Origins of Angelic sin; Human Sin & its Transmission.

[The Liturgist]

With the soul contaminated, we inherit Adam’s sin. When the sinful soul is passed on from parent to child through propagation, this explains how a infant could be sinful and guilty without having committed sins personally.

Note that’s the essentially Augustinian view, that original sin is passed on via the parents in the reproductive act. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox in rejecting Pelagius use the more sophisticated and nuanced view articulated by St. John Cassian, a view also initially favored by the Roman Church before it began to fall out with the Orthodox, that original sin is inherited, as one might inherit a debt burden, and this has the advantage of eliminating the need for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception regarding St. Mary, and also does not potentially clash with the undefiled nature of the marriage bed, since it is a tenet of Christianity that sex within marriage is holy.