5. Does the Bible support the concept of original sin, that the whole human race is accounted by God guilty of Adam’s sin? Ezekiel 18:20.
NOTE: ‘In Augustine’s view, all of humanity was really present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. Original sin, according to Augustine, consists of the guilt of Adam that all humans inherit. Augustine was the first to add the concept of inherited guilt from Adam whereby an infant was eternally damned at birth. Augustine held the traditional view that free will was weakened but not destroyed by original sin until he converted in 412 A.D. to the Stoic view that humanity had no free will except to sin.’ Wikipedia, art. ‘Original sin’. (Augustine’s view of original sin led to the practice of baptising infants, rather than believers, since Roman Catholics believe that baptism washes away the guilt of original sin, and the grace of regeneration is transmitted to the soul. In other words: that salvation is based entirely upon baptism, “baptismal regeneration.”)
6. What false teaching arose out of Augustine’s doctrine of ‘original sin’?
NOTE: If all mankind is held by God to be guilty of Adam’s sin, then Jesus, when He was born to Mary, would also be regarded by His heavenly Father as guilty. In 1854, the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed the dogma of ‘The Immaculate Conception.
‘Immaculate Conception, Explained by a Roman Catholic. “Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin at the first moment of her animation, and sanctifying grace was given to her before sin could have taken effect in her soul. Simultaneously with the exclusion of sin, the state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities were excluded. (But she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam, from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death.) The person of Mary, in consequence of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin.”’ Quoted in Handbook for Bible Students, page 257.
7. What further error has the teaching of original sin caused?
NOTE: Only Roman Catholics accept the 1854 teaching of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which, according to this dogma, preserved her free from the guilt of original sin. The teaching was devised to invent a reason why Jesus did not inherit original sin from His mother. But those non-Catholics who deny the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, but still accept the dogma of original sin, that God holds all human beings guilty of Adam’s sin, had to invent a reason why Jesus was not held to be guilty of Adam’s sin. The solution invented was that Jesus was born with the nature of Adam before his fall into sin. But since Adam had no descendants before his fall, this new teaching would mean that Jesus was not a genuine human being, a genuine descendant of Adam, and so our Saviour could not be ‘the man Christ Jesus.’ 1 Timothy 2:5.