I keep thinking about the discussion we at the Roy Branson Legacy Sabbath School had with Gary Chartier last Sabbath (March 25, 2023) about “Original Sin” and other things. This was in connection with Chapter 8 in his recent book Loving Creation: The Task of the Moral Life (Fortress Press, 2023). The title of this chapter is “Creational Love, Sin and Virtue.
Chartier earlier in this book had depicted love as "Appropriate regard for the well-being of those one loves (Including oneself).” Although in the book he gives little attention to it, those of us in the discussion nudged him in the direction “Original Sin” and he was happy to oblige.
When we asked him about it, Chartier expressed both appreciation for and reservations about the doctrine of “Original Sin.” In what follows, I hope to do the same in my own words and feelings.
On the one hand, this is one of the best ideas humans have ever had. This is so in far as it reminds us that all individuals and institutions are forever finite, flawed and fallen. Whether personal or communal, we act destructively when we forget this.
This means that we always need "checks and balances" to reduce the degree to which we hurt others and ourselves. Reinhold Niebuhr put this memorably with "Man's capacity for justice makes justice possible but man's capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary.”
On the other hand, this is one of the worst ideas that humans have ever had. This is so in so far as it states or implies that the unhelpful tendencies with which we are born are so sinful that God cannot accept even an innocent baby unless an equally or even more innocent adult is tortured to death.
I can think of no idea more contrary to the Psalmist's joy that "God's steadfast love endures forever" or Ezekiel's insistence that "The one who sins is the one who will perish." Paul, who is often depicted as being a champion of "original sin" does not say "All are born guilty of original sin." He says "all have sinned.”
In the end, though, this problem is never solved by citing texts, Biblical or otherwise. The final question is whether one can even imagine a god who regards newborns so harshly. I can’t.
Only those who have been around medical emergency rooms for a while know what hurtful things adults do to newborns and children when their love for them is adulterated or even absent altogether. Most of these clinicians won't talk about it and rightly so.
Although there might be some, I know of no religion other than the dominant forms of Christianity which teach that all babies are born with God-condemning inherited guilt. Even the ideas behind practice of scarifying children to the gods don't do this. They wrongly gave to the gods what they cherished most.
Born flawed? Yes. Inherently guilty? No.
Thank you, Gary!