First, a word about God as Creator. God the Father, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, did not retire 5,772 years ago. Quite to the contrary, God’s creative work is an ever present reality. God is not just the First Cause who in antiquity, at the beginning of time, set things in motion and then retired to a beach somewhere in the South Pacific. The Psalmist is quite correct in declaring that “It was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” And also “I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.” [Psalm 139: 13-14, NRSV)
The more I learn about the creation of a human being within its mother’s womb, the more I marvel at the goodness of God’s creation. Imagine, from one fertilized ovum, the explosions of cells dividing and redividing. At maturity, trillions of cells make up the human body. We begin with stem cells, as yet generic in nature, and then the process of differentiation and association unfolds. Brain cells, bone cells, skin cells, muscle cells, cells that form the circulatory system, the digestive system, the nervous system, each emerging in their distinctive form. Not only do these cells differentiate but they associate, aligning themselves in this incredible matrix of relationships that is life. And then, in that right moment, through the birth canal the baby travels to awaken to the light of life, and to breathe the first breath of life.
Tov! Tov! Tov! Tov Meod! This is the shout of joy shared by parents at that moment. It is the shout of joy of the Creator that continually echoes throughout the universe.
The doctrine of original sin has numerous weaknesses. First, it tends to restrict God’s splendid and “good” creative work to the beginning of time, and then asserts that because of the Fall, all subsequent occasions for the birth of new life are corrupted, possessing an “innate disease” and are condemned “to God’s eternal wrath”[1]. To reject this, the Augsburg Confession says is “insulting [to] the suffering and merit of Christ.”
However, if rejecting the doctrine of original sin is insulting to the suffering and merit of Christ, affirming the doctrine of original sin is equally or even more insulting to the work and word of the Creator who declares that it is good, very good!
To put it differently, as the father of four children, I can view their life in two ways. First, that their birth is merely the result of the biological processes that have been running in an independent manner since the beginning of time. Or, I can view each one of them as a creature of God, holy and precious. If their birth is merely the result of a long line of cause and effects dating back to eternity, it is easy to postulate that something ‘went wrong’. However, to hold the newborn infant in your arms and to see in them the marvelous work of the creator, is to recognize the inherent goodness of life and the image of God in them.
For Lutherans, I believe that the corrective for an over emphasis on original sin lies in the “simul” that is so central to our theological framework. Just as we affirm the “simul justus et peccator”, simultaneously saint and sinner, so also I believe that we need to hold in tension the goodness of creation with its need for redemption. Simultaneously Good, yet incomplete.
To use my fatherhood experience as an example, at the birth of Katie, Dieter, Jens, and Brita there was both an awareness of the fundamental goodness of this new life, held in my arms, and yet also an anticipation of all that was yet to come as their lives unfolded. Without denying the goodness of what God had created, I was also aware of the capacity for both good and evil as their lives unfolded. So it is with God, who can look at all that has been created and declare unequivocally “It is very good” and yet also anticipate the challenges that will lie ahead for this new creature. But, the capacity for evil does not negate the inherent goodness of God’s creation. “Tov! Tov! Tov! Tov Meod!” still rings loud and clear throughout the universe.
[1]Kolb, Robert ; Wengert, Timothy J. ; Arand, Charles P.: The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Minneapolis : Fortress Press, 2000, S. 38
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