Adam After Modernity

I've mentioned in comments to Brian that I have never had to question the role of Adam in Christian theology. I feel that as a Wesleyan, perhaps even as an orthodox Christian, I must affirm that Adam was a historical individual. The creeds do not of course directly mention him, but I suppose that their affirmations of Christ may presuppose his historical existence.

The question I thus pose in this entry is how our appropriation of Adam for theology changes both when we look at Genesis and Paul as modernists and then as post-modernists.

In particular, Paul read Genesis typologically. He made no distinction between the story and history and incorporated himself into its story. His version of that story was of course only one potentiality of the biblical text--one in fact that few Jews have ever taken.

As the modernist distinction between story and history emerged, we had both those who questioned Adam's historical existence and those who affirmed it. But both now did so with a firm understanding of the difference between text and history. The playing field of the story ceased to be the world of the text understood as the only world. For all of us who understand the very possibility that the text might not be history, the playing field is no longer the text's world, but the objective, real world. Now if we affirm Adam's existence, we affirm that he existed in real world.

It seems to me that because Christians today don't talk much about Adam, Adam often remains for us on the playing field of the text and never quite becomes a real person. He remains a figure in a theological narrative that we never quite bring into the three dimentional world flesh and blood. The question of sin before and after Adam probably looks at least a little different after we have entered modernism, even for those who believe in his existence. How? That is my question.

For one thing, we must reckon that Paul's categories in Romans and 1 Corinthians are not the categories of Genesis. Words like "sin," "condemnation," "Fall," "iniquity," "disobedience," these are not the words of the Genesis text. Indeed, the word "Fall" comes from Augustine and not even Paul. We are now able to read Genesis 2-3 on its own terms rather than on later theological terms. Even if we continue to read it in later ways, we do so in addition to its original meaning.

But what was that meaning? What, for example, was the original genre of this text? As a narrative, the text of Genesis 2-3 reminds us of stories like that of Pandora's Box, a story meant both to express the problems of life as well as the troublesome nature of women as their cause. Is that fact even relevant in terms of genre, or is Pandora simply a muddled version of Eve? What was the original function of the Genesis story in its own world? Given that Paul and Augustine saw new significances in that story as Christian theologians, can we reasonably continue to place these significations on the original events, if the events are essential to the meaning? Can we formulate orthodox Christian theology without a historical Adam? I'm not sure we can at this point, although all the New Testament authors did except for Paul, and probably also most Christians could before Augustine. I

In a post-modern context, the main question is how to "re-narratize" Adam--how do we return to the previous narrative after we have gone through the fires of these other thoughts. Perhaps it is not difficult at all (I'm only asking questions; I don't know the right answers).

In my own theology, I have mostly avoided these questions by focusing on the default state of humanity as one of spiritual disempowerment and alienation from God. By faith I attribute this state in some way to Adam. God, in an act of sovereign will, allows the children of Adam and Eve to continue in the dys-relationship and state of disempowerment that resulted for them in consequence of their sin. But God offers empowerment and reconciliation to all thereafter as well (cue prevenient grace). Holiness at its root is the result of returning into God's possession through reconciliation with the resultant empowerment for living.

How does our current state differ from eternity? In Paul's world, the problem is ultimately that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, which includes flesh as an aspect of our embodiment susceptible to the power of sin. We would reformulate this in terms of the physiology of our brains and bodies. If we think of sin at minimum as the enactment of appropriate desires on inappropriate objects, then the possibility of sin continues as long as we are in these bodies. In transformed bodies, I don't see why sin would cease to be a theoretical possibility in that sense, but I suspect it will never become an actuality in eternity given the nature of our new embodiment.

Thoughts or answers?