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Original Sin (again)

Rex

Founder
I'm a little confused on the views that one can be punished for the actions of their ancestors (I.E. Original Sin (Adam & Eve).

Would someone care to explain to me the thought line on this?

Rex
 

Scott1

Well-Known Member
It is not a "punishment", but a condition:
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.


The most important part to remember about original sin is that it can be defeated:

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."
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
Rex_Admin said:
I'm a little confused on the views that one can be punished for the actions of their ancestors (I.E. Original Sin (Adam & Eve).

Would someone care to explain to me the thought line on this?

Rex

I apologize in advance. This is going to be heavy on grammar.

The way you've worded it, you're referring to a doctrine that came about as a result of a mistranslation that Augustine used.

In Romans 5.12, we read "Just as through one man sin came into the world, and through sin, death, so also did death spread to all men, because of this we all sinned."

The term in interest, here is "because of this." This word doesn't represent one word in Greek, but two words, ef w (with a w omega). It's the preposition epi combined with the dative of the relative pronoun os. Literally, this means, "upon which." Greek, though, like English has idioms and phrases that don't mean what it would indicate from their individual parts. In English, an example is "He kicked the bucket." It doesn't mean anything of the sort, and in this case, "upon which" should be replaced with "because of this."

Now, in a Latin mistranslation, we read, in quo omnes pccaverunt in the last clause (in Greek ef w pantes imarton). Translated, the Latin reads "in whom we all sinned." The correct reading (and it was revised to read this later), reads eo quod omnes peccaverunt. The eo quod here works like the Greek, so we can translate this to "because of this."

When Augustine read this, he reasoned that when Adam sinned, he sinned for all his ancestors, and this guilt was passed down from generation to generation so that "in him we all sinned." IIRC, he even posited it was passed down through the fathers.

Prior to this, on account of Adam's sin, corruption and death came to us all, and we all sinned, and subjected ourselves further to it. So, when Adam fell, his image of God was broken, and when he had children, they were in his image, and so on. This broken image passed down from generation to generation (not the guilt of Adam's sin), and so, we were all born into it. As a result of that, we have all sinned everafter.
 

lilithu

The Devil's Advocate
Rex_Admin said:
I'm a little confused on the views that one can be punished for the actions of their ancestors (I.E. Original Sin (Adam & Eve).

Would someone care to explain to me the thought line on this?

Rex
That's how I was first taught it too, but I don't think that's what it really means.

When God created the world, He said "it is good," meaning that it was without fault.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they "broke" creation, so to speak. Instead of it being without fault, now everything was faulty. (Note: that's not the same thing as being at fault.) It is the faultiness that we supposedly inherit, because obviously, a faulty being will only create another faulty being. It cannot create a being without fault. Since we are faulty, we are not in tune with the will of God, we cannot be in His pressence - the faultless and the faulty cannot mix. Thus we are excluded from heaven (God's pressence) unless there can be some way to be redeemed, made whole.

That is original sin as I understand it.
 

Scott1

Well-Known Member
Rex, if you take every Bible account literally, It will be a bit difficult to understand.
 

lilithu

The Devil's Advocate
Rex_Admin said:
But a "fault" tree was stuck in the middle of Eden?
The tree itself is not faulty. What was created was the potential for fault, not the actuality of it.

But I think I know what you're getting at: it used to bug me a lot too. Why would God set things up such that Adam and Eve would "fall"? It seems awfully mean and capricious.

This is how I currently undertand it:
God put the tree there and told them not to eat of it because of free will. If there were no rules to possibly break then there could be no free will. If would be impossible for anyone to act contrary to God's will if God did not stipulate something in which one can act contrary to.

Now having done that, it was just a matter of time - it was inevitable - that A&E would disobey God's will. If they never did, then again there could be no free will. So day in and day out for hundreds or thousands of years for all we know, they did not disobey. (Or maybe it happened within a week, who knows?) Anyway, with free will, eventually, one or both would disobey.

One might still think that God was being mean and capricious by giving us free will, but I would ask: given the choice between having free will and not having it, which would you prefer?

(I don't believe that any of this literally happened, btw.)
 

Rex

Founder
Yes Yes I know. And I'm not Scott, just trying to see it from the point that some do. And Lilith I was merely trying to argue the "God is all good" argument and the problems with that. :)
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
I gave a historical account on where OS came from...but I didn't talk about the tree or anything. My apologies, it looks like I was off-topic :).

In Orthodoxy, we don't believe Adam and Eve were created perfect, just innocent. When they had matured enough, they would have been given to eat of the Tree (or whatever it represents). However, they took the fruit early and began a rebellion against God.

It wasn't so much that God put it in there simply to test them, but it was meant to help them mature, and when they had reached maturity, it would be "legal," so to speak. That isn't the only reading, but it is the reading in Orthodoxy :).
 

Jaymes

The cake is a lie
Deuteronomy 23:2 A ******* shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD

Is this on-topic enough to be explained in this thread, or should I start another thread for it?
 

Rex

Founder
Jensa said:
Deuteronomy 23:2 A ******* shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD

Is this on-topic enough to be explained in this thread, or should I start another thread for it?
Why not start another. :)
 

lilithu

The Devil's Advocate
Rex_Admin said:
And Lilith I was merely trying to argue the "God is all good" argument and the problems with that. :)
Well there are better arguments against God's complete goodness than the story of the Fall. The existence of suffering is kinda hard to brush asside. In the book of Job, the God speeches kind of hint at the idea that God is beyond good and evil. And Dr. No recently quoted from Isaiah about God and evil in response to the tsunami.

ISAIAH 45:7 (King James Version)
" I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things"

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?p=80303#post80303

For believers and nonbelievers alike, the concept of God is paradoxical. The difference is in how we choose to respond to that paradox.
 

lilithu

The Devil's Advocate
No*s said:
In Orthodoxy, we don't believe Adam and Eve were created perfect, just innocent. When they had matured enough, they would have been given to eat of the Tree (or whatever it represents). However, they took the fruit early and began a rebellion against God.

It wasn't so much that God put it in there simply to test them, but it was meant to help them mature, and when they had reached maturity, it would be "legal," so to speak. That isn't the only reading, but it is the reading in Orthodoxy :).
Cool, No*s. I think you've mentioned this before but I forgot. (Too many religions to keep straight!) I will remember next time. :)
 

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
There is no such thing as original sin as it's all been done before! :D

But really... you don't find the words "original sin" in the scriptures. Let's face it Rex, you didn't need any help to screw things up. You did it all by yourself and didn't need any help. Sin is like that. So are we.
 

Rex

Founder
NetDoc said:
There is no such thing as original sin as it's all been done before! :D

But really... you don't find the words "original sin" in the scriptures. Let's face it Rex, you didn't need any help to screw things up. You did it all by yourself and didn't need any help. Sin is like that. So are we.
You assume I have sinned. :tsk:
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
SOGFPP said:
It is not a "punishment", but a condition: ...
Looking at the Alter translation ...

Genesis 3:16-19

To the woman He said,​
"I will terribly sharpen your birth pangs,
in pain shall you bear children.
And for your man shall be your longing,
and he shall rule over you."
And to the human He said,​
Because you listened to the voice of your wife
and ate from the tree that I commanded you,
'You shall not eat of it,'
Cursed be the soil for your sake,
with pangs shall you eat from it all the days of your life..
Thorn and thistle shall it sprout for you
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread
till you return to the soil,
for from there were you taken,
for dust you are
and to dust shall you return.
"I will terribly sharpen ..." This is a sentence, not the explanation of a consequence. YHWH's willingness to victimize the descendants is similarly reflected in Exodus 20:5; 34:7; Numbers 14:18; and Deuteronomy 5:9.
 

lilithu

The Devil's Advocate
Deut. 32.8 said:
Looking at the Alter translation ...


"I will terribly sharpen ..." This is a sentence, not the explanation of a consequence. YHWH's willingness to victimize the descendants is similarly reflected in Exodus 20:5; 34:7; Numbers 14:18; and Deuteronomy 5:9.
There is sin and then there is original sin. Sin is the actions that each of us do against God's will. For our sins, each of us will be punished (according to Judeo-Christian-Islamic beliefs), and that is what God was doing to Adam and Eve in the verses that you quote. But original sin is not a punishment; it is an inherited state or condition.

As for the other verses that you cite, they still do not refer to original sin, which affects everyone and does not stop at the fourth generation. They're just the Hebrew God threatening to punishing someone by striking down not only them but their children and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren etc. Since until very recently, kids were thought of as just the parents property, it's just a more extreme form of God saying "obey me or I'll break your most cherished possessions."
:162:
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
lilithu said:
Cool, No*s. I think you've mentioned this before but I forgot. (Too many religions to keep straight!) I will remember next time. :)

No problem. It's not like there aren't a gazillion different sets of beliefs :D.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
lilithu said:
But original sin is not a punishment; it is an inherited state or condition.
Repeating it doesn't make it true. Your "inherited state or condition" is God's (continuing) punishment for what Eve did.
 
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