Original Sin

Many times in our class and in my professor's book we have talked about "orginal sin."
Chris Anderson says, "The phrase "original sin" is nowhere used in the Genesis stories, nowhere, in fact when you consult the standard concordance for the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible you discover that the phrase is nowhere used in the Old Testament, nowhere, and in fact is nowhere used even in the New Testament, even there" (33).

Augustine in his confessions talks about sin in a baby. He says:
Hear me, God. Alas for man's sin. So says man and you pity him. Who can recall to me the sin I did in my infancy? For in thy sight no one is clean of sin, not even the infant whose life is but one day upon earth...Even in my infancy, therefore, I was doing something that deserved blame, but because I could not understand anyone who blamed me, custom and reason did not allow me to be blamed (23).

I believe that he is saying that he sinned as a baby even though he does not know or remember what those sins are. He believed that a person creates personal sin from the day he is born until the day he dies.

My belief is humans do not sin when they are babies. Babies can not make a conscious decision to act against God, which is what sin is. However, every person is born into sin because we are the offspring of Adam and Eve who sinned in the garden and it is the first sin. They brought sin into the world because of their sin.
Paul says, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men because all sinned" (Romans 5:12).
Some call this "federal headship."

The good news as Augustine puts it so elloquently:
But our Life came down to us ans suffered our death and destroyed death by the abundance of His own life.
Augustine's admonition is:
Now that Life has come down to you, will you not raise yourselves and live (83).

Here is Paul's good news:
"But the gift (salvation through Christ) is not like the tresspass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one many tresspasses and brought justification. For if, by the tresspass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through one man, Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:15-17).