I’d better write something to kick off (based on what I’ve already written elsewhere)_
The doctrine of Original Sin seems to be there in the Bible – but the Eastern Church share the same Bible but do not share this doctrine with the Western Church (which is curious). And the Latin fathers prior to Augustine do not expound the doctrine in the same relentless form found in Augustine.
In St Pauls’ Letter o the Romans’, Paul says: ‘Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.’ Augustine translated this phrase: ‘in whom all men sinned” And using a faulty Latin translation which left out the word ‘death’ translated as follows: Through one man sin entered into the world and through sin, death, and thus spread to all men, in whom all have sinned.’ (Contra Julianum – that is Julian of Ecclanum – and not Julian of Norwich).
So this is, arguably, where the doctrine of Original Sin comes from – we are born sinners and ‘creatures of God’s wrath’ because we carry the sin of Adam in us from the first. By way of contrast the Eastern tradition of ‘ancestral sin’ – as summarised by the hopeful universalist Timothy Ware - has it that:
The doctrine of ancestral sin means that we were born into an environment where it is easy to do evil and hard to do good, easy to hurt others and hard to heal their wounds; easy to arouse man’s suspicions, and hard to win their trust. It means that we are each of us conditioned by the solidarity of the human race in its accumulated wrong-doing and wrong-thinking, and hence wrong being…"
But that’s not the same thing as original sin. All of what Ware says is true but we are still bearers of the image of God ni this view – and children come into the world as blessings.
Augustine has had an enormous influence on Western Christianity – his doctrine of Original Sin has informed Penal substitution views of atonement (although this is a later development) and ECT (he was responsible for the horrible idea that unbaptised infants go to hell, an idea that had to wait for Aquinas to be mitigated to the idea of Limbo (recently abolished by the current Pope along with the doctrine of the damnation of infants)
Part of the Eastern view of sin is that it is a sickness to be struggled against and cured rather than an act of rebellion that needs to be punished. I’ve read that for this reason in the Eastern Church, people who were thought to be ‘demon possessed were treated with kindness and gentleness, as opposed to in the West in which they were often subjected to cruel ritual, punishment and imprisonment.
I’ve not thought through the Eastern view in detail – although I’m sure it’s pretty similar to my own view. Of course the Eastern view also entails ideas of punishment for sin – remedial retributive punishment for the minority but allowed Universalist tradition and pure retributive punishment for the majority tradition. And I need some help on this one - because I’m not sure how it fits the idea of sin as sickness in need of healing.
So any thoughts on Original Sins and the context of the development of the doctrine are appreciated. I’ve got a couple of other posts I can think of – one about Augustine and the Introspective Conscience and another in praise of bits of Augustine (because I don’t think he was totally bad and wouldn’t want to see him as a scapegoat). BUT will await and see how the discussion develops.
All the best
Dick
) and also at the end of the PS thread as its stands. Far be it from me to cut and paste ideas/thoughts form elsewhere - but if anyone is up for it I guess it’s OK for them to plonk ideas expressed elsewhere here). It’s a hot topic
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