O necessary sin of Adam

At the Easter Vigil service, we hear the beautiful Exsultet sung at the beginning of the service after we have entered the church with our candles. This is the song which repeats “This is the night…” tying the Easter celebration to the whole of salvation history.

Most interesting to me are these stanzas:

What good would life have been to us,
had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

Father, how wonderful your care for us!
How boundless your merciful love!
To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

To me, this brings to mind what the Franciscan philosopher, John Duns Scotus, said, that Christ would have become human, even if Adam had not sinned.

I saw a delightful art movie the other day, Forgiving the Franklins, in which the Franklin family, freed from the restraints of original sin, are able to be more generous, more loving and even more religious.

I don’t know what to think about original sin — necessary sin, unecessary sin, or even, in this age where Adam, Eve and Eden are pretty much debunked, something that is only a philisophical concept.

Those wanting to read more about the modern view of original sin can do so in this article from America magazine.