[Bill Ferny]

Kalessin, you touch on a nuance of original sin that is very difficult for us moderns to fathom, and I know many Catholics, myself not-with-standing, who have had a hard time accepting, that being the genitive property of original sin. Forgive me if this commentary runs a bit long, but I think it is important if we are to honestly discuss the notion of original sin that would have been held by Tolkien, or at least by the official teaching authority of his religion.

For the Medievals it was a point of obvious fact that original sin was genitive, but they belonged to a philosophical and theological tradition that was free of our prejudice for the individual. To the Medievals original sin did not belong to the individual, it belonged to the genus, but steeped as we moderns are in the language of the individual it is very difficult for us to think on this level. Original sin isn’t so much as passed down from father to son, as it belongs to the son because the son is, like his father, a human being. It is fundamentally different from actual sin, which is a conscious and willed act of the individual to separate his or her -self from God. Actual sin resides squarely in the realm of the individual. Rather, original sin is a condition of separation in which the individual is born, because the individual belongs to a fallen genus. A very regrettable state of being, indeed, when considered from the standpoint of the individual!

(Interesting side note: the fall of Satan could only affect himself, because all individual angels are their own genus.)

This is a singular problem when dealing with the sin of Melkor in Tolkien’s mythology, but only if you reduce Tolkien’s mythology to the Christian mythos. Melkor is not ent/human/elf/dwarf. If original sin comes into the world by the actions of Melkor, and he is the principle cause of Arda’s fallen condition, how can you predicate original sin to ent/human/elf/dwarf? By placing Melkor in the world, and attaching the fall of the world with his rebellion, Tolkien forces the fruits of Melkor’s rebellion upon ent/human/elf/dwarf. The only reasonable conclusion that I am able to draw is that Eru was incompetent in allowing his children to awaken in such a world.

In order to safe guard Eru's integrity it is tempting to reduce Arda to the Manachaen model. I think that you would have to surmise that there are elements that border upon the Manachaen in Tolkien’s mythology, but I don’t think this was conscious, rather it ended up there because Tolkien didn’t start his musings from a Christian perspective, but from the perspective of Norse and Anglo-Saxon cosmologies. Tolkien, after all, was a Catholic, not a Gnostic, and I think, given further revision Tolkien would have ended up changing much of his cosmology.

An aside, further explanation of the Catholic view of original sin versus the individual:

When considering original sin as belonging to the genus and not the individual, we immediately begin to think about the culpability of the individual in all this (I say this because that is exactly what I’m doing at the moment). My thought is further frustrated by considering a literal reading of Genesis, and thinking that the sin of man was the act of a single pair of people, Adam and Eve. It doesn’t seem very fair, but the fact of the matter is, is that original sin isn’t a matter of individual culpability, or a matter of the individual’s personal actions, but of genus culpability.

The Medievals, however, weren’t as callous to the individual as Aristotle was (in fact our modern prejudice for the individual has its ultimate root in Medieval thought). After all, before Christ, there was the old dispensation that provided a law for the Hebrews to follow, despite their separated condition, that brought them some measure of life with YHWH. Of course, the new dispensation through Christ dispelled the censure of original sin all together.

But what about Socrates? Peter Abelard (who at the time of his writing was roundly chastised by Bernard of Clairvoux for this principle, even though it was to become a central part of the Medieval synthesis) held that Christianity was reasonable, and thus via reason the individual could achieve some degree of sight above the condition of sin in which the individual was born, in other words, through natural law. Natural law was valid, just as the Hebrew law was valid, but I don’t think I would go so far as to say that the Medievals thought it was equally valid.

What the Medieval synthesis, and modern Catholic thought, is driving at, is that there is and was no excuse for actual sin, despite the censure and condition of original sin. They are two entirely different things, even though the condition of original sin increases the likelihood for actual sin. We see here the Hebrew notion of righteousness, or right living. It was possible, albeit only through adherence to the law, to be righteous. In the same way, but far inferior, the gentiles had a shot at righteousness as well, through adherence to natural law.

However, neither of these things have any validity or power on their own to win the individual his or her salvation, or in other words, to bridge the gulf between humanity and God. They can only provide a measure of right living. Neither go far enough, natural law being, of course, far less superior to the old dispensation. They are both irrelevant without the action of the incarnation and redemption of Christ, that both replaces and fulfills both. The Pentecost event of the New Testament is utterly unique to the New Testament, and completely different from anything found in the Old Testament. Nowhere in the old dispensation is there such an intimacy with the divine. Nowhere in the Old Testament is there that notion of an indwelling of God in the individual.

Whether or not you accept a literal reading of Genesis is beside the point. The underlying theological principle at work is that human beings sinned, transformed the world in which they lived, and brought about universal separation between themselves and God, not just upon their persons but upon their genus. However, the redemption of Christ is just as universal as original sin. But like there is no excuse for actual sin despite the censure of original sin, there is no guarantee now that all individuals will opt for salvation given the universal redemption of Christ. Why? Because of that wily thing called freewill.


Edit: changed "put" to "but"; changed "brought universal judgement upon themselves" to "brought about universal separation between themselves and God", which seems to indicate better the Catholic understanding of original sin.

[ January 12, 2003: Message edited by: Bill Ferny ]