I once heard that if Eve were Chinese, sin would not have entered the world. Instead of eating the apple she would have eaten the snake!! I do not wish to go into Chinese culinary skills, but this story seems logical, or is it? I would like to propose that the problem of theodicy is not about the snake, but about the Chinese or whomever in this context. The issue is not "act," but "being." The Chinese does not turn Italian by eating spaghetti. Sinners sin. From the biblical point of view, it is not sinning that make them sinners. "There is no one who is righteous, not even one" (Rom. 3:10).

Sin is a central issue in the Adventist understanding of the Great Controversy. Where does evil originate? This question becomes controversial when one’s view of cosmology is monotheistic (or monistic) and where this theism embraces omnipotence and omniscience. The One cannot be good and bad at the same time. Perhaps there is no graceful way of explaining evil in any rational way. Logic within the monotheistic context disturbs us deeply. William James concurs when he sees evil as the rock on which all forms of monism are wrecked.

Perhaps this is why a number of eastern religions instead move with polytheism or presuppose dualism. Zoroastrianism teaches the separation of the sacred and profane. Buddhism deals with evil through the process of elimination in order to maintain a moral universe, the law of karma. Other monotheistic interpretations may fall in line with the process thought, the evolving God, or the upward spiral process. Because God evolves, God is not fully accountable for the happenings. The Great Controversy is yet another attempt and a very profound endeavor. If we can look back and see what sin has done to the universe, to the only Son of God, there will be a turning away from sin and the universe will bear witness to the justice of God.

The question remains as to the origin of sin in the universe. The causal approach to theodicy is an impasse. Although I personally believe that the Great Controversy offers one of the best solutions, the question remains. The Great Controversy explains it by presupposing human freedom, the freedom to choose. If the choice is between good and evil, whence came evil? Rationality perplexes us even deeper in our attempt to deal with evil. But is it our responsibility to answer this question? Should we learn to live with this unanswerable riddle? When Buddha’s disciples raised this question, silence was his answer. In Creation and Fall, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, "The question of why evil exists is not a theological question, for it assumes that it is possible to go behind the existence forced upon us as sinners. If we could answer it then we would not be sinners. We could make something else responsible."1

Like Heidegger’s Dasien, I believe we find ourselves already existing in this sinful existence. Perhaps it is not possible for us to strive for the ideal objectivity where we can sit back, observe, and analyze. We are in it. No matter how we strive to be careful observers, we always find our sinful tendency in our observation. We want to be observers so we can answer the riddle, but we are actually participants. We are in it and can only logic from this very existence of ours. Perhaps Heidegger is right when he suggests that scientific objectivity is human attempt to avoid the existential struggle of being. "There is no one who has understanding" (Rom. 3:10). From this standpoint, a more pertinent question is a practical one. How does one live? Here is where I believe the Great Controversy comes in.

The traditional approach to this concern is to question how one can, through the grace of Christ, overcome sins in one’s life. I believe this is a valid concern, but to deal with this issue from an Adventist theological perspective may require us to ask a radically different type of question. Perhaps it is not so much how we can sin less, but how can we sin more courageously. If we take revelation seriously, we may have to acknowledge sin as an ontological quality, a quality that will always be a part of existence. It is us. We are in sin and we live in a sinful world.

Hence, we need to learn to live with sin courageously. We need to learn to do our best dealing with sins within our very existence and within the world that surrounds us. To deny sin in us is to perpetuate sin. We have done this so successfully in the past. We turn sin, which is ontological, into something conceptual. We create the idea of good and bad. We redefine evil and righteousness. We create so we can avoid. We construct so we can be good by our definition. We redefine, but no matter how hard we try, reality reminds us that sin is in our existence. Often we feel so uncomfortable with this reality that we run away. This is particularly true with fundamentalism. The more rigid our theology, the greater becomes our inability to admit sin in our lives.

The Great Controversy for me is not about beating up Satan or eating the snake. It is not only about overcoming sin through the grace of Christ. It is also about the grace that makes possible for us to acknowledge sin in ourselves and our society, the grace that enables us to act courageously in the midst of sin, the grace to embrace our humanity fully. It is about grace, because the real controversy is recorded in Genesis 3:5 when the snake said to Eve, "you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Notes

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall: Temptation (New York: Macmillan, 1959), 59.

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