I would argue and have many times that Romans 5:12-21 says precisely that.
An Article on free will
- Thread starter TomL
- Start date
So Adam changed the biology of human beings. Interesting, but I don't find that anywhere in scripture.
jeremiah1five
Well-known member
The word "good" in the creative narrative is a word that means, "good enough" or "to specification." It has no moral meaning such as "bad" as opposed to "good" but means the same thing we would say with a job well done: "it came out 'good' or 'good enough,' or 'to specification.'
It is like when you bake a cake and cut a piece and eat it and you are pleased with the result and say, "it came out good."
I don';t study Christianity. I study the Scripture. The Bible tells me what to believe, not Christianity.
I am a Biblical Christian. That's the only kind in existence. If 'your' Christianity is no Biblical, then it is NOT Christianity.
Bottom line.
That depends upon what you mean by IN Adam and OUT of Adam.Many scholars still debate ONE verse because of ONE word IN that verse-
Rom 5:12 Death Came through Adam but Life Comes through Christ
Because of this, just as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned.
Not to put you to the test-dokimazo-did these sin IN Adam or OUT of Adam?
God bless sorella.
J.
Seriouslly @Johann, that is because you impose your belief in original sin into Romans 5:18,19. That is why you say that the effect of Adam's disobedience is imposed upon the entire unborn or just born humanity, but then limit the effect of Jesus' obedience to just the few who later in life believe in God.
Johann
Well-known member
So glad you've asked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU4vfNkMhO4
Theological Models of Adam and Christ as Representatives
Model Core Concept View of Adam’s Role View of Christ’s Role Nature of Transmission Biblical Foundations Key Theological Outcomes
Federal Headship Covenant/legal representation of all by one individual Covenant head of all humanity; sin imputed to all Covenant head of redeemed; righteousness imputed Forensic (legal imputation, not physical) Romans 5:12–19; 1 Cor 15:21–22, 45–49; Hosea 6:7 Justification by imputation; original sin is inherited guilt; salvation as covenantal substitution
Natural Headship Ontological unity between Adam and descendants Physical/ontological head; sin transmitted by nature Redeemer as new progenitor; righteousness communicated Realistic (biological/ontological participation) Romans 5:12; Heb 7:9–10; Gen 5:3 Inherited corruption and guilt; redemption as re-creation; heavily Augustinian/Thomistic
Corporate Solidarity Communal identity shared within group; representation as part of group identity Archetypal human; all share fate in him Archetypal redeemer; new humanity formed in him Relational and covenantal, but not legal or biological Deut 5:3; Josh 7; Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15 Emphasizes group identity and relational participation; avoids forensic imputation
Pelagian / Semi-Pelagian Adam is a moral example or bad influence First sinner only; no effect beyond influence Moral teacher or helper; grace assists natural will No imputation or inherited nature—sin by imitation Ezek 18:20; Rom 5:12 (“because all sinned”)
Denies original sin (Pelagianism); affirms weakened will (Semi-Pelagianism); salvation by free choice + grace
Eastern Orthodox (Ancestral Sin) Corruption and death inherited; no guilt Bringer of mortality and corruption, not guilt Restorer of immortality and life Existential/ontological (death and corruption) Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:22; Wisdom 2:24 No original guilt; emphasis on healing and theosis; salvation as restoration of life and communion with God
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Before offering a reflexive response, I ask that you do me the courtesy of considering this carefully. I’ve taken the time to listen to these clips by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and I find myself in full agreement with his concerns. It is sobering to observe just how deeply Western humanism has infiltrated the Ekklesia, producing within many a diminished appetite for the truth as it is revealed in the Scriptures. Instead, what we increasingly encounter are fallible individuals elevating themselves as final arbiters of divine revelation.
What troubles me most is that there appears to be little space left for genuine dialogue or charitable debate. The prevailing posture is not one of humility before the Word of God, but of self-assuredness—each person staking their claim as the supreme authority on Scripture, unwilling to yield even a moment’s hearing to contrary perspectives or to allow the text to speak for itself. Isn’t that right, Jim?
J.
Again, that is mostly all just arm-waving. Anything that speaks of "inherited guilt" is an affront to God., That is also nothing more than the doctrine of original sin imposed upon the word of God.
civic
Well-known member
Coffee time it is as I’m drinking an espresso and a pour over from coffee I roasted from Ethiopia and Rwanda.
civic
Well-known member
The history of the doctrine known as original sin.
Augustine and Pelagius
Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin was born from his attempt to combat the heresy of Pelagianism. The controversy began in Rome when the British monk, Pelagius, opposed Augustine’s prayer: “Grant what you command, and command what you desire”. Pelagius was opposing the idea that the divine gift of grace was necessary to perform the will of God. Pelagius believed that if we are responsible for obeying the commandments of God, then we must all also have the ability to do so without divine aid. He went on to deny the doctrine of Ancestral Sin, arguing that the consequences of Adam’s sin are not passed on to the rest of mankind. Adam’s sin affected Adam alone, and thus infants at birth are in the same state as Adam was before the Fall.
Augustine took a starkly different view of the Fall, arguing that mankind is utterly sinful and incapable of good. Augustine believed that the state of Original Sin leaves us in such a condition that we are unable to refrain from sin. The ‘image of God’ in man (i.e., free will) was destroyed by the Fall. As much as we may choose to do good, our evil impulses pervert our free will and compel us to do evil. Therefore we are totally dependent upon grace.
So far did Augustine take his grim view of the human condition, that he argued not only that the Original Sin effects all of Adam’s descendants, but that each person is guilty of the Original Sin from birth (Original Guilt). Infants are therefore guilty of sin and thus infants who die before baptism, in which (according to Augustine) the guilt of Original Sin is removed, are condemned to perdition and cannot be saved. As if that was not bad enough, Augustine went on to formulate the doctrine of Predestination, which affirms that God has foreordained who will be saved and who will not.
Augustine prevailed and Pelagius was condemned as a heretic by Rome at the Council of Carthage in 418. It seemed that Pelagius’ views were more reprehensible to the Latin Church than the idea of predestination and babies burning in hell – views that the Latin Church was not only willing to tolerate, but even willing to champion as Orthodox doctrine!
St John Chrysostom
Between Augustine and Pelagius there appeared to be no middle-way in the West. A different view, however, was expressed in the East by Augustine’s contemporary, John Chrysostom. The dispute between Augustine and Pelagius had not reached the East, and so Chrysostom’s views were not so agitated by heated disputes and polemics. Were Chrysostom involved in the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, perhaps his teaching on Ancestral Sin would have prevailed over both Pelagius and Augustine alike, but considering that the sole concern of the Latin Church seemed to be the condemnation of Pelagianism, it is probably more likely that he would have been condemned as semi-pelagian.https://pemptousia.com/2017/02/original-sin-orthodox-doctrine-or-heresy/#_edn1 Whatever the case, Chrysostom’s views on the subject have never enjoyed the attention they deserve, and the heated nature of the dispute in the West meant that the doctrine of ‘Original Sin’ as expounded by Augustine was regarded as the only safeguard against the heresy of Pelagianism.
Chrysostom, while claiming that all human beings are made in the image of God, believed that the Ancestral Sin brought corruptibility and death not only to Adam but to all his descendants, weakening his ability to grow into God’s likeness, but never destroying God’s image (free will). Chrysostom is a major voice within a consensus of Greek patristic writers who interpret the Fall as “an inheritance essentially of mortality rather than sinfulness, sinfulness being merely a consequence of mortality”.[ii] Chrysostom’s position is echoed, for example, by St Athanasius the Great and St Cyril of Alexandria, who claimed that we are not guilty of Adam’s sin, though we inherit a corrupted nature; but our free will remains intact. This Greek patristic interpretation is founded upon Romans 5:12: “As sin came into the world through one man, and through sin, death, so death spread to all men because all men have sinned”[iii]. John Meyendorff explains how the deficient Latin translation of the text may have contributed to such a stark difference in the Latin interpretation of the Ancestral Sin:
‘In this passage there is a major issue of translation. The last four Greek words were translated in Latin as in quo omnes peccaverunt (“in whom [i.e., in Adam] all men have sinned”), and this translation was used in the West to justify the guilt inherited from Adam and spread to his descendants. But such a meaning cannot be drawn from the original Greek’.[iv]
St Cyril of Alexandria explained the passage in this way:
“How did many become sinners because of Adam?… How could we, who were not yet born, all be condemned with him, even though God said, ‘Neither the fathers shall be put to death because of their children, nor the children because of their fathers, but the soul which sins shall be put to death’? (cf. Deut. 24:18) … we became sinners through Adam’s disobedience in such manner as this: he was created for incorruptibility and life, and the manner of existence he had in the garden of delight was proper to holiness. His whole mind was continually beholding God; his body was tranquil and calm with all base pleasures being still. For there was no tumult of alien disturbances in it. But because he fell under sin and slipped into corruptibility, pleasures and filthiness assaulted the nature of the flesh, and in our members was unveiled a savage law. Our nature, then, became diseased by sin through the disobedience of one, that is, of Adam. Thus, all were made sinners, not by being co-transgressors with Adam,… but by being of his nature and falling under the law of sin… Human nature fell ill in Adam and subject to corruptibility through disobedience, and, therefore, the passions entered in”.[v]
St John Cassian
The East paid little attention to Augustine, and this was largely due to language barriers. For the Eastern Christians, serious theologians wrote in Greek, and they paid little heed to Latin writers. What opposition did come from the East came from some Eastern Orthodox theologians who, for one reason or another, found themselves living in the West. Amongst the most prominent was St John Cassian. St John opposed Augustine on four major points:
1) There were clearly instances where people had come to God of their own volition, who, while called by Christ and aided by divine grace, chose to change their ways (e.g. Matthew, Paul, Zacchaeus). Therefore, it is not grace alone that saves us, but also man’s willingness to repent.
2) After the Fall, Adam and his descendants retained a knowledge of good, and an impulse, however weakened, to pursue good. Man was not, as Augustine claimed, utterly depraved and incapable of good after the Fall.
3) The ‘Image’ of God in man is sick, but not dead. The divine image is in need of healing, but this healing requires synergy (the co-operation of man’s will with divine grace).
4) God wishes all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, so those who are not saved reject salvation against His will. Predestination should be understood as foreknowledge and not as foreordination.
The West condemned St John Cassian’s views as semi-pelagian, but for the Orthodox, Cassian is one of the foremost exponents of the Orthodox doctrine of theosis.[vi] His views were supported also by Theodoret of Antioch:
“There is need of both our efforts and divine aid. The grace of the Spirit is not vouchsafed to those who make no effort, and without grace our efforts can not collect the prize of virtue”.
The Ancestral Sin and Baptism
Augustine’s view of Original Sin was the reason also for his justification of infant baptism. Believing that babies are born guilty of sin, he argued that baptism was necessary for the babies’ salvation. He saw the innocence of infants purely in terms of their being physically too weak to commit sin, but equally guilty as adults of Adam’s sin.
The Greek Fathers, having a different view of the Fall and the Ancestral Sin, interpreted the purpose of infant baptism in another way, different in important respects from the familiar Augustinian and Reformed interpretations of the West. The Greek Fathers believed that newborn infants are innocents, wholly without sin. While infants inherit a human nature which, in its wholeness, is wounded by the Ancestral Sin, weakening the will and making each person prone to sin, they are innocent of sin nonetheless. In the fourth of his catechetical homilies on baptism, St John Chrysostom states, “We do baptise infants, although they are not guilty of any sins”. For the Greek Fathers, baptism, above all else, is an acceptance by the Church and entrance of the baptised person into the redeemed and sanctified Body of Christ, the beginning of a life spent in spiritual combat and instruction in holiness on the deepening journey to the Kingdom of God.
Considering the stark contrast between the Orthodox doctrine of the Ancestral Sin and the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin, and the different understanding of baptism that these doctrines lead to, is it not surprising that some Orthodox speak of baptism in Augustinian terms – of the forgiveness of Original Sin – especially considering that the Orthodox service for baptism makes not a single reference to it? The closest we come to mention of the Ancestral Sin (Πρωπατρορικό ἁμάρτημα) in baptism is in the first prayer of the Service for the Making of a Catechumen (which was originally completely separate from the service of Baptism): “Remove far from him/her that ancient error” (παλαιά πλάνη). If one of the main purposes of baptism was the forgiveness of Original Sin, surely it would be worth mentioning in the baptism service! But the idea of ‘Original Sin’ being “forgiven” is nowhere to be found in the Greek Fathers or in the hymns and prayers of the Orthodox Church. For it is an idea which is alien to Greek Patristic thought. The Ancestral Sin is a condition, primarily of mortality and corruptibility, which needs healing, an inherited ‘illness’ which means that free will – or ‘the Image of God’ as the Greek Fathers preferred to put it – though kept intact, is in need of divine grace in order to progress along the path to attaining God’s ‘likeness’, the path to theosis or ‘deification’.
Bearing in mind the significant differences between the Orthodox and the Augustinian views of ‘Original Sin’, it surprises me that some Orthodox Christians are so quick to employ the term, claiming that the Orthodox Church holds to the doctrine of ‘Original Sin’, and qualifying this simply by saying that it does not embrace the doctrine of ‘Original Guilt’. I do not think that this is adequate for expounding the Orthodox position on Original Sin. Although Augustine was recognised as a saint by the Orthodox Church,[vii] it has never accepted his teaching on Original Sin. If what I have written above is correct, then the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin is wholly un-Orthodox, and it led, I believe, to a whole series of heresies in the Latin Church, such as Predestination, Purgatory, Limbo and the Immaculate Conception. We Orthodox would do well to distance ourselves from the well-known Augustinian position on Original Sin by employing a less familiar term: Ancestral Sin. It is not merely a case of semantics. For an erroneous understanding of this doctrine has serious repercussions for our understanding of sin and the Fall, for grace and free will, for baptism, the human condition and man’s deification. In short, how we understand the Ancestral Sin has direct implications for our whole soteriology – our understanding of the salvation of man and the world.https://pemptousia.com/2017/02/original-sin-orthodox-doctrine-or-heresy/
hope this helps !!!
Augustine and Pelagius
Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin was born from his attempt to combat the heresy of Pelagianism. The controversy began in Rome when the British monk, Pelagius, opposed Augustine’s prayer: “Grant what you command, and command what you desire”. Pelagius was opposing the idea that the divine gift of grace was necessary to perform the will of God. Pelagius believed that if we are responsible for obeying the commandments of God, then we must all also have the ability to do so without divine aid. He went on to deny the doctrine of Ancestral Sin, arguing that the consequences of Adam’s sin are not passed on to the rest of mankind. Adam’s sin affected Adam alone, and thus infants at birth are in the same state as Adam was before the Fall.
Augustine took a starkly different view of the Fall, arguing that mankind is utterly sinful and incapable of good. Augustine believed that the state of Original Sin leaves us in such a condition that we are unable to refrain from sin. The ‘image of God’ in man (i.e., free will) was destroyed by the Fall. As much as we may choose to do good, our evil impulses pervert our free will and compel us to do evil. Therefore we are totally dependent upon grace.
So far did Augustine take his grim view of the human condition, that he argued not only that the Original Sin effects all of Adam’s descendants, but that each person is guilty of the Original Sin from birth (Original Guilt). Infants are therefore guilty of sin and thus infants who die before baptism, in which (according to Augustine) the guilt of Original Sin is removed, are condemned to perdition and cannot be saved. As if that was not bad enough, Augustine went on to formulate the doctrine of Predestination, which affirms that God has foreordained who will be saved and who will not.
Augustine prevailed and Pelagius was condemned as a heretic by Rome at the Council of Carthage in 418. It seemed that Pelagius’ views were more reprehensible to the Latin Church than the idea of predestination and babies burning in hell – views that the Latin Church was not only willing to tolerate, but even willing to champion as Orthodox doctrine!
St John Chrysostom
Between Augustine and Pelagius there appeared to be no middle-way in the West. A different view, however, was expressed in the East by Augustine’s contemporary, John Chrysostom. The dispute between Augustine and Pelagius had not reached the East, and so Chrysostom’s views were not so agitated by heated disputes and polemics. Were Chrysostom involved in the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, perhaps his teaching on Ancestral Sin would have prevailed over both Pelagius and Augustine alike, but considering that the sole concern of the Latin Church seemed to be the condemnation of Pelagianism, it is probably more likely that he would have been condemned as semi-pelagian.https://pemptousia.com/2017/02/original-sin-orthodox-doctrine-or-heresy/#_edn1 Whatever the case, Chrysostom’s views on the subject have never enjoyed the attention they deserve, and the heated nature of the dispute in the West meant that the doctrine of ‘Original Sin’ as expounded by Augustine was regarded as the only safeguard against the heresy of Pelagianism.
Chrysostom, while claiming that all human beings are made in the image of God, believed that the Ancestral Sin brought corruptibility and death not only to Adam but to all his descendants, weakening his ability to grow into God’s likeness, but never destroying God’s image (free will). Chrysostom is a major voice within a consensus of Greek patristic writers who interpret the Fall as “an inheritance essentially of mortality rather than sinfulness, sinfulness being merely a consequence of mortality”.[ii] Chrysostom’s position is echoed, for example, by St Athanasius the Great and St Cyril of Alexandria, who claimed that we are not guilty of Adam’s sin, though we inherit a corrupted nature; but our free will remains intact. This Greek patristic interpretation is founded upon Romans 5:12: “As sin came into the world through one man, and through sin, death, so death spread to all men because all men have sinned”[iii]. John Meyendorff explains how the deficient Latin translation of the text may have contributed to such a stark difference in the Latin interpretation of the Ancestral Sin:
‘In this passage there is a major issue of translation. The last four Greek words were translated in Latin as in quo omnes peccaverunt (“in whom [i.e., in Adam] all men have sinned”), and this translation was used in the West to justify the guilt inherited from Adam and spread to his descendants. But such a meaning cannot be drawn from the original Greek’.[iv]
St Cyril of Alexandria explained the passage in this way:
“How did many become sinners because of Adam?… How could we, who were not yet born, all be condemned with him, even though God said, ‘Neither the fathers shall be put to death because of their children, nor the children because of their fathers, but the soul which sins shall be put to death’? (cf. Deut. 24:18) … we became sinners through Adam’s disobedience in such manner as this: he was created for incorruptibility and life, and the manner of existence he had in the garden of delight was proper to holiness. His whole mind was continually beholding God; his body was tranquil and calm with all base pleasures being still. For there was no tumult of alien disturbances in it. But because he fell under sin and slipped into corruptibility, pleasures and filthiness assaulted the nature of the flesh, and in our members was unveiled a savage law. Our nature, then, became diseased by sin through the disobedience of one, that is, of Adam. Thus, all were made sinners, not by being co-transgressors with Adam,… but by being of his nature and falling under the law of sin… Human nature fell ill in Adam and subject to corruptibility through disobedience, and, therefore, the passions entered in”.[v]
St John Cassian
The East paid little attention to Augustine, and this was largely due to language barriers. For the Eastern Christians, serious theologians wrote in Greek, and they paid little heed to Latin writers. What opposition did come from the East came from some Eastern Orthodox theologians who, for one reason or another, found themselves living in the West. Amongst the most prominent was St John Cassian. St John opposed Augustine on four major points:
1) There were clearly instances where people had come to God of their own volition, who, while called by Christ and aided by divine grace, chose to change their ways (e.g. Matthew, Paul, Zacchaeus). Therefore, it is not grace alone that saves us, but also man’s willingness to repent.
2) After the Fall, Adam and his descendants retained a knowledge of good, and an impulse, however weakened, to pursue good. Man was not, as Augustine claimed, utterly depraved and incapable of good after the Fall.
3) The ‘Image’ of God in man is sick, but not dead. The divine image is in need of healing, but this healing requires synergy (the co-operation of man’s will with divine grace).
4) God wishes all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, so those who are not saved reject salvation against His will. Predestination should be understood as foreknowledge and not as foreordination.
The West condemned St John Cassian’s views as semi-pelagian, but for the Orthodox, Cassian is one of the foremost exponents of the Orthodox doctrine of theosis.[vi] His views were supported also by Theodoret of Antioch:
“There is need of both our efforts and divine aid. The grace of the Spirit is not vouchsafed to those who make no effort, and without grace our efforts can not collect the prize of virtue”.
The Ancestral Sin and Baptism
Augustine’s view of Original Sin was the reason also for his justification of infant baptism. Believing that babies are born guilty of sin, he argued that baptism was necessary for the babies’ salvation. He saw the innocence of infants purely in terms of their being physically too weak to commit sin, but equally guilty as adults of Adam’s sin.
The Greek Fathers, having a different view of the Fall and the Ancestral Sin, interpreted the purpose of infant baptism in another way, different in important respects from the familiar Augustinian and Reformed interpretations of the West. The Greek Fathers believed that newborn infants are innocents, wholly without sin. While infants inherit a human nature which, in its wholeness, is wounded by the Ancestral Sin, weakening the will and making each person prone to sin, they are innocent of sin nonetheless. In the fourth of his catechetical homilies on baptism, St John Chrysostom states, “We do baptise infants, although they are not guilty of any sins”. For the Greek Fathers, baptism, above all else, is an acceptance by the Church and entrance of the baptised person into the redeemed and sanctified Body of Christ, the beginning of a life spent in spiritual combat and instruction in holiness on the deepening journey to the Kingdom of God.
Considering the stark contrast between the Orthodox doctrine of the Ancestral Sin and the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin, and the different understanding of baptism that these doctrines lead to, is it not surprising that some Orthodox speak of baptism in Augustinian terms – of the forgiveness of Original Sin – especially considering that the Orthodox service for baptism makes not a single reference to it? The closest we come to mention of the Ancestral Sin (Πρωπατρορικό ἁμάρτημα) in baptism is in the first prayer of the Service for the Making of a Catechumen (which was originally completely separate from the service of Baptism): “Remove far from him/her that ancient error” (παλαιά πλάνη). If one of the main purposes of baptism was the forgiveness of Original Sin, surely it would be worth mentioning in the baptism service! But the idea of ‘Original Sin’ being “forgiven” is nowhere to be found in the Greek Fathers or in the hymns and prayers of the Orthodox Church. For it is an idea which is alien to Greek Patristic thought. The Ancestral Sin is a condition, primarily of mortality and corruptibility, which needs healing, an inherited ‘illness’ which means that free will – or ‘the Image of God’ as the Greek Fathers preferred to put it – though kept intact, is in need of divine grace in order to progress along the path to attaining God’s ‘likeness’, the path to theosis or ‘deification’.
Bearing in mind the significant differences between the Orthodox and the Augustinian views of ‘Original Sin’, it surprises me that some Orthodox Christians are so quick to employ the term, claiming that the Orthodox Church holds to the doctrine of ‘Original Sin’, and qualifying this simply by saying that it does not embrace the doctrine of ‘Original Guilt’. I do not think that this is adequate for expounding the Orthodox position on Original Sin. Although Augustine was recognised as a saint by the Orthodox Church,[vii] it has never accepted his teaching on Original Sin. If what I have written above is correct, then the Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin is wholly un-Orthodox, and it led, I believe, to a whole series of heresies in the Latin Church, such as Predestination, Purgatory, Limbo and the Immaculate Conception. We Orthodox would do well to distance ourselves from the well-known Augustinian position on Original Sin by employing a less familiar term: Ancestral Sin. It is not merely a case of semantics. For an erroneous understanding of this doctrine has serious repercussions for our understanding of sin and the Fall, for grace and free will, for baptism, the human condition and man’s deification. In short, how we understand the Ancestral Sin has direct implications for our whole soteriology – our understanding of the salvation of man and the world.https://pemptousia.com/2017/02/original-sin-orthodox-doctrine-or-heresy/
hope this helps !!!
Johann
Well-known member
civic
Well-known member
see my last post on the history of the doctrine in the early church. I stand on solid ground, not the sinking sand of augustine the real heretic.
civic
Well-known member
and here
The early church never taught this doctrine it came through Augustine.
Augustine taught that babies inherit Adam’s guilt even before they sin—but this was based on a faulty Latin translation of Romans 5:12. So does that mean we aren’t born sinful?
It is easy to confuse the doctrine of original sin with that of original sinfulness—that is, the teaching that all humans are born with the inclination and natural propensity to sin, so that all humans are sinners because of they all sin.
Therefore, in order to save confusion, I’m going to refer to Augustine’s doctrine as the doctrine of “original guilt.”
ADAM’S SIN
Part of Augustine’s reasoning depended on the rather idea that Adam’s sin is transferred during sexual intercourse! This was the only way he could explain why Jesus didn’t inherit Adam’s guilt.
Augustine regarded sex as inherently sinful, perhaps because of his rather misspent youth—a time during which he uttered his famous prayer, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
However, the five million babies conceived by in vitro fertilization during the last three decades have proved him wrong in that detail. They sin just like those conceived in the traditional way! So was Augustine also wrong about the rest of the doctrine of original guilt?
He developed this doctrine in order to combat heresy.
FOR THAT ALL HAVE SINNED – IN AS MUCH ALL MEN HAVE SINNED
But is Augustine’s proof based on a faulty translation from the original Greek into Latin? The Greek verse has eph hō (“because,” Latin quia or ‘for that all sinned’), but if this was changed just a little to en hō it could be understood as “in whom” (Latin in quo).
No Greek manuscripts say en hō, so it looks as if the Latin translator read it wrongly. The meaning of this verse (as found in all translations made from the Greek) is actually “death came to all people, because all sinned.” That is, humans don’t inherit guilt from Adam, but all humans personally sin, and thereby become guilty.
Before we glibly discard Augustine’s doctrine of original guilt, though, we’d better consider what we would be losing. We may need some concept of original guilt in order to explain Jesus’ uniqueness and why he had to die for all.
After all, if we are born without any inherited guilt, it might be remotely possible for some people to get through life without sinning—which would mean Jesus didn’t need to die for them.
However, I can’t see that this is possible. We know how soon the propensity to sin reveals itself, and I can’t believe that anyone would get even to toddler stage without having done something wrong.
On the other hand, the advantage of rejecting the doctrine is that we don’t have to worry that innocent babies go to hell.
If people aren’t born guilty, God will judge us for our actual sins and not merely for being born human. We must not underestimate the seriousness of sin. Sin is refusing to do what God wants.
The actions themselves may have huge consequences for other people, but perhaps the greatest consequence comes from the fact that we have disobeyed God.
Augustine taught that babies inherit Adam’s guilt even before they sin—but this was based on a faulty Latin translation of Romans 5:12. So does that mean we aren’t born sinful?
It is easy to confuse the doctrine of original sin with that of original sinfulness—that is, the teaching that all humans are born with the inclination and natural propensity to sin, so that all humans are sinners because of they all sin.
Therefore, in order to save confusion, I’m going to refer to Augustine’s doctrine as the doctrine of “original guilt.”
No Greek manuscripts say en hō, so it looks as if the Latin translator read it wrongly. The meaning of this verse (as found in all translations made from the Greek) is actually “death came to all people, because all sinned.” That is, humans don’t inherit guilt from Adam, but all humans personally sin, and thereby become guilty.
Before we glibly discard Augustine’s doctrine of original guilt, though, we’d better consider what we would be losing. We may need some concept of original guilt in order to explain Jesus’ uniqueness and why he had to die for all.
After all, if we are born without any inherited guilt, it might be remotely possible for some people to get through life without sinning—which would mean Jesus didn’t need to die for them.
However, I can’t see that this is possible. We know how soon the propensity to sin reveals itself, and I can’t believe that anyone would get even to toddler stage without having done something wrong.
On the other hand, the advantage of rejecting the doctrine is that we don’t have to worry that innocent babies go to hell.
If people aren’t born guilty, God will judge us for our actual sins and not merely for being born human. We must not underestimate the seriousness of sin. Sin is refusing to do what God wants.
The actions themselves may have huge consequences for other people, but perhaps the greatest consequence comes from the fact that we have disobeyed God.
God gave us a conscience, which increasingly guides us as we mature so that even without God’s written law humans have a knowledge of right and wrong. This law tells us to live differently from animals: we should not mate with whoever happens to be available; we should not snatch food or other things that belong to others and we should not kill those who challenge us.
So when we do sin, it is a personal effrontery to God, who has asked us not to follow these animal instincts. Psalm 51 shows that David realized he had offended God when he slept with Bathsheba and had her husband killed (2 Sam 11:2–14).
These crimes had victims, from whom David needed to ask forgiveness, but David knew he also needed to ask God to forgive him. God had treated David as special—he had given him the Holy Spirit to help him resist temptation (Ps 51:11). David knew that without the Holy Spirit he would follow the evil inclinations he’d felt from birth (v. 5), so he asked God to cleanse him again and create a new heart in him (vv. 7–10).
In the New Testament, David’s special treatment became normal for all Christians. The Holy Spirit creates a new heart in everyone who repents, and Paul said that the Spirit gives Christians the ability to conquer sin (Rom 8:3–6). Yet most of us are gross underachievers in this regard.
Perhaps the doctrine of original guilt removes some of our motivation to conquer sin because being born with guilt makes us feel it isn’t worth trying to overcome it. We regard ourselves as hopeless sinners, so there’s little point in trying to be different. We feel that God is displeased with us anyway, and because his judgment is dealt with by his Son, we don’t worry too much.
Perhaps we would respond differently if, instead of concentrating on God’s judgment, we concentrate instead on his love for us. This may make us more aware of his disappointment when we fail to live up to the wonderful new human nature he has given us in Jesus. Perhaps we would be heartbroken (as God is) when we fall back into our old nature and be motivated to try harder. Personally, I’m coming to the conclusion that the doctrine of original guilt has perverted our view of God, and removing it may make a huge difference to the way we live! Instone-Brewer, D. (2020). Church Doctrine & the Bible: Theology in Ancient Context (pp. 99–103). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press
hope this helps !!!
The early church never taught this doctrine it came through Augustine.
Augustine taught that babies inherit Adam’s guilt even before they sin—but this was based on a faulty Latin translation of Romans 5:12. So does that mean we aren’t born sinful?
He didn’t just say that we were born with a sinful urge (which everyone agrees with), but that we are already sinners when we are born before we have had a chance to sin by ourselves because we inherit the guilt of Adam’s sin.
It is easy to confuse the doctrine of original sin with that of original sinfulness—that is, the teaching that all humans are born with the inclination and natural propensity to sin, so that all humans are sinners because of they all sin.
Therefore, in order to save confusion, I’m going to refer to Augustine’s doctrine as the doctrine of “original guilt.”
ADAM’S SIN
Part of Augustine’s reasoning depended on the rather idea that Adam’s sin is transferred during sexual intercourse! This was the only way he could explain why Jesus didn’t inherit Adam’s guilt.
Augustine regarded sex as inherently sinful, perhaps because of his rather misspent youth—a time during which he uttered his famous prayer, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
However, the five million babies conceived by in vitro fertilization during the last three decades have proved him wrong in that detail. They sin just like those conceived in the traditional way! So was Augustine also wrong about the rest of the doctrine of original guilt?
He developed this doctrine in order to combat heresy.
- Pelagius, a theologian whom Augustine was combatting, believed that humans could be sinless because Jesus referred to Abel as “righteous” (Matt 23:35), which implied he’d been killed before committing any sin.
- Augustine countered that Abel might not have sinned personally, but he was still guilty because even newborn babies have guilt. To prove this he quoted Romans 5:12 from his Latin translation of the New Testament:
Augustine interpreted the rather odd phrase “in whom all sinned” to mean “in Adam all sinned,” so that literally when Adam sinned, every human born from him shared that guilt.
FOR THAT ALL HAVE SINNED – IN AS MUCH ALL MEN HAVE SINNED
But is Augustine’s proof based on a faulty translation from the original Greek into Latin? The Greek verse has eph hō (“because,” Latin quia or ‘for that all sinned’), but if this was changed just a little to en hō it could be understood as “in whom” (Latin in quo).
No Greek manuscripts say en hō, so it looks as if the Latin translator read it wrongly. The meaning of this verse (as found in all translations made from the Greek) is actually “death came to all people, because all sinned.” That is, humans don’t inherit guilt from Adam, but all humans personally sin, and thereby become guilty.
Before we glibly discard Augustine’s doctrine of original guilt, though, we’d better consider what we would be losing. We may need some concept of original guilt in order to explain Jesus’ uniqueness and why he had to die for all.
After all, if we are born without any inherited guilt, it might be remotely possible for some people to get through life without sinning—which would mean Jesus didn’t need to die for them.
However, I can’t see that this is possible. We know how soon the propensity to sin reveals itself, and I can’t believe that anyone would get even to toddler stage without having done something wrong.
On the other hand, the advantage of rejecting the doctrine is that we don’t have to worry that innocent babies go to hell.
If people aren’t born guilty, God will judge us for our actual sins and not merely for being born human. We must not underestimate the seriousness of sin. Sin is refusing to do what God wants.
The actions themselves may have huge consequences for other people, but perhaps the greatest consequence comes from the fact that we have disobeyed God.
Augustine taught that babies inherit Adam’s guilt even before they sin—but this was based on a faulty Latin translation of Romans 5:12. So does that mean we aren’t born sinful?
He didn’t just say that we were born with a sinful urge (which everyone agrees with), but that we are already sinners when we are born before we have had a chance to sin by ourselves because we inherit the guilt of Adam’s sin.
It is easy to confuse the doctrine of original sin with that of original sinfulness—that is, the teaching that all humans are born with the inclination and natural propensity to sin, so that all humans are sinners because of they all sin.
Therefore, in order to save confusion, I’m going to refer to Augustine’s doctrine as the doctrine of “original guilt.”
No Greek manuscripts say en hō, so it looks as if the Latin translator read it wrongly. The meaning of this verse (as found in all translations made from the Greek) is actually “death came to all people, because all sinned.” That is, humans don’t inherit guilt from Adam, but all humans personally sin, and thereby become guilty.
Before we glibly discard Augustine’s doctrine of original guilt, though, we’d better consider what we would be losing. We may need some concept of original guilt in order to explain Jesus’ uniqueness and why he had to die for all.
After all, if we are born without any inherited guilt, it might be remotely possible for some people to get through life without sinning—which would mean Jesus didn’t need to die for them.
However, I can’t see that this is possible. We know how soon the propensity to sin reveals itself, and I can’t believe that anyone would get even to toddler stage without having done something wrong.
On the other hand, the advantage of rejecting the doctrine is that we don’t have to worry that innocent babies go to hell.
If people aren’t born guilty, God will judge us for our actual sins and not merely for being born human. We must not underestimate the seriousness of sin. Sin is refusing to do what God wants.
The actions themselves may have huge consequences for other people, but perhaps the greatest consequence comes from the fact that we have disobeyed God.
Sadly, one study of motherhood among dolphins came to an abrupt halt when an aunt stole a baby dolphin and thwarted all attempts to reunite it with its true mother. But the fact that these behaviours are similar to human sins does not mean that they are sins.
These acts by animals aren’t sins because they have no knowledge of what they should or shouldn’t do. Our animal instincts became sins when God called Adam to a higher lifestyle.
God gave us a conscience, which increasingly guides us as we mature so that even without God’s written law humans have a knowledge of right and wrong. This law tells us to live differently from animals: we should not mate with whoever happens to be available; we should not snatch food or other things that belong to others and we should not kill those who challenge us.
So when we do sin, it is a personal effrontery to God, who has asked us not to follow these animal instincts. Psalm 51 shows that David realized he had offended God when he slept with Bathsheba and had her husband killed (2 Sam 11:2–14).
These crimes had victims, from whom David needed to ask forgiveness, but David knew he also needed to ask God to forgive him. God had treated David as special—he had given him the Holy Spirit to help him resist temptation (Ps 51:11). David knew that without the Holy Spirit he would follow the evil inclinations he’d felt from birth (v. 5), so he asked God to cleanse him again and create a new heart in him (vv. 7–10).
In the New Testament, David’s special treatment became normal for all Christians. The Holy Spirit creates a new heart in everyone who repents, and Paul said that the Spirit gives Christians the ability to conquer sin (Rom 8:3–6). Yet most of us are gross underachievers in this regard.
Perhaps the doctrine of original guilt removes some of our motivation to conquer sin because being born with guilt makes us feel it isn’t worth trying to overcome it. We regard ourselves as hopeless sinners, so there’s little point in trying to be different. We feel that God is displeased with us anyway, and because his judgment is dealt with by his Son, we don’t worry too much.
Perhaps we would respond differently if, instead of concentrating on God’s judgment, we concentrate instead on his love for us. This may make us more aware of his disappointment when we fail to live up to the wonderful new human nature he has given us in Jesus. Perhaps we would be heartbroken (as God is) when we fall back into our old nature and be motivated to try harder. Personally, I’m coming to the conclusion that the doctrine of original guilt has perverted our view of God, and removing it may make a huge difference to the way we live! Instone-Brewer, D. (2020). Church Doctrine & the Bible: Theology in Ancient Context (pp. 99–103). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press
hope this helps !!!
Written by Augustine, St John Chrysostom, St Cyril of Alexandria and others but not in Scripture.
Selah
Active member
That’s what I focus on—that while in flesh bodies, we all sin. If we stop and consider our thoughts, emotions, etc., it’s apparent. Yes, all humans sin.
1 John 1:8-10 (NKJV) 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
Johann
Well-known member
I’m well acquainted with that, my friend—read Genesis 1 through 3 and the book of Romans, and allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves, rather than filtering them through fallible human autonomy.
J.
