The doctrine of original sin

The usual discourse about original sin on Facebook I recently observed.

Conservatives: Look at exhibit A, (a serial killer, a mass murder, etc), and don't try to tell me that human nature isn't fundamentally sinful
Progressives: Most people are not violent, you cannot say that all people are sinful by nature because of a few bad apples
Conservatives: Well how do you explain evil?
Progressives: I don't know...

And the theological discussion go round and round.

Anyone shed light on this question?



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Comments

  • I don’t think that human beings are born sinful.

    We are influenced by all kinds of things, including temptation. We’re not always totally to blame, but we’re expected to take responsibility for what we might have said or done differently so that it was beneficial rather than harmful.

    Didn’t Jesus say something about those who lead youngsters astray?

  • "Well how do you explain evil?"

    First of all, we have to accept the reality of free will - that we as sentient beings can choose to do good or evil. Ultimately, just about every evil thing done by a human to another human (or to the natural world) comes about because someone decided to do it. Freedom to choose good or evil is a wonderful thing - as long as we choose good! If you like, it was a risk God took in our creation. The alternative was for us to be incapable of doing evil, but then also incapable of the kinds of selfless love that bring such life and joy into our world.

    Of course, we also then need to take into account the other reality that we are shaped by our environments and upbringings, which can make us grow up twisted and more liable to cause harm than to do good. Take Trump as a prime example - there is no doubt that his upbringing (especially the baleful influence of his father) has caused him to be the person he is today. But that doesn't absolve him from all blame for his subsequent actions.

    This is the reason there is so much in the Bible about urging people to choose the right path and to reject the wrong one. We have the choice to make - we can't blame our failures on Adam.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    What's evil?
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    The Jewish Old Covenant? Starting with the first four? Not complying with them makes you evil? How does that work?
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate

    I'm having a hard time with the idea that working an extra shift on Sunday really qualifies as evil.
  • Most peoples in most cultures have similar concepts of "good" and "bad" - love your neighbour as yourself; don't murder; don't lie; don't cheat.

    The problem (not just in the Bible but in almost all faiths) is not "is there such a things as evil?" but "we can all see and experience evil - how do we deal with it?"
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    The Jewish Old Covenant? Starting with the first four? Not complying with them makes you evil? How does that work?

    I dunno, either.
    stetson wrote: »

    I'm having a hard time with the idea that working an extra shift on Sunday really qualifies as evil.

    Same here - but the 10 Commandments still exist, presumably, as some kind of yardstick, and are invoked by many *Christians*.

    FWIW, evil to my mind is child-abuse, whether mental or physical, and that's not specifically mentioned in the Decalogue. It is, however, an abhorrent feature of our society - and our *churches* - and does indeed seem to have been specifically condemned by Our Blessed Lord.

    How original this sin is, I couldn't say, but it's probably been going on since time began.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    stetson wrote: »

    I'm having a hard time with the idea that working an extra shift on Sunday really qualifies as evil.

    It's one of those evils reserved specifically for the clergy...
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    edited January 9
    stetson wrote: »

    I'm having a hard time with the idea that working an extra shift on Sunday really qualifies as evil.

    I'm having a hard time with the fact that the first 3 are all God protecting his IP.

    Still, for an end user license agreements, it at least has the virtue of being short. Doesn't say what he's going to do with all the user data collected, though.
  • If all humans are born with the ability (or capacity) for sin (or evil), then so was Jesus.

    Doesn't mean to say he ever employed it...
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Note: the Eastern Church and the Jewish community do not have any such doctrine of Original Sin. Nor can you find it in Islam. There are books like Matthew Fox's Original Blessing and Danielle Shroyer's Original Blessing: Putting Sin In Its Rightful Place which will tell you the incident is not so much about doing wrong, but about becoming human.

    To the point of the Ten Gifts, or Words--what most Christians know as "Commandments." Do we look at them as prescriptive (do this to be 'good') or do we look at them as descriptive (this is what 'good' looks like)? Are they for the good of the individual or for the betterment of the community?

    My point is after nearly 1500 years, we just may be asking the wrong questions.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    My point is after nearly 1500 years, we just may be asking the wrong questions.
    Agreed. Though my Western and Reformed mind isn’t ready to jettison the idea of “original sin,” I think it’s often invoked to do more work than it can manage—the discourse posited in the OP being an example of stretching it to far.

    Original sin isn’t needed to explain evil, or to explain why some people do evil things, and I don’t think it’s particularly well-suited to explaining those things. It is, IMO, simply one way to explain why every person, regardless of how good they are or aren’t, needs the salvific and reconciling work of God in Jesus.

  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    If all humans are born with the ability (or capacity) for sin (or evil), then so was Jesus.

    Doesn't mean to say he ever employed it...

    Whatever it is. What is it again?
  • Umm...not sure...
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited January 9
    It must be real bad because God had to pour His wrath for it on His own boy to spare those under that shadow.
  • The usual discourse about original sin on Facebook I recently observed.

    Conservatives: Look at exhibit A, (a serial killer, a mass murder, etc), and don't try to tell me that human nature isn't fundamentally sinful
    Progressives: Most people are not violent, you cannot say that all people are sinful by nature because of a few bad apples
    Conservatives: Well how do you explain evil?
    Progressives: I don't know...

    And the theological discussion go round and round.

    Anyone shed light on this question?

    The problem is that they're arguing about original sin but trying to use examples of actualized sin. It's not at all the same thing, and you can't prove anything about the one by using examples of the other.

    Original sin refers to the "sin nature," or that innate tendency to go wrong which is (now, after the Falll, but not formerly) inborn in all human beings except Jesus. If a person dies very young, it may never flower into actual sins. But live long enough, with normal human capacity, and it will show itself in some way, just as a twisted wheel on a grocery cart (/trolley) will inevitably drag you off the wrong way.

    However, the concept is rarely of much use in a discussion about guilt, because people are almost always arguing about full-fledged sinners who are both condemned and condemnable regardless of whether original sin even exists. No need to go on about tendencies when the full-fledged gossiper, cheater, liar, murderer stands in front of you. One actual sin makes the other issue moot.
  • The usual discourse about original sin on Facebook I recently observed.

    Conservatives: Look at exhibit A, (a serial killer, a mass murder, etc), and don't try to tell me that human nature isn't fundamentally sinful
    Progressives: Most people are not violent, you cannot say that all people are sinful by nature because of a few bad apples
    Conservatives: Well how do you explain evil?
    Progressives: I don't know...

    And the theological discussion go round and round.

    Anyone shed light on this question?



    "Sin" and "Evil" are not necessarily the same thing ...
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited January 10
    Martin54 wrote: »
    What's evil?

    I'm not sure, but I know it when I do it, I hope.

    God grant me the insight to know when I do wrong, the ability to make amends, and the capacity to forgive myself.

    I love to talk about all this stuff, but when it comes to defining good and evil, right and wrong, I find that it is all so dependent on circumstances. It requires a god-like perspective. I'm not going to go there. I went into god mode once, fortunately in a gaming environment. Even there, it was quite destructive.

    Good and evil is something about love and relationship. That's as far as I go.



  • Martin54 wrote: »
    It must be real bad because God had to pour His wrath for it on His own boy to spare those under that shadow.

    John 14:8-11 vs Matthew 27:46

    Which depends on where we sit on the what-use-are-fathers spectrum.

    YMMV
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    What's evil?

    It’s just rebellion and we all do it. Against parents, partners and those who need our help.

    But we get distracted and hung up on details, the more salacious the better.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Bill_Noble wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    What's evil?

    It’s just rebellion and we all do it. Against parents, partners and those who need our help.

    But we get distracted and hung up on details, the more salacious the better.

    It's just evolved unenlightened self interest, synergistically compounded in our group behaviour, augmented by privilege and the lack of it. As Jonathan Haidt said we're 90% monkey and 10% bee.
  • Never, ever, use the word 'just' in an argument - it's a hostage to fortune! Who knows what anything 'just' is?

    Like most doctrines and dogmas, I use the concept of OS (being brought up RC) with some disdain, maybe mentioning it in passing when it's helpful in a (prayer/ counseling/comfort/encouragement) situation. But, like most scientific theories, I treat any belief in OS very lightly.

    However, I have been in the presence of real evil that "unenlightened self interest, synergistically compounded in our group behaviour, augmented by privilege and the lack of it" cannot quite explain.
  • My simple mind can only cope with simple explanations, so I probably shouldn't even be here. However... The definition of original sin that I understand best comes from Ron Ferguson, the wise and funny former leader of the Iona Community (and a fine journalist) who once said that original sin is no more than humankind in the raw. I think that says we're not all bad or all good; just that it's where we all start out. That make sense to me.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited January 10
    Just is fine. It explains what Primo Levi witnessed in Auschwitz. It explains the worst lynching in American history. Stuff I've been party to in Dachau, and from Iraq. Do you need more details? Mental illness will throw up more acute nastiness. But most 'real evil' is just normal human behaviour in circumscribed circumstances. You got anything outside that?
  • RockyRoger wrote: »
    Never, ever, use the word 'just' in an argument - it's a hostage to fortune! Who knows what anything 'just' is?

    Er, using the j-word doesn’t prevent you from enjoying the forest of questions.

    Pray continue 😉

  • Martin54 wrote: »
    As Jonathan Haidt said we're 90% monkey and 10% bee.

    They should definitely repaint the Sistine Chapel now. They couldn’t even get the women right.

  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Mental illness will throw up more acute nastiness.

    Evidence? Sounds like ableist nonsense to me.
  • Bill_NobleBill_Noble Shipmate
    edited January 10
    Evidence? Sounds like ableist nonsense to me.

    No, not really. Have a read of the Black Dog thread in All Saints.

    You’ll find a few of us there.
  • My simple mind can only cope with simple explanations, so I probably shouldn't even be here. However... The definition of original sin that I understand best comes from Ron Ferguson, the wise and funny former leader of the Iona Community (and a fine journalist) who once said that original sin is no more than humankind in the raw. I think that says we're not all bad or all good; just that it's where we all start out. That make sense to me.

    It’s not only where we start out, it’s where we end up.

  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited January 10
    @Lamb Chopped said (a while ago):

    Original sin refers to the "sin nature," or that innate tendency to go wrong which is (now, after the Fall, but not formerly) inborn in all human beings except Jesus (my italics)

    There was, and perhaps still is, some controversy over this point. Surely, if he were truly human, Jesus would have had to possess that innate tendency to go wrong?

    The fact that he never did commit actual sin remains, of course.

    Apologies if this is something of a tangent.
  • How dare you bring this thread back on topic 😉

    Was Jesus a wilful toddler?

    Extrapolating back from Luke 2:44-50, I think it seems very likely.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited January 10
    Bill_Noble wrote: »
    Evidence? Sounds like ableist nonsense to me.

    No, not really. Have a read of the Black Dog thread in All Saints.

    You’ll find a few of us there.

    Been there. And Not Waving. Always feel a fraud. But I am damaged by my upbringing and development to a clinical degree. Gone past my elastic limit but can still tie my shoelaces. I know that most normal psychopaths don't hurt anyone abnormally, aberrantly. And that most extreme, aberrant behaviour is engaged in by perfectly 'normal' people up the sharp end of life, but some wayyyyy weird, nasty stuff is done by very sick, i.e. ill people. As even the most validly liberal, inclusive psychiatrist acknowledges

    'The general consensus is that although the vast majority of patients with serious mental illnesses (such as schizophrenia) will not behave violently, there is still an indisputable link.'

    As a 16 year old I did, as Roy Batty understatedly says in Blade Runner, 'questionable things'. Even as a most professionally diagnosed 'empath'. As I did 10, 20 years and every decade after. But not to the same degree. It would have been hard... I'd be in Broadmoor. There's exponential decay, thank God, but the damage done to my psyche is cumulative and only manageable with guttering cognition.

    So it's disablist nonsense if anything.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited January 10
    @Lamb Chopped said (a while ago):

    Original sin refers to the "sin nature," or that innate tendency to go wrong which is (now, after the Fall, but not formerly) inborn in all human beings except Jesus (my italics)

    There was, and perhaps still is, some controversy over this point. Surely, if he were truly human, Jesus would have had to possess that innate tendency to go wrong?

    The fact that he never did commit actual sin remains, of course.

    Apologies if this is something of a tangent.

    It's core. So He never looked at a woman and His jaw dropped? Never said the wrong thing in His full humanity? How could He NOT 'sin', not say something He later regretted, and be fully human?
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    edited January 10
    AIUI in Catholic theology there is a distinction between 'concupiscence', which is the in-built tendency towards sin, and 'original sin', which is privation of the benefits that Adam got by grace instead of nature. Concupiscence is a consequence of original sin, but it isn't in itself original sin.

    Protestant theology by contrast tends to equate the two.
  • Bill_Noble wrote: »
    Evidence? Sounds like ableist nonsense to me.

    No, not really. Have a read of the Black Dog thread in All Saints.

    You’ll find a few of us there.

    I've not only read the Black Dog thread, I've written in it. Not sure of the point you're making.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    @Lamb Chopped said (a while ago):

    Original sin refers to the "sin nature," or that innate tendency to go wrong which is (now, after the Fall, but not formerly) inborn in all human beings except Jesus (my italics)

    There was, and perhaps still is, some controversy over this point. Surely, if he were truly human, Jesus would have had to possess that innate tendency to go wrong?

    The fact that he never did commit actual sin remains, of course.

    Apologies if this is something of a tangent.

    It's core. So He never looked at a woman and His jaw dropped? Never said the wrong thing in His full humanity? How could He NOT 'sin', not say something He later regretted, and be fully human?

    I think the point may be that, although He had the *innate tendency*, He kept it under control - which the rest of us, a Poor, Perishing Company of Miserable Sinners, simply can't do.

    Not sure where I'm going with this...
    :grimace:
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited January 10
    Bill_Noble wrote: »
    Evidence? Sounds like ableist nonsense to me.

    No, not really. Have a read of the Black Dog thread in All Saints.

    You’ll find a few of us there.

    I've not only read the Black Dog thread, I've written in it. Not sure of the point you're making.

    Me too. As I falsely recall. Or not. Not sure what point you're making either.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited January 10
    So have I (a long time ago, admittedly), and I daresay there are quite a few other Shipmates who have done the same.

    Your point, please @Bill_Noble ? Enquiring minds need to know.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Bill_Noble wrote: »
    Evidence? Sounds like ableist nonsense to me.

    No, not really. Have a read of the Black Dog thread in All Saints.

    You’ll find a few of us there.

    I've not only read the Black Dog thread, I've written in it. Not sure of the point you're making.

    Me too. As I falsely recall. Or not. Not sure what point you're making either.

    You seemed to be implying that mentally ill people commit greater evils than those considered "healthy". I was challenging that.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited January 10
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Bill_Noble wrote: »
    Evidence? Sounds like ableist nonsense to me.

    No, not really. Have a read of the Black Dog thread in All Saints.

    You’ll find a few of us there.

    I've not only read the Black Dog thread, I've written in it. Not sure of the point you're making.

    Me too. As I falsely recall. Or not. Not sure what point you're making either.

    You seemed to be implying that mentally ill people commit greater evils than those considered "healthy". I was challenging that.

    And you'd be right to do so. I apologize for creating that impression. I don't believe in evil beyond the mundane, the human. I would correlate culpability inversely with mental health, so I don't believe that mentally ill people worse off than myself can commit greater evil. The qualitative effects at least might be grosser, but the moral failure, if any, far, far less. That even 'ordinarily' - exogenously - depressed men may be prone to violence is extenuated by that. I'm a raving liberal rationalist with a nasty streak of realism in that nothing that anybody does surprises me. My teenage unpleasantness cannot be laid at the door of mental illness, unfortunately. It's the other way around. It gets in to feedback loops after that.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Isn't part of the point of Original Sin that we humans are not naturally good ? That doing what comes naturally to us isn't enough to count as good behaviour ?

    Nobody is born altruistic. We're all born with a bundle of desires. (Some of them take time to develop). We want a big enough piece of the cake to satisfy us. We want to be thought well of, to be significant, to make sense of the world. All of us the main protagonist of our own story.

    Those desires can lead us to do acts that are wrong.

    "Sin", "wrongdoing", "evil" are not quite the same thing, though...
  • The Catholic catechism teaches that all humans are implicated in some way in Adam's 'sin' and reminds us,as St Paul says, that 'sin came into the world through one man........as one man's trespass led to condemnation,so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all. The Baptism of Jesus reminds us that he ,the sinless one, took on our sinfulness by accepting the baptism of repentance.
    As mentioned earlier this 'original sin' is not the same as 'actual sin' and most of our 'actual sins' are simply imperfections of our human nature.However as we know from the first Letter of St John there is a deadly form of sin which the RC Church calls 'mortal' sin.
    As St John says 'every kind of wrongdoing is sin,but not all sin is deadly'.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    Forthview wrote: »
    As St John says 'every kind of wrongdoing is sin, but not all sin is deadly'.
    One of the things that I appreciate in Catholic theology is that the seven deadly sis are not actions at all, but dispositions. The traditional idea that sin is separation from God strikes me as exactly right. When we are angry with our neighbor, we have separated ourselves from God as surely as if we had physically attacked our neighbor. Focusing of wrongdoing is missing the point -- and confusing sin with criminality. Or so ISTM.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Riiight. How does that work post-Enlightenment? Although you've got to love the universal declaration of universalism there haven't you!?
  • Marxist analysis is coming.

    Myself, having learned of indigenous history, I like parts of their mythology better than the biblical. "The other side of Eden" was when humans lived in the world as part of creation, versus the post-Edenic separation and living against it. 'Wilderness being paradise enow', as in we're disconnected from nature and need a walled garden to protect us.

    Getting kicked out of the paradise garden is leaving the farm, but lost the skills of hunting and gathering. And no one except indigenous people listen to animals, rocks and trees anymore (not the same as talking to them).
  • My simple mind can only cope with simple explanations, so I probably shouldn't even be here. However... The definition of original sin that I understand best comes from Ron Ferguson, the wise and funny former leader of the Iona Community (and a fine journalist) who once said that original sin is no more than humankind in the raw. I think that says we're not all bad or all good; just that it's where we all start out. That make sense to me.

    That is similar to Freud's point of view that every new born is affected with 'little Emperor Syndrome." Most of us grow out of it, or at least mature out of it.
  • @Lamb Chopped said (a while ago):

    Original sin refers to the "sin nature," or that innate tendency to go wrong which is (now, after the Fall, but not formerly) inborn in all human beings except Jesus (my italics)

    There was, and perhaps still is, some controversy over this point. Surely, if he were truly human, Jesus would have had to possess that innate tendency to go wrong?

    The fact that he never did commit actual sin remains, of course.

    Apologies if this is something of a tangent.

    Not a tangent at all.

    The sin nature is not something that was part of God's original creation of humanity. It is much more like a parasite--something that has glommed on to the original nature of humanity, which is still present, but which rides it, infects it, permeates it, and does its damndest to meld with it. So Adam and Eve were fully human without it, and Christ is fully human without it, and all of us (one day!) will be and remain fully human without it, once we've been entirely cleansed of it.

    The sin nature adds nothing useful to us (unlike, say, the micro-organisms that apparently became our mitochondria, or bits of them). It is not a thing anyone sensible would want to keep.

    Now as for Christ as a child, toddler, etc.--it is not at all necessary for him to either have the sin nature or to act upon it in order to be fully human. He has the fullness of humanity, just in an undiseased state. As for experience of the diseased state, he has that too--just not in himself proper, as if he himself were a sinner. He has it from us, every one of us--as Isaiah says, "He took up our sins and bore our diseases." So he is in no doubt about what it means to exist as a sinner. In fact, there is no one better placed to describe it than the one who carried that load on our behalf all the way to Calvary.

    The thing about being a strong-willed toddler (child, man) is that you can be all that and still not sin. A strong will is in fact a gift, because if you possess it, you can push for what is good without being sat upon by others. The problem with normal (sinful) toddlers is that they use their will in the service of what is either foolish or bad (as when they smack their sisters, feed the remote control to the dogs, etc.) Jesus would have had an equally strong will--and never lost it, think what kind of will it takes to walk purposefully to one's own death when you know about it in detail, weeks and months ahead.

    What Jesus would have been as a toddler is limited, not sinful. The same is true for any stage of human development. A baby--any baby--cries because that is its normal mode of communication. No doubt Jesus cried. A toddler says "Me do!" because that is a normal step in learning to manage the world. It may be frustrating for Mom or Dad to watch, but being frustrating to others is not in itself a sin. A schoolchild may not yet know his alphabet, but that is not sin either. It is a normal stage of learning. In short, having limits is not a sign of having sin.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    @Lamb Chopped said (a while ago):

    Original sin refers to the "sin nature," or that innate tendency to go wrong which is (now, after the Fall, but not formerly) inborn in all human beings except Jesus (my italics)

    There was, and perhaps still is, some controversy over this point. Surely, if he were truly human, Jesus would have had to possess that innate tendency to go wrong?

    The fact that he never did commit actual sin remains, of course.

    Apologies if this is something of a tangent.

    It's core. So He never looked at a woman and His jaw dropped? Never said the wrong thing in His full humanity? How could He NOT 'sin', not say something He later regretted, and be fully human?

    I think the point may be that, although He had the *innate tendency*, He kept it under control - which the rest of us, a Poor, Perishing Company of Miserable Sinners, simply can't do.

    Not sure where I'm going with this...
    :grimace:

    On this one--having your jaw drop at the sight of an attractive fellow human being is not a sin. It's a normal human response. What you do with it afterward (fantasies, hitting on them while they're at work, harassment, trying to break up their marriage) may be sin. An alternative I've been working on for myself is a short prayer, "Dear, God, X is gorgeous. Thanks for making him that way!" And then moving on before I get caught up in something improper.

    As for saying something you regret later--

    If the regret is because you shouldn't have said it (failure of virtue or failure of wisdom), then no, Jesus wouldn't have had that problem. If the regret is something else ("Man, I wish I had realized that was Johnny's sister, I would have rephrased it") then it's another thing.

    I don't think you're going to find failure of wisdom in Jesus at any age, because the words "I don't know" are always there, waiting to be used. So whenever he ran up against one of his human limits (How many planets around the sun? Which orbits which, for that matter?), I expect you'd have heard him admit ignorance. He does so on the subject of the date of his own second coming. Why not other times?

    And "I don't know" is not a sin, unless you really do know and are lying. Since he laid his omniscient glory aside at almost all times (except to benefit another person, basically), he can say "I don't know" with full truthfulness, like any other person in the first century.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    ...
    The sin nature is not something that was part of God's original creation of humanity. It is much more like a parasite--something that has glommed on to the original nature of humanity, which is still present, but which rides it, infects it, permeates it, and does its damndest to meld with it. So Adam and Eve were fully human without it, and Christ is fully human without it, and all of us (one day!) will be and remain fully human without it, once we've been entirely cleansed of it.

    The sin nature adds nothing useful to us (unlike, say, the micro-organisms that apparently became our mitochondria, or bits of them). It is not a thing anyone sensible would want to keep....
    So it isn't part of our genetically hard wired, evolved nature?
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