The Fall and the Ascent of Man: How Genesis Supports Darwin's Theory of Evolution - Exploring Science and Faith in Modern Christianity

Fitzpatrick marshals formidable arguments against the traditional Augustinian interpretation of the opening chapter of 'Genesis' and then proposes a radically different reading of the chapter which, he claims, not only saves us from having to suspend our knowledge of science and history, but is truer to the Bible and deepens our understanding of the work of Christ. In Fitzpatrick's interpretation, Chapter 3 is considered in the context of the first 10 chapters of Genesis. These introduce God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and Chapter 3 tells how human beings, having been formed out of earth and had life breathed into them, became fully human and differentiated from other animals. They acquired an attribute peculiar to God, knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 3 is part of a narrative of passage from childhood to adulthood not of an individual but of a whole species. In primitive societies this transition is often spoken of as the death of the child. Here it has three levels: at the biological level it is passage from animal life to the life of human beings who work and have proper names; at the moral level it is an advance from infantile dependence on God to responsibility; at the theological level it is the change from worship of nature to worship of a person outside the natural order who is the source of it. The crucial moment is when human beings acquire the ability to make conscious practical judgements, or in the Bible's words, "knowledge of good and evil". The story is completed only in Chapter 9 when, after a period of disorder - fratricide, dubious sexual unions and so forth - God starts making covenants with human beings.To support his interpretation Fitzpatrick draws on the work of anthropologists, notably Mary Douglas, and on the Epic of Gilgamesh. Fitzpatrick writes in a style, unpretentious but not humourless, which is easy to read. He endeavours to win over doubters, not to crush them. He is generous to his opponents, and the way in which he develops his arguments, coming back to his conclusions from different angles, seems to me most admirable.