Original Sin as part of Catholic Church's belief system: How and Why? - Part 3

How did the thoughts of Augustine on original sin become a doctrine of the Church despite Pelagius’ sensible and logical arguments that echo today’s ideas of scientific realism? 

By 417, the city of Rome was divided between the supporters and opponents of Pelagius. This fight even led to riots in the streets. In 415, two councils of bishops held in Palestine declared Pelagius correct but two councils of African bishops led by Augustine and his colleagues condemned him and persuaded Pope Innocent I (401-417) to take their side. Innocent’s successor, Pope Zosimus (417-418), at first supported Pelagius; but after vehement protests from Augustine and other African bishops, reversed himself and excommunicated Pelagius.

As the fight against Pelagius was going on, Augustine and his co-African bishops openly canvassed for the Roman Emperor's support in the matter. “Augustine’s friend and fellow African bishop Alypius brought eighty Numidian stallions as bribes to the imperial court and successfully lobbied there against Pelagius” [Pagels]. The result was that in 418 after the pope excommunicated Pelagius, the Emperor condemned the newly declared heretic and ordered him fined and expelled from office and exiled along with his supporters, many of whom were monks, priests, and bishops!

The perplexing question is: why Catholic Christianity adopted Augustine’s paradoxical, preposterous and idiosyncratic views as part of its belief system?

1. Beliefs such as those of Augustine validate the Church’s authority. If human condition is a disease, Catholic Christianity alone, acting as a physician, can offer spiritual medication and discipline that can cure it.

2.  Augustine’s theology attributing suffering to sin serves as a means of ‘social control’. This explanation assumes a manipulative religious authority that invents guilt in order to ‘dupe a gullible majority into accepting an otherwise abhorrent discipline’. Many people need to find reasons for their sufferings. Augustine’s theory met such a need; hence the idea of original sin survived for the next 1600 years.

According to Kenneth Humphreys, Augustine’s ideas about original sin were used as techniques to control human beings. This was done by linking guilt with sex. With that technique, the Christian Church rose to its height in power, causing Western civilization to crumble into the mystical Dark Ages as human well-being and happiness sank to the lowest level in recorded history.

The history of Christian oppression of individual life, rights, values, happiness, pleasure, and sexuality began with the acceptance of Augustine’s theories.

According to Augustine, sin entered the world with Adam. But how can that be since Adam never existed (the figure is an archetypal man, symbolizing 'humanity')? Rather, sin entered the world through the perverted minds of theologians like Augustine!

Augustine (known as the 'Great Sinner' after the candor of his Confessions) was obsessed with the lust of procreation – undoubtedly a reflection of his own dysfunctional sexuality. Wildly promiscuous in his early life, he had abandoned two mistresses, one with his child, and the illicit affairs had filled him with guilt. In later years, he did not trust himself to be left alone with a woman. 

In Augustine's judgment – and subsequently, that of the Church – sexual desire and gratification ("lust") had to be controlled, limited and confined. Libido was stigmatized as a sin, detracting us from God. In contrast, celibacy, chastity, and virginity were lauded as being far closer to the perfection of God and were to be the choices of preference. Centuries of misery – sexual and psychological – were the consequence as millions became celibates or fought their own nature.

Thanks to St Augustine and the Church, guilt over the most natural of human proclivities was inculcated into generation after generation of humanity – an irrational and morbid guilt no less present among "believers" in the twenty-first century as it was in the fourth and fifth centuries.

Humphreys continues: With a blend of 'eternal bliss' on the one hand and a 'satanic pit' on the other, the Church mercilessly exploited the fears, credulity, and hopes of humanity. Through centuries, the Church secured not only almost limitless regal patronage but also endowments, estates, and legacies from the wealthy, convinced that they were buying a place in Heaven. 

The Council of Trent (1545-63) gave the official stamp to the idea that original sin was transferred from generation to generation by propagation - which means during the sexual act that led to conception. This formalized the notion of original sin as part of Roman Catholic doctrine.

Even as late as 1968 Pope Paul VI held on to the doctrine of original sin: "We, therefore, hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature 'not by imitation but by propagation' and that it is thus 'proper to everyone'." 

[Imitation is the idea that original sin is passed on by copying the sinful tendencies of others.]

Original Sin: The origins - Part 2

Original Sin:

What sin did Adam and Eve commit?

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Their sin was that of disobedience.

However, some early radical Christians claimed that the sin of Adam and Eve was sexual - the forbidden fruit of the tree conveyed carnal (related to the pleasures of the flesh) knowledge. 

This view was opposed by St. Clement of Alexandria (150-215), a leading Christian theologian of the time. For him, conscious participation in procreation is cooperating with God in the work of creation. According to him, Adam's sin was not sexual indulgence, but disobedience. The real theme of the story of Adam and Eve is moral freedom and moral responsibility for the decisions we make. 

Augustine had a different take on the myth of Adam and Eve. His conversion from a sex-addict to an ascetic led him to a jaundiced view of sex, resulting in his developing the theory of original sin. For him, the original sin of Adam and Eve was disobedience, but with dire consequences. Because of this sin, human nature was corrupted by concupiscence (strong sexual desire). The sin of Adam and Eve is inherited by all human beings. Everyone is born sinful! We are born with a built-in urge to do bad things and disobey God.

Original Sin is a condition, not something we do. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they 'fell' from perfection and brought evil into a perfect world. It is transmitted by concupiscence through the act of sexual intercourse.  Concupiscence weakens the will without destroying it. Thus, children are born in sin. Only procreation justified the act of sexual intercourse even within marriage, but pleasure should in no way be part of the process. Augustin was the first to add the concept of inherited guilt (reatus) from Adam whereby, an infant was eternally damned at birth. A child who dies before being baptized is condemned to the everlasting fires of hell! 


The obvious difficulty in Augustine's account was how the transmission of sin occurred. This was to remain a subject of controversy for centuries to come. Augustine kept his answer simple: semen was the culprit. Original sin was physically transmitted via sexual intercourse to every human being. Only Jesus ‘alone of those who are born of a woman is holy…by reason of His immaculate birth’, whereby the Holy Spirit ‘infused immaculate seed into Mary’s unviolated womb’.

Before the Fall, Augustine believed that sex was a passionless affair. The sexual members, like the other parts of the body, enacted the work of procreation by a deliberate act of will, "like a handshake", without any lascivious heat. After the Fall, by contrast, the sex organ cannot be controlled by mere will, subject instead to both unwanted impotence and involuntary erections.

One reason for the acceptance of Augustine's theory by the Church was that it provided an explanation for human suffering. Because our first parents sinned, we humans need to suffer. The doctrine of original sin makes it easier for a better understanding of evil in this world and as to why an infinitely good and benevolent God would allow suffering and evil in this world. 

One vehement critic of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin was Pelagius (c. AD 360 – 418) a theologian of British origin who advocated free will and asceticism. After Pelagius' death, a young Italian bishop, Julian of Eclanum, continued to argue against Augustine's views. 

"Pelagius believed that the soul of man by creation is neither holy nor sinful. Adam was morally indifferent or neutral. In this state of moral equilibrium, Adam was no more disposed to good than to evil. Because he was a creature, Adam's body was mortal. It was Adam's destiny to die physically whether or not he ever sinned. Physical death, therefore, is not a penalty for sin passed on to Adam's posterity but is rather an inevitable corollary to man's essential character as created.

Adam's fall was occasioned by the exercise of free will. Adam's sin in no way affected his posterity except insofar as it set a bad example for them.

Consequently, all men come into being in the exact condition as was Adam before the fall. Each soul is created immediately by God and thus cannot come into the world contaminated or corrupted by the sin of Adam. The doctrine of transmitted sin or original sin, says Pelagius, is blasphemous.

'A sin propagated by procreation is totally contrary to the Catholic faith. Sin is not born with man but is committed afterward by man. It is not the fault of nature, but of free will.' Thus, according to Pelagius, an infant is not born in sin nor does it possess any innate moral characteristics. We are “socialized” to sin or “conditioned” to sin because of continual exposure to a family and society that are themselves sinful for the same reasons.

Sin is never a matter of nature. There is no such thing as a sin nature. Sin is only sin when it can be avoided. Thus, sin is not a fault of nature but of choice'."

Part - 3 will look at how and why original sin was accepted by the Church as a doctrine and its consequences in the daily lives of Christians.

Doctrine of Original Sin: Invention of a Born-Again Sex-Addict - Part 1

Introduction:

Two weeks back, when I thought of writing about ‘Original Sin’, I believed the exercise to be an easy walkover. However, this topic proved otherwise. To understand the development of the doctrine of original sin by St. Augustine, one must study it biblically, philosophically, theologically and believe it or not, in the context of the politics of the time as well. Elaine Pagels, in her book, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, has tried to analyze Augustine’s thinking on this issue.

She deals in detail about the influence of the story of the creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, as found in Genesis chapters 1-3, on the religious and social life of Jewish people and early Christian thinkers. On my first reading, the life of debauchery of his youth and the later conversion of St. Augustine that led him to develop the idea of 'Original Sin', did not strike any noteworthy chord in me. However, on the second reading of this book, I am beginning to understand the enormity of the damage this doctrine has done to the thinking and consequent behavior of ordinary Christians for more than a millennium and a half.

St. Augustine: Early life:

Aurelius Augustinus (354-430) was born in Thagaste, a place in modern-day Algeria, North Africa. His father Patricius was a pagan, and his mother Monica, a devout Christian.

At the age of 17, Augustine was sent to Carthage where he

specialized in rhetoric. Although raised as a Christian, he left the Church to follow the Manichaean religion. As a young man, Augustine led a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who boasted of their sexual exploits. At around this time, he began an affair with a young woman of low social standing in Carthage. She remained his lover for fifteen years and gave birth to his son Adeodatus (372-388), meaning ‘gift of God’. In 385, Augustin ended the relationship with his lover to prepare himself for marriage to a ten-year-old heiress. Since he had to wait for two years for his fiancée to come of marriageable age, he procured another concubine as he had become a slave to lust.

In later life, he would come to regret the immoral behavior of his

younger days. He was particularly sorry about his heartless ambition to marry well, leading him to abandon more than one concubine.

In 386, he had a strange experience. A childlike voice prompted him to take up and read the bible. He did so; the page he opened contained Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 13: 13-14. 

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Soon, Augustine converted to Christianity and started leading an ascetic life. He was baptized along with his son Adeodatus in 387. In 391 he was ordained a priest; in 395 he was made coadjutor Bishop of Hippo Regis, presently the place named Annaba in modern-day Algeria. Soon, he was made full Bishop.

The story of man’s creation and fall.

Chapters 1-3 of Genesis deal with the creation of the universe 

followed by that of the first couple Adam and Eve; their carefree life in the garden of Eden; temptation by the devil who appears in the form of a serpent and their disobedience of God’s instruction leading to their fall and consequent expulsion from the garden. 

Part 2 will deal with Augustine's rationale for the doctrine of 'Original Sin'  and the thoughts of Pelagius, a British monk, and theologian who vehemently opposed Augustine's views.