How should "sin" be (philosophically?) understood in Romans 5:12?

Question

In Romans 5:12 (and Roman 5 in general) Paul talks about "sin", seemingly personifying it as, for example "entering the world":

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

My question is how are we to understand these personifications of sin and death (see v. 17 "death reigned through that one man")?

Is there a philosophical framework Paul is alluding to (Platonism?)? Is just a simple personification and it refers simply to sinful acts that humans do?

Answer 1

"Personified" may not be the right term here. The fact that sin "enters" the world does not imply willfulness or personality on sin's part. It remains a passive object that has entered the world through the agency of Adam. The same may be said of death. So I would prefer "objectified" to "personified" in this case. Now to the meat of the matter:

Paul seems to use the term "sin" in Romans 5:12 to refer to a state of separation between humans and God, rather than "missing the mark" or violating the law of God. It may be helpful here to refer to Jewish concept of the "yetzer harah," with which Paul would almost certainly be familiar.

Traditionally, rabbinical thought considers the evil inclination to be part of God's creation that must be guided by God's law. Thus, lust (for example) is natural, but it is up to men to control it. God gave Adam and Eve the commandment and later gave the Torah to the Jews to enable them to lead a righteous life that would otherwise be impossible because of the yetzer harah. Sexual passion is a good thing expressed within marriage but not outside of it. The same may be said for other passions and tendencies that lead to sin. For example, rest is good; slothfulness is not. Anger against an evildoer is natural, but vengeance belongs to the Lord. Hunger is good because without it we would not eat, but gluttony is sinful.

Paul's teaching here is apparently an innovation in rabbinical thought. For him, the yetzer comes into being because of Adam's sin rather than Adam sinning due to his failure to control the yetzer.

Regarding death, Paul sees this as the result of sin. Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Conclusion: Paul understands "sin" in this verse to be an inborn tendency to do evil, inherited by human kind because of Adam's fall. Death results from sin rather than being a natural part of life. Death and sin are objectified rather than personified in this passage. They enter through Adam's agency not their own.

Answer 2

To say that sin came into the world through Adam implies that sin is violating God's command. God gave Adam one command.

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:16–17, ESV)

There was only one tree Adam could not eat from, and he disobeyed that command.

,,, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Gen. 3:6, ESV)

God gave commands to Adam, to Noah (Gen.9), and the Law given through Moses. By law does Paul mean all of God's commands, or specifically the Law of Moses.

... for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. (Rom. 5:13, ESV)

Law appears to include all of God's commands because Adam's disobedience carried a penalty of death. So the difficult question is how did sin exist before God's command. Here we get less than definite answers.

1. If Paul were only considering the Law of Moses, people violated the Law of Moses before God gave it to Moses.

2. Looking at law as the total of God's commands, the ability to violate God's commands existed even before God's commands were given. The ability to disobey was given to people as a part of creation, but Christ provided the means to rescue us (Rom. 5:15).