Why Doctrine Matters: Original Sin

There is an idea running wild in our culture and, even most disturbing, in the visible church. It is the idea that doctrines ((The teachings of the church)) do not matter, or at least not most of them. This is the first of a series of posts on the practical implications of the doctrines of the church. Hopefully they will help explain why doctrine matters.

Our churches also teach that since the fall of Adam all men who are propagated according to nature are born in sin. That is to say, they are without fear of God, are without trust in God, and are concupiscent. And this disease or vice of origin is truly sin, which even now damns and brings eternal death on those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. ((Tappert, Theodore G.: The Augsburg Confession : Translated from the Latin. Philadelphia : Fortress Press, 2000, c1959, S. 29))

So why does this matter? Well, the loss of the belief in this doctrine has led people to believe the following things:

• Children are thoroughly innocent.
• People are therefore basically good.
• Acts of the will are the greatest thing to be known among men

And while these are all untrue in themselves, I wish to show how this effects other issues. You see since children are innocent and people basically good, how people are “born” so to speak must be good also. And so those who understand themselves to be born with sexual orientations other than heterosexual view those inclinations as good.

In an orthodox world view which understands original sin, even if people are born with inclinations towards homosexuality or any other perversions, it does not necessarily make them good. We are born sinful, and not good. And so, if some are born with an inclination to being an alcoholic, we do not just embrace it. If a man in born with a natural inclination to sleep with every woman who catches his eye, we do not celebrate it. And if humans are born with an inclination towards viewing members of their own sex as objects of erotic love or lust, it is not a reason to throw a parade.

We are ever since the fall not born as God would design or will. We are in fact born at odds with him and his desires. And so we should not embrace the way we are born, but rejoice instead that God has offered to rescue us from such terror.

Romans 7:24-25 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

In closing, a quote from G K Chesterton’s Orthodoxy is which he explains the lunacy of questioning Original Sin:

Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some…admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument.