Finitude and Fallibility: Viewing Anthropological Evil through a

Ricoeurian Lens

Introduction

In Western Christian theology, perhaps the predominant explanation

for the origin of evil is found in the Augustinian account of evil as willed

corruption. Within this context, all evil tends to be classified underneath the

heading of so-called moral evil; that is, evil resulting from the wrong actions

of free beings. In this essay, I will evaluate that idea by contrasting it

against Paul Ricoeur’s hypothesis of fallibility. Rather than condensing the

origin of all anthropological evil into the corrupt human will, Ricoeur's fallible

man exhibits a ‘disproportionality,’ a “constitutional weakness” that makes

evil possible.

Is there a relationship between these two views, and, if so, what does it

entail? I will consider Ricoeur’s critique of the Augustinian approach, as well

as the possibility that the Ricoeurian concept of fallibility offers a mediating

path for approaching the origin of evil in humankind; one which affirms the

moral evil that arises from the human will, as well as natural limitations

existing outside of the will, which do not necessarily need to be confined to

the boundaries of moral evil.

The Augustinian Account of Evil as Willed Corruptibility

For Augustine, the origin of anthropological evil has a fundamentally

moral cause. Evil is activated through the misuse of the human free will,

which brings about corruption of being. The cause of this corruption remains

unknown. As he states in The City Of God: “There is… no natural efficient

cause… no essential cause, of the evil will, since [it] itself is the origin of

evil… and the will is made evil by nothing else than defection from God – a

defection of which the cause, too, is certainly deficient.” (City Of God, 12.9)

Judith Stark, in her essay, The Problem of Evil: Augustine and Ricoeur,

summarizes the Augustinian view: “[E]vil as the corruption… of a good

nature has for Augustine precise ontological implications, namely, that as the

corruption continues, the entity loses both the goodness and the being

proper to it: the just man becomes unjust, the brave man cowardly, the

healthy body diseased, the beautiful body ugly… evil is… a corruption of

[the] order, unity, and harmony that belong to the essence of an entity.”

(Stark, p. 113)

Corruption thus affects the free agents who will it on an ontic level,

which is conventionally termed ‘the fall’ in Christianity. Corruption takes a

good nature and reduces it from its originally perfect state to a less-than-

perfect state. Evil does not exist as such, but rather as the corruption of

some good. Augustine asserts, “[E]vil has no positive nature; but the loss of

good has received the name ‘evil.’” (COG, 11.9) The result is that all evil

may be categorized as moral evil. If evil has no substantive being, then the

origin of evil is found within free beings who, in the operation of their own

‘bad wills,’ bring about corruption within themselves and, implicitly, in the

world.

This begs the question: Why were created beings given mutable free

wills to begin with? Some Church fathers, like Gregory of Nyssa, suggested

that God’s decision to permit corruption presupposes God’s relinquishing

sovereignty over creation. (Greer, p. 476) This option was unacceptable to

Augustine. He insisted that the existence of mutable free wills does not

make God culpable, even as an indirect cause of evil. Without free will, he

suggested, there would be no purpose to reward or punishment. Culpability

lies solely with the human being, who is ultimately responsible for a proper

use of their free will. (Greer, p. 481)

But if God is both omnipotent and omni-benevolent, why would God

have given free wills, containing the potential for corruption, to finite beings

who would misuse them? Augustine’s response stems from his hypothesis of

creatio ex nihilo. If originally there was nothing but God; then nothing is

what God created from. Since all things are created from nothing, they will

naturally tend toward non-existence, and this tendency is corruptibility.

(Stark, p. 114) But this seems to suggest that God could do nothing other

than create a world where corruption was inevitable. Why, then, does God

not bear some responsibility for this inevitability?

Augustine pondered this question himself (COG, 12.6) but ultimately

refused to infer God’s culpability for evil from creatio ex nihilo, and argued

instead that God rules and governs the corruption, using it to punish those

who are condemned by their unwillingness to believe, and to discipline those

who will believe, in order to encourage the goodness of their true being.

(Stark, p. 115) (COG, 14.26)

On the other hand, Augustine admitted the ‘inferiority’ of all created

things, in relation to God. (COG, 11.23) This seems to suggest a type of

corruptibility within creation. Creation, by its very nature, is capable of being

altered by corruption. This is also true of the soul itself, as Augustine points

out: “… the soul which has shown itself capable of being altered for the

worse by its own will… this soul, I say, is not a part of God, nor of the same

nature as God, but is created by Him, and is far different from its creator.”

(COG, 11.22)

So, in spite of the fact that Augustine insisted that corruption is not a

nature, but is against any nature, (Stark, p. 113) there is apparently a sort of

unexplainable nascent corruptibility present in the will of a created being,

even prior to that being’s corruption.

(Turning now to) Ricoeur’s Account of Human Fallibility

Rather than condensing the origin of all anthropological evil into a

corrupt human will, the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur begins with

fallibility. This fallibility is the “constitutional weakness” which makes evil

possible. In his book Fallible Man, Ricoeur develops a philosophical

anthropology grounded in phenomenological reflection upon the voluntary

and involuntary aspects of the human will. He concludes that something

causes a rift in human freedom, “precisely because it is active and receptive;

because it is a human freedom and not a creative ‘fiat.’” (Philosophy of Paul

Ricoeur, p. 19)

Ricoeur posits that human beings necessarily exist in a tension

between dimensions of finitude and infinitude. (FM, Preface, p. xx; Stiver, p.

101) The problem, as Ricoeur sees it, is “the intimate disproportion of man

with himself… suspended between a pole of infinitude and a pole of

finitude.” (PPR, p. 20) This ‘disproportionality’ disables us; we are incapable

of properly holding together both poles of our humanity. While this is not,

itself, evil, it does contain the possibility of evil.

Essentially, there are four features of Ricoeur’s theory of human

fallibility. First, there is the situation of humanity: Ricoeur reflects upon

ideas put forth by Descartes in his fourth meditation, as well as what he calls

the non-philosophical ‘precomprehensions’ found in Plato, Pascal, and

Kierkegaard, which constitute a “pathos of misery;” that is, the human

experience of what we truly are: we are not nothing, but neither are we

everything. We are situated in between finitude and infinitude. (PPR, p. 21)

Second, this human mediation is projected in the synthesis of the

object. Ricoeur describes “…the split which reflection introduces between

sensibility and understanding… it is one thing to receive the presence of

things – another to determine their meaning… (PPR, p. 24) If man is a

‘mixture’ of being and nothingness… it is because he first carries out

‘mediations’ among things; his ‘intermediary’ place between being and

nothingness proceeds from his same function as ‘mediator’ of the infinite

and the finite among things.” (PPR, p. 27)

Third, human mediation is translated into action in the synthesis of the

person. This ‘practical dimension’ is the sphere of activity, and here fallibility

takes the form of an “antinomy of character and happiness.” (PPR, p. 28) On

the one hand, there is character, which for Ricoeur is the totality of my

individual activity. Character is finite precisely because my “field of

motivation,” considered in its entirety, is limited. (Ibid) So, although we have

freedom, it is a finite freedom.

Happiness, on the other hand, is for Ricoeur “an infinite horizon [which]

designates the presence to human activity, considered as a totality, of the

end which will fulfill it.” (PPR, p. 30) Happiness is not a solitary pleasant

result, but is, rather, “the end toward which all my motivation is oriented.”

(Ibid) Happiness, in other words, is the infinite goal which directs all human

activity.

Fourth, human action is reflected internally in what Ricoeur calls the

‘affective dimension.’ The way to mediate between the poles of character

and happiness is in feeling. Feeling is “the place where the

disproportionality is concentrated, the point of culmination or intensity in

human fallibility.” (PPR, p. 31) Why? Because, feeling reverses the

detachment and distance to which character and happiness are bound.

Feeling draws us to the ‘person’, whether that person is another, or my self.

Feeling, explains Ricoeur, is a “movement of interiorization,” and so it is

hoped that, in feeling, we will discover “the kind of synthesis which is

projected in the object, or in the idea of man…” (Ibid)

However, the movement is perpetual and synthesis remains elusive.

The finite pole of human character never arrives at the infinite pole of

happiness. The demands of human feeling are never satisfied. Ricoeur

finally states: “We can now give a name to the specific fragility of human

feeling: it is conflict. Conflict is inscribed in the very disproportion of

happiness and pleasure and in the fragility of the human heart…” (PPR, p.

34)

Within conflict lies the potential for evil. ‘What is meant by calling man

fallible?’ asks Ricoeur. “Essentially this: that the possibility of moral evil is

inherent in man’s constitution.” (FM, p. 203) He concludes, however, that

there is a gap between “the mere anthropological description of fallibility,

and an ethic. The first is prior to evil; the second finds the real opposition of

good and evil.” (FM, p. 217)

So how do we move from fallibility to evil? Ricoeur takes up this

question in his classic text, The Symbolism of Evil. The outbreak of evil,

according to Ricoeur, is an irrational act, which essentially cannot be

analyzed and rationalized. (Stiver, p. 141) Evil must be approached by

means of symbolic language. The paradox of evil is manifest in what Ricoeur

calls ‘the servile will.’ (SOE, p. 151).

As David Klemm explains, “According to Ricoeur, pure reflection

reaches a limit with the analysis of fallibility: it cannot follow the leap from

the structure of fallibility to actual fallenness. The act of evil is inscrutable

for reflection, because therein the will freely negates its freedom and stands

in contradiction with itself… [and] once the will has fallen into contradiction

with itself, it cannot will its way out of self-contradiction… any additional

willing further divides and defeats itself.” (Klemm, p. 509)

Critiquing the Augustinian Account of Evil

As LeRon Shults points out in his book Reforming Theological

Anthropology, there is an inescapable dilemma attached to the traditional

Augustinian account of primordial evil; either God is somehow responsible for

the possibility of sin, or Adam and Eve were somehow flawed. Interpreting

the serpent to be Satan “simply pushes the objection back one step, and

would still require an explanation of the origin of the evil choice of a glorious

angel of light who lived in the immediate presence of absolute divine

goodness.” (Shults, p. 211)

Ricoeur, while critiquing Augustine, grants ex nihilo when he states

that the universe contains a “certain unavoidable defect… if it is true that

God cannot create another God.” (Evil, A Challenge, p. 641) According to

Ricoeur, Augustine’s ex nihilo describes “an ontic distance between the

creator and the creature, therefore of the ‘deficiency’ pertaining to creatures

as such. In virtue of this deficiency, it becomes comprehensible that

creatures endowed with a free will could ‘turn away’ from God and ‘toward’

what has less being, toward nothingness.” (EAC, p. 639)

The problem is how to account for this deficiency such that it maintains

God’s sovereignty and goodness. The Augustinian solution suffers from two

flaws. First, says Ricoeur, it “becomes necessary to give the concept of sin a

supra-individual, historical, and even generic dimension.” (EAC, p. 640)

Since sin is always voluntary, then our ‘bad wills’ must be bad prior to any

event, and so are bad even prior to our births. In other words, it is a

regressive solution. (Original Sin: A Study in Meaning, p. 279)

Second, it provides no answer to what Ricoeur calls ‘the protest of

unjust suffering.’ In his essay, Evil, A Challenge to Philosophy and Theology,

Ricoeur asserts that Western theology has placed all evil in the same

category, when there are actually two categories: “[E]vil as wrongdoing and

evil as suffering belong to two heterogeneous categories, that of blame and

that of lament.” (EAC, p. 636) The one (blame) makes us responsible for evil

and the other (lament) makes us the victims of evil. As we have seen, the

Augustinian view subsumes both categories beneath the heading of moral

evil. Because of this, Ricoeur asserts that Augustine’s answer is no different

from the explanations given by Job’s friends, who try to explain to Job that

his undeserved sufferings are, in fact, deserved.

And yet, says Ricoeur, in spite of all this, there is a sense in which

Augustine ‘remains right.’ (OS:ASM, p. 281) What must be understood, says

Ricoeur, is that the concept of original sin must be viewed as a “rational

symbol.” (Ibid) The concept refers back to expressions that are analogous,

“not because of a lack of rigor, but because of a surplus of meaning.” (Ibid)

Stark suggests that it was Augustine himself, in his willingness to describe

evil as ‘nothingness,’ who provided the horizon within which Ricoeur’s

exploration of the symbols of evil could be more fully explored. (Stark, p.

121)

Ricoeur singles out three traits as ‘remarkable’ for their surplus of

meaning. First, there is what he calls ‘the realism of sin,’ in which we realize

that “Sin is my true situation before God.” Consciousness is not the measure

of sin, rather, “consciousness is itself included in the situation and is

guilty…” (OS:ASM, p. 281) Second, sin “has from the outset a communal

dimension… [a] transbiological and transhistorical solidarity of sin

constitutes the metaphysical unity of the human race.” (OS:ASM, p. 282-283)

Third, “Sin is not only a state… sin is a power which binds man and holds him

captive… sin is not so much a veering as a fundamental impotence.”

(OS:ASM, p. 283)

Theological Distinctions between Corruptibility and Fallibility

So what value does Ricoeur’s concept of fallibility provide for a

Christian theology of the anthropological origin of evil? Some scholars have

suggested that Augustine was ‘at his best’ when he suggested that the first

instance of evil human willing must remain unexplainable, an anomaly.

(Evans, p. 94) However, Augustine eventually began speculating as to how

evil may have originated. (Brown, p. 316-317) This speculation ultimately

begged questions which then required further speculative leaps over new

theological hurdles. Ricoeur never intended to provide a speculative solution

to the origin of evil. (Lowe, p. 400) He maintained that the origin of evil is an

inscrutable mystery.

“The Adamic myth,” states Ricoeur, “reveals… this mysterious aspect

of evil, namely, that if any one of us initiates evil, inaugurates it… each of us

also discovers evil, finds it already there… evil has already taken place. I do

not begin evil; I continue it.” (OS:ASM, p. 284)

The immediate objection will be that Ricoeur’s view presupposes an

inherent flaw in creation, undermining God’s sovereignty. But, as we have

seen, it can be argued that the traditional view also potentially undermines

God’s sovereignty, since in either case, we are left asking the same

questions: Why would a perfectly good free will, in the very presence of God,

determine to fall into corruption? And if there is an inherent risk of

corruption in creation, how does this not amount to God’s lacking either

omni-benevolence or omnipotence?

As Alvin Plantinga and others have suggested, perhaps an

‘unavoidable defect’ within creation does not necessarily make God less than

omnipotent. (Plantinga, p. 58ff; Hebblethwaite, p. 65ff) Instead, the

conditions necessary for finite freedom and goodness might entail a kind of

natural evil. This avoids the logical contradiction of a perfect, yet

corruptible, world. This may provide a deeper sense of meaning to God’s

resurrection power, which resurrects the same ‘nothing’ from which God

initially created. If this is so, then the Christian hope remains intact. Ricoeur

alludes to this idea: “[W]e may say that we ‘know’ the reality of evil, to the

extent that we confess that nothingness is what Christ has vanquished by

‘nihilating’ himself on the Cross… This ‘Christological turn’ given to the

problem of evil is one of the paradigmatic ways of thinking more about evil

by thinking differently.” (Evil, A Challenge… p. 644)

The reality of free will is fundamental for both Augustine and Ricoeur.

(Evans, p. 117) Unlike Augustine, however, Ricoeur does not attempt to

confine all evil to the realm of moral evil. Augustine viewed the fall as both

moral and ontological. Human ‘being’ is lessened as a result of the fall.

(Wiley, p. 64) It is the corruptible soul, he says, that is the cause of all the

body’s “vices and ill conduct…” (COG 14.3) But should all aspects of human

finitude be dependent upon the fall? In the biblical accounts, prior to their

fall, the first humans would not have known the difference between ‘good’

and ‘evil’, because it was that very tree from which they were forbidden to

eat. This seems to imply that the pre-fall period was not reflective of

perfection, but rather innocence.

Perhaps, prior to the fall, human beings were unaware of evil, because

their relationship with God was such that no recognition of evil was

necessary. Theirs was not a world without imperfection, but a world where

natural evil, in the form of finitude, already existed and humans were

unaware of it, prior to their temptation. This is not necessarily destructive to

the doctrine of original sin or the free will defense of evil, but re-positions

them. As Richard Kearney points out, “… how could we act against evil if we

could not identify it…?” (Kearney, p. 154)

The symbol of the tree suggests that there was a time when humans

had no knowledge of evil. But the trees also suggest that humans needed to

eat, and Adam’s loneliness suggests that human beings needed

companionship. Regardless of how human beings developed, it seems

unnecessary to extend the fall into every area of human existence. Human

beings, in their innocent state, eventually reached a point where they

realized their freedom and subsequently misused it, attempting to

distinguish between good and evil on their own. The resulting fall would still

have profound effects, even if it is not ontologically or biologically ‘inherited’

using specifically Augustinian categories.

Additionally, if we say, with Augustine, that the first humans were

perfect, it gives the impression that Christianity is a type of Platonism,

wherein we lost our initial state of being and seek to regain it. We should

ask: Is what we seek to regain in this scenario a proper Christian description

of the telos of creation? Will the eschaton consist in the making of all things

new, as everything is brought into reconciliation with Christ, or is it a

returning to the perfection which was from the beginning? If we say the

latter, then what is to keep creation from falling once again? If humanity

was unable to avoid sin in the garden, why should we assume we will avoid it

in the eschaton?

Christians point to Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection as the

source of all hope. However, it seems difficult to hold onto that hope if our

theological paradigm also purports that evil can burst forth at any time, even

in a perfectly good creation, for no apparent reason. It seems that if we

accept Augustine’s account of the origin of evil too dogmatically, it deprives

us somewhat of our eschatological hope.

One might respond that Augustine differentiated between the

perfection of God and the “perfection” of each creature, including humans,

and that it is improper to view perfection in any creature as referring to

anything more than that creature’s possession of all the qualities necessary

for the fulfillment of their being. But presumably it is God who created the

first persons with everything necessary for their fulfillment of being, and if a

person wills to abandon that “perfection” then it would seem there is

something created within the person that would cause them to somehow

view their own fullness of being as unsatisfactory. So, we have merely

begged the question.

There appear to be both necessity and contingency in evil. Freedom is

always present, but evil seems somehow inevitable. In order for a world to

exist that is truly ‘other’ than God, that world would have to contain within

itself some sort of finitude, or potential for corruptibility. “Evil,” suggests

Ricoeur, “belongs to a certain totality of the real.” (PPR, p. 57) However, the

strange thing is that “the necessity appears only afterwards, viewed from the

end, and ‘in spite of’ the contingency of evil.” In other words, the hope of

reconciliation in spite of evil is an eschatological hope and not a

systematically verifiable event. (Ibid)

So, ‘fallibility’ itself may become a mediating term that allows the

Christian theologian to retain certain Augustinian categories which may be

integrated more properly into the combined contexts of theology and

experience, without necessitating a wooden speculation of ‘original sin.’ By

employing fallibility as a category, we can suggest that the origin of evil

need not be relegated entirely to the will. We do infer that moral evil,

though unexplainable, comes from the will. But, if we seek consistency, we

must refuse the temptation to name all imperfection as evil, and then

subsume all evil into the moral category of willed corruption.

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