Discussing Sin
(Selfishness/Unethical Behaviour) and Grace (Goodness) of Humanity
‘I have nothing
to do with others, I am only concerned with myself. […]’
‘It seems to me
an awfully selfish way of looking at things,’ said Philip.
‘But are you
under the impression that men ever do anything except for selfish reasons?’
‘Yes’
‘It is
impossible that they should. You will find as you grow older that the first
thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognize
the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others,
which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours.
Why should they?’
W.
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).
In
Christian terms, we may ask why evil/sin? Where does it come from? Where do we
inherit this sinfulness? Christian theological tradition explains it with the
theory of original sin. Borrowing the insight of Paul Ricoeur, Richard McBrien
terms the doctrine as ‘a rationalized myth about the mystery of evil’, a way of
naming and explaining that reality.[1] Theory
of original sin begets the theory of original justice which presents the
blissful state before sin entered the world.[2]
Official Teachings
of the Catholic Church
J.
Neuner and J. Dupuis, summarizing the doctrinal teachings of the church on this
subject, write
Our
first parents are endowed with the life of ‘holiness and justice’
[Grace/Original Justice]. God created them in communion with him free from
death and concupiscence. There gifts were not due to our first parents. […]
Humanity
lost the God-given gift of grace through sin. [This is original sin.] Sin and
its consequences form part of our human condition, transmitted to our
offspring. […] It consists in the loss of ‘holiness and justice’ [state of
grace]. It alienates one from oneself; it brings about death and fratricide,
and the earth’s ‘rebellion’ against humanity. It is the source of concupiscence
[sin] which weakens the human will. [But] it does not destroy freedom.
Baptism
wipes out original sin and restores us to communion with God. It confirms to
the image of the son. Even the children of the baptized need to be reborn in
Christ.[3]
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| Michelangelo's Depiction of Original Sin |
The first man
was not only created good, but was also established in friendship with his
Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him.[4]
[…] our first
parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original ‘state of holiness and
Justice’ [Original Holiness/Original Justice].[5]
By his sin Adam,
as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from
God, not only for himself but for all human beings.[6]
Adam and Eve
transmitted to their descendents human nature wounded by their own first sin
and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called
‘original sin’.[7]
As a result of
original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance,
suffering, and domination of death, and inclined to sin.[8]
If
we summarize the teachings of the Church we learn that sin has come into the
world because of the fall of the first parents. Otherwise we were in a state of
grace. Due to original sin, we have lost our original state of holiness and
justice. This deprivation is transmitted to the whole humanity by birth.
Children of the baptized Christians are no exception. We restore the original
state of grace by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in Baptism.
Joes
Kuttianimattathil points that there are difficulties with this doctrine. He
asks
- Did humanity originate through monogenism or polygenism? If human origins can be traced back to polygenism how can we explain the sin of one couple affecting all?
- How is original sin transmitted?
- How are we to understand today the state of original justice? The theory of evolution holds that humans originated from lower beings and therefore the origins of humans is not as idyllic as pictured by traditional theology.
- Is original sin really just? Why do human beings need forgiveness for something that they have not done?
- How does Jesus save us from original sin? [What is the relation between original sin and Jesus?]
- How does a baptized couple pass on what they themselves do not have?[9]
- How can the deprivation of grace be called ‘sinful’ in the individual when not personally willed by the individual? Because we ask every individual to be cleansed independently through Baptism.
It
is therefore, clear that there is something amiss with the traditional catholic
theology. We learn from contemporary theologians (scripture scholars) that the
doctrine actually has no scriptural foundation.
Original Sin:
Searching the Scriptures
As
regards the first testament, there is no mention of original sin. Neither do we
find anything close to the doctrine of original sin. In the story of the first
parents, we read an explanation about the origin of sinfulness in the world
hence also describe the state before the sin of first parents. They affirm none
of the doctrines of original sin, nor intend to move towards it.
No
stronger is the support from the second testament. Nowhere does Jesus teach
that due to Adam’s sin the whole humanist is in the state of sinfulness. Though
we find a discussion on the relation of sin, human person and Christ in the
Rom. 5, 8-21, current exegesis finds no insights in this passage for the origin
of the theory of original sin. They explain that in this text Paul intends to
emphasize the universality of redemption by Christ, in the background of the
solidarity of the whole humanity in sin. He accomplishes this by his reference
to the picture of the fall of the first man in the scriptures. Other than this
we find references neither to the term nor to the concept in the Second
Testament. Even, as part of its official teaching the Church clearly states “original
sin, so to speak, is the ‘reverse side’ of the Good News”[10].
In other words, the premise that Jesus is the savior of all, that all need
salvation takes a good ground only on the belief that we are damned to sin.[11]
We
find no direct reference or explanation of original sin in the scriptures. The
development of the doctrine in the present form has happened in course of time
reaching a systematic exposure in Augustine, which was further expanded and
clarified by Thomas Aquinas. This is the Latin tradition. Quite differently, in
the Eastern tradition the doctrine is less rigorous more reasonable. We find no
reference to collective guilt humanity incurred through the first fall.
Whatever be it, we have learnt that the explanation of the traditional
Christian theology for the brokenness of the world, the selfishness of human
beings through the doctrine of original sin is proven inadequate. Contemporary
theologians however take a new direction, enriched by the insights from the
modern human sciences.
Development of
the Doctrine in Contemporary Theology
Reinhold
Niebuhr (1892-1971) writes, “universal inclination of the self to be more
concerned with itself than to be embarrassed by its undue claims may be defined
as ‘original sin’.” In other words, for Niebuhr, the individual and collective
egotism that puts the interests of oneself insensitive to the needs of the
others, which contradicts the essential nature of human person, is original sin.
Zoltan
Alzeghy and Maurice Flick present an evolutionary view of original sin. They
explain sin as the result of the rejection of grace which God offered human
beings when they evolved to become humans (the faculties of reason and freedom
fully developed). Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), on the other hand, would
deepen the insight to say that original sin is the dividedness and inertia we
find in the cosmos. Hence sin is natural part of the process of the evolution
towards the omega point.
Piet
Schoonenberg (1911-1999) conceives original sin as being situated in the
climate of sin. It does not therefore refer to the fall of first parents,
instead the accumulation of personal sins of all humankind throughout history
taken as a whole. A variation of this would be the attempt to discuss original
sin as the structural sin/social sin by the liberation theologians and
patriarchal prejudice and discrimination by the feminist theologians.
Neil
Ormerod discovers the source of sin (with the help of psychology) in the irrational
rejection and guilt formed in our growth from birth. He claims that the crises
we face in our growth, with the severing of our umbilical cord, the confusion
in our struggle to establish our sexual identity, and other identities in
future, destroys our self worth and self esteem. A person with a lack of self esteem is least
immune to unethical behaviour, we therefore end up in sin.[12]
These
are attempts to reinterpret the traditional quest for the rationale of
sin/unethical behaviour in the Adam’s fall. Though they stress one or the other
as the cause for the sin in the world, in them we find possible sources of sin-in-the-world:
human freedom, the historical setting, unjust structures, evolution
psychological factors (inner complications) and mental health as the sources
sin in the world. I think today, scholars would place everything together to explain
the reality of sin/unethical behavior/selfishness in the world.
We
can thus conclude that contemporary theologians (Karl Rahner included) reject
the notion of original sin as simply the fall of the first parents, neither do
they buy the traditional explanation of the concept built upon Augustinian
notion.[13] On
the other hand, they understand it in terms of our choice (given the complexity
of individual freedom) to be in harmony with our original vocation i.e. to be
with or without Christ. Sin then is perceived as a state where we miss the mark
– Christ. Grace on the other hand would be our natural inclination towards
good, noble, beauty and the assistance we enjoy in our journey towards it. We
(as individuals and community) are at the same time sinful/selfish and orient
ourselves towards the good, the holy and the just. Grace is always offered to
us. Therefore, we can overcome sin. It would be an inexcusable duty.
[1] Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, third edition (London:
Geoffrey Chapman, 1994) 185.
[2] Invariably J. Neuner and J.
Dupuis begin the chapter on Original Sin asking similar questions ‘Why evil?
and Where does it come from?’ The whole chapter therefore is a response to this
pressing question. See J. Neuner, and J. Dupuis, The Christian Faith: In the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic
Church. 7th Revised and Enlarged Edition. (Bangalore, TPI, 2004) 195.
Same was the quest of Augustine, “I sought whence evil comes and there was no
solution” writes Augustine in his Confessions.
See Augustine, Conf. 7,7,11: Pl 32, 739 as cited in Catechism of the Catholic
Church (1994), 385.
[3]
Neuner,
pp?
[4] CCC, 374.
[5] CCC, 375.
[6] CCC 416
[7] CCC 417
[8] CCC 418
[9] Jose Kuttianimattathil, Theological Anthropology (Bangalore:
TPI, 2009) 213-214.
[10] CCC 389. Alfred Vanneste, A.
Hulsbosch and Henri Rondet share this thought. They would therefore hold that
original sin is Christological and Soteriological. Kuttianimattathil, 217.
[11]
Kuttianimattathil, 200-205.
[12]
These views of the
contemporary theologians on Original Sin is gathered from Kuttianimattathil, 214-220.
[13] Mcbrien, 198.
