Is Original Sin Doctrine Found in Bible?

I know. But that doesn't change what the verse itself says ("just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned" not "sin spread to all men because Adam sinned"). And ultimately the only thing in question is whether or not Jesus was human (the result of man is the same, whether through Adam or through man's action).

 

Which verse are you speaking of???? Have you not read that after "the fall" God made them clothes. Not only that, but He involved Himself in their affirms (accepted Able's sacrifice, marked Cain, blessed them with children, saved Noah, chose Abrahm).

The problem, again, is that you seem to prefer philosophy over Scripture. Do you think, perhaps, that this is why God warns against such philosophies?

 

So you are again back to claiming Jesus had a "human nature" but not the same kind of "human nature" we have. Your suggestion Jesus was human without sharing in our humanity is an old heresy in disguise.

 

I understand the point, but disagree that the grammar itself implies that we were there with Adam.

 

Yea, it gets a bit tricky since there is so much that can be involved in these discussions. I should have been more clear earlier on. What drives the interpretation is the context, and I think that the context leans more towards focusing on death and explaining how all die without transgressing a command or the Law.

We do all sin, but the idea that we were corporately with or "in" Adam is not demanded by the Greek grammar (I suppose it isn't denied, either).

 

I would like to go back to the OP: Is the doctrine or original sin found in the Bible or was this man-made doctrine of Augustine?

Perhaps we can clarify our terms. The doctrine of Original Sin is not the creation of Augustine, though he was the first to explicate it in the terms that it has come down to us in the West. The Bible is full of references to the Fall and its continuing malevolent effects.

Jon wants us to believe that it's a baleful influence of neoplatonism, an attempt to impose a philosophical structure upon scripture. No one familiar with Augustine would deny the influence of neoplatonism on his thought, but it's also easy to overstate it. His formulation of Original Sin could well be posited without any reference to neoplatonism. (Thus also on his writings on the Incarnation and Redemption, which he admits is at odds with neoplatonism; indeed, according to Aristotle it is the chief weakness of neoplatonism to require emanations and demiurges and daemons when the concept of a Mediator can solve all those supposed philosophical problems).

If you read Aristotle, he is trying to reconcile the mass of Scripture on this point into a coherent account of why we are so lost. If he is hamstrung in his conclusions, it is not because he is attempting to reconcile human brokenness with neoplatonism but that he is trying to reconcile the Fall with the dogmas of the Catholic Church.

The early churchmen all agreed that the Fall resulted in cataclysmic results. They agreed on the concept of ancestral sin: Somehow, Adam's sin was passed on to all of humankind. Augustine's version differed from the Orthodox conception in that he believed that not only are all humans born in a fallen state, subject to win, but they also share in the guilt of Adam for the first sin.

Augustine's understanding has waned and ebbed through the centuries. A strict adherence to his doctrine means, of course, that stillborn babies and infants who die without baptism are consigned to hell because they share the guilt of Adam. In this context, the medieval concept of Limbo was not cruelty by the Scholastics but rather a softening of Augustine's doctrine. The return to Augustine's doctrine in the Reformation era was an attempt by the Catholic Church to assert that it alone, and its sacraments, could rescue even babies from hell. Today Augustine's doctrine on this point is pretty much ignored; many in the Latin Rite church today would even subscribe to granting the beatific vision to all infants, baptized or not.

Again, it was not neoplatonism that urged him toward his concept of Original Sin, but his desire to uphold the authority of the Catholic Church and its sacraments.

 

A point of clarification, Bro.

I had noted somewhere that the idea of original sin was present in some form with both Origen and Tertullian. My comment is that Augustine was the first I know of who tried to derive the idea from the New Testament, and he did this by applying to Scripture a philosophy most scholars now reject.

You are absolutely correct that there were consequences of Adam's sin. But, strictly from Scripture, the creation of a new human nature wasn't among them.

 

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish. Now you reject Augustine on the basis that he is "applying to Scripture a philosophy most scholars now reject." For someone who rejects neoplatonism as a rogue philosophy, despite its usefulness, what philosophy would "most scholars" "accept"? Probably not a Christian one, I suppose.

 

Hey Iconoclast. I hope all is well (I haven't conversed with you in awhile).

I am going to make a statement that applies to many here, and I hope you don't take it as a attack against you or as applying only to this post. I also hope that it is helpful, as is my intent.

The short answer is "no, the grammar of 3:23 does not teach the Doctrine of Original Sin".

The longer answer is that churches, teachers, and preachers have failed their congregations by not teaching biblical literacy. Study tools are more available than ever before, to include language tools. But for the most part it seems people are left to fin for themselves, and they come up short. Too often single verses are extracted and interpreted philosophically to support a doctrine, as in your post here.

Grammar does not teach doctrine. Context itself does not teach doctrine. But context, not grammar, drives interpretation.

The context of Romans 3:23 is not inherited sin but a justification by faith rather than through the Law. Paul is explaining the "law of faith" and that there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile - all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It is not that all mankind (past, present and future) have sinned (past, referring to the Fall) and fall (present) short of the glory of God but that all men (referring to those contemporary to Paul, Greek and Jew) have sinned and this principle applies to mankind (all sin and fall short of the glory of God). Paul is not speaking of a "sin nature" or of "original sin". His argument is that men are justified through the law of faith.

 

I do not believe Neo-platonism should drive interpretation (I also believe Tertullian was wrong to apply Stoic philosophy). My argument is that our philosophies and ideologies should not drive interpretation, but rather that we should hold our philosophies as lightly as we are able and seek to allow Scripture to dictate doctrine.

With Augustine, he determined that original sin was a biological issue. The "flesh" is evil and the "spirit" is good. This argument is present today (@Yeshua1 recently argued sin as a genetic issue necessitating the Virgin Birth), but it is rejected my most scholars today.

In terms of what I accept and what I reject, you are mistaken. My understanding is influenced by philosophy (I suspect this is common to all of us). But we need to realize what is our own understanding and what is actually written and taught in Scripture.

Again, my argument is not that philosophy in itself is bad. My argument is that we should bend our philosophy to Scripture and not Scripture to our philosophy.