The History of the Doctrine of Sin

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The History of the Doctrine of Sin

• Augustine and Pelagius Controversy

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Periods of church history

• Early Christianity - The Apostles and Expansion
  (33 - 100 A.D.)
• The Patristic Period - The Church Fathers
  (100-450 A.D.)
• The Catholic Church in the Medieval Period (450 -
  1000)
• The Scholastics to the Renaissance (1050 - 1500
  A.D.)
• The Reformation and Post-Reform Protest Movements
  (1500 - 1750 A.D.)
• The Enlightenment Modern Period (1750 - Present)

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The Early Fathers and movements

• 1. The Church was begun as an extension of
  Judaism.
• 2. By the end of the first century, Christianity
  is apart from its Jewish roots.

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The Early Fathers and movements

• 3. The second century is about survival
• Attacks from outside and the need to defend
  against the Romans, and
• Attacks from inside and the need to stop heresy.
• Converted philosophers 1st theologies in the
  form of apologies which tried to present the
  gospel to rulers and the educated classes.
• Contacts with pagan thought carried the dangers
  of Gnosticism and speculation
• The teachings exercised by Irenaeus, Tertullian
  and Hippolytus formed the faith and influenced
  church structure.

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The Early Fathers and movements

• 4. From the outset it faced the problem of unity
  and diversity
• 5. Scriptures was the core of the churchs
  beliefs but it had to face the issue of how to
  settle on the Canon of Scripture.

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Writings appeared in the post-Apostolic period

• Shepherd of Hermas
• Epistles of Barnabas and Clement
• Apocalypse of Peter
• Acts of Paul
• While, Hebrews, James, and Second Peter were not
  in Eastern Scriptures for the first three
  centuries.
• Marcion proposes a Canon of Scripture

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What caused a scripture to be authenticated?

• Test of history? Were the writers Apostles who
  had been at the time of Jesus?
• Internal test? Did the book possess the
  character of spiritual elevation...In Other
  words, did it appear to have the same level of
  authority as the other recognized books?

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Early Apologists - Defending

• Justin Martyr (writing to the emperor), Tatian
  (writing to the Greeks).
• Their main focus the unity of God...Oneness.
• The Logos of Christ.
• The humanity of the Logos
• The Triad of God, not the Trinity. From the
  Father came the son, From the Son was
  subordinated the Spirit.
• Baptism as a washing away of Sins, necessary for
  forgiveness and regeneration.
• The Eucharist... nourished by the body and blood
  of the same Jesus who was made flesh... (Justin
  Martyr).

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The Problem of Heresy

• Ebionitism, Early Judaistic Christianity - Jesus
  was merely a human on whom the Holy Spirit had
  descended for the first time at his baptism.
• From Greek Hellenism, came Platonic errors.
• - Gnosticism, a religious syncretism (a.k.a.,
  post-modernism) that assimilated Greek Platonism
  and other mythologies (Roman) with the truths of
  Christianity.
• Gnosis was the higher knowledge which came from
  supernatural revelation and enlightenment.
• - Docetism, from Gnosticism it stated that Jesus
  only appeared to have a physical body.
  Emphasis is on Evil of the material not
  corrupting deity.
• - Monarchianism, arose in reaction to Gnostics
  and taught that God was one, who appeared in
  singular modes, but could not be a Trinity.

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Some Characteristics of Gnosticism

• 1. Dualism... Spirit/Matter,
  Spiritual/Carnal...
• 2. Emanations of the Divine...
• 3. The creator... or demi-urge, occupies a
  middle position between the world of the Spirit
  and the World of Matter...
• 4. Redemption... not possible in the area of
  matter...not even by the demi-urge.
• 5. Jesus Christ, as redeemer... Christ not as
  sacrifice, but as teacher to dispel ignorance
  and abrogate death.
• 6. Docetism... No incarnation is necessary, or
  possible, because matter is evil and the
  spiritual world wants no contact with the flesh.
  
• 7. Dualism of Human nature... Humans were
  either spiritual, or carnal.

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Results of Gnosticism?

• 1. The rise of Bishops to defend the faith.
• 2. The attention to mysticism and ascetism
• 3. Some later Catholic dogma Sexuality as sin,
  Marriage prohibited for Priests, Salvation
  through sacraments...
• 4. The ascendancy of the Universal rule of the
  church in matters of faith/dogma.

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Biblical Theology took form

• In Asia Minor, Irenaeus (d. 200) and his pupil
  Hyppolytus...
• In Alexandria, Clement (d. 216) and Origen (d.
  254)
• In North Africa, Tertullian (d. 225) and Cyprian
  (d. 258)

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Irenaeus

• Irenaeus was bishop at Lyons in Southern Gaul
  when he died, but grew up under Polycarp in Asia
  Minor, who learned from the Apostle John.
• The chief fame of Irenaeus rests on his Against
  Heresies, refused to allow for a Gnostic
  interpretation of salvation....
• He taught a biblical history as the saving plan
  of God.
• His overall view on human nature and sin was to
  describe humans as freely willing their
  disobedience to God. He said that the hardening
  of Pharaohs heart was not the direct result of
  God, but was the incidental result of Pharaohs
  own heart. He applied that in the same way to
  the justice of God in terms of those who rejected
  the Gospel.

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Alexandrians Clement Origen

• Origen strongly affirms the freedom of the will.
  He promotes Gods restricting his divine will in
  order to give total liberty to the idea of the
  human will to choose God.
• He is opposed to the Gnostic concepts of
  fatalism. He states that humans are sinful
  because they elect evil, with no constraint from
  within or without. He is an early foe of any
  form of predestination.
• Clement uses the language of atonement and
  conquest of evil with respect to Christ, but his
  main emphasis is on Christ as teacher.
• Clement strongly affirms the freedom of the will
  and the need for man to co-operate with God by
  accepting salvation. He apparently conceives of
  the possibility of repentance even after death.

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Latin Theology - Tertullian

• Tertullian was a presbyter in Carthage
• Trained as a Stoic, he was a leading apologist
  against Gnoticism and other Dualistic tendencies.
  
• He opposed Clement and Origen for being
  speculative, and rejected incorporating any Greek
  Philosophers and their teachings as having or
  bearing witness to the truth.

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Tertullians Theology

• realism.
• Reality of nature and the visible world, the
  reliability of the senses, the significance of
  the material and the immaterial.
• The divine was in the creation, and bore witness
  of Gods existence.
• His concepts of salvation and human nature
  emphasized the freedom of the will, along with
  the universality of original sin.
• On freedom of will, humans could choose between
  good and evil.

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The East and Its Emphases

• The East did not take the lead in discussing the
  problem of sin and the place of grace
• Their dominant interest remained in the area of
  Christology and the Trinity. Where the east did
  develop interest it was mainly as a voice of
  opposition to some trends in dealing with
  doctrine of mankind
• 1. Stoicism reduced free will to a minimum by
  teaching that mankinds lot is by fate.
• 2. Gnosticism taught that mankind is by nature
  either spiritual, physical or carnally minded,
  doomed to a life of sin, and excluded from
  regeneration... except through a process of
  higher knowledge (ethical, moral, and
  disciplinary).
• 3. Manichaeism dualistic it said mankind was
  the product of the devil, evil from the beginning.

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Alexandria and its emphasis

• Origen, the church in the East used
  allegorization as a method of biblical
  interpretation.
• He was a voice for free will.
• He was part of a larger body of Greek Fathers
  who argued for a restricted view of depravity.
  In other words, they felt that the affects of the
  Fall were limited
• gt Satan has dominion in the realm of evil, sin,
  rebellion against Gods law.
• gt The affect of sin is death...so mortality is a
  common end. It is what we share in Adams sin.
• gt There is reality of temptation to evil, but
  human beings have the ability to either express
  virtue, or sin...they have personal freedom
• gt We are renewed in our souls by the work of
  divine grace and the cooperation of our free will.

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Greek Fathers

• These fathers maintained mankinds freedom - an
  avoidance of making sin hereditary - and
  accountability.
• WHY?
• They understood grace as redemption through
  Christ, and with it liberation from the old life,
  and saw that as possible through the power of the
  Holy Spirit.
• So convinced that the HS power made ethical and
  moral things possible, they discounted the idea
  of any sin as a basis for having power in
  influencing our character.

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The result

• Many accepted the notion that mankinds will had
  been weakened by the Fall, and that the
  assistance of grace was needed.
• So, freedom and grace stand side by side in
  producing acts of goodness....
• In other words, mankinds free will begins and
  grace follows in a supplementary manner... Faith
  then becomes mankinds work.

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The Western Emphasis

• When it came to Salvation and human nature the
  Western Church (also called the Latin Church) was
  much more interested in addressing the issues of
  human freedom, and how they related to issues of
  sin and grace.
• The main difference between East and West ended
  up being largely the issue of latent nature.
• Tertullian (in countering the Gnostic challenge)
  sought to develop a strong emphasis on mans free
  will from the view of grace.
• God is the offended judge and human beings are
  the offenders, and thus debtors... the way to do
  this was self-humiliation, asceticism, and even
  martyrdom.
• It was this understanding of latent sin that led
  early teachers to defend infant baptism on the
  ground that the child is sinful and needs
  regeneration.

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Augustine Principle of Grace

• Donatism Who Should be considered in the
  church?
• He argued for freedom through the Gospel
  Christianity was a matter of spirit rather than
  law, something inside people rather than outside.
  
• Most important, the church had room within itself
  for sinners as well as saints
• The visible church contained the visible
  Christians, sins and all the invisible church,
  whose true home lay in heaven, held only those
  who were redeemed.

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Church deals with Sin Salvation?

• Sacraments operate as means of grace...and convey
  that grace, ex opere operato by virtue of
  the act itself.
• The power and the validity of the sacrament rests
  in Christ - the priest who administers the
  sacrament is only an instrument of the grace of
  Christ.

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Pelagius

• British monk of much ability and learning in
  early Celtic Christianity.
• He saw sin basically as an outward act
  transgressing the law and regarded man as free to
  sin or desist from sin.

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The issues

• Does mankind come into harmony with God by making
  the right use of natural ability to choose
  between good and evil?
• Or, does this harmony come about through an
  influence of divine grace upon the will so that a
  person moves in the direction of good, via God,
  apart from any good within?

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Pelagius Formal Freedom

• mankind had the ability to choose the right.
• HOW could he say that?
• Because God had given mankind the law so mankind
  must be able to fulfill it.
• There is nothing in man that compels him to sin.
• The goodness of nature has enabled even pagans
  to develop the highest virtues.
• It is even possible for humans to lead a sinless
  life.
• Sin is not a condition of human nature, but
  rather an inclination, or a tendency of the will.

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Pelagius Formal Freedom

• There is no original sin passed down from
  parents.
• The soul is not traced back to Adam, only the
  flesh.
• Physical death was not the consequence of sin,
  but the natural result of human organism.
• Spiritual death in the meantime was passed
  through Adam to his children....such is the
  result of guilt.

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Pelagius Formal Freedom

• Sin is universal...(as in human beings bent
  towards sensuality, temptation, and fall into
  sin...) So sin is universal in that it is
  against the original goodness of creation.
• Grace then corresponds to the teachings on human
  nature and free will.
• Grace is not the divine influence in humans, but
  merely the enlightenment of reason, so that
  humans can see the will of God, and then through
  their own powers can choose and act accordingly.
  
• In other words, Grace is merely an assistance.
  In the work of Grace, God merely facilitates the
  right action of human will.

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Augustines teachings

• Sin ought not to be considered in positive terms,
  but negatively, as a privation of the good.
• Augustine came to the conviction that humans, in
  their natural condition, were incapable of any
  positive cooperation with divine grace for
  conversion, and the kindling of faith was solely
  the work of God.
• This was based on his own experience - his
  inability to change his own will salvation was
  a gift from God.

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A brief outline of how Augustine viewed sin and
grace

• 1. In human creation there was no sinfulness.
  The will had mastery over the carnal impulses,
  and there was no suffering, or death but Gods
  help was not to prevent the free exercise of the
  human will.
• 2. The fall of Adam and Eve was a great sin.
  Brought on by Pride, it was based on human desire
  to be its own master and refused to obey God.
• 3. Turning from God, the human turned to
  himself...thus Adam became a sinner with a sinful
  will.
• 4. The mind became carnal and was turned to
  things low, changeable, mutable, uncertain.
• 5. Adams sin was the sin of the whole human
  race. (Rom. 512) We were all in Adam (seminal),
  so sin is the common act of mankind in its
  collective existence. Yet, we sin willingly...
• 6. Therefore, Guilt is imputed to the whole
  human race because of this willfulness. Children
  included...hence the necessity for baptizing
  children.

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Augustine - the essence of sin as concupiscence

• Appealing to the witness of Scripture, Augustine
  maintained that sin incapacitates man from doing
  the good, and because we are born as sinners we
  lack the power to do the good.
• Yet because we willfully choose the bad over the
  good, we must be held accountable for our sin.
• Augustine gave the illustration of a man who by
  abstaining from food necessary for health so
  weakened himself that he could no longer eat.
  Though still a human being, created to maintain
  his health by eating, he was no longer able to do
  so.
• Similarly, by the historical event of the fall,
  all humanity has become incapable of that
  movement toward Godthe very life for which it
  was created.

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Augustine - the essence of sin as concupiscence

• Pelagius held that one could raise oneself by
  ones own efforts toward God, and therefore grace
  is the reward for human virtue.
• Augustine countered that man is helpless to do
  the good until grace falls upon him, and when
  grace is thus given he is irresistibly moved
  toward God and the good. When grace changes the
  inclinations of the heart, the will freely
  chooses spiritual good.
• Man is converted not because he wills the
  spiritual rather he wills the spiritual because
  he is converted.

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Augustines grace consequences

• God gives the gift of perseverance. It keeps a
  person in a state of grace from which individual
  acts will naturally come.
• Why do not all who are called yield to grace?
• He answered that with a doctrine of
  predestination. Some humans have been
  predestined to salvation from eternity. The
  number is fixed and unchangeable.
• To the elect, God gives the grace of
  perseverance. They may stumble and fall, but
  will not ever be lost.
• To the charge that God chooses some and leaves
  the others, the only answer is I so will and
  every knee will bow still. God would be just if
  he punished all!

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Semi-Pelagianism

• The church in both West and East repudiated basic
  Pelagian beliefs, but did not accept everything
  in the Augustinian system.
• There arose after this a series of Semi- Pelagian
  conflicts.
• A monk from Gaul (France) John Cassianus
  protested against Augustines predestination
  doctrine.

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Synod at Orange

• Predestination of humans to perdition was
  rejected...nothing else about predestination was
  heard.
• Irresistable Grace was not accepted either.
• Grace was declared to be the basis for all
  responses of human kind to all movements of God.
• God foreknows all things, both good and evil. He
  does not cause. He wills and foreordains only
  that which is good.
• When the regenerated fall, it is not because they
  were not called, but because of their own
  perverted will.
• When mankind perseveres, it is to be attributed
  to the Grace of God alone.

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Two main ways of looking at Gods work in
relation to Human Salvation

• monergism the idea and belief that human agency
  is passive and Gods agency is all-determining in
  history and in salvation.
• synergism the idea and belief that Gods agency
  and human agency cooperate in some way to produce
  both history and salvation.

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The Medieval Scholastics

• Rediscovery of Aristotle and Power of Reason
• Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas
• A period of Church Institutionalism in relation
  to Salvation
• With this Purgatory, Indulgences,
  transubstantiation, and Politicalization of the
  church

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Reformers and the Augustinian Doctrines on Sin

• Luther powerfully reaffirmed the Pauline and
  Augustinian doctrine of the bondage of the will
  against Erasmus,
• Luther saw man as totally bound to the powers of
  darkness sin, death, and the devil.
• Calvin argued that sin ought not merely to be
  conceived of as a privation of good but as a
  total corruption of mans being
• desire itself is sin which defiles every part of
  mans nature, but the root of this corruption is
  not merely self-love but disobedience inspired by
  pride.

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Federal Headship

• Luther and Calvin understood original sin not as
  an external constraint but as the internal
  necessity which is rooted in human nature
• Calvin speaks of a hereditary depravity and
  corruption of our nature (Institutes, II.i.8),
  he relates original sin not so much to heredity
  as to an ordinance of God, a judgment of God
  passed on all mankind whereby Adams sin is
  imputed to all in the same manner as Christs
  righteousness is now imputed to all believers.
• This notion was subsequently developed by Beza
  and in the Westminster Confession - Adam is
  recognized not merely as the natural head of the
  human race but also as its federal representative
  (federalism) all are born corrupt because they
  are representatively incorporate in the sin and
  guilt of Adam.
• A representative incorporation that is the root
  of each persons inherent disposition to sin - a
  person is not a sinner because he sins, he sins
  because he is a sinner.

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Pietism

• While accepting Lutheran teaching, emphasized the
  necessity of the inner work of the Holy Spirit to
  produce the fruit of the Spirit and Holiness

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Enlightenment

• Rejection of Scriptures as a definition for human
  nature.
• A scientific/reasoned based approach to faith
• An exaltation of human nature

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Modern Reappraisals of Sin.

• In the nineteenth century, theologians under the
  new world consciousness associated with the
  Enlightenment and romanticism began to
  reinterpret sin.
• For Friedrich Schleiermacher, sin is not so much
  the revolt of man against God as the dominance of
  the lower nature within us. It is the resistance
  of our lower nature to the universal
  God_consciousness, which needs to be realized and
  cultivated in every human soul.
• Sin is basically a minus sign, the inertia of
  nature that arrests the growth of
  God_consciousness.
• Schleiermacher even saw sin in a positive light,
  maintaining that evil has been ordained in
  corporate human life as a gateway to the good.
  Sin has occurred as a preparation for grace
  rather than grace occurring to repair the damage
  of sin. Schleiermacher did acknowledge a
  corporate dimension to sin.

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Modern Reappraisals of Sin.

• Albrecht Ritschl, in the same century, understood
  sin as the product of selfishness and ignorance.
• He did not see the human race in bondage to the
  power of sin, but instead believed that people
  could be effectively challenged to live ethical,
  heroic lives.
• His focus was on actual or concrete sins, not on
  man's being in sin. He even allowed for the
  possibility of sinless lives, though he did not
  deny the necessity of divine grace for attaining
  the ethical ideal.
• or Ritschl, religion is fundamentally the
  experience of moral freedom, a freedom that
  enables man to be victorious over the world. At
  the same time, he acknowledged the presence of
  radical evil, though as in the case of Kant, this
  did not significantly alter his vision of a new
  social order characterized by the mastery of
  spirit over nature. He also tried to do justice
  to the collective nature of evil but this was
  never quite convincing.

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The 20th Century

• Reinhold Neibuhr
• Karl Barth
• Emil Brunner