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August 13, 2005

Ch. XV. Q. 91. Original Sin

Broadly speaking, "original sin," "peccatum originis" is a symbolical name for the moral and spiritual condition in which men are bom by reason of Adam's sin. Formally speaking, it is the loss of grace which Adam's disobedience caused, andwhich reduces man to the spiritual insufficiency of his natural powers. Materially speaking, it is the tendency to sin which this loss of grace engenders, commonly culled "concupiscence" Our Ninth Article of Religion describes original sin in its material aspects.1

2. "Actual sin," or sin properly speaking, is always a personal, avoidable and more or less conscious disobedience of divine law.2 The phrase "original sin," inasmuch as it is distinguished in use from "actual sin," is not to be interpreted literally. It describes not an act of sin, but an inherited condition. And the word sin is employed only because the state which is indicated was caused by Adam's sin and makes us inclined to sin. In short, a moral handicap is described in terms of its cause and of its inevitable results.3

3. Similarly the phrase "inherited guilt" can not rightly be used to "mean that newborn babes are actually guilty—morally to blame for Adam's sin. If used at all, it ought to mean merely that they have inherited a state in which they will inevitably become guilty of sin when opportunities for moral action arrive.

4. The phrase "children of wrath," when employed in connection wilh the doctrine of the fall, should also be used symbolically, as describing a condition which, although itself a misfortune rather than blameworthy, will inevitably manifest itself through actual sin. The phrase may be used to express the fact that God cannot morally approve of a state which inevitably engenders sin.4

5. Our knowledge of God forbids us to believe that He holds newborn babes, prior to their committing conscious and wilful acts of sin, personally responsible because of their inheritance. They are not naturally fit for the kingdom of God, and by reason of the solidarity of mankind this is true of all the children of Adam. But the mystery of redemption is God's method of meeting the difficulty, and this mystery has to be reckoned with in considering the condition called "original sin."5

6. Christ died for all; and somehow and somewhere the opportunity of benefiting by redemption will be afforded to all. No one, we may be sure, will incur hell torment as a penalty for "original sin" only. Whatever may be God's method of dealing with the invincibly ignorant, no child of Adam will be able in the end to impugn either the justice or the mercy of God.6


1 On original sin, Creation, ch. ix; Evolution. pp. 133-149 and Lec. vi; Works on Thirty-Nine Arts., art. ix. by A.P. Forbes, E.C.S. Gibson and E.T. Green; Concil. Trid., Sess. v; St. Thomas, I. II. Ixxxi-lxxxiii; J.A. Mæhler, Symbolism, Bk. I., ch. ii; Wilhelm and Scannell, Cath. Theol., §§ 162-165; J.B. Mozley, Lecs. and Other Theol. Papers, ix-x: Thos. B. Strong, Manuel of Theol., pp. 250 et seq. For biblical data, Hastings. Dic. of Bible, s. vv. "Fall" and "Sin"; J. Laidlaw, Bible Doctr. of Man, chh. x-xii; A.B. Davidson, Theol. of Old Test., ch. vii; F.R. Tennant, Sources, etc., chh. i-xi; Sanday and Headlam, Epis. to the Romans, passim. For history, J.B. Mozley,Predestination, ch. iv; Cath. Encyc., s. v. "Original Sin." III-IV; F.R. Tennant, chh. xii-xiii; W.E. Orchard, Modern Theories of Sin, II.

2 H.P. Liddon. Some Elements, Lec. iv; Hastings, s. v. "Sin"; J. Laidlaw, ch. x.

3 Creation, p. 284.

4 Idem., pp. 283-285.

5 St. Thomas, I. II. lxxxvii. 8. Cf. Ezek. xviii. 20.

6 St. Thomas, III. Suppl. lxxi; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. lx. 6.

Posted by AKMA at August 13, 2005 08:01 AM

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