I came across an Israeli blogger who wrote:
I blogged back:
Whoa, now. There's Original Sin and there's Original Sin. You mean old-fashioned Protestant Original Sin or the Catholic definition. They're quite different. This is important to understand.
Many Christian denominations are, I guess, "light" on it today, but then that's because Protestant Christianity distorted it "back in the day" of Luther and Calvin (i.e., Calvin's "Total Depravity"). They insisted Man is absolutely fallen, a pile of junk, that anything and everything we do or think or are or be is putrid; or as Luther had it, a pile of manure, and salvation was only possible by God covering the putrid individual with His Grace, like a snow fall over the manure -- and thus one was never changed in one's nature, but remained a manure pile covered with snow into Eternity -- for example, being that way in Heaven itself -- forever. This is a belief 20th century Protestant "Mere Christian" C.S. Lewis politely discounted and successfully criticized in his 10th Letter to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer.
Roman Catholicism had nothing like that in mind in its Original Sin doctrine. The idea is that Adam and Eve's fall disconnected our natures from the way God had made us, in which we could run directly on His Grace, whole and one with Him, perfectly at peace with our different desires, controlling our appetites as we could control our thoughts, perfectly. But because of the Fall, we lost that perfect control and at oneness with God while we kept (this is important) our human dignity as being His servants made in the image and likeness of God, as well as our intellectual, rational being abilities. (The only time in the Old Testament that "imagine" is used positively, I believe -- that God made us in His image.)
In any event, we lost that ability to conform ourselves directly and fully -- in will as well as body -- with God. So therefore we need that proper nature restored, a life-long process starting with Baptism, an individual's passage through the Red Sea of sin to the Promised Land beyond, wherein we than can indeed do God's will, as He intended.
This following metaphor is good: A (classical, hard-core) Protestant says we're a car wreck that can't be repaired, but can still enter Heaven as a piece of rusting junk; a Catholic says God can and will repair the car, BETTER than new, through the sacraments.
Hope this gives you a fuller understanding of various ideas on Original Sin, of which different versions exist. G.K. Chesterton (sometimes accused of antisemitism, but I understand some scholars have debunked that), said, "Original Sin is the only Church doctrine you can prove by merely opening the daily newspaper." If anyone ever said anything that was true, that was it.
" Original sin "? We view it as a
heinous doctrine that distorts human relations and has no basis in the original
Bible.
I blogged back:
Whoa, now. There's Original Sin and there's Original Sin. You mean old-fashioned Protestant Original Sin or the Catholic definition. They're quite different. This is important to understand.
Many Christian denominations are, I guess, "light" on it today, but then that's because Protestant Christianity distorted it "back in the day" of Luther and Calvin (i.e., Calvin's "Total Depravity"). They insisted Man is absolutely fallen, a pile of junk, that anything and everything we do or think or are or be is putrid; or as Luther had it, a pile of manure, and salvation was only possible by God covering the putrid individual with His Grace, like a snow fall over the manure -- and thus one was never changed in one's nature, but remained a manure pile covered with snow into Eternity -- for example, being that way in Heaven itself -- forever. This is a belief 20th century Protestant "Mere Christian" C.S. Lewis politely discounted and successfully criticized in his 10th Letter to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer.
Roman Catholicism had nothing like that in mind in its Original Sin doctrine. The idea is that Adam and Eve's fall disconnected our natures from the way God had made us, in which we could run directly on His Grace, whole and one with Him, perfectly at peace with our different desires, controlling our appetites as we could control our thoughts, perfectly. But because of the Fall, we lost that perfect control and at oneness with God while we kept (this is important) our human dignity as being His servants made in the image and likeness of God, as well as our intellectual, rational being abilities. (The only time in the Old Testament that "imagine" is used positively, I believe -- that God made us in His image.)
In any event, we lost that ability to conform ourselves directly and fully -- in will as well as body -- with God. So therefore we need that proper nature restored, a life-long process starting with Baptism, an individual's passage through the Red Sea of sin to the Promised Land beyond, wherein we than can indeed do God's will, as He intended.
This following metaphor is good: A (classical, hard-core) Protestant says we're a car wreck that can't be repaired, but can still enter Heaven as a piece of rusting junk; a Catholic says God can and will repair the car, BETTER than new, through the sacraments.
Hope this gives you a fuller understanding of various ideas on Original Sin, of which different versions exist. G.K. Chesterton (sometimes accused of antisemitism, but I understand some scholars have debunked that), said, "Original Sin is the only Church doctrine you can prove by merely opening the daily newspaper." If anyone ever said anything that was true, that was it.
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