On this issue it has gone astray from the teaching of the early Church. It was not until Augustine came along and changed the meaning of the fall. He developed the new theory that became known as Original Sin.
Wrong. He articulated what was always taught and believed, he didn't change anything. Development IS NOT CHANGE. Demonstrate how Augustine was essentially different from Justin Martyr 260 years previous. (or any Church Father for that matter)
"This grace, however, of Christ, without which neither infants nor adults can be saved, is not rendered for any merits, but is given gratis, on account of which it is also called grace. 'Being justified,' says the apostle, 'freely through His blood.' Whence they, who are not liberated through grace, either because they are not yet able to hear, or because they are unwilling to obey; or again because they did not receive, at the time when they were unable on account of youth to hear, that bath of regeneration, which they might have received and through which they might have been saved, are indeed justly condemned; because they are not without sin, either that which they have derived from their birth, or that which they have added from their own misconduct. 'For all have sinned'--whether in Adam or in themselves--"and come short of the glory of God.'"
Augustine, On Nature and Grace, 4 (A.D. 415).
"[T]his concupiscence, I say, which is cleansed only by the sacrament of regeneration, does undoubtedly, by means of natural birth, pass on the bond of sin to a man's posterity, unless they are themselves loosed from it by regeneration."
Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence, 1:23 (A.D. 420).
The thrust of the theory is that man inherited sin and guilt from Adam.
A
ugustine is also confident that Scripture teaches the existence of original sin, and he challenges those who disagree with him to exegete Romans 5:12 properly.
Another view is that God imputes sin to man upon birth.
Some god that is.
There is nothing in scripture to support these premises.
The first is a truth, not a premise.
The western see of Rome from Augustine on began to incorporate this view in their theologies. Anselm uses it in his Satisfaction theory. Francis of Assisi ameliorates it somewhat along with others until the Reformation.
Yea, that's why you ignore Justin Martyr, Basil, Pacian and a list of others, so you can claim Augustine invented the doctrine. Doctrines DEVELOP.
By development of doctrine, we mean that some divinely revealed truth has become more deeply understood and more clearly perceived than it had been before. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised to send to teach us, the Church comes to see more deeply what she had always believed, and the resulting insights find expression in devotion of the faithful that may have been quite uncommon in the Church's previous history...
...Always implied in such progress is that, objectively, the revealed truth remains constant and unchanged. But through the light of the Holy Spirit, the subjective understanding of the truth becomes more clear, its meaning becomes more certain and its grasp by the believing mind becomes increasingly more firm.
History of Eucharistic Adoration
All the Reformers adopted Augustines theory of Original Sin and I can only imagine the RCC to offset the loss of so many to the Reformation officially adopted Original Sin at the Council of Trent. It was mostly a cournter-reformaton of the RCC.
"officially adopted" << another typical Protestant preconceived notion. You're trying to tell me the Church "adopted" what the reformers adopted to win back what was lost? How does that work?
At some point the RCC realized their gross error of Original Sin because now they had a problem that Christ of necessity, if born of the Virgin Mary would be a sinner. Thus instead of abandoning the false theory they developed Immaculate Conception supposedly to get around the fact that man was born a sinner, with a sin nature.
Ridiculous. First, the Church has not gone "around the fact" that we are all born in sin. That is a lie. Second, God created Satan sinless being before he fell, God created Adam and Eve as sinless before they fell, so sinlessness has precedence. But in your system, God is powerless to intervene at Mary's conception that prevented her from having original sin. Since you don't accept the BIBLICAL doctrine of original sin, you have to trash the Immaculate Conception. God did not have to make Mary sinless for his divine plan, a but he chose to because it was fitting for the Mother of the Messiah. God and sin cannot coexist but in your system it does.
The Immaculate Conception was a doctrine Luther defended to his death (as confirmed by Lutheran scholars like Arthur Piepkorn). Like Augustine, Luther saw an unbreakable link between Mary's divine maternity, perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception.
Although his formulation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not clear-cut, he held that her soul was devoid of sin from the beginning:
"But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin..."
Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St.Louis], Volume 4, 694
Although Calvin was not as profuse in his praise of Mary as Martin Luther he did not deny her perpetual virginity. The term he used most commonly in referring to Mary was "Holy Virgin".
"Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God."
John Calvin, Calvini Opera [Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900], Volume 45, 35.
"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ." Calvin translated "brothers" in this context to mean cousins or relatives.
Bernard Leeming, "Protestants and Our Lady", Marian Library Studies, January 1967, p.9.
"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor." John Calvin, Calvini Opera [Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900], Volume 45, 348.
"To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son."
John Calvin, A Harmony of Matthew, Mark and Luke (St. Andrew's Press, Edinburgh, 1972), p.32.
Ulrich Zwingli:
"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."11
"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." Zwingli used Exodus 4:22 to defend the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
Ulrich Zwingli, Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Volume 1, 424.
Ulrich Zwingli :
"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."
E. Stakemeier, De Mariologia et Oecumenismo, K. Balic, ed., (Rome, 1962), 456.
Ulrich Zwingli
"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin." Ibid.
Ulrich Zwingli
"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother." Ibid.
Ulrich Zwingli
"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."
Ulrich Zwingli, Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Volume 1, 427-428.
We might wonder why the Marian affirmations of the Reformers did not survive in the teaching of their heirs - particularly the Fundamentalists. This break with the past did not come through any new discovery or revelation.
The Reformers themselves took a benign, even positive view of Marian doctrine - although they did reject Marian mediation because of their rejection of all human mediation.
You need to think twice before blaming Catholics for everything you personally disagree with. But I suppose you can blame the reformers as well, and their offshoots, and offshoots of offshoots.
