Deo Gratias
The story of the Fall in Genesis 3 almost eclipses in its power and influence the intellectual grandeur of the pageant of creation in Genesis 1 and the gentle intimacy of the creation story of Genesis 2 that affirm the essential goodness of everything in creation and establish the dignity of our humanity in its relation to both God and everything else. The story of the Fall connects most clearly to the account of Michael and his angels fighting the dragon, “that old serpent, called the devil and Satan,” and overcoming them. Unde malum? From where does evil come? This is the question to which Genesis 3speaks so powerfully and movingly. But I have set for myself a problem. How to connect this story with the theme of this week, the theme of thanksgiving?
Perhaps through a wonderful 15th century English lyric. “Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond, Four thousand winter thoughte he not too long;/ And al was for an apple, an apple that he took,/As clerkes finden writen, writen in their book./ Ne hadde the apple taken been, the apple taken been,/ Ne hadde nevere Oure Lady ybeen hevene Queen./Blessed be the time that apple taken was:/ Therfore we moun singen Deo Gratias.” It is a recounting of the story of the Fall.
There it is. Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God for this story, for the Fall of our humanity from an original harmony and unity with God and the created order. What can that mean? O felix culpa, which means O blessed fault or fall. The carol is a commentary on Genesis 3 but is arguing a profound and ancient theological idea well expressed by Augustine to the effect that God wills to bring good out of evil rather than not to have evil at all. A greater good is realized through the pageant of redemption which this chapter inaugurates, pointing us in the Christian understanding to Mary and Christ.
The point is poignant and clear and counters once again all the forms of dualism, ancient and contemporary that divide the world into opposed principles and hold us in thrall to the oppositional narratives that bedevil our discourse. God and God alone can bring good out of evil but that requires an account of evil which is what Genesis 3 undertakes to provide. The serpent, later understood as the devil, the great dragon, the tempter, the deceiver, Satan, is here presented as asking the first question of the Bible. “Did God say?” He asks the woman who tells us exactly what God indeed did say about not eating the fruit – no mention of any apple by the way. That probably came about through the influence of the Greek story of ‘the apple of discord.’ The serpent’s response reveals the problem with his question. It is meant to insinuate doubt not contribute to truth. “You will not die but your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil.” The first part is not true – about not dying – the second part is true – about knowing good and evil; in short, half truths. Like God, yes, but we will know good and evil experientially and not simply intellectually as God does.
But only if we are brought to account and discover that we have separated ourselves from the goodness of creation and the goodness of God in his word and commandment. “Homo incurvatus in se.” Man as turned inwardly upon himself turns away from God. Our relation to everything changes. There is death, and suffering and sorrow and loss. There is work. We no longer have an innocent and harmonious relation to the world. At the end of Genesis 2, our humanity is said to be naked but not ashamed. But now?
The questions of God, the first questions of God to our humanity, are these three. “Where are you?” God asks of us. It is not as if he doesn’t know. It has entirely to do with how we confront ourselves and are brought to account. The man explains. “Who told thee that thou wast naked?” God asks, and the man explains what has transpired, convicting himself at the same time as blaming “the woman whom you gave to be with me.” To her God asks, “what is this that thou hast done?” She replies“the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” The sequence of questions convict our consciences but only because we have discovered ourselves through separation as self-conscious beings, self-aware of our bodies and the sexual differences between men and women. We have fallen away through disobedience from what we know as good and true in the form of God’s commandment. But we have also fallen upward into another form of knowing. The knowledge of our separation does not change the nature of our dependence upon God and the created order. It only affects our relation to the truth.
We discover ourselves in contradiction to the conditions of our being but this marks the beginning of the long and great pageant of redemption in which we learn, if ever we will, of a greater good, the goodness of God in overcoming all and every form of evil, cosmic and mundane.
As the carol suggests there is even more to be thankful to God because of the overcoming of sin and evil. This carries over into our Harvest Thanksgiving festivals which honour God as creator and redeemer. The fruits of the Harvest are brought into the Church in recognition of God as Creator upon whom nature and human labour depend. Through the sweat of our brow, through human labour working with the good order of creation, there can be the joy of harvest, the taking delight in the good things of the world and our engagement with it.
“Of ourselves we can only sin,” Augustine famously said. But the truest and freest act of our humanity is found in giving thanks. It is entirely us and entirely God and the awareness of his goodness in us. It is a turning back from having turned away. It happens because of the wonder of this story in which the questions of God call us to account. And for that we may sayDeo Gratias.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy