ANTI-SOCIAL SLUR: ORIGINAL SIN
UNBAPTISED
BABIES ARE DAMNED FOR ORIGINAL SIN
ORIGINAL SIN
– THE FOUR THEORIES
ORIGINAL SIN, THE
SINFUL SMEAR
UNBAPTISED BABIES ARE DAMNED FOR ORIGINAL SIN
Original sin is the sin that Adam and Eve committed at the beginning of the
human race according to the Bible and Christian theology. Adam represented the human race and so when
he sinned the entire human race was sinful at the first moment of their
existence in the womb for he sinned for the whole race. He made the decision that we would all be
born in original sin and so it happened.
This sin is original sin both because it is the first or original sin
ever committed by a man and also because we have it when we begin to exist. Roman Catholicism teaches that baptism is
necessary for forgiveness for original sin.
If the sin is not forgiven, God will not let the person into Heaven.
Roman Catholic “Infallible”
Council of
“4. If any one denies that infants
newly born from their mothers’ wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized
parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the
remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam,
which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining
of life everlasting,—whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form
of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false,—let
him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered
into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all
have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church
spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of
faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet
commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the
remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration,
which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of
water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the
“Infallible” Council of
Pope St.
Zosimus, Council of
Pope Pius VI,
Auctorem fidei, 1794: “26.Condemned: The
doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable, that place of the lower regions
(which the faithful generally designate by the name of the limbo of the
children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole guilt of original
sin are punished with the punishment of the condemned, exclusive of the
punishment of fire, just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the
punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of
punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about
which the Pelagians idly talk – Condemned as false, rash, injurious to Catholic
schools.” (D. 1526)
Catholic teaching implies that since God
allowed such awful results to come from the sin of Adam and Eve that is passed
on to us and considered it the most serious sin of all time that original sin
is the worst form of sin and that a person who isn’t baptised to get rid of it
is pure evil no matter how good they seem to be. They could insist that Adam and Eve didn’t
seem bad but they were.
St Fulgentius quoted
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate
Domino,” 1441: “The Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church firmly believes,
professes, and proclaims that none of those outside the Catholic Church, not
only pagans, but neither Jews, nor heretics and schismatics, can become
participants in eternal life, but will depart ‘into everlasting fire which was
prepared for the devil and his angels’ [Matt. 25:41], unless before death they
have been added to the Church.”
The Catholic cannot be consoled by the idea
of some that the unbaptised baby that dies is deprived only of the sight of God
and has other pleasures instead. The
Church teaches that to lose God is worse than anything and that it is better to
endure fire forever than to live without him. Clearly, the Catholic doctrine of
God implies that we should not be horrified by babies suffering in the fire of
Hell but by babies not having a personal relationship with God.
St Thomas Aquinas was the first to teach that
the babies who are unbaptised and die will be happy without God so his teaching
having come in the 1200’s is a novelty and the Roman Catholic Church teaches
that constant Church teaching coming from the apostles is infallible and that
new doctrines are heresy. Some did
question that the babies had to suffer for original sin but they went no
further than saying they endured no pain of sense or pain like physical pain.
The Church sees original sin as something that
makes you want to be away from God. When
a seven year old boy can sin so as to go to Hell forever, it is not too hard to
suppose that happens to babies who are not baptised as well. The Church can teach that unbaptised babies
go to Hell for they are drawn to it by their sinful nature. It is almost the place of choice for them.
That religion even discusses such matters
shows that religion is intrinsically bad. The truly good person would recoil in
horror from a religion that ponders whether babies suffer or not for original
sin if they die without baptism.
ORIGINAL SIN – THE FOUR THEORIES
There are four theories of the transmission of original sin. The theories are really just attempts to
avoid blaming God for the spread of original sin. What else would they be adopted for? If we just blame God then there is no need
for theories of transmission. For
example, to say we have original sin for Adam represented us and sinned making us
sinners too is to try and blame Adam and not God. None of the theories succeed in absolving God
so the theory the Christians should have is this: “It is God’s fault and he
makes us sinners and that is why we are born sinful”.
1 The Mediate Imputation
Theory.
This says that all are guilty because they want to sin including
babies. Adam’s sin is not automatically
imputed (blamed on) to them but it’s influence causes them to sin by making
them depraved and this causes an imputation of Adam’s sin to take place. So you become guilty of Adam’s sin because
you would do it if you could.
Because babies would sin like Adam if they could and get this power from
Adam they share in Adam’s sin. God has
to treat them as good or bad or as neither but since they have inherited the
bias towards sin he is justified as counting them as bad.
2 The Realistic Theory.
All people inherit original sin from Adam like a disease. It is hereditary.
Those who invented this absurdity forgot that if original sin is taken
away from Christians by baptism or the new birth then they couldn’t pass it on.
The theory implies that Adam was like a root and we are the trunk and
branches that have come from the root and so we carry the same disease that the
root carries. But who made it possible
for Adam to be the cause? God did. He could have made a root that could heal or
contain the disease and not spread it to the tree that emerges from it.
3 The Representative
Theory.
We are to blame for Adam’s sin for he sinned on our behalf. He is our representative. When a king declares war all his subjects
including babies are as bad as he is.
Only a twisted person would believe this!
You don’t punish babies because their daddy committed some felony on
their behalf.
We are only responsible for what a representative does when we have made
him our representative and sanctioned all his decisions. We were not around when Adam sinned. God should not have made him our rep. God was looking for trouble if he did.
Adam repented of his sin yet Christians won’t say that he is our representative then! If he was our representative at all then since he reversed his sinful decision we cannot have got his original sin. The Christian God prefers to give us the bad thing rather than the good thing. This is more clearly seen when the proponents of this theory say that Jesus was our representative and choose God for us thus reversing what Adam had done. God knew that Jesus would do this so he should have made him the representative of all in the first place instead of Adam. When there is a bad rep and a good one the good one is the one whose representation should be accepted.
Christian theologian Richard Swinburne is Was Jesus God? states that we inherit the debts of our ancestors though not their guilt - guilt as in responsibility for evil. He says we owe God atonement for the sins of our fathers for they didn't settle the debt. Is this what the idea of original sin is trying to say? It cannot be. If the ancestors live forever as Christians believe then why can't they take care of the making up to God? And God should only demand making up for sin so that we might grow as people in doing so. He does not need us to do this but we might need to do it. A God who demands that we pay for our ancestors sins is asking for something he does not need and has no right to. The only way he could have the right is if we also carry and inherit the guilt.
4 The Pre-Existence of
Souls Theory
We lived before we were born. We
have all sinned by consciously approving of Adam’s crime and thereby became as
bad as him. We came into this world with
this sin.
There is no Bible evidence that souls exist before conception so the
Church has never accepted this theory.
The apostle Paul in the Bible says that original sin in us is not
deliberate. “In Adam, all sinned”.
The theory will have to say that babies remember and adhere to their sin
for if their memories were wiped they could not be sinful anymore. You can’t be guilty of sins that you can’t
recall. This theory at least does not
have to blacken babies to the extent that the others do for they accuse the
babies of sin even though they have never consented to it.
ORIGINAL SIN, THE SINFUL SMEAR
In Catholicism, Father Richard P McBrien rejects three ideas about original sin. He rejects the assumption that it is a denial of human freedom. He rejects the idea of Sartre that original sin is just the meaninglessness of human existence. He rejects the traditional Christian notion that that original sin is a personal sin that God blames us for though we didn't commit it (page 185, Catholicism, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994). God blames us for the sin Adam and Eve committed in the garden of Eden at the start of the human race. He is forced to say it is a mystery and leave it at that. But that is a cop-out. He is hiding behind the mystery thing to disguise the absurdity of the doctrine and how it must be saying we are blamed for a sin we never committed or that we have somehow ratified this sin and shared in it thereby. He proves that in how he cannot say what original sin does to us. All agree that it makes us tend to sin but that tendency to sin is understood by all not as original sin but as a result of it.
The representatives of the
Original sin is taught in the Bible.
The Psalmist wrote, “I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity”
(Psalm 51:5). Jesus said, “Unless a man
is born of water and [even] the Spirit, he cannot [ever] enter the
Romans 5 says that because of Adam’s sin all people will die. This implies that they must deserve it when
God is just and God punished all Adam’s descendants for his crime. Paul said that Jesus needed to come to reverse
what Adam did which is repeating that we deserve it for it is confessing that
God did not have to let us die. He said
Jesus saved us vicariously the same way Adam vicariously made us come fallen
into the world. Paul said that, “As sin
came into the world though one man, and death as the result of sin, so death
spread to all men [no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] because
all men sinned. [To be sure] sin was in
the world before ever the Law was given, but sin is not charged to men’s account
where there is no law...Yet death held sway from Adam to Moses [the Lawgiver],
even over those who did not themselves transgress [a positive command] even as
Adam did” (Romans 5:12-14). This makes
it clear that even those who do not believe in right and wrong are sinners
because they die though they haven’t wilfully sinned. It is Adam’s sin, the sin they have acquired
from him, that condemns them.
Because of Adam’s sin, we are all condemned as sinners (Romans
Paul said that as one man’s sin passed on condemnation to us so Jesus’
act of goodness passed on acquittal and salvation to us (Romans
There are three understandings of what original sin is. That it is your own first sin. That you are blamed with Adam for his sin so
you are guilty too. That you are not
blamed for it but you are born like you have been.
Protestants often say that it is the guilt of sin inherited from
Adam. The little baby in the cot is as
much guilty of eating the forbidden fruit as Adam was though it never committed
this sin.
This is terribly unjust. It is
absurd to imagine that you can be guilty of a sin that you never
committed. Yet it must be the biblical
theory for God says that even though some don’t have a law or believe in one
and so cannot sin they are still sinners (Romans 5:13).
Catholics believe that there are two kinds of sin, as distinct from
original sin that we commit ourselves.
Venial is serious sin that does not cut you off from God and mortal sin
is sin so bad that he spews you out.
Catholics believe that God would not take a life in retribution for a
venial sin but would for a mortal sin.
God told Adam that his sin would cost him his life. So his sin was mortal and if we are as if we
have that sin then we must deserve Hell forever. The unbaptised babies must be destined for
Hell and its eternal torments of despair.
It is a mistake to hope that they are not on the grounds that God would
not be that cruel.
Catholics say that babies are not blamed for Adam’s sin but are in the
same spiritual condition that a mortal sinner is in all the same. In more academic language, they don’t have
sanctifying grace. They say it is a sin
only in the sense that God hates this state but not in the sense that the baby
has deliberately offended God (page 711, Radio Replies, Vol 1). This view says that we owe punishment to God
to atone for Adam’s sin for it is his debt and he didn’t pay it so it falls on
his children. It makes us guilty in that
we have failed to pay because we are sinners and don’t want to pay either.
By no stretch of reason can the absence of grace be called sin. Sin is wilfully offending God. If the child carries Adam’s sin the it
deserves to be separated from God but this theory claims that it deserves to be
in communion with him and is kept out of it.
It seems better to be meant to be in communion with him and is kept out
of it. It seems better than the theory
that babies are guilty of Adam’s sin literally though they never committed it
but it is really far worse. Better to be
punished for an imputed sin than for no sin at all.
The theory does not explain how a baby can be a sinner for it knows
nothing of Adam’s debt and has nothing to be punished for. If there is a punishment it will not have it
until it grows up a bit. Punishment is
supposed to be for our good and to improve our characters. The punishment that original sin demands is
so useless that Jesus had to undergo it for us so it is sheer
vindictiveness.
The liberal view says that original sin is simply a fancy name for the
weakness in us that draws us into sin and nothing more. This is, strictly speaking, not a doctrine of
original sin at all but a repudiation of the doctrine. Most liberals say that all people are right
with God for he would not distance himself from anyone who can’t help what they
do. Their version of original sin does
not say that it cuts us off God but the opposite. The reason Christians remark that we are all
so drawn to sin and sin so much is that they have made up half of the
sins. We are a lot better than they say
so there is no evidence that we prefer bad to good. Even if most people do bad things now that
does not prove that they are deliberately evil. They may just be as unintelligent and not know
how to become better people.
There is nothing wrong the idea that we are born weak and prone to sin
with this except that there is no God to sin against!
The Church says that babies have done nothing to deserve grace from God
so he is entitled to let them be born in original sin (question 711, Radio
Replies, Vol 1). That shows what
kind of feelings the priesthood has for babies.
Without the grace nobody can be a friend of God’s. So God rejects the babies for no reason. This is the same God who has the hypocrisy to
say we must accept the innocent and be kind to them. This tells us that if there is no God then we
are free to let our babies starve to death or whatever for our own
convenience. Because if God does it and
is right to it would still be right for it to happen even if he did not exist
for the principle would still be there.
This is one of several examples in which the Church encourages atheists
to be evil if they have abandoned the Church.
It wants them to be bad in order to proclaim her superiority.
“God took from Adam’s posterity nothing whatever that was due to them: He merely reduced them to the level of what was due to them – instead of giving them (as He had planned) gratuitous gifts” (page 5, THE FALL AND ORIGINAL SIN, WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY III, WILLIAM MORAN DD, ST PATRICKS COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH). The Church says that Adam was punished for his sin simply by losing the presence of God inside him which worked to make him holy. It says he had no right to this anyway and it was a gift. So when he sinned the gift was taken from him. This doctrine is pure evil because everybody has the right to be helped to have the advantage in trying to live a good life. God is worse than the sinner if he takes help from them. Even if we say that God could have done this to Adam justly for Adam rejected this help, God still had no right to put Adam’s offspring – ourselves – at a disadvantage of being born without his gift.
What makes the Church crueller is that it blames original and actual sin
for death. Death is the result for
anything evil has to be eliminated. So
God makes the babies entitled to die by refusing to grant them sanctifying
grace – sanctifying grace is the presence of God within you making you his and
helping you to love him. Whatever the
Church may say about them not deserving happiness in Heaven it cannot say that
they deserve to suffer or die. These
brutal doctrines are well covered up but they are real Catholic teachings.
Original sin is an unnecessary evil and it shows that existence is a sin
for it is the punishment for coming into being.
TRUST BETRAYED
The Roman Catholic Church says that we have inherited a bias towards sin
from Adam. The true Protestants say that
we sin all the time unless we are saved by faith.
So, when a person does good for you it is more than half likely to be an
attempt to manipulate you for their selfish ulterior motive. When a person tells you something it is most
likely to be a lie.
And the Churches are the very people who ask for our trust. They say that it is a sin to be too
suspicious but yet they imply that you can’t be too suspicious. When everybody turns cynical they will make
themselves and others unhappy and this will lead to scheming and fighting. People will not care what they do, for each
individual will think that they must get everybody else before they get them. It is most likely that the religious people
only fake it when they seem to trust other people. If they do trust then they are not really
religious. They would not promote the
doctrine of preferring sinfulness or support cults that do it if they really
trusted others. They can’t trust others
when they tell lies and have them doing the same. They cannot trust themselves so how could
their trust for others be genuine?
It is blasphemy of the highest order to believe in God and what he has done
when you have to rely on treacherous men to hear the word of God and when they
interpret the word for you. Then you are
really seeing God as the men want you to see him and that is putting them first
and blaspheming God and espousing evil doctrine and opposing the truth that God
wants all to know. The blasphemy is a
most serious sin indeed.
And the believers condemn gossip.
If we are that bad does it really matter what people say about us? They can say we stole this or that and even
if it is not true that does not matter for we would have done something as bad
sometime. Everybody gossips and the
religious notion of original sin certainly makes sure that they will when they
dare to. It is clever how much religion
condemns evils and then persuades people that doctrines which will draw them to
commit them are true. That way it can
look like the enemy of evil while it sneakily tricks people into doing it. What is happening is that people end up
acting terribly because they believe they are terrible anyway so doing more
evil will make no difference.
Religion says that the gravity of a sin is reduced by the amount of evil
that is in the victim. For example, it
is evil to hit a saint but not as evil to hit a killer. If we are all evil then the person who beats
us up and nearly kills us is unjustly maligned by society. He is bad but his crime is a small one and
when society likes small crimes it should not deplore this one. When a person believes in such doctrines his
or her resistance to the temptation to commit sick acts will gradually wear
down. When they are caught and punished
they will not be sorry because they will see themselves as victims of
society. It will make them worse.
The law of the land would have to be revised to make it soft or evil if
we are that bad. Religion could say that
life and freedom are punishment enough.
Doctrines like this throw a damper on everything in life and make you
feel guilty all the time. God is
unlimited love so he hates unlove or sin infinitely. And the fact that sin would therefore be
infinitely evil means we should feel like we poisoned the whole world. Religion likes inducing guilt because it
makes us more malleable and it can use us better.
Since the priest or minister stands in the teaching role of Christ it
follows that any public sin they commit is very serious indeed. For example, if they slag somebody off it is
worse than a layperson doing it for the layperson is not in the leadership role
in representation of Jesus Christ and cannot transmute bread and wine into the
body and blood of God. The priest or
minister can turn people off the gospel and that is chiefly why it is such a
serious sin. And it mocks Christ for the
ministry has to try and show what Christ is like by example more than by
anything so that people may be drawn to him.
It is impossible then to see how a cleric sinning in public can commit a
venial sin for their sin pillories the person they represent.
TRADUCIANISM AND
CREATIONISM
Traducianism and Creationism are the two theories about the origin of the
spiritual soul.
Traducianism says that the soul is inherited from the parents. It is like the parents’ soul make a new
soul. This is used to explain why you inherit
original sin. But if that were the
reason why, then you would inherit your parent’s sins as well. The idea of two partless entities making a
new partless entity is absurd. It is
like saying two spaces can make new space.
When they have no parts how could they do it? It seems we have just a new spirit that has
nothing to do with the souls of the parents and which is directly created by
God. Only God could make a new soul. The Bible never says that souls can reproduce
souls. How could the soul reproduce when
it does not know that the woman the owner had sex with was not on the pill and
would make a new baby? This is
creationism which is supposed to be a separate theory.
Creationism says that the soul is made directly by God. The Church says that the soul is not made
corrupt by God but gets original sin from the body. It is the same as when a baby is born in a
slurry pit. The baby is pure and good
and is just born into filth. The soul is
good and pure but never gets a chance to be good and holy for it instantly goes
into the filth of original sin which ruins it.
This implies that the soul is good and is ruined by the body. The body must be bad and the vehicle of
original sin. This system does not
absolve God of responsibility for original sin and the venial and mortal sins
that spring from it. When God makes the
soul to be clean and pure that means it is the way it should be so why does he
send it into the body to ruin it? Why
can’t he stop the disease? Why can’t he
purify the flesh so that it will not transmit it? He admits souls should be made good for he is
good and then he sins. Small wonder
Islam and many religions hold that original sin is one of the blasphemies of
blasphemies of the Christian religion.
Conclusion
Original sin is a slander against humanity that is executed by the Church
for the purposes of instilling guilt and fear in people so that it can
manipulate them.
Wednesday, 09 April 2008
WORKS CONSULTED
CITY OF
EVERYMAN’S ROAD
TO HEAVEN, Leo J Trese, Geoffrey Chapman,
APOLOGETICS AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill &
Son,
RADIO REPLIES, VOL 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press,
THE SINNER’S GUIDE, Ven Louis of
CHRISTIANITY, David Albert Jones OP, Family Publications,
THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, John Calvin, Hodder and
THE FALL AND ORIGINAL SIN, WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY III, WILLIAM MORAN DD, ST PATRICKS COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH, CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY OF IRELAND, 1940