very beginning, then every human being enters into a world that is marked by relational damage. At the very moment that a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin-damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been harmed. Consequently, each person is, from the very start, damaged in relationships and does not engage in them as he or she ought. Sin pursues the human being, and he or she capitulates to it

(Ratzinger 1995, p. 73).68

A critical question from the Catholic perspective should be asked about the reality of guilt and its role in the models of PO that put an emphasis on the communal aspect of sin. This is important in reference to Trent which sees guilt as inherent in POOtum and a subject of remission through baptism.69 I think that the most robust answer to this query is to be found in Rahner who sees the transmission of POOtum as grounded in the situatedness of every individual’s freedom by “objectifications of personal guilt” of all those who participate in the same human nature: “[T]he guilt of others is a permanent factor in the situation and realm of the individual’s freedom, for the latter are determined by his personal world” (Rahner 1978, pp. 107, 109). However, the question remains to what extent he is willing to agree that this guilt of other human beings can be analogically attributed to all who are born to the same human family, where each one of them has to “decide about himself and to find himself and God in a world which is co-determined by guilt and by the guilty refusals of others” (Rahner 1978, p. 108).

I believe that the reflection developed in Rahner (1978, pp. 111–12) opens such a possibility. There we find him saying that “In ‘original sin’ the sin of Adam is not imputed to us. Personal guilt from an original act of freedom cannot be transmitted, for it is the existentiell ‘no’ of personal transcendence towards God or against him” (Rahner 1978, p. 111). Rahner hastens to add that “[T]he word ‘sin’ is used for the personal, evil decision of a subject, and when on the other hand it is applied to a sinful situation which derives from the decision of another, it is being used only in an analogous sense, and not in a univocal sense” (Rahner 1978, p. 111, italics are mine)—which goes along the lines of the later expression found in CCC 404: “Original sin is called ‘sin’ only in an analogical sense: it is a sin ‘contracted’ and not ‘committed’—a state and not an act”. I believe that the same analogical way of predication applies to Rahner’s treatment of the guilt of sin and its attribution to every individual’s freedom situated by the moral condition of the human family:

[W]ith regard to freedom, responsibility, the possibility of expiation and the modes of expiation, and the conceivability of the consequences of guilt which we call punishment, in all of these respects in any case ‘original sin’ is essentially different from what we mean when we speak of personal guilt and sin, and understand them as possible or as actual from the perspective of the transcendental experience of freedom in ourselves

(Rahner 1978, p. 112).70

5.5. POOtum—Propagation Versus Imitation

One of the fundamental aspects of the Magisterial definition of the dogma of PO developed at the Council of Trent—in response to the Reformation—was the statement concerning its transmission: “[T]his sin of Adam, which in its origin is one [origine unum], … by propagation, not by imitation, [is] transfused [transfusum] into all” (DZ, § 790). This declaration can be traced back to the anti-Pelagian position of Augustine. The difficulty is to explain what exactly is meant by transmission by propagation and by imitation, and whether these two modes of transmission of POOtum are necessarily mutually exclusive. The issue in question is crucial for the validity of the emphasis on the communal (social) aspect of POOtum discussed in the preceding section, as it may be easily accused of moving toward transmission through imitation, rejected by Trent.

The position of Augustine—hardly acceptable anymore—builds on his conviction that each act of human procreation is accompanied by sinful lust. Consequently, says Pier Beatrice, “The transmission of hereditary sin is so concretely connected to the sexual sphere of procreation that one could compare it, for Augustine, to the transmission of gout from father to son, or of other kinds of diseases that pass from parents to children in the reproductive process” (Beatrice 2013, p. 68).

Aquinas’s view on this matter is grounded in the assumption that all humans (after Adam) receive their nature from their parents: “[A]ll men born of Adam may be considered as one man, inasmuch as they have one common nature, which they receive from their first parents”. (ST I-II, 81, 1, co.) The transmission of POOtum is thus tied to the transmission of human nature. Due to the fact that parents transmit the human nature, children receive it in a historically wounded state going back to Adam and his sin, that is, without the OJ (caused by sanctifying grace), without praeternatural gifts, and with guilt and further wounds of the mind, the will, and passions. In other words, human nature after Adam’s POOns is transmitted without an effectual (as distinguished from merely passive) disposition to OJ, which is POOtum (see ST I, 100, 1; I-II, 81, 3).

However, as mentioned above, we must not forget that human nature is defined by the specific type of substantial form (human soul) that actualizes properly disposed matter in a human person. Assuming that human souls are created ex nihilo by God and are not transmitted from our parents, it seems more appropriate to say that we participate in one nature, rather than to say that it is being transmitted to us. Moreover, assuming that all human souls are created as good, i.e., without the stain of POOtum, we are once again left with the question concerning the way of its transmission. We do not want to say that the material component in the act of generation of a new human being is the vehicle of passing on POOtum, as this might bring us back dangerously close to the heresy of Manicheism. Hence, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church cautiously acknowledges that “[T]he transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand”. (CCC, § 404)

It seems that the most recent science might shed some light on this mystery. I am thinking here about the extended evolutionary synthesis which, leaving behind the reductionist gene-centrism, suggests that evolutionary theory should be a theory of phenotypic evolution (taking into account both population and individualistic approaches) and that the concept of inheritance should be extended to include a wide variety of extra-genetic factors. Most importantly, this extended list of heredity-transmitting mechanisms, apart from biochemical (epigenetic) channels of inheritance, is thought to encompass the behavioral (based on learning and coping mechanisms) and the symbolic (linguistic and cultural) transmission of information (both horizontally and trans-generationally). This groundbreaking shift, taking into account the biology of social and cultural phenomena, tells us that generation is now perceived as inextricably related to imitation and vice versa.71

In the advent of the transition to the extended evolutionary synthesis, Raymund Schwager questioned the stark contrast and dichotomy between propagation and imitation in the understanding of POOtum. On the one hand, he emphasized that the very ability to imitate is ultimately grounded in copying and thus it can be traced back—through many intermediate steps—to the fundamental mechanisms of DNA replication and transcription. Hence, building on René Girard’s philosophical anthropology, he sees imitation as preceding reflective knowledge and operating with a “quasi-osmotic immediacy” in aspiring toward a model (i.e., mimesis) (see Schwager 2006, p. 15).

On the other hand, Schwager notes that imitation enables higher animals and humans “to pass on earlier events not simply by the genetic code, but directly and pointedly from one member of the species to the other and from one generation to the other” (Schwager 2006, p. 38). He thinks that “from this point of view some correlations between sexuality and imitation can be seen. We can note the correlation in the mating behaviour of many animals, in which imitation plays a large role” (Schwager 2006, p. 38). Moreover, while imitation does not begin with the already constituted subject, it does play a crucial role in the formation of the human ego and finds its highest expression in the conscious and free replication of moral acts (see Schwager 2006, pp. 39, 119).

All this leads Schwager to conclude that “the hereditary transmission that affects the gene pool can be brought into an inner connection with the imitation that influences behavior”. In other words, we should acknowledge that “Imitation is completely grounded in natural processes and nature proves to be a communicative development from the very beginning, a development which gradually opens up to freedom. Procreation and imitation should therefore no longer be played off against one another” (Schwager 2006, pp. 118, 119). Applying this view (indirectly) to the category of PO, Schwager suggests the following:

“Since the human being in this earliest phase of development [i.e., in the mother’s womb] is uniquely open to the influences of environment [a fact he discusses in his book in greater detail], it is sensible to conclude that disturbances at the beginning of its development have an especially profound effect. Aggressive elements in the initial process of communication take effect on its further growth and may even enter into the physical and psychic structure of its organism. Evil migrates thus from generation to generation, and so it is understandable that people may speak of ‘hereditary transmission’. This comprehensively understood ‘hereditary transmission’ no longer stands in opposition to imitation. Rather it designates a differentiated basic process that can only be adequately described by utilizing complementary concepts stemming from different paradigms”

(Schwager 2006, p. 39).

More recently, a philosopher of religion, Adam Green—in reference to the prominent theorist in the cognitive science of religion, Robert McCauley—suggests we should distinguish three types of traits in human beings: (1) innate traits that do not depend on the environment in any robust way (e.g., sensual perception), (2) acquired traits that require guided practice (usually in particular conditions—e.g., playing a musical instrument), and (3) acquired traits “that will ordinarily develop for a person without special training or practice” (e.g., walking, discovering object permanence, or the capacity for language). McCauley classifies (3) as “maturationally natural” traits.72

Green develops a model of PO understood as “something becoming maturationally natural that need not be” (Green 2022, p. 31). He sees it as a far-reaching sort of disposition that alienates us from God, ourselves, our neighbors, and nature—a disposition that has a socio-cultural component and at the same time is maturationally natural which, in a way, becomes yet another argument in favor of juxtaposing and not opposing propagation and imitation in explaining the transmission of POOtum:

I claim one can best make sense of the doctrine of original sin by positing that it is maturationally natural. It isn’t carried by our genes in any deep sense. It is not communicated mysteriously, one immaterial soul to another in the womb. It certainly isn’t placed in the soul by divine fiat. Rather, if one takes human nature together with what human environments have in common, the result is a human disposition to be alienated from God, self, others, and nature

(Green 2022, p. 35).

In a somewhat more phenological description that goes back to and emphasizes even more the relational aspect of POOtum, Green asserts that

“[T]he framework within which human beings make sense of the relevance of behaviors and events is internalized from persons who model a disordered way of relating to all these things, which shapes our developmental context. These models are self-reliant and self-absorbed enough that we do not naturally develop a default reliance on God, a trustful communion with our neighbor, a harmonious relationship with nature, or, indeed, an honest acceptance of the self”

(Green 2022, p. 39).

As one might expect, the question concerning guilt resurfaces in the context of the role imitation might play in the transmission of POOtum. Schwager refers to this category several times in his reflection of the scriptural foundations of PO (see Schwager 2006, chap. 1). In addition—having in mind his robust view of hereditary transmission of specifically human dispositions, which includes both generation and imitation—he goes back to the earliest stages of the development of our species and suggests that “guilt remained deeply concealed in human consciousness, which was only gradually constituted as reflective, and its entire further development took its course under the pressure of this dark burden” (Schwager 2006, p. 95). Green, for his part, is not all that much concerned with the category of guilt. He openly says that he puts the aspect of “original guilt” to the side as a more specific issue with respect to the broader picture model of POOtum he is about to offer (see Green 2022, p. 20).

5.6. The Irenaean Take on PO

Moving toward the conclusion of this article, we need to go back to Irenaeus, whose soteriological model is seen as an attractive option by those who think that the confrontation of the classical theological view of anthropogenesis, of the original state of human nature, and of PO with evolutionary biology is inevitable and might require a significant reinterpretation of the received scenario. While this suggestion might be true, it requires some critical evaluation.

On the one hand, it is true that in the light of Irenaeus’s view of the original state of human nature in Adam (see Section 4.6 above), PO should not be classified as the “fall” from the highest levels of perfection but as a deviation from the path toward perfection—which goes hand-in-hand with the evolutionary account of the origin of our species. Hiestand emphasizes it and says that “In Irenaeus, sin is less of a ‘fall’ from an already achieved objective, and more of a ‘derailment’ from achieving said objective” (Hiestand 2018, p. 66). Referring once again to the Christological orientation of Irenaeus’s model he says that for him “Christ’s redemptive work is God’s activity to restart the process of maturation that was interrupted by sin and death, and to enable humanity to progress onward toward full maturity” (Hiestand 2018, p. 66).

Similar is the position of Tennant who states that in the light of modern science “The first sins of humanity would be as the sins of early childhood; not the most heinous and momentous in the race’s history, but rather the least guilty of all” (Tennant 1902, p. 93). Following Henri Blocher, Lane asserts: “In fact the very language of ‘fall’ is itself misleading, though at this late stage it is probably too late to do anything about it. Genesis 3 does not describe the ‘fall’ of humanity, which is more of a Gnostic idea. It would be more accurate to describe it as our ‘coming of age’ (Lane 2009, p. 144). He goes as far as to say the following:

N. P. Williams was right to observe that the only account of the Fall which is tenable today is that which ‘views the first human sin rather as a praevaricatio, a stepping-aside from the true line of upward progress, than as a lapsus or fall from a high level of moral and intellectual endowment’. While modern science makes the latter view all but impossible, Scripture clearly favours the former view

(Lane 2009, p. 148).73

The same intuition seems to inspire Maurizio Flick and Zoltán Alszeghy’s proposal of “virtual original justice”. They claim that through original sin first humans lost a virtuality that would have led them gradually and surely toward an ever-fuller development of their capacities. According to them, OJ was not so much “a more perfect actualization of humanity, lost by subsequent sin”, but rather “a virtuality—a seed, a power—really possessed but phenomenologically not manifested, and later on lost”. See Flick and Alszeghy (1972).

However, on the other hand, we must not forget that when it comes to the most fundamental aspects of POOns and POOtum, Irenaeus stands with Augustine and the entire tradition originating in his model of PO. Indeed, Irenaeus clearly sees Adam as a historically first human being that represents human nature, whose POOns brought physical death and other negative consequences for the entire humanity (in the form of POOtum): “We were debtors to none other but to Him whose commandment we had transgressed at the beginning” (Irenaeus 1885, 5.16.3). It is we who “sinned in the beginning” in Adam (Irenaeus 1885, 5.17.1). Consequently, Irenaeus’s model is subject to the criticism presented above, in Section 5.1.

6. Conclusions

An evolutionary account of hamartiology remains a considerable challenge for theologians engaged in dialog between theology and science. It seems that the classical account of PO requires a new interpretation that will make it more understandable and accessible to the modern believer, who most often takes seriously and respects the scientific perspective on human origins, as well as the character and the subsequent development of human nature.

There is no doubt that sin and guilt are present in the experience of each and every human being (except for Christ and his Mother), having an undeniable impact on the expression and actualization of our nature, throughout the entire history of our species. At the same time, the Christian and Catholic story explaining the revealed truth about the way in which sin and guilt associated with it entered and hindered the very fabric of humanity, both individually and socially, needs to be retold.

We need a new, scientifically informed model of PO. A model that will take into account both the unchangeable foundations of this dogma, defined, kept, and transmitted throughout the centuries, as well as the essential developments of the most recent extended evolutionary synthesis and evolutionary anthropogenesis. A model that will pay attention to both individual and social aspects of human nature and heredity, as well as the historical-critical exegesis, the critical evaluation of the classical model of the original state of human nature, and the critical assessment of the traditional notion of Adam as the “collective singular”, the “virtually multiple”, or the “fountainhead of mankind”.

I hope that this article offers a modest contribution to the ongoing creative conversation aimed at developing such a model.