Madam I'm Adam

What's that supposed to mean? Just that it's an example of a Spoonerism palindrome, i.e., perfectly symmetrical.

Yesterday I spent all afternoon thinking hard about the doctrine of original sin. Which is unusual for me, since I’m usually more inclined to randomly seed the head and harvest whatever pops out of the ground. 

But this one has bothered me for a long time, because while I don’t doubt its existence, the traditional explanation just doesn’t cut it. I have no reservations about the what, it’s the how -- and, to a lesser extent, the why -- of it that annoy me.

But it’s also troubling for reasons of evangelization. Obviously there was a time when people found Augustine’s explanation to be sufficient, basically from the fourth century to the Enlightenment. That’s a good run, but not only does it not speak to modern ears, it repels them. 

Is there a better way to get the point across without vitiating the deeper point of the doctrine? What is essential and what is merely symbolic? What is at the center and what is at the human margin?

Let’s briefly review what the Catechism teaches, and find out exactly how much wiggle room we have. Already on p. 97 there’s a hint of how to approach the subject, where it implies that man’s fall cannot be understood outside the context of his redemption. You could even say that the fall is a kind of backshadow of salvation: man minus redemption = fallenness, and Genesis 3 is just a way to symbolize it.

I’ll have more to say about that, but I was immediately reminded of Rodney Bomford’s The Symmetry of God, which has a lot of ideas about nonlinear logic that I couldn’t do without (https://www.amazon.com/Symmetry-God-Rodney-Bomford/dp/1853434388/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3B65GQNZ88SPC&keywords=rodney+bomford&qid=1673034532&sprefix=rodney%2520bomford%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1). 

Backing up a bit, the book is based on the ideas of a psychoanalyst called Ignacio Matte Blanco, who essentially formalized the logic of the unconscious, which operates along very different lines than the usual Aristotelian logic. 

Dreams, for example, may appear illogical, but Matte Blanco showed that they merely obey a different kind of logic whereby, for example, your boss can suddenly turn into your father, or your wife into your mother. I hate when that happens. (I wonder if this is the basis of people imagining they're the opposite sex?)

Anyway, Bomford came along and applied Matte Blanco’s theories to the vertical dimension, or at least made a first stab at it. I don’t agree with everything he says, but it is undoubtedly a fruitful avenue for a host of otherwise insoluble problems. Indeed, what if certain parts of scripture are more like a dream than a documentary? If it’s the latter, then we will find ourselves mired in unthinkability at some rather key junctures.

Note that, among other things, we are trying to talk about the eternal and infinite within the constraints of time and finitude, which is bound to generate paradox if we limit ourselves to the asymmetrical logic of Aristotle:

If we take these literally we distort them into a kind of false fact. If we treat them as mere fictions we undercut their seriousness. There is a way of respecting the truth of the myth that falls into neither error.

Moreover, it’s not a matter of either/or but both/and: the combination of symmetrical and asymmetrical logic is called bilogic.  

I wonder if Bomford addresses Adam and Eve? Yes. For example, he suggests that Adam naming the animals symbolizes the acquisition of asymmetrical logic, as he essentially makes the transition from a kind of ontological fusion to “becoming aware of the distinctions of the many.” 

But at the same time, Adam -- like anyone else -- longs for a return to that happy and conflict-free world of symmetry. There’s no way back (short of a heroic dose of LSD), but there is a way forward into a higher unity:

The longing of Adam for one with whom he may be one is the longing of the particular for a return to the unity of the One. This return is not a direct return to the One, but a return to the One through another -- for their mutual harmony will be expressive of the symmetry of the One, while at the same time their particularity will not be done away with.

Which sounds suspiciously like what goes on in the Trinity, but let’s not jump to a different subject. This is blogging, not dreaming. Or rather, both.

Now, Adam and Eve are situated in “paradise,” and

This unimaginable perfection has to us a dream-like quality. We are still in a world dominated by symmetry. There is one discordant note, however: God has issued a very clear and asymmetrical command, one which in no way incorporates its opposite. [In symmetrical logic, opposites can coexist in the same object; for example, think of how things like justice and mercy are perfectly reconciled in God, indeed, because they were never "de-conciled.”] 

Man disobeys and yada yada, he falls into

a hostile world of real things. From this point on, the conflicts between the dream of harmonious symmetry and the reality of struggle between the particulars of creation will haunt humankind.

Now, in the atemporal world of symmetrical logic, what we call “past” and “future” can be copresent or even reversed, as can causality. Therefore, the present can be caused by the future, and back to what I said at the outset, it is possible to look at our “past" fall in light of our “future” redemption.

We’re just getting started, so don’t jump to any conclusions.