In the first part of this, we started by exploring the history of the theology of original sin and how that understanding plays into how generational sin is viewed, and how it affects us. In the first piece, the history of the doctrine of original sin was explored through some of the church fathers before Augustine, and how the doctrine was formed in the earliest stages. This will pick up where the first left off.

Thanks Augustine

Augustine is one of the most colorful and interesting figures in Christianity, and many people have, over the years, felt as if this colorful history influenced his understanding of the Christian faith. While this may be true, that is not the focus here. Augustine further developed and flushed out what is the classical understanding of original sin.

Augustine postulated that human beings went through three stages of existence that had three corresponding States of being. In the first, and original state, humans were created as God intended and were in possession of attributes such as immortality, integrity, and knowledge. Humans also had freedom, and the ability to not sin. This was the original state of humans, and Augustine considered the gifts of immortality, freedom, the ability to not sin, and so on to be supernatural. The second state was the fall from grace whereby Adam committed the sin of pride, according to Augustine, and because of this lost the supernatural gifts that were a part of humanities’ original state. The third state is that of the redeemed person with a redeemed nature.

Because of Adam’s sin, death and sin entered into the world and all of the descendants of Adam shared in the lost supernatural gifts that were a part of humanities’ original created state. We now possess mortality, a lack of knowledge and intimacy with God, and a loss of the ability to do the good that we desire to do. For Augustine, the belief was that we also lost the ability to not sin. In essence, for Augustine humans, left to their own devices, have no ability to not sin. On our own, we will sin. This was passed from Adam to all of his descendants. SO then our human nature possesses not just the consequences of Adam’s original sin, but the actual sin itself. The sin of Adam, is the sin of every descendant of Adam, at least according to Augustine.

Augustine, and those who came before him, did not develop the doctrine of original sin in a vacuum however. At the time of Augustine, a philosopher and ascetic named Pelagius, was teaching that Adam’s original sin did not in any way taint his descendants. He also taught that it was unjust to punish any person for the sins of another, therefore all children were born blameless. Furthermore, because Adam’s original sin did not taint his descendants in any way, humans could satisfy all the commands of God, and therefore live a sinless life. This view gained a great deal of popularity among monks and even the Roman elites, but was adamantly opposed by Augustine and his supporters. Because Augustine was such an ardent opponent of Pelagius, it is impossible not to think that his views on original sin were not a direct polemic against Pelagius.

The Consequences And The Cure

Inheriting the original sin of Adam, and the guilt that accompanies it was not the only consequence that Augustine believed that we experienced. Augustine believed that now our human passions interfered with our rational thought in a disorder called concupiscence. Augustine associated this primarily with lust, but the over all theological meaning is much broader. In short, concupiscence has three basic aspects. The first is the broad range of all appetites and desires. The second is spontaneous reactions, or desires that are not fully deliberate. The third is desire that openly opposes free and rational decisions. This is what Augustine believed predisposed us toward sin, and was a result of the original sin of Adam and the removal of the supernatural existence that we enjoyed in the garden before the fall.

For Augustine, and for the Catholic church moving forward, it became the responsibility of the parents to present a child for baptism as soon as was possible. The reason for this is that baptism was seen as a necessity for salvation. To Augustine, and the Catholic church today, baptism serves several functions in the life of a child. The first is that through baptism the original sin of Adam, and the guilt it carries with it, is cleansed from the infant. All sins are forgiven through the waters of baptism for that matter. Baptism makes the infant a child of God, and introduces them as a member of the church and of the body of Christ. Baptism is an essential part in gaining salvation.

While baptism removes the original sin and the guilt associated with it, it does not remove the concupiscence that accompanied it. While the grace received through baptism elevated the human state and was the first step in restoring humanity to its original purpose, the concupiscence remains. Augustine believed that by the infusion of the Holy Spirit after the salvation and cleansing offered in baptism, we could over come the concupiscence that was the inevitable consequence of Adam’s original sin. It remained within us, but we could over come it by the power of the Holy Spirit. In short, we are powerless to resist this concupiscence (sin) on our own power because of Adam’s original sin, but was can resist it with the infusion of the Holy Spirit after baptism.

The Eastern View

While Augustine and Pelagius were arguing over the doctrine of original sin in the western world, in the eastern part of the world, the controversy was largely ignored. While there are several reasons for this, the basic one was simply the western church fathers were writing in Latin and the eastern fathers were writing in Greek, and neither took much time to sort out what the others were saying. John Chrysostom spoke not about original sin, but rather about what he called ancestral sin. He believed that while the ancestral sin of Adam brought about corruptibility and death to Adam, and his descendants, weakening humanities’ ability to grow into God’s likeness, it never destroyed God’s image within humanity, that is to say free will. This was the consensus of the eastern patristic writers who interpreted the the fall from grace as primarily an inheritance of mortality, which sin was a result of, rather than an inheritance of Adam’s original sin. In short, humanities’ propensity to sin is a consequence of the inherited morality, not of inheriting Adam’s sin. Others who shared this view were Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius the Great, and numerous others. Much like Augustine, and the early western patristics, this is heavily based upon Romans 5:12, though a different understanding of it. The little resistance to Augustine’s interpretations that came from the east, was generally made by eastern theologians who found themselves living in the west.

One such theologian was John Cassian who wrote an opposition to Augustine based upon four specific points.

1. There are instances of people choosing to change their ways of their own volition. Think of Matthew or Zacchaeus. While it is true that they were called by Christ, and aided by divine grace, that is to say God initiated the call to them, that while grace through faith is what saves us, there is a required willingness on the part of humanity to repent for that salvation to take place.
2. After the fall from grace, Adam, and his descendants, retained a knowledge of good, and an impulse, no matter how weakened, to pursue good. Man was not as Augustine claimed, utterly depraved and incapable of pursuing good.
3. The image of God in man is in need of restoration and healing, but it is not dead. This restoration requires both the cooperation of humanities’ will, with the necessity of divine grace. There is a synergy between the two.
4. God wishes all to come to the knowledge of truth, so those who are not saved reject salvation against God’s will. Predestination then should be viewed as foreknowledge, but not foreordination.

These views were condemned by the western fathers as being semi-pelagian, but in the eastern church became an important basis for the doctrine of theosis, but that is a rabbit hole for a different time. The view of the eastern church can be summed up well enough in a quote by Theodoret of Antioch.
“There is need of both our efforts and divine aid. The grace of the spirit is not vouchsafed (Scott here. I had to look that one up too) to those who make no effort, and without grace our efforts can not collect the prize of virtue.”

While baptism to Augustine and what would become the Catholic church was a way to wipe away the stain and guilt of original sin, and as such the justification of infant baptism, in the Eastern church, that would become the Eastern Orthodox Church, it was viewed differently. Because infants, in this view, were born innocent , wholly without sin, they inherited a human nature that was corrupted by the original sin of Adam and thus are prone to sin. For the Greek church however, baptism was the entrance of the one baptized into into the redeemed and sanctified body of Christ and the beginning of a life spent in spiritual combat and instruction in holiness on the deepening journey to the Kingdom of God. This is a very different view of baptism than was common in the western church.

Conclusion

I know that we have not gotten to the parts of scripture, such as Exodus 20:5-6 or Numbers 14:18, but I believe that how we view original sin is essential to how we look at generation sin, or ancestral sin as it appears in scripture. In the protestant traditions, the views on original sin generally borrow both from the classical understanding from Augustine and the eastern understanding of Chrysostom while not fully embracing either of them if we are being honest. By understanding the various view points on original sin, specifically how the doctrines were formed, I believe that we can better navigate the scriptures that deal with the complex topic of the sins of our fathers.