In the theology of the Western churches,
the notion of original sin is seen to come
into prominence and the work of Augustine of Hippo.
And in his writings in the early fifth century,
augustine is prepared to link Original Sin very closely
to the story is
found in the early chapters of the book of Genesis.
And it's one of the themes of Augustan life,
is that he keeps returning to
comment those early chapters of Genesis.
One of the interesting things is that we no longer
read those chapters in the same way because we
live in a world where we think of
human life as being involved in evolution,
we are the products of evolution.
So that leaves us with the question,
how does the long tradition of
Tolkien brute Original Sin fish
into a world where we talk about evolution.
Muslim, I know you've worked on this,
so can you talk us through this link between
evolution and original said yes, definitely.
>> So I think it's clear
from studying evolution that it definitely
raises problems for sort of literal interpretation of
the Genesis story where there was
a garden and a snake and this mistake that was made.
And so, so definitely
evolution urges us to have a different approach to interpreting,
I think, these scriptural passages.
But there have been some developments in
evolutionary theory that I think actually lend some support
to some of the things that theologians have been trying to
say about, about inherited sin.
And so a couple of developments that have happened in something
called the extended evolutionary synthesis are.
So there's something called epigenetics,
which I think it gives us
in certain ways a language to think about inherited sin.
And so epigenetics is
this idea that we inherit from our ancestors,
not just a genome, but also an EPI, genome.
And the epigenome is sort of molecular.
Switches are cues for how the genome should be expressed.
And the EPI genome can be influenced
by environmental, environmental factors.
And so the idea that's coming through
with epigenetics is that our API,
our epigenome, gets impacted by our environment,
also by choices that we make.
So smoking or non-smoking and dietary choices and exercise.
But then those changes can be passed on to future generations.
And so I think from the perspective of theology,
this is a really interesting way of
thinking about the inheritance of sin.
Just this idea that the choices
that people have made who came before us have
kind of lasting effects that could be
detrimental to the future generation.
So I think there's certain development and evolution that are
happening lately that actually,
that actually lend some support to
this idea that sin is something
that we are born already effected by other christians.
>> Luther aspect of this is looters.
Hey, if you're thinking in the time of Augustan,
you can think of original sin as an event that happened then,
and then it passes on its effects down through generations.
But of course, if we're actually thinking in terms of evolution,
we can think of original sin as
just part of the existential condition of
human beings were living in a universe where not everything is,
not, everything is hunky-dory,
where this is not the best of,
we shouldn't inserting k. This is the
best of all possible worlds.
And, and also the Original Sin reminds us that in the,
in the flux of which we are at the present moment,
we're a original sin
is the shorthand that explains our limitations.
>> I think that's right, our limitations.
And then also the persistence.
It's really baffles us sometimes of
the suffering and evil that's in the world. I think originals.
And as one way of trying to talk about that,
if we didn't have this concept of originals,
and I think we would lose a great deal and
explaining to the human situation now, and of course,
there is this other especially that is
the original sin is itself a mystery.
>> Yes.
>> And so it's,
it's reminding us that in trying to deal with
the complexity of not only our humanity,
but our suffering and the wickedness we
find ourselves both contributing to and received from that.
We're actually dealing with something that is really B,
it is itself mysterious.
>> I think that's right. Yeah. We can never quite put our finger
on what it is or even how it started,
exactly where it came from.
But I think we all recognize on a sort of
personal existential level that
we experience these types of things.
And, and so I think originalists and
gives us a really important language for talking blah, blah.
>> Thanks, Megan, for exploring
these two seemingly very
different equation inter-relation in religions.
>> Yeah.