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Talk:Original sin

This article needs some reworking so that it addresses the doctrine of Original Sin, which is a specific Christian doctrine dealing with the inheritance of Adam's original sin, rather than just a title assigned to the sin that Adam committed.

I believe that a lot could be added to this article for someone knowledgeable. There are probably implications of this doctrine for such things as infant baptism, the Catholic doctrine of immaculate conception, and perhaps the differences in the Protestant and Catholic approaches to this issue. I also suspect that the comment in the following comment sounds a little Protestant to me, and may not be quite how Catholics see it, but perhaps I am wrong: "The only way we are justified in God's eyes and reconciled with God is by humbly asking for forgiveness, believing that his son Jesus Christ through his death and crucifixion? took on himself the due punishment for our sins and trespasses (atonement?, and living life in obedience to God" -- Egern

I once read that Augustine held that even if you lead a perfect life and humbly ask God for forgiveness etc., He can still through you into hell because of the original sin. There does not appear to be a way to wash it off, you have to hope for mercy and have no right to expect it. I wonder if this is still doctrine, and whether catholics and protestants disagree on that point. --AxelBoldt

That certainly sounds like Augustine. Augustine probably marks the earliest point of theological departure between the Western (Catholic and Protestant) and Eastern branches of Christianity. (And this has nothing to do with the filioque clause or cultural issues like leavened/unleavened bread.) Augustine taught that you inherit the guilt of Adam's sin (maybe of everyone between you and Adam, I'm not sure), whereas Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that we inherit a corrupted human nature with a tendency to choose sin, but that we are only guilty of our own sins. Original sin is why the Catholics felt a need to come up with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, I think in the 19th century. The Eastern Orthodox church sees no need for such a doctrine, because Mary wouldn't inherit any guilt anyway, just like everyone else.

Because Augustine wrote in Latin, and wrote such large quantities, most of his contemporaries in the East didn't read much of his work, and so didn't have any immediate reaction at all, positive or negative. The Western church of course paid it much closer attention. As for as Protestantism, Augustine's doctrine of original sin still shows up in various forms, particularly in Calvinism (see Total depravity under TULIP, I think) and to some extent in Lutheranism. Arminianism doesn't hold to total depravity, but I can't remember what they do with original sin right off.

Do jews have an equivalent doctrine, or do they just ignore it? And muslims? -- James

I believe that the most recent change from "Judaism" to "Judaeo-Christian" really misses the point of the article, which is to trace the development of the idea from a traditional Jewish one to the idea as it developed in Christianity. Also, the term "Judaeo-Christian" is controversial and fraught with difficulties (see the article on that subject in this encyclopedia). Therefore, I propose undoing the last change to the article. -- Egern

In line with the first comment on the talk page, I have revised the first paragraph with an eye towards NPOV. Given that different people/religious traditions read the Bible in very different ways, I think it is especially important to distinguish clearly between what the Bible says and specific ways in which the story is read.

First, I changed the account from a description of a "sin" to a description of an "act." The Bible describes an act. It does not explicitly label it as a "sin." It is only specific traditions that interpret it as a sin, or even as the "original" sin.

Second, I deleted the association of the serpant with satan, for two reasons. First, I am not sure the text actuaually identifies the serpant as satan. Second, I am sure that what the Hebrew word "satan" means is open to question. Some religious traditions identify "satan" with a specific entity or power, some do not. I think most native english speakers will assume "satan" is just the name of a specific entity. But this is an interpretation, not the plain meaning of the text, so I think the article must be clear.

Third, I changed "apple" to "fruit." The Bible does not identify the fruit as an apple. People may call it an apple in the sense that "apple" is sometimes used generically to refer to fruit (thus, in french, a potato is a pomme de'terre, and apple of the earth). But most native English speakers think "apple" is the specific fruit of a specific class of trees, and to call the fruit an apple here would be misleading.

Finally, I changed "embarassed" to "ashamed" which I do think is closer to the language of the text.

I of course have no objection to the following section explaining how some people think this act was a sin, how some people think that the snake was Lucifer, or how some people think the fruit was an apple. I just think the initial description of the Biblical story should be neutral. SR

For what it's worth, I heartily agree with your changes, for the reasons you gave. I didn't know about the Hebrew word for "satan", always thought it came from the Greek "satanos" for "tempter". But you're right, calling it sin and identifying the snake as satan were later interpretations, and calling the fruit an "apple" is an old pet peeve of mine. --Wesley

BY THE WAY -- the text also makes clear that eating the fruit does NOT lead to a sure death "on that day." Doesn't this mean that God lied? And surely, isn't THAT the "original" sin? (just trying to be a little bit of an "adversary!") -- SR

Well... I don't mean to take this any more seriously than it was meant, but if the "days" in Gen. 1 and 2 are ages instead of 24-hour days, couldn't a "day" in Gen. 3 be an age as well? Another interpretation might be that Adam's spiritual death began the day he ate the fruit and chose independence from God, the source of all life, and that this only played itself out in physical death many years later. If there is a God and He did lie, then we all have a very big problem. :-) --Wesley

God did not lie; Satan (the serpent lied), according to the Unification Church (of which I am a member). We interpret Luke 9:60 ("Let the dead bury their own dead") and similar NT verses as describing two types of death: (1) literal physical death of the body, and (2) spiritual death, i.e., inability to love and to receive God's love. In Luke 9:60 Jesus suggested that the spiritually dead (sense 2) relatives of the deceased (sense 1) conduct the funeral, while exhorting the young man to forget all that and follow Him. Likewise, the death spoken of in Gen. 2:17 ("in the day that you you eat of it you will die") was not physical death but spiritual death. -- Ed Poor

Perhaps in committing the first sin God is inviting us to learn how to forgive! In any case, the splendour of the book (well, a part of it, at least) is that just as a diamond sparkles from many facets, the Bible invites such a variety of equally valuable interpretations! ;) SR

Interestingly enough, the story is about a serpent who apparently had legs. The serpent was also punished for the "act" as much as Adam and Eve were, and the serpent's punishment was to have to have to travel by slithering on the ground. Clearly this story originally had nothing whatsoever to do with Satan. -- Egern

The standard explanation of this, I believe, is that God did not lie, but he was speaking in metaphor.

Ed, you deleted the part of the entry that pointed out that many people mistakenly believe that Satan is part of the story. You made the cryptic comment that "this isn't NPOV". What do you mean by this? Who do you believe that this statement is towards towards, and who against? We are talking about the text of a book. This isn't a matter of religious or theological debate. This isn't a religious belief. The simple fact is that many millions of unread people mistakenly assume that Satan is part of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible. That, obviously, is false. The Satan character wasn't introduced into the story until many centuries later, and then this was only done in different books. The actual text of Genesis was never rewritten, even in Christianity. Does your Church use a new Hebrew text for Genesis that does mention Satan? If so, this new version should certainly be mentioned, but we cannot hide the fact that the standard version used by both Christians and Jews does NOT have this. RK

The claim that people mistakenly assume that Satan is part of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible needs to be attributed to a scholar or other authority. Moreover, if there is controversy over the interpretation of the "serpent" the article should simply say that some people interpret the serpent as Satan while others interpret it as (whatever).
I haven't heard of anyone literally saying that Genesis says Satan tempted Eve -- rather the common (prevalent?) belief about Satan tempting Eve is a conclusion or interpretation.
It's similar to the verse "the saints who had fallen asleep were raised" quoted in discussions of the rapture. The phrase fallen asleep is usually interpreted as meaning "died" althought the text is always quoted as "fallen asleep."
Nonetheless, I am not going to fight with you on this. Restore the deleted text, if you wish.

Ed Poor

An afterthought: I just read the Satan article, which says Later Christian theologies interpreted this serpent to be Satan, to the point where many American Christians are unaware that the actual Hebrew text does not identify the snake as Satan. I think there is confusion between the word "Satan" and the concept of Satan.

The word "Satan" does not, of course, appear in Genesis. It is possible that some "unread" people are unaware that Genesis uses only the word "serpent" or "snake".

I propose including both ideas in the article:

that some people think Genesis specifically mentions "Satan", and
that many people (knowingly) interpret the serpent as meaning Satan

Still, as I have been chided several times recently for unwarranted deletions, I will leave the text alone for a while. Let's try for consensus, please. -- Ed Poor

Well, I just made some changes that I hope both RK and Ed Poor (and of course others) will agree are accurate and consistent with NPOV.

First I identified "theologians" as "christian" -- it is my understanding that original sin as discussed here is an issue for Christians. If I am wrong, I hope someone will add to my change to make it more accurate/complete. But I do think that just to write "theologians" is a little too vague and broad.

Also, I made a minor revision to Ed's re-write. Since I believe that people can interpret texts however they want to, it is hard for me to call any particular interpretation as "mistaken," so I appreciate Ed's point. Nevertheless, I think it is very important in articles such as these to distinguish between the plain text and various interpretations. My point is not at all to privilege one interpretation, just to make clear what is an interpretation and what isn't. This is why, Ed, I see no reason for providing some authoritative citation or authority to prove that "satan is not in the Genesis story. All you need to do is read Genesis 3 without any assumptions and you see that Satan just isn't there. Now you can certainly interpret the story to see Satan's presense there. I know many do -- and for that reason this interpretation must be explained in an article.

But it must be explained in such a way that readers will not leave the article thinking that this is the only interpretation, or that this is not an interpretation at all but a simple reading of the text. I consider these two provisos absolutely crucial for an NPOV article. SR

I agree with you, SR, and perhaps I am biased because for my entire adult life I have believed that the serpent mentioned in Genesis is a symbol for Satan (see Unification Church/fall of man). Certainly my church's interpretation is not the only one. I don't even know whether it is a common one or a relatively rare one. In any case, it is absolutely not a simple reading of the text; you are 100% right about that. We have each given our reasons, and at this point I think I trust you better than I trust myself to write neutrally about this, so I am going to bow out. Thank you for your courteous attention to this matter. Ed Poor

-- Ed Poor writes "The claim that people mistakenly assume that Satan is part of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible needs to be attributed to a scholar or other authority."

I would have to disagree The fact that many people have this belief is well known; it isn't contested by anyone. RK

"I haven't heard of anyone literally saying that Genesis says Satan tempted Eve"

I have! In fact, most Chrisitians I have ever met has said precisely this, including Catholics and liberal Protestants. This is also true for Christian publications I have read, and broadcasts that I have heard on TV and radio. Its a very mainstream Christian belief. I am not going to unilaterally change the text of the article, but I just wanted to address these two points. RK

As an ex-Southern Baptist, I find this conversation an amusing diversion from some of the others in which I have been involved during my admittedly short tenure here on Wikipedia. ;) F. Lee Horn

Meaning of the story

Some people attribute the expulsion from Eden as punishment for disobeying God's commandment. Others interpret the fruit as the symbol of something so precious that Adam and Eve would risk their lives to "eat of it."

May I have clarification of what is meant by the phrase:

  also have a role in participating in their salvation

In its context, this is put in contrast to Calvinism, as though Calvinists do not believe that man has a role in participating in their salvation. I wonder, what sort of calvinist is that? What would salvation be if it can't be participated in, or if the calvinist has no role in it? Certainly not one that follows Calvin or any of the Reformed confessions. Unless, what is meant is,

  also have a role in making their salvation possible
  or also have a role in accomplishing their salvation

This would be a true contrast with Calvinism. It is true that calvinism excludes the idea that salvation is a shared accomplishment of God and Man, and it's certainly true that according to calvinism Man contributes nothing of himself that makes salvation possible. Are either of these alternatives acceptable to the authors of the original statement? Mkmcconn

also have a role in accomplishing their salvation would I think be closer to what was intended. Another option would be also have a role in working out their salvation. In that middle ground, God's grace is completely necessary for salvation, but the proper exercise of man's free will is also necessary, in contrast to John Calvin's picture of salvation as "the holy rape of the unsuspecting soul" where no free will is involved. Wesley

Yikes. Where does Calvin say that? No, it is absolutely essential to calvinism as it is believed and taught, that God's decree "does no violence" to free will. It is synergism, but not in the Eastern Orthodox sense, because it is not freedom of will in the Eastern Orthodox sense. Mkmcconn 16:21 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

On this point I disagree. Calvin did make clear that men have no free will. That is the basis of Calvinist doctrin. In the Institutes Calvin wrote, "In conformity, therefore, to the clear doctrine of Scripture, we assert that by an eternal and immutable counsel God has once for all determined both whom He would admit to salvation, and whom He would condemn to destruction. We affirm that this counsel, as far as concerns the elect, is founded on His Gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective of human merit; but that to those whom He devotes to condemnation, the gate of life is closed by a just and irreprehensible, but incomprehensible, judgment." Man is elected by God based on God's whim, and free will is a sham. End of story. We need to rewrite the article on Canvinism and on Predestination to reach this teaching, even if we personally find it to be repugnant and immoral. RK

Calvinists even today clearly teach that man's actions have no bearing at all on whether or not we can be saved. All of choices are meaningless, and we have no ability whatsoever to affect our afterlife outcome. This is made crystal clear in this quote:

According to Calvinism, our salvation comes from the almighty power of the Triune God. The Father chose us; the Son died for us; and the Holy Spirit makes all this known to us. Without the intervention of the Spirit, we could not know Christ's death. Thus, our response by faith and repentance could not happen because of the clouding of our sin that blinds us to His Word and call. Without the power and intervention of the Spirit, we could not become Christians, because we could not obey the Gospel. Therefore, the entire process of our election, redemption, and regeneration is solely by the work of God. It is by grace alone, through our faith alone. Thus God, not we, determines who will be recipients of the gift of salvation.

..."Unconditional Election" means to select or to choose. God chose us by His purpose. PERIOD. It was by nothing else, neither by our means nor His foreknowledge. (Romans 9:15,21; Eph. 1:3-14; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; 2 Tim. 1:9-10) This doctrine states that God chose those with whom He is pleased to bring to them knowledge of Himself. This is not based upon any merit by anyone. Thus, the object of His grace is not based upon looking down the corridor of time to discover who would accept the offer of the Gospel of Christ. God has elected us based solely upon the His own Will for us, to do good works, which do not save us. (Ephesians 2:10; 1 Peter 2:10)

Source of quote (http://www.ncubator.com/Bible-Study/CalvinismCritics.htm)

I looked at the source of that quote, and found this in the same discussion, discussing total depravity:

As far as “free will” goes, of course we have “free will!” Calvin spent most of his writings discussing this fact. He taught that we have responsibility, and duty to faith and prayer, three areas that require free Will. The doctrine of “faith alone” is a demonstration of our Will to choose, and we do choose to accept His amazing gift of grace (to what extent is a matter of debate in Reformed circles). However, we cannot choose it if we do not know about it, and that is the point of this doctrine. Sin is in the way of our choosing, so the Holy Spirit lifts our sin and our Will out of the way.

This same writer clearly supports the notion of free will in calvinism. I'll try to do some more reading, including finding the source of the quote I mentioned earlier. Wesley

I understand that some Calvinist apologists will bend over backwards to prove that this also allows for man to have free will. But that is clearly an irrational position, made out of emotional desperation. Some people have an innate desire to accept certain beliefs as true, even when they are morally repelled by them on an intellectual level. Thus thus affirm that both mutually contradictory beliefs are true, even if that is impossible. This is equivalent to claiming that 1 = 2. You can say that you believe it to be true, but deep down inside you know that there is a contradiction, and that this cannot possible be true. RK

Catholic Encyclopaedia entry on Predestination (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm)

It will be acceptable to me if it is re-written to include this view, but not if it is re-written to this conclusion. The doctrine of predestination is not only morally repugnant, it is contradicted, if freedom of will in the calvinist understanding of it is removed. The same objections that you are raising here, could be raised about orthodox Christology, or the doctrine of the Trinity, or any number of other things that Christians call "mystery" and the world calls "nonsense". If the aim of the Christian faith were to systematize the logical conclusions based upon the presupposition that reason is autonomous, it would be Enlightenment humanism, not Christianity. Mkmcconn

I don't understand your point. Are you saying that Christianity is illogical? That reason plays no role in theology? I would have thought that most enlightened Christian theologians would argue that faith complements reason, rather than contradicting it. soulpatch

No, I am saying that reason is not autonomous. It is subject to rules not of its own making. So, it doesn't matter in orthodoxy, whether autonomous reason says "the Trinity is illogical. 1+1+1=3 gods". That is not how it adds up, in orthodoxy. The Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons, and this is the one God of Christianity. This is not only logical in orthodoxy, it is necessary to logic as orthodoxy understands logic. Likewise in christology: autonomous reason may say "Chalcedon asserts an impossibility". But orthodoxy will always answer that "possiblility" must include as a minimum what is true, therefore autonomous reason is asserting an impossibility if it will not submit to what is true. And I might as well add, to stay on topic, Original sin involves the same challenges to autonomous reason. Mkmcconn

Well, not to belabor a point, and I hate to sound dense, but I reread your paragraph several times, and I still don't understand your argument. I tried to speculate on what I think you are saying, and started to write a response, and I just deleted what I wrote beause I realized I have no idea. You kind of lost me when you talked about "autonomous reason". To me, "reason" refers to the rules and procedures of drawing conclusions based on premises. If you get a contradiction somewhere, it is because the premises are contradictory or else your application of those rules and procedures is faulty. So I really don't know what you mean by "autonomous reason", except that it sounds like a vaguely Kantian reference.

I think you really lost me when you said "as Orthodoxy understands logic". You seem to be saying that Christian or Orthodox "logic" is somehow different than logic as the rest of the scientific and philosophical world understands it. Is logic not logic? This is like saying, "sure it sounds illogical to you, but that's because you don't 'understand' logic the way I do", which is a convenient way of settling an argument but it gets you nowhere. It just means you can justify anything you want to, and reason gets thrown out the window. I just find this hard to believe that Christian theologians in general take this position, though. soulpatch

I think that soulpatch has it on the head. We have here a case where Christians are claiming that their faith makes senseless claims, and that these claims are essential to Christianity. They are affirming in their own way what Tertullian wrote about Christian theology: "We believe it because it is absurd." Given the statements from classical Christian sources, and from the Talk sections in Wikipedia articles, it seems as if Christianity is predicated on abandoning logic and reason, and demanding that its adherents believe mututally contradictory positions. Unless I am mistaken, a Christian must believe that 1 + 1 +1 = 1, and believe that "free will" is the same as "predestination, where no free will exists", etc. RK

Maybe we can describe this view accurately, but I honestly don't know how to do this without making Christianity appear irrational. Wesley's and Mkmcconns's latest statements are an honest defense of Christianity, from a Christian point of view. However, to a non-Christian like me it appears as if they are ridiculing Chrisitianity, by making it into a faith that depends on being irrational. Yet I know that this isn't so. I just am at a loss. Any effort I make to be NPOV or pro-Christian results in me being told that I am describing Christianity wrong; Yet all the defenses of Christianity look to me like attacks on it. If I am reading this right, we are being told that Christianity is a religion that one cannot hold, unless one abandons logic and critical thinking. (And we're back at Tertullian again) RK

Well, Tertullian was a bold man, and his over-boldness got him removed from the Church, and opened him to believe a lot of absurd things. Orthodoxy (little 'o') is, the word of God and the understanding of the church; as opposed to "free thought" and heresy. Closer to the idea is the maxim, "I believe, that I may understand". Logic works in exactly the same way (an ordinary, human way); however, it is informed and limited in a very unordinary way, so that what amounts to "understanding" in the church is not the same thing as "understanding" outside of the church. As for it being mainline; I guess that depends on how you distinguish the main line. From the broad survey of history, what I'm saying about logic is the main line of Christian thinking, and what most Christian theologians are saying at the moment (let's think of Spong, as an example), is simply put, "unbelief", a failure to understand. Mkmcconn

There are a lot of things that I can believe but don't understand, but that doesn't have anything to do with the logic of the belief. I believe in quantum mechanics and black holes, both of which I only dimly understand at best. That doesn't make either of those phenomena illogical. I accept that my limited knowledge or intellect may prevent me from understanding them--but I still believe, and I have confidence that there is a logic that lies behind the conclusion that those things are true and exist. By analogy, it is perfectly possible for someone to believe a tenet of religious faith that they don't understand, without that implying that the belief in question contradicts conventional logic. But by the same token, I don't just accept any old claim if that claim clearly does defy logic. But what you seem to be saying is that Christian logic is different from logic as it is applied everywhere else in human experience. This viewpoint just boggles my mind, to be quite honest. I really thought that attempts by various people in Church history to apply reason and logic to Christian theology was a part of its history. To say that Christian logic is different from everyone else's really makes any kind of dialogue or common language impossible, not to mention the fact that it presumptuously absolves Christianity from any kind of evaluation of its truth claims by outsiders. It does serve a convenient purpose for making Christianity immune from criticism, though. (And, by the way, Spong doesn't have "unbelief", any more than anyone else whose theology differs from orthodox Christianity has unbelief. That is a terribly orthodoxocentric way of looking at it. It's like the Romans claiming that Christians were atheists because they didn't believe in the Roman gods. From that perspective, Judaism or Baha'i or Islam is also "unbelief" because it differs from certain Christian points of view. Spong definitely has a set of religious beliefs; they are just different ones.) soulpatch

I didn't really say that Christian logic is different, though. Not exactly. I said that Christianity is informed differently, and this other information has rules, according to which ordinary logic is able to meaningfully operate. And, according to those rules, Spong is an irrationalist (it's not really about Spong that's at issue, of course; I'm barely familiar with his work). Mkmcconn

I would point out that aving "unbelief" isn't the same as being an "irrationalist", although in any case Spong does not, as I mentioned earlier, have "unbelief". As for your other statement, I still don't really understand your point. I think I am officially throwing in the towel in trying to discuss this. I can't even follow your position clearly enough to respond to it in a meaningful way. soulpatch

I'm sure it's my fault, for being unclear. However, reading over what I've written it does state my mind sufficiently: unbelief is an irrational treatment of the revelation of God. Spong has "beliefs" (that's not saying much), but he does not "believe" - the implicit reference in the latter case is to the truth claims (if you will), of the Church. Unbelief does not accept as true, what is revealed in the Church so that we may know the truth; and furthermore, in Spong's case, he irrationally asserts that this rejection of truth is what is meant by faith, and does so (again irrationally) as though he is expressing not only his own beliefs, but the Belief of the Church. Anyway, it's too much to expect agreement on everything for lots of reasons. But maybe out of this discussion, a fair representation of the disagreement can be agreed upon. Mkmcconn

Well, the church may declare someone as irrational if they disagree with them, and to me this is a case of extreme hubris, but there isn't really any point in debating that matter, since we obviously are not going to agree. But I do want to say one thing about Spong. Spong doesn't claim that he is expressing the belief of the Church. If you read his most recent book, you will see that he most clearly states his opposition to what the church is promulgating and he calls for what her terms a "new Reformation". He has made it quite clear that his views differ quite strongly from those of Christian orthodoxy, and he doesn't pretend otherwise. soulpatch

Christians want to be understood - I just want to assure you that I don't want to intentionally confuse you; and I'm quite sure that I do understand your difficulty and I apologize for not finding a more acceptable way of expressing myself. It may be interesting for you to compare my reaction to your comments, and your reaction to mine. It's a remarkable thing to hear the effort to conform to orthodoxy called, "hubris". But it goes right off my charts of the known universe, when a man whose office charges him to protect orthodoxy from its enemies, uses that office to make credible the entire jettison of orthodoxy, and then I risk offending if I call that man irrational. But I do not wish to offend, and I regret that I failed to be sensitive. I do appreciate the efforts that people make here, to understand one another. Thanks. Mkmcconn

I never thought you were trying to confuse me. I just think that your view of reason and faith and truth are really quite different than my own, and I just couldn't get a handle on why you felt the way you did. As for Spong, I can't comment on what his office charges him to do, because I am not an Episcopalean and I don't really know what that church charges his office to do. My admiration for him has to do with his ideas, with which I find much agreement, and what I consider to be his valiant efforts at rescuing his faith. You don't have to like what he says, but I do have a major problem with calling him "irrational". His views are, in my mind, significantly more rational than most of the tired old dogma of Christian orthodoxy. But, of course, that's just my opinion. But my point is that a difference of opinion does not make the other party "irrational". The thing is that a talk page on Original Sin is not really the forum for going into this sort of deep philosophical debate, so I've actually been trying to steer my way out of doing that here. soulpatch

RK, and soulpatch, I really appreciate your sincerity in trying to understand. I think I see how confusing it can be. Let me try again. Post-Enlightenment 'rationalists' also tend to be empiricists, generally only trusting information received through the senses, or that others have received through their sense, and of course logical deductions from that information. From time to time, scientists make new observations that contradict old theories; perhaps they invent more powerful telescopes, microscopes, or other instruments. When that happens, naturally they double-check their equipment, but if the observation appears valid, they start trying to adapt their theories of physics and chemistry and whatnot to explain it. Well, Christian epistemology accepts information both from the senses and from divine revelation; there's an additional source of information which is presumed to be reliable. Given that premise, and the truths revealed in the Bible as historically interpreted by the Church, Christians do use logic to work out the implications, ramifications and so on. But just as a scientist will reject a theory that is incompatible with trustworthy observations, traditional Christians will reject a theology that is incompatible with the truths they have been given by divine revelation, usually indirectly via the Church. If something like the Trinity doesn't 'make sense', that doesn't change the fact that God has revealed Himself to us as Trinity. It doesn't make sense to me that light can have properties of both matter and energy; it ought to be either energy or matter, not both. It doesn't make sense to me that glass can be classified as a liquid by some scientists, when it certainly appears solid to a layman like me. A number of phenomena still defy even physicists' understanding and logic, but that doesn't mean they don't occur. Many things I tell my children about the world and how things work don't make sense to them because they don't have the categories to understand what I tell them, but that doesn't mean what I'm telling them is illogical or false.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, sometimes there is also a different form of logic employed, very similar to the Eastern logic of Hinduism or Buddhism. This usually looks like a higher tolerance for holding two seemingly contradictory things together; often they'll say that both statements have to be made together to balance each other, to adequately describe what is. They also use more apophatic theology and try to draw fences around the truth to show where it is, rather than systematically define it the way Thomas Aquinas did. Thus the Roman Catholic church developed a doctrine of transubstantiation that tried to spell out in great detail how the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, while the Eastern Church simply repeats, "this is His Body and Blood" and refuses to get any more specific than that, lest they step outside the bounds of what they actually have received and know. Perhaps our ideas of logic are more determined by our culture than we would care to admit. Wesley 16:28 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

Wesley, thank you for taking the time to try to explain your position clearly. My goal was not to debate orthodox Christian views on revelation, which I generally disagree with, but to understand the ways that orthodox Christians believe that logic interacts with their faith. soulpatch

I understand; I wasn't trying to debate or persuade either. The short form is that the core doctrines founded on revelation are treated like objective observations that logic can then try to explain and maybe even build upon; they are not treated like theories or hypotheses that can later be 'reasoned away'. Doing so would be like using abstract logic to 'prove' that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects, as Aristotle did. I suppose you can treat the initial premise, that the core doctrines are true and genuine divine revelation, as the faith part, and I can understand why you and many others disagree with that. If I'm still being unclear, I won't try to belabor the point any more. Sorry for the straying from topic. Wesley

I have added the Unification Church version of Original Sin to the article. If anyone thinks this perspective is out of place in the article -- and thus deletes it -- I won't revert the deletion. --Ed Poor

There is no position that I am aware of, that claims that Jesus inherited "original sin". As far as I know, even those that claim that Jesus was an ordinary man simultaneously deny that there is any such thing as "original sin", the effects or guilt of which are inherited by all men. Is there opposition to removing the new sentence which suggests that "Jesus was without original sin" is controversial? Mkmcconn 19:20 Oct 24, 2002 (UTC)

If Jesus was born a man (and god), and all men inherit original sin, it stands to reason that Jesus was not without sin (provided that you are in the camp that "original sin" means we are born dirty.) I had never thought about it myself until it was mentioned in the audio commentary in "The Last Temptation of Christ". If this article was about Bigfoot, no one would object to pointing out the contradiction. Apparently it was enough of a position to be debated and found a way around, and I am doing research about this now. I would contend that most christians just hadn't thought about it before (do you think the Church would bring it up?) but thats just my personal belief.

I don't mind if you remove it since its so small, I just thought it was an interesting point. If I find any good research on it though, I'm going to add it back in. --151.

After a cursory search on the google, there is enough discussion on this to warrant a whole section. After I can find more authoritative sources, I will do so.

--151.

This is not a brand new question. Questions surrounding Jesus' divinity and humanity have been thoroughly discussed and debated for centuries. Of course the Church brings it up, it's a standard part of catechism in churches that still have a thorough catechism. The Chalcedonian Creed explicitly says that Jesus was "without sin", as I believe the book of Hebrews makes very clear, and probably other New Testament passages. See also the hymn quoted in the Incarnation article.

In Eastern Orthodox theology, we don't inherit original sin per se; that's more of a Western Christian concept. What we do inherit is a damaged or impaired human nature; damaged in that it is enslaved to its passions and desires and thus is predisposed to sin, though still possessing a measure of free will. When Christ became incarnate, he took on human nature and healed it, by his very incarnation making it whole again. Wesley

Incidentally, I meant the supposed paradox of Jesus and original sin is probably not brought up regularly, as opposed to the divinity of Christ. Kind of like the old "who did Cain marry?" Even with a good explanation you cannot get around the fact that the common sense interpretation looks like a contradiction, and it's not good form to say "because the bible says so." It looks enough like a contradiction for a lot of religious people to feel the need to account for it, and I'm not going to be the one to write in an encyclopedia that its not a contradiction because the Bible says Jesus was without sin.

From what I've been reading lately, it looks like Catholics believe that Mary, being pure (allowing assumption into heaven) is the reason Jesus had no sin. Some protestants claim that Original Sin is passed through the spirit, not the flesh, and so Jesus is free. Most protestants I've read thus far however use the circular argument that Jesus was without sin, so he couldn't have had Original Sin. Yeah. Thats not to say that catholics are above it. I found a catholic site that quoted a theologian stating "a christ suffering from original sin is unthinkable" (referring to even things like temptation or doubt), and simply stated the notion blasphemous. Some others say that Original Sin was thrown out with the new covenant, "be as children before the lord" implying that children were pure. I've found some criticism of calvinist thought that concludes that the calvinist position is flawed. There's almost no agreement.

As for Original Sin being an inherited predisposition to sin rather than sin itself, thats kind of mentioned in the main text, but I think it needs to be stated a little more explicitly. This is what I believe and believe Jesus had, because on a purely personal level this makes the most sense to me. I'd have to believe that Jesus was susceptible to this since a) as a model of human behavior he's worthless if he isn't tempted and b) a distinction is made between his human body and everyone's perfect resurrected body. After all, he aged, was able to be wounded, had to eat (and deductively, excrete), and didn't normally violate physics by flying around like Super-Jesus or something. But again, thats just my 2 bits, and I'm not going to let that violate NPOV. My only bias here is that I think its a really interesting question.

--151.

ok, I'll agree that it's an interesting question; not only that, it's important too. :-) I think the "paradox" of Jesus and original sin is a standard part of Eastern Orthodox catechism, which means it's taught to all children and new converts. It's all part of teaching what it means for Jesus to be fully divine and fully human. Can't speak for other catechisms, but I certainly don't mean to suggest the Orthodox are the only ones. As far as bias and NPOV and so forth, I think it's important to present ideas and debates that have actually been held by at least a minority significant enough to be given a name, and identify ideas with their historical and present-day proponents. what you or i think about stuff like this doesn't really matter in an encyclopedia. Perhaps this topic does deserve a subsection in this article. Wesley

Incidentally, I know nary a thing about Orthodox christianity, but I will say that there has been a history in western christianity to emphasize Jesus' divine side at the exclusion of his human side. Unfortunately, I've also suffered the "because the Bible says so" argument many times. Here's some links I came up with, a few that offer specific info on when this issue has been addressed.

I do think it's an interesting question, and I'm sure that it would be interesting to many readers, and worth putting in or even expanding. I just doubt that there is a lot of serious theological discussion of the issue (as opposed to casual curiosity, or frequently asked questions). You do suggest that Christ's humanity is a neglected subject somehow, but I don't know why you might have this impression. It seems to me that we've heard a great deal about the humanity of Christ, especially in the last couple of centuries since it's been so common in Protestant churches not even to speak of Christ's deity. Mkmcconn

The topic of Jesus and original sin leads us into christology, doesn't it?

If Jesus is "God Himself, the Creator" and if God is perfect -- then Jesus can't have original sin.
If Jesus is a bit more human than the above, as in the Unification Church (UC) theology, then he could (A) be born without original sin (like Adam, perhaps) or (B) be born with original sin.

The interesting thing for Unificationists is that, if Jesus is an "ordinary" man who (1) was born without original sin and (2) attained perfection (in the Matt. 5:48 sense) -- then the rest of us can also reach perfection if we can be rid of original sin somehow.

I'm not sure if the UC perspective is relevant (since it has so few adherents), but it gives us a framework to compare other ideas to. --Ed Poor

Yes, this does lead into christology, which is still mostly a stub article. In Orthodoxy, it is possible for the rest of us humans to attain perfection because Jesus united the divine and human natures in his person, thereby healing our damaged human nature. He also underwent temptation without sinning. Perhaps there's actually less difference between Orthodoxy and Unificationists on this point than first meets the eye; at least there's a shared idea of human perfection made possible through Christ, though the means may differ. Wesley (making a mental note to look up Matt. 5:48 later...)

Old discussions from Talk:Fall of man were moved to Talk:Original sin/from Talk:Fall of man. -- Timwi 18:26 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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