What is the Orthodox Perspective on Original Sin?
The topic that we are going to discuss today is Original Sin and what exactly is that
and how is that affecting theology in general and what the differences are
between the Eastern Orthodox approach in the Western approach -- both the Roman Catholic
as well as Protestant understanding. The term Original Sin actually is a term
that comes from Saint Augustine, a Western saint and theologian
and the primary theologian of the West for a long time and especially from the
time of the destruction of European civilization by the Germanic tribes that
invaded starting at the beginning of the fifth century in the early four hundreds
and the devastation they left behind which destroyed learning, it
eliminated schools and the Western Christians from Italy they
lost their connection with the Eastern Christians and the
Eastern Christian teachings and the Christian works,
theological works because Greek was lost and the theologians of the West did not
have the ability to be enriched and be corrected in some ways as they expressed
theology and in many cases they created theology that contradicted what was
there already in Christianity. And one of these people was Saint Augustine a
brilliant man and a bishop in the Western Church from Carthage who ... he was
based, he expressed an understanding of Original Sin based on a writing by
somebody that he thought was Saint Ambrose of Milan who was the bishop that
baptized him but in fact modern scholars consider him as an unknown person and
they give him the title Ambrosiaster. Ambrosiaster introduces
the concept of traducianism which is the transmission of the sin of
Adam or original sin as he calls it from Adam to his children from the
fathers to their children through the seed of the fathers. It's also
a time when there is no understanding of how
procreation happens and and how a person is born is not scientifically correct
because they thought at this point that the seed of the man is
implanted in the womb of the woman just like a regular seed is implanted
in a field and the woman really doesn't contribute anything to the creation of
the new person and everything comes from the man. So it is Adam that
contributes the human, the whole humanity to his children and from them the man
again are the ones who transmit their humanity to their children and the sin
of Adam is transmitted again as I said from one man to another and from him to
his children. So this traducianist concept is new to Christianity it's not
present in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, it's not present in the Eastern Fathers,
the Greek Fathers. For the Greek Fathers and also for Augustine the
understanding is that the fall of Adam brings about the fall of humanity,
it brings a broken humanity, a humanity where the relationship with God is broken,
a humanity where the passions are aroused and defects are introduced into
the human being and where death is introduced
which is the biggest one of the effects that the sin of Adam has on his
descendants. So all human beings die because of the sin of Adam. But Augustine
added to all of that the understanding of the transmission of the guilt of the
sin and of the guilt of Adam and therefore every new person every child
that is born he is really condemned to hell unless they're baptized and baptism
is the event and the mystery of the sacrament that cleanses a
person from this condemnation. Now, Saint John Chrysostom who comes at the end
of the fourth century beginning of the fifth century and basically contemporary
of Augustine does not have such a teaching, but what he has are actually things
that are contrary to Augustine's understanding and he argues because he
somehow he knows that this idea of the guilt transmitted has been circulating
-- he must have heard about it -- he objects to it and he calls it absurd.
The interesting thing is that Augustine read some of these texts from Chrysostom
because he knew a little Greek but he tells us in his "Confessions" that he
hated Greek so I don't think that he read Chrysostom in-depth so although he
looked at them he thought that Chrysostom was saying the same thing as he was
saying but in fact Chrysostom was totally different. Chrysostom condemns
the understanding that God will ever condemn a person for the
sin committed by someone else. He says that very clearly and he actually says
that no human judge will ever condemn anyone for the sin of someone else and
how could God who is the most just of all judges do such
a thing and be so unjust. So as I said before, because Augustine
was the primary theologian of the Western Church for many centuries
-- especially the during the four hundred years of what we call the Dark Ages of
Europe -- his teaching was propagated in the Western Church and
that became the foundation of the understanding of what the condition of
humanity is and the Anthropology of the Western Church was that which comes
out of this Augustinian position. Later, Thomas Aquinas tried to correct this
position by Augustine by coming up with the idea that children that die before
they're baptized are not condemned to hell but they are in limbo
and that God is in charge of that and he can decide what that is.
Chrysostom, of course, has said that children have no sin of their own
and therefore there is no sin to be forgiven during baptism and of course
they have no sin from Adam because there is no such concept as
transmitted sin. Chrysostom speaks about baptism as
the sacrament in which there is sanctification, there is the gift of the
Holy Spirit, the person becomes the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and
becomes a member of the body of Christ. He says that that is why we
baptize children. We don't baptize them so that any kind of sin can be forgiven
but we baptize them so that we can make them members of the body of Christ and
give them sanctification and make them a dwelling place of the Holy
Spirit and give them the opportunity to have the fullness of the
grace of God and that's why we baptize them.
In the West for a long time the understanding was that baptism
eliminates original sin, the sin of Adam and the guilt of Adam, and therefore
that's why we baptize infants and that's why the necessity for the baptism
of infants is there. The interesting thing is that based on this concept of
the transmission of the Original Sin and the guilt and responsibility of Adam, the
Roman Catholic Church proceeded to develop another theology when it was
confronted with the thought of how can the Virgin Mary give birth to God if
she was never baptized and since she had the sin of Adam. So they came up
with the theology of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary which has
become a dogma in the Roman Catholic Church in order to cleanse the mother of
God from the guilt and sin of Adam since that conflicted with the understanding
that how can she give birth to God if she was sinful and she was condemned to
hell herself. So we have this development, this theological development which
is based on this erroneous concept but we also have among the Reformers John
Calvin who embraced a lot of the Augustinian concepts including
predestination and he also embraced the understanding of Original Sin and the
transmission of sin and guilt and the responsibility of Adam
based on Augustine's understanding and that has been the case until this day for
those who have followed the Calvinist understandings. Of course in the Orthodox
Church this is not even a topic to be discussed because we do not see any such
possibility of transmission of sin and guilt and responsibility in any possible
way.