The Structure of the Fall
Prominent among the challenges facing early Christian theology was the temptation to trace man’s Fall to the corporeal, physical components of his nature —the passions, dispositions, and frailties of the body. Man’s biology was widely thought to be the source of his moral problem.
We are correct to trace this widespread “physical” explanation of the Fall to sundry dualistic cosmologies infecting the intellectual culture of the early Christian centuries. There was Plotinus, for example, who traced the root of evil to the physical order; pure spirits, he and others believed, had become contaminated by physical “stuff” (hyle) or “matter” (materia). Two generations before Plotinus, Irenaeus of Lyons had to refute kin theories held by the Gnostics, and three centuries later Augustine of Hippo was obliged to contend with a similar dualism made popular by the Manicheans.
The appeal of this dualistic explanation was enhanced by the plain, biblically attested fact that Adam and Eve, when they did fall, fell through a physical act: They ate of the forbidden fruit.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
30.3—May/June 2017
C. S. Lewis Assesses the Religion of Mohammed by Jacob Fareed Imam
27.3—May/June 2014
Religious Freedom & Why It Matters
Working in the Spirit of John Leland by Robert P. George
37.5—Sept/Oct 2024
An Abandoned Ruling Principle & How to Get It Back by Adam MacLeod
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
