12. Why was the Fall permitted—why, indeed?
It was “permitted,” That is to say, tolerated, suffered as contrary to
the divine will, and endured by God as an offense against him. At the very
moment of temptation, God offered to help man, to succor him by an initial grace
that man was able to refuse and, in fact, did refuse. If man wills to persist
in resistance to God, he can do so, but the “Permission” is by no means an
authorization. As Ozanam said, “When man is no longer great to do the will of God,
God leaves him to his own devices, and catastrophe results.”
God allowed the Fall to come about. But what
else could he subsequently do than forgive man? He promised to help him, yet
not to return him to the earthly paradise. In Eastern theology we sometimes
meet with the idea that man, at the end of time, will recover a state like that
of the Garden of Eden (we see it in the beautiful Récits d’un pèlerin russe);
the human adventure will, in some way, come full circle. But it is not to be.
It is not in keeping with the divine power and goodness simply to restore man
to his first state; according to the Carmelite school of Salamanca, it would
even be cruel to allow such a catastrophe, in case it should turn out to be
useless.
Why then, did God permit, why did he tolerate
the Fall? To build up, out of the ruins of the first universe, the universe of
Adam’s grace, the “universe of creation,” one more sublime, more mysterious,
more divine, the “universe of Christian grace,” the “universe of redemption.” The
first universe was centered on Adam, who was wholly man and should never have
known death. The second universe is centered on Christ, who is God, who knew
death and all its bitterness, so as to enter on his Resurrection. In the first
universe, evil had no share; in the second, the effect of evil, immense as it
is, is overcome by a love that is greater still.
13. These mysteries are made known to us not
only in the great theology of St. Augustine and St. Thomas but are already expressed
in the liturgy of the Greek Fathers.
IN one of the magnificent prayers of the
Easter Vigil—omitted in the new liturgy—we find the words: “O God, who didst
wonderfully create man, and still more wonderfully redeem him. . . .” It is the
same theme as that of the Exultet: “O wonderful tendencies of love! To
redeem the slave, you gave your Son. O truly necessary sin of Adam that Christ’s
death came to destroy! O blessed fault, which gained us such and so great a Redeemer!”
St. Cyril of Alexander writes:” The first age of human life was indeed holy in
our father, Adam. But holier still is the last age, that of the second Adam,
Christ, who has regenerated our fallen race by newness of life in the Spirit.”
The finest description is that of St. Francis
of Sales:
Our loss has been gain to us, since in fact,
human nature has received more grace by the Redemption of its Savior than it
would ever have received through Adam’s innocence had he continued therein. For
although divine Providence has left in man great marks of severity amid the
very grace of its mercy, as, for example, the necessity of dying, diseases,
labors, the revolt of sensuality, yet the divine favor hovering over all these
is pleased to turn all these miseries to the greater profit of those who love
him, causing patience to issue from toil, scorn of the world from the necessity
of dying, and a thousand victories from concupiscence; and, as the rainbow
touching the Aspalathus-thorn makes it smell more sweetly than the lily, so the
redemption of our Lord touching our miseries make them more useful and
desirable than original innocence would ever have been. The angels have more
joy in heaven, says our Lord, over one penitent sinner than over ninety-nine
just that have no need of repentance. In the same way, the state of redemption
is worth a hundred times more than that of innocence. It is certain that, sprinkled
as we are with our Lord’s blood by the hyssop of the cross, we have been
restored to a purity incomparably more excellent than that of the snow of innocence.
. . .
Such, then, was the first existential state f
grace, as compared with what it now is. (Charles Journet, The Meaning of
Grace [trans. A. V. Littledale; Scepter Publishers, Inc., 1996], 89-91)
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