From a "traditional", Trinitarian perspective, what is the effect of the doctrine of sin in the doctrine of creation?

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I am going to break this sentence into its constituent parts.

The conditional:

[Sin], Having lost its traditional moorings in the doctrine of creation,

Here in the conditional, the author correctly states that sin is tied to creation. Regardless of how creation happened, it is assumed that Creation was good, but something happened to make it bad. That Creation is "Good" is attested to on every day of Creation, in the account of Genesis 1. That the Creation "fell" is the story of Genesis 3, and expounded by Jews and Christians alike, most notably by Paul:

12 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— ... 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

(The last part of "Creation, Fall, ..." is Redemption, which is taken up in Romans 5, and is called "The Big Story of Scripture" by many evangelicals.

The idea is simple: It was good, it got bad. This is what Christians mean by "Fall" and the consequence of the Fall is "Sin."

The Effect:

the doctrine of sin, Kelsey argued, had not disappeared from sight as some suspected.

The premise being attacked by "Kelsey" is thus:

If you disprove Creation, you disprove the idea of Sin.

The idea is that if the doctrine of sin has its origins in / is tied to (ergo is "anchored" or "tied to the moorings of") creation & fall, then ... if you can get rid of the idea that there was ever a single "creation" you would also take out the idea that sin exists at the same time.

The problem, is that sin, and hence the Fall, is empirically proven each day. (e.g. JUST WATCH THE NEWS!!!).

The premise (that denying the creation denies sin) is thus demonstrably false.

  1. At least some people don't believe in a literal creation
  2. Even some of those still see that there is "a fall"

Candidly, many evangelicals think that "intellectuals" want to believe there is no such thing as sin. (Indeed, I remember arguing with a professor so "enlightened" that he simply called sin "too exclusive a concept". I remembered thinking, "What an idiot".) Thus rooted to the story of Creation, it might have been assumed that successfully attacking the idea of creation could also disprove the existence of sin.

The Analysis

Kelsey via McDougall is saying, "It didn't work."

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Young Earth Creationists (and Old ones) have argued for the doctrinal importance of taking the story of the Fall in Genesis as literal history. Young Earthers have said that if you negate the creation story's claim, as they see it, that physical death did NOT happen before the Fall, you capsize the bible's whole doctrine of sin and need for a Savior. As one piece of evidence for my claim, this "Death Before Sin?" article from the Institute for Creation Research has a whole subsection on "The Effects of Sin Removed."

An important verse in this controversy:

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... For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Romans 5:12, 15b

Aware of these controversies, it is clear that the article is making note of the fact that the common view of creation has changed, yet the doctrine of sin has not disappeared.

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