I believe with Adrian that the Holy Spirit guides the Church, but I also
think with Luther than "councils may err" as well as that human beings may
err; and perhaps we are not always getting right what the Holy Spirit is
"breathing" upon us. Cardinal Newman gave to the Catholic Church the gift
of the nation that theology undergoes historical development. It is a good
principle for any Christian tradition to adopt, and the doctrine of original
sin, which has been interpreted in a variety of ways, in my view, certainly
needs a good going over, especially as we come to understand better and
better the evolution of homo sapiens and gain greater insight into the
evolution of the psyche, and perhaps also, the moral sense.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Teo" <ateo@whitworth.edu>
To: "'Dr. Blake Nelson'" <bnelson301@yahoo.com>; <MikeSatterlee@cs.com>;
<asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 2:13 PM
Subject: RE: Bear sacrifice
> Hello Blake,
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Dr. Blake Nelson [mailto:bnelson301@yahoo.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 10:41 AM
> > To: Adrian Teo; 'MikeSatterlee@cs.com'; asa@calvin.edu
> > Subject: RE: Bear sacrifice
> >
> > I am puzzled by what traditional understanding you are
> > talking about? If you mean Original Sin, the doctrine
> > originated with Tertullian (unsurprisingly a lawyer by
> > trianing) and was propounded by Augustine to a degree
> > unprecedented among the Church Fathers up to that
> > point.
> >
> > The Eastern Orthodox church has never taken
> > Augustine's elaboration of that doctrine very far,
> > having a much less legalistic and more "positive"
> > theological bent.
> > So, the doctrine is only
> > well-established in the Western Church and
> > protestantism has taken Augustine's elaboration of
> > original sin farther than Catholicism has. So, if you
> > are talking about original sin as dogma, it is largely
> > an Augustinian exegetical gloss and one that is not
> > prevalent in one of Christianity's major traditions --
> > the Eastern Orthodox Church and less prevalent in
> > Catholicism than in protestantism.
>
> AT: Timothy Ware, in his book _The Orthodox Church_ writes:
> "The consequence of Adam's disobedience extended to all his descendents."
> (p.223, new ed.) The eastern church has traditionally the consequences of
> the fall as less severe, but, in accord with Catholicism and most of
> Protestantism, accepts Adam as the source of original sin.
>
> Catechism of the Catholic Church 404. "How did the SIN of Adam become the
> SIN of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam 'as one body
of
> one man'.[St. Thomas Aquinas, De malo 4, I.] By this 'unity of the human
> race' all men are implicated in Adam's SIN, as all are implicated in
> Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of ORIGINAL SIN is a mystery
that
> we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had
> received ORIGINAL holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all
> human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a
personal
> SIN, but this SIN affected the human nature that they would then transmit
in
> a fallen state.[Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1511-1512.] It is a SIN which
will
> be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission
> of a human nature deprived of ORIGINAL holiness and justice. And that is
why
> ORIGINAL SIN is called 'SIN' only in an analogical sense: it is a SIN
> 'contracted' and not 'committed' - a state and not an act."
>
> Again, a clear affirmation that Adam is the source of original sin.
>
>
> > When one makes a "theological" statement one has to
> > also look at when that point of theological
> > understanding developed and based on whose exegetical
> > gloss. Likewise, one has to look at the entirety of
> > the Christian tradition to make an assessment about
> > how fundamental it is to Christian doctrine.
>
> AT: I agree. But if one believes that the Holy Spirit guides the church in
> truth, then doctrines are more than just the personal conclusions of any
one
> person in time. They have been discussed, debated, and finally accepted or
> rejected at the various councils and synods, under the guidance of the
Holy
> Spirit.
>
> Blessings,
>
> Adrian.
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