What's the deal with original sin?

Great Debates
1

I’ve been always been interested in religion (as in studies thereof), but my interest in Christianity spiked a few weeks back when I learned that a friend of mine had converted to Christianity some time before(which deserves a detailed rant in the pit by itself).

Now I have no beef with any religion, but it was hard for me to believe that a scientifically trained person (he’s a doctor) can be truly convinced by the bible - it just seems to have too many holes. I was reading some commentary on the bible, and came up with a doubt that I’d like to get clarified:

To be a Christian, and to accept Jesus in one’s life, one has to believe in original sin. There can be no saviour unless one is sinful. But there seems to be no mention of what the sins were. Eating an apple can’t be reason enough to drown the world’s entire human and animal population. So what is this unmentionable sin Jesus saved us from? Or am I way off track here?

And even considering there was something vastly sinful in humanity’s past, why should we be held accountable for it now. Do Christians believe that the children and grandchildren of all muderers should serve life sentences (and so on through the generations for every criminal). Isn’t that the same logic. And if they don’t, how can they reconcile themselves with the Bible’s teachings.

What gives?

2

I am not aware how the Bible explains it, but I do know what the concept of original sin refers to.

When God first created humankind, they were completely in line with God’s plans and purposes. There was no sickness or death or sin. But then humanity disobeyed God, rebelled against Him as it were, a consequence of which was original sin: sin entered humanity and thereby introduced sickness, death, desire to rebel against God. This sundered the relationship between humanity and God as humanity strayed by a large margin from God’s plans and purposes. Because of sin, we became imperfect and separated from God. Also, because of sin we were under the danger of dying in sin and thus never returning to God.

The answer to this dilemma is the Second Person of the Trinity: God the Son, Jesus Christ.

How Jesus overcame original sin for humanity differs between Protestant/Catholic Christians and Orthodox Christians. According to Protestant and Catholic Christians, Jesus chose to suffer for whatever punishments we deserved. He took upon Himself our sins and sacrificed Himself to God to atone for those sins. All who would seek him would be guaranteed, basically, of forgiveness of their sins (as long as they repented).

Orthodox Christians believe that by becoming human and suffering and offering Himself on the cross, atoning for our sins just as Protestant and Catholic Chrisians believe, He additionally healed the corruption within humanity: humanity could, to some degree, become perfect. The sin that prevented humanity from reaching its original natural destiny is removed. Of course, residues of it remain, in that sickness and death remain and the temptation to sin exists, but humanity can unite itself sipritually with God once again.

Original sin is natural to every human being born since the Fall of Adam and Eve. Only two people in the history of the world were born without original sin: the Blessed Virgin Mary (through the immaculate conception, wherein when she was conceived she did not contract, as it were, original sin as a special grace from God in preparation for the birth of Jesus) and Jesus (through the miraculous conception).

Original sin may be removed by baptism. Confirmation and its bestowal of the gift of the Holy Spirit help to keep the person free from sin and prompted to good by the Holy Spirit.

I should repeat what I have heard many Catholics say: “We know where salvation is found; we do not know where salvation is not found. Whereas humanity is bound to and by the sacraments, God is not bound to them: He may save whomever He wishes.” Although we have been told by God that this - baptism, confirmation, etc. - is the way out of original sin and to salvation, it may not be the exclusive way. It all depends on one’s theology and/or denomination. Some are more strict than others.

And religion, in the end, is about rationalization and faith. Facts, science, etc., are irrelevant.

WRS

3

That still doesn’t explain why I would be held accountable today for whatever sins my ancestors may have committed eons ago. It’s like punishing the son for the father’s crimes. Logic may not have any place in faith, but this is wrong on a moral level IMO.

How can one man’s suffering atone for the sins of an entire species? And why is his partcular suffering any greater or more important than hundreds of his contemporaries who underwent similar torture under the Romans, or the countless other people that have endured suffering of such magnitude before and since his time?

Incidentally, I still don’t know if there is any description in the scriptures of the sins that were committed, or whatever prompted us to be entered into original sin. If not, then the whole concept of a saviour seems pointless.

True enough. But how does a scientist (so to speak), who has never been religious to begin with, reconcile with the glaring inconsistencies in a text to which he is suddenly prepared to dedicate his life? If someone came along to convert me, these would be the sort of questions I would want answered to my satisfaction.

4

At the risk of presenting less than a GD-level of seriousness, I give you Eddie Izzard’s take on original sin:

Churchgoer 1: Bless me father, for I have sinned. I slept with my neighbor’s wife.
Priest: Heard it. I want an original sin.
Churchgoer 1: Oh, I’m terribly sorry.

Churchgoer 2: Bless me father, for I have sinned. I poked a badger with a spoon.
Priest: That’s a new one.

5

Of course, none of this is in the Bible. :dubious:

6

Original Sin is neither Biblical nor a universal Christian doctrine. It was invented by Augustine and while it became Catholic doctrine (and was subsequently kept by Luther) it never caught on with the Eastern Churches. It has also never been a part of Jewish belief.

Basically, the idea is that all human beings have somehow genetically “stained” with the sin of Adam. No it doesn’t make sense (especially since there *wasn’t any Adam) but Augustine said it and now the Church is stuck with it. The explanations never make sense to me but you can read the entry in Catholic Encyclopedia to get a better idea of how the doctrine is formulated.

7

I read the entry on the Catholic Encyclopedia, and it is no more than nonsensical gobbledegook IMHO. So Adam ate an apple, rap him on the knuckles and send him on his way for crying out loud. This whole “You have sinned” thing is just melodrama.

I didn’t know this was a mainly Catholic concept though. What’s the deal with Protestants? Unlike the Catholics, they follow the Bible to the letter (the more religious minded at least). What is the compelling reason someone like me (i.e. someone who isn’t religious and has only a vague notion of what Christianity is) would want to get converted. I guess the answer would best come from a missionary :rolleyes:

Incidentally, I read a part of Genesis the other day. It was okay until it started explaining the genealogy of Adam. I gave up after about 20 lines of X begat Y begat Z begat A. Not quite what I expected from a bestseller.

–Hawk

8

I wouldn’t call it a Catholic concept. Seems like most Protestants have adopted the idea of Original Sin, and would probably be shocked if you told them it wasn’t Biblical.

But yes, it was not part of the eary Church’s conception and was basically invented by Augustine. As far as I can tell, as an explaination for why he couldn’t control his dick. You might want to read him, although you might not find it a more satifiying explaination.

9

hawkeyejo said:

I’m guessing the whole “eating an apple” thing is symbolic, meaning that humanity committed some great sin some time in the distant past. Eve didn’t literally take a bite out of an apple. The apple is a metaphor.

However this still doesn’t answer the question of what exactly this sin was. This sin that was so great as to warrant the damning of a whole species for all eternity.

Does anyone (christian or otherwise) have an angle on what exactly this sin was?
Also, I would dispute that original sin is a christian only thing. Original sin can be thought of as a mechanism whereby mankind has some kind of duty to God, some kind of obligation to fulfill in order to gain salvation. So really original sin occurs in all religions in that all religions oblige you to follow some kind of ritual eg in judaism and islam there are certain commands that must be followed if one is to fulfill the necessary criteria to enter heaven.

This is the same as original sin. There’s something you gotta do to fulfill the requirements.

10

I take it you’ve never read the Appendix A to The Lord of the Rings, the part with the lists of kings of Númenor and Gondor from Eärendil to Aragorn.

11

No, original sin - the belief that people are “born bad” is exclusively Christian (but like I said, not *universally[/] Christian). Other religions may have requirements for behavior in order to go to Heaven or avoid punishment but there is no necessity for “salvation” because the default is that you’ll go to heaven unless you screw up. Only in Christianity do you find the idea that all people are born with guilt and that they have to be “saved” from it.

Not all religions require an “obligation to god,” by the way (some religions have no God or gods at all), nor do all religions have concepts of Heaven and/or Hell. There is no Hell in Judaism, for instance.

12

Basically, Wikipedia has a pretty fair summary of the doctrine.

Please note that, like having a sex drive (with which it’s sometimes confused!), “original sin” is in many formulations not in and of itself sinful, but rather a means whereby people are led to sin – sort of a flaw in human nature.

13

God didn’t ask for your opinion.

Which is flippant, but the point is that you’re never going to get anywhere in understanding religion if you judge everything by the standard of “makes sense to me.” If there is an infinite God, and he is intervening in human affairs, it should be expected that some of the things He does seem irrational to us. If there is a God and everything he did was the same thing I’d do, what do I need him for?

I would also submit that most of the humans who have lived on the planet would understand it completely. The modern, western idea that each individual is utterly morally independant is historically very much a minority view.

14

Maybe, but why? If the whole point is that defiance of God is sinful, what you’re defiant about is a secondary issue; in fact the smaller the transgression, the more clearly the point is made.

15

The allegory is: “eating of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”; and the set-up is that the serpent tells the humans that once they taste it, they will “be like God”. That gives me a hint that the sin/transgression was assuming for themselves the attribution of deciding what is good and what is evil, usurping God’s role.

The presumption, of course, is that there WAS a state of spiritual harmony with God to begin with. Good luck figuring how THAT was working out for a buncha stone-chippers in the East African Rift back in the late Ice Age… Of course, the Eden allegory could be: * "Back when we were just hangin’ around being part of nature, going with the flow, just letting what happens happen, we did not know any better and were happy. Ever since we started thinking and trying to figure out the truth about the world and what are the right and wrong decisions, we have noticed that earnin’ a livin’s tough, life is unfair, yo’ mama’s ugly, and we spend a long time feeling miserable because we can comprehend that things could be better, and then we drop dead just as we’re about to figure it out. "*

But as has been mentioned by others, not even all of the branches of Christianity that hold to the doctrine of Original Sin have the same conceptualization of what are the specifics and consequences of OS. Some limit it just to the condition of “fallen nature”, an imperfection/weakness that prevents easy reestablishment of the perfect harmony with God (except by the Grace of the Christ, of course); for others it does carry an actual element of moral culpability, punishable by “the damning of an entire species”.

16

Absolutely correct. The concept of Original Sin also gave the successors of the Apostolic Tradition another tool with which to wield power over the hoi poloi. If one is Born Bad and can only be reconciled to God via baptism, confession and penance (given by a priest) - the priest certainly is in control.

The imagery is also very interesting in terms of the battle with Goddess-based paganism. The snake is oft associated with wisdom in pagan religions. The classification of woman (matriarchy) and snakes (pagan religious leaders) with evil was a double play in the battle of Roman-based patriarchical Christianity in dealing with the opposing philosophie.

17

Diogenes said:

Yes, the default is that you’ll go to heaven unless you screw up. And how do you screw up (in religions other than christianity)? By not following the commandments of the religion.

eg imagine if you are jewish but you haven’t been circumcised, eat pork etc. You are not fulfilling the commandments and thus will not attain the highest degree of heaven. There is an onerous duty upon you to actively do certain things (get circumcised, not eat pork etc).

In christianity, there is also an onerous duty upon you (accept Jesus and get saved or whatever).

Yes, formally speaking, original sin is a different doctrine than that found in other religions but it amounts to the same thing - do this (x,y,z actions) or suffer.

furt said:

Hmm, it’s interesting the whole “defiance of God” issue. How can we act in defiance of God? We can only act in accordance with our nature (like all animals). God must have known what our nature was since he created us, so God can hardly start acting all surprised when we start acting in accordance with it.

Whatever our nature was when God gave it us, it obviously included a tendency to act in defiance of God. God knew that right from the start (that we’d probably defy him). If God had wanted robots then he should have created them.

He created humans, he got humans. What’s the problem?

On an entirely unrelated note, Genesis tells us that after the serpent tempted Eve God punished all serpents by condemning them to forever slide along the floor. WTF, is the bible claiming that before this moment snakes all walked around on legs?

18

That bit is apparently a fragmentary inclusion, in the middle of the story, of a separate myth about the origin of snakes that got put in there because they were already talking about serpents. But for all I can read into it, it could also be a fragmenty of a legend to the effect that snakes were originally arboreal and after the Fall the serpent is just sentenced to come off the trees and crawl in the dirt. But the standard interpretation of most of christianity through most of history is that it’s a completely allegorical passage, not about snakes at all, but about how The Tempter becomes even lowlier than humans, condemned to have the descendants of the Woman stomp upon him.

Oh, and Jojo, part of the deal is that the humans are supposed to overcome “nature” and seek to do the right thing and obey the right rules even if we feel a “drive” to be contrarian.

19

Hardly. Even in my one semester of philosophy I learned enough to know that non-Christian philosophers have also debated whether man is intrinsically good, evil or neutral.

Christianity’s wrinkle was to posit that an external (supernatural) force could overcome mankind’s inherent evil.

20

Even in my seminary I’m amazed at how many students get knots in their underwear over original sin. Most people believe in original sin, they just don’t know it. Allow me to demonstrate:

  1. Do you believe that you are morally and spiritually perfect?
    If not
  2. Do you believe you could be perfect if you just tried harder?
    If not
  3. Do you believe other people could be perfect if they would just try harder?
    If not
  4. Do you believe this rampant and ingrained imperfection is the will of God and a deliberate part of his creation?

If not, you must believe that there is a source of imperfection prior to (causally and ontologically, as well as temporally) your own sinful behavior and seperate from God’s will in creation, in other words, original sin. Heck, I believe this, and I’m a theist by only the loosest definition. I actually think Gen 2. is a brilliantly crafted allegory for the evolutionary causes of evil, written by those who had no knowledge at all of evolution, but only the experience of living in an evolutionary world as moral thinking beings.

Everything else you read about apples and sex and what have you is just one theory or another to explain what is, in fact, a widely agreed upon phenomenon of existence.