On the Fallacy of the Fortunate Fall

"O happy fault,
O necessary sin of Adam,
Which gained for us so great a Redeemer!"

--from the Easter Proclamation


Paul Tillich, in Love, Power and Justice, implies that until he fell, man wasn't fully man (what distinguishes man from animals is the fact that he could and did sin). This is a version of the fallacy of the fortunate fall.

In the excerpt from the Easter liturgy cited above, it seems that the fortunate fall fallacy is not without foundation. "O happy fault, / O necessary sin." Felix culpa. I think that that is a misreading of the passage, however. In this Easter hymn, proclaimed at the height of the Christian calendar, we see the redemption and unity that Christ brings most clearly:

"This is the night
when first you saved our fathers:
you freed the people of Israel from their slavery
and led them dry-shod through the sea."

Past and present and future are united in Christ's work on the cross--it is the night of the Exodus from Egypt, it is the night of the resurrection, it is the night when Christ returns to earth. We can only say in the context of our redemption, "O happy fault." Without Adam's sin, Christ would not have come. This is not to say that Adam's sin is good, or that God was dependent on that sin. Rather, given that sin, let us praise the Redeemer who can redeem even that.

The fall is a fact. We need to recognize the existence of sin and its implications for all of life, including politics (we constantly deal with the suffering that is a result of sin in the world). However, sin is an absence, a lack. As Julian of Norwich writes, "But I did not see sin; for I believe it has no sort of substance, nor portion of being, nor could it be recognized if it were not for the suffering it causes. And this suffering seems to me to be something transient, for it purges us and makes us know ourselves and pray for mercy."