ORIGINAL SIN, ORIGINAL JUSTICE

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).

Somerset Maugham offers an exaggerated insight into the paining truth about humanity. A Vast majority of us are selfish. How then can we explain the ever-widening socio-economic inequality, inhuman discrimination, war and violence, disruption of order/peace, and environmental crisis, which threatens to annihilate the earth? Are we not made good? How is it that we are selfish; we are not-good? The creation around is so generous. Why are we selfish and self-centered? Where do we inherit our selfishness?

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]

 

Michelangelo's Depiction of Original Sin

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it:

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

1. 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?
2. How is original sin transmitted?
3. 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.
4. Is original sin really just? Why do human beings need forgiveness for something that they have not done?
5. How does Jesus save us from original sin? [What is the relation between original sin and Jesus?]
6. How does a baptized couple pass on what they themselves do not have?[9]
7. 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.

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[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. 7^th 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.