That response works only if “original sin” is defined narrowly as endemic guilt or total incapacity for good—which is precisely the definition under dispute. What I’ve described is not “you can’t get it right every time,” but a structural account of why moral failure is intelligible at all once desire precedes judgment and choice becomes possible. Whether God “demands perfection” is indeed a separate question; my point here is simply about moral psychology, not divine requirements.
Forgive me, but you appear to be arguing something other than Original Sin, in the theological sense. Perhaps there is a psychological version, but it is not what the Christian faith seems to be trying to address or enforce.
The ultimate “Christian” expression is Calvin’s Depravity ruling, but most of the reformation stops short of that, while retaining the endemic, and insurmountable problem of sin in society as a whole.
The psychological reasons for sin are probably not in dispute.
Richard
I’m not defending Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity—but that isn’t the same thing as arguing “something other than” original sin in the Christian tradition. Many Christian accounts (including pre-Reformation and Eastern ones) treat original sin not as endemic guilt or total incapacity, but as a condition of disordered desire and impaired freedom that makes moral failure intelligible and widespread without making goodness impossible.
The point of the reformation was to declare that goodness without God / Christianity was impossible.
Take away that necessity you devalue, even nullify Christianity.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not agree with that exclusivity, or necessity doctrine, but that is where Original Sin sits in Christian Doctrine. Adam is the poisoner and Christ is the antidote.
Even though you have diverted slightly you are still implying that sin is not only inevitable it is almost impossible to succumb to it.
The flip side is that we can disown responsibility for sinning. Which makes confession irrelevant, and repenting pointless.
Richard
Then our disagreement is no longer about sin, but about whether one Reformation construal gets to function as Christianity’s definition. You’re treating a particular Reformation polemic—total incapacity for goodness apart from Christianity—as the definition of original sin, and then judging all alternatives by that standard. I don’t accept that move. Making moral failure intelligible and widespread is not the same as making it inevitable, and impaired freedom is not the same as overridden freedom. On the contrary, inevitability is what would dissolve responsibility and make confession meaningless; my account preserves responsibility precisely because each failure still involves assent and could have been resisted.
It is the difference of opinion that makes horse races.
We come at things from a different perspective and clash over definitions and linguistics, but…
perhaps
our understanding of God and theology is not as far apart as it appears.
Although I may still be a little too Universal for your tastes.
Richard