Original vs. Ancestral Sin

[Hmm]

With confused silence Though maybe some friendly Catholics could jump in to help clarify the RCCs belief on the subject.

Okay, thanks I'm looking for permission or an excuse not to believe in the inherited guilt component I guess because not that part doesn't make much sense to me. How can I be guilty for something Adam did?

 

[DamianWarS]

I had assumed that every Christian believed in original sin but I came across a discussion here on CF that mentioned a different paradigm: ancestral sin. The discussion was very brief so I thought I'd create a thread to learn more.

What I understood from the discussion was that original sin is a Western concept, believed in by the Catholic and the Protestant churches, and involves original guilt as well as death - so we all inherit Adam's guilt and all deserve final judgement merely for being born.

Ancestral sin OTOH is believed in in the East, by the Orthodox churches, and the idea of this is that it brings death to humanity but not guilt.

Is that a fair representation of the two views?

I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask on this:

Does ancestral sin imply that we can, in theory at least, live a guilt free life? It seems to me that children and people with severe mental impairment, at least, do.

Suppose that ancestral sin is correct and we're not guilty of anything at birth. Do we still have to deal with the consequences of Adam's sin because it is after all something that has shaped the world as we experience it? For example, when Adam introduced self-centredness into the world is this not the ultimate cause of the institutions in society today that encourage selfishness and which have made us all selfish to some extent?

The fall account is a way to create a fallen identity that we cannot fix without God, thus he is our redeemer, but I fail to see how we would need God less if the fall never happened. To me original or ancestral are labels to identify a state we are in that innately is in tension with God because we are not the same substance but in the end our need is the same.

 

[Albion]

But I wasn't disputing that. I was saying that if one's conception of human nature is that we don't have free will, are "filthy rags" etc. cf. Calvanism then that description must also be applied to the incarnated Christ and that's not something I personally believe.

Sounds like a misunderstanding about free will or lack of it. And if "filthy rags" refers to any merits attached to our actions or lack of same, we're back to sin.

Isaiah 64:6 "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

 

[misput]

I had assumed that every Christian believed in original sin but I came across a discussion here on CF that mentioned a different paradigm: ancestral sin. The discussion was very brief so I thought I'd create a thread to learn more.

What I understood from the discussion was that original sin is a Western concept, believed in by the Catholic and the Protestant churches, and involves original guilt as well as death - so we all inherit Adam's guilt and all deserve final judgement merely for being born.

Ancestral sin OTOH is believed in in the East, by the Orthodox churches, and the idea of this is that it brings death to humanity but not guilt.

Is that a fair representation of the two views?

I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask on this:

Does ancestral sin imply that we can, in theory at least, live a guilt free life? It seems to me that children and people with severe mental impairment, at least, do.

Suppose that ancestral sin is correct and we're not guilty of anything at birth. Do we still have to deal with the consequences of Adam's sin because it is after all something that has shaped the world as we experience it? For example, when Adam introduced self-centredness into the world is this not the ultimate cause of the institutions in society today that encourage selfishness and which have made us all selfish to some extent?

The story of Adam is the story of us all. We come into the world free of sin but with a human nature that will cause us to fall. God knows this and provided a Way of redemption, simple as that. Psalms 50 and Romans 5 are misunderstood by nearly all religious people. Now you know "the rest of the story, good day"

 

[pescador]

The story of Adam is the story of us all. We come into the world free of sin but with a human nature that will cause us to fall. God knows this and provided a Way of redemption, simple as that. Psalms 50 and Romans 5 are misunderstood by nearly all religious people. Now you know "the rest of the story, good day"

In your wisdom would you enlighten the rest of us on the "real meaning" of Psalm 50 and/or Romans 5?

 

[1watchman]

Well, there might be many ways to look at this subject, depending on ones religious views. I see the Bible as showing us that ALL mankind fell in sin as Genesis 1, 2, 3 shows. Satan deceived man (who God allowed liberty to test man) and since man wanted to assert independence, he listened to Satan rather than God ---somewhat as we see often by seekers today.

As pro-created souls from Adam, we have the malady of sin. God then sent His "...beloved Son": the Lord Jesus, to show us the way of salvation and reconciliation to God; which was and is in trusting the Lord Jesus who was willing to die to pay the penalty for such rebellion by man ---which was death, and He could then overcome death, and by grace He did and arose victorious over it.

When a repentant sinner RECEIVES the Lord Jesus, He then receives forgiveness and a new life by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God (the third part of the Trinity). That one is sealed for Heaven forever by God's seal! It is a surety which cannot fail ---even though we might fail in our walk often here. Let us lay aside religious ideas and bow to the holy "Word Of Truth" as given by God in such as John 3; John 14; Romans 8, etc. Reasoning beyond 'Bible-only' will surely stumble one, as Satan always seeks to do. I hope this overview will help seekers. -1watchman

 

[PaulCyp1]

Originally there were no humans. Then there were humans. So, obviously there must have been a first time that humans did everything that humans do. A first time they killed an animal for food. A first time they built a home for themselves. A first time they learned to swim. A first time they disobeyed God.

 

[Fervent]

An underlying issue separating the two is the way sin is conceived of in general. In the West, sin is an abstraction it has no substance and the principal issue is the guilt from commission. In the East, sin is a disease. It's an infection with an anti-substance and is unmaking reality. Guilt isn't really an issue because guilt can be addressed through seeking forgiveness but the consequences of sin cannot be undone, once sin is committed it has made things unclean. This distinction colors the theology not only of what original/ancestral sin is but also what happened during atonement and a myriad of other theological staples.

 

[fhansen]

Is that a fair representation of the two views?

The “sin” which humanity inherits from Adam & Eve is not the act itself but a state of being, a fallen state of being. It’s sometimes referred to as the “death of the soul” (Adam & Even died the moment they disobeyed God because creation cannot remain whole, with its created innocence and integrity and true nature intact, in a state which is out of sync with the will of its Creator, the Source of its life), and this is the reason man must be “born again”. So the essence of this fallen state is simply spiritual dissociation from God, an anomaly in His creation, a sin. According to church teachings, with that sin man become disconnected in some manner from God, from his fellow man, from the rest of creation, and even from himself. The basis of that sin, that disconnection, is pride, to think oneself equal to or greater than God, which effectively eliminates God from one’s awareness, from one’s belief, which is why being born again is initiated by faith, restored faith where man is reconciled with God and enters a communion with Him that we were made for.

Pride makes us less than who we are, while aspiring to be greater, all because pride, by its nature, rejects the truth of who we are, as being inferior to its lofty underlying standards: the desire to be God. Anyway, pride is sort of the grandaddy of all other sins, and human self-righteousness (as opposed to God-righteousness) has been the rule in this brave new world exiled from Him ever since. That pride or self-righteousness opens the door to any and all other sins as it means that man becomes his own “god”, justifying anything that seems right in his own eyes at the moment. Humility supports faith, hope, and love, while pride opposes those virtues, and therefore opposes God.

While the ancient churches believed that man was weakened and wounded by the fall, and that something was now missing, i.e. God, in man’s life, resulting in lack of the justice or righteousness in himself that would guarantee self-control, the Reformers had a somewhat different view, that original sin consisted of the addition of something, a “sin nature” which would more or less mean that man was now a different sort of being than he was created to be and in any case would have no means to desire anything other than sin whatsoever, painting a bleaker picture of man’s fallen state. Both the eastern and western ancient churches teach that the state of original sin gives man a tendency to sin, an attraction to disordered desire, sometimes called “concupiscence”.

The eastern concept of Ancestral sin, from my understanding, isn’t really much different from the concept of OS in the west. Because man is dead, lost, cut off from his Creator, then disorder/sin reigns, where death, the threat of annihilation, is the only future naturally in sight.

Anyway, the following are some of the Catholic teachings on this matter.
403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam's sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the "death of the soul".291 Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.

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.

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called "concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

 

[chad kincham]

I had assumed that every Christian believed in original sin but I came across a discussion here on CF that mentioned a different paradigm: ancestral sin. The discussion was very brief so I thought I'd create a thread to learn more.

What I understood from the discussion was that original sin is a Western concept, believed in by the Catholic and the Protestant churches, and involves original guilt as well as death - so we all inherit Adam's guilt and all deserve final judgement merely for being born.

Ancestral sin OTOH is believed in in the East, by the Orthodox churches, and the idea of this is that it brings death to humanity but not guilt.

Is that a fair representation of the two views?

I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask on this:

Does ancestral sin imply that we can, in theory at least, live a guilt free life? It seems to me that children and people with severe mental impairment, at least, do.

Suppose that ancestral sin is correct and we're not guilty of anything at birth. Do we still have to deal with the consequences of Adam's sin because it is after all something that has shaped the world as we experience it? For example, when Adam introduced self-centredness into the world is this not the ultimate cause of the institutions in society today that encourage selfishness and which have made us all selfish to some extent?

We aren’t born guilty of Adams original sin of eating forbidden fruit. Scripture is clear we are judged for sins we commit in our own body, and says God doesn’t hold us guilty for sins of our father’s.
What we are born with from Adam is an inherited sin nature that causes us to sin, and need a savior.
Shalom.

 

[chad kincham]

I’ve always considered Jesus living a guilt free life as proof that it’s possible for humanity to do likewise. That doesn’t mean we have done it and that doesn’t mean we ever will, but a sin free life exists in the sphere of possibilities for man, hence the reality of Jesus’ sin free human life.

Except 1 John ch 1 says if we say we have no sin we are lying... that applies to us all.
Shalom.

 

[Fervent]

Okay, thanks I'm looking for permission or an excuse not to believe in the inherited guilt component I guess because not that part doesn't make much sense to me. How can I be guilty for something Adam did?

Knowing the origin of the doctrine may help you. Original sin was first formulated by Augustine(though it has shifted from his original description some since his view was that this was a guilt transmitted through sexual union) and was based on a combination of a poor Latin translation that said we sin in Adam rather than by Adam's sin we inherit death, and the practice of infant baptism being evidence that babies needed to be absolved of sin. John Cassian wrote a complete rebuttal of Augustine's pessimism that springs from his doctrine of original sin that the Eastern church has gravitated towards more as its guiding light on the matter. There are multiple issues at hand such as the fact that the East primarily teach original innocence not original goodness whereas the opposite is taught in the west, the "fall" is seen as a wounding of the imago dei in the east where as in the west it is seen as the death, etc.

 

[Valletta]

How is the doctrine of original sin regarded in the Western churches? Does it have the status of a dogma in the RCC and is it an essential belief in the main stream Protestant churches?

It's the doctrine of original sin. The Catholic Catechism contains a lot about sin, see the linked page:
Catechism of the Catholic Church - The Fall

 

[Taodeching]

Here is something about Ancestral Sin I found:


The differences between the doctrine of Ancestral Sin-as understood in the church of the first two centuries and the present-day Orthodox Church-and the doctrine of Original Sin-developed by Augustine and his heirs in the Western Christian traditions-is explored. The impact of these two formulations on pastoral practice is investigated. It is suggested that the doctrine of ancestral sin naturally leads to a focus on human death and Divine compassion as the inheritance from Adam, while the doctrine of original sin shifts the center of attention to human guilt and Divine wrath. It is further posited that the approach of the ancient church points to a more therapeutic than juridical approach to pastoral care and counseling.

------------------

The Approach of the Orthodox Fathers

As pervasive as the term original sin has become, it may come as a surprise to some that it was unknown in both the Eastern and Western Church until Augustine (c. 354-430). The concept may have arisen in the writings of Tertullian, but the expression seems to have appeared first in Augustine's works. Prior to this the theologians of the early church used different terminology indicating a contrasting way of thinking about the fall, its effects and God's response to it. The phrase the Greek Fathers used to describe the tragedy in the Garden was ancestral sin.

Ancestral sin has a specific meaning. The Greek word for sin in this case, amartema, refers to an individual act indicating that the Eastern Fathers assigned full responsibility for the sin in the Garden to Adam and Eve alone. The word amartia, the more familiar term for sin which literally means "missing the mark", is used to refer to the condition common to all humanity (Romanides, 2002). The Eastern Church, unlike its Western counterpart, never speaks of guilt being passed from Adam and Eve to their progeny, as did Augustine. Instead, it is posited that each person bears the guilt of his or her own sin. The question becomes, "What then is the inheritance of humanity from Adam and Eve if it is not guilt?" The Orthodox Fathers answer as one: death. (I Corinthians 15:21) "Man is born with the parasitic power of death within him," writes Fr. Romanides (2002, p. 161). Our nature, teaches Cyril of Alexandria, became "diseased...through the sin of one" (Migne, 1857-1866a). It is not guilt that is passed on, for the Orthodox fathers; it is a condition, a disease.

In Orthodox thought Adam and Eve were created with a vocation: to become one with God gradually increasing in their capacity to share in His divine life-deification[2] (Romanides, 2002, p. 76-77). "They needed to mature, to grow to awareness by willing detachment and faith, a loving trust in a personal God" (Clement, 1993, p. 84). Theophilus of Antioch (2nd Century) posits that Adam and Eve were created neither immortal nor mortal. They were created with the potential to become either through obedience or disobedience (Romanides, 2002).

More here: Ancestral Versus Original Sin | St. Mary Orthodox Church

 

[misput]

In your wisdom would you enlighten the rest of us on the "real meaning" of Psalm 50 and/or Romans 5?

Actually it is Psalm 51 and Romans 5 but you must search it out for yourself or it will mean nothing to you. One clue: What did Jesus say about the little children coming to Him? One more clue: Who were Davids parents? And another: Does Romans 5 teach that children are born in sin? Is original sin a doctrine of man or God?

 

[Andrewn]

We come into the world free of sin but with a human nature that will cause us to fall.

by Adam's sin we inherit death,

Yes, this is exactly what the NT says. We do not inherit Adam's guilt but rather spiritual death:

Eph 2:1 You were dead in your trespasses and sins. 2 At that time, you walked in the way of this world, in conformity to the ruler of the domain of the air—the ruler of the spirit who is now operating in the sons of disobedience.

1Co 15:21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also has come through a Man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Messiah will all be made alive.

Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in a manner similar to the violation of Adam, who is a pattern of the One to come.

the Reformers had a somewhat different view, that original sin consisted of the addition of something, a “sin nature” which would more or less mean that man was now a different sort of being than he was created to be and in any case would have no means to desire anything other than sin whatsoever,

I absolutely dislike the term "sin nature" used in some Bible translations.

 

[Hmm]

That pride or self-righteousness opens the door to any and all other sins as it means that man becomes his own “god”, justifying anything that seems right in his own eyes at the moment. Humility supports faith, hope, and love, while pride opposes those virtues, and therefore opposes God.

That's interesting.

While the ancient churches believed that man was weakened and wounded by the fall, and that something was now missing, i.e. God, in man’s life, resulting in lack of the justice or righteousness in himself that would guarantee self-control, the Reformers had a somewhat different view, that original sin consisted of the addition of something, a “sin nature” which would more or less mean that man was now a different sort of being than he was created to be and in any case would have no means to desire anything other than sin whatsoever, painting a bleaker picture of man’s fallen state. Both the eastern and western ancient churches teach that the state of original sin gives man a tendency to sin, an attraction to disordered desire, sometimes called “concupiscence”.

The ancient churches', both east and west, view that we acquire a tendency to sin makes much more sense to me, thanks, than the Reformers idea that we acquire a completely different nature, a 'sin nature', that hankers only after sin.. Why would God design and create us twice?

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called "concupiscence"

This, from the Catholic Catchecism, makes perfect sense to me. We are wounded rather than totally corrupted.

 

[Cormack]

We are wounded rather than totally corrupted.

The late Norman Geisler explained it as the image of God in man was “effaced” through the fall, not “erased” in him. However true that is, it’s very memorable and catchy. An effective teaching tool.

 

[Andrewn]

Both the eastern and western ancient churches teach that the state of original sin gives man a tendency to sin, an attraction to disordered desire, sometimes called “concupiscence”.

The Jewish concept of "Yetzer ha ra" or "evil tendency" makes a lot of sense to me.

<i>Yetzer hara</i>

 

[fhansen]

Another way to look at it (and Ill have to go over it further) is that in the western view, man was made perfect and fell from perfection. If we were made perfect, we should not have been able to fall. The East sees that we were made to become perfect (hence the Tree of Life which Adam and Eve didnt bother with) and we fell from potential perfection to imperfection. So in a way, our view of the fall is still catastrophic but not as high.

The Catholic Church actually teaches that God created His world “en statu viae”, in a “state of journeying” to perfection.