ORIGINAL SIN - HOW DOES A NEWLY EXISTING PERSON END UP WITH IT?
The vast majority of Christians and non-Christians who know of Christianity
believe that origianl sin is God accusing a baby of a sin it has not committed.
It is alarming that the religion can thrive despite this dreadful perception.
The liberal view says that original sin is simply a fancy name for the weakness
in us that draws us into sin and nothing more. This is, strictly speaking, not a
doctrine of original sin at all but a repudiation of the doctrine. Most liberals
say that all people are right with God for he would not distance himself from
anyone who can’t help what they do. Their version of original sin does not say
that it cuts us off God but the opposite.
Some atheists think: "There is nothing wrong the idea that we are born weak and
prone to sin except that there is no God to sin against!" We are prone to
wrongdoing but wrongdoing and sin are not exactly the same. Wrongdoing is
wrongdoing but sin is about how God sees wrong doing and forbids it.
If original sin is real then how do you get it? We need to look at how you are
supposed to get a soul. The soul is the real you and thus if original sin exists
then that is where it is. The soul carries it.
HOW DOES THE SOUL START? - TRADUCIANISM AND CREATIONISM
Traducianism and Creationism are the two theories about the origin of the
spiritual soul.
Traducianism says that the soul is inherited from the parents. It is like the
parents’ soul make a new soul. This is used to explain why you inherit original
sin. But if that were the reason why, then you would inherit your parent’s sins
as well. The idea of two partless entities making a new partless entity is
absurd. It is like saying two spaces can make new space. When they have no parts
how could they do it? It seems we have just a new spirit that has nothing to do
with the souls of the parents and which is directly created by God. Only God
could make a new soul. The Bible never says that souls can reproduce souls. How
could the soul reproduce when it does not know that the woman the owner had sex
with was not on the pill and would make a new baby? This is creationism which is
supposed to be a separate theory.
Creationism says that the soul is made directly by God. The Church says that the
soul is not made corrupt by God but gets original sin from the body. It is the
same as when a baby is born in a slurry pit. The baby is pure and good and is
just born into filth. The soul is good and pure but never gets a chance to be
good and holy for it instantly goes into the filth of original sin which ruins
it. This implies that the soul is good and is ruined by the body. The body must
be bad and the vehicle of original sin. This system does not absolve God of
responsibility for original sin and the venial and mortal sins that spring from
it. When God makes the soul to be clean and pure that means it is the way it
should be so why does he send it into the body to ruin it? Why can’t he stop the
disease? Why can’t he purify the flesh so that it will not transmit it? He
admits souls should be made good for he is good and then he sins. Small wonder
Islam and many religions hold that original sin is one of the blasphemies of
blasphemies of the Christian religion.
ORIGINAL SIN – THE FOUR THEORIES
There are four theories of the transmission of original sin. The theories are
really just attempts to avoid blaming God for the spread of original sin. What
else would they be adopted for? If we just blame God then there is no need for
theories of transmission. For example, to say we have original sin for Adam
represented us and sinned making us sinners too is to try and blame Adam and not
God. None of the theories succeed in absolving God so the theory the Christians
should have is this: “It is God’s fault and he makes us sinners and that is why
we are born sinful”.
1 The Mediate Imputation Theory.
This says that all are guilty because they want to sin including babies. Adam’s
sin is not automatically imputed (blamed on) to them but it’s influence causes
them to sin by making them depraved and this causes an imputation of Adam’s sin
to take place. So you become guilty of Adam’s sin because you would do it if you
could.
Because babies would sin like Adam if they could and get this power from Adam
they share in Adam’s sin. God has to treat them as good or bad or as neither but
since they have inherited the bias towards sin he is justified as counting them
as bad.
2 The Realistic Theory.
All people inherit original sin from Adam like a disease. It is hereditary.
Those who invented this absurdity forgot that if original sin is taken away from
Christians by baptism or the new birth then they couldn’t pass it on.
The theory implies that Adam was like a root and we are the trunk and branches
that have come from the root and so we carry the same disease that the root
carries. But who made it possible for Adam to be the cause? God did. He could
have made a root that could heal or contain the disease and not spread it to the
tree that emerges from it.
3 The Representative Theory.
We are to blame for Adam’s sin for he sinned on our behalf. He is our
representative. When a king declares war all his subjects including babies are
as bad as he is.
Only a twisted person would believe this! You don’t punish babies because their
daddy committed some felony on their behalf.
We are only responsible for what a representative does when we have made him our
representative and sanctioned all his decisions. We were not around when Adam
sinned. God should not have made him our rep. God was looking for trouble if he
did.
Representative or not, there is no justification for God setting it up so
that Adam's corruption ate into us and made us sinners. Representatives
cannot turn those who they represent into corrupt or sinners just by
representing them.
Adam repented of his sin yet Christians won’t say that he is our representative
then! If he was our representative at all then since he reversed his sinful
decision we cannot have got his original sin. The Christian God prefers to give
us the bad thing rather than the good thing. This is more clearly seen when the
proponents of this theory say that Jesus was our representative and choose God
for us thus reversing what Adam had done. God knew that Jesus would do this so
he should have made him the representative of all in the first place instead of
Adam. When there is a bad rep and a good one the good one is the one whose
representation should be accepted.
Christian theologian Richard Swinburne is Was Jesus God? states that we inherit
the debts of our ancestors though not their guilt - guilt as in responsibility
for evil. He says we owe God atonement for the sins of our fathers for they
didn't settle the debt. Is this what the idea of original sin is trying to say?
It cannot be. If the ancestors live forever as Christians believe then why can't
they take care of the making up to God? And God should only demand making up for
sin so that we might grow as people in doing so. He does not need us to do this
but we might need to do it. A God who demands that we pay for our ancestors sins
is asking for something he does not need and has no right to. The only way he
could have the right is if we also carry and inherit the guilt.
Augustine taught that God did not make evil. Evil is not real in the sense that
it is the absence of good that should be there. It is the wrong good in the
wrong place.
Catholicism teaches that original sin means that Adam ordained it that anybody
born after him and through him would have the absence of real goodness, the
absence of God in them from conception. So original sin is the absence of God
until God enters the soul usually through baptism. Catholics say that the baby
has an absence of God and there is no positive evil in God not being there. God
being absent from the baby is called original sin for sin means the break or
loss of fellowship with God.
No normal parent would think that a God who won't unite with the soul of their
baby and be present in it until it is baptised is a really good God.
The assertion that there is no evil in a baby not having God inside her
contradicts the doctrine that baptism is needed and is extremely important for
you need God. It contradicts the doctrine that God deserves a 100% relationship
with us.
The doctrine of original sin says that God is not to blame for original sin
which is merely the absence of the good of being united with God and being
indwelt by him. It attempts to show that God though all good has solid reasons
for letting evil happen - that God is not to blame for evil for it is distorted
good and so is not real. Original sin is supposed to be an absence. If it is a
positive evil, for example, as real as oxygen or gravity or heat, then it
follows that God is evil for he puts this evil into and makes it for babies.
Christianity is distracting us from the point, God is still responsible for not
being in babies and nobody says original sin is good. It is bad. God is bad.
It is no answer to say that a baby does not deserve God. Deserving is not the
point. It is an insult to say it is.
4 The Pre-Existence of Souls Theory
We lived before we were born. We have all sinned by consciously approving of
Adam’s crime and thereby became as bad as him. We came into this world with this
sin.
There is no Bible evidence that souls exist before conception so the Church has
never accepted this theory.
The apostle Paul in the Bible says that original sin in us is not deliberate.
“In Adam, all sinned”.
The theory will have to say that babies remember and adhere to their sin for if
their memories were wiped they could not be sinful anymore. You can’t be guilty
of sins that you can’t recall. This theory at least does not have to blacken
babies to the extent that the others do for they accuse the babies of sin even
though they have never consented to it.
The theory is not really defending original sin. It says it is a sin you
yourself commit. Original sin is not that. Catholicism says that original sin is
the sin you come into the universe with but actual sin is what you call sin you
commit yourself.
FINALLY
None of the theories about how you get make sense or respect true justice. They
have a strong smell of misanthropism.
WORKS CONSULTED
CITY OF GOD, St Augustine, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1986
EVERYMAN’S ROAD TO HEAVEN, Leo J Trese, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1961
APOLOGETICS AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son,
Dublin, 1954
RADIO REPLIES, VOL 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul,
Minnesota, 1938
THE SINNER’S GUIDE, Ven Louis of Granada, TAN, Illinois, 1983
CHRISTIANITY, David Albert Jones OP, Family Publications, Oxford, 1999
THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, John Calvin, Hodder and Stoughton,
London 1986
THE FALL AND ORIGINAL SIN, WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY III, WILLIAM MORAN DD, ST
PATRICKS COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH, CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY OF IRELAND, 1940
