Part I: Theory

1. Introduction

When the Church and theology speak of original sin, they almost invariably focus on Adam’s transgression. It is well described in the Scripture and bears direct relevance to our human story and fate.

Yet apart from the human fall, there was another, one discussed far less frequently: the fall of the angels.

A portion of the good spirits consciously chose evil, or freedom from God, and thus became evil. We call them demons, devils, and so on.

Based on Revelation 12:4 (“…it swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth”), it is commonly believed that one third of all the spirits fell. This, however, is not a dogma: the passage may be figurative and refer to something else.

2. Timeline

We can state with confidence that the fall of angels happened before the fall of man. God created them first, and since spirits exist outside of time, their transgression – from the perspective of an observer within the flow of time – occurred instantaneously.

Many Fathers and scholastics held that angels came into being before the physical cosmos. But even if God created both spirits and matter in a single act, the angels’ fall still took place before the very first “tick” of time, however infinitesimal that tick may have been.

This means that the entire history of Creation – except, perhaps, its moment zero – unfolded under the gaze of two wills. One was omnipotent and good: that of God and the good angels. The other was malignant, yet limited and subordinate.

The Book of Genesis confirms this. The newly created humans are innocent and unaware, yet the serpent who comes to them is already clearly “well practiced” in evil.

Unlike humans, spirits make their choice once, forever, and with full knowledge of its consequences. Therefore, it is impossible for any spirit to fall or to repent after the primordial fall.

The main conclusion we should draw from all this: we should not assume that it was we humans who “invented” evil, as though everything before us had been perfect. For all our flaws, we were not the pioneers.

3. Divergence

How are these two falls related: the original sin of humanity and the primordial sin of the angels?

First of all, it must be said that the sin of the spirits made the sin of man possible, but not inevitable.

There is a causality here, but an indirect one. Despite the introduction of evil into the world and the serpent’s temptation, the sole direct cause of our sin remains the free choice of the human will.

To proceed further, we need to choose a model of cosmology. The Church permits two main approaches, evolutionism and creationism, without proclaiming either of them to be the only correct one.

I do not hold a firm view on which of the two is right: honestly, I do not consider this question particularly important. Therefore, I have “no horse in this race,” and because of that, I hope to maintain an objective outlook.

So, we must consider both.

4. Evolutionism

According to this view, the Earth formed billions of years before humans, and for most of that time it harbored life.

While nature itself does not possess moral categories, from a human perspective it was a cruel mistress. These were billions years of suffering, disease, hunger and mutual predation: a cycle of innumerable deaths.

However, Scripture says (Wisdom 1:13): “God did not make death,
and he does not delight in the death of the living.”

If so, such a state of nature did not fully align with God’s design. Where, then, did death come from – long before a man and our sin? And moreover, death so omnipresent that it became an integral mechanism of the biosphere?

Obviously, we must accept that God’s perfect design was, to some extent, distorted.

A tragic, yet coherent picture then emerges. The sin of the demons introduced evil into the world and damaged everything, including the laws of the cosmos: not in their essence, but in their operation.

The structure of created being began to doom matter to decay, and all living things to eventual death.

It is crucial here not to slip into dualism and assume that demons were capable of creating or innovating anything whatsoever. No, their efforts were limited only to corrupting what God had created. And even that – only within the bounds of divine Providence.

Consider a chair with a fracture in its structure. The chair remains good in itself, yet defective “in some respect,” since the fracture impairs its function.

Likewise, the deeds of demons did not annul the fact that Creation was, and fundamentally remained, “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Such a fracture possesses neither creative nor ontological power. Evil is always, so to speak, parasitic upon the good. The chair can perfectly well exist without the fracture, whereas the fracture cannot exist on its own.

This is why in the future the cosmos will be able to rid itself of evil without losing anything of the fullness of being.

5. Place of Man

Millions of years of life, and of suffering, culminated in the appearance of Homo sapiens. The Church affirms the so-called monogenism of the soul: while the human body could have been subject to evolutionary processes, the rational consciousness was created by a single, direct act of God.

In this sense, there never existed a half-conscious proto-human, although our physical ancestry may well have been animal.

If so, it becomes clear why the Garden of Eden was necessary. God placed the newly created human beings into a special, separated space, sheltering them from fangs, claws, and decay.

By divine power, Eden was exempt from the general wound of the universe, which imposed death upon all things.

The original “Plan A” of salvation may well have implied that humans, the Gardeners of Eden, were to expand this sanctuary through their labor: gradually leading animals into it, enlarging its borders, and incorporating more and more territories until it encompassed the whole Earth, or even the entire cosmos.

However, humanity failed the test of loyalty, and God set in motion “Plan B” of salvation. To this day, we live within its framework.

On the basis of this perspective, we may propose a non-standard yet permissible interpretation of Genesis 4:4, where Abel “brought of the firstlings of his flock.”

This need not imply their slaughter. It may instead signify that he brought them to the gates of Eden, intending to lead them into a place free from suffering. In doing so, Abel attempted to restore humanity’s original vocation: to heal and transform the world.

An objection to this reading is the addition “and of their fat portions” in the RSV-CE. Yet this phrase is sometimes rendered differently, for example as “and the fattest of them.”

Moreover, in favor of this version stands the fact that only after the Flood did God explicitly permit humans to eat animal flesh and establish rules governing its taking (Genesis 9:1–7).

It would seem strange for the gentle Abel to tend sheep without eating them, only to kill them – and to do so without any direct divine authorization.

By contrast, it is reasonable to suppose that the memory of humanity’s original covenant with God was still vivid at that time, and that Abel sought to fulfill it while Eden still remained a tangible, earthly place.

It also becomes clearer why God “had respect” unto Abel’s offering but not unto Cain’s. Abel demonstrated through his act that he cared for Creation and longed to restore the original plan of salvation.

Cain, on the other hand, by bringing “the fruit of the ground,” effectively proclaimed: “we have found sustenance and can survive without You.”

Yet Abel died, and soon afterward Eden vanished from the face of the Earth.

6. An Important Conclusion

This would mean that we humans are not directly guilty of the suffering of all living beings, but are guilty indirectly. Yes, animals began to die and devour one another long before us. Yet had we adhered to “Plan A,” we could have brought their suffering to an end through our own labor.

We lost this opportunity, and our fault lies in the failure of our vocation.

Still, the direct guilt for global metaphysical evil lies neither with humanity nor with God, but with the demons.

We should blame ourselves only for our own exile, which doomed us to sickness and death.

This interpretation accords well with the evolutionary timeline.

In its favor, one may also cite Romans 5:12:

“…as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men…”

Notably, the text does not say that Adam’s sin caused the mortality of the entire Creation, but rather that humanity itself incurred mortality — a fate from which we had previously been sheltered.

Creationism offers a different perspective. Two versions of the Fall, their comparison and discussion – in Part II.