Moral theology has not traditionally engaged the concept of “original sin,” beyond acknowledging its existence, and so I will leave it to my more learned colleagues in systematic theology to plumb the depths of what it might mean to affirm that the Blessed Virgin was conceived and born without the stain of original sin, and to engage the Augustinian conundrum of just how original sin was transmitted from our first parents down the generations to ourselves.

Instead I offer one fairly simple reflection that may in some sense bear on the topic at hand, as well as perhaps propose a bit of Gospel light on the terrible events of the Boston Marathon bombing, the much earlier domestic terrorism of my co-suburbanite Bernardine Dohrn, as well as any number of other claimants to the designation “social sin.” Thus, from a perspective of sin in moral theology it seems to make better sense to speak of this power of sin to make of us “bent ones,” to use the term employed by C.S. Lewis in his 1938 novel Out of the Silent Planet, the first of the Perelandra trilogy, for the opportunistic visitors from Earth. The aboriginal inhabitants of this pristine planet had never succumbed to original sin and so lacked an adequate vocabulary to speak of sin at all---original or personal.

Thus, in conclusion—and in relation to “theosis”—I wonder if it might make better sense in our contemporary mileu to return to the great Pauline insight of Romans 5:20 and to acknowledge, and trust, that indeed where sin abounds (original or otherwise) grace surely the more abounds. This means that in terms of “social sin” we have to speak of “social grace,” and that some exemplars of this social grace in the Boston bombings might be found in the dozens of people who literally risked life and limb to come to the aid of their injured companions, as well as to answer in faith, hope, and love the widely disseminated prayer-picture of 8-year-old Martin Richard who lost his life: “No More Hurting People—Peace.” This certainly would be a striking example of a recent First Communicant whose process of theosis helps us all confront and heal our sinfulness—original and otherwise.
James T. Bretzke       james.bretzke@bc.edu
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

2. Original Sin in Augustine's Confessions by Bryan C. Hollon

Given the fact that this is a discussion about original sin and theosis, I'll start by committing a few sins myself. Namely, I'm going to offer some comments about Augustine's Confessions in the hope of shedding some light on the relationship between original sin and theosis! Only a Baptist who reads little else besides Catholic and Orthodox theology could so thoroughly mix things up, as I am sure to do here.

Anyhow, as I read Augustine’s Confessions, I’m always struck by the fact that the most interesting comments regarding original sin are of a more existential nature. Augustine does, of course, understand original sin to be hereditary – originating with a historical Adam and Eve before flowing along to the rest of us through procreation. However, his greater concern, at least in Book I of the Confessions, is that sin precedes us in this life. That is, we are born into a world saturated with sin whether we like it or not. Long before we arrived, sin had made a mess of things. It has disordered our families (Patrick and Monica’s misplaced ambitions for Augustine), our economies (“the amusement of Adults is called business”), our educational culture (“the wine of error is poured into them for us by drunken teachers”), and much more.

In Augustine’s telling, when we are born into this world it is as though we are born into an ocean that has been thoroughly polluted to such an extent that we can’t help but become polluted and disordered ourselves. “Woe to you, torrent of human custom! ‘Who can stand against you?’ When will you run dry? How long will your flowing current carry the sons of Eve into the great and fearful ocean, which can be crossed, with difficulty, only by those who have embarked on the Wood of the cross? (1,26,25). Sin is a torrent of human custom flowing down through history – it carries us away in its current unless, by faith, we cling to the wood of the cross.

Sin has subsumed us from the time we emerged from our mother’s womb. And yet, having been born in the image of God with a natural desire for His grace and peace (“you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless”), we find this disordered world and our assimilation to it painful and deeply unsatisfying. In Augustine’s telling, we experience our own disorder as God’s wrath, and God’s wrath can be mercy, since it has the power to agitate our natural desire for God and lead us back to rest in God. This is the story told in the Confessions. Thus, I find Augustine in agreement with Guy Carter when he writes: “The teaching that humanity is created and destined for the divine majesty without congenital flaw preventing adherence to Christ by active faith was once the universal teaching of the universal Church. Perhaps it ought to be again,”

For Augustine, sin does not eliminate our natural desire for God. Sin disorders our natural desire for God, but God’s grace gives us active faith, which enables us to adhere to Christ (cling to the cross).

Regarding the specific questions listed on the “wakeuplazarus.net” page, I would have to say that Augustine’s Confessions, for the reasons that I’ve explained above very briefly, has shaped my reflections on original sin as much as any other text. Yet, I don’t believe that affirming the truthfulness of Genesis 1-3 requires believing in a historical Adam and Eve. Like Origen and many contemporary interpreters, I would say that reading these texts as a kind of historical record is to miss the point entirely. Obviously, this means that I don’t have much interest in Augustine’s speculations about sin being transmitted through sexual activity. Fortunately, Augustine has much more to offer in this discussion than his very time-bound observations about sin and sex. God has made us for himself, and because we are all subsumed by sin, our hearts are restless, indeed, until we find rest in God.
Bryan C. Hollon      bhollon@malone.edu
Malone University, Canton, OH44790

This topic choice pushes us to reflect on one of the most life-defining evils we face. I appreciate the framing which the opening comments gave us, as well as the three prompting questions. In the spirit of just ‘jumping in’ and in hopes of some back-and-forth dialogue, below are a few initial thoughts. I look forward to reading others thoughts, comments and questions.

One thought in regard to these questions in the campus classroom. The reality of original sin, the Fall and our fallen-ness often comes up in the undergraduate Catholic social teaching course which I regularly teach. The students don’t often bring it up by name, but their questions and examples certainly touch on the reality of original sin. They wonder for example about the roots of the enormous social injustices and evils that we examine, as well as our historical inability to truly eradicate even one of these grave problems. Some have also been victims of injustice themselves. Many have felt what St. Paul describes as not doing the good which I want but rather the evil which I do not want. It can certainly be challenging to address these questions and concerns, particularly when not all of the students in this required course are Christian. For the most part, though, they can all see the problem and have a desire and belief in at least some kind of justice and peace. With that in mind, it becomes an opportunity for teaching about the mystery of evil and original sin, as well as the good news of redemption and restoration.

On another note, the two letters of St. Peter help me to face the reality of original sin as well as the possibility of theosis. 2 Peter 3-4: teaches about both realities: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.” As the first two comments as well as the discussion questions make clear, we need to reflect on both original sin and theosis together, as well as on the Incarnate Son of God I would add. I also find 1 Peter 1-9 helpful in the way it can invite us to consider our fallen-ness as a form of exile, while also describing the hope of God’s mercy and the possibility of being born again as sons and daughters of God, and thus ‘coming home.

Marc Tumeinski      mtumeinski@annamaria.edu
Anna Maria College, Paxton, MA 01612

The college undergraduates I work with seem interested in original sin and thus Genesis 2:15-3:24 because they stand quite aware of the reality of evil. They want to move beyond merely memorizing biblical stories (although, I remind them, doing so would certainly help, if only because doing so makes the story familiar) to the narrative’s “true meaning.” My students at least struggle to comprehend the complexity of biblical narratives. Much like their texting and fast food predilections, they want a quick, tasty, easily-digestible “true meaning”—sort of like a Facebook meme. What original sin—or God help us, theosis—might actually include and thus mean for them remains unexplored. Unfortunately it requires more work (reflective, intellectual, spiritual) than many are willing to embrace. It’s that “betwixt and between” status—provoked yet still wary of matters ‘too deep’—that animates many classroom discussions.
Jeffrey Marlett       MARLETTJ@mail.strose.edu
The College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY

My favorite story about original sin comes from an old priest. He said, "I've been hearing confessions for fifty years and, believe me, there's no such thing as an original sin!"

I have always found it interesting that Catholics since Augustine have found Original Sin in Genesis, but Jews, who have been reading the scriptures longer than Christians, have never found it there.

Reading Augustine's De Baptismo recently, I was struck by the fact that in many places, peccatum originale can be translated as "an original sin" or "the original sin" (i.e., of the first humans). Latin contains no definite or indefinite articles, so they have to be supplied by translators.

Likewise, the words in Latin are not capitalized. It was only later that the biblical narrative was said to be about Original Sin.

Augustine introduced the concept to justify the Roman church's practice of baptizing infants. If baptism washes away sin, he reasoned, infants must have a sin that needs to be washed away. Today that kind of logic would not be allowed in a master's thesis, which highlights the sorry state of education during the decline of the Roman Empire.

In the ancient world, a child's soul was believed to be entirely contained in the male seed. Women contributed nothing except fertile ground in which the seed was planted. Augustine was thus able to explain how a deficiency in Adam's soul was passed on to all his descendants. This explanation would get an F in high school biology.

So I agree with the old priest. Attempts to explain Original Sin are like attempts to explain how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Lastly, just because theosis comes from the eastern tradition, let's not mystify it. Theosis or divinization refers to the same process as sanctification in the western tradition. The Orthodox call it becoming more like God; Catholics call it becoming more holy or more Christ-like. But it's the same process in real life.
Joseph Martos       jmartos@bellarmine.edu
Louisville, KY

6. Rethinking original sin by Richard Crane

Liberation theologians, and long before that, Social Gospellers, among others, called attention to the ways that sin becomes embedded and institutionalized in systems, structures, and institutions that constrain individual choices and actions. There comes a point in the maturation process where humans exercise genuine moral agency, but the game boards on which we act are always tilted in some respects. Our moral imaginations are shaped in ways that enable us to “see” some things and not see other things. Bryan already said something similar in his expression of appreciation for Augustine’s insights of a more existential nature.

Perhaps one of the most important dimensions of a reformulated account of original sin (or something like original sin) might be the profound insight that, due to the sin that precedes us, such that our identities are shaped in ways that are, from long before our own exercise of moral agency, distorted and disfigured, we are victims before we are “villains.” There is a sense in which the deep insights of the doctrine of original sin, appropriately recast in light of recent understandings of human origins, should make us see the human person as sinner through a lens of compassion rather than harshness.

In my General Education theology classes, for example, my students read a tragic story of a young man named Karl who was bullied in 7th grade. Daily, he was subjected to intimidation and violence and humiliation and these experiences of shame and fear and repressed rage. Out of this experience (and think of the Korean concept of ‘han’ if anyone has read Andrew Park’s work), out of the deep wounds that disfigured his soul, Karl became a bully himself. He retaliated, handing out beatings to each of his tormenters and Karl, finally receiving respect, came to own an identity as a violent person. He became increasingly violent, engaged in criminal acts, etc. He became a villain, became morally blameworthy at some point as he consented and came to celebrate the violent person he was originally forced by the sins of others to become. I suggest to my students that Karl was placed into a situation so destructive that there was no way he could emerge unscathed or innocent. This happened in the 1960’s, when being bullied was seen as something each kid should figure out how to handle for (in this case) himself. He was literally abandoned with no parental support system. There were no non-destructive options on the table for Karl. Even if Karl had passively accepted mis-treatment, it would have left him so emotionally scarred that he would have acted destructively at some point, even if he turned the destruction on himself through suicide, depression, chemical addiction, etc.

Thinking about Walter Benjamin’s analogy of the angel of history, watching the train-wreck of human catastrophe unfolding like a multi-car pile-up on a foggy day on the interstate, human history is a kind of chain-reaction in which every action continues to “happen,” to have a ripple effect of destructive consequences.

In light of evolutionary understandings of human origins, I wonder whether we can still retain some kind of sin-death connection (since Romans 5 suggests some kind of mysterious human solidarity in sin and death). Is there a way to retrieve St. Ireneaus’ sense that death is not so much a punishment (retribution) as an act of divine mercy, a stop-gap measure to prevent the identity of the human person as sinner from becoming the human person’s perpetual and eternal identity? Could it be that death was woven into creation, into the evolutionary process precisely because of a divine anticipation of human sin? This question is one I haven’t thought through adequately as of yet, but given the patristic soteriological emphasis on healing humanity of the condition of mortality, I wonder if we should jettison this notion as quickly as Mahoney seems to have done?

Quick note on theosis: given the tendency of some to speak of theosis as if it were strictly an eastern soteriological motif, this statement in Aquinas is quite interesting (ST IaIIae q. 112 a.1): The gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing short of a partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature. And thus it is impossible that any creature should cause grace. For it is as necessary that God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness, as it is impossible that anything save fire should enkindle.
Richard Crane,       rcrane@messiah.edu
Messiah College, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

We need to look more deeply at both sin and theosis.
I agree with Bryan Holon that the historical truthfulness of Genesis 1-3 is not relevant. Rather, the passage is Gen. 3 describes the real situation in which all find themselves, not some preternatural punishment. Part of it is what Richard Crane describes as the sin embedded in structures. Original sin preceds human action. It
can be understood as an ongoing human context rather than an historical event or action. Human sin, beyond what we call “original,” is often enhanced and tempted into being by the bad stuff of real life. It is “original” in that it exists beyond and before human choice. Like our primal parents, we feel crabby, tired, sick, unloved, unlovable. We are addicted, afraid, driven by passion. We are caught in the reality of choices which demand the embrace of one good and rejection of another. Basic Catholic moral theology names these as impediments to moral responsibility.

Theosis is embedded in an understanding of Baptism.
The sacrament testifies that human alienation does not have to prevail. Even our own immoral choices can be overcome. The essence of a quote from the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, says it well: “In the end all will be good. If things are not yet good, it is not yet the end.” The grace of God, that is God’s presence in persons, in communities, in creation, ultimately can conquer bad self image and other stuff that stunts human flourishing. God is not located in some other world. Theosis holds out the hope that human beings can know God face to face. I submit that this can occur only in the venue where we are: the persons who love us--including ourselves--and the creation that surrounds us. The promise of God’s intimate presence, the reality of God-with-us, is the ultimate antidote to impediments and to sin. This idea carries with it a responsibility to be God's presence as purely and fully as we can.
Dee Christie       dlchristie@aol.com
John Carroll University

Derek C. Hatch,      dhatch@hputx.edu
Howard Payne University
Brownwood, TX 76801

Because I work in the area of Catechesis in my diocese, assisting parishes with catechetical materials for children from kindergarten to high school, I was intrigued by the question of how the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and original sin is handled in Sunday school. I have to confess that I couldn’t answer the question off the top of my head. I went back to the various catechetical materials we have on hand and began hunting through the table of contents, the glossaries, and indices to see what I could find.

I must say first that the materials used in our parishes could roughly be divided into two groups, one – the Baltimore catechism-style publications that present doctrinal formulations as statement or questions to be memorized (these usually include prayers and Bible stories but limited opportunity for children to ‘respond’); and two – the programs that begin in the child’s experience (for example, experience in family or classroom) and proceeds from there to stories of experience of the people of God (liturgical/biblical/historical) and then seeks response to God.

Not surprisingly, the first group of materials tells the Adam and Eve story just as it is found in the Bible from a very early age (definitely by the first grade) with Augustine flavoured statements of how we all inherit this original sin – generation after generation.

More interesting to me is the second group of materials because it was difficult to find the Adam and Eve story in any great detail in these texts. Of course, each book makes mention of Creation. God created the world; God created everything; God created Adam and Eve and loved them and wanted to live in harmony with them. The entire story of original sin is almost always summed up in a brief statement (right from the kindergarten program up to sixth grade) that says, “Adam and Eve decided to do something God told them not to. We call this Original Sin.” Later, there is usually the statement that Baptism removes Original Sin. It left me wondering what the young people in our parishes really believe about original sin. I would think that the catechesis they are receiving (in the printed texts at least) makes it difficult to distinguish original sin from personal sin. My favourite presentation came in a Confirmation program (Confirmed in the Spirit by Loyola Press) that presents original sin without any reference to Genesis 2-3 at all. It begins the chapter with Ezekiel 36:24-28 and an explanation of how the Israelites were forced to live in exile and how Ezekiel was an important messenger to them. He was sent to tell the Israelites that God wanted to forgive them and fill them with his Spirit so they could “become a new people.” The text then says “Being born with Original Sin means that we have been born in exile, apart from God.” The concept of being born in exile has been a helpful one for me to reflect on this week. Exile holds the meaning of place (because of original sin I’m somewhere other than where I was meant to be) and of condition (I exist in conditions that are hostile and unfavourable). Exile speaks to me of a ‘force’ that keeps me apart from the place and conditions for which I am meant. So there would be need of a liberating ‘force’ to counteract that. Exile also carries with it the feeling of yearning to go home. So I am born yearning to be back where and how I was meant to be.

So I am left thinking that Ezekiel may be much more helpful on Original Sin than Genesis 2-3.
Anne Jamieson      anne.jamieson@mail.utoronto.ca
Doctor of Ministry Student at University of Toronto
& Director of Catechesis for the Hamilton Diocese

Probably now, if I was asked to teach this age (I had done so many years ago), I would probably avoid scriptural references altogether and go with an existential approach to how they interact with other children and what makes them be unkind, etc. Most of all they need to know of God's love. Of course, one only knows that if one experiences unconditional human love. As you suggest in the second paragraph, a later introduction to the story of Gen. 3, as a story not an historical event, might work.

Eve wasn't happy with herself. She wanted to be different--like God. The result ultimately was loss of good connections with Adam, God, her own body, and the earth. See, even a grown-up who knew God can have a really bad day. The connection of the community is symbolized in our public celebration of Baptism, the promise and guarantee of God's love through family and community. Without that, we ARE in exile. With that promise, we can be hopeful that the evil that surrounds us and pulls us will not win. We all experience this in life, and grade school is the place where it may hurt the most from playground bullies who don't love us the way family does to our own physical or other shortcomings. We see it in the news with bombings and kidnappings which tear us apart or keep us locked in the dark.
Dee Christie       dlchristie@aol.com
John Carroll University

I share the sentiment expressed by Derek Hatch: these are important topics that do not receive the attention they deserve. Original sin and deification are not exclusive alternatives but complementary aspects of the message of the Gospel. Christ came both as the remedy for sin and to communicate a share in the divine life, and one and the same process achieves both.

Augustine did not have a completely coherent theory of human nature. Nor did he formulate a systematic distinction between the natural and supernatural orders. Beyond affirming the mystery of original sin, then, it is not too surprising that he was unable to work out a satisfactory hypothesis about its transmission or its implications. Like St Paul, Augustine derived his understanding of the role of the Old Adam from that of the New. He supposed the unique, historic mediation of Christ. He supposed the necessity of baptism into Christ’s death. Infants meaningfully die with Christ to sin, because in some way they already lie under the condemnation of sin. Conversely, everyone without exception lies under the condemnation of the law because in Adam, all have fallen. Just as one is incorporated into the New Adam by generation and not merely imitation, so one inherits the sin of the Old Adam by generation and not merely imitation. We might wish to distinguish a few of the premises, but, given his suppositions, there is nothing wrong with his logic.

A further element in Augustine’s teaching is the assertion, which came into focus only in the Pelagian controversy, that concupiscence (not mortality) is the main carrier of original sin. Augustine’s account here needs differentiating, but he is on to something important and it is not clear that Mahoney’s argument (relying on Paul Misner’s summary) really addresses it.

Augustine could not make up his mind about the origin of the soul, but one position he ruled out conclusively was that the soul was contained in the male seed. Once Augustine broke with Manichaism and came to understand the soul as spiritual and not corporeal, he could not accept the North African tradition of traducianism, which held that the soul is a kind of corporeal reality transmitted through the generative act of the parents. He wavered between two different explanations of the origin of the soul: creation from nothing, and creation out of the soul of the parents. Both had problems, and he never committed himself fully to either; but he did reject biological propagation of the soul. His theory of concupiscence led him to link the transmission of original sin to the act of carnal generation, but this was not because he thought original sin could be adequately explained on the level of biology.

What one finds in Thomas Aquinas is an analysis that has three coordinates: nature, sin, and grace. As sin deforms nature and is thus “de-humanizing,” so grace is not merely a remedy for sin (gratia sanans) but also exceeds nature and is deifying (gratia elevans). Healing and elevating are not two separate graces but two functions of the same gift which, fundamentally, is the personal gift of the Spirit with its consequent effects in human persons. Grace is not only conceived in relation to sin, whether original or actual; it is also conceived in relation to nature.

Thomas Aquinas thought of original sin as (in part) a kind of deficiency in the nexus or order between what we might call the “psychological” and the “spiritual” genera of human development. But this privation is not so much a damage to human nature as it is the loss of a gift that was originally enjoyed by our first parents. He points out that the due submission of desires rooted in the sensitive part to the government of the higher, rational part is not given but must be achieved by us.

Prior to the Fall, this paradox of human finitude was resolved by a grace that bestowed harmony (original rectitude) on the souls of the first parents. By their Fall, they forfeited this gift for themselves and their progeny. The Fall had the further (“Lamarckian”) consequence of disordering the “matter” they would hand on through generation. Thus, not only do the children of Adam lack the gift of original rectitude that would solve the problem of development for them; also the “matter” they receive through generation is not properly disposed to the governance of the higher, rational part of the soul infused immediately by God. Thomas Aquinas explained that the defect is in the ordination of the matter to the form; it is not a defect in the form, i.e., the soul, but a defect in the disposition of the matter. Thus he worked out an account of the transmission of original sin in De malo that does not attribute any defect to the soul per se.

Thus, the original condition of human beings after the Fall is one in which there is a disharmony between the various genera of powers that are integrated into a single human being, and, moreover, a tendency toward insubordination on the part of the passions. This theory could be improved in very many ways, but it has some signal merits.

First, it is relatively independent of one’s biology, since the locus of the problem is not in human organic development, but in the ordination of the passions, rooted in the body, and the higher, rational powers of the soul to one another. Contemporary natural sciences operate with many reductive assumptions, and do not (cannot) deal very adequately with the psychological, intellectual, and moral genera of human development. It is to these higher genera that “original sin” must in some way pertain.

Second, it squares with some significant evidence that has to be explained one way or another: the difficulties of integration between the psyche and the spirit are well known and very prominent facts of human development. Personal integration, spiritual and psychic harmony, is not the default position of human beings in their present condition; it has to be achieved (or given), and the achievement is both extremely complicated and precarious. It is not clear why we should suffer the kind of profound tendencies to disintegration that in fact we do suffer. The doctrine of original sin postulates a basic rupture at the beginning of human history (peccatum originale originans), which introduced personal and communal alienation and disorder as permanent features of our development (peccatum originale originatum). This postulation may be unverifiable, but at least the consequences it would explain are in ready evidence.

As others have suggested in their own ways, my hunch is that part of a more satisfactory theory will be an account of the constitutive function of meaning in human living. Meaning is constitutive of personal and communal identity, but the meanings concretely available for us are always deformed and therefore reinforce deformation. Along some such lines, it might be possible to work out an account of original sin as propagated through mutual self-mediation, and not merely contracted by imitation. But I do not feel that I am presently in a good position to sort it out.
Jeremy D. Wilkins       jeremy.wilkins@utoronto.ca
University of Toronto

I always wondered after having read Augustine's biography, how his own personal narrative influenced his motivation to make sense of the sinful and exploitative relationships he had as a young man. How did his own internal wild man, who engaged in drunkenness, sexual carousing, who fathered a son he did not adequately attend to, and other types of wanton behavior, become the fodder of his universalized meaning making? How did Augustine's post conversion reality come to be identified with Paul's sentiment that he was waging a war within his own body-- where he struggled against the will of the spirit and the will of the flesh. I wonder if his development of the doctrine of original sin in many ways did not become the serpent of the creation stories. Just as he located blame for his behavior on original sin, and Adam and Eve blamed the snake for their disobedience, the interpreters of several millennia have located original sin as the reason for evil entering the world, and our sinful participation in it, has required dualistic interpretations of what it means to be human.

However, a spiritually profound, and scientifically astute observation of nature reveals competing dynamics which lead me to wonder, how "somewhere, ages and ages hence the path not taken" might have spawned a very different reality. What if Irenaeus' 2nd Century interpretation of the meaning of being human had won out? What if "The Glory of God [was considered] the human being fully alive"? What kind of church and society would we have if Irenaeus' interpretation of humanity as mediators of God's grace (rooted in the Genesis 1 Creation story) had won out over the story of the Fall in Genesis 2 with its focus on sin?  How would a Christian community make manifest the idea that "the Glory of God is the human being fully alive" and thus promote personal and social responsibility with the same fervor with which many currently beat their chest, bow their heads and say "mea culpa"?

Perhaps our contemporary focus on the issue original sin requires the awareness that our true identity is found in the imago dei tradition, that indeed we are beautifully and wonderfully made, and that indeed the Glory of God is the human being fully alive. If we strive for union with God in every aspect of our existence we come to recognize that our actions give witness to our being, irrespective of dogmatic allegiances. But so long as we focus on the sinful nature of our being, we can scapegoat minor sins and inconceivable evil on the idea we were born that way.

Elsie Miranda       emiranda@mail.barry.edu
Barry University