ABSTRACT
It is probably not fruitful to discuss the question of Adam’s identity here beyond what was said in the response to Part Two. Any discussion of a remote ancestor, human or prehuman, who might be traced or conjectured may be otherwise of interest, but it has no relevance to an understanding of the doctrine of original sin. The relationship of the doctrine to the suffering of the innocent is along the lines briefly suggested concerning the tradition about “preternatural gifts” in the response to Part Two above. There is no difficulty in acknowledging that physical death and some kinds of suffering are intrinsic to being a living body. The Christian claims are about the way death is experienced as throwing a shadow of fear backwards over the whole of life, and about the way suffering is unnecessarily multiplied, perception and understanding are clouded, and values tend to slip out of the proportionate order of priority.
