Original Sin
I. Meaning
II.
Principal Adversaries
III. Original Sin in Scripture
IV. Original Sin in Tradition
V.
Original Sin in face of the Objections of Human
Reason
VI.
Nature of Original Sin
VII. How
Voluntary
I. MEANING
Original sin may be
taken to mean: (1) the sin that Adam committed; (2)
a consequence of this first sin, the hereditary
stain with which we are born on account of our
origin or descent from Adam. From the earliest times
the latter sense of the word was more common, as may
be seen by St. Augustine's statement: "the
deliberate sin of the First man is the cause of
original sin" (De nupt. et concup., II, xxvi, 43).
It is the hereditary stain that is dealt with here.
As to the sin of Adam we have not to examine the
circumstances in which it was committed nor make the
exegesis of the third chapter of Genesis.
II. PRINCIPAL ADVERSARIES
Theodorus of
Mopsuestia opened this controversy by denying that
the sin of Adam was the origin of death. (See the
"Excerpta Theodori", by Marius Mercator; cf. Smith,
"A Dictionary of Christian Biography", IV, 942.)
Celestius, a friend of
Pelagius, was the
first in the West to hold these propositions,
borrowed from Theodorus: "Adam was to die in every
hypothesis, whether he sinned or did not sin. His
sin injured himself only and not the human race"
(Mercator, "Liber Subnotationem", preface). This,
the first position held by the Pelagians, was also
the first point condemned at Carthage (Denzinger,
"Enchiridion", no 101-old no. 65). Against this
fundamental error Catholics cited especially Rom.,
v, 12, where Adam is shown as transmitting death
with sin. After some time the Pelagians admitted the
transmission of death -- this being more easily
understood as we see that parents transmit to their
children hereditary diseases- but they still
violently attacked the transmission of sin (St.
Augustine, "Contra duas epist. Pelag.", IV, iv, 6).
And when St. Paul speaks of the transmission of sin
they understood by this the transmission of death.
This was their second position, condemned by the
Council of Orange [Denz., n. 175 (145)], and again
later on with the first by the Council of Trent
[Sess. V, can. ii; Denz., n. 789 (671)]. To take the
word sin to mean death was an evident falsification
of the text, so the Pelagians soon abandoned the
interpretation and admitted that Adam caused sin in
us. They did not, however, understand by sin the
hereditary stain contracted at our birth, but the
sin that adults commit in imitation of Adam. This
was their third position, to which is opposed the
definition of Trent that sin is transmitted to all
by generation (propagatione), not by
imitation [Denz., n. 790 (672)]. Moreover, in the
following canon are cited the words of the Council
of Carthage, in which there is question of a sin
contracted by generation and effaced by generation
[Denz., n. 102 (66)]. The leaders of the Reformation
admitted the dogma of original sin, but at present
there are many Protestants imbued with Socinian
doctrines whose theory is a revival of Pelagianism.
III. ORIGINAL SIN IN SCRIPTURE
The classical text
is Rom., v, 12 sqq. In the preceding part the
apostle treats of justification by Jesus Christ, and
to put in evidence the fact of His being the one
Saviour, he contrasts with this Divine Head of
mankind the human head who caused its ruin. The
question of original sin, therefore, comes in only
incidentally. St. Paul supposes the idea that the
faithful have of it from his oral instructions, and
he speaks of it to make them understand the work of
Redemption. This explains the brevity of the
development and the obscurity of some verses. We
shall now show what, in the text, is opposed to the
three
Pelagian positions:
- The sin of
Adam has injured the human race at least in the
sense that it has introduced death- "Wherefore
as by one man sin entered into this world and by
sin death; and so death passed upon all men".
Here there is question of physical death. first,
the literal meaning of the word ought to be
presumed unless there be some reason to the
contrary. Second, there is an allusion in this
verse to a passage in the Book of Wisdom n
which, as may be seen from the context, there is
question of physical death. Wis., ii, 24: "But
by the envy of the devil death came into the
world". Cf. Gen., ii, 17; iii, 3, 19; and
another parallel passage in St. Paul himself, I
Cor., xv, 21: "For by a man came death and by a
man the resurrection of the dead". Here there
can be question only of physical death, since it
is opposed to corporal resurrection, which is
the subject of the whole chapter.
- Adam by his
fault transmitted to us not only death but also
sin- " for as by the disobedience of one man
many [i.e., all men] were made sinners" (Rom.,
v, 19). How then could the Pelagians, and at a
later period Zwingli, say that St. Paul speaks
only of the transmission of physical death? If
according to them we must read death
where the Apostle wrote sin, we should
also read that the disobedience of Adam has made
us mortal where the Apostle writes that
it has made us sinners. But the word
sinner has never meant mortal, nor
has sin ever meant death. Also in verse
12, which corresponds to verse 19, we see that
by one man two things have been brought on all
men, sin and death, the one being the
consequence of the other and therefore not
identical with it.
- Since Adam
transmits death to his children by way of
generation when he begets them mortal, it is by
generation also that he transmits to them sin,
for the Apostle presents these two effects as
produced at the same time and by the same
causality. The explanation of the Pelagians
differs from that of St. Paul. According to them
the child who receives mortality at his birth
receives sin from Adam only at a later period
when he knows the sin of the first man and is
inclined to imitate it. The causality of Adam as
regards mortality would, therefore, be
completely different from his causality as
regards sin. Moreover, this supposed influence
of the bad example of Adam is almost chimerical;
even the faithful when they sin do not sin on
account of Adam's bad example, a fortiori
infidels who are completely ignorant of the
history of the first man. And yet all men are,
by the influence of Adam, sinners and condemned
(Rom., v, 18, 19). The influence of Adam cannot,
therefore, be the influence of his bad example
which we imitate (Augustine, "Contra julian.",
VI, xxiv, 75).
On this account,
several recent Protestants have thus modified the
Pelagian explanation: "Even without being aware of
it all men imitate Adam inasmuch as they merit death
as the punishment of their own sins just as Adam
merited it as the punishment for his sin." This is
going farther and farther from the text of St. Paul.
Adam would be no more than the term of a comparison,
he would no longer have any influence or causality
as regards original sin or death. Moreover, the
Apostle did not affirm that all men, in imitation of
Adam, are mortal on account of their actual sins;
since children who die before coming to the use of
reason have never committed such sins; but he
expressly affirms the contrary in the fourteenth
verse: "But death reigned", not only over those who
imitated Adam, but "even over them also who have not
sinned after the similitude of the transgression of
Adam." Adam's sin, therefore, is the sole cause of
death for the entire human race. Moreover, we can
discern no natural connexion between any sin and
death. In order that a determined sin entail death
there is need of a positive law, but before the Law
of Moses there was no positive law of God appointing
death as a punishment except the law given to Adam
(Gen., ii, 17). It is, therefore, his disobedience
only that could have merited and brought it into the
world (Rom., v, 13, 14). These Protestant writers
lay much stress on the last words of the twelfth
verse. We know that several of the Latin Fathers
understood the words "in whom all have sinned", to
mean, all have sinned in Adam. This interpretation
would be an extra proof of the thesis of original
sin, but it is not necessary. Modern exegesis, as
well as the Greek Fathers, prefer to translate "and
so death passed upon all men because all have
sinned". We accept this second translation which
shows us death as an effect of sin. But of what sin?
"The personal sins of each one", answer our
adversaries, "this is the natural sense of the words
`all have sinned.'" It would be the natural sense if
the context was not absolutely opposed to it. The
words "all have sinned" of the twelfth verse, which
are obscure on account of their brevity, are thus
developed in the nineteenth verse: "for as by the
disobedience of one man many were made sinners."
There is no question here of personal sins,
differing in species and number, committed by each
one during his life, but of one first sin which was
enough to transmit equally to all men a state of sin
and the title of sinners. Similarly in the twelfth
verse the words "all have sinned" must mean, "all
have participated in the sin of Adam", "all have
contracted its stain". This interpretation too
removes the seeming contradiction between the
twelfth verse, "all have sinned", and the
fourteenth, "who have not sinned", for in the former
there is question of original sin, in the latter of
personal sin. Those who say that in both cases there
is question of personal sin are unable to reconcile
these two verses.
IV. ORIGINAL SIN IN TRADITION
On account of a
superficial resemblance between the doctrine of
original sin and and the Manichaean theory of our
nature being evil, the Pelagians accused the
Catholics and St. Augustine of Manichaeism. For the
accusation and its answer see "Contra duas epist.
Pelag.", I, II, 4; V, 10; III, IX, 25; IV, III. In
our own times this charge has been reiterated by
several critics and historians of dogma who have
been influenced by the fact that before his
conversion St. Augustine was a Manichaean. They do
not identify Manichaeism with the doctrine of
original sin, but they say that St. Augustine, with
the remains of his former Manichaean prejudices,
created the doctrine of original sin unknown before
his time. It is not true that the doctrine of
original sin does not appear in the works of the
pre-Augustinian Fathers. On the contrary, their
testimony is found in special works on the subject.
Nor can it be said, as Harnack maintains, that St.
Augustine himself acknowledges the absence of this
doctrine in the writings of the Fathers. St.
Augustine invokes the testimony of eleven Fathers,
Greek as well as Latin (Contra Jul., II, x, 33).
Baseless also is the assertion that before St.
Augustine this doctrine was unknown to the Jews and
to the Christians; as we have already shown, it was
taught by St. Paul. It is found in the fourth Book
of Esdras, a work written by a Jew in the first
century after Christ and widely read by the
Christians. This book represents Adam as the author
of the fall of the human race (vii, 48), as having
transmitted to all his posterity the permanent
infirmity, the malignity, the bad seed of sin (iii,
21, 22; iv, 30). Protestants themselves admit the
doctrine of original sin in this book and others of
the same period (see Sanday, "The International
Critical Commentary: Romans", 134, 137; Hastings, "A
Dictionary of the Bible", I, 841). It is therefore
impossible to make St. Augustine, who is of a much
later date, the inventor of original sin.
That this doctrine
existed in Christian tradition before St.
Augustine's time is shown by the practice of the
Church in the baptism of children. The Pelagians
held that baptism was given to children, not to
remit their sin, but to make them better, to give
them supernatural life, to make them adoptive sons
of God, and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven (see St.
Augustine, "De peccat. meritis", I, xviii). The
Catholics answered by citing the Nicene Creed,
"Confiteor unum baptisma in remissiomen peccatorum".
They reproached the Pelagians with introducing two
baptisms, one for adults to remit sins, the other
for children with no such purpose. Catholics argued,
too, from the ceremonies of baptism, which suppose
the child to be under the power of evil, i.e.,
exorcisms, abjuration of Satan made by the sponsor
in the name of the child [Aug., loc. cit., xxxiv,
63; Denz., n. 140 (96)].
V. ORIGINAL SIN IN FACE OF THE
OBJECTIONS FROM REASON
We do not pretend
to prove the existence of original sin by arguments
from reason only. St. Thomas makes use of a
philosophical proof which proves the existence
rather of some kind of decadence than of sin, and he
considers his proof as probable only, satis
probabiliter probari potest (Contra Gent., IV,
lii). Many Protestants and Jansenists and some
Catholics hold the doctrine of original sin to be
necessary in philosophy, and the only means of
solving the problem of the existence of evil. This
is exaggerated and impossible to prove. It suffices
to show that human reason has no serious objection
against this doctrine which is founded on
Revelation. The objections of Rationalists usually
spring from a false concept of our dogma. They
attack either the transmission of a sin or the idea
of an injury inflicted on his race by the first man,
of a decadence of the human race. Here we shall
answer only the second category of objections, the
others will be considered under a later head (VII).
(1) The law of
progress is opposed to the hypothesis of a
decadence. Yes, if the progress was necessarily
continuous, but history proves the contrary. The
line representing progress has its ups and downs,
there are periods of decadence and of retrogression,
and such was the period, Revelation tells us, that
followed the first sin. The human race, however,
began to rise again little by little, for neither
intelligence nor free will had been destroyed by
original sin and, consequently, there still remained
the possibility of material progress, whilst in the
spiritual order God did not abandon man, to whom He
had promised redemption. This theory of decadence
has no connexion with our Revelation. The Bible, on
the contrary, shows us even spiritual progress in
the people it treats of; the vocation of Abraham,
the law of Moses, the mission of the Prophets, the
coming of the Messias, a revelation which becomes
clearer and clearer, ending in the Gospel, its
diffusion amongst all nations, its fruits of
holiness, and the progress of the Church.
(2) It is unjust,
says another objection, that from the sin of one man
should result the decadence of the whole human race.
This would have weight if we took this decadence in
the same sense that Luther took it, i.e. human
reason incapable of understanding even moral truths,
free will destroyed, the very substance of man
changed into evil. But according to Catholic
theology man has not lost his natural faculties: by
the sin of Adam he has been deprived only of the
Divine gifts to which his nature had no strict
right, the complete mastery of his passions,
exemption from death, sanctifying grace, the vision
of God in the next life. The Creator, whose gifts
were not due to the human race, had the right to
bestow them on such conditions as He wished and to
make their conservation depend on the fidelity of
the head of the family. A prince can confer a
hereditary dignity on condition that the recipient
remains loyal, and that, in case of his rebelling,
this dignity shall be taken from him and, in
consequence, from his descendants. It is not,
however, intelligible that the prince, on account of
a fault committed by a father, should order the
hands and feet of all the descendants of the guilty
man to be cut off immediately after their birth.
This comparison represents the doctrine of Luther
which we in no way defend. The doctrine of the
Church supposes no sensible or afflictive punishment
in the next world for children who die with nothing
but original sin on their souls, but only the
privation of the sight of God [Denz., n. 1526
(1389)].
VI. NATURE OF ORIGINAL SIN
This is a difficult
point and many systems have been invented to explain
it: it will suffice to give the theological
explanation now commonly received. Original sin is
the privation of sanctifying grace in consequence of
the sin of Adam. This solution, which is that of St.
Thomas, goes back to St. Anselm and even to the
traditions of the early Church, as we see by the
declaration of the Second Council of Orange (A.D.
529): one man has transmitted to the whole human
race not only the death of the body, which is the
punishment of sin, but even sin itself, which is
the death of the soul [Denz., n. 175 (145)]. As
death is the privation of the principle of life, the
death of the soul is the privation of sanctifying
grace which according to all theologians is the
principle of supernatural life. Therefore, if
original sin is "the death of the soul", it is the
privation of sanctifying grace.
The Council of
Trent, although it did not make this solution
obligatory by a definition, regarded it with favour
and authorized its use (cf. Pallavicini, "Istoria
del Concilio di Trento", vii-ix). Original sin is
described not only as the death of the soul (Sess.
V, can. ii), but as a "privation of justice that
each child contracts at its conception" (Sess. VI,
cap. iii). But the Council calls "justice" what we
call sanctifying grace (Sess. VI), and as each child
should have had personally his own justice so now
after the fall he suffers his own privation of
justice. We may add an argument based on the
principle of St. Augustine already cited, "the
deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of
original sin". This principle is developed by St.
Anselm: "the sin of Adam was one thing but the sin
of children at their birth is quite another, the
former was the cause, the latter is the effect" (De
conceptu virginali, xxvi). In a child original sin
is distinct from the fault of Adam, it is one of its
effects. But which of these effects is it? We shall
examine the several effects of Adam's fault and
reject those which cannot be original sin:
- Death and
Suffering.- These are purely physical evils and
cannot be called sin. Moreover St. Paul, and
after him the councils, regarded death and
original sin as two distinct things transmitted
by Adam.
-
Concupiscence.- This rebellion of the lower
appetite transmitted to us by Adam is an
occasion of sin and in that sense comes nearer
to moral evil. However, the occasion of a fault
is not necessarily a fault, and whilst original
sin is effaced by baptism concupiscence still
remains in the person baptized; therefore
original sin and concupiscence cannot be one and
the same thing, as was held by the early
Protestants (see Council of Trent, Sess. V, can.
v).
- The absence of
sanctifying grace in the new-born child is also
an effect of the first sin, for Adam, having
received holiness and justice from God, lost it
not only for himself but also for us (loc. cit.,
can. ii). If he has lost it for us we were to
have received it from him at our birth with the
other prerogatives of our race. Therefore the
absence of sanctifying grace in a child is a
real privation, it is the want of something that
should have been in him according to the Divine
plan. If this favour is not merely something
physical but is something in the moral order, if
it is holiness, its privation may be called a
sin. But sanctifying grace is holiness and is so
called by the Council of Trent, because holiness
consists in union with God, and grace unites us
intimately with God. Moral goodness consists in
this that our action is according to the moral
law, but grace is a deification, as the Fathers
say, a perfect conformity with God who is the
first rule of all morality. (See GRACE.)
Sanctifying grace therefore enters into the
moral order, not as an act that passes but as a
permanent tendency which exists even when the
subject who possesses it does not act; it is a
turning towards God, conversio ad Deum.
Consequently the privation of this grace, even
without any other act, would be a stain, a moral
deformity, a turning away from God, aversio a
Deo, and this character is not found in any
other effect of the fault of Adam. This
privation, therefore, is the hereditary stain.
VII. HOW VOLUNTARY
"There can be no
sin that is not voluntary, the learned and the
ignorant admit this evident truth", writes St.
Augustine (De vera relig., xiv, 27). The Church has
condemned the opposite solution given by Baius
[prop. xlvi, xlvii, in Denz., n. 1046 (926)].
Original sin is not an act but, as already
explained, a state, a permanent privation, and this
can be voluntary indirectly- just as a drunken man
is deprived of his reason and incapable of using his
liberty, yet it is by his free fault that he is in
this state and hence his drunkenness, his privation
of reason is voluntary and can be imputed to him.
But how can original sin be even indirectly
voluntary for a child that has never used its
personal free will? Certain Protestants hold that a
child on coming to the use of reason will consent to
its original sin; but in reality no one ever thought
of giving this consent. Besides, even before the use
of reason, sin is already in the soul, according to
the data of Tradition regarding the baptism of
children and the sin contracted by generation. Some
theosophists and spiritists admit the pre-existence
of souls that have sinned in a former life which
they now forget; but apart from the absurdity of
this metempsychosis, it contradicts the doctrine of
original sin, it substitutes a number of particular
sins for the one sin of a common father transmitting
sin and death to all (cf. Rom., v, 12 sqq.). The
whole Christian religion, says St. Augustine, may be
summed up in the intervention of two men, the one to
ruin us, the other to save us (De pecc. orig.,
xxiv). The right solution is to be sought in the
free will of Adam in his sin, and this free will was
ours: "we were all in Adam", says St. Ambrose, cited
by St. Augustine (Opus imperf., IV, civ). St. Basil
attributes to us the act of the first man: "Because
we did not fast (when Adam ate the forbidden
fruit) we have been turned out of the garden of
Paradise" (Hom. i de jejun., iv). Earlier still is
the testimony of St. Irenaeus; "In the person of the
first Adam we offend God, disobeying His precept"
(Haeres., V, xvi, 3).
St. Thomas thus
explains this moral unity of our will with the will
of Adam. "An individual can be considered either as
an individual or as part of a whole, a member of a
society.....Considered in the second way an act can
be his although he has not done it himself, nor has
it been done by his free will but by the rest of the
society or by its head, the nation being considered
as doing what the prince does. For a society is
considered as a single man of whom the individuals
are the different members (St. Paul, I Cor., xii).
Thus the multitude of men who receive their human
nature from Adam is to be considered as a single
community or rather as a single body....If the man,
whose privation of original justice is due to Adam,
is considered as a private person, this privation is
not his `fault', for a fault is essentially
voluntary. If, however, we consider him as a member
of the family of Adam, as if all men were only one
man, then his privation partakes of the nature of
sin on account of its voluntary origin, which is the
actual sin of Adam" (De Malo, iv, 1). It is this law
of solidarity, admitted by common sentiment, which
attributes to children a part of the shame resulting
from the father's crime. It is not a personal crime,
objected the Pelagians. "No", answered St.
Augustine, " but it is paternal crime" (Op. imperf.,
I, cxlviii). Being a distinct person I am not
strictly responsible for the crime of another, the
act is not mine. Yet, as a member of the human
family, I am supposed to have acted with its head
who represented it with regard to the conservation
or the loss of grace. I am, therefore, responsible
for my privation of grace, taking responsibility in
the largest sense of the word. This, however, is
enough to make the state of privation of grace in a
certain degree voluntary, and, therefore, "without
absurdity it may be said to be voluntary" (St.
Augustine, "Retract.", I, xiii).
Thus the principal
difficulties of non-believers against the
transmission of sin are answered. "Free will is
essentially incommunicable." Physically, yes;
morally, no; the will of the father being considered
as that of his children. "It is unjust to make us
responsible for an act committed before our birth."
Strictly responsible, yes; responsible in a wide
sense of the word, no; the crime of a father brands
his yet unborn children with shame, and entails upon
them a share of his own responsibility. "Your dogma
makes us strictly responsible for the fault of
Adam." That is a misconception of our doctrine. Our
dogma does not attribute to the children of Adam any
properly so-called responsibility for the act of
their father, nor do we say that original sin is
voluntary in the strict sense of the word. It is
true that, considered as "a moral deformity", "a
separation from God", as "the death of the soul",
original sin is a real sin which deprives the soul
of sanctifying grace. It has the same claim to be a
sin as has habitual sin, which is the state in which
an adult is placed by a grave and personal fault,
the "stain" which St. Thomas defines as "the
privation of grace" (I-II:109:7;
III:87:2, ad 3),
and it is from this point of view that baptism,
putting an end to the privation of grace, "takes
away all that is really and properly sin", for
concupiscence which remains "is not really and
properly sin", although its transmission was equally
voluntary (Council of Trent, Sess. V, can. v.).
Considered precisely as voluntary, original sin is
only the shadow of sin properly so-called. According
to St. Thomas (In II Sent., dist. xxv, Q. i, a. 2,
ad 2um), it is not called sin in the same sense, but
only in an analogous sense.
Several theologians
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
neglecting the importance of the privation of grace
in the explanation of original sin, and explaining
it only by the participation we are supposed to have
in the act of Adam, exaggerate this participation.
They exaggerate the idea of voluntary in original
sin, thinking that it is the only way to explain how
it is a sin properly so-called. Their opinion,
differing from that of St. Thomas, gave rise to
uncalled-for and insoluble difficulties. At present
it is altogether abandoned.
S. HARENT
Transcribed by Sean Hyland
From the Catholic
Encyclopedia, copyright © 1913 by the Encyclopedia
Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright © 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
