If this be the right way of regarding the matter, as it is certainly permissible, we shall be able to echo in all its breadth Athanasius's teaching, that sin did not directly alter things, but only our attitude towards them[629].
(c) But, once again, and for the last time, the opponent objects: 'All this theory of original sin is built simply on the supposition that the early chapters of Genesis represent literal history. It falls to the ground if they are myth and not history.' Once again, this is not at all the case. The Christian doctrine of sin finds its chief authorisation in Christ's attitude towards it. Sin (if Christ's witness is true) is not nature; it does not represent God's intention, but something that has baffled for a time God's intention, something that Christ is come to conquer. Moreover, this doctrine of sin is not a mere dogma enunciated on external authority; it finds its verification in experience. The moral experience of Christendom confirms it, and this experience of eighteen centuries reflects itself inevitably on the whole of human life. What interprets sin within this area interprets it through the whole history. With this authority of Christ, verified in the Christian experience, as his firm foundation, the Christian does not hesitate to see in the early chapters of Genesis the action of the inspiring Spirit. It was only the inspiring Spirit Which could assure man that the whole universe was of God's making and very good, that the state in which he found himself represented not his nature, as God meant it to be, but the result of his rebellion, the result, moreover, which God meant to counter-work, nay, which in gradual process He was counter-working. In all the account then of the creation, of the nature of man, of the origin of sin, the Christian sees an action of the inspiring Spirit. He sees it all the more when he compares the record of Genesis with those which are parallel to it in other races. But if an Irenaeus, a Clement, an Athanasius, an Anselm could treat the record or part of it as rather allegorical than historical, we can use the same liberty. This is not our present subject. All I want to make clear is that the Christian doctrine of sin rests on a far broader and far surer foundation than the belief that the early chapters of Genesis belong to one form or stage of inspired literature rather than to another. It rests on the strong foundation of the authority of our Lord, accepted and verified by man's moral consciousness.
[609] A sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, at Great St. Mary's Church, on Sunday, March 17, 1889, by the Rev. Charles Gore, and printed in the Guardian, March 27. A paragraph of practical exhortation is omitted at the end. Some apology is no doubt needed for the introduction of a Sermon into a volume of Essays. But it was felt (1) that there was under the circumstances an advantage in producing what was not written in view of the criticisms on Lux Mundi; (2) that the sermon was not specially homiletic.
[610] The first is that of the Manichaeans and some Gnostics. The second that of the Platonists and other Gnostics. But both the theories represent tendencies very commonly at work both among Orientals and in Europe. Recently John Stuart Mill was disposed to embrace the latter theory: see Three Essays on Religion, 3rd edition, London, 1874, pp. 58, 243.
[611] The Service of Man, London, 1887, p. 295. Cf. p. 293, 'It will perhaps be said that this view does away with moral responsibility.... To which the answer is, that the sooner the idea of moral responsibility is got rid of, the better it will be for society and moral education.'
[612] See, for instance, Tertullian, de paenit. 3; Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, i. 11.
[613] Augustine, de Trin. i. 10. 21.
[614] Aug. de mor. Man. ii. 3, 'Ut ab essentia deficiant et ad non esse tendant? quod malum generale esse clamat verissima ratio.' Op. imp. c. Jul. i. 114, 'Non enim potest esse ullum malum nisi in aliquo bono; quia non potest esse nisi in aliqua natura; omnis autem natura, in quantum natura est, bonum est.'
[615] For references, see p. 290, note.
[616] Rom. v. 6: see Godet's Commentary in loc. Clark's Foreign Theol. Libr. i. p. 416; and cf. Col. ii. 11, τὸ σῶμα τῆς σαρκός.