De Natura: The Church Fathers on Creation's Fallenness

Abstract

De Natura:The Church Fathers on Creation's Fallenness Matthew T. Warnez B.H. Introduction "Who gave the mosquito its stinger for sucking blood? How narrow is the tube by which it sucks! Who has arranged this? Who has made this?"1 These modern-seeming questions were in fact those of Augustine's fifth-century congregation. Augustine plied his usual rhetorical vigor to dismiss the "the problem of natural evil"—as we call it today—and yet his hearers' doubts have persisted down to our own times. Indeed, pace Augustine, it would seem the problem of natural evil has become only more vexing to Christians in the post-Darwinian era. If the animal kingdom was made through a cruel, evolutionary process, and if the wrath of God fails to justify (at least in modern minds) the woes of—say—pandemics, then, should we not suppose that lower creation is fallen? But if it is, how did it happen? Or, if it is not, why does it so often seem fallen?2 Many conservative Christians today, when pressed on such questions, will suppose that lower creation was somehow soiled by the Fall of man. In addition to ostensibly reifying the literal sense of Genesis 3:17–19 (or Romans 8:19–22), this "negative" view of lower creation carries the advantage of a winsome theodicy. For, if all creation was vitiated by Adam's sin, [End Page 933] then God is not to be blamed for natural disasters, mass extinctions, or animal suffering—though presently "thorns infest the ground," the whole world was originally free from pain and death.3 In pastoral settings of all denominations, this tends to be the "received view," not usually requiring explication nor apology. Attractive as this theodicy may be, however, it flies in the face of an evolutionary reckoning of natural history. According to modern biology, life on earth predated man's existence by some four billion years. The fossil record, in addition to revealing that prehistoric creatures regularly died, also suggests that almost every species that ever existed is now extinct. Lest the Fall of man be pushed back into some preembodied epoch, animal death would not seem to be a consequence of the Fall at all. Indeed, some evolutionary theists would go further, holding that man's Fall had no direct effects on nature. According to this "positive" view, both before the Fall and after, animals persisted in their natural behaviors: killing, dying, and gradually evolving. Thus, only the former view offers a happy theodicy, and only the latter harmonizes with modern science. But what is the Catholic view? Although the fallen version is sometimes presumed in modern Catholic theology,4 the magisterium has never authoritatively addressed the question. Thus, and since the meaning of the Bible is often contested on this point, it becomes important to establish the opinions of the Church Fathers.5 Unfortunately, recent decades have seen the publication of only a few, partial surveys of patristic eco-theology with respect to the Fall,6 most of which have been all-too-obviously prejudiced, whether by creationist,7 [End Page 934] evolutionary,8 or conservationist9 ideals. Admittedly, an incomplete and prejudiced survey is one of the few ways to make sense of the data: the Fathers had a surprising amount to say on this question, and their opinions, which varied considerably, are scattered haphazardly throughout their writings. To make matters worse, in the patristic age, the subject rarely received a sustained treatment, and even more rarely did the Fathers comment on each other's views. While I have attempted to set my own biases aside (let the reader be the judge), I can hardly boast, in light of such difficulties, to have produced an exhaustive study of the Fathers. Nevertheless, I do believe this essay constitutes the most comprehensive such study to date, and I do believe my conclusions, though not exceptionless, are adequately representative. In the course of my analysis there emerged two predominant opinions, opinions it seemed right to title by their most influential exponents: Irenaeus and Augustine. Irenaeus took the negative stance (i.e., that Adam's Fall had certain immediate and negative effect upon...