54. Gn. litt. 6.25; Hill, Genesis, 321; CSEL 28.197. (continued)
Made to be Godly 57
This revolt, however, was not necessary. It flowed from humanity's ability not to sin, the second attribute which manifests Adam and Eve's being like God. This impeccability is represented by the same type of Latin parallel Augustine employs to distinguish between Adam's ability not to die [posse non mori] and his inability to die [non posse mori]: namely the difference between posse non peccare and non posse peccare. For without Adam's sin, his death would not have come about.55 At this point Augustine must contend with what he portrays as a Manichaean dispute. The Manichees maintained that it would have been better to have made the human person "in such wise that he wouldn't sin." But that is precisely what God did do, answers Augustine: the human person was made so he would not sin if he had not wanted to.56 The origin of sin is now squarely placed in human disobedience: made to long for and love God, Adam was nonetheless free to reject God and able to reorient his divine longing elsewhere.
Accompanying this blamelessness is a third characteristic: without the fear of death or the subsequent dissolution of body, Adam and Eve lived in perfect felicity. The Adamic perfection enjoyed in Eden was marked by a lack of blame, lack of fault, and a condition which was wholly good: "The first man was created with a blameless nature, in a nature without fault. He was created upright; he did not make himself so."57 Without blame and its subsequent effect of death, Adam was originally able to live without any misery.58 At De Ciuitate Dei 14.26, this lack of misery is explained as a true joy: Adam and Eve enjoyed perfect tranquility [tota tranquilitas] in their soul.
55. For more on this movement, cf. Gerhart Ladner, "Conception of the Reformation of Man," Augustinus Magister 2, 867–78; 869.
56. Cf. Gn. adu. Man. 2.28.42: "Sic eum faceret, inquit, ut non peccaret.—Immo ipse hoc faceret; sic enim factus est ut, si noluisset, non peccaret"; CSEL 91.169.
57. s. 26.2; Hill, Sermons (III/2), 94; "Creatus est primus homo in natura sine culpa, in natura sine uitio: creatus est rectus, non se fecit rectum"; PL 38.172.
58. Cf. corrept. 10.28.