Time to reassess the doctrine of Original Sin?

by Letters Editor · January 19, 2012

From Bernard Straughan, Cape Town – Michael Shackleton’s Open Door column on the subject of limbo (December 14) refers. While the Church is trying to allow the long-rejected doctrine of limbo to fade away quietly and to be swept unnoticed under the carpet of history, Mr Shackleton has unfortunately breathed into it one last small breath of life, sadly misleading the less critically-minded among his readers.

The doctrine/theory of limbo stands or falls with the doctrine/theory of Original Sin, and both are at last seen to be on the kindly, but slippery, slope to oblivion propelled by the irrepressible search for truth.

Limbo is no longer actively or widely taught and, being an issue of only marginal prominence in the minds of most Catholics, it may conveniently fade away without too much embarrassment.

Original Sin, on the other hand, and by association also baptism, are issues of far greater moment and their planned demise will require careful and courageous intervention.

The first tentative steps towards reform of our beliefs and practices regarding baptism are, however, already being taken by our clergy and it is encouraging to hear frequently from the pulpit, our priests openly referring to baptism only as a symbolic rite of admission into, and acceptance of, the Church, and not as a rite that somehow washes away the stain of a sin inherited from a mythical man who is postulated as having lived and sinned six million years ago when the human species first appeared on earth.

The concept of Original Sin can be attributed in large measure to the brilliant Augustine of Hippo who, in mitigation of the cruel injustice inherent in that concept, felt constrained to propose also the idea of limbo in order to rescue innocent deceased children from consignment to the horrors of hell.

It is of great importance that we recognise the historical fact that Augustine developed the theory of Original Sin in an attempt to understand and to explain the impression that he had acquired from an incorrect translation of that portion of the early Greek scriptures containing the story of Adam. As pointed out by the renowned theologian Fr Hans Kung, Augustine, in his lack of proficiency in Greek, misinterpreted Romans 5:12: In him all have sinned.

To quote Fr Kung in Great Christian Thinkers: In Quo is what Augustine found in the Latin translation of the bible in his time, and referred this in him to Adam. But the Greek text simply has because (or in that) all have sinned. The effects of Augustine’s errors are being felt right up to the present day and our thinking and our beliefs are unfortunately still hampered and misdirected by the brilliance and the enormous unquestioned influence of that man.

We must ask ourselves whether we can conceive of a God, whom we proclaim as a just and loving God, imputing the stench of evil to the souls of all women and all men and all innocent uncomprehending infants because one (fictitious!) man, Adam, chose to exercise his free will and disobey God.

Seen in this light, the unacceptability and the clearly un-Godlike injustice of a concept such as Original Sin becomes glaringly apparent and we come face to face with the inescapable need to debate an honest reassessment of doctrines such as this.