Sin

• Pride and disobedience

  • In Eden, Satan takes on the form of the serpent and out of envy he plants the idea of disobedience into Eve‘s mind
  • the act of rebellion is entirely the result of human free will - Augustine
• Original sin

  • Adam‘s sin can be seen in the continued rebellious state of the will lust shows the lack of control that the rational soul has over sin
  • no one is truly good however virtuous they might appear to be 
• double death -

  • the first death is caused by Adam’s rebellious will which kills the relationship between humans and God (spiritual)
  • the second death is the mortal state of every human and is God’s punishment for the first disobedience (physical)
• transmission of sin -

  • the original act of disobedience is transmitted by a ‘chain of disasters’
  • Adam’s children also bear his rebellious nature
  • every act of sex is tainted by lust
  • every human is ‘born in sin’
  • monks and nuns will never be free or strong enough to resist lust
• Original sin causes human selfishness - Augustine

  • Adam and Eve fell from the goodness of Eden, they became selfish
  • selfishness seen is human sexual behaviour
  • lust excites the body
  • selfishness is at the centre of our lives
  • lust of the senses - sexual desire overwhelms us, it is beyond rational control
  • lust of power - we want to look good, difficult to control
  • lust for knowledge - we want to satisfy our curiosity
• Belief in original sin is irrational and dangerous

  • it goes against evolutionary biology - Richard Dawkins
  • naive to assume it was the single fault of 2 people (Adam and Eve)
  • it gives an unhealthy obsession with sin, guilt, violence, and repressed sexuality
• Sin and collective moral responsibility

  failure to understand sin leads to mistakes being made by society and those is power - Neibhur
• Sin and collective moral responsibility

  • human nature cannot be easily defined as either good or evil

  three paradoxes -

  1. original sin is both ‘inevitable but not necessary’
  2. sin is apparent in evil as well as good acts, evil can do good and good people can be selfish
  3. people can individually do good but can do evil when acting as a group