Unless “saviour” was never his purpose.
Original Sin has nothing to do with guilt as a control method, at least in Spain. It has to do with Mom Being A Bitch. Most other families from the same culture (including my father’s side of my family) do not constantly remind their children that they are essentially wrong in a way that others are not; note that, since Original Sin is shared by all people except two, the last bit clearly indicates there is no relationship between guilt-as-a-l(e)ash and the doctrine.
Our doctrinal studies mentioned OS very little, since I happened to grow up in the middle of the Jesus Loves You years. We did speak of it as a shorthand for “we are all fallible” and “be careful with those choices that seem easy, they often bite you in the ass”. My 10th grade Religion teacher was always happy to let the class veer into places unintended; one day we got to discussing which sin would be the origin of the rest and figured it would be Pride, which according to the Father matched the conclussions of the Fathers of the Church as well.
As for attonement and forgiveness, those are for your own sins, not those of any ancestors (remote or otherwise). It would make as much sense for me to atone for Adam and Eve as for dropping Little Boy and Fat Man.
Thanks for these thoughtful posts. I was not thinking about the literal/figurative nature of Adam & Eve, but clearly that is a facet of the overall discussion.
For those of you who have said “OS was not actively present - it was there in the background as with other doctrine” - okay, got it. I guess that gets back to how it was used within your church/community culture. Some folks describe OS as being linked to feeling guilty and shameful, others really don’t.
Something I see: some folks do feel the guilt and shame of being evil Humans, to the point where they don’t want to address the underlying behavior that would put them on a better path, simply because they are afraid of dealing with the guilt and shame they would have to process. Admitting you’re an alcoholic, say, could be much harder if, in addition to owning your addiction, your guilt and shame are maximized due to how you were raised to view your transgressions. In those situations, the added guilt and shame feel like a heavy burden.
Thanks again for everyone’s posts so far.
Grew up Catholic in suburban Chicago in the 70s-80s (and beyond, I guess). Original Sin never really came up except as a reason why babies needed to be baptized. Heck, I don’t even remember any real “guilt” push but maybe it went over my head. In any event, I don’t think that the concept of Original Sin had much impact on the local religious culture.
Original Sin is not necessarily heavily taught, but it’s a core doctrine of pretty much every branch of Christianity.
I’ve heard it postulated that one of the reasons that Christianity has difficulty attracting Millennials is due to a rejection of this idea among their generation. They are more likely to believe that everyone is fundamentally perfect rather than fundamentally flawed, so it’s a confusing doctrine. I’m Gen X, so I’ve never had that problem. I can see that in myself I have a fundamental attraction to selfishness rather than selflessness.
To me it seems self-evident, but I guess not to everyone. In a zero sum game, my inclination is to favor myself and I might be able to convince myself not to favor myself after a degree of introspection, but that’s not my inclination. If someone said to me, “Either you can win the lottery or someone else can win the lottery,” my tendency is to pick myself even knowing that my life is not so uncomfortable that I need lottery winnings. I tend to get more emotionally invested when I hear about a school shooting in Texas rather than a bombing in Syria even though the outcome is the same in both situations. When my favored politician wins an election, I don’t spend much if any time thinking about the sadness of those who backed the other candidate. Even when I do charity for others, I have to question whether I’m doing it to help others or doing it to make myself feel generous. I empathize with people I consider ‘my’ people as opposed to ‘other’ people. To me, those are fundamental flaws that humanity (or at least I as an individual) possesses.
Oh, shit. How timely is that?! Gonna have to dig in when I can. Traveling for work next couple of days - hopefully then.
CS Lewis’s Space Trilogy is all about original sin, and in particular, the first two books focus on what a world might look like had the Fall not occurred.
Is it? I’ve also heard it taught (not in the Catholic church) that children are inherently sinless because they are not old enough to comprehend or be accountable. Backed up by Jesus admonishing his disciples to allow the children to come to him for “The kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these”.
For the first nine years of my life the religion and culture was strict Vatican I Irish Catholic.
Original sin was the go-to excuse* for all the misogyny and pain encountered by females. In their view, Adam was a blameless victim of her seduction.
Want to go to college? No, learn to cook for your husband, because Eve ate the apple.
Have a job and want to buy a house or get a credit card? Need a Father or brother to co-sign; accept it with grace because Eve ate the apple.
Endometriosis and crippling nausea 4 days each month? Carry your cross; Eve ate the apple.
Afraid you might die in childbirth? Well, we’ll do our best for you medically, but you have to take the risk because Eve ate the apple.
It was an incredibly sick way to view human society. Thank goodness my father decided he’d rather be supported by his secretary, as a consequence of which we became Presbyterian.
*I’m not saying it was logical, biblically sound, or even necessarily church doctrine. I’m just saying it was dragged out in any argument from feminism to basic civil rights for women.
In the Mormon church perhaps? They’re really the only ones that deny original sin (which is one of the many reasons that other Christians find them non-Christian.) Protestants typically believe that children go to heaven, but not because they are sinless, but due to various sets of beliefs depending upon the particular theology. Calvinists feel that children who die young were ‘elected’ by God similar to the elected who die when they are older. Evangelicals in the non-Calvinist vein tend to rely upon the concept of God’s justice and that it is unjust to not allow Christ’s atonement to apply to infants. Some believe that all people are conceived with -let’s call it- a ‘seed’ of faith and that seed will save those who are not old enough to reject it. The more universalist leaning groups would simply say that they are born in sin, but Christ’s blood atones it.
I don’t see it as inventing a problem, just elucidating it. It’s just a fact that human beings are inherently born selfish, only caring for their own needs. And, as you grow up, you will do things that hurt other people. And, well, if you don’t feel bad about that, then you would never stop hurting other people.
So either you don’t feel bad and need someone to let you know so you can learn, or, more likely, you do feel bad and then here’s a way to deal with that. If you’ll repent and stop doing bad things, you can acknowledge that you did something bad, but also move on and stop feeling bad about yourself.
The religious trappings are there, of course, but that’s the fundamental message. You should feel bad doing things that hurt others. You should then make amends and stop doing those bad things. And then you no longer have to feel bad.
I can’t say how much this was impressed on me growing up, but it is fundamental to who I am today.
Oh, as for the infant thing: we definitely were taught that children before the age of reason were saved by grace. The Bible itself mentions that the children of Christians (even if only one parent) are saved through that parent.
1 Corinthians 7:14 (ESV):
For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
It actually was my first reason for wondering why people freaked out about abortion (even as a kid). At the time, I was taught that all babies, Christians parents or not, went to heaven, so it seemed silly to worry about all the unborn babies who went to heaven. Unfortunately, learning those Bible verses made it where I could no longer use that argument.
A (Lutheran) friend of mine likes to say that Original Sin is one of the few theological concepts that can be objectively seen in the world. I’m inclined to agree with him. We are all quite a bit selfish and treat too many like objects in pursuit of our goals. One of the reasons I was drawn to Christianity (from my atheism) was this notion that God’s grace covered all of this selfishness and self-dealing. That our bad things were not held against us. It was indeed a source of comfort and peace. I have read that those that denied Original Sin (Pelagius and those guys) tended to hold all the bad things that people did against them - saying they should know better.
Times articles don’t expire, and neither does the doctrine of Original Sin.
I went to Catholic schools in the late 70s and 80s, and the guilt concept just wasn’t a thing there and then. Original sin was introduced as a concept but kind of as a technical point.