Christian Moral Philosophy.

[swestrup]

I just want to start out here by saying I'm not trying to insult or upset anyone or to start a flame war. Its just that a question occurred to me when taking my shower today, and I thought I might seek some enlightenment from my f-list.

I was brought up in a moral system that I suppose I could characterize as liberal and secular. It has many principals but one of them is that people are generally only to be considered culpable for their own actions. You can only be culpable of inaction in certain narrow circumstances where you have accepted responsibility, or there is some sort of implied social responsibility. In no circumstances are you to be held culpable for an inability to act.

You can not, for example, be held accountable for genocide just because you were born German, and Germans participated in the Holocaust. Unless you participated, the fact that you are German has no bearing. In similar ways, my Magyar and Viking roots have no moral taint to them, regardless of what attrocities my ancestors may have gotten up to.

Now, this seems to be a fairly common moral principal, and up till now I had simply assumed that it held in Christian morality as well. Today it occurred to me that this directly flies in the face of the whole concept of Original Sin by which (as I understand it) everyone is assumed to be damned because of what Adam did in the distant past. So, I can think of several possibilies, and I wonder which of the following are true:

1. Christain moral philosophy does <b>not</b> accept that you are blameless for the actions of your ancestors. Modern day Germans should all be punished for the Holocaust and most whites should be held accountable for slavery.
2. Christians believe as I do. The Original Sin is some sort of metaphor and has nothing to do with systems of moral philosophy.
   
3. God is allowed to act in a fashion that is immoral for people, without it being immoral. Thus God is allowed to declare that a moral taint be visited upon all the descendants of Adam, but no man could be allowed to make such a declaration. Thus God is considered moral only because They are God, and not because of any other particular attributes of behaviour.
4. Christians disagree completely on this topic and its a huge moral quagmire.
5. Something else that I haven't considered.

So, any answers?

Comments

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

4. Christians disagree completely on this topic, though it's not a huge moral quagmire because we mutually ignore each other.

Some Christians literally believe the whole Adam & Eve schtick and that their sin is passed down to every human born. I've encountered a few who even believe that descendants of a person who commits a terrible crime are held accountable for that crime, although a whole chapter of Ezekiel denounces this belief.

The current thinking in the Catholic and Orthodox churches are that Adam and Eve are a metaphor for something that went horribly wrong with humans at the beginning of time. Created good, we are inclined towards doing the bad. Augustine called this "concupiscence". Augustine's view of original sin, i.e. that we all are accountable for the sin of Adam, is losing ground fast because of a lot of social thought outside the discussion here. But ask six Christians what they believe and you will get six different answers.

[mricon.livejournal.com]

• You shouldn't extrapolate the application of "original sin," which was in the eyes of Christians a rebellion against God, towards things done against other people.


• The doctrine of "original sin" doesn't as much assign blame, as it establishes the case for redemption. While guilt does enter into equation, it's got a lot less weight as you think.


• Yes, various confessions have quite different approaches to the idea of the "original sin." Some postulate that it no longer applies ever since Christ redeemed humanity on the cross. Others claim that we need to constantly repent and ask forgiveness for it. Take your pick. :)


• Most Christians don't bother thinking about such things. Many of them have never even thought about this whole "original sin" stuff ever since Sunday School.

How's that? :)

[labyrinthman.livejournal.com]

I'm no christian. In fact I have no idea what I am. But I can give perspective on what the church I was born into believes (these are my words, not theirs, as I'm not big on quoting 18th century words)

Original sin's a non starter, because Jesus' act of birth, death, and rebirth cleansed the world of O.S. Its done, all sin we accrue is our own from here on in.

[sps.livejournal.com]

What they said.

God, BTW, can be thought of as 'being allowed to act' in special ways, ofcourse, because (only) God knows WTF is really going on. But then again, God does not 'act' because God created the Universe, so any 'act' of God appears to us as an inherent property of the Universe (admittedly this is a logical point that few people seem to be up to speed on). Though that does not bear on this particular point in any obvious way.