Does Original Sin Still Exist?
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Family on Thursday, December 04, 2008 10:56 PM
As you can see from the photo, the weather in Rome turned during our Thanksgiving week, and the most recent papal audiences have been held indoors.
The day before Thanksgiving, the Pope welcomed as his guest Aram I, the head of the Armenian Church.
Returning to the topic of Paul’s catechesis on justification, Benedict XVI shows us that faith and charity are so intimately connected as to be in practice almost the same thing: “faith, if it is true and real, becomes love, charity—is expressed in charity. Faith without charity, without this fruit, would not be true faith. It would be a dead faith.”
The Pope makes an interesting observation about the fruits of the Spirit we can expect to see in a person who is living this faith-become-charity:
At the beginning of this list of virtues is cited ágape, love, and at the end, self-control. In reality, the Spirit, who is the Love of the Father and the Son, infuses his first gift, ágape, into our hearts (cf. Romans 5:5); and ágape, love, to be fully expressed, demands self-control.Isn’t that interesting? Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think we tend to conceptualize self-control as a sort of lesser, unimportant virtue. What the Pope is pointing is out is that without self-control --which is another way of saying interior liberty-- we have no capacity to give expression to our love --and ultimately to our faith. Think about that in connection with our culture of instant gratification! When we fail in charity, we weaken faith:
Christian ethics is not born from a system of commandments, but rather is the consequence of our friendship with Christ. This friendship influences life: If it is true, it incarnates and fulfills itself in love for neighbor. Hence, any ethical decline is not limited to the individual sphere, but at the same time, devalues personal and communitarian faith: From this it is derived and on this, it has a determinant effect.
There’s more, but let’s turn now to this week’s audience, on Christ as the New Adam.
The Pope begins with the observation that whenever Paul contrasts Adam and Christ, they are never on a par. It’s not: Adam blew it, but fortunately Jesus didn’t. It’s: Adam blew it, but don’t worry, because Christ has utterly overcome that:
Adam is not at the center of the scene with the consequences of sin on humanity, but Jesus Christ and grace that, through him, was poured in abundance on humanity. The repetition of “all the more” in regard to Christ underlines how the gift received in Him surpasses by far Adam’s sin and the consequences brought on mankind, so that Paul can add at the end: “But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20).
Then, so typical of his teaching, he poses a tough question: whether original sin is something we can still believe in.
Is this doctrine still tenable today? Many think that, in the light of the history of evolution, there is no longer a place for the doctrine of a first sin, which then spread to the whole history of humanity. And, consequently, the question of the Resurrection and of the Redeemer would also lose its foundation. So, does original sin exist or not?
May I simply beg you to read his answer? I can summarize it, but his argument is simple, beautiful, elegant --it really deserves meditation, because in a few short paragraphs he both reveals the deepest longing of the human heart in the 21st century and shows how only Christ can answer it. Here is just a taste.
The Holy Father observes that the interior struggle of each human person both to do good and to indulge self-love is a fact. As a consequence of this power of evil in our souls, a filthy river has developed in history, which poisons the geography of human history. The great French thinker Blaise Pascal spoke of a “second nature,” which is superimposed on our original good nature. This “second nature” makes evil appear as normal for man. Thus even the usual expression: “this is human” has a double meaning. “This is human” might mean: This man is good, he really acts as a man should act. However, “this is human” might also mean falsehood: Evil is normal, it is human. Evil seems to have become a second nature. This contradiction of the human being, of our history should provoke, and provokes even today, the desire for redemption. And, in fact, the desire that the world be changed and the promise that a world be created of justice, peace, goodness is present everywhere: In politics, for example, all speak of this need to change the world, to create a more just world. It is precisely this expression of the desire that there be a liberation from the contradiction we experience in ourselves.
Scoot along now, read it all. It will move you!
Previous Sessions:
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6
Session 7
Session 8
Session 9
Session 10
Session 11
Session 12
Session 13
Session 14
Session 15
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