Note:
This post may solely be of interest to those following this thread-
yet not posting to same. In this post, I challenge the very basis of
Christian doctrine: ‘original sin.’
“Ideas have consequences…”
-Saul manufactured ‘original’ sin. He was a brilliant man,
and he was taught by the grandson of Hillel. He knew darn
well that Judaism did not hold that the sin of Adam was
‘inherited’ by each man and woman. [Judaism, in terms of
the dominant thought, holds that man is born in innocence.]
While it may have shifted the view from a military savior,
Christianity actually teaches a God/man, as savior.
Yet where appears the acknowledgment ------> that God forgave sin,
offering both mercy and eternal life to* all* people, not just
members of the chosen people…and this was taught
centuries before the birth of Jesus.
This reality [God forgives sin, in the OT] abrogated the ‘need’ for a savior -
from personal sin, quite obviously. So Saul now teaches a doctrine foreign to
the parent faith: ontological sin. A sin in man’s very being.
[This, then, providing cogency - to the novel doctrine that
a savior was needed from this purported ‘inheritance’ from Adam.]
This is why doctrine, concerning original sin, is held to be
a ‘hinge’ doctrine.
No original sin = no need for a savior from same.
The Church, herself, sees the criticality of this doctrine.
CCC from Vatican website, # 389
The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the “reverse side” of the Good News
that Jesus is the Savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation
is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ,
knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin
without undermining the mystery of Christ.
It was from this teaching that concepts like Limbo were
discussed… for 700 years. An off-the-wall speculation:
-that an innocent, who died before baptism, would be
deprived of the beatific vision, for all eternity.
The colossal error, of this teaching, provided a field
ripe for such speculation:
At one point, Augustine held that such infants would be subject to
the ‘positive miseries of the damned.’
Even the Baltimore Catechism, of days past,
taught that these infants would be deprived of heaven.
To cavil over the point that this was never official teaching, is to ignore the salient fact -
that it
was taught - to generations of Catholics, and speculated upon for 7 centuries.
This is where the falsity of the doctrine of original sin is seen most clearly.
Room was made - for such speculation [based on the doctrine of original sin]:
Limbus patrum,
Limbus infantium.
newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm
This, to me, points to the colossal error of teaching a God/man -
the ‘need’ for whom is based in an erroneous teaching: original sin.
reen12
