Original Sin Teaching is Wrong?

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According to the Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic teaching of Original Sin is wrong.

To quote Wikipedia:

St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), working with a Latin translation of the epistle, understood Paul to have said that Adam’s sin was hereditary: “Death passed upon (i.e. spread to) all men because of Adam, [in whom] all sinned”.[7] Original sin, the concept that man is born in a condition of sinfulness and must await redemption, thus became a cornerstone of Western Christian theological tradition through Augustine’s misunderstanding of Paul’s Greek - the belief is** not shared by Judaism or the Orthodox churches**, and has been dropped by some post-Reformation churches.

Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, which together make up Eastern Christianity, acknowledge that the introduction of ancestral sin into the human race affected the subsequent environment for mankind, but never accepted Augustine of Hippo’s notions of original sin and hereditary guilt. The act of Adam is not the responsibility of all humanity, but the consequences of that act changed the reality of this present age of the cosmos. The Greek Fathers emphasized the metaphysical dimension of the Fall of Man, whereby Adam’s descendants are born into a fallen world, but at the same time held fast to belief that, in spite of that, man remains free. Instead of accepting the Lutheran interpretation of Augustine’s teaching, Orthodox Churches accept the teaching of John Cassian, which rejects the doctrine of Total Depravity, by teaching that human nature is “fallen”, that is, depraved, but not totally.

Does this prove that the RCC is** not** infallible?
Does this prove that the RCC is the Church that left the True Church (Orthodox)?
 
NEVER MIND.

The Dogma of Original Sin** IS** correct.

Sorry.
 
Hi 300,

You have noted that Eastern Catholics do not use the “original sin” terminology. Eastern Catholics are just as Catholic as you and me, and therefore their terminology is just as Catholic as ours.

Here is an article from the Catechism of the Catholic Church :

****QUOTE]
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.


Note : “the deprivation of original holiness”. Original sin is not a “spot” on your soul. It is a deprivation of something you would have had had not our first parents sinned.

St. Augustine lived in the 4th Century and I have news for you : Christians were baptized before that time in order to “resurrect” in Christ. That is what the Eastern Churches teach : that we inherit spirtual death because of our first parents but that we resurrect in Christ through baptism. That is why they insist so much on baptism by immersion, through which, in St. Paul’s comparison, we are buried with Christ and resurrect in Him.

I personally regret the Augustinian terminology, but the notion of a soiling sin that is “washed away” by the waters of baptism IS easier to explain than spiritual death and resurrection.

Bottom line, East and West believe the same thing.

Verbum
 
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