Guilt?

[Ahimsa]

In Catholic theology, is a newly born baby “guilty” of anything? (Please cite source of argument within Catholic teaching documents, thank you very much.)

 

[water]

Hi Ahimsa,

It is the original sin.
I have this link to: newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm

Thanks for asking.

 

[DeFide]

In Catholic theology, is a newly born baby “guilty” of anything? (Please cite source of argument within Catholic teaching documents, thank you very much.)

No. From the Catechism:

405 Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

 

[Ahimsa]

Hi Ahimsa,

It is the original sin.
I have this link to: newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm

Thanks for asking.

Hi Water,

Thanks. I did a search for “guilt” in that article, and, basically, “guilt” did not show up. Does this mean that babies suffer from ‘original sin’, but they are not “guilty” of original sin? (That is, “guilty” meaning “responsible for”.) It seems that Adam and Eve are the only ones who are “guilty of”/“responsible for” original sin, not any of their descendants.

 

[water]

I quoted this from:

usccb.org/catechism/quizzes/os7.htm

Para. 404: How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man” (St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo 4, 1). By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, *the transmission of original sin is a mystery *that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam has received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, *Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state *(Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1511-1512). It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed”—a state and not an act.

 

[Liberian]

In Catholic theology, is a newly born baby “guilty” of anything? (Please cite source of argument within Catholic teaching documents, thank you very much.)

Ahimsa,

One respondent showed you from the Catechism that it is not so much “guilt” (meaning responsibility) as simply having to deal with the consequences of somebody else’s guilt. I post on an anti-Catholic forum and one of the more anti-Catholic posters there cited some centuries-old references that used the term “guilt” in connection with original sin. I did not bother to follow up … although perhaps I should have. I just wanted to note that the documents are out there, although it is entirely possible that (1) they are forgeries or (2) the definitions of the terms have changed over the centuries.

• Liberian

 

[Ahimsa]

Ahimsa,

One respondent showed you from the Catechism that it is not so much “guilt” (meaning responsibility) as simply having to deal with the consequences of somebody else’s guilt. I post on an anti-Catholic forum and one of the more anti-Catholic posters there cited some centuries-old references that used the term “guilt” in connection with original sin. I did not bother to follow up … although perhaps I should have. I just wanted to note that the documents are out there, although it is entirely possible that (1) they are forgeries or (2) the definitions of the terms have changed over the centuries.

• Liberian

Liberian,

Thanks. So to say that a baby is “guilty” is to misunderstand Catholic teaching?

 

[Lazerlike42]

In Catholic theology, is a newly born baby “guilty” of anything? (Please cite source of argument within Catholic teaching documents, thank you very much.)

A newly born baby is not guilty of anythihg. Guilt is incurred when a person commits a actual sin - a sin committed personally by the individual. This can be seen in, for instance, a letter of Pope Innocent III to the Archbishop of Arles: “We say that two kinds of sin must be distinguished, original and actual: original which is contracted without consent, and actual which is committed with consent.”

A newborn baby does have original sin, but that does not make him or her guilty of anything. Original sin simply means a lack of grace. When God created Adam and Eve, they had God’s grace within them by default, essentially. This is taught in several places. One is the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraph 398, in which it says man was “Created in a state of holiness…” The Council of Trent teaches the same thing in the Decree on Original Sin, section 1, which speaks of “the holiness and justice wherein [Adam] had been constituted.”

When they sinned, they lost that grace. Since then, all children have been born without grace, but not actually guilty of a personal sin. This can be seen in the CCC paragraph 399, which states that “Scripture portrays the tragc consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness.” Paragraph 400 explains the further effects of this first sin:

“The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”. Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”, for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history”

The previously referenced first section of the Council of Trent’s Decree on Original Sin also addresses this: "… the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted…’

This absence of grace is, as Innocent III wrote, contracted by those children who are now born. The Council of Trent teaches this in section 2 of the Decree on Original Sin:

“If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:–whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.”

One crucial distinction must be made between original sin’s lack of grace and actual sin’s guilt. Innocent III explains it, continuing in his letter: “Further, the punishment of original sin is the loss of the beatific vision, but the punishment of actual sin is the torture of Hell.” The council of Florence also addressed this.

Hope it helps! Feel free to ask any more questions.

 

[Ahimsa]

A newly born baby is not guilty of anythihg. Guilt is incurred when a person commits a actual sin - a sin committed personally by the individual.

Thanks. So, baptism washes away original sin, but not actual sin?

 

[Eden]

Thanks. So, baptism washes away original sin, but not actual sin?

An infant who is baptised only has original sin washed away, since they are not capable of having committed actual sin. But both original sin and actual sin are washed away in an adult who is baptised.

 

[Liberian]

So to say that a baby is “guilty” is to misunderstand Catholic teaching?

Yes.

• Liberian