Chatting about the Human Fall with Dr. Matthew Milliner and Addison Hodges Hart
I’m delighted to have had the chance to chat today with author and retired parish priest Addison Hodges Hart (more here and here) along with Wheaton College art history professor Matthew Milliner (more here and here) about the concept of a meta-historical human fall. As would certainly be expected (and as will be fairly apparent), we do not all share the same ideas. However, we generally agree that God’s creation and the human fall are both ongoing (in some sense as we are currently experiencing them at any rate). We talk about the Big Bang and science a bit as well as wandering into several other topics—including ghosts and some dangers of Christian universalism. A few lovely surprise moments include a passage read by Matthew whose author becomes apparent as he reads.
In addition to many other thinkers and writers from across the ages, we reference some of these recent essays and projects by the three of us:
“At the Field Museum with Father Teilhard” by Matthew Milliner
“Time, eternity, the creation, and prayer” by Addison Hodges Hart
“A Human Fall From Out of Another Kind of Time” by yours truly (reflecting on some material from Addison’s little brother David Bentley Hart)
The Theory of the Big Bang and the Faith of the Holy Fathers by Bishop Basil Rodzianko (a 1996 Book by Bishop Basil that yours truly is almost finished making available in English with notes)
We all hope that you enjoy! Merry eleventh day of the Christmas feast!
Thanks for this Jesse. Really enjoyed listening in on the three of you talking it through. You didn’t use the term but do you think it’s helpful to think of the Fall as ontological?
Also it would be good to hear you all consider that while Genesis is obviously a Hebrew text, as far as I know there was no Hebrew notion of the Fall. Not all Christians seem to realise how they read Genesis christologically via Paul. Paul seems to give it a new and unique meaning ?
Thanks again.
Merry Christmas!