Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Erbsünde (kurze Geschichte): Paulus, Augustinus (Röm 5.12-21); Pelagius - östliche Kirche; Erlösung wovon?; Kindertaufe; Konkupiszenz; in quo omnes peccaverunt (Auslegung?)

Kurzinhalt: Since infants were not in a position to commit personal sin, baptism must be for a different type of sin, the sin of Adam, or original sin... we now know that Augustine's exegesis of Romans 5:12 is unsustainable. Modern translations reject ...

Textausschnitt: 4 Original Sin

68a THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN is a distinctively Christian belief. Indeed, one could argue that it is a distinctively Western Christian belief, based as it is largely on the writings and authority of Augustine and his conflict with Pelagius. Eastern Orthodox Christianity has no formal doctrine of original sin, as that form of Christianity was not shaped by the Pelagian controversy, which proved so decisive in Western self-understanding. However, not only is the doctrine distinctively Christian, but it is also a doctrine subject to serious distortion and misunderstanding. One set of problems with the doctrine arises from its linkage with an outmoded cosmology, apparently tied to a literal reading of the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3. As modern culture increasingly adopts evolutionary thought, not just in the biological sciences but as a total worldview, any such linkage makes the doctrine seem more and more unlikely. The narratives of Genesis 2-3 simply do not square with modern scientific accounts of the origins of human life. Another set of problems relates to the ways in which the doctrine can be misread as implying the total depravity of human existence apart from grace. While this pessimistic reading of the human condition had its roots in the writings of Augustine, it found more explicit expression during the Reformation, becoming a mainstay of the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin. (Fs)

In this chapter we shall explore something of the history of the doctrine of original sin, in the hope that this review might assist in highlighting difficulties and possible solutions to the problems it poses for the modern mind. Only then shall we present a contemporary approach that I hope is illuminating. (Fs)

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN

68b Any reading of the New Testament should convince us that the fundamental starting point of Christian faith is an experience of salvation brought about through faith in Jesus Christ, through his death and resurrection. The New Testament abounds in metaphors to express the reality of that experience-it is like being sick and then being made whole (the healing salve of salvation); it is like being a slave and then having someone pay the redemption money for your release; it is like going to court expecting to be found guilty, yet being declared righteous and freed from your guilt. All these metaphors speak to us of a powerful experience of liberation, of freedom, of deliverance. Clearly the source or power of this experience is mediated to the believer by Jesus Christ, through his death and resurrection, and this became the focus of the early Christian preaching. This same experience is available to all through faith (Gal 3:28-29). It took a bit longer, however, for people to sit back and reflect more systematically on that experience and to subject it to analysis. One question that necessarily arises is, What exactly are we being saved from? The history of the doctrine of original sin is one of seeking to clarify this question. (Fs)

69a There are a number of candidates one may identify as "that from which we are saved." For example, sin, death, slavery to Satan, powers and principalities, and so on. Each of these possibilities can claim scriptural warrant. Some early church fathers developed elaborate soteriological narratives, which we shall explore in the next chapter. However, what was needed was a candidate that matched the scope of the gift involved. The redemption Jesus offers is unlimited, not tied to any group of persons. Jesus died for the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, the young and the old. But what was it that the young, especially the very young, needed to be saved from? In particular, why did the church baptize young children, even in infancy?1 (Fs) (notabene)

69b Both East and West recognized that baptism washed sinners clean from their sins. However, while the Greek fathers recognized a variety of benefits from infant baptism,2 in the western Latin church the question of infant baptism became a focal point for speaking about a different type of sin, one that was not personal sin, but one that affected all, even newborn infants. In the thought of Augustine the sin of Adam became not just the first sin in a long and sorry history of human sinfulness; it became an originating sin (originating original sin), something that affected all human beings, who are therefore tarnished from birth, born under guilt, the guilt of original sin (originated original sin). Augustine took Paul seriously when he said that baptism freed us from our slavery to sin (Rom 6:6). Since infants were not in a position to commit personal sin, baptism must be for a different type of sin, the sin of Adam, or original sin. (Fs) (notabene)

70a Augustine strengthened his position with other arguments. For example, why is there so much suffering in the world? Surely a just God would not allow such suffering, unless we deserved it. Indeed, when we are personally struck by some tragic event, one of the first things we say is, "What did I do to deserve this?," as if suffering only makes sense to us as some type of punishment. The universal plight of suffering as part of the human condition was for Augustine a sign of our original sinfulness, a just punishment for the sin of Adam. He also drew attention to our human condition of concupiscence, the disordering of our desires, particularly in the area of sexual libido. Surely such disordering was not part of God s original creation, and so once again it is a sign of our wounding by the primordial sin of Adam. Finally, Augustine drew on material from Romans 5:12-21, where Paul speaks of the impact of Adam's sin on the human condition, in particular how sin entered the world through Adam's sin. Here Augustine was dependent on the Latin translations of Jerome and others. When Augustine turned to his Latin translation of Romans 5:12-21 to develop his theology of original sin, he read the following verse:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all, in quo omnes peccaverunt (in whom all have sinned). (Fs)

70b The problem he faced is the significance of in quo. Following what he took to be a text from St. Ambrose (which we now know was not written by Ambrose at all but by an unknown author whom tradition has called Ambrosiaster), Augustine took in quo as a relative conjunction with its antecedent being Adam. Thus Augustine took the text to be saying that "death spread to all, in whom [Adam] all have sinned." For Augustine this is a key text for his scriptural argument for the existence of original sin. Here Paul seemed to be saying that all have sinned in Adam's sin; through some mysterious human solidarity, all are caught up in Adam's guilt. (Fs) (notabene)
70c Augustine's arguments won the day against his opponent, Pelagius, who held that the sin of Adam was purely a matter of providing bad example for the rest of us. Thus he rejected any notion of inherited sin. Pelagius accepted that baptism was for the remission of sin in adults, but for infants it was simply the rite of entry into the church. Given the weight of Augustine's arguments at the time, the church rejected the position of Pelagius and adopted its first official teaching on original sin. At the Council of Carthage (418 C.E.) Pelagius's position was condemned, and the formal link between baptism and original sin was dogmatically established. (Fs)

71a Although Augustine's arguments carried the day, they were not without their difficulties. The notion that suffering was a punishment for sin is much less persuasive in the modern era, which thinks along evolutionary lines (though it still has some "existential" appeal in our more spontaneous identification of suffering and punishment). The ancient world knew nothing of the millions of years of life, with its own toll of suffering, death, and even extinction, prior to the emergence of human life. All this suffering could not be laid at the feet of human sinfulness, and in his exploration of concupiscence Augustine blurred the distinction between two differing issues of human existence-sinfulness and finitude. In book 1 of the Confessions Augustine understands the cries of a baby for its mother's milk as signifying its inherent sinfulness:

Who can recall to me the sins I committed as a baby? For in your sight no man is free from sin, not even a child who has lived only one day on earth. Who can show me what my sins were? ... Was it a sin to cry when I wanted to feed at the breast? I am too old now to feed on mother's milk, but if I were to cry for some kind of food suited to my age, others would rightly laugh me to scorn and remonstrate with me. So then too I deserved a scolding for what I did; but since I could not have understood the scolding, it would have been unreasonable, and most unusual, to rebuke me. (1.7)3

71b Today we would understand such behavior purely in developmental terms. Most importantly, we now know that Augustine's exegesis of Romans 5:12 is unsustainable. Modern translations reject Augustine's translation of in quo as "in whom all have sinned" and replace it with a simpler explanation: "death has come to all, because all have sinned."4 Perhaps the main element that remains from Augustine's case is the church's practice of baptizing infants. (Fs) (notabene)