Original Sin According to Most NonMormon Christians

Some Christians believe that all of humanity is born with a builtin urge to do bad things because they have been taught extrabiblically that Original Sin stems from Adam and Eve's disobedience to God. A New England Priomer of the 17th century contained, In Adams; fall, We sinned all The Christian world has been led astray by Saint Augustine. He cobbled together a doctrine for which there is no biblical authority, namely the doctrine of Original Sin' meaning the kind of sin and sinful propensity that is transmitted genetically from Adam and Eve to every human child born. Augustine's need for this doctrine is based squarely on his need for an explanation to buttress his own doctrine of Grace. Although the sin of the first parents can be considered the 'original' rebellion against God by a human being, that does not point to the nature of Adam's wrongdoing nor the responsibility for Adam and Eve's transgression being passed down through genetic transmission from generation to generation. It is the unbiblical dogma of Augustinian Original Sin that has jaundiced the eyes of all that accept it as the explanation for the

tendency in man to rebel against God. However, not only is it unsatisfactory as an explanation, but it contradicts the moral choice most Christians belief God has granted to his subjects. There is some talk about the innocence of children: Children are born innocent, they are not born "Totally Depraved" as the unbiblical teach. In defence of total depravity of neonates the proposition is put forward that babies behave badly and thus wilfully sin. That is arrant nonsense. Those that have spent their time and energy securing the right to life for these innocent mites ought to expend yet more time and energy so that when the innocent child is born into the world no such stupidity is maintained that they are full of depravity and wickedness because they are of the fallen seed of Adam. What a blight that notion casts over the innocent. If they dies unbaptised, they are, say the TULIPS, damned to suffer eternal torment in the fires of Hell. So total is the lack of understanding of those that believe babies are depraved and sinful that it has the force and nature of a delusion. Can we take any assurance from what Jesus Christ - not Saint Augustine - knew and taught about the innocence of little children: Matthew 19:13-14~ Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.

But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. The NASB Version has: Mark 10:13-16 And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all. And He took [the children] in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them. Jesus knew that children were pure in heart, not totally depraved as Christianity gone astray has taught for centuries. Matthew 5:8 Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God

Since children are, according to Jesus, those that will enter the kingdom of heaven, along with those that are converted and become as or like little children, they are pure in heart. Not because they have been cleansed, for Christianity that teaches Original Sin denies any cleansing without their particular prescribed rituals, but because God and Christ have declared them pure in heart and fit for the kingdom of God from the moment of their birth. The Kingdom of heaven is God's heavenly kingdom. Jesus knew that. No unclean thing can enter heaven, but children, says Jesus Christ, are as are those that inherit the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, and Jesus cannot lie, little children are NOT totally depraved,corrupted, and hell-bound sinners from birth. More from Jesus: Mark 9:42 [NIV] "And if anyone CAUSES one of these little ones who believe in me TO SIN, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. If they were totally depraved, they would not need to be taught or caused to sin, because they would have been born full of sin and have been sinning with every breath they took. Jesus does not subscribe to Augustine, and in this matter the great Augustine ignored the teaching of Jesus. This is what Jesus taught concerning the innocence of children.

Matthew 18:1-6 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Note well that Jesus was not mad, nor was he deluded. And yet he controverts the foundation of Original Sin by telling his apostles and disciples that unless they change [be converted], and become as little children, they will not enter heaven. Consider wisely and soberly what Jesus said here. Did he mean that unless Christians change and become totally depraved they will not enter heaven? is that what you hear him say? Nothing could be clearer than that Jesus considered children innocent - not depraved - and sinless - not laden down with criminality - and as candidates for the kingdom of heaven just as they are!

Augustine was a man, mostly a good man, but he was also at time a wrong man: Jesus Christ was and is yet the faultless Son of God. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord and we will believe Jesus Christ even when he teaches counter to the traditions of historical Christianity. Are there any that will do otherwise and call themselves disciples of Christ? Search the scriptures. I did, and this is the result: Bible Search: Your search original sin - did not match any documents! St Augustine's theory St Augustine, who largely devised the theory of original sin, thought that original sin was transmitted from generation to generation through sexual intercourse. Augustine did not say exactly how this happened. He said that it was transmitted by "concupiscence", when people had sex and conceived a child. Concupiscence is a technical theological word that Augustine used to refer to sexual desire as something bad in the soul that was inseparable from normal human sexual impulses. Sexual desire was bad, he taught, because it could totally overwhelm

those caught up in it, depriving them of self-control and rational thought. This disapproving view of passion was quite common among Christians of Augustine's time. Augustine thought that concupiscence was present in all sexual intercourse. He thought that it was just as bad and uncontrolled in a marriage as it was in non-marital sex, but that an excuse could be made for it within marriage because its purpose was to produce legitimate children. This bad element in sex provides the means by which original sin is transmitted from father to child. It transmits both humanity's guilt for Adam's crime and the sickness or defect that gives human beings a sinful nature. ...whenever it comes to the actual process of generation, the very embrace which is lawful and honourable cannot be effected without the ardour of lust.... [This lust] is the daughter of sin, as it were; and whenever it yields assent to the commission of shameful deeds, it becomes also the mother of many sins. Now from this concupiscence whatever comes into being by natural birth is bound by original sin. [Augustine, De bono coniugali] The Council of Trent (1545-63), a late-comer to the Roman Catholic dogma of Original Sin, gave the official stamp to the idea that original sin was transferred from generation to generation by propagation - which means during the sexual act that led to conception. The Council explicitly ruled out the idea that original sin was transferred by "imitation"; in order to block the idea that human beings just copied the bad example set by their parents and others.

On the face of it, original sin doesn't answer the question as to how evil got into the world; instead it leaves other questions to be answered. As one writer puts it: Why is there original sin? Because Adam sinned? Then why did Adam sin? If it was because of the serpent, why did the serpent sin? If the serpent is supposed to have been a fallen angel, why did the angel sin? And so on. And there is a second, but related, question. If evil did not exist before Adam sinned, how could Adam know that what he was about to do was evil - how was he to know that it was wrong to disobey God? No Christian theologian in the historical tradition has been able to answer that question satisfactorily. The doctrine of original sin is based on the idea that God created a perfect world, and that humanity damaged it and themselves by disobeying him. A non-LDS Christian speaks for all nonMormon Christians when he says: The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense. [Bishop John Shelby Spong, A Call for a New Reformation, 1998] Bishop Richard Holloway, a non-LDS Christian, who, therefore speaks of all non-Mormon Christians, has described the idea that unbaptised babies go to hell as "one of the most unsympathetic of the Christian doctrines," and not greatly improved by the

teaching that there is a special "limbo" for unbaptised babies on the outskirts of the inferno. Original sin has been criticised for inspiring excessive feelings of guilt. The 18th-century politician and philosopher Edmund Burke once said: "Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion." One of the biggest problems the Catholic Church faced over the years was the problem of children who died before they were baptised. Before the 13th Century, all unbaptised people, including new born babies who died, would go to Hell, according to the Catholic Church. This was because original sin had not been cleansed by baptism. This idea however was criticised by Peter Abelard, a French scholastic philosophiser, who said that babies who had no personal sin didn't even deserve punishment. It was Abelard who introduced the idea of 'Limbo'. The word comes from the Latin 'limbus', meaning the edge. This would be a state of existence where unbaptised babies, and those unfortunate enough to have been born before Jesus, would not experience pain but neither would they experience the Beatific Vision of God.

Abelard's idea was accepted in the 13th century by Pope Innocent III, the most powerful Pope in Roman Catholic history. The idea of Limbo was defined in 1904 by Pope Pius X in his catechism. Babies dead without baptism go to Limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but neither do they suffer, because, having Original Sin alone, they do not deserve Paradise, but neither do they merit Hell or Purgatory. Pope Pius X However, unease remained over reconciling a Loving God with one who sent babies to Limbo and the church still faced much criticism. The Church, which has never claimed to definitely know who will go to Heaven apart from the Saints, or Hell, has said that the issue has long been one of speculation in the Church. This speculation has led to an oversimplification of the matter, and some people have regarded it as fact when it was never the case. Roman Catholics, as ar all non-LDS Christians, are only sure of the following two pieces of information in this matter: 1. That God is merciful 2. That baptism is essential for salvation Catholics today feel sure that God won't impose punishment on babies who are free from personal guilt, but they do admit they don't know what their afterlife will hold.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II had Limbo removed from the catechism and both Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict XVI urged further study on the concept. In April 2007 Pope Benedict XVI approved the findings of a report by the International Theological Commission, a Vatican advisory body, which found grounds that the souls of unbaptised children would go to heaven, thus revising traditional teaching on Limbo. The report said there were "reasons to **hope** that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness!" Parents were urged to continue to baptise their children, as the Vatican stressed that baptism is still considered necessary to achieve salvation; the report emphasised that "there are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible" to baptise them. Augustine developed his idea of original sin for several reasons: to explain the almost irresistible pressure to behave badly that troubles even the most saintly people to justify the need to baptise babies as soon as possible after birth to demonstrate that human beings are totally reliant on God's grace and all-powerful goodness to defeat the ideas of Morgan, a Welsh theologian.

Augustine saw original sin as working in two ways: inherited guilt for a crime spiritual sickness or weakness Augustine thought that humanity was originally perfect ("man's nature was created at first faultless and without any sin"), immortal and blessed with many talents, but that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and introduced sin and death to the world. Augustine didn't see any need to provide a good reason why Adam, who had originally been created perfect, chose to sin, or why God hadn't created a perfect being that was incapable of sin. As far as Augustine was concerned the point was that Adam had sinned and humanity had to deal with the consequences. Modern people would think it unjust that human beings should suffer for something that happened long before they existed, but to people in Augustine's time the idea of punishing later generations for their parents' crimes was familiar. Why Adam's sin affects everyone Augustine developed the following argument: the whole essence of human nature was contained in Adam, the first man when Adam disobeyed God, the whole of human nature disobeyed God thus the whole of human nature became sinful

thus the whole human race was damaged for all time. Nothing remains but to conclude that in the first man all are understood to have sinned, because all were in him when he sinned; whereby sin is brought in with birth and not removed save by the new birth... it is manifest that in Adam all sinned, so to speak, en masse. By that sin we became a corrupt mass. [Augustine] Modern Bible scholars believe that this element of Augustine's theory was based on a mistranslation in the Latin version of the Bible. Having established, as he supposed, that every human being had inherited guilt from Adam, Augustine taught that this was why that all human beings were damned, even if they didn't commit any extra sins of their own. Augustine was certain that the consequence of original sin was damnation. This even applied to people who hadn't committed any sins, like newborn babies, if they died before their souls were cleaned by baptism. Unfortunately there was no guarantee that everyone who was baptised would be saved from damnation, merely the certainty that those who weren't baptised would go to hell. The Protestant theologian John Calvin (1509-1564) believed that humanity's unbelief and disobedience had so fundamentally

changed the human race that little, if anything, of God was left in it. We are lost, there is no means of help; and whether we are great or small, fathers or children, we are all without exception in a state of damnation if God does not remove from us the curse which weighs upon us, and that by His generosity and grace, without His being obliged to do so. [John Calvin] Most modern Protestants do not take quite such a dismal view of humanity as Calvin, and do not regard humankind as evil in essence lacking any trace of the divine image. They still teach that human beings are 'fallen' without understanhding what they mean by that term, and acknowledge a need to 'get right with God', believing that Christ's death 'atoned' for their sin provided that they repent, and they can only be 'saved' by God's freely given 'grace', and being baptised by immersion. The Christian Orthodox churches do not interpret Original Sin as Augustine did. They do not believe that people can be guilty of a sin they did not commit, and so wisely reject the idea of inherited guilt passed down the generations. Latter-day Saints do not believe that a just God punishes people for sins they did not commit. We believe a man will be punished for his own sins and not for Adams transgression.