Friday, June 18, 2010

Reading Group, 5f


Concerning the Heresy of “Original Sin”

a. It may be asked: Could the redemption have been effected without the physical sufferings and death of the Redeemer? Could it have been effected only by means of those spiritual griefs and torments which He endured in Gethsemane? And isn’t too little attention given to the significance of Adam’s sin?

b. A reply depends on the words on Saint Paul to the Romans (5:12), specifically whether it should be translated “because all men have sinned” or “because in him all sinned.” Adam was not so much the cause of our sinfulness as he was the first to sin, and even if we were not his children, we would sin all the same.

c. The Apostle Paul distinguishes the event of Adam’s fall a the means – the way thought which sin appeared in the world – from the consequences of it, even though Adam’s sin with the cause.

d. Adam is not actively responsible for the indwelling of sin in the whole world, but rather was a sort of door which opened the way for sin.

e.Men are not condemned by Adam’s sin and, but for their own sinfulness, the consequence of which (death) began will Adam; but all have sinned, not in Adam, but because of Adam.

  1. What conception of original sin is Metropolitan Anthony criticizing? And what conception does he offer in its place?
  2. What consequences for redemption to the juridical understanding of original sin, and Metropolitan Anthony’s understanding, bear?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1. A. The concept of original sin that Metropolitan Antony is criticizing is the one that attributes moral guilt to all men because of Adam’s sin. Man is not evil by nature but is disobedient and prideful and in need of a school to correct his will.

B. Instead of this concept, the Metropolitan says all men are guilty because of their own sin and not because of Adam’s. What came into the world “through” Adam’s sin is death not the moral guilt of all mankind.

2. The consequences for redemption, I believe, end up being that one knows what redemption is and then how or what is to be attained. The consequences for redemption shifted to a specific anthropology and without knowing the nature of man (ie. inherently evil vs. tending towards waywardness) redemption won’t be understood because one won’t know what is to happen in man in order to be redeemed. With Met. Antony’s anthropology, redemption brings man to a school to learn to curb his will and to morally regenerate him. He doesn’t hint at what the consequences are for the inherently-evil-man belief except to say that the anthropology is different.

Matthew