The Human Condition (full)

The Human Condition

Most people, religious or otherwise, would agree that the world and the people in it are not in an ideal state. A look at the news or inside oneself reveals injustice, suffering, and evil intent.

For Jews and Christians, this situation is traced back to a primeval rebellion of humanity against God. The ways in which it is believed that this affects the situation in the here and now varies over time and tradition. This page seeks to track the different beliefs over time.

The Jewish View

  • According to Jewish teaching, at least since the Second Temple period, every person, Adam included, has within them an “evil inclination” (yetzer hara) and a “good inclination”, yetzer hatov.
  • Adam’s transgression brought mortality. Death enters the human condition because of Adam, and why life on Earth is hard both in agriculture and in childbirth. These consequences are experienced by Adam’s descendents, they do not inherit the guilt of Adam.
  • The Hebrew Bible (e.g., Ezekiel 18:20) insists that each person is accountable for their own wrongdoing: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” Later rabbinic literature continues this theme — people sin because of the yetzer hara (the inclination to do wrong), not because Adam’s guilt is transmitted to them.
  • The remedy is not cosmic rescue, but world repair (tikkun olam): the world is basically sound, but fractured by injustice, idolatry, oppression, and human sin.
  • Each person has a choice to follow the good or the evil inclination and by choosing the good, by repentance and adherence to the Torah, the restoration of the world to its pre-fall condition is advanced.

Jesus’ Teaching (as recorded)

  • Jesus affirms that, without a remedy, humans are destined to die and that He is that remedy

 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 

John 3:16-17

  • In line with Judaism, Jesus affirms that we have inherited mortality but He does not say that we have inherited guilt.
  • Jesus affirms that the Law is good but it is inadequate in itself to bring life. Only Jesus Himself can do that and, indeed, the Law points to Him as its fulfilment. Because of our weakness, we are incapable of keeping the Law perfectly.

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

John 5:39-40

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

John 6:53

St. Paul

  • St. Paul taught that Adam’s sin introduced both death and sin into the world in a way that affects all humanity. In Romans 5:12–21, he contrasts Adam with Christ: just as Adam’s disobedience brought sin and death, Christ’s obedience brings righteousness and life.
  • As a Pharisee: St. Paul would not have believed in inherited guilt from Adam.
  • Jesus: Stressed human sinfulness and repentance, but not Adam’s cosmic role.
  • As a Christian apostle: Paul reframed Adam’s sin into a universal condition, contrasting it with Christ’s universal redemption.
  • In short: Paul’s doctrine of Adam is not a straight line from Jesus’ teaching, but a creative theological development — rooted in Jewish thought, shaped by his Pharisaic background, and transformed by his experience of Christ.

Early Christian Views

  • St. Paul’s interpretation (Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15):
  • Inherited condition of sin (Catholics and Reformed, Orthodox did not follow Augustine):
    In early Christianity, especially as interpreted later by Augustine (4th–5th century), Adam’s sin became the basis for the doctrine of original sin: the idea that all humans inherit both guilt and a corrupted nature from Adam. Even before Augustine, however, many Christians saw Adam’s fall as the root cause of universal human sinfulness.
  • Later Catholicism:
    The doctrine of inherited guilt was softened at the Council of Trent (1546) bringing the Catholic Church closer to Orthodox belief. At about the same time, some Reformers, such as Luther (Bondage of the Will, 1525) reintroduced it where it remains to this day.
  • Need for redemption through Christ:
    Since humanity is bound by Adam’s sin, salvation requires divine intervention. Christ is the “new Adam” whose death and resurrection undo the consequences of the first Adam’s fall.

Key Contrast between Judaism and Christianity

  • Judaism: Adam’s sin explains death, toil, and moral struggle, but each person sins because of their own choices. No inherited guilt; repentance and Torah observance provide atonement.
  • Christianity: Adam’s sin is a cosmic, universal fall — humanity inherits both death and a sinful nature from him. Christ alone redeems humanity from this condition.