If one would say that Adam's sin brought the sin of the race into the world, one either means this fantastically, and thereby every concept is annulled, or one can with the same justification say it of every man who by his first sin brings in sinfulness. Getting an individual who has to stand outside the race to begin the race is a myth of the understanding, like that of letting sinfulness begin in any other way but by sin. What one attains is merely to retard the problem, which naturally turns then to man No. 2 for an explanation, or rather now it is man No. I, since the first man No. 1 has become in effect No. O.
What often deludes people and helps to start all sorts of fantastic notions going is the fact of generation, as if the subsequent man were essentially different from the first because he is a descendant. Descent is only the expression for the continuity in the history of the race, which always moves by quantitative determinants and therefore is never capable of bringing forth an individual. For an animal species, even if it has preserved itself through a thousand and again another thousand generations, never brings forth an individual. If the second man had not descended from Adam, he would not have been the second man but an empty repetition, and from this would have been derived neither a race nor an individual. Every particular Adam would have been a statue by himself, and only to be defined by the indifferent specification, that is, by number, and that in a still more defective sense than when the Blue Boys 11 are designated by number. At the most, every particular man would have been himself, not himself and the race, and would have had no history, just as an angel has no history, is only himself and does not participate in any history.
It hardly need be said that this view is not chargeable with any sort of Pelagianism, which lets every individual, unconcerned about the race, play his own little history in his private theater; for the history of the race calmly pursues its course, and in this ♦ The contrast is expressed in §i: While the history of the race goes on, the individual constantly begins afresh.
32 CHAPTER I no individual commences at the same place as another, whereas every individual begins afresh and that same instant is at the place where he ought to begin in history.
§3 The concept of innocence In this instance as usual, if one in our day would have a dogmatic definition, one must make a beginning by forgetting what Hegel invented in order to help dogmatics. One has a queer feeling when, in the dogmaticians who in other respects wish to be rather orthodox, 12 one sees Hegel's favorite remark 13 introduced, that the characteristic of the immediate is to be annulled (aufgehoben), as though immediacy and innocence were entirely identical. Hegel has quite consistently volatilized every dogmatic concept just far enough for it to support life in reduced circumstances as a spirituel expression for the logical. That the immediate needs to be annulled we do not need Hegel to tell us, neither does he deserve immortal merit for having said it, since, logically thought, it is not even correct; for the immediate may not be annulled, forasmuch as it never is [in the sense of Dasein]. The concept of immediacy properly belongs in logic, but the concept of innocence in ethics, and every concept must be dealt with as from that science to which it belongs, whether the concept belongs to the science in such a way that it is developed there, or is developed by being presupposed.
Now it is unethical to say that innocence must be annulled (aufgehoben), for even if it were annulled the instant this is uttered, ethics forbids us to forget that it can only be annulled by guilt. Therefore when one speaks of innocence as of immediacy, and is logically insolent and gruff enough to let this volatile thing have vanished, or aesthetically sentimental over what it was and that it has vanished, then one is only geistreich and forgets the point.
As Adam lost innocence by guilt, so does every man lose it. If it was not by guilt he lost it, neither was it innocence he lost; and if he was not innocent before he became guilty, he never became guilty.
As for Adam's innocence, there has been no lack of all sorts of fantastic conceptions, whether these attained symbolical sanction in times when the velvet on the church pulpit as well as on the beginnings of the race was not so frayed as it is now, or whether they roamed about romantically as the suspicious inventions of poetry. The more fantastically they managed to get Adam attired, the more inexplicable it became that he could sin, and THE CONCEPT OF INNOCENCE 33 the more frightful his sin became. He had however once and for all forfeited all the glory, and over that, according to time and circumstance, one became sentimental or witty, melancholy or frivolous, historically contrite or fantastically merry — but the point of it they did not grasp ethically.
As for the innocence of subsequent men (i.e. all with the exception of Adam and Eve), rather lowly notions have been entertained. Ethical rigorism ignored the limits of the ethical and was itself so upright as to believe that men would not seize the opportunity to give the slip to all that when escape was made so easy. Frivolity of course perceived nothing at all. But only by guilt is innocence lost; every man loses innocence in essentially the same way that Adam did, and it is not in the interest of ethics to rep- resent all men as troubled and. interested spectators of guilt, but not guilty, nor is it to the interest of dogmatics to represent all as interested and sympathetic spectators of redemption, but not redeemed.
If men have so often wasted the time of dogmatics and ethics, and their own time, by pondering about what would have happened in case Adam had not sinned, this merely shows that they have brought with them an incorrect mood and an incorrect concept. To the innocent man it never can occur to ask such a question, but the guilty man sins when he asks it; for with his aesthetic curiosity he would like to obscure the fact that he himself has brought guilt into the world, has himself lost innocence by guilt.
Innocence therefore is not some kind of immediacy which must be annulled (aufgehoben), the destination of which is to be annulled, something which properly speaking does not exist [in the sense of Dasein], but only comes into existence by the very fact that it is annulled, comes into existence as that which was before it was annulled and now is annulled. Immediacy is not annulled by medi- acy, but when mediacy emerges it has that same instant annulled immediacy. The annulment of immediacy is therefore an immanent movement within immediacy, or it is an immanent movement in an opposite direction within mediacy, by which mediacy presupposes immediacy. Innocence is something which is annulled by tran- scendency, precisely because innocence is a something (whereas the correct expression for immediacy is that which Hegel 14 uses for pure being, saying that it is nothing), and for this reason also, when innocence is annulled by a transcendency, something quite different comes out of it, whereas mediacy is just immediacy. Innocence is a quality, it is a state which can very well endure, and therefore the logical haste to get it annulled is out of place, whereas immediacy in logic should try to hurry a little more, for it always arrives too late, even when it goes at full speed. Innocence is not a 34 CHAPTER I 34 CHAPTER I perfection one ought to wish to recover; for as soon as one wishes for it, it is lost, and it is a new guilt to waste time on wishes. Innocence is not an imperfection with which one cannot be content to stop but must go further; for innocence is always sufficient unto itself, and he who has lost it (lost it, that is to say, in the only way it can be lost, i.e. by guilt, and not in the way it perhaps pleases him to have lost it) — to that man it will not occur to boast of his perfection at the cost of innocence.
The account in Genesis gives also the right explanation of innocence. Innocence is ignorance. This is by no means the pure being of immediacy, but it is ignorance. The fact that ignorance regarded from without seems as though designed to become knowledge is entirely irrelevant to ignorance.
It is quite evident that this view is not tainted with Pelagianism. The race has its history, and within it sinfulness has its continuous quantitative modification, but invariably innocence is lost only by the qualitative leap of the individual. That this sinfulness which is the progression of the race may show itself as a greater or lesser disposition in the individual who by his act assumes it, is indeed true; but this is a more or less, a quantitative determination which does not constitute the concept of guilt.
§4 The concept of the Fall If then innocency is ignorance, it might seem that, inasmuch as the guiltiness of the race in its quantitative determination is present in the ignorance of the single individual and by his act manifests itself as his guiltiness, there must be a difference between Adam's innocence and that of every other man. The answer is al THE CONCEPT OF THE FALL 35 ready given, that a more does not constitute a quality. It might seem too that it would be easier to explain how a subsequent man lost innocence. This, however, is only apparently true. The highest degree of quantitative modification no more explains the qualitative leap than does the lowest. If I can explain guilt in the later man, I can equally well explain it in Adam. By habit, and still more by thoughtlessness and ethical stupidity, it has come to look as if the former were easier than the latter. One is so fain to avoid the sunstroke of consistency which falls directly upon the crown of one's head. One would put up with sinfulness, help to bear it, etc., etc. He need not give himself the pains. Sinfulness is not an epidemic which is transmitted like cowpox — "and every mouth shall be stopped." It is quite true that every man can say with profound seriousness that he was born in misery and his mother conceived him in sin; but really he can only sorrow rightly over it when he himself has brought guilt into the world and brought all this upon himself, for it is a contradiction to want to sorrow aesthetically over sinfulness. The only one who innocently sorrowed over sinfulness was Christ, but He did not sorrow over it as a destiny which He must put up with, but He sorrowed as one who freely chose to bear all the sin of the world and to suffer its punishment. This is not an aesthetic determinant, for Christ was more than an individual.
Innocence is ignorance — but how is it lost? It is not my intention to report here all the ingenious and absurd hypotheses by which the beginning of history has been encumbered by thinkers and speculators who only out of curiosity are interested in this great human affair we call "sin." I do not do so, partly because I would not waste other people's time by reciting that on the learning of which I have wasted my own time, and partly because the whole thing lies outside of history in the twilight where witches and speculators ride a race on broomsticks and sausage-pegs.
36 CHAPTER I The science which has to do with the explanation is psychology, which, however, can only explain up to the explanation, and above all must guard against seeming to explain what no science explains, and which only ethics explains further by presupposing it through what it owes to dogmatics. If one wants to take the psychological explanation and repeat it several times, and thereupon is of the opinion that it is not improbable that in this way sin came into the world, one has confounded everything. Psychology must stay within its bounds, and then its explanation must always have significance.
A psychological explanation of the Fall is well and clearly expressed in Usteri's exposition of the Pauline doctrine. 15 Theology has now become so speculative that it scorns this sort of thing. It is in fact much easier to explain that the immediate must be annulled; and what theology sometimes does is even more convenient, namely, at the decisive moment of the explanation to become invisible before the eyes of the speculative worshipers. Usteri's exposition is to the effect that the command itself prohibiting Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge engendered sin in him. It does not by any means ignore the ethical but admits that the prohibition merely predisposes, as it were, what breaks out in Adam's qualitative leap. I have no intention of stating this exposition of Usteri's more fully. Everyone has read it, or can read it, in the works of this author.* The lack in this explanation is that it does not wish to be thoroughly psychological. This is not censure, for it did not wish to be that; it had set itself another task, that of expounding the doctrine of Paul and attaching itself to the Bible. But in this way the Bible has often had a harmful effect. In beginning a deliberation one has certain classical texts fixed in one's mind, and now one's explanation and knowledge remains no more than an arrangement of these texts, as if the whole subject were so foreign to one. The more natural the better, even though one is willing with all deference to confront one's explanation with the judgment of the Scriptures, and, if it does not stand the test, tries to explain again. In this way one does not get into the preposterous position of having ♦Everyone who would think seriously upon the present theme must of course know what Fr. Baader 16 has set forth with his usual pith and authority in several books dealing with the significance of temptation for the consolidation of freedom, as well as with the misunderstanding of conceiving temptation onesidedly as only a temptation to evil, or that which has the purpose of making men fall, seeing that one must regard temptation rather as "the necessary other" of freedom. To recount this again is not necessary. Fr. Baader's works are in existence. Neither would it be appropriate here to follow his thought further, for it seems to me that Fr. Baader has overlooked intermediate determinants. The transition from innocence to guilt simply by means of the concept of temptation brings God into an almost experimental relation to man and overlooks the intermediate psychological observation, since after all the intermediate determinant is concupiscentia', and in fine his exposition is rather a dialectical reflection upon the concept of temptation than a psychological explanation of the more specific THE CONCEPT OF DREAD 37 case.
to understand the explanation before one has understood what it is it is supposed to explain, nor into the disingenuous position of using Bible texts as the Persian king 17 used against the Egyptians their sacred animals to secure himself.
In making the prohibition the conditioning cause, one assumes that the prohibition awakens a concupiscentia. Here psychology has overstepped the bounds of its competence. A concupiscentia is a determinant of guilt and sin anterior to guilt and sin, to what therefore is not guilt and sin; that is to say, it is posited by them. The qualitative leap is enervated, the fall becomes something progressive. Nor does one see how the prohibition awakens concupiscentia, even though it is certain both from pagan and from Christian experience that man's desire is for the forbidden. But one cannot appeal thus without more ado to experience, since it rather might be asked in which period of life this is experienced. Nor is the intermediate determinant concupiscentia equivocal, and by this sign one sees at once that it is not the psychological explanation. The strongest and, I would say, the most positive expression the Protestant Church uses for the presence of original sin in man is precisely that he is born in concupiscentia (Owines homines secundum naturam propagati nascuntur cunt peccato, h.e. sine metu dei, sinefiducia erga deum, et cum concupiscentia) And yet the Prot- estant doctrine assumes a difference between the innocence of the subsequent man (if there can properly be any question of such a thing) and the innocence of Adam.
The psychological explanation must not befuddle the point, but must remain in its elastic ambiguity, from which guilt breaks forth in the qualitative leap.
§5 The concept of dread Innocence is ignorance. In his innocence man is not determined as spirit but is soulishly determined in i mmediate unity with his IL A aLc A n A ip A rSiirTnrHreaminFrn A man. Thi-; view is in perfect accord with that of the Bible, and by refusing to ascribe to man in the state of innocence a knowledge of the difference between good and evil it condemns all the notions of merit Catholicism has imagined.
In this state there is peare and, repose: but at the same time there is something different, which is not dissension and strife, for there is nothing to strive with. What is it then:' Nothing. ljut what ef fect d oes nothing produce? It begets dread. This is, the, profound secret of 38 CHAPTER I 38 CHAPTER I innocence, that at the same time it is dread. Dream- • — Singly the spirit projects its own reality, but this reality is nothing, but this nothing constantly sees innocence outside of it. • — > Dread is a qualification of the dreaming spirit, and as such it has its place in psychology. When awake, the difference between myself and my other 19 is posited; sleeping, it is suspended; dreaming, it is a nothing vaguely hinted at. The reality of the spirit constantly shows itself in a form which entices its possibility, but it is away as soon as one grasps after it, and it is a nothing which is able only to alarm. More it cannot do so long as it only shows itself. One almost never sees the concept dread dealt with in psychology, and I must therefore call attention to the fact that it is different from fear and similar concepts which refer to something definite, whereas dread is freedom's reality as possibility for possibility." One does not therefore find dread in the beast, precisely for the reason that by nature the beast is not qualified by spirit.
When we consider the dialectical determinants in dread, it appears that they have precisely the characteristic ambiguity of psychology. Dread is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy. One easily sees, I think, that tffisHs much 'more fruly~a "psychological subject than is the concupiscence of which we have spoken. Language confirms this completely. One speaks of a sweet dread, a sweet feeling of apprehension, one speaks of a strange dread, a shrinking dread, etc.
The dread which is posited in innocence is, in the first place, not guilt; in the second place, it is not a heavy burden, not a suffering which cannot be brought into harmony with the felicity of innocence. If we observe children, we find this dread more definitely indicated as a seeking after adventure, a thirst for the prodigious, the mysterious. The fact that there are children in whom this is not found proves nothing, for neither in the beast does it exist, and the less spirit, the less dread. This dread belongs to the child so essentially that it cannot do without it; even though it alarms him, it captivates him nevertheless by its sweet feeling of apprehension. In all nations in which the childish character is THE CONCEPT OF DREAD 39 preserved as the dreaming of the spirit this dread is found, and the deprter it is. the more profound is the nation. It is only a prosaic stupidity which thinks that this is a disorganization. Dread has here the same significance melancholy has at a far later point where freedom, after having passed through imperfect forms of its history, has to come to itself in a deeper sense.* Just as the relation of dread to its object, to something which is nothing (language in this instance also is pregnant: it speaks of being in dread of nothing), is altogether ambiguous, so will the transition here from innocence to guilt be correspondingly so dialectical that the explanation is and must be psychological. The qualitative leap is outside of ambiguity, but he who through dread becomes guilty is innocent, for it was not he himself but dread, an alien power, which laid hold of him, a power he did not love but dreaded — and yet he is guilty, for he sank in the dread which he loved even while he feared it. There is nothing in the world more ambiguous, and therefore this is the only psychological explanation, although (to repeat what I have said) it never occurs to it to want to be the explanation which explains the qualitative leap. Every theory about the prohibition tempting Adam or the seducer deceiving him has only for a superficial observation sufficient ambiguity, while it perverts ethics, introduces a quantitative determination, and would by the help of psychology pay man a compliment from which everyone who is ethically developed would beg to be excused, regarding it as a new and deeper seduction.
Everything turns upon dread coming into view. Man is a synthesis of the soulish and the bodily. But a synthesis is unthinkable if the two are not united in a third factor. This third factor is the spirit. In the state of innocence man is not merely an animal, for if at any time of his life he was merely an animal, he never would become a man. So then the spirit is present, but in a state of im medi acy, a dreaming state. Forasmuch as it is present, it is in one way a hostile power, for it constantly disturbs the relation between soul and body, a relation which endures, and vet does not endure, inasmuch as it has endurance only by means of the spirit. On the other handHt is a friendly power which has precisely the function,, of constituting the relationship. What then is man's relation to ♦With regard to this one may consult Either I Or (Copenhagen 1843), noting especially that Part I represents melancholy, in its anguished sympathy and egotism, which in Part II is explained.
40 CHAPTER I this ambiguous power? How is spirit related to itself and to its situation? It is related as dread. The spirit cannot do away with it — * self; nor can it grasp itself so long as it has itself outside of itself. Neither can man sink down into the vegetative life, for he is determined as spirit. He cannot flee from dread, for he loves it; really he does not love it, for he flees from it.
Innocence has now reached its apex. It is ignorance, but not an animal brutality, but an ignorance which is qualified by spirit, but which precisely is dread, because its ignorance is about nothing. Here there is no knowl edge of good and evil, etc., but the whole reality of knowl edge is proj ecte d in dread as the immense nothing ot ignorance.
Innocence still is, but one word suffices, and with that ignorance is concentrated. Innocence of course cannot understand this word; but dread has as it were obtained its first prey; instead of nothing, innocence gets an enigmatic word. So when it is related in Genesis that God said to Adam, "Only of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat," it is a matter of course that Adam did not really understand this word. For how could he have understood the difference between good and evil, seeing that this distinction was in fact consequent upon the enjoyment of the fruit?
When one assumes that the prohibition awakens the desire, one posits a knowledge instead of ignorance; for Adam would have had to have a knowledge of freedom, since his desire was to use it. The explanation therefore anticipates what was subsequent. The prohibition alarms Adam [induces a state of dread! because the prohibition awakens in him the possibility of freedom. That which pa ssed innocence by as the nothing of dread has now A tered mtafiim and here again it is a notKmgTWe alarming pos- A -sibility of being able. What it is he is able to do, of that he has no conception; to suppose that he had some conception is to pre- suppose, as commonly is done, what came later, the distinction between good and evil. There is only the possibility of being able, as a higher form of ignorance, as a heightened expression of dread, because this in a more profound sense is and is not, because in a more profound sense he loves it and flees from it.
After the word of prohibition follows the word of judgment: "Thou shalt surely die." What it means to die, Adam of course cannot conceive; but if one assumes that these words were said to him, there is nothing to prevent his having a notion of the terrible. Indeed even the beast is able to understand the mimic expression and movement in the speaker's voice, without understanding the word. In case one lets the prohibition awaken desire, one may also let the word about punishment awaken a deterring conception. However, this confuses things. The terrible becomes in this THE PRESUPPOSITION OF ORIGINAL SIN 41 instance merely dread; for Adam has not understood what was said, and here again we have only the ambiguity of dread. The infinite possibility of being able (awakened bv the prohibiting draws closer for the fact that this possibility indicates a possibility as its consequence.
Thus innocence is brought to its last extremity. It is in dread in relatiorrto the proll ibitforTandlhe punlsTime nt iis* not A guiltv A and yet it is in dread, as though it were lost.
Further than this psychology Cannot go, but so far it can reach, and moreover it can verify this point again and again in its observation of human life.
Here in the conclusion I attached myself to the Biblical account. I let the voice of the prohibition and the punishment come from without. This naturally has tormented many thinkers. The difficulty, however, is one we need only smile at. Innocence is indeed well able to talk, inasmuch as in language it possesses the expression for everything in the spiritual order. In view of this one need only assume that Adam talked with himself. The imperfection in the account, that another speaks to Adam about what he does not understand, is thus eliminated. Adam was able to talk. From this it does not follow that in a deeper sense he was able to understand the word uttered. This applies above all to the distinction between good and evil, which is made in language, to be sure, but is only intelligible to freedom. Innocence can very well utter this distinction, but the distinction is not for it, and for it this has only the significance we have shown above.
§6 Dread as the presupposition of original sin and as explaining original sin retrogressively in the direction of its origin Let us now examine the account of Genesis more closely, trying to put aside the fixed idea that it is a myth, and reminding ourselves that no age has been so intent upon producing myths as our own, which is producing myths at the same time that it wants to extirpate all myths.
So Adam was created, had bestowed names upon the animals (so here we have language, even though of a kind as imperfect as that of children when they are learning to recognize an animal on the ABC card), but had not found society for himself. Eve was created, formed from his rib. She stood in as intimate a relation to him as possible, and yet this was still an external relation. Adam and Eve are merely a numerical repetition. The existence in this sense of a thousand Adams signifies no more than one. This may be said in view of the descent of the race from one pair. Nature has no liking for a 42 CHAPTER I meaningless profusion. If therefore it is assumed that the race descends from several couples, there would have been a moment when nature had an unnecessary profusion. As soon as the fact of generation is posited no man is a superfluity, for every individual is himself and the race.
Then follows the prohibition and the judgment. But the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. He enticed woman. Even though one would call this a myth, one must remember that it does not disturb thought nor confuse the concept as a myth of the understanding does. The myth represents as outward that which occurred inwardly.
What first we have to remark upon here is that woman is first seduced, and that thereupon she seduces man. Subsequently in another chapter I seek to explain in what sense woman is the weaker sex, as is commonly said of her, and also to show that dread is more natural to her than to man.* In the foregoing I have several times called attention to the fact that the view presented in this work does not deny the propagation of sinfulness through generation, or in other words that sinfulness has its history in the fact of generation; I have only said that sinfulness moves by quantitative determinants, whereas sin comes in constantly by the qualitative leap of the individual. Here one can already see one significance of the quantitative process of generation. Eve is the derived being. True, she is created like Adam, but she is created out of a precedent creature. True, she is innocent * Nothing is determined by this about woman's imperfection in comparison with man. Even if dread is more natural to her than to man, dread is by no means a sign of imperfection. If there is to "be any question of imperfection, it consists in something else, namely, in the fact that in dread she seeks support beyond herself in another, in man.
like Adam, but there is as it were a presentiment of a disposition, which indeed is not yet in existence, yet may seem like a hint of the sinfulness posited by reproduction. It is the fact of being derived which predisposes the individual, without for all that making him guilty.
What was said in §5 about the word of prohibition and judgment must be recalled here. The imperfection in the account, the doubt how it could have occurred to anyone to say to Adam what he cannot understand, is eliminated when one reflects that the speaker is language, and that hence it is Adam himself who speaks.* Now remains the serpent. I am no lover of esprit, and volente Deo I shall withstand the temptation of that serpent who, as at the beginning of time he tempted Eve, has in the course of time tempted writers to be spiritnel. I prefer to admit bluntly that I can associate no definite thought with the serpent. The difficulty about the serpent moreover is quite a different one, namely, that it lets the temptation come from without. This conflicts directly with the teaching of the Bible, with the well-known classical pas- THE PRESUPPOSITION OF ORIGINAL SIN 43 sage in St. James affirming that God tempts no man and also is tempted by no one, but that every man is tempted by himself. For when one thinks that one has rescued God by letting man be tempted by the serpent, and that thus one is in accord with St. James's saying, that God tempts no man, one then collides with the second saying, that God is not tempted by anyone, for the serpent's temptation of man was at the same time an indirect temptation directed against God, by mixing himself up in the rela- tion between God and man; and one collides with the third saying, that every man is tempted by himself.
Then follows the Fall. This is what nsvchol A y i?. unable to ex- A.plain, for it is the qualitative leap. But let us for a moment consider the consequence as it is reported in the narrative, in order to fix attention once again upon dread as the presupposition of original sin.
The consequence was a double one: that sin came into the world, * If one would say further that there then remains the question how the first man learned to speak, then I will reply that this is quite true, but I would say also that the question lies outside the compass of this investigation. This, however, must not be understood, as though in the manner of modern philosophy I would by making this reply pretend that I could answer this question in another place. But so much is sure, that it does not do to represent that man himself invented language.
and that sexuality was posited — the one being inseparable from the other. This is of the utmost importance in order to show what — A was man's original state. For if in fact he was not a synthesis which reposes in a third factor, one thing could not have two consequences. If he were not a synthesis of soul and body which is sustained by spirit, the sexual could never come into the world with sinfulness.