Editing The Problem of Pain (section)

=== The Fall of Man ===
Lewis explains how the Christian answer to human wickedness is the doctrine of the [[Fall of man|Fall]]: "Man is now a horror to God and to himself and a creature ill-adapted to the universe not because God made him so but because he has made himself so by the abuse of his free will."

He details two "sub-Christian" theories which the doctrine of the Fall guards against: [[Monism#Christianity|Monism]] and [[Dualism_in_cosmology#In_Christianity_and_other_Abrahamic_religions|Dualism]]. The first saying God, being above good and evil, produces impartially the effects to which we call good and evil. The second saying there’s an equal and independent power that produces evil.

Lewis says that he doesn’t think the doctrine of the Fall answers whether it was better for God to create or not to create. Or if it is ‘just’ to punish individuals for the faults of their remote ancestors.

He then reviews the story from [[Book_of_Genesis#Primeval_history_(chapters_1–11)|Genesis]] 3 and follows it with an argument saying that we cannot call our early ancestors more ‘savage’ than we are today. He gives a defense of civilizations past and says they were probably just as civilized like us but in different ways.

He concludes that science has nothing to say against the doctrine of the Fall, but acknowledges a more philosophical problem. That the idea of sin presupposes a law to sin against and the first man could not commit the first sin. Lewis points out though that the doctrine doesn’t say the sin was a social sin but a sin against God, an act of disobedience. Lewis says, "We must look for the great sin on a deeper and more timeless level than that of social morality." 

Lewis shares how [[Saint Augustine]] called this sin Pride and all humans face it when they become aware of God as God and itself as self. He gives a few illustrations of this choice then paints a picture of what he guesses actually happened when Man fell.

After his illustration, Lewis says, "the act of self-will on the part of the creature, which constitutes an utter falseness to its creaturely position, is the only sin that can be conceived as the Fall". God then began "ruling" Man not by the laws of the spirit but by the laws of nature. Therefore, the human spirit moved from being the master of human nature to become a mere lodger or prisoner in its own house. Lewis then says this condition was passed down biologically. He says that our present condition is because we are a part of a spoiled species, not that we’re suffering for the rebellion of remote ancestors.

Lewis says that his explanation is shallow for he has said nothing about the trees of life and knowledge of good and evil, and nothing about what the apostle [[Paul the Apostle|Paul]] has said on the subject. He also uses an analogy to [[quantum physics]] in that when we try to draw illustrations we are moving further away from reality. He does use an example from the Old Testament to show how original sin might have been passed down if we take a more communal/societal view of things. He sums up the chapter by saying "man, as a species, spoiled himself, and that good, to us in our present state, must therefore mean primarily remedial or corrective good".