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Original sin

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Original sin[1] is, according to a doctrine in Christian theology, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man.[2] While the Old Testament and the New, which frequently speak of the sinfulness of humans, do not contain the terms "original sin" or "ancestral sin",[3] the doctrine expressed by these terms is claimed to be based on the teaching of Paul the Apostle in Romans 5:12–21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22.[2] Some see the doctrine as implied in Old Testament passages such as Psalm 51:5 and Psalm 58:3. A doctrine of original sin, however, is not found in Jewish theology; original sin is also rejected by the post-Christian Abrahamic religions, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith.

In the history of Christianity this condition has been characterized in many ways ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred to as a "sin nature," to something as drastic as total depravity or automatic guilt by all humans through collective guilt.[4]

Roman Catholic teaching regards original sin as the general condition of sinfulness (lack of holiness) into which human beings are born, distinct from the actual sins that a person commits. It explicitly states that original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants.[5]

The prevailing view also in Eastern Orthodoxy is that man bears no guilt for the sin of Adam. They prefer to use the term "ancestral sin",[6] which indicates that "original sin is hereditary. It did not remain only Adam and Eve's. As life passes from them to all of their descendants, so does original sin. We all of us participate in original sin because we are all descended from the same forefather, Adam."[7] An important exposition of the belief of Eastern Christians identifies original sin as physical and spiritual death, the spiritual death being the loss of "the grace of God, which quickened (the soul) with the higher and spiritual life".[8] Others see original sin also as the cause of actual sins: "a bad tree bears bad fruit" (Matthew 7:17, NIV), although, in this view, original and actual sin may be difficult to distinguish.[9]

The Fall of Man

Michelangelo's painting of the sin of Adam and Eve (the Fall)

Original sin is said to result from the Fall of Man, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of a particular tree in the Garden of Eden. This first sin ("the original sin"), an action of the first human beings, is traditionally understood to be the cause of "original sin", the fallen state from which human beings can be saved only by God's grace. This is also called Adam and Eve sin.

Further information: Fall of Man

History of the doctrine

Augustine of Hippo wrote that original sin is transmitted by concupiscence and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it.[2]

The Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists mostly dealt with topics other than original sin.[2] The doctrine of original sin was first developed in second-century Bishop of Lyon Irenaeus's struggle against Gnosticism.[2] The Greek Fathers emphasized the cosmic dimension of the Fall, namely that since Adam human beings are born into a fallen world, but held fast to belief that man, though fallen, is free.[2] It was in the West that precise definition of the doctrine arose.[2] Augustine of Hippo taught that original sin was transmitted through the concupiscence (roughly, lust) that accompanied sexual reproduction, weakening the will and making humanity a massa damnata[2] (mass of perdition, condemned crowd). In Augustine's view (termed "Realism"), all of humanity was really present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. Original sin, according to Augustine, consists of the guilt of Adam which all human beings inherit. As sinners, human beings are utterly depraved in nature, lack the freedom to do good, and cannot respond to the will of God without divine grace. Grace is irresistible, results in conversion, and leads to perseverance.[10]

In the struggle against Pelagianism, which denied the doctrine of original sin,[10] the principles of Augustine's teaching was confirmed by many councils, especially the Second Council of Orange in 529.[2] Some of the followers of Augustine identified original sin with concupiscence, but this identification was challenged by the eleventh-century Saint Anselm of Canterbury , who defined original sin as "privation of the righteousness that every man ought to possess", thus separating it from concupiscence. In the twelfth century the identification of original sin with concupiscence was supported by Peter Lombard and others, but was rejected by the leading theologians in the next century, chief of whom was Thomas Aquinas. He distinguished the supernatural gifts of Adam before the Fall from what was merely natural, and said that what it was the former that were lost, privileges that enabled man to keep his inferior powers in submission to reason and directed to his supernatural end. Even after the fall, man thus kept his natural abilities of reason, will and passions. Rigorous Augustine-inspired views persisted among the Franciscans, though the most prominent Franciscan theologians, such as Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, eliminated the element of concupiscence.

Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin equated original sin with concupiscence, affirming that it persisted even after baptism and completely destroyed freedom.[2]

The Council of Trent, while not pronouncing on points disputed among Catholic theologians, condemned the teaching that in baptism the whole of what belongs to the essence of sin is not taken away, but is only cancelled or not imputed, and declared that the concupiscence that remains after baptism not truly and properly sin in the baptized, but can only be called sin in the sense that it is of sin and inclines to sin.[11]

In 1567, soon after the close of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V went beyond Trent by sanctioning the Aquinas's distinction between nature and supernature in Adam's state before the Fall, condemned the identification of original sin with concupiscence, and approved the view that the unbaptized could have right use of will.[2]

From about the 18th century, belief about original sin has tended to become softened, but has persisted in some form as in Immanuel Kant's idea of "radical evil".[2]

Unbaptized infants

Augustine believed that the only definitive destinations of souls are heaven and hell. He concluded that unbaptized infants go to hell as a consequence of original sin.[12][13] The Latin Church Fathers who followed Augustine adopted his position, which became a point of reference for Latin theologians in the Middle Ages.[14] In the later mediaeval period, some theologians continued to hold Augustine's view, others held that unbaptized infants suffered no pain at all: unaware of being deprived of the beatific vision, they enjoyed a state of natural, not supernatural happiness. Starting around 1300, unbaptized infants were often said to inhabit the "limbo of infants".[15] The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1261 declares: "As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,'[16] allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism." But the theory of Limbo, while it "never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium ... remains ... a possible theological hypothesis".[17]

Augustine's formulation of original sin was popular among Protestant reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, and also, within Roman Catholicism, in the Jansenist movement, but this movement was declared heretical by the Roman Catholic Church.[18]

Like other traditional church doctrines, original sin has been denied or reinterpreted by various modern Christian denominations (such as the Unity Church) and theologians (such as Matthew Fox). Under such different views, Augustine's example of newborn babies would suffer the temptation to sin from their nature, but would not bear any guilt because of not actually committing sins of their own.

Christian doctrine

Illuminated parchment, Spain, circa AD 950-955, depicting the Fall of Man, cause of original sin.

There are wide-ranging disagreements among Christian groups as to the exact understanding of the doctrine about a state of sinfulness or absence of holiness affecting all human beings, even children, with some Christian groups denying it altogether.

New Testament

The scriptural basis for the doctrine is found in two New Testament books by Paul the Apostle, Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, in which he identifies Adam as the one man through whom death came into the world.[2] [19]

Roman Catholicism

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.

Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called "original sin".

As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called "concupiscence").

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 416-418

Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that in "yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state … original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed"—a state and not an act" (404). This "state of deprivation of the original holiness and justice … transmitted to the descendants of Adam along with human nature" (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 76) involves no personal responsibility or personal guilt on their part (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405). Personal responsibility and guilt were Adam's, who because of his sin, was unable to pass on to his descendants a human nature with the holiness with which it would otherwise have been endowed, in this way implicating them in his sin.

Though Adam's sinful act is not the responsibility of his descendants, the state of human nature that has resulted from that sinful act has consequences that plague them: "Human nature, without being entirely corrupted, has been harmed in its natural powers, is subject to ignorance, suffering and the power of death, and has a tendency to sin. This tendency is called concupiscence" (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 77), but is distinct from original sin itself, since it remains even when original sin is remitted.

The Church has always held baptism to be "for the remission of sins", and, as mentioned in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 403, infants too have traditionally been baptized, though not guilty of any actual personal sin. The sin that through baptism was remitted for them could only be original sin, with which they were connected by the very fact of being human beings. Based largely on this practice, Saint Augustine of Hippo articulated the teaching in reaction to Pelagianism, which insisted that human beings have of themselves, without the necessary help of God's grace, the ability to lead a morally good life, and thus denied both the importance of baptism and the teaching that God is the giver of all that is good.

The Roman Catholic Church did not accept all of Augustine's ideas, which he developed to counter the claim by Pelagius that the influence of Adam on other human beings was merely that of bad example. For instance, the Church did not adopt the opinion that involvement in Adam's guilt and punishment takes effect through the dependence of human procreation on the sexual passion, in which the spirit's inability to control flesh is evident. Rather, the Church teaches that original sin comes to the soul simply from the new person taking his nature from one whose nature itself had original sin. In this way, the Church argues that original sin is not imputing the sin of the father to the son; rather, it is simply the inheritance of a wounded nature from the father, which is an unavoidable part of reproduction.

The Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is that Mary was conceived free from original sin: "the most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin."[20] The exceptional character that Catholic doctrine attributes to the conception of Mary thus depends on the reality of original sin. If, as some hold, original sin did not exist, not only she, but all human beings would be conceived "immune from all stain of original sin".

Eastern Christianity

Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, which together make up Eastern Christianity, acknowledge that the introduction of ancestral sin into the human race affected the subsequent environment for mankind, but never accepted Augustine of Hippo's notions of original sin and hereditary guilt.[21] The act of Adam is not the responsibility of all humanity, but the consequences of that act changed the reality of this present age of the cosmos. The Greek Fathers emphasized the metaphysical dimension of the Fall of Man, whereby Adam's descendants are born into a fallen world, but at the same time held fast to belief that, in spite of that, man remains free.[2] Instead of accepting the Lutheran interpretation of Augustine's teaching, Orthodox Churches accept the teaching of John Cassian, which rejects the doctrine of Total Depravity, by teaching that human nature is "fallen", that is, depraved, but not totally.

Lutheranism

The second article in Lutheranism's Augsburg Confession presents its doctrine of original sin in summary form:

It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Rejected in this connection are the Pelagians and others who deny that original sin is sin, for they hold that natural man is made righteous by his own powers, thus disparaging the sufferings and merit of Christ.[22]

Mainstream Protestantism

The notion of original sin as interpreted by Augustine of Hippo was affirmed by the Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. Both Luther and Calvin agreed that humans inherit Adamic guilt and are in a state of sin from the moment of conception. This inherently sinful nature (the basis for the Calvinistic doctrine of "total depravity") results in a complete alienation from God and the total inability of humans to achieve reconciliation with God based on their own abilities. Not only do individuals inherit a sinful nature due to Adam's fall, but since he was the federal head and representative of the human race, all whom he represented inherit the guilt of his sin by imputation.

John Calvin defined original sin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion as follows:

Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19). And that is properly what Paul often calls sin. The works that come forth from it--such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, carousings--he accordingly calls "fruits of sin" (Gal 5:19-21), although they are also commonly called "sins" in Scripture, and even by Paul himself.[23]

The Methodist Church, founded by John Wesley, upholds Article VII in the Articles of Religion in the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church:

Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.[24]

Because of this conundrum, Protestants believe that God the Father sent Jesus into the world. The personhood, life, ministry, suffering, and death of Jesus, as God incarnate in human flesh, is meant to be the atonement for original sin as well as actual sins; this atonement is according to some rendered fully effective by the Resurrection of Jesus.

Seventh-day Adventism

One authoritative Adventist position is outlined by reference to publicly available theological positions available on the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s official website on theological doctrine, the Biblical Research Institute.[25] One such article commenting on original sin can be found here.

Denial of original sin

Restoration Movement

Most Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement Churches, such as the Churches of Christ, Christian Churches, and the Disciples of Christ, reject the notion of original sin, believing only in the sins for which men and women are personally responsible. Such churches do not object to the idea that Adam and Eve brought sin into the world by introducing disobedience. Disobedience influenced further generations in much the same way other ideas spread, thus making sin likely in any individual above "The Age of Accountability."

In the Old Testament, in the Book of Ezekiel, God's people are rebuked for suggesting that the children would die/suffer for their father's sins:

The word of the Lord came to me: "What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: 'The parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge'? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.
—Ezek. 18:1-4, TNIV

The Lord then gives examples of a good father with a bad son, of a good son with a bad father, etc. and states:

"Yet you ask, 'Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?' Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.
—Ezek. 18:19-20, TNIV

God concludes: "house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to your own ways … Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit" (Ezek. 18:30-31, TNIV).

Many Restoration movement churches and individuals, however, do believe that Adam's sin made us depraved (that is, with a tendency towards sin) without making us guilty of Adam's sin. Man is predisposed towards sin, but though every person sins, they are not guilty on account of any sin nature.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons), are a movement with an additional set of scriptures. Mormonism does not believe in the concept of original sin as it is generally used Christianity, but believes that everyone will be punished for their own individual sins and not for any transgression of Adam or Eve.[26] Neither do Mormons believe that children come into the world with any guilt. Rather, Jesus Christ atoned for any "original guilt" and the sins of parents cannot be answered upon the heads of their children. Moses 6:53 in the Pearl of Great Price reads:

And our father Adam spake unto the Lord, and said: Why is it that men must repent and be baptized in water? And the Lord said unto Adam: Behold I have forgiven thee thy transgression in the Garden of Eden.

54 Hence came the saying abroad among the people, that the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt, wherein the sins of the parents cannot be answered upon the heads of the children, for they are whole from the foundation of the world.

Furthermore, Mormons hold that little children are incapable of committing sin and, as such, have no need of (saving) baptism until age eight when they can begin to learn to discern right from wrong, and are thus capable of sin and can be held accountable. Little children who die before reaching the age of accountability (even though they are unbaptized) are automatic heirs of salvation and are saved in the Celestial Kingdom of God through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Those who are incapable of understanding right from wrong, such as mentally handicapped persons, are also saved under the atonement of Jesus Christ without baptism.

References

  1. ^ The term "ancestral sin" is also used, as in Greek προπατορικὴ ἁμαρτία (e.g. Πόλεμος και φτώχεια - η ορθόδοξη άποψη, Η νηστεία της Σαρακοστής, Πώς στράφηκε ο Λούθηρος κατά του Μοναχισμού - του Γεωργίου Φλωρόφσκυ) or προπατορικὸ ἁμάρτημα (e.g. Απαντήσεις σε ερωτήματα δογματικά - Ανδρέα Θεοδώρου, εκδ. Αποστολικής Διακονίας, 1997, σελ. 156-161, Θεοτόκος και προπατορικό αμάρτημα)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Original Sin
  3. ^ The same applies to terms such as "Trinity" used to express other Catholic doctrines.
  4. ^ Brodd, Jefferey (2003). World Religions. Winona, MN: Saint Mary's Press. ISBN 978-0-88489-725-5. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405
  6. ^ While the traditional term in Latin is "peccatum originale", with reference to the "origin" of the human race, the traditional term in Greek is "προπατορική αμαρτία" (or "προπατορικό αμάρτημα", more rarely "προγονική αμαρτία"), with reference to the "ancestor" of the human race). This is the term used also by Roman Catholics when speaking or writing in Greek.
  7. ^ Metropolis Basic Teachings of the Orthodox Faithby Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Archbishop Sotirios of Toronto (Canada): Original Sin and Its Consequences
  8. ^ Catechism of St. Philaret, questions 166, 167, 168
  9. ^ Johann Gerhard, Loci theologici, 5.17, quoted by Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 19.
  10. ^ a b Justo L. Gonzalez (1970–1975). A History of Christian Thought: Volume 2 (From Augustine to the eve of the Reformation). Abingdon Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
  11. ^ Decree 5 concerning original sin
  12. ^ "Infernum", literally "underworld," later identified as limbo.
  13. ^ "Limbo: Past Catholic statements on the fate of unbaptized infants, etc. who have died"[1]
  14. ^ Study by International Theological Commission, 19 January 2007, 19-21
  15. ^ Study by International Theological Commission, 19 January 2007, 22-25
  16. ^ Mark 10:14; cf. 1 Tim 2:4
  17. ^ Study by International Theological Commission, 19 January 2007, secondary preliminary paragraph; cf. paragraph 41.
  18. ^ "Jansenius and Jansenism" in The Catholic Encyclopedia
  19. ^ Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. —Romans 5:12-14, ESV "Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." —Rom. 5:18-21, ESV
  20. ^ Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854) quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 491[2]
  21. ^ stmaryorthodoxchurch.org
  22. ^ Theodore G. Tappert, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 29.
  23. ^ John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.1.8, LCC, 2 vols., trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 251. Cf. Institutes of the Christian Religion at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
  24. ^ The United Methodist Church: The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church - Article V—Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation
  25. ^ adventistbiblicalresearch.org
  26. ^ Articles of Faith, article #2

See also

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