Original Nonsense
Ministerial Meandering
Original nonsense
We largely have Augustine and Calvin to thank for the inculcation of our guilt complexes with the ludicrous idea of ‘original sin.’
If you choose to research this doctrine, you will find that it has the most tenuous basis in Scripture. In fact, unless you subscribe to the allegorical myth of the story of Adam and Eve, we are left with Paul’s letter to the Romans, and his argument in chapter 5, and the reference from David’s psalm 51, where he is repenting of his sin with Bathsheba. And that is all you will find in the bible on the subject.
Of the early church fathers, Origen is the closest to our gospel writers, and is the first to quote Romans 5:12–21, but he rejected the existence of a sinful state inherited from Adam. To Origen, Adam's sin sets an example that all humanity partakes in, but is not inherently born into. I’m happy with that. But I’m far from happy with Augustine, and I’m sure that Calvin modelled himself on Augustine - rather as I see the similar sort of bullying emanating from the White House now - although faith in God has nothing to do with the vitriol that spews forth from there.
To put it mildly, Augustine was a hedonistic hell-raiser until he decided that he’d had enough of that type of life. He had a son by a concubine and did a lot of what he liked until his mother, Monica, tried to arrange a marriage for him to a ten-year old girl. He was not too keen on the idea, but his mother got him to send his concubine away - so his relationships with women foundered quite abruptly here. He would have to wait until the girl was 12 anyway to be marriageable, and being in his thirties by now, it was not a particularly attractive proposition for either side.
He steeped himself in academia and gets buried in the concept of original sin, along with the idea of predestination, whereby God has already chosen his elect, and the rest of us are doomed to hellfire. Calvin loved this idea too, especially as he was (of course) one of God’s elect. Anyone who disagreed with these ideas were subject to persecution and torture. Augustine was the precursor and instigator of the infamous Inquisition. But he was ‘not a cruel man’ - we are told by some critics; ‘Like many later inquisitors, he disliked unnecessary violence and refinements of torture. He thought heretics should be examined "not by stretching them on the rack, not by scorching them with flames or furrowing their flesh within claws, but by beating them with rods". But he insisted that the use of force in the pursuit of Christian unity, and indeed that total religious conformity, was necessary, efficacious, and wholly justified. A model of kindness and tolerance, clearly.
Sadly, we are seeing more of the same now all around the world, led by the vulgar, the ignorant, the stupid, and self-obsessed. Augustine was not ignorant nor stupid, but he did not set a good example for the mediaeval Christian Church, and we continue to reap the ‘rewards’ of his doctrines. Just because some still adhere to them does not mean we must. Yes, he wrote many good things, and worked out a form of the world’s working that fitted his concept of how God had organized things. But not everyone thinks he was right. Large tranches of the Roman Catholic Church still do, but it is time to look carefully at those who pontificate what we must think, and then use our own faculties.
It is time to read more modern and open-minded theologians such as Hans Kung, along with those of the older brigades such as Thomas Aquinas, who acknowledged Aristotle in his theology, though the latter was pagan. Our brains do not need to be moulded entirely by dictats from previous generations - nor by the rantings of bullied political preachers today. Our job is to challenge what we hear, think about what we are told, research preposterous claims - and make up our own minds. That is why I have always asked you to question me over things you don’t understand or don’t agree with in my preaching. I am not always going to be right, and I have to do my homework too.
Never listen to nonsense without challenging it.
Philip+