The Christian Vanguard

 A common claim among Christians who deny Original Sin is that the doctrine in some way originated with St. Augustine. St. Augustine lived between 354 and 430 AD. There are, however, texts that predate St. Augustine that do refer to the doctrine of Original Sin. For example, you have in Sirach 25:24, the following verse, "From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die."  Sirach is considered canon by Catholics, but suppose for the sake of argument it is not. It would still be true that Jews at the time thought this, since Sirach was written around 180 BC. That's still 500 years before St. Augustine. What does this verse show? It shows that Eve's sin is the cause of our death. Does it mean just physical death? Looking at the context of this verse, which begins at 25:13, it is about the spiritual dangers of an evil woman. So it is more likely here that it speaks of spiritual death, if not physical as well. And to be caused by our original parents to b...

I have an anabaptist coworker, and we got the talking about Original Sin. After pointing out Romans 5 to him and how it talks about how Adam's sin lead to the condemnation of all people, he pointed to a verse in the OT that says we will not inherit the iniquities of our fathers (which I have dealt with before on my short 3 part series on Original Sin, which you can find here , here , and here ). I then pointed to other OT verses that seem to say the opposite, my point being that with the ambiguity in the OT, we should look to the NT for a clear interpretation. But it occurs to me now that perhaps that isn't even necessary. His response was that the OT verses I pointed out only show that we suffer sins consequences. Is this a good response? It is not. According to Romans 6:23, after its long emphasis on the fallen state of humanity, says that the wages of sin are death. In contrast, our reward in Jesus is eternal life, and because that contrast is being made, we know that dea...

Some Protestants have cited the following from Aristides , a 2nd century Christian, against the doctrine of Original Sin.  And when a child has been born to one of them, they give thanks to God; and if moreover it happen to die in childhood, they give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins. Does this show that Aristides taught children (some translations have "infancy" instead of "childhood", while other translations, like the Syriac, doesn't have it at all!) don't have original sin? Not at all, and to think that it does is to read it into the text. So, the Protestant wants to say that if a child dies in infancy, then he dies without sin. And he can only die without sin if he has no Original Sin. This is not true. Catholics believe in Original Sin and we also believe that infants can die without sin. How? Through baptism. An infant who is baptized can pass through this world without sin. It isn't true that t...

I came across an argument against the immaculate conception of Mary. Though, it may not have been exactly that. More precisely, it was argued that the belief in the immaculate conception was inconsistent with the belief that Mary is the woman described in Revelation. In short, the woman described in Revelation has birthing pains. Birthing pain is a consequence of original sin. Mary had no original sin. Hence, either the woman described in Revelation is not Mary, or Mary had original sin. 

In Part II of my series on Original Sin, I quoted some people and documents as an interpretive guide for a better understanding of Original Sin. I want to unpack those quotations here in this post.

This continues my series on Original Sin. In the previous post we looked at some of the biblical data on Original Sin. In this post, I want to look at some statements from Catholics to help us better understand what Original Sin is. I've heard some different statements of Original Sin and if one wants to object to it, it would be beneficial to understand what it is one is objecting to. 

In Christendom, the doctrine of Original Sin is not controversial. There have been notable Christians whom have denied it such as Pascal and presently Swinburne, but there hasn't been any significant group of Christians who deny it. To deny the doctrine is to easily fall into the Pelegian heresy. However, many of my friends are members of the International Church of Christ, and they deny Original Sin, and though they're not a significant portion of Christendom, they're significant to me simply because many of my friends are members, and so I want to dedicate a couple posts to the topic. In this first post, biblical data will be the focus.

Chapters four and five deal with the same theme: soteriology, or, salvation, and the relationship between faith, works, grace, repentance, etc. I’ll be dealing with chapter four and appendix II here, and chapter five in my next post. It doesn’t take a paragraph before Ferguson begins to salivate at the thought of straw-men. He writes, “Although their theologians can quote certain writings which seem to support a more biblical position regarding works and grace, the average Catholic has little grasp of the biblical message.”