Introducing an Exchange of Essays over the Truth of an Atemporal Human Fall

The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise by Giovanni di Paolo in 1445 (originally part of the altarpiece in Siena's church of San Domenico)

[Note: my first reply to Justin has also been posted now as “God’s Good Creation and Our Evil Cosmos.”]

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Justin Coutts is a fellow with whom I consider it a real joy to do battle. Few things could be more delightful than an open exchange of differing ideas over a critical topic with a person who you admire and enjoy. I have been reading and hope before long to review the wonderful book by Justin Coutts called Psalter of the Birds: A Collection of Celtic Poetry, so I will not say more about this beautiful book now. However, it provides musical notation and tips for the metrical singing and chanting of a thoughtful collection of contemplative poetry from an especially fruitful branch of the Christian literary and devotional tree. I’ve also enjoyed Justin’s writing on his New Eden website and been informed and enriched by many exchanges with him in online forums. It was therefore with a great deal of delight that I learned of his willingness to engage in an exchange of essays with me over a topic on which we have disagreed for some time. Because Justin does not write behind a subscription paywall, these essays of mine will be free and public as well.

Please read Justin’s opening essay “Holy Agony: The Birth of God’s Children” with me now, and I will respond in a few days. Based on past conversations with Justin, I know that he rejects any idea of the atemporal fall of humanity as I’ve tried to express it based on my reading of David Bentley Hart, Sergei Bulgakov, and others. Of course, my own representation of this idea is far from guaranteed to be an accurate or helpful one. However, the fact that Hart and Bulgakov, among others, do espouse this concept is straightforward and well attested. I’ve also invested a good bit of time in gaining some knowledge of the topic, so I’m not likely to be entirely misleading any readers at any rate. A few months back, I even went so far as to create a new Wikipedia article on the topic given that it was entirely absent from any article that I could find across the vast reaches of that esteemed source of information. My article was soon found by a group of mostly science editors who quickly lacerated it and proposed it to an admin for permanent deletion. In my efforts to improve the article based on their criticisms and to prevent it from being permanently deleted, I found many more great sources in some haste and desperation (although, I must say that my original article already had a strong core of five or more distinguished scholars on the subject). With a literal timer running on the slated deletion of the article should I fail to produce some more required citations from an adequate number of reference works along with a sizeable list of style and formatting edits, I wrote to David Bentley Hart for any help that he might provide regarding “sources to establish that the ‘atemporal fall’ is a topic notable enough for an article on Wikipedia.” Hart responded most kindly:

How can an idea as old as Origen, Evagrius, and others of that school be considered marginal? How can an idea found in a Cappadocian father be? And what of Maximus? Do these fellows [the Wikipedia editors advocating for this article deletion] have any idea who the scholars are [that] you’re citing?

[Hart then linked to chapter 3 “Paradise Lost: Pre-Existence, the Fall, and the Origin of Evil” by Mark S. M. Scott from the book Journey Back to God: Origen on the Problem of Evil published by Oxford (2012).]

I will consider it. But it seems to me you’re the victim not of good editors, but of fideists pretending to be concerned about scholarly matters.

Following this trail from Mark S. M. Scott’s book, I found that various sources in English used the interchangeable terms “meta-historical” or “metaphysical” or “supramundane” or “atemporal” or “pre-cosmic” human fall to describe largely the same concept. More and more sources showed up at this point and the chain of connections and thinkers was reinforced several times over from excellent secondary and reference sources. My critics all conceded their points and removed all of their concerns so that the article now sits well-established and without any flags indicating the host of concerns that had been piled up by my scandalized fellow Wikipedians. It was a fun process and certainly left the article much improved.

Another scholarly reference who I found during this process was Christopher C. Knight in his book Eastern Orthodoxy and the Science-Theology Dialogue published by Cambridge (2022). On pages 54 to 55, Knight provides this helpful summary:

The Fall was often seen, in the patristic era, as being a transition not only into our present biological state but also into time as we now experience it. As Philip Sherrard has put it, it was a lapse “into a materialized space-time universe”. ...This kind of understanding of the character of our unfallen state has been explored by modern Orthodox scholars like Sergius Bulgakov, who have suggested that the Fall should be seen not as a historical event but as a “meta-historical” one.

In keeping with Knight and others, Hart has also pointed to Bulgakov as the leading contemporary proponent of this idea, and Hart has specifically referenced Bulgakov’s magnum opus The Bride of the Lamb as the most developed presentation of this case to be found (a book that I’ve only recently finished rereading after having given up on it several times before that in the past decade).

I realize that my dispute with Justin will not be over the credibility of the topic but over its validity and value as a theological and metaphysical claim. For my part, I find the reality of a meta-historical human fall to be a profoundly meaningful and defensible claim in terms of theology, metaphysics, and scriptural exegesis. Justin, from what I have gathered in some previous discussion with him, does not find it to be a reasonable or life-giving concept.

One of my greatest challenges in our planned exchange of essays on this topic will be that this concept is entirely incomprehensible. Yes, I’m joking. It is actually entirely comprehensible and reasonable, but it is rather challenging for modern minds to conceptualize given several different patterns of thought and assumptions about the world that we all tend to take for granted. I’m confident that some of these blind spots and assumptions (from my way of seeing this) will be considered in the course of our essay exchange, and the burden will be on me to express this idea coherently for modern minds.

In my favor, I have the fact that I am defending the only legitimate version of Christianity that exists. Again, I jest, but only in part. Regarding the idea that our cosmos is distorted and suffering as a result of the human fall, it is Hart who recently said: “I don't know of any other version of Christianity.” Therefore, in my debate with Justin, my obvious strategy will be to appeal to the sheer greatness of David Bentley Hart and then demand immediate capitulation lest Justin be forced to acknowledge that, in the estimation of David Bentley Hart, Justin has abandoned the historic Christian faith. Now, I am entirely jesting. I am not an ecumenical council of the church (a very safe claim indeed), and I don’t have any plans of acting or talking like one. I’m glad that Justin and I both join Hart in considering this to be a critical topic and one worthy of sober consideration as Christians. Insofar as Justin might deny any kind of doctrine of the human fall at all, this likely does put Justin outside of traditional Christian orthodoxy, but this is not, as I understand it, a concern for Justin (or even for Hart in his more Roland-like moments). For myself, I am most interested in the fact that a doctrine of the human fall so well-established within the Christian tradition can have been so marginalized as to have been almost entirely forgotten as one excellent way of understanding ourselves and our current cosmos. Moreover, in my humble opinion, this almost entirely forgotten understanding of the human fall is actually the only way to make sense of the universe, the human heart, the Christian faith, and many of the basic claims of Christianity’s sacred scriptures.

With these modest claims, I throw down the gauntlet to my worthy friend and opponent on this question. I look forward to reading Justin’s opening essay “Holy Agony: The Birth of God’s Children” and to responding soon.

[See also: my first reply to Justin at “God’s Good Creation and Our Evil Cosmos.”]