Theology Thursday: Original Sin

Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him.

Welcome to Theology Thursday!

Today’s question:
Are we born sinful? What is "original sin"?

Pastor Brady’s thoughts:
The account in Genesis chapter 3 tells the story of how the first humans ushered sin into the world by disobeying God. Before we move forward, we should define what we mean by sin, and that’s a pretty good definition: sin is disobeying God.

Other definitions work too: sin is rebelling against God; sin is usurping God’s authority; sin is a transgression of God’s law; sin is ignoring God’s will in favor of our own; sin is a withdrawal from the wisdom and love of God; to sin is to miss the mark, to fall short of the life that God has for us.

My favorite definition of sin - because it helps us think about sin on a practical, personal, and daily level - is from pastor and teacher A.J. Swoboda, who writes "All sin, at its core, is the act of seeing, desiring, or taking something that isn't given by God."

Ok, so that’s what sin is. Where does sin come from?

All Christians believe history and humanity were drastically changed by what happened in the Garden of Eden. God created a perfect, sinless world he called “very good;” Adam and Eve were in right relationship with God, with each other, and with the natural world, but their disobedience altered and damaged each of these relationships.

Where Christians disagree is what exactly Adam and Eve’s rebellion means for the generations that came after them, including us.

The doctrine of “original sin” says that the sins of humanity’s first parents - Adam and Eve - are passed down to each one of us. We inherit unavoidable and undefeatable moral corruption from the sin of Adam and Eve, goes the argument.

When you hear or read someone referencing the term “original sin,” it is usually meant from a Calvinistic perspective, which argues that Adam and Eve’s decision forever changed the very nature of humanity from that of “very good” to that of “total depravity.” Calvinists believe that because of the fall in the Garden all babies are born 100% depraved and evil, unable to do good, be good, or avoid sin until (if) God administers his gift of grace into their lives, saves them, and empowers them to goodness when he chooses.

This is a popular view held by many denominations, especially the ones that baptize babies; the argument is that if babies are born in sin, they must be baptized for forgiveness and salvation as soon as possible, because life is uncertain, and sometimes tragedy happens.

(The Christian church view - including our view at MCC - maintains that the biblical understanding of baptism requires belief in Jesus, repenting of and turning from sin, and a commitment to lifelong discipleship. Babies and very young children cannot make that decision/commitment, which is why we exclusively practice believers’ baptism. But that’s a Theology Thursday for another week.)

The Calvinistic view of original sin has implications for understanding human free will that make it incompatible with the Christian church understanding of sin.

We believe humans can choose to follow God, we believe humans can choose to make good decisions and avoid bad ones, and though we face Satan’s temptations, we believe humans can choose not to sin.

The sin of Adam and Eve matters, because it permanently (until Jesus returns!) altered the state of God’s world and ushered in death and discord, but we aren't born sinful merely because they sinned.

We aren’t automatically born sinners because of our nature, we choose to sin because of our condition. This is a subtle but important distinction.

Our nature - how we were created and intended to be - is image-bearers of a perfect, immortal God. Our condition - how we are because creation is fallen and in our free will we often choose to participate in that fallenness - is imperfect, mortal humans.  

This debate affects how we think about Jesus. If humans are born sinful, Jesus either was not fully human (a heresy!) or didn’t live a sinless life (also a heresy!). But we know from scripture that both of these things are untrue about our Lord; he was fully human (Matthew 1:25 and 4:1; John 1:14; Luke 23:46 and 24:39; others), and he lived a sinless life (2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 7:26; others).

So human nature cannot be totally depraved, because Adam and Eve were created sinless and remained so until they gave in to temptation and disobeyed, and because Jesus was fully human and yet resisted temptation and never sinned.

We do not share in Adam and Eve’s guilt. We are guilty when we sin, all on our own.

So, do we believe in the doctrine of “original sin”? Is it biblical?

Only in this sense (the following formulation is taken from Dr. Steven D. Cone’s book Theology from the Great Tradition):

1. Sinfulness, or fallenness, is a fact about our human reality (Psalm 51:5; 1 John 1:8; Romans 3:23). All human beings except for Christ Jesus and apart from his grace show a deep brokenness in which we do not always desire and choose what is good or what God desires for us to choose. Our ability to love and relate to God and his world is never pure and complete (Psalm 14:2; Romans 3:10).
   
   
2. The full revelation of unfallen human nature and perfect sinlessness is Christ Jesus (John 19:5). Through the perfection modeled by Jesus, we come to know what true and complete humanity is, and we come to see how our character is different from his. By knowing him, we come to know who and what we are called to be.
   
   
3. Sin, therefore, is a condition of our reality, not something that is intrinsic to our nature (John 3:17-21). God made us good. When we are evil, it’s because we turn from that goodness.  

Bottom line: Are human beings basically good, or basically evil? The Genesis account clearly communicates that violence, alienation, and irrationality are not the core of human nature, but rather are distortions of it. The evil in us is a failing to be good, a failing to live in the fullness of relationship offered to us by our perfect God.

We should understand the fall of creation to mean that we inherit physical death (and disease and sickness, pain, sorrow, etc.) from the sin in the Garden, but we do not inherit spiritual death.

We can choose God, and we can choose goodness. We are sometimes drawn to darkness, but we were made for the light.

The good news is that Christ, through his willful submission to human mortality, was able to rectify our fallen reality by paying the price for our sins, in our place.

As theologian Sherwood Smith writes: “One act of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden introduced sin into the world and one act of Christ at Calvary canceled out that sin.” Forever.

Praise be to God!

Related Resources:
Article - The Collateral Damage of Sin: Worse than what “missing the mark” does to our soul is what it does to our neighbors.
Podcast - Calling: The Inward Journey
Book - The Gift of Thorns: Jesus, the Flesh, and the War for Our Wants

To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.