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INTRODUCTION

The doctrine of original sin, of a sin inherited from Adam by way of propagation, enabled
Augustine to wrestle with the truths proposed by Gnostic and pa-gan fatalism with their tragic
and dualistic articula-tions in Manicheism, Stoicism, and Neoplatonism. It gave expression to
the mysterious workings of freedom and grace beyond Pelagianism. It responded to
fundamental questions: evil and suffer-ing, guilt and justice, divine providence and com-
passion.

All the Christian apologists had sought to defend free will from fatalism. In his debate with
his former Manichean brethren, Augustine was obliged to define human responsibility for our
present condition. But unlike any of his predecessors since Paul, Au-gustine paid equal
attention to the inevitability of the condition itself.

The Nature of Original Sin

There has been an ongoing debate over the status and dynamics of Augustine's position on
inherited sin. The state of the question from the turn of the century to the end of the fifties can
be summed up in two opposed views. The first claims that original sin is Adam's pride,
insofar as all his descendants participate in it by the death of their soul because of their
solidarity with him (Staffner 1957). The sec-ond asserts that original sin is the guilt of
concupiscence inherited from Adam as a punishment for Adam's pride (Gross 1960). More
recent commentators have tried to synthesize these opposing views. For example, Sage
(1969) and TeSelle (1970) believe that Augustine, by adding the notion of personhood to the
death of the soul, makes guilt for the death of the soul, inherited from Adam by way of
propagation, into original sin. But they perceive that this is equivalent to the second view if
concupiscence here is primarily spiritual concupiscence. 1 Just as spiritual concupiscence is
equivalent to the death of the soul, so the notion of personhood added to the death of the soul
makes it the same as the guilt of concupis-cence. The element of guilt derives from the per-
sonhood. The personal appropriation of a nature turned away from God binds the infant in
inherited guilt because of Adam's pride.2

1
On the origin of the soul: an. et or. 1.16.26; 4.11.2; ер. 190; Gn. litt. 6.7.10.26.
2
Writings of Saint Augustine: Letters 165-203, trans. W. Parsons, FC 20 (New York, 1955), 6.
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Pelagius believed that the possibility of leading a righteous life, free from sin, belongs
inseparably and inadmissibly to human nature. Augustine believed that human freedom was
bound by a double necessity. The first necessity is that we can only choose something as
good, and our second necessity is that the good chosen is limited to those goods which are the
product of constants, inevitabilities, necessities arising from past decisions and human
history. If this second necessity includes God's gift of charity, then we are free both to choose
and to do good. If it does not include charity, then all that's left is concupiscence, and the only
freedom is freedom to sin. This debility is a problem within the will, arising from the power
of custom and affection in the case of personal sin, from concupiscence in the case of original
sin. Existential human nature is the product of personal and corporate history. It consists of a
threefold inheritance from Adam: ignorance, concupiscence, and death. As a result of this
death in the soul, we can neither discern the good we should do (inherited ignorance) nor
carry it into effect (inherited concupiscence).

The Mysterious Triple Anteriority of Original Sin

On the one hand, for Augustine, there is no mystery of reprobation, only of election. A purely
moral vision of evil yields a penal vision of history governed by the law of retribution. This
vindicates the justice of God in establishing a world in which evil exists. On the other,
Augustine cannot explain the origin of evil. He retains the ontological mystery and, thereby,
does justice to the nonvoluntary dimensions of evil and suffering.

Augustine's profound teaching on original sin reveals a yet more profound ignorance: while it
illumines the history of the experience of our sinful condition, it does not explain it. By
locating the mystery more precisely, it aims to heighten the mystery of God's love, not to
unravel it.3

With the doctrine of original sin Augustine gives a history to pride and invincible bondage in
the triple hatred of the self, of truth, and of God. This threefold hatred has a threefold
anteriority: he finds it autobiographically anterior in his own life, historically and corporately
anterior in every member of the human race, and primordially anterior as ancient, primitive
evil. This last is both the first and most fundamental sin. It is fundamental in the double sense

3
On the origin of the soul: an. et or. 1.16.26; 4.11.2; ер. 190; Gn. litt. 6.
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that subsequent sins reenact its motive, content, and structure (he only knows the earlier from
the later), and are each a new beginning of evil: to begin is to continue.4

Augustine retains the essential obscurity of the origin of evil. He cannot explain evil initiative
whether in the angels and Adam or Adam's descendants. Since false self-love was "the
beginning of sin" and at the heart of all subsequent sin, and since we only know beings who
are already bound in this kind of self-love, he can analyze the fallibility of Adam and the
angels in terms of their creation from nothing, but not their evil choice. For Augustine an evil
initiative without a history is unimaginable. This, then, must be the limit of his knowledge.

Augustine will insist on the role of freedom because he knows that evil cannot result from
good. He is not vindicating the justice of God in establishing a world in which evil exists, but
trying to under-stand how evil exists even though a good nature, whether divine or human,
cannot produce evil. For example, in De civitate Dei 12.6-9 he says he can understand that
free will is fallible, but he cannot understand how it actually does choose evil. He says that
trying to understand this is not simply like looking for something in the dark, but like trying
to see the dark itself, or like trying to hear silence.5

An Historical Account

Augustine gave an ontological account of the ineluctable in evil by accepting the account of
Genesis as historical. He also gave this history ontological status by giving it a biological
basis and the continuity of the living in the concept of the succession of the generations:
original sin and spiritual concupiscence are handed down from generation to generation by
means of propagation.

He searched for historical traces so that through the materiality of a mark he might designate
the exteriority of the past and its inscription in the ontological time of the universe. He found
in the lust of intercourse the trace he was looking for (a decision fraught with consequences).
He knew that the instrumental cause is not the carnal begetting but the procreating of a nature
lacking integration (spiritual concupiscence). Though he habitually distinguished between the
good of procreation and the evils of sexual concupiscence and inherited concupiscence, he

4
Writings of Saint Augustine: Letters 165-203, trans. W. Parsons, FC 20 (New York, 1955), 8.
5
On the origin of the soul: an. et or. 1.16.26; 4.11.2; ер. 190; Gn. litt. 16.
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latched on to the libido carnalis. For him it illustrated the ontological handing down of this
unmolded nature. The habitual evils of education ensured the continuing disintegration of this
nature, but the first cause is the propagated disproportion in the delicate balance that should
exist between body and soul witnessed in sexual lust and all inordinate desire.

Augustine did not condemn the body (Miles 1979). The notion of the body imprisoning the
soul is alien to Augustine's teaching. Augustine is at pains to reject any suggestion of two
natures or principles in opposition. The notion of the body as in conflict with the soul, or as
the means by which the soul is either dragged down, or once down is held down, are notions
repugnant to Augustine. The division is in the will, not in nature. It is al-ways the same soul
willing different ends, whether eternal or ephemeral or both. It is the will that wills carnally,
just as it is the will that wills spiritually. 6 The will is not bound by the body. It binds itself,
and being habituated so to will, it cannot stop will-ing and unbind itself.

Original Sin Anchored in Calendar Time

Adam's sin, as the founding moment of fallen time, serves as the axial moment of calendar
time and in-scribes Augustine's religious traditions in the histor-ical time of the Christian
universe. Insofar as the trace and the biological continuity of the genera-tions express the
reinsertion of the symbolic and speculative discourse on evil and sin in the time of the world,
calendar time, too, comes into the range of the phenomena of these religious traditions. Thus
laboriously does Augustine reconstruct the ontological reality of the past as an efficacious
religious heritage.7

Conclusion

Augustine's doctrine of original sin provides a profound and complex understanding of the
human condition. By exploring the nature of original sin, Augustine sheds light on the
mysterious workings of freedom and grace, and responds to fundamental questions about
evil, suffering, guilt, and justice. His teachings on original sin reveal a nuanced understanding
of human responsibility and the inevitability of our sinful condition. Furthermore,

6
On the origin of the soul: an. et or. 1.16.26; 4.11.2; ер. 190; Gn. litt. 26.
7
Writings of Saint Augustine: Letters 165-203, trans. W. Parsons, FC 20 (New York, 1955), 16.
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Augustine's emphasis on the role of concupiscence and the triple hatred of self, truth, and
God provides a rich framework for understanding the dynamics of sin and redemption.

Augustine's doctrine of original sin is not simply a theological construct, but a deeply
personal and existential reflection on the human condition. His own experiences of sin and
redemption inform his theological insights, and his teachings on original sin continue to
shape Christian theology and spirituality to this day.

Ultimately, Augustine's doctrine of original sin invites us to confront the depths of human
sinfulness and the mystery of God's love and redemption. By exploring the complexities of
original sin, we may come to a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world,
and may be drawn more deeply into the mystery of God's love and redemption.
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Bibliography

Augustine. On the Origin of the Soul. An. et Or. 1.16.26; 4.11.2; Ер. 190; Gn. Litt. 6, 7, 10,
16, 26.
In Writings of Saint Augustine: Letters 165-203, translated by W. Parsons. FC 20. New York:
1955.