Among Christianity’s many odd doctrines is the notion of original sin. The details vary from denomination to denomination, but a common view is that all humans are born into a state of sin because Adam succumbed to temptation in the Garden of Eden, and that this state of sin makes us worthy of God’s eternal condemnation. Only Christ’s sacrifice can redeem us.
Here’s how the Catholic Catechism describes it:
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”.293 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.294 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.
This raises an obvious question of fairness. Why should all humans suffer and be damned eternally because of the act of their ancestor, Adam?
In a recent UD comment, Vincent Torley offered a defense:
To answer your silliest questions first: under the tribal scenario that I was envisaging, all human beings then living would have assented to Adam’s decision. Of course, if there really was an original couple then that makes things a lot simpler. The exact nature of Adam’s sin has been debated for centuries, but on one sensible interpretation, the sin wasn’t simply learning the difference between good and evil; rather, Adam wanted to create his own moral standards and define good and evil on his own terms. In so doing, he deliberately eschewed the Divine protection that had preserved the human race from suffering and pain and made a declaration of human independence, telling God to nick off. Bad move. God reluctantly took him at his word and withdrew His special protection, leaving the entire human race vulnerable to starvation, predation and disease. That may sound unfair on future generations, who had nothing to do with Adam’s fateful decision, but to me it seems obvious that you can’t have half the human race running around enjoying supernatural protection from death and suffering while the other half is suffering from raging toothaches and dying off at the age of 30. We’re all one race, and whatever happens to us, we’re all in this together.
[Emphasis added]
I’m always disappointed when Vincent writes something like this because he’s smart enough to know better. Why is it “obvious” that God can’t treat people unequally? He already does it, and he’s certainly going to do it when he “separates the wheat from the chaff” at the time of the final judgment.
So let me throw the question out to Christians generally: Is the unfairness real or only apparent? How do you reconcile it with God’s goodness?
And why should we inherit Adam’s sin, anyway?
keiths,
The ‘you’re all as bad as me’ defense is especially cringeworthy.
You’re all worse than me. Feel better now?
I felt fine before. The issue is, Mung, you know Barry is peddling lies and doing nothing. And I think you’re better than that. So don’t be peddling any smug superiority until you attend to it. Also, Keiths has asked a fairly good question. Do you have an answer? Are we missing something? If you don’t have an answer, should you?
Somewhere in the 1990s my wife and I took our kids to Washington, DC. We visited the mall, of course, and stood outside the fence surrounding the White House. On the fence was a box, and on the box was a button. There was nothing indicating what the button did.
We puzzled over it for awhile. What happens when you push the button? Does the president come out? Does the secret service hustle you away? Nothing happens?
Several people took notice of our puzzlement and soon we had a small group wondering the same thing.
So I pushed the button.
KeithS asks: “Why should all humans suffer and be damned eternally because of the act of their ancestor, Adam?”
Short answer: they don’t suffer eternally because of the act of their ancestor Adam. They suffer temporarily, because Adam, as father of the human race, made a dumb decision regarding the future of humanity. What he wanted was not merely freedom, but moral autonomy for the whole human race – even if that entailed foregoing God’s protection against natural harms and living in a world where humans are liable to death and suffering. God’s response to Adam was: “Suit yourself.” However, the sufferings of this world will not and cannot last forever.
Regarding your question about damnation: no-one is damned because of Adam. There’s only one way you can be damned: by making a final and irrevocable choice to defy God.
Your god, or will someone else’s do as well? Are devout Hindus defying your god by worshiping their own?
That seems a bit revisionist.
God made things worse as a punishment. And do you think “temporary punishment” is moral. Should we put the children of criminals in jail too?
I have to assume that entrance to heaven involves some sort of lobotomy, whereby humans are enabled to endure for eternity conditions they could not endure for a few minutes while alive.
Vincent,
You’ve side-stepped the issue, which is the blatant unfairness of original sin. You and I are being held responsible for Adam’s sin, as your own Catholic catechism makes clear:
Your defense, quoted at greater length in the OP, was that
Why is that “obvious”? God allows one person to die peacefully in bed after a long and happy life. Another is burned alive in a cage. Some children enjoy secure and joyous childhoods, while others suffer abuse or are torn from their mothers’ arms and drown in terror in a tsunami.
God continually allows these drastically unequal outcomes. Why is it “obvious” that he couldn’t do so in the case of Adam’s sin?
We’re not “all in this together”. See my examples above, and consider Matthew 25:46:
Eternal punishment and eternal life aren’t exactly equal outcomes. So much for “we’re all in this together”.
Depends. Were either of your parents a criminal?
When?
Matthew 25:31 And when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit upon His throne of glory.
When?
Matthew 16:27-28 For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory His Father, with His angels, and then He will give to each according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those standing here who shall not taste of death until they have seen the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.
First century events. If you ignore the context you have little hope of getting it right.
Oh, but I am a fundy. Isn’t that right, Richardthughes.
Mung,
Preterism wouldn’t rescue you even if it were correct.
If some went “away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life”, then they weren’t “all in this together”, contrary to Vincent’s claim.
If preterism is correct, then your insistence on Biblical literalism is incorrect.
Keiths,
Sorry for delay in responding since the question was posed to theists like me.
Since you believe consciousness can be split (the split brain), even from your perspective, it would seem then logically possible for consciousness to be merged.
Software and ideas can be split apart and re-merged to form something else.
Our soul was split off from Adam.
If there is a split consciousness, or split brain, who is responsible for the crime.
Suppose a murderer gets a split brain consciousness so that two soul exist in one body. Who is responsible for the crime if supposing one of the conscious entities might have no memory of the crime?
Our spiritual essence proceeds from Adam in some way. The physical lineage is only a symbol of a spiritual reality. We were, in other words, there in Eden, our consciousness however was split off from Adam’s existence somehow.
Adam merged himself to Satan, so all of humanity is under God’s curse.
Belief and trust in Jesus brings the Christian soul into communion with Christ’s spirit, and hence the Christian is there at the cross with Jesus and having his sins paid because Christ’s sufferings and payment for sin are merged with the Christian’s soul.
This would all be just mythical mumbo jumbo to me if it weren’t for the hints in biology that the Genesis account was true. The HeLa immortal cell line hints to me humans were meant to be immortal.
The various mtDNA’s of creatures suggests Eve was recent.
The complexity of biology suggests to me a Creator, the pains of this world tells me we are cursed for some reason. What we see observationally and infer experimentally with God’s gift of science suggest to me the Genesis account is from God, hence no matter how distasteful the theology is, I accept it as fact.
We here at TSZ are cursed, that’s for sure!
Only if you believe so sincerely enough. Fortunately, no belief, no curse.
Sal,
Do you believe that Adam was saved?
If we all inherit the sin of Adam, and are thus subject to the same punishment, then why don’t we all inherit the salvation of Adam, with the same rewards?
Or, if you don’t believe that Adam was saved, then why don’t we all inherit his damnation, with no hope of salvation?
If our personal salvation depends on our own acceptance of Christ, and not Adam’s, then why doesn’t our guilt depend on our own sins, and not Adam’s?
If we were all somehow a part of Adam and thus responsible for his decisions, then either all humans should be saved or all humans should be damned. To Christians like you and Vincent who aren’t universalists, it should be obvious that Vincent’s claim is false:
Mung,
I don’t insist on biblical literalism. Instead, I ask those who believe that the Bible is the word of God, but who are not literalists, what criteria they use to decide which parts to take literally and which to interpret figuratively or metaphorically. Want to give it a shot?
Besides, preterists actually do take that passage literally:
Preterism asserts the literal truth of that passage by claiming that the “Son of Man” did indeed “come in his Father’s glory with his angels” while those listening to Jesus’s words were all still alive.
Now, how about answering my questions about original sin? Vincent and Sal gave it a shot. Why not you?
Both.
Having no belief is a curse.
otoh, no one thinks Jesus was talking about literal sheep and literal goats. Not even you. So you do have your own method for deciding what is literal and what is not.
That’s not how God designed salvation to work. He could have designed it another way I suppose.
You pose a good question, and I’m not trying to be dismissive, but at some point there are questions we simply might not have answers for.
I’d like to have all the answers before believe something as true, but we never has a much information as we’d like. If we had all the answer we’d be God.
I simply accept the orthodox theology as a matter of faith. If you don’t , I respect your decision since it’s your life not mine.
You pose a good question, and one that should be carefully considered. I’ve provided the way I reconcile the issue.
If we live in a designed world, then to me it seems reasonable to say the designs are malicious.
We may not feel we are deserving of such malice, but intelligent designed malice seems blatantly in evidence. We can complain we feel we deserve it, but really the one who is in the best position to say one way or another is God.
If the Bible does proceed from God, then I accept the explanation even though it is somewhat unsatisfying since I would personally be as cruel as God sending people to hell for what seem to me small offenses like eating a forbidden cookie or forbidden fruit.
If you want to appeal to our sense of fairness and revulsion at God’s cruelty, I think you’ve done a good job of arguing your case, but my sense of what would be just in the scheme of things isn’t what counts, it’s God’s sense of justice.
The world looks intelligently designed with malicious intent toward humanity. I accept that as a just outcome from God even if I don’t like it because He is the ultimate judge.
We all know that he was really talking about donkeys and elephants.
He was talking about any ruminant animal that produces milk.
Apologies to Monty Python.
And we all know where the democrats are going!
No, it’s not.
It’s really not a curse not to be saddled with a belief that your best childhood friend is going to hell because they can’t go to the same church as you.
It’s really not a curse not to be saddled with a belief that you can’t divorce, or remarry after divorce, no matter how abusive and criminal the about-to-be-ex spouse is.
It’s really not a curse not to be saddled with the expensive, time consuming, and pointless worship services dedicated to praising the lord, a lord who if it existed would have been the worst genocidal monster in the solar system.
It’s really a wonderful thing to be a human free of religion, belief, and doctrinal stupidity.
How could one possibly know this?
I hear some people really enjoy torturing children. How could one possibly know it isn’t fun without trying it.
As for religion, I grew up in it and spent 10 years in a choir as an adult. What makes you think people who aren’t believers can’t know or imagine the alternative?
If so, this is a curse I very much enjoy suffering. And as I watch poor Sal trying so desperately to mangle reality to fit his beliefs, I know who is really cursed.
I must confess, it took me a long time to truly accept that some people actually believe in one or more of all these imaginary gods. I thought they had to be kidding me, nobody could fall for something that preposterous. Today I realize that Dawkins was right, there is no sensible limit to what the human mind is capable of believing, against any amount of contrary evidence.
I still have absolutely no grasp of what it must be like, living inside a mind so seriously crippled when it was too young to defend itself, but I accept that many people do, and consider themselves as lucky as cattle in a feedlot. I find it a kind of morbid curiosity watching these people struggle so hard to misinterpret their world in just the right ways.
Therefore, Darwinism is false.
Go ahead. Say it. Assuming you’re not wedded to your dogmatic beliefs that you don’t really have.
21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,…
It’s pretty silly to be asking about original sin when you don’t believe in sin. Or God.
Who among us is perfect? Anyone? Who among us is without sin?
Does it really matter how it came to be the case that we are all sinners? Isn’t what really matters is the fact that we are all sinners?
Mung’s question is possibly the stupidest question a person could ask.
No, the “fact” that we are all “sinners” is not what really matters.
I enjoy these little chats. All science.
One of the things I like about TSZ is that it is not just all science.
That’s not what Jesus said.
What did Jesus say?
Lots of things, much of which if spoken by a presidential candidate, would be regarded as contradictory.
Flint:
Mung:
That’s a classic Mung sequitur.
Mung,
That’s right. But since I’m not a believer, I don’t have to fight against the straightforward meanings of passages like this one:
It’s obvious that Jesus’s prophecy was incorrect. Only a believer would feel the need to come up with a bizarre interpretation like preterism to “make” it correct. The rest of us can accept that Jesus got it wrong. It’s obvious and we feel no need to fight it.
Sal,
The problem is that Christianity is full of doctrines like this that believers cannot explain or justify. “Christianity is false” makes sense; “Christianity is true” doesn’t.
Why assume that the Bible proceeds from God? It gives every sign of being a human creation: primitive, self-contradictory, morally suspect, full of scientific and historical inaccuracies.
Your faith is a bit odd. You express revulsion at the Christian God’s malice, while at the same time you hope beyond hope that Christianity is true — to the point of twisting the evidence into knots in an effort to get it to support your beliefs.
I know that you see your faith as a wager, and that the size of the “payout” is what attracts you to Christianity, but surely you can see that Christianity is overwhelmingly unlikely to be true. It’s a rickety and ridiculous set of beliefs long past its sell-by date.
Then being cursed is a good thing.
Neither of those makes sense. “Christianity” is not the name of a proposition.
I think they make sense when we take “Christianity” to be shorthand for something like “the central claim of christians: that god specially incarnated Jesus to redeem humans who choose to follow his teachings about sin and heaven”. Whew, that definitely needs a shorthand term.
Looking at “Christianity” in that sense, I wouldn’t quibble with keiths saying
It’s not just the central claim of christianity that is false. Hardly any of the supposed supporting details ring true, either. Faith healing of a lame man, okay. Walking on water, not so much. Cursing the fig tree, what the hell is that for? The proto-christian Jews and pagans embroidered their legend too much; looks superficially impressive and worship-worthy.
Reminds me of an exchange in BBC Sherlock:
LESTRADE: You said you had a thing.
SHERLOCK: Ah, right, yes! That’s right. A thing.
LESTRADE: You might wanna elaborate.
SHERLOCK: No, no, no. Only lies have detail.
That’s your methodological criteria? That the meaning is straightforward?
keiths finally admits he’s engaged in his own subjective interpretations of biblical texts
You are 2000 years away in time and an entire world away in terms of history and culture. Yet you know what Jesus meant and how his audience understood what he said.
Quite right. Why, I understand that in those days, pi was three, exactly, and gods were always manifesting all over the place. A different word indeed.
You’ve been reading up! Congratulations.
From a 2002 Barna Group survey: