Fischer, previewing the thesis of an upcoming book, asks the reader to entertain a scenario in which there “is no inherent incompatibility between historic, orthodox Christian faith and evolution.” His thesis is not inherently unreasonable; it might be crudely paraphrased as mankind developing overall in a generally biblical, religious sense, and concurrently developing an intellectual sense of the religious.
As Fischer presents it, “Eventually, the process of evolution produces a population of hominids with an emerging religious awareness, a sense of the divine. A relationship, albeit an embryonic one, between God and humanity is established.” (Please note that Fischer will speak no more of “hominids,” as he continues.) “We might think of this, metaphorically, as the ‘creation’ of Adam and Eve. And at this first dawn of religious awareness and relationship, humanity is ‘naked but not ashamed.’ We might call this ‘Eden.’ Humans do things that are wrong but are not ‘sinful’ because they lack the maturity to be held to account. They are spiritual babies (see Romans 5:13, where Paul seems to think along these lines).”
Here Fischer (like all Christian apologists) must try to lever his argument over the unyielding barb that tears at all orthodox interpretations of the Fall: the inanity of describing any creature as being simultaneously simply human and simply un-sinful. Even in the most severely literal interpretation, Eve’s dalliance with the serpent (and the conversation’s scurrilous references to God) would be viewed as grossly sinful, despite (or perhaps in tandem with) the elements of deception.
No conscientious interpreter will contend that, had Eve stopped short of tasting the fruit, Eden from that day forth could have been described as sinless. Nor, in the context of discussing what it is that separates us from God, and in describing that thing as “sin,” does it make sense to call anything a “little sin.” Humans describable as humans must be described as sinful, if the word “sin” is to mean anything.
Attempting to wend his way through the sinless Eden thicket, Fischer (as quoted above) refers to pre-Fall yet increasingly divinity-aware humans as “spiritual babies” who “do things that are wrong but are not ‘sinful’ because they lack the maturity to be held to account.” Fischer’s description of presumably hundreds of generations of child-begetting, child-raising, culture-fostering, genetically-complete, anatomically-identifiable adult human beings as “spiritual babies” is something he is free to postulate, but it is transparently a mechanism of convenience.
The essence of Fischer’s mechanism is revealed in the inconvenience that besets him as he tries to move forward. “However,” says Fischer, “this religious awareness eventually evolves to the point where humans are no longer spiritual babies but adults and, as adults, capable of sin. That is, they grow capable of deliberate rebellion against God.”
Here is where the attentive observer must call a halt. No sober analysis of human growth and development can swallow the notion that “deliberate rebellion” is an attribute of antisocial behavior that emerges in late adolescence (if the baby-to-adult metaphor is to be applied); “deliberate rebellion” explodes in full vigor the instant a toddler learns to say “No!” Moreover, no responsible scheme of morality will contend that intentional neglect or torment of a child by an adult might be wrong-yet-not-sinful in one generation, and then (in few enough generations to be called a “Fall”) such adults would be liable to judgment from a God who would punish even an unkind word from a parent.
Fischer’s picture of the Fall (if it is to be so called) suffers from a pair of intertwined difficulties. It attempts to make the Fall the beginning of sin, and it attempts to describe a humanity newly conscious of previously-permitted behavior now called sin. However, the Eden narrative does not fit well with sinlessness (would a sinless Adam in communion with God have needed a mate?), and the ensuing chapters of Genesis show a spectacular moral decline. Much of the moral horrors of the ancient world, moreover, were blithely committed in the name of divinity. Human beings were cast out of Eden when they began to imperfectly usurp God’s power to judge good and evil, and in the process always-sinful humanity began to institutionalize evil in the name of good.
This was the fruit of the poisonous tree: Mankind was not judged because of sin; mankind perverted judgment to embrace ever-greater sin.
Fischer’s picture of the Fall (if it is to be so called) suffers from a pair of intertwined difficulties. It attempts to make the Fall the beginning of sin, and it attempts to describe a humanity newly conscious of previously-permitted behavior now called sin. However, the Eden narrative does not fit well with sinlessness (would a sinless Adam in communion with God have needed a mate?), and the ensuing chapters of Genesis show a spectacular moral decline. Much of the moral horrors of the ancient world, moreover, were blithely committed in the name of divinity. Human beings were cast out of Eden when they began to imperfectly usurp God’s power to judge good and evil, and in the process always-sinful humanity began to institutionalize evil in the name of good.
This was the fruit of the poisonous tree: Mankind was not judged because of sin; mankind perverted judgment to embrace ever-greater sin.
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