I have a bit of a habit of coming in on blog discussions after they have finished but both Tom and Andreana wrote a piece on original sin on their blogs that I thought were very interesting and I have been thinking about them a lot. I guess one of things that really inspired this thought is that I spend a lot of time watching a new born baby and I have wondered if I think she is essentially sinful. I have decided that the answer is no. I suppose many will think that is just an emotional response and I accept that a lot of it is but I also think it is biblical and I will explain that now.

The cosmology (to use Andreana’s phrasing) that I grew up with and that I want to raise my child with is that she is made in the image of God and that she is a precious, wonderful part of His creation. As it is says in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Then in Genesis 1:31, “God saw all that he had made and it was very good.” So then Adam and Eve sin and God says, “the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil” Genesis 3:22. Therefore, I don’t think Adams sin automatically means that the rest of humanity is no longer made in God’s image or negates thne fact that God’s creation is “very good.” For God created Adam and Eve (as he does the rest with us) with the free will to choose sin and knowing that he still thought it was good.

I also think that the story of the Bible as a whole is calling us to take responsibility for our sin. However if we are born with original sin and there is no other option but to sin we are more like robots who are programmed that way. That allows me to believe that when I do cruel things to other people it’s not really my fault but how I was born. I believe that I was born with the potential to not sin, to be perfect like God, Jesus even said it himself, “Be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). That I am not perfect is not how I was born but my own free will. I believe this makes Jesus’ perfection even more powerful. We could all have done it but we didn’t.

I also think that original sin does make people feel inherently bad and I don’t think that this fits again with the Biblical notion that God is love.

Finally (and this is not a Biblical argument) I do think we teach our children to sin. We might tell them with words to share their toys or to not hit each other but they see on a daily basis adults not sharing their “toys” or treating others violemtly and cruelly. Kids learn what they see before they understand words.

So that’s why I don’t really believe in original sin. That and it doesn’t really make sense either.