Excursus: Adam and Indebtedness as Theodicy
in the Discourse of Romans 5
The doctrine of Original Sin holds that Adam incurs a
debt of sin on behalf of all humanity, which is repaid by Christ on behalf of
all humanity. Neither of these ideas are explicitly presented in the argument
of Romans. The idea that the work of Christ repays a debt comes, not from
Romans, but from Colossians 2:14. The metaphorical language depicting sin as a
debt is found throughout Romans, but the argument never explicitly asserts that
sin was charged to everyone’s account because of Adam. The concept that every
human does, in fact, have sin charged to their account is found in such
readings by taking “all sinned” in Romans 3:23 and 5:12 literally; this charge
in turn is read as an explanation for why “death reigned from the time of Adam
to the time of Moses” (NIV), an explanation which in turn preserves the justice
of God and provides a theodicy. Various models of the means by which death is
justly dispensed to those who do not sin personally are combined with
observations of sin and punishment from Genesis 4–11 in such readings to defend
the assertion that nobody has ever died who did not accrue a debt of sin, one
way or another.
The discourse of Romans itself, however, makes a point to
emphasize that sin was not charged to anyone’s account while there was no law
(Rom 5:13) and that death reigned even over those who did not sin (Rom 5:14).
If the argument is trying to establish that sin is charged to every account on
behalf of Adam and that nobody ever died who did not sin, these caveats seem
counterproductive. The discourse also offers no explanation as to why
those who did not sin and were not charged with sin were subject to death; the
state of affairs is simply presented as a truism. Therefore the discourse also
does not offer a defence for the justice of God.
The rhetorical point of Adam in Romans 5 (and again in
1Cor 15:21–22) is not theodicy, but rather typology.502 According to the
economy of debt in Judaism, the one who sins is the one who dies (see §3.c.2)
and conversely the one who is virtuous is the one who lives. In this economy,
one practices virtue—meaning the debt is repaid—by obeying the Torah, whatever
that specifically entails. Paul, on the other hand, is about to argue that the
Torah is not sufficient to erase the debt (meaning save one from death, Rom
7:7–13). Fortunately, the actions of one person (Jesus) are sufficient to
provide life to those who cannot earn life for themselves, and this new economy
has a precedent in the actions of one person (Adam) who brought death to those
who did not earn death for themselves (Rom 5:17) and who is “a pattern [typos]
of the one to come” (Rom 5:14, NIV). This typological relationship is lost if
the strict theodicy of “the one who sins is the one who dies” is retained,
because Jesus’s undertaking to erase human debt is explicitly not defended by
theological models of atonement as an exercise of divine justice. If Adam is a
type of Jesus, the death that results from his actions must be unearned, by
definition, because the results of Jesus’ actions are also unearned: “We
receive alien guilt in Adam but alien righteousness in Christ.” If Adam
supplies a theodicy, the death that results from of his actions must be earned,
also by definition, because merit is the proof of justice. The language of
typology, the explicit mention of sin not charged to anyone’s account and of
death for those who did not sin, all presented in a context whose main
rhetorical point is that forgiveness of debt cannot be earned, collectively
suggest that the emphasis of the discourse of Romans 5 is on typology rather
than on theodicy. (Jonathan Harvey Walton, “Knowing
Good and Evil: Values and Presentation in Genesis 2-4”
[PhD Thesis; University of St Andrews, 2023], 116-17)
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