The theological question of the connection between the sin of Adam and that of the whole human race will be treated under the articles Impitation ; Sin. For the specific loss of man 1))' the fall, in the theological sense, involving the difference between the Eoinan Catholic anthropology and the Protestant, sec Image OF God; JusTiFiCATiox; Six. In this place we give the views of various writers as to the general doctrinal significance of the narrative.
Lange (On Genesis, Am. ed., p. 73 sq.) remarks that " the significance of Paradise is this, that it declares the original ideal state of the earth and the human race, the unitj^ of the particular and the general, the unity of spirit and nature, the unity of spiritual inno- cence and the physical harmon}' of nature, the unity of the fall and the disturbance of nature ; lastly, the unit}' of the facts and their symbolical meaning, which both the liarelj' literal and mj'thical explanations of
the record rend asunder The tree of knowledge
of good and evil existed in some one form, but with it all nature is in some measure designated as a test.
But the serpent, as the organ of that temptation, is not only the type of temptation and of sin, but, as orig. inally a worm, the type of its brutality, its degrada- tion, and its subjection. The record of the actual fall stiiids there as an eternal judgment upon the theoret- ical, the human, view of moral evil, especially upon the errors of Dualism and Manicheism, Pelagianism and Pantheism. Hence arise the numerous and strong objections which the most diverse systems in old and modern times have raised against this record. The earthly origin of evil out of the abuse of freedom of- fends dualism, which derives it from an evil deit}', from dark matter, or from the supremacy of sense. Although the serpent sustains the doctrine that, prior to the fall of man, sin had existed in a sphere on the other side, working through demoniac agency upon this (for the serpent was not created evil. Gen. i, 25 ; gen- erally not even fitted for evil, and can only be regard- ed, therefore, as the organ of a far different evil pow- er), yet the visible picture of the fall in this sphere is a certain sign that the fall in that sphere could only have risen through the abuse of the freedom of the creature. But if we observe the progress of sin from the first sin of Eve to the fratricide of Cain ; if we view the op' position between Cain and Abel, and the intimation of the moral freedom of Cain himself, so the Augus- tinian view, raising original sin to absolute original death, receives its illumination and its just limits. But how everv Pelagian view of life falls before this rec- ord, as it brings into prominence the causal connection between the sin of the spirit world and that of man, between the sin of the woman and the man, between the sin of our first parents, and their own sinfulness, and the sinfulnesss of their posterity ! If we take into view the stages of the development of evil in the gen- esis of the first sin, how limited and vapid appears the modern view, which regards the senses as the prime st ii-ting-point of evil ! But when Pantheism asserts the necessity of sin, or rather of the fall, as the neces- sary transition of men from the state of pure inno- cence to that of conscious freedom, the simple remark that the ingenuousness of Adam would have been car- ried directl}- on in the proper wa)' if he had stood the test, just as Christ through his sinlessnees has reached the knowledge of the true distinction between good and evil, and has actually shovrn that sin, notwith- standing its inweaving with human nature, does not belong to its very being, clearly refutes the assertion. But how clear is the explanation of evil, of punish- ment, and of judgment, as it meets us in this account! that the natural evil does not belong to the moral, but, notwithstanding its inward connection with it, is still the divine counteracting force against it ; that punish- ment is to redeem and purifj' ; that from the very acme of the judgment breaks forth the promise and salvation. These truths, which are far above every high anti-Christian view of the world, m;ike it appar- ent that the first judgment of God, as a typo of the world-redeeming judgment of God, has found its com- pletion in the death of Christ upon the cross." " The deceptive promise of the serpent was fulfilled : man's eyes were opened (ch. iii, 7), but he saw only his mis- ery and nakedness. He was now brought to know good and evil, but with the painful consciousness of having trifled with and lost the one, and of being sunk in the depths of woe by the other. He had become as a god ; he had boldly cast off all allegiance to the one God, and assumed sovereignty over himself. He had constituted himself a God, no longer the representa- tive of God ; he had become his own master, free as God ; but this likeness to God brought not with it the happiness which pertains to the divine Being, but was fraught with the deepest misery and woe" (Kurtz, Bi- ble and Astronomy, 1^.111). Mtiller, after aflarming that " there is really nothing in the narrative of the fall obliging us to consider that event as the primary be- ginning of sin, in the strict sense of the word," adds