The following letter is written an Orthodox inquirer, who had been reading about the doctrine of the Fall. The author’s comments on pain raised a number of questions for her. Specifically, the remarks in question sounded as though pain is an evil, but she questioned whether this is, in fact, true, given its role in alerting animals — man included — to something wrong within the body. In addition, she struggles to grasp what animal life without pain might look like, and yet, the authored appear to suggest that such a life is precisely what Adam and Eve experienced and what the believer hopes to attain. But what would this mean in practice for the exceedingly ordinary things that befall us day to day that involve pain?
In reply, I began by walking her through the Eastern patristic understanding of the nature of man, his creation, and the effects of his Fall. Building on this foundation, then, I explore her questions about pain. The letter, being quite long, is broken into two parts. If you have yet to read part 1, please do so before diving in:
Pain and the Fall of Man - Part 1.
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Dear Margot (continued):
Now, bringing the point to bear on Adam and Eve, we must keep in mind that Adam and Eve were not deified, according to the Eastern fathers. The point is proved in the Fall. Deification brings with it immunity to death and corruption. The very fact that they fell indicates they were neither immortal nor incorruptible. Hence, the resurrected and deified Saint transcends the experiences of our First Parents.
To be sure, Adam and Eve were in a state superior to our own prior to the Fall, not yet subject to death and corruption as we are. Yet, they were not yet what man was made to become. This middle ground, between Fallen and deified, was a state absent of any corruption, but they were nonetheless corruptible — capable of turning away from God and experiencing corruption. The fact is proved, of course, by the Fall itself, when death and corruption took hold.
Now, within this original state, the Eastern fathers presume that our First Parents enjoyed divine vision, beholding the uncreated light, or the divine energies, which deifies the human person. Like a newborn infant that opens his eyes for the first time and beholds sunlight, Adam and Eve came into existence beholding the uncreated light of God with their newly birthed spiritual eyes. This divine vision is the Eden in which they were placed, the very paradise in which they first lived. Wherever they went, they beheld the glory of God. The whole of the cosmos was Eden to them. Basil of Caesarea suggests that this is why the pair was unaware that they were naked. They daily ate and drank of the glory of God, and amid this enjoyment of divine Goodness, they had no awareness of any other need — the need for food or clothing or shelter. For their souls were filled and satisfied.
Such a picture may sound as if Adam and Eve were already deified, but as I said, they were not. The Eastern fathers understand creatures — all creatures — to be beings in process. Meaning, we undergo change and development. The fact marks our initial creation: Every creature moves into being, transitioning from mere possibility (or non-being) into concrete reality (or being). And the point is no less true of our spiritual formation. As Origen says in a certain passage, there is no such thing as punctuated virtue. We develop spiritually, just as we develop physically. And just as organisms move from a seedling state into a fully formed organism, so our spiritual formation begins in a seedling state that must blossom into virtue. This is true of us, and it was true of Adam and Eve, even before the Fall.
As I’m sure you know, this is how the Eastern fathers interpret the image-likeness distinction of Genesis. The story is familiar: God says, Let us make man in our own image and according to our own likeness, and God goes on to create man. What is often missed, however, is that the description of his handiwork says he made us in his own image — likeness is not repeated.
The Eastern fathers interpret the divine image as the rational spirit. Our capacities for reason, free choice, and communion with God — the very nature of nous — is what makes us image bearers. This divine image is essential to human nature, and as such can never be destroyed. The divine visage can be buried, tarnished, twisted, but never excised from the human person. The likeness, by contrast, is our vivification. To attain this, we must make a right use of nous, actively imitation our divine Archetype and willfully communing with him.
Adam and Eve were created in a rightly ordered state. Their rational nature was not subjugated to their lower animal nature, and their rational spirit beheld God at all times. The commandment was simple, and the road to deification was an easy one, relative to our own. For they did not wrestle against the passions of a disordered nature, as we do; death was not at work within their members, as it is in ours; the eye of their soul was not blinded to the uncreated light of God, as ours is. God set the feet of Adam and Eve upon a relatively trouble-free road. Yes, they were not yet immortal, not yet incorruptible, not yet virtuous. But to partake of the divine nature was as natural for them as breathing. Yet, in the Fall, they broke fellowship with their Maker, the source of life. As Basil puts it, with this choice, they were immediately out of Eden. The divine vision ended, and they became aware of their physical needs. The divine icon within them was buried beneath the animal passions, their higher nature now enslaved to the flesh, crippling that inner icon’s ability to ascend to its Maker. Such is how the Eastern fathers read the picture of what follows, covering themselves with fig leaves (the roughness of animal life) and God clothing them in garments of skin (the mortality of animal flesh).
With this change arises several new features of human existence. With our aging comes deterioration and the breakdown of our bodies, for we are making a steady movement toward death, when our Maker returns us to the earth from whence we came. Yet, death is not merely the final step in this process — the point at which our heart stops and brain ceases to function. Instead, the process of dying carries subjugation to corruption. Corruption refers to any divergence from proper formation, and when an organism begins to die, the retreat from proper formation commences, death and dying setting to work in our members. Rather than a steady movement into fuller life, as were made to experience, our members are now destined to retreat from proper form and function, a retreat that brings upon us all manner of malignant mutations and disease.
Concerning our spiritual illness, the Eastern fathers focus on one particular contortion in our nature already touched upon: The unnatural relationship between our higher nature and our beastly passions. In the wake of the Fall follows a severely twisted relationship between the spirit and the flesh. This malady is aptly described by St. Paul in the seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans — the very chapter you raised in your letter. Therein, St. Paul describes the manifold wrestling between the spirit and the flesh. The various translations of this chapter often mislead readers in two regards. The first is the capitalization of spirit, leaving the impression that Paul here refers to the Holy Spirit. The second concerns the word flesh. Some translators will go so far as to translate “flesh” as “sin nature.” When paired, these translation decisions leave the false impression that the Apostle is describing a spiritual battle between the indwelling Holy Spirit and a “sin nature” inherited from our First Parents. Yet, neither is true to the passage. Paul’s references to flesh (σάρξ) are simply that, references to the fleshly body encasing to one’s soul, along with its passions (παθήματα) and lusts (ἐπιθυμία) that lead us into sin (e.g., 7:5-8). As for his talk of “spirit” (πνεῦμα), he uses this term interchangeably with “mind” (νοῦς) (e.g., 7:23). In other words, Paul is describing the ways in which animal desires, arising from our fleshly bodies, assail our rational spirit, or mind — not the Holy Spirit.
Now, does the roll of the flesh in leading us into sin mean that the flesh is evil? Certainly not. To see why, we must look deeper at what Paul describes.
Let’s begin with the flesh and its passions. First off, flesh is not a product of the Fall. Such a view was proposed by the Origenists, who made the odd proposal that God first generates souls, and these souls then decide whether to cling to God, remaining ethereal, or retreat from him, falling into bodies. The further we fall from God, the denser the body we take for ourselves. On this view, the Fall resulted in Adam and Eve plummeting from the state of ethereal spirits into the gross matter of animals. The view was condemned — along with a host of other Origenist oddities — at the fifth Ecumenical Council, Constantinople II.
To be sure, the spirit-flesh relationship has been distorted by the Fall, as already discussed, but that we have flesh and that the flesh has passions is far from unnatural. Perhaps here it is best to offer a word on what is meant by passions.