QuakerInfo.com Forum

[sonseeker]

I have encountered and even taken part in the subject of whether we are born with sin or aquire sin.

I have read that we are born with sin as it is inherited sin from Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. It is up to us when we reach a 'responsible age' to repent.

i cannot see that a baby can have sin and what happens if that baby or child dies before they reach a 'responsible age' at which to repent?

The bible talks of the slaughter of the innocents, and innocent to me is without sin.

I lost a baby and I would be so upset if I knew that the baby had not gone to heaven.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Coral

[orPowers]

There have been many interpretations of various scriptures concerning man's "sin nature" over the centuries, and you seem to have run into some from the end of the spectrum that interprets literally that one about "all" having sinned and so forth. My study of the Bible and human nature as I have observed it indicate to me that children are born completely self-centered, period. In a child, that is completely natural, that's all they know, "what affects me?" As they grow older they learn to expand their concerns and love others (love, I would define as the emotion charged concern for the well-being of the object of love). The final object and the basis of the Christian message is that our love is to extend to everyone ("Therefore be ye perfect (in love) as your heavenly Father is perfect."" We are all somewhere in the middle, and I believe that God will judge us as we have had opportunity to grow in love. A child is just starting out on that path, and I trust God to be just AND loving.

In His Love,
orPowers
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Romans 8:38-39

my blog: http://mild-side.blogspot.com/

[wsamuel]

Early Friends believed infants were not born with original sin. See exposition of this in the Fourth Proposition of Barclay's Apology.
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Bill Samuel, Webservant, QuakerInfo.com

[Keith Maddison]

One of my favourite "hertics" was Pelagius who wrote that all infants were born without sin, I could not understand why Barclay in his Apology continued to call Pelagius a hertic while at the same time agreeing with him. I can only persume that Barclay never actually read Pelagius, and only read what Augustine said of him, a man who taught all newborns where full of sin as they were born of the sinful act of copulating, Augstine seemed to think birth was sexually transmitted disease. Augstine's view of sex and sin became the offical line of western (Roman) church and carried on among most of the Protestant reformers.

As for my opinion all I can say is friend orPowers speaks my mind.
_________________
Don't follow leaders and watch the parking meters, the pumps don't work because the vandals took the handles.
Keith

[sonseeker]

I firmly believe children are born without sin. They learn sin as they learn to walk, talk, learn about God ie by example.

If a mother is a drug addict, alcoholic or carrying a STD that can be passed on to the child but no one would say that child is sinful or that they have inherited that sin; they carry the inheritance of the sin of the parent.

I do not however believe that all babies are born of sin. My reasoning is that they are unable to comprehend sin and are not able to reasonably repent any sin.

Coral

[Keith Maddison]

You are right no one would say a new born child is born of sin except of couse the millions of Christians who perform infant baptism, to save thier child from the fires of hell. I was baptisted when I was ten days old, because of the teachings of the established churches, at least Baptists do not beleive that nonesence, as a Quaker I believe all water babtisms are worthless whatever your age.
_________________
Don't follow leaders and watch the parking meters, the pumps don't work because the vandals took the handles.
Keith

[JohnOR3]

Hi Keith, I hope you will forgive me , but I heard this joke about Baptism recently.

To wash away sin,
Methodists baptize with water poured over the head and
Pentecostals dunk the whole body in the water,
but Quakers are dry clean only!

All the best, John.

[sorianofan]

Well, I cannot give you the metaphysical truth on the matter, but we are all born with sin, because without guidance and repentance, we turn our head from God. That's why we teach children...because they are ignorant and need to be guided. If they were born without sin, this would not be necessary.
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Cats rule and that is the truth.

[CelticNorth]

Pelagius perhaps had it right, as so many "heretics" did before him. You have to be in awe of the nuances of religious belief systems that declare everyone sinful and impure, and then claim to have the only cure. The earliest religious inscriptions ever found and recorded were incantations and prayers to ward off sickness, by summoning "spirits" that were believed to have caused the illess. Disease was believed to occur through the work of a spirit or spell, and nearly all our modern prayers, psalms, and rituals have their roots in this privitive belief system. We are no different than the ancients, whose priestly class monopolized the cures for "sin" through their religious texts and incantations. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and Man's fall from grace due to original in is a great strory, if you belive that God will punish you, like the boogey man, if you fail to heed His sacred texts and rituals. The shackles of Jewish guilt seemed forever tied to Christian enlightenment by the Old Testament.

[Taogypsy]

I read this thread with interest because the definition of sin seems to be pretty obscure except in the minds of each individual. Everyone has a different idea of sin, so I suppose that everyone is a sinner in some other persons eyes. But I believe the eyes that count there is no sinner, just beings who make choices and that shouldn't be feared.
_________________
If you think you understand a thing,
Your mind has ceased to function,
To make it work again, try to see it from the side of misunderstanding.
-- anon

[sorianofan]

[CelticNorth]

Whenever I see a newborn baby, I cannot help but feel awe inspired and truely touched by the innocence of their purity and natural grace. Sin, it seems to be, is done by men who possess both the reasoning ability and intent to do harm to others. While life if full of conflict and uncertainty, presupposing that evil alwasys lay beneath our relationships with others cannot help but inhibit the true joy of living.

[JohnOR3]

I have just taken a course in Hebrew scripture at a University. In the class sin was defined as a "Hatta" A Hebrew word with a meaning, and likened to an analogy of an archer missing the mark. Sin (Hatta) is a falling short and is false pleasure and false power. Sin (Hatta) involved a choice between what is good, like living by the ten commandments or living a life of self indulgence. Sin is the Human addiction to false pleasure, a life lived in selfishness rather than selflessness and compassion for all.
God seeks to heal us of our addiction to sin, thereby moving us from selfishness to selflessness. According to this Old Testament definition, I do not see how newborn babies can sin.

[Chriss]

Gandhi said something quite good on the topic of sin. He was responding to the traditional grace doctrine that we all sin and yet God has forgiven us, so therefore we don't need to do anything to change. Gandhi's response was that he didn't want to be freed from the effect of sin. He wanted to be free of sin altogether. I took it to mean that he wanted to live a life of love and selflessness, and thought it was a nice way to put it.

[mtatum4496]

For most of my life, I have understood that the ability to sin was contingent on the ability of the individual to assimilate and understand knowledge and experience. Simply put, where there is no knowledge or understanding, there is no sin.

I can choose to commit an action that I know is not in my best interests and as such commit a sin. That is not a capacity I was born with. I acquired it as I grew up and began to assimilate knowledge.

When it comes to children, most of the faith traditions I have been associted with may have differed on many points, but all of them agreed that little children who perished before they were old enough to understand carried no sin of their own and were accepted into the kingdom of heaven with no reservation whatsoever.

One faith I belonged to went as far as to conjecture that persons who were mentally impaired were also incapable of being held accountable for their actions, with God in the end determining who was and was not sufficiently knowledgeable enough to be held accountable for their choices.

I may tend to err of the side of love, but I personally tend to lean toward a universalist view, in that I think all of creation will eventually be reconciled to the Creator. How, I don't know, but the thought motivates me to try to look for the good in everyone, no matter what circumstances make it difficult for me to look for that good.