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Raymund Schwager: Integrating the

Fall and Original Sin with Evolutionary
Theory
Jonathan Chappell
Published online: 23 May 2012.
To cite this article: Jonathan Chappell (2012) Raymund Schwager: Integrating the Fall
and Original Sin with Evolutionary Theory, Theology and Science, 10:2, 179-198, DOI:
10.1080/14746700.2012.669950
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Theology and Science, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2012
Raymund Schwager: Integrating the Fall and Original

Sin with Evolutionary Theory
JONATHAN CHAPPELL
Abstract Ever since Darwin, the attempt to reconcile the historical Fall and Original Sin with
Downloaded by [David García-Ramos Gallego] at 13:24 02 October 2014
evolutionary theory has been one of the most intractable problems facing theology and science.
Whilst there have certainly been numerous efforts to tackle this problem, the attempt by Raymund
Schwager to develop a synthesis between the two is worthy of careful attention because it offers by far
the most systematic attempt which has heretofore been made to harmonize the Fall with evolution.
However, while Schwager’s solution is both innovative and challenging, it nonetheless has
consequences which are problematic for both science and Christian theology.
Key words: Raymund Schwager; Religion and science; Evolutionary theory; Original sin
and evolution; Problem of evil
Though there have certainly been numerous attempts to address the problem of
the Fall and Original Sin in the light of evolution, Banished From Eden: Original Sin
and Evolutionary Theory,1 by the late Jesuit theologian, Raymund Schwager (1935–
2004), is worthy of careful attention because it offers by far the most com-
prehensive and systematic attempt that has hitherto been made to reconcile the
historical Fall with evolutionary theory.
Michael Ruse observes in his book, Can A Darwinian Be A Christian?,2 that the
most intractable question of all for the Christian believer is the ‘‘theodicy’’
problem: if God is truly omnibenevolent, how could He create a world so replete
with pain and suffering? Since Christianity’s inception, theologians have
appealed to the account of the Fall in the opening chapters of Genesis for an
answer to this apparent conundrum. As Genesis 1 affirms, the world was indeed
created good by God, and its wondrous complexity and beauty stand as
perennial testimony to the essential goodness of God’s created order. Mankind,
although created good, has nonetheless rejected God, and that rejection resulted
in the Fall that is the source of our pain and suffering. The account in Genesis 2
and 3 thus holds that the etiology of this suffering lies with our first ancestors’
violation of God’s will. Expelled from the terrestrial paradise of Eden, human
beings were condemned to an existence of toil, suffering and mortality. It is
therefore we, not God, who are responsible for human suffering, and our
ISSN 1474-6700 print/ISSN 1474-6719 online/12/020179-20

ª 2012 Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2012.669950
180 Theology and Science
amphibious nature, created in God’s image and yet fallen, derives from this
pivotal primordial event.
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has, however, cast serious
doubt upon the historicity of the Fall and original sin. In contrast to traditional
Christian thinking about the origin of suffering, the theory of evolution holds
that natural evil and pain are an inevitable and necessary part of the mechanism
of natural selection. Pace the doctrine of the Fall, Darwinism tells us that
biological death, painful mutations, and the struggle for survival are integral to
the whole evolutionary process. The ‘‘nature red in tooth and claw’’ vision of
Darwinism has thus created an acute and enduring problem for Christian
theology.
Original sin, the Enlightenment and the problem of evil
In Banished From Eden,3 Schwager begins his audacious attempt to reconcile

original sin and evolution by acknowledging that human beings are responsible
for much of the evil that exists in this world. The crucial question, however, is:
What is the source of this inclination towards violence and conflict? Schwager
argues that, in its urgent concern to exonerate the good creator God of
responsibility for evil, the religion of Israel gradually developed the idea that an
original sin had occurred at the dawn of human civilization. Furthermore, via the
work of St Paul and St Augustine, who systematized a peculiarly narrow concept
of ‘‘original sin,’’ such ideas also exerted a powerful influence over centuries of
European history and culture.4
However, major dissatisfaction with the doctrine began to be expressed in the
eighteenth century, when Enlightenment thinkers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
repudiated the claim that human beings are inherently flawed. The sense of crisis
surrounding the traditional doctrine of original sin was intensified, Schwager
claims, by the theory of evolution, which raised serious questions concerning the
legitimacy of literalistic readings of Genesis. As a result of these various objections,
Schwager claims that the doctrine of original sin poses considerable difficulties for
many contemporary Christians. The key challenge for modern theology, then,
Schwager maintains, is how to present the doctrine of original sin in a form that is
intellectually respectable in the modern age.5
Two aspects of original sin
Before embarking on an exploration of these issues, Schwager emphasizes the

importance of clearly distinguishing between two elements that constitute the
Church’s dogma of original sin: 1) peccatum originale originans (i.e., the ‘‘Fall’’)—
which refers to original sin as the first sin committed by the first humans
(Genesis 3); and 2) peccatum originale originatum—which refers to the
ensuing consequences for the whole human race of that first act of primal
disobedience.
Original Sin and Evolutionary Theory 181
The importance of the historicity of the primal Fall
In his consideration of peccatum originale originans, Schwager recognizes that the

early chapters of Genesis have, particularly since the rise of critical historical
scholarship in the nineteenth century, been regarded as largely mythological.
However, while Schwager acknowledges that it is important to affirm that the
narrative contains elements which should clearly be construed in symbolic terms,
he argues that, in order to retain a coherent theodicy, it is necessary to account for
the origin in time of moral evil, and this commits us to ascribing a historical
nucleus to the Fall.6
For Schwager, this means affirming that the peccatum originale originans must
have come from a singular, freely willed act of disobedience that occurred at the
dawn of human civilization. But just how, from an evolutionary perspective,

could such an event have come about? Schwager admits that any attempt at
historical reconstruction will necessarily be speculative. However, he argues that it
is possible to sketch primordial events by means of what he calls ‘‘aetiological
retrospection‘‘7 from later experiences and from the uncovering of sin through
Christ.8
The nature of the Fall
Although Schwager is keen to uphold the historicity of the fall, he recognizes that
the theory of evolution has radically undermined the traditional (Augustinian)
reading of Genesis, which spoke of the complete graced integrity of the first
human couple. Thus, in a major concession to evolutionary theory, Schwager
embraces the modern view that the first Homo sapiens were not free from natural
physical death, and he asserts that Genesis only claims that they were free from
violent death.9
In support of this contention, Schwager points out that, in Genesis 2:17, God
declared the first humans would die if they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil. However, when the punishments are given, following the first sin,
what is notably absent is death. Adam does not die; if fact, according to Genesis
5:3, he went on to live for 930 years.
For Schwager, the solution to this puzzling situation is to be found in Chapter 4
of Genesis, which reveals that the type of death that results from sin is violent. The
effects of sin unfold ‘‘as rivalry between brothers and reach their pinnacle in
murder.’’10 Following the mimetic theory of René Girard,11 Schwager claims that,
as the narrative of Cain’s murder of Abel makes clear, it is envy that leads to
fratricide.12
In a further attempt to place his thesis within an evolutionary framework,
Schwager argues that, as creation is an ongoing process, the process of the
constitution of humans was not fully completed with hominization.13 He contends
that, under the guidance of divine inspiration, ‘‘humans developed out of a group
of higher animals,’’ and were ‘‘led experientially to an intensive, yet provisionally
still implicit, elimination of limits on the horizons of consciousness’’—a process
that would have led eventually to the explicit apprehension of full human
consciousness.14
However, when the members of the group absorbed that experience, they shied
away from both the intensity of communication and its mysteriousness. Rather
than allowing themselves to be transformed by the mysterious Presence, they
clung to the instincts of their violent (animalistic) past, and used the gift they had
received as a means of self-assertion.15 The invitation to cooperation thus took a
negative turn, and was characterized by negative communion (which took the
form of what Schwager, following René Girard, calls a ‘‘scapegoating mob’’) in
which members of the group itself became victims.16
Variations on primordial sin
How might this primordial scene be more precisely described? Schwager proposes
three alternative scenarios, in which ‘‘he positions himself at the moment of
hominization and looks from there backwards into evolution and forwards into
salvation history.’’17
First variant
The intense experience that accompanied self-transcendence in the moment of

hominization occurred during the sexual union of two animals. Such a new
mystical experience should have resulted in a gradual ascent towards noetic
illumination. However, this did not occur, and instead led to the ‘‘divinization’’ of
sexuality.18
Second variant
The birth of the new illumination of consciousness that accompanied hominiza-

tion took place during intensive forms of common feeding.19
Third variant
On a particular occasion, ‘‘while jointly hunting or engaging in a kind of ‘war of

the chimpanzees’,’’20 the unified group was struck by an awe-inspiring
premonition in the face of the stricken prey or victim. Unfortunately, a negative
development commenced, and killing itself was increasingly experienced as an
awe-inspiring, fascinating (sacred) act.21
Schwager concedes that it is impossible to determine with any certitude which
scenario is closest to historical reality, and argues that it is likely that, as part of a
long-term process, all three elements played a significant role in the peccatum
originale originans.
The peccatum originale originatum or the transmission of original sin
After attempting to establish that the peccatum originale originans was an

historical event that resulted from a singular, freely willed act of disobedience on
the part of a group of early human beings, Schwager next addresses the issue of
the peccatum originale originatum, the mechanism by which the enduring effects of
the Fall are transmitted (in the form of ‘‘original sin’’) to all subsequent human
generations. As a Catholic theologian, Schwager is mindful of the fact that the
Council of Trent (1545–1563) officially promulgated the dogma that original sin
is transmitted via generation/reproduction ( propagatione) and not via imitation
(imitatione).22
From an evolutionary perspective, however, such an antithesis between nature
and freedom is, Schwager argues, rather problematic. It is therefore necessary,

Schwager insists, to challenge this (false) dichotomy between nature and
freedom—one which, he maintains, has no basis in modern science. The work
of René Girard is, he argues, crucial for establishing the point that there need be no
necessary division in our understanding of how original sin is transmitted
between reproduction (nature) and imitation (freedom).
Moreover, this view concerning the role of imitation is, Schwager maintains,
supported by evidence from modern evolutionary theory, which suggests that ‘‘all
information in a living cell is stored in the DNA molecule, and the ability of this
molecule to create copies of itself belongs to the basic character of living
processes.’’23 Even the capacity to imitate is developed, after several intermediate
steps, out of the fundamental ability to copy. Furthermore, for Schwager, the
capacity to imitate shapes the lives of the higher mammals—the apes in
particular—and is, he argues (quoting from Bresch), ‘‘the unconditional
prerequisite for the beginning of language.’’24
This new capacity for imitation reveals, Schwager argues, the possibility of
transmitting ‘‘earlier events’’ not simply by means of the genetic code, but directly
from one member of the species to the other and, successively, from one
generation to the next.25
A new meaning of ‘‘hereditary transmission’’
In developing his thesis that reproduction and imitation should not be perceived
as dualistic opposites, Schwager also enlists the support of other scholars, such as
A. Tomatis,26 whose theory, Schwager claims, illustrates the ‘‘unity of the bodily
and spiritual components in linguistic communication . . . and posits this process as
beginning in the mother’s womb, indeed already in the process of procreation.’’27
Tomatis argues that, since human beings in the earliest stages of their
embryological life are highly susceptible to environmental influences, it is
plausible to conclude that disturbances at the beginning of their development
have a particularly powerful effect.28 In the initial process of communication, he
argues, aggressive elements have an impact on further growth and may even
‘‘enter into’’ the physical and psychic structure of an organism. Schwager argues,
following Tomatis, that ‘‘evil migrates thus from generation to generation, and so
it is understandable that people may speak of ‘hereditary transmission’.’’29
This notion further aids our understanding of how original sin is passed on
because, Schwager contends, if, since the Fall, the human race has had a negative
imprint on its development, this suggests that man is afflicted by a ‘‘basic desire
that from the very beginning drives beyond all individual needs and is of an
unbounded, metaphysical kind’’.30 Thus, Schwager maintains, man is indeed born
a victim of his primordial ancestors’ violence and aggression, and, as a
consequence, his ‘‘unbounded desiring’’ becomes diverted from God, its authentic
purpose.31
Organisms of creatures as ‘‘living memories’’
Recent developments in evolutionary theory, Schwager argues, further support

the hypothesis that original sin can be transmitted via hereditary means. Indeed,
since the work of Haeckel, he claims, ‘‘the biogenic principle, according to which
ontogeny (¼ development of the embryo) recapitulates phylogeny (¼history of the
people or race) in a reduced manner, has played a significant role.’’32 As a result of
this work, Schwager claims, ‘‘the organisms of creatures’’ are, in contemporary
scientific thought, increasingly being conceived of as ‘‘living memories’’; and ‘‘this
holds in fact both for the history of the human race and the history of the
cosmos.’’33
Specifically, Schwager maintains, human beings themselves continue to be
determined by events that occurred in the formative stages of the Earth; this is
borne out by the work of J. Klima,34 which holds that, as the basic structure of the
genetic code is similar for all living organisms, all life which currently exists on
Earth stemmed from ‘‘a single primordial cell and extends the memory of its origin
until today through this uniform code.’’36 Accordingly, ‘‘at ever new levels we see
that organisms living today have a ‘memory’ that extends back to determinative
events and ‘bifurcations’ in the earlier history of the cosmos and of life.’’35 If, as this
evidence suggests, human beings, like all living things, are shaped by the
‘‘memory’’ of antecedent events that become encoded genetically, then ‘‘this
conception today is more in favour of the doctrine of original sin than against it.’’37
According to the most reliable paleontological evidence, Schwager argues, the
human brain evolved over a massive timescale—perhaps almost two million
years.38 However, if measured in terms of the time period of evolution, the
development of its neurologic morphology and cognitive capacity was exceed-
ingly rapid. In fact, Schwager asserts, ‘‘we are probably dealing here with a
singular evolutionary speed.’’39 Many scientists—such as C. Bresch—believe,
Schwager maintains, that such a striking phenomenon is directly attributable to
human aggression, and strongly suspect that reciprocal killing was a central
mechanism in the rapid development of the brain. In support of this claim,
Schwager again quotes from Bresch, who states that ‘‘It is difficult to refute the
hypothesis that humans themselves through combat with one another and
through destruction of subjugated groups were the most important instrument of
their own selection, which produced a rapid further development of their

brains.’’40
If, Schwager argues, violent altercations between groups served to accelerate the
growth of the brain, then this indicates that the evolutionary process favored the
more aggressive individuals, which, in turn, suggests that the ‘‘inclination or
disposition to kill could have thus found its way into the biological structure
within the advancing evolution.’’41 This is theologically significant because it
points to the fact that sinful behavior precipitated the growth of the brain and
shaped the further evolution of humankind.42
The great strength of the synthesis of evolution and original sin developed in
Banished From Eden lies, Schwager argues, in the fact that it ‘‘enables us to
conjoin antithetical aspects of our evolutionary world view and experience,’’
thereby overcoming the modern dualism between nature and history.43 It

upholds, on the one hand, the concern for freedom and, in so doing, provides
deeper meaning to the evolutionary worldview. And, on the other hand, it
accounts for why modes of behavior that are deemed to be ‘‘evil’’ in the animal
sphere can ‘‘reappear among us humans in sharpened form: in the animal realm
they are actually natural, but in the human realm they are evil precisely because
they have their origin in freedom as well.’’44 Accordingly, Schwager insists that
such evil committed by humans can in no way be minimized on account of their
animal past. The only hope for Man’s salvation thus lies, Schwager concludes, in
the sacrifice of the God-Man on Calvary—whose gratuitous grace will serve to
heal man’s distorted and corrupted nature and bring him to ultimate
eschatological fulfillment.45
Raymund Schwager: Critical analysis
While Schwager subscribes to a more traditional integration of the narrative of

Genesis 3 with evolution than many thinkers would wish to do, it is clear that his
synthesis constitutes a radical departure from orthodox Roman Catholic teaching
on the Fall and original sin; it is thus a remarkably audacious theological offering
on the part of a Jesuit theologian writing at the end of the twentieth century.
Indeed, as Nikolaus Wandinger46 observes, Schwager’s harmonization of the Fall
with evolutionary thought can only be attained at the cost of abandoning
important aspects of the traditional Christian worldview in general, and defined
tenets of Roman Catholic doctrine in particular.
Schwager’s view of peccatum originale originans
The traditional view concerning the graced integrity of the first humans, which
continues to be defended by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is a case in point.
The Catholic Church continues to hold that the first couple were blessed with
primordial grace and by that grace they possessed an immediate relationship with
their Creator, which freed them from concupiscence and thus endowed them
with a freedom of volition that far surpassed our own. However, in recognition of
the problematic nature of such a claim in the light of evolutionary theory,
Schwager concedes that the conditions in which the first humans evolved were, in
all probability, anything but paradisiacal. On the contrary, Schwager argues, they
were marked by the harsh laws of struggle and survival.
It is clear that such a concession to evolutionary theory on the part of a Catholic
scholar constitutes a major shift in theological thinking—and one that would not,
for example, receive the approbation of conservative modern Catholic theologians
such as Edward Holloway,47 who are keen to uphold the Church’s traditional
doctrine concerning the paradisiacal nature of Eden, no matter how problematic
such a claim may be in the light of evolution. Furthermore, Schwager’s synthesis
undermines orthodox Catholic doctrine in another important respect. His claim
that the first (pre-lapsarian) humans experienced natural physical death by virtue
of their animal nature and continuity with all other living things, clearly conflicts
with the first canon of the Synod of Carthage (418 A.D.), which states: ‘‘If any man
says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal, so that whether he sinned or
not he would have died, not as the wages of sin, but through the necessity of
nature, let him be anathema.’’48
However, as biblical exegetes such as James Barr49 have argued, Genesis 3
actually supports Schwager’s interpretation. The Genesis story, Barr contends, is
not that Adam and Eve were originally immortal. If they were, the story would
not include the statement (post apple) that if they ate from the ‘‘Tree of Life,’’ they
would then be immortal. So the narrative, Barr holds, is precisely that there is a
test, failing which Adam and Eve were excluded from eating of the ‘‘Tree of Life,’’
and thus allowed to die. Thus, if one combines the evolutionary insights of
Schwager with the biblical exegesis of Barr, it seems that a reasonable reading of
the intent of the text is as follows: those first morally accountable were subject to a
moral test. Had they passed, they would then have been kept from death.
However, they failed and so were not kept—and so the pre-Fall state of things
(including death) continued rather than being radically revised. Such a reading of
the story seems compatible with the text and also with the facts of pre-human
evolution and natural conditions.
Moreover, Schwager’s position concerning the natural death of pre-lapsarian
man also finds support from modern Catholic theologians receptive to evolution,
such as Karl Rahner. In his book, On the Theology of Death, Rahner contends that
the first human beings would have experienced some form of ‘‘corporeal
terminus,’’ even prior to the Fall.50
So far, so good. However, Schwager’s theory of peccatum originale originans is also
vulnerable to various objections, one of the most serious of which concerns his
insistence that pre-lapsarian man was immune from violent death, and only
became subject to (and the victim of) such forms of aggression after the Fall—a
claim which, he maintains, finds biblical support in the narrative of the fratricide
detailed in Genesis 4, an act that (biblically) constitutes the first murder in human
history. While on a theological level, such a claim is an understandable attempt on
the part of Schwager to uphold some sense of the idea (so crucial to Catholic
doctrine) that the Fall possessed a concrete, physical dimension, which altered not
just internal human consciousness but the external natural world itself, it is
nonetheless highly problematic in the light of evolution. For instance, it conflicts
with much of the data of paleontology, which, scholars such as Donna Hart and
Robert W. Sussman51 claim, clearly indicates the presence in the EEA (Environment
of Evolutionary Adaptation) of a multiplicity of carnivorous predators (such as
saber-tooth cats) that would, in all likelihood, have contributed to the violent
deaths of early Homo sapiens. Furthermore, evidence from anthropology and
archeology suggests that aggressive traits, which led to violent conflict and death,
existed as a perennial feature in the life of the very earliest hominids.52
Furthermore, Schwager’s claim on this point is also in danger of conflicting with
his own stated assumptions concerning the natural conditions in which pre-
lapsarian man evolved. For example, it is difficult to reconcile his contention that
Homo sapiens only experienced violent death after the Fall with his repeated claims
throughout Banished From Eden that the environment in which early man evolved
was itself characterized by the harsh laws of survival, competition and struggle,
and that one of the tasks of early man was to overcome these pre-existing animal
tendencies in human life.53 Indeed, Schwager frequently states throughout the
book that the consciousness and behavior of pre-lapsarian man was shaped by
animalistic impulses (such as selfishness, aggression and violence). Moreover, in
his ‘‘third variation on primordial sin’’54 he states quite explicitly that pre-
lapsarian Homo sapiens were engaged, not only in hunting other animals, but in a
brutal and ferocious ‘‘war of the chimpanzees’’ with each other—and cites Jane
Goodall’s tome The Chimpanzees of Gombie in support of such a claim. The work of
other scholars, such as Voland,55 is similarly enlisted by Schwager to substantiate
his contention that the violence exhibited by the earliest humans is comparable in
both scale and complexity to the brutality shown in battles between chimpanzees,
which, he claims, is without precedent in the animal world.56
Thus, in one key respect Schwager clearly contradicts himself: he first asserts
that violent death was a corollary of the Fall; however, in later passages, he states
that the conditions of violent competition and struggle (which would almost
certainly have resulted in violent death) were part of human life prior to the Fall.
Such inconsistencies, unfortunately, only serve to vitiate the plausibility of
Schwager’s overall account, and make it much harder for him to claim biblical
support (from Genesis 4) for his thesis.
Schwager’s claim that evolutionary-transmitted original sin must have come
from a singular, freely willed act of disobedience is also problematic from an
evolutionary perspective: such a literal, historical reading of the Fall is clearly
difficult to square with the notion of a gradual emergence of human consciousness
and moral awareness. Indeed, this kind of literal reading also raises problems
theologically; for, as Reinhold Niebuhr argues, ‘‘When the Fall is made an event in
history rather than a symbol of an aspect of every historical moment in the life of
man, the relation of evil to goodness in that moment is obscured.’’57 Niebuhr’s
non-historical interpretation reflects the near consensus in twentieth-century
theology, which has been to take the Fall, not as describing a change that actually
took place, but as describing a static ontological view about the inherent
imperfection of human beings.
A further difficulty, as Fraser Watts58 observes, is that Schwager too readily

assumes that Genesis 3 is about sin, despite the fact that sin is not mentioned in the
text. In contrast to Schwager’s interpretation, Watts argues that a far more
plausible reading of the text in the light of evolution would 1) place the emphasis
in Genesis 3 on the development of the knowledge of good and evil, and the
growing sense of separateness between God and humanity; and 2)see Genesis 3 as
describing broad evolutionary trends in story form, rather than referring to any
singular event that took place in the course of evolution.
Schwager’s argument would also seem, at least tacitly, to endorse polygenism—
a position that clearly conflicts with papal teaching. In the encyclical Humani
Generis, for example, Pope Pius XII examined evolution and did not exclude it as a
possibility. However, he rejected polygenism in favor of monogenism, on the
grounds that the unity of the human race, the universality of sin and therefore the
need for salvation cannot be defended unless the whole of humanity had
descended from Adam and Eve.59
Schwager’s view of peccatum originale originatum
While Schwager’s attempt to develop a detailed and systematic theory of original

sin that takes specific account of current theories of evolution is certainly an
ambitious and creative one, there is little doubt that his thesis concerning the
peccatum originale originatum is by far the most controversial aspect of the synthesis
of science and theology offered in Banished From Eden. Nonetheless, one must
commend Schwager’s admirable attempt to overcome what he perceives as the
false dichotomy between history and nature, which has been current since the
Enlightenment, by insisting that the stain of original sin is transmitted by the dual
processes of imitation and generation.
Transmission of original sin via imitation
The first element of Schwager’s mechanism of inheritance—via imitation—is

relatively uncontroversial and, in many respects, quite plausible. Indeed, since its
formation in ancient Greece, the Western philosophical tradition has followed the
thought of Aristotle as articulated in the Poetics: ‘‘man is distinguished from other
life-forms by his capacity for imitation.’’60 It is now held as axiomatic in the
behavioral sciences that all forms of human learning, and, in particular, the
acquisition of language, occur via imitation; and Schwager, through his utilization
of the work of René Girard,61 persuasively argues that our concept of imitation
should be expansive enough to include desire. That is to say, in addition to such
things as language and external gestures, desire is also conditioned by our
imitative human nature. Moreover, as Michael Kirwan62 observes, Girard’s
investigation of desire enables Schwager to address a wider anthropological
question: Why, of all living things in creation, is man apparently the most violent
and prone to conflict? Girard’s answer to this question—that such desires are
conditioned by cultural and social interaction—supports the first element of

Schwager’s mechanism of inheritance of original sin (by imitation), inasmuch as,
for Girard, the mimetic adoption of another’s desire is the primary determinant of
human action.
Schwager’s notions concerning the role of collective memory in society have
also found considerable support from contemporary anthropological theory. Paul
Connerton,63 for instance, treats memory as a cultural rather than an individual
faculty, and provides an account of how practices of a non-inscribed kind are
transmitted in, and as, traditions, which often have their roots deep in antiquity.
While most studies of memory as a cultural faculty focus on inscribed
transmissions of memories, Connerton, by contrast, concentrates on incorporated
practices, and so questions the dominant idea that literary texts may be taken as a
metaphor for social practices generally. He argues that images of the past and
recollected knowledge of the past are conveyed and sustained by ritual
performances and that performative memory is bodily. Connerton’s emphasis
on the significance of bodily memory as an essential aspect of social memory thus
lends support to Schwager’s contention that the collective knowledge of the
human species is transmitted from one generation to the next through a process of
imitative mimesis.
Similar support can be found in the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of
habitus. In his influential monograph, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu
perceives habitus as ‘‘the durably installed generative principles’’ that produce and
reproduce the ‘‘practices’’ of a given society or social group;64 the concept can be
understood as denoting a set of acquired patterns of thought, behavior and taste.
These patterns, or ‘‘dispositions,’’ are the result of the internalization of culture or
objective social structures through the experience of an individual or group.65
Bourdieu borrowed the notion of habitus from Marcel Mauss, who defined it as
those elements of culture that are embedded in the bodily or daily practices of
individuals, groups, societies and nations. It entails the totality of learned habits,
tastes, bodily skills and behaviors (in addition to other non-discursive forms of
knowledge) that are ‘‘taken for granted’’ within a specific social group.
Bourdieu further developed Mauss’ notion of habitus and broadened its
application to include an individual’s dispositions and convictions. It can
therefore be invoked in support of Schwager’s theory of the transmission of
original sin via imitation, inasmuch as Bourdieu regards his notion of habitus as a
system of durable and transposable ‘‘dispositions’’ (enduring, acquired schemes of
thought, perception and action). Social agents develop these dispositions in
response to the determining structures (such as social class and kinship) and
external conditions (or social ‘‘fields’’) that they encounter; they are then, in turn,
socially reproduced and transmitted to subsequent societal members.66
Transmission of original sin via generation
The second aspect of Schwager’s mechanism of transmission—via generation—is,

however, much more problematic. His claim that ‘‘imitation’’ is transmitted, not
simply on the basis of cultural and imitative mimesis, but through a biological
process, and that the veracity of such a process is supported by modern
evolutionary theory, is highly controversial. He enlists the support of biologists,
such as Haeckel, whose ideas have been largely discredited by modern
developmental biology. In Chapter 2 of Banished From Eden, Schwager argues
that biological science has, since the time of Haeckel, shown that ‘‘the biogenic
principle, according to which ontogeny (¼development of the embryo) recapitu-
lates phylogeny (¼history of the people or race) in a reduced manner, has played a
significant role.’’67 However, while Haeckel’s arresting catchphrase ‘‘ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny’’ has worked its way into popular scientific discourse, his
rule has in fact long been rejected by modern biologists.
Haeckel claims, for example, that the embryos of organisms pass through stages
representative of their ancestors. In other words, human embryos at one point

look like fish, then like amphibians, then like reptiles, then like all kind of
mammals, and finally like humans. However, as Stephen Jay Gould observes,68
developmental biologists have shown that this is simply not the case, and have
long since rejected Haeckel’s rule in favor of von Baer’s laws of embryology—
which make the following claims: 1) General characteristics of a taxon (or
phylogenetic group) to which an embryo belongs develop before special
characteristics. In other words, all elasmobranches, for example, have jaws, which
develop before the specific characteristics of a particular species of shark, such as
the spines in Squalus acanthias. 2) Likewise, general structural relations are formed
before the most specific structures appear. Laws 3 and 4 are particularly relevant
for the question at hand—Haeckel’s ‘‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.’’ 3)
Instead of passing through particular configurations of other definite forms (other
species), embryos gradually separate themselves from them. 4) The embryo of a
‘‘higher animal’’ (or of a more apomorphic rather than plesiomorphic species)
never resembles the adult of another animal form, but only its embryo.69
In other words, where Haeckel erroneously claims that an embryo undergoes all
the ancestral animal forms of its lineage (adult fish, amphibian, etc.), von Baer
accurately points out that the embryos of related species resemble each other at
certain points in their development. A dog embryo and human embryo will
resemble each other at certain times in their development, after which their
embryonic development becomes specific to their particular species.
Schwager, however, seems quite unaware of the fact that Haeckel’s rule has
been abandoned by biologists in favor of von Baer’s, and this leads him to advance
a thesis concerning the transmission of original sin which clearly assumes the
veracity that ‘‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.’’ This reliance on largely
discredited scientific evidence brings into sharp focus the central problem that
bedevils Schwager’s whole approach. Indeed, the fact that he feels that such
highly contested biological ideas can be so effortlessly transposed to support his
speculative theology suggests that he is not only unaware of the controversial
nature of such scientific theories, but has also failed to fully grasp the true
meaning of the scientific literature with which he is dealing.
An example of the latter can be seen in Schwager’s use of the work of Bresch,
which leads him to develop ideas and make claims that simply do not seem to be
justified in terms of the theory that Bresch himself advances. While Bresch seems
to be making the perfectly reasonable claim (which would receive the approbation
of many a contemporary biologist) that ‘‘all information in a living cell is stored in
the DNA molecule, and the ability of this molecule to create copies of itself
belongs to the basic character of living processes,’’70 Schwager seems to assume
that this assertion alone enables him to claim that, in addition to mere genetic
data, ‘‘earlier events’’ themselves are genetically transmitted directly from one
member of the species to the other and, successively, from one generation to the
next. In this case as in many others, Schwager seems to be in danger of
extrapolating far too much from a biological theory the precise nature of which it
is not altogether clear he himself fully understands.
Such criticisms apply equally to his notion of the ‘‘hereditary transmission’’ of
original sin. In developing his thesis that reproduction and imitation should not be
perceived as dualistic opposites, Schwager also appeals to the work of other
scholars, such as Tomatis, for support. In this case, the danger is not so much that
Schwager is extrapolating too much from a given biological theory, as was the
case with his use of Bresch; the danger here is rather that he is, once again, relying
on a biological theory the veracity of which is hotly disputed in modern science.
For example, in addition to arguing that human beings in the early stages of
embryological life are highly susceptible to environmental influences, Tomatis
goes on to assert that, in this initial process of ‘‘communication,’’ aggressive
elements have an impact on further growth and may even ‘‘enter into’’ the
physical and psychic structure of an organism. This, in turn, leads Schwager to
assert, following Tomatis, that ‘‘evil migrates thus from generation to generation,
and so it is understandable that people may speak of ‘hereditary transmission’.’’71
In this case, both the biological theory advanced by Tomatis itself (and the
theological one developed by Schwager which is reliant upon it) are deeply
problematic in the light of modern evolutionary theory, and it is strange that
Schwager does not appear to appreciate the extent to which such ideas are
frowned upon by modern biologists.
It is clear that the most controversial assumption here on the part of both
Tomatis and Schwager is that ‘‘aggressive elements’’ (Tomatis) and ‘‘evil’’
(Schwager) can actually ‘‘enter into’’ the physical and psychic structure of an
organism, and have the ability to ‘‘migrate’’ from one generation to another by
means of some kind of ‘‘hereditary transmission.’’72 Schwager, in turn, uses these
ideas in support of his contention that a singular primal act of disobedience led the
human race to turn away from its God and develop violent and aggressive
tendencies, which were then handed down to each subsequent generation. The
‘‘scientific’’ theories on which such assumptions are based have been largely
discredited in modern biology, and most biologists are (understandably) deeply
resistant to them. For instance, John Maynard Smith73 addresses the problem
which stems directly from the concepts concerning the nature of evolutionary
change that both Tomatis and Schwager seem to hold. In order to illustrate the
nature of the difficulty, Maynard Smith discusses a particular issue: that of the
development of calluses on the skin of vertebrates. It is, he says, a property of
the skin both of birds and mammals that it should develop horny thickenings in
response to pressure, and, it is for this reason that the ‘‘sons of toil’’ have horny
hands. However, he observes, in some cases the skin in particular regions thickens
in the embryo prior to any pressure being applied. This is the case with the skin on
the soles of the feet in human beings, and also of patches of skin on the rumps of
ostriches, which squat on the ground.
While, Maynard Smith argues, ‘‘it would be convenient if this could be
explained by saying that ancestral ostriches developed calluses on their rumps as a
direct response to pressure when they squatted, and that the fact that this
character was individually acquired in a number of successive generations caused
changes in the hereditary material, or mutations, so that their descendents
possessed genetically determined calluses appearing before pressure is applied,’’
such a ‘‘Lamarckian’’ explanation is, he argues, difficult to accept, inasmuch as we
know of no hereditary mechanism whereby acquired characters can be inherited

in this way.74 By the same token, following Maynard Smith, we know of no
hereditary mechanism that would support the view advanced by Tomatis and
Schwager that a primal act of aggression on the part of human beings enabled
‘‘evil’’ to actually ‘‘enter into’’ the physical and psychic structure of subsequent
organisms.
Now, the ‘‘Lamarckian’’ explanation that Maynard Smith spoke of refers, of
course, to the explanation for evolutionary change first adduced by Jean-Baptiste
Lamarck (1744–1829). Lamarck argued, as Burkhardt75 points out, that animals
were induced to develop new habits when they were confronted with changing or
new environments. Changes in habitats, he thought, inevitably led to certain
organs being used more and other organs being used less, thereby strengthening
the former and weakening the latter. Differences thus acquired were transmitted
on to the next generation. Over substantial periods of time, this led to significant
organic change.
Such Lamarckian ideas have also been sharply criticized by the distinguished
biologist Jacques Monod. In his text Problems of Scientific Revolution, he argues, ‘‘the
old idea of acquired characters, which had been proposed by Lamarck, not only has
never been verified, but in fact is completely incompatible with all of what we know
of the whole structure of transfer of information. First, the spontaneous nature of
mutation is incompatible with such an idea and second, we know that this sequence
of transfer of information is essentially irreversible.’’76 It was discovered some years
ago, Monod argues, that in some cases, the transcription step from DNA to RNA
works in the reverse direction. That is, he says, nothing surprising. It is a very simple
step and even by the basic principles in physical chemistry of the reversibility of
microscopic events, it could be predicted that such events could occur. They do
occur, in fact, Monod maintains; but it must not be assumed to mean that information
from protein could possibly go back to the genome.77
Scientific evidence over the last century of genetic research further corroborates
Maynard Smith and Monod’s repudiation of Lamarckian ‘‘acquired inherited
characteristics.’’ For example, three major experiments in biology (Griffith, 1928;
Avery and colleagues, 1944; Hershey and Chase, 1952), clearly established that
DNA—and only this molecule—carries genetic information and that this
information cannot be altered by other biomolecules.78 These experiments are
considered classics and have not been refuted by any other evidence. The
discovery of the reverse transcription (the generation of a DNA strand out of an
RNA template) came only as an addition later to further show that the nucleic
acids are the heritable molecules of all known life forms.
Thus, as nucleic acids are the only heritable molecules that carry all the required
genetic information (and no other molecules can change this information), it is
clear that the heritability of acquired traits is a thesis which lacks modern scientific
support.
Moreover, research in epigenetics also raises questions concerning the
inheritance of acquired characteristics. Until the 1940s, many microbiologists
thought that adaptations were acquired in direct response to a change in
environment. However, in their classic experiment Luria and Delbruck79 showed
that the basis of mutations (the mechanism that alters DNA the most) is totally
random. This led Luria and Delbruck to call microbiology the ‘‘last bastion of
Lamarckism’’.80
Modern advances in epigenetics are focusing on the heritability of gene
expression control mechanisms—such as gene silencing—and the response of
organisms under stress conditions.81 While there is evidence that heritable
epigenetic changes are influenced by the environment through reactions to stress,
the patterns of heritability in such cases are, however, far from stable; indeed,
recent research shows that the whole epigenetic landscape of an organism is
subject to constant and unpredictable change.82 These findings further vitiate the
claim that acquired ‘‘aggressive elements’’ can ‘‘migrate’’ from one generation to
another via the DNA sequence.
Given the weight of scientific opposition to such ideas, it is, then, perhaps
surprising that Schwager himself persisted in advancing a theory that bears all the
hallmarks of a Lamarckian ‘‘use-inheritance’’ type of explanation. If this is true for
his use of the ideas of Bresch and Tomatis, it is equally the case with regard to the
thesis that he propounds in Chapter 2 of Banished From Eden to the effect that the
organisms of creatures constitute ‘‘living memories’’ of past events, and that
original sin can be said to be transmitted via generation on this account.
Schwager’s use of the work of J. Kilma is a case in point. In Chapter 2, Schwager
boldly asserts, in what is a further appeal to neo-Lamarckian ideas, that Kilmer’s
research clearly shows that ‘‘the organisms of creatures are increasingly being
conceived of as ‘living memories’ and this holds in fact both for the history of the
human race and the history of the cosmos.’’83 For Schwager, this means that
human beings themselves continue to be determined by events that occurred in
the formative stages of the Earth. The basic structure of the genetic code is,
according to Kilma, similar for all living organisms: all life that currently exists on
Earth stemmed from ‘‘a single primordial cell and extends the memory of its
origin until today through this uniform code.’’84 According to Schwager, this
means that ‘‘at ever new levels we see that organisms living today have a
‘memory’ that extends back to determinative events and ‘bifurcations’ in the
earlier history of the cosmos and of life.’’85 Given that Homo sapiens are constituted
by these organisms, it is therefore not surprising, Schwager asserts, that a
‘‘doctrine’’ should develop ‘‘which holds that all present humans bear within
themselves the memory of another form of bifurcation, of a deviation from the

right way in the beginning of human history.’’86 If, as this evidence suggests,
Schwager claims, human beings, like all living things, are shaped by the
‘‘memory’’ of antecedent events that become encoded genetically, ‘‘this conception
today is more in favour of the doctrine of original sin than against it.’’87
Further references to a rather simplistic Lamarckianism appear in support of the
thesis advanced by Schwager in Banished From Eden. For example, later in Chapter
2, he argues in a similar vein (again following the ideas of thinkers such as Bresch
and Kilma) that primordial violence has led to the shaping of the human brain,
which, in turn, suggests that the ‘‘inclination or disposition to kill could thus have
found its way into the biological structure within the advancing evolution.’’88 This
is theologically significant, Schwager argues, because it points to the fact that
sinful behavior precipitated the growth of the brain and shaped the further
evolution of humankind, which therefore makes it ‘‘easier to understand why sin
is ensconced in human nature itself.’’89 While Schwager may indeed believe that
this is ‘‘theologically significant,’’ how scientifically plausible is Schwager’s claim
that primordial violence has determined the structure of the human brain and, in
turn, ‘‘shaped’’ human nature? Once again, it seems that Schwager’s claims are
based on the less than plausible assumption that ‘‘memories’’ of events can
become encoded within the genetic structure of an organism—in this case, the
human brain.
Conclusion
As we have seen, Schwager’s creative and innovative attempt to present a

synthesis of theology and evolution has both strengths and weaknesses. On the
one hand, while it is clear that, in his thesis concerning peccatum originale originans,
Schwager makes some important concessions to evolutionary theory, such as his
acknowledgement of Adam’s mortality, on the other hand, his attempt to uphold
some element of orthodox Catholic teaching on this matter by arguing that Homo
sapiens only experienced violent death post the Fall remains problematic from an
evolutionary perspective.
Similarly, while certain elements of his analysis of peccatum originale
originatum—such as his Girardian thesis that the stain of original sin is transmitted
via imitation in the form of ritualized mimetic acquisitiveness—are persuasive, his
overall attempt to integrate original sin with evolution (and, in particular, his
attempt to explain the transmission of original sin via generation) suffers from a
number of key shortcomings: for instance, the radical developments in
evolutionary theory on which he depends for his theory are never fully explained,
and are far less widely accepted by the scientific fraternity than he seems to
assume. Moreover, it is not clear how well Schwager himself understands them,
and he is often in danger of extrapolating far too much from them. This is in
marked contrast to his evident theological sophistication.
Perhaps the most significant weakness of all is that the evolutionary ideas
on which he depends for his theological speculations are far too controversial,
and this, inevitably, detracts from the plausibility of his overall thesis. Indeed,
one could draw a parallel here with the work of Sigmund Freud, whose
speculative theories concerning the ‘‘primal horde’’90 ultimately lost intellectual
credibility due to his over-reliance on (now discredited) neo-Lamarckian ideas
concerning ‘‘acquired inherited characteristics.’’ What is particularly interesting
is that both Schwager and Freud attempted to enlist such ideas in order to
support their respective theories concerning the very origins of human society.
While Schwager employs the notion of ‘‘acquired inherited characteristics’’ in
an attempt to account for how original sin is transmitted through the
generations following the murder of Abel by Cain, Freud, in Totem and Taboo,
used the same model in his explanation for how the memory of the murder of
the father in the ‘‘primal horde’’ might be transmitted to subsequent
generations in the form of the Oedipus complex.91 Freud thus uses Lamarck
in order to explain the memory of a primal ‘‘patricide,’’ while Schwager relies
on similar ideas to account for the enduring effects of a primal ‘‘fratricide.’’
Unfortunately, for all of Schwager’s evident theological learning, it is likely
that his evolutionary speculations will share a similar fate to Freud’s on
account of the fact that each relies for evidential support on ideas that are now
widely discredited.
Finally, in addition to the problematic nature of Schwager’s thesis from a
scientific perspective, his arguments raise key difficulties in terms of an attempt to
formulate a satisfactory theodicy. His acceptance, for example, that the
mechanism of evolution by means of natural selection is a creative process
conceived and instituted by God fails to address the grave problem of predation
and the suffering of innocent sentient beings (prior to the Fall) that is a natural
concomitant of such a mechanism. It is also difficult to square Schwager’s model
of creation with the loving God revealed in Jesus Christ. In the final analysis, this
means that while Schwager succeeds in providing a plausible account of the
origins of moral evil, he ultimately fails to provide a satisfactory explanation for
the etiology of natural evil.
Thus, while Schwager offers a synthesis of science and theology that attempts to
affirm the two apparently contradictory premises of the historical Fall and
evolution, the way in which he presents his solution nonetheless has consequences
that are problematical for both science and Christian theology.
Endnotes
1 Raymund Schwager, Banished From Eden: Original Sin and Evolutionary Theory in the
Drama of Salvation, trans. James Williams (Leominster: Gracewing, 2006).
2 Michael Ruse, Can A Darwinian Be A Christian? The Relationship Between Science and
Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 129.
3 This, Schwager’s last book, was first published in German in 1997. The English
translation was completed shortly before his death in 2004.
4 Ibid., 2.
5 Ibid., 11.
6 Ibid., 27.
7 An attempt to reconstruct the primordial conditions that led to the Fall.

8 Ibid., 93.
9 Ibid., 18–19.
10 Ibid., 23.
11 See René Girard, The Scapegoat (London: Athlone, 1986).
12 See Nikolaus Wandinger, ‘‘The Fall into ‘Original Sin’ Within an Evolutionary World-
View (According to Raymund Schwager),’’ guest lecture at Heythrop College,
University of London, February 2003.
13 Schwager, Banished, 3.
14 Ibid., 93.
15 Ibid., 94.
16 Ibid.
17 Wandinger, ‘‘Fall into ‘Original Sin,’’’ 9.
18 Schwager, Banished, 95–96.
19 Ibid., 96.
20 See Jane Goodall, The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behaviour (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986).
23 Ibid., 38. See also C. Bresch, Zwischenstufe Leben: Evolution ohne Ziel? (Frankfurt: Fischer-
Tb 1280, 1979), 84–90.
24 Ibid.; see also Bresch, Zwischenstufe Leben, 193.
25 Schwager, Banished From Eden, 38.
26 A. Tomatis, L’Oreille et la vie: Itineraire d’une recherché sur l’audition, la langue et la
communication (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1990).
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 50.
33 Ibid.
34 J. Klima, ‘‘Reichweite und Grenzen der naturwissenscaftlichen Methode,’’ in Evolution,
69–81, 76.
37 Ibid., 51.
38 Ibid., 53.
39 Ibid.
40 Bresch, Zwischenstufe Leben, 196.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 130.
44 Ibid., 131.
45 Ibid., 135.
46 Wandinger, ‘‘Fall into ‘Original Sin’,’’ 2.
47 See Edward Holloway, Catholicism: A New Synthesis (London: Keyway, 1976).
48 See Francis Havey, ‘‘African Synods,’’ in The Catholic Encyclopaedia (New York: Robert
Appleton, 1907).
49 James Barr, The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality (London: SCM Press, 1992),
4–5.
50 Karl Rahner, On the Theology of Death (London: Burns Oates, 1961).
51 Donna Hart and Robert W. Sussman, Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators and Human
Evolution (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2008).
52 See Daryl P. Domning, ‘‘How Suffering and Death Fit into Evolution,’’ in Original
Selfishness: Original Sin and Evil in the Light of Evolution, ed. Daryl P. Domning and
Monika K. Hellwig (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 75–82.
54 Ibid., 96.
55 E. Voland, ‘‘Hominization, Homologie und Heuristik,’’ in Evolution, 83–94.
56 Ibid., 53.
57 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, vol. 1
(London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd, 1941), 285.
58 Private correspondence from Fraser Watts, August 2007.
59 Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis (CTS pamphlet, 1950), para. 37.
60 See Aristotle, Aristotle’s Poetics and Rhetoric, trans. T.A. Moxon (London: J.M. Dent &
Sons Ltd, 1935), 31.
61 See René Girard, The Scapegoat (London: Athlone, 1986).
62 Michael Kirwan, Discovering Girard (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2004).
63 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989).
64 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1977).
65 See John Scott and Gordon Marshall, eds., A Dictionary of Sociology (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998).
66 Bourdieu, Outline, 22–28.
68 Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2002), 740, 941.
69 See Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1977).
71 Ibid., 39.
72 Ibid.
73 John Maynard Smith, The Theory of Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1993).
74 Ibid., 320.
75 R.W. Burkhardt Jr., ‘‘Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829),’’ in Evolution: The First Four
Billion Years (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), ed. Michael Ruse and
Joseph Travis, 672–675.
76 Jacques Monod, ‘‘Problems of Scientific Revolution,’’ in Evolution, ed. Mark Ridley
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997 [1974]), 393–394.
77 Ibid., 394.
78 See Fred Griffith, ‘‘The Significance of Pneumococcal Types,’’ Journal of Hygiene 27.2
(January 1928): 113–159; Oswald T. Avery, Colin M. MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty,
‘‘Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of
Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid
Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type,’’ Journal of Experimental Medicine 79.2
(February 1944): 137–158; Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase, ‘‘Independent Functions
of Viral Protein and Nucleic Acid in Growth of Bacteriophage,’’ Journal of General
Physiology 36.1 (1952): 39–56.
79 See Nicholas H. Barton, Derek E.G. Briggs, Jonathan A. Eisen, David B. Goldstein, and
Nipau H. Patel, Evolution (New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2007), ch. 15.
80 Ibid.
81 See Guy Riddihough and Elizabeth Pennisi, ‘‘The Evolution of Epigenetics,’’ in Science
Magazine 293 (August 2001), 1063.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid., 60.
86 Ibid., 50.
87 Ibid., 51.
89 Ibid.
90 See Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, trans. James Strachey (London: Penguin, 1993).
91 Ibid.
Biographical Notes
Jonathan Chappell holds a PhD in Anthropology from University College

London, and was recently awarded an MLitt in Theology from Darwin College,
Cambridge.

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Theology and Science

Raymund Schwager: Integrating the

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2012.669950

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Raymund Schwager: Integrating the Fall and Original

ISSN 1474-6700 print/ISSN 1474-6719 online/12/020179-20

Original sin, the Enlightenment and the problem of evil

In Banished From Eden,3 Schwager begins his audacious attempt to reconcile

Two aspects of original sin

Before embarking on an exploration of these issues, Schwager emphasizes the

The importance of the historicity of the primal Fall

In his consideration of peccatum originale originans, Schwager recognizes that the

dawn of human civilization. But just how, from an evolutionary perspective,

The nature of the Fall

Variations on primordial sin

The intense experience that accompanied self-transcendence in the moment of

The birth of the new illumination of consciousness that accompanied hominiza-

On a particular occasion, ‘‘while jointly hunting or engaging in a kind of ‘war of

The peccatum originale originatum or the transmission of original sin

After attempting to establish that the peccatum originale originans was an

and freedom is, Schwager argues, rather problematic. It is therefore necessary,

A new meaning of ‘‘hereditary transmission’’

Organisms of creatures as ‘‘living memories’’

Recent developments in evolutionary theory, Schwager argues, further support

their own selection, which produced a rapid further development of their

thereby overcoming the modern dualism between nature and history.43 It

Raymund Schwager: Critical analysis

While Schwager subscribes to a more traditional integration of the narrative of

Schwager’s view of peccatum originale originans

A further difficulty, as Fraser Watts58 observes, is that Schwager too readily

Schwager’s view of peccatum originale originatum

While Schwager’s attempt to develop a detailed and systematic theory of original

Transmission of original sin via imitation

The first element of Schwager’s mechanism of inheritance—via imitation—is

conditioned by cultural and social interaction—supports the first element of

Transmission of original sin via generation

The second aspect of Schwager’s mechanism of transmission—via generation—is,

representative of their ancestors. In other words, human embryos at one point

know of no hereditary mechanism whereby acquired characters can be inherited

themselves the memory of another form of bifurcation, of a deviation from the

As we have seen, Schwager’s creative and innovative attempt to present a

7 An attempt to reconstruct the primordial conditions that led to the Fall.

Jonathan Chappell holds a PhD in Anthropology from University College

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