Original sin

===Augustine===
[[File:Sandro botticelli, sant'agostino nello studio, 1480 circa, dall'ex-coro dei frati umiliati, 01.jpg|upright=0.6|thumb|right|[[Augustine of Hippo]] wrote that original sin is transmitted by concupiscence and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it.{{sfn|Cross|1966|p=994}}]]
[[Augustine of Hippo]] (354–430) taught that Adam's sin{{efn|name=Aug}} is transmitted by [[concupiscence]], or "hurtful desire",<ref name=ProfMMNinian />{{sfn|Nicholson|1842|p=118}} resulting in humanity becoming a {{lang|la|massa damnata}} (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will.{{sfn|Cross|1966|p=994}} When Adam sinned, human nature was thenceforth transformed. He believed that prior to [[Fall of man|the Fall]] Adam had both the freedom to sin and not to sin (''posse peccare, posse non peccare''), but humans have no freedom to choose not to sin (''non posse non peccare'') after Adam's Fall.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Loke |first1=Andrew Ter Ern |title=Evil, Sin and Christian Theism |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |page=123}}</ref> Augustine found the original sin inexplicable given the understanding that Adam and Eve were "created with perfect natures" which would fail to explain how the evil desire arose in them in the first place.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Loke |first1=Andrew |title=Evil, Sin and Christian Theism |date=2022 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |page=63}}</ref>

Adam and Eve, via sexual reproduction, recreated human nature. Their descendants now live in sin, in the form of concupiscence, a term Augustine used in a [[Metaphysics|metaphysical]], not a [[Psychology|psychological]] sense.{{efn|name=ThomAqu}} Augustine insisted that concupiscence was not "a being" but a "bad quality", the [[privation of good]] or a wound.{{efn|name=Non substantialiter}} He admitted that sexual concupiscence (''libido'') might have been present in the perfect human nature in [[paradise]], and that only later it became disobedient to human will as a result of the first couple's disobedience to God's will in the original sin.{{efn|name=Aug2}} In Augustine's view (termed "Realism"), all of humanity was really present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. Original sin, according to Augustine, consists of the guilt of Adam that all humans inherit. Although earlier Christian authors taught the elements of physical death, moral weakness, and a sin propensity within original sin, Augustine was the first to add the concept of inherited guilt (reatus) from Adam whereby an infant was eternally damned at birth. Augustine held the traditional view that free will was weakened but not destroyed by original sin until he converted in 412 AD to the Stoic view that humanity had no free will except to sin as a result of his anti-Pelagian view of infant baptism.{{sfn|Wilson|2018|pp=16–18, 157–159, 269–271, 279–285}}

Augustine articulated his explanation in reaction to his understanding of [[Pelagianism]] that would insist that humans have of themselves, without the necessary help of God's grace, the ability to lead a morally good life, thus denying both the importance of baptism and the teaching that God is the giver of all that is good. According to this understanding, the influence of Adam on other humans was merely that of bad example. Augustine held that the effects of Adam's sin are transmitted to his descendants not by example but by the very fact of generation from that ancestor. A wounded nature comes to the soul and body of the new person from their parents, who experience ''libido'' (or ''concupiscence''). Augustine's view was that human procreation was the way the transmission was being effected. He did not blame, however, the sexual passion itself, but the spiritual ''concupiscence'' present in human nature, soul and body, even after baptismal regeneration.{{efn|name=Sex}} Christian parents transmit their wounded nature to children, because they give them birth, not the "re-birth".{{efn|name=Regeneratus}} Augustine used [[Cicero]]nian [[Stoicism|Stoic]] concept of passions, to interpret Paul's doctrine of universal sin and redemption. In that view, also sexual desire itself as well as other bodily passions were consequence of the original sin, in which pure affections were wounded by vice and became disobedient to human reason and will. As long as they carry a threat to the dominion of reason over the soul they constitute moral evil, but since they do not presuppose consent, one cannot call them sins. Humanity will be liberated from passions, and pure affections will be restored only when all sin has been washed away and ended, that is in the [[resurrection of the dead]].{{efn|name=De civitate Dei}}{{sfn|Brachtendorf|1997|p=307}}

Augustine believed that unbaptized infants go to hell as a consequence of original sin.{{efn|name=Infernum}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.religioustolerance.org/limbo2.htm |title=Past Roman Catholic statements about Limbo and the destination of unbaptised infants who die? |website=Religioustolerance.org |access-date=24 January 2017 |archive-date=28 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130528132306/http://www.religioustolerance.org/limbo2.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Latin [[Church Fathers]] who followed Augustine adopted his position, which became a point of reference for Latin theologians in the Middle Ages.<ref>Study by International Theological Commission (19 January 2007), ''[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized]'', 19–21</ref> In the later medieval period, some theologians continued to hold Augustine's view. Others held that unbaptized infants suffered no pain at all: unaware of being deprived of the [[beatific vision]], they enjoyed a state of natural, not supernatural happiness. Starting around 1300, unbaptized infants were often said to inhabit the "[[Unbaptized Infants|limbo of infants]]".<ref>Study by International Theological Commission (19 January 2007), ''[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized]'', 22–25</ref> The ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', 1261<ref>[https://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm#VI ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', 1261]</ref> declares: "As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children, which caused him to say, 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them',<ref>{{bibleverse|Mark|10:14}}; cf. {{bibleverse|1 Timothy|2:4}}</ref> allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism." But the theory of Limbo, while it "never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium{{nbsp}}[...] remains{{nbsp}}[...] a possible theological hypothesis".<ref>Study by International Theological Commission (19 January 2007), ''[https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized]'', secondary preliminary paragraph; cf. paragraph 41.</ref>

Augustine also identified male semen as the means by which original sin was made heritable, leaving only Jesus Christ, conceived without semen, free of the sin passed down from Adam through the sexual act.{{sfn|Stortz|2001|pp=93–94}} This sentiment was echoed as late as 1930 by Pope [[Pius XI]] in his {{lang|la|[[Casti connubii]]}}: "The natural generation of life has become the path of death by which original sin is communicated to the children."{{sfn|Obach|2008|p=43}}

====Pelagius' response====
{{main|Pelagianism}}
The theologian [[Pelagius]] reacted thoroughly negatively to Augustine's theory of original sin. Pelagius considered it an insult to God that humans could be born inherently sinful or biased towards sin, and Pelagius believed that the soul was created by God at conception, and therefore could not be imbued with sin as it was solely the product of God's creative agency. Adam did not bring about inherent sin, but he introduced death to the world. Furthermore, Pelagius argued, sin was spread through example rather than hereditary transmission. Pelagius advanced a further argument against the idea of the transmission of sin: since adults are baptized and cleansed of their sin, their children are not capable of inheriting a sin that the parents do not have to begin with.{{sfn|Toews|2013|pp=73–89}}