# What is "Original Sin"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 1, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109 "2013-10-01T17:10:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/41 "2013-10-01T20:13:33Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I am still getting the feeling that I don’t understand the question at all. Since I am coming from the parable-about-consciousness side, I don’t understand this emphasis on its literal truth or falsity. The story of the Fall is a story about the origin of our human state of consciousness, I’m not getting why this is difficult. > > Biblical literalists are like literalists in all things, they are not available to the poetry. In this they have more in common with some rationalists than might appear. In both cases I feel that my feet are being encased in the concrete. What is Original Sin? Why do we all have it? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/42 "2013-10-01T20:26:08Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > What is Original Sin? Why do we all have it? You’re asking why the RCC chose one dogma rather than another. I don’t think there is an answer to that. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/43 "2013-10-01T20:26:26Z")
I’m no theologian, nor do I take the Garden of Eden story to be literally true. However, I always took the passage to mean that Original Sin is simply any disobedience of God, given that the “sin” in this case is so trivial (a couple of bites out of an apple). In addition, much in the same way as myths explaining seasons and other natural phenomena, it attempts to explain why childbirth is so very painful. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/44 "2013-10-01T20:27:20Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Because a just-so story doesn’t actually explain why the elephant has a trunk even if it is enjoyable as a story. Your parable can mean “being apart from God is bad!” but it doesn’t actually explain the origin of the thing the OP is asking about, which is a specific thing that we’re all supposed to be born with, except Mary and Jesus. > > If it’s just being more or less removed from God, then there should be more or less Original Sin in people. Some people are really good and holy and do what God wants, so they should have less of it. Some people are really bad and evil and reject God, so they should have more of it. But if it’s something we’ve all got equally, then it’s not something based on our own actions. Its origin is outside of our own wills. Mary’s conception had to be re-jiggered in order for her to be born without it. That’s not a free will issue! That’s not a “Gosh, people sure are separate from God!” issue. That’s a “People have a genetic stain” issue. Aren’t there two different questions here? One: how did this story come about? (meaning of “origin”). Kind of a history question. Two, why does it apply to everyone no matter how holy their lives? More of a theology question. I am not any kind of a theologian, nor a biblical historian, I am out of my depth here. But I could say, the story of why human beings are different than the other animals is a fairly common one in ancient societies. What makes us different, and why and how did it happen? There are a lot of “Fall” similarities in many of these stories. Why does everyone feel separate from everyone else? Why is the divine so distant from us? Why aren’t we innocent like animals? That’s the reason for the parable. As for the question of why even saints are included in the curse of original sin, I immediately thought of a story about St.Francis of Assisi, who, whenever people reverenced him as a holy man, was apt to say, you should wait until after I’m dead, as I may yet father children. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/45 "2013-10-01T20:27:55Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > You’re asking why the RCC chose one dogma rather than another. I don’t think there is an answer to that. The RCC isn’t the only church promoting this concept-this thread isn’t about them exclusively. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/46 "2013-10-01T20:30:42Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > We are made out of meat. We have to eat other living things to stay alive. Also, as we live our lives, there is no way that we can avoid hurting other people. We can put effort into reducing the number, but we can never get it to zero. So just by being alive, we cannot be innocent (harmless). Innocent and harmless are two completely different things. One is a state of consciousness, the other is impossible – even plants shade out other plants. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/47 "2013-10-01T20:31:01Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Aren’t there two different questions here? One: how did this story come about? (meaning of “origin”). Kind of a history question. Two, why does it apply to everyone no matter how holy their lives? More of a theology question. I don’t know that anyone cares how the story came about. The OP is trying to ask, “Given that lots of people say the Fall story is a just-so story to explain Original Sin, where did Original Sin really come from?” It’s exactly as if I said “Given that Rudyard Kipling’s story of how the elephant got its trunk is a just-so story and not scientific, how did the elephant get its trunk?” You seem to be trying to hinge everything on the nature of “story” when the OP is trying to get at the nature of “fact” or at least what is presented as fact. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/48 "2013-10-01T20:31:05Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Aren’t there two different questions here? One: how did this story come about? (meaning of “origin”). Kind of a history question. Two, why does it apply to everyone no matter how holy their lives? More of a theology question. > > I am not any kind of a theologian, nor a biblical historian, I am out of my depth here. But I could say, the story of why human beings are different than the other animals is a fairly common one in ancient societies. What makes us different, and why and how did it happen? There are a lot of “Fall” similarities in many of these stories. > > Why does everyone feel separate from everyone else? Why is the divine so distant from us? Why aren’t we innocent like animals? That’s the reason for the parable. > > As for the question of why even saints are included in the curse of original sin, I immediately thought of a story about St.Francis of Assisi, who, whenever people reverenced him as a holy man, was apt to say, you should wait until after I’m dead, as I may yet father children. And still you sidestep the actual question that is being asked. Please re-read the OP and try to answer _that_ question without assigning any deeper and/or hidden meanings to it. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/49 "2013-10-01T20:33:38Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I’m no theologian, nor do I take the Garden of Eden story to be literally true. However, I always took the passage to mean that Original Sin is simply any disobedience of God, given that the “sin” in this case is so trivial (a couple of bites out of an apple). In addition, much in the same way as myths explaining seasons and other natural phenomena, it attempts to explain why childbirth is so very painful. The sin is the disobedient consumption of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, not a mere Pippin. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/50 "2013-10-01T20:36:05Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And still you sidestep the actual question that is being asked. Please re-read the OP and try to answer _that_ question without assigning any deeper and/or hidden meanings to it. I am not trying to sidestep. I apparently am unable to understand the question. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/51 "2013-10-01T20:36:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And still you sidestep the actual question that is being asked. Please re-read the OP and try to answer _that_ question without assigning any deeper and/or hidden meanings to it. OK, I’ll give it a shot from my limited understanding of theology: > [@](#): > > but if the story of Adam and Eve is only a parable(as I’ve been told by many), then what is the Original Sin? There isn’t one. It’s not a “thing,” it’s a state of being. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/52 "2013-10-01T20:41:20Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > The sin is the disobedient consumption of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, not a mere Pippin. And if this fruit existed only in parable, and not in real life, then what _real_ thing is Original Sin based on? ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/53 "2013-10-01T20:47:48Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And if this fruit existed only in parable, and not in real life, then what _real_ thing is Original Sin based on? I think I get why I don’t understand your question. But it won’t be at all helpful to discuss it, for anyone. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/54 "2013-10-01T20:54:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And if this fruit existed only in parable, and not in real life, then what _real_ thing is Original Sin based on? The only people who will be willing to venture an answer with any certainty will be biblical literalists – and IIRC you won’t believe them anyway (nor would I, btw). So I don’t understand the point of the question. It seems to me as if you are asking the delusional for further details of their delusions. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/55 "2013-10-01T21:07:18Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And if this fruit existed only in parable, and not in real life, then what _real_ thing is Original Sin based on? Why can’t they both be parables? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/56 "2013-10-01T21:12:41Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Why can’t they both be parables? Maybe they are, but what of those religions that put forth that the former is parable but the latter is not? The fox of today is not penalized because a fox in a parable griped about sour grapes, neither do we think better of pigs that sleep on brick instead of straw. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/57 "2013-10-01T21:29:26Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Maybe they are, but what of those religions that put forth that the former is parable but the latter is not? Which ones are that? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/58 "2013-10-01T21:35:06Z")
The RCC and the Episcopal Church, to start with. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/59 "2013-10-01T22:18:43Z")
OK, I’ll bite (non-believer here, but nevertheless…). If a religious person accepts the concept of original sin, but does not accept the events in the Garden of Eden as historical, then Adam and Eve’s sin cannot be the true source. They will therefore attribute it to some innate quality of human nature, most likely a side-effect of free will. Aha, you say, this makes God the source of original sin, since he designed humans who would inevitably disobey him. True, but the theological counter-argument is that God allows this apparent flaw in his design because it is essential to his higher purpose. Theologians will point to passages like 2 Cor 12:9 ("My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”) to support this interpretation. ETA: Don’t ask me to defend the concept of Original Sin, much less this interpretation; this is just years of Sunday school the bubbles back up to the surface every now and then. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2013, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109/60 "2013-10-01T23:31:46Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The RCC and the Episcopal Church, to start with. The RCC doesn’t say that the story of Adam and Eve is a parable. The RCC says that Adam and Eve were real people and the ancestors of all modern humanity. _Humani Generis_, which I don’t believe has been superseded, said: > [@](#): > > When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (footnotes and paragraph numbers excluded: > [@](#): > > Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness. > > In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”. > > Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives. > > The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man.Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”. Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”,for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history. > > . . . > > All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned."The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. “Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.” > > Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”. Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin. > > How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”. By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act. > > Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle. > > The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (_concupiscentia_), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)and at the Council of Trent (1546). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-original-sin/670109.md?page=4)