There is No Original Sin

Or the question about the nature of humanity

Where to start? The best place is at the beginning, with creation. In the Old Testament, creation comes into being through God’s word. The Gospel of John takes up the Logos-Word idea and applies it to Christ. “And the Word, the Logos, became flesh”. If God called creation into being through his Word, then this divine Logos is the sustaining and unifying force in the entire cosmos. I think of an artist who paints his picture and who expresses himself in every brushstroke and adds his signature underneath to confirm that this is his picture: Christ. “And God looked at everything he had made, and behold, it was very good.” The entire cosmos is permeated by this Logos and it has fully unfolded in Christ. “He came into his own” means that everything bears his name: Christ.

Adam and Eve

Let us go one step further to Adam and Eve and to original sin. “Original sin (peccatum originale, pecc. naturae) means both the sin of Adam, inasmuch as it is not merely his sin, but the sin of all men, the sin of the race (peccatum originale origanans), and also the habitual, true and actual sin inherent in every man by nature and inherited by bodily procreation, which has its origin in the original sin of Adam (peccatum originale originatum) (cf. Trid. Sess. V, esp. can. 2. 3. 5).”[1]

So much for the Council of Trent. The Catholic Catechism of 1997 still holds to an inherited sin. How could a doctrine of original sin come about at all if Jesus himself places a child at the centre as a model for the kingdom of heaven and identifies himself with the child: “Amen, I say to you, unless you repent and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. . . . And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.”[2] Not a trace of original sin. Augustine in particular derived the doctrine of original sin from Romans 5:12 in around 418, and this doctrine has remained in the Catechism to this day, with some restrictions.

St Paul and his idea of the beginning

Paul writes: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and so death came to all men, because all sinned …”[3] and continues: “Therefore, just as through the fall of the one man there was condemnation for all men, so through the fulfilment of the law of the one man there is acquittal for all men, leading to life. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous.”[4]

For Paul, it was clear that the story of Adam and Eve really took place, as it is written in the Old Testament. But what was Paul getting at? What was his message? Clearly, we are saved in Jesus. Paul was well versed in the OT and pulled out all the stops to bring people closer to salvation in Jesus. The story of Adam and Eve was just what he needed to win over Jews to the message. If Paul had known about the theory of evolution at the time, and that Adam and Eve never really existed, he would have built his argument from a different construct. But the creation story was the widespread assumption about the origin of the world and man, something that was not questioned, a construct of the time because there was no better explanation.

The context of the message is changeable. The direction of the message, which forms the core of the message, is still relevant today.

I would like to emphasise that the prevailing explanatory model for the origin of the cosmos and life was used to proclaim salvation in Jesus. With a different construct of the cosmos and life, the verses in Romans would never have existed in this form. And Augustine and all the others would never have come up with the idea of original sin either. From this we can derive a principle that has long been applied in exegesis. There is a context for the statement that is completely different today. And there is a direction of interpretation that constitutes the core of the message and is still relevant today.

This principle must be applied to all texts, especially biblical texts, if a statement of faith is derived from them.

Depending on the context, we project “our respective best” onto God.

A current example: some lectors refused to read the following passage from Hebrews: “For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and smites every son he receives. What you endure is for your upbringing; God deals with you as with sons. For where is a son whom his father does not chastise?”[5] The lector’s reasoning was that God neither chastises nor beats. Our idea of parenting today is very different from 2000 years ago. Back then, it was the generally recognised and practised method of upbringing – the best known at the time – and it was projected onto God. Today, we project the best educational method for us onto God because education has improved and developed significantly. We only ever attribute the best to God. Context of statement: Educational method. Direction: No matter what we Christians have to suffer or endure, we can trust God and his love. The current discussion about a new version of the Lord’s Prayer is based on the same principle.

What can we hold on to?

1. The entire creation is permeated by the Logos – the Creator Word of God – and is fundamentally good.
2. there is no original sin because man is good from birth. The innermost being of man, the divine Logos, cannot be corrupted, even if man has distanced himself from his innermost being and a lot of rubbish has accumulated above it.
3. All texts, and biblical texts in particular, must always be differentiated in terms of their context and direction.

So what about the dogma of Mary’s immaculate conception? Of course it remains and, in my opinion, is a sign of the immaculate conception of all human beings, even if it would have to be justified differently today – namely via the divine Logos in all human beings.

The baptism of children

¹If there is no original sin, why baptise children? This is where parents come into play with their care, concerns and fears, who want the best for their child and want it to have the best starting conditions. And for some parents, the often unspoken fears that their child will not be able to go to heaven without being baptised also come into play. This means that infant baptism primarily serves to reassure parents and stems from their need and a misunderstood idea of “we already know what is good for you”. An infant blessing – as is now practised in some dioceses – would fulfil precisely this function of giving parents the feeling that everything has been done for their child. But what is the situation on the side of the unbaptised? Equipped with the blessing of the church and the example of faith of the parents, he or she can freely decide to follow Jesus and then be baptised. This is common practice in the New Testament and in the early church. This has some decisive advantages that are withheld from baptised children today:

1. The person makes a conscious decision to follow Jesus. And every conscious decision strengthens the personality because it is a step out of the crowd.
2. The baptised person is welcomed and accepted by a loving community and experiences the love of God in a very personal way.
3. The baptised person can take on a task in the church according to his or her gifts and talents. He or she thus becomes part of a loving and active community which, in what it does, clearly demonstrates God’s love for all people.

In most cases, infant baptism leads to a diffuse faith on the part of the baptised, which in the long term is usually associated with a loss of contact with the church community.

Are you losing your footing right now? If the church has been practising it for so long, then it can’t be all wrong. Yes, it can and it is wrong. We can’t make decisions for other people. But, as with everything in life, this requires trust. Trust that God loves this new person, accompanies them on their journey through life and leads them via the inner Logos – the divine in every person – to a fulfilled, successful and responsible life as a follower of Jesus, which many people also succeed in doing outside the Catholic Church.

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[1] Wetzer und Welte’s Kirchenlexikon, Freiburg i. Br.: Herder‘sche Verlagshandlung 1886, Bd. 4, S. 754 [2] Mt 18,3ff. [3] Rö 5,12 [4] Rö 5,18f [5] Heb 12,6f [6] Independent of this is personal guilt, from which – with the exception of small children – no one can absolve themselves.