Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo in the early 5th century AD. He wrote several books reviewing Genesis and the Eden story in particular. In Augustine's view, the consequence of Adam and Eve's transgression was the loss of bodies capable of being transformed into a better and spiritual condition without dying, as would have been the case if they had remained obedient and would have been allowed to continue to eat of the tree of life (Augustine believe that the tree of life was meant to be continually eaten to stay off disease and old age). Their bodies became a battleground in which the law in the members was at war with the law of the mind. They became completely naked and interiorly deserted by the grace which they had offended by pride and arrogant love of their own independence. They became susceptible to disease and death and subjected to the drive animals have to copulate and have children. However, he further notes that humans did not digress to the level of animals to such an extent that they lost rational souls. This is evidenced by Adam and Eve's feeling of shame, the shame of nakedness and disobedience.
According to the midrash, the Jewish view of the source of evil is that God created man with two inclinations: one good and one evil. In another passage we were assigned to read, the rabbi writes that Adam didn't desire his wife when he didn't see her, but (in Gen 4:25) he desired her whether he saw her or not. I do not know how this relates to evil except that Augustine believes that when man sinned lust entered the world. So this rabbi may be trying to say that lust is the root of evil.
I believe that evil's origin is found in every rational or soul-bearing being. I do believe that Satan is a real force to be reckoned with who can influence evil things to happen or people to make bad decisions but I also believe that humans have free will. We can choose to do as we please, sometimes those choices are 'good' or morally right and sometimes they are 'evil' or immoral. Satan is just another rational being, powerful yet immoral and desiring to become more powerful. He makes the chose to act immorally and those choices can and have influenced the world. Yet, we too are soul-bearing creatures and we too can make the choice to act immorally. Evil is the absence of good, like darkness is the absence of light. Evil is not its own separate entity or force like good and goodness. God is good and goodness. Evil is the absence of that, a cavity that was opened, I believe, when the minds that God gave soul-bearing, choice-making creatures began to become prideful and dissatisfied. Maybe that began in Eden, maybe it began with Lucifer, maybe with neither. Regardless, the soul-bearing, choice-making creatures (like humans and angels) chose to be prideful and dissatisfied at some point after their creation, because God gave them that choice. After all, the love you receive from someone who choses to love you carried more weight than the love of someone forced to love you. With that momentous love comes it's opposite, and that seems to be the way this universe works, does it not? Light and darkness, up and down, good and evil. Who would or could deny that there is good. You cannot know one without the other, unfortunately. So I suppose, in a manner of speaking, one could argue that the origin of evil is good.
Excellent summary of Augustine, It's interesting that you describe the consequences for "them", using the 3rd person plural, rather than for us.
ReplyDeleteAs to the midrash on Gen 4:7, I think it comes the closest to indicating that there was a Jewish tradition, similar to Augustine, that had floated the idea of a permanent alteration in human nature, also located in our sexuality.