McBrien Reduces Catholic Dogma
of 'Original Sin' to Theological Opinion

Speaking of 'Original Sin', McBrien says:

"Theologians today would probably agree with the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, who refers to the doctrine as a rationalized myth about the mystery of evil."

To follow this problem we need some background. In 1942 Pius XII, in his Scripture encyclical, "Divino Afflante Spiritu", encouraged the use of the approach by literary genres in Scripture study. It had not been forbidden, but he promoted it. This means that there are many patterns of writing in ancient and modern works, e.g., the Civil War. Such a novel has a main line of history, with background descriptions that fit the period, but there are fictional fill-ins. The key word is "assert". What does the author assert? He asserts the main line as history, but not the fill-ins.

Now, of course, it would be folly to suppose the ancient Semites used exactly the same patterns as we do. So Pius XII said we need to study historically what literary patterns were in use then.

Once the Pope wrote this, things began to move more freely. Some scholars became very loose. As a result, he saw the need to warn about it in his Encyclical "Humani Generis" in 1950. He wrote about Genesis:

"The first chapters of Genesis, even though they do not strictly match the pattern of historical writing used by the great Greek and Roman writers of history ... do pertain to the genre of history."

That means that they do report things that really happened, even though they do it in a special, different way.

What way? [Pope] John Paul II, in his series of audiences on Genesis, on Nov. 7, 1979, called the genre of the creation account myth. He explained carefully, however, the sense in which he used that word myth. He did not mean a mere fairy tale, with no foundation. He meant the writer used an ancient story to bring out things that really happened.

How does this work? The account [in Genesis] tells us chiefly these things:

1. God made everything - in some special way He made the first human pair.
2. He gave them some sort of command - we do not know if it was about a fruit tree or something else.
3. They violated His order, and fell from favor or grace.

In passing, we can see from this last item, that Genesis does teach the Church's doctrine of 'Original Sin', in that Adam and Eve — or whatever names they may have used — were not able to pass on grace to their descendants, since they had cast it away. For a baby to arrive without it, is what we mean by 'Original Sin'. So it is wrong for McBrien to say that the OT has no formal concept of Original Sin. We agree it is not explicitly and formally taught. But it is there none the less.

So now we return to McBrien and the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Did Ricoeur mean the same as [Pope] John Paul II? Hardly. We know Ricoeur said that in general, when a writing leaves the hand of its author, it can take on any of many meanings. We neither know nor care what the author intended. Clearly, this is not what John Paul II meant. He meant the account does tell us things that really happened, chiefly those we have just enumerated.

McBrien comments:

"How can one be really guilty of a sin that someone else committed, without our knowledge or approval?"

[The Council] Vatican II, in its Decree on Ecumenism § 7, said that if the language of older texts of the Magisterium is less adequate, we should improve it, without saying it was erroneous. John Paul II has done just that in the case of 'Original Sin'. In two General Audiences, October 1 and 8,1986, he said that 'Original Sin' consists in "the privation of sanctifying grace." Privation means the lack of something that should be there. He added that we call it a sin only in an analogical sense. That means that we use a word twice, with the sense partly the same, partly different. So if we compare a new baby with an adult who has just committed a mortal sin, we find both are the same in lacking grace; but there is a great difference: the baby lacks it through no fault of its own; the adult lacks it by grave personal fault.

On page 90 [of McBrien's "Summary"] McBrien does admit this analogous nature, but not very clearly. Readers are left to wonder about our being culpable only by imitating Adam's sin (cf. p. 187)

His fuzziness is made worse in his Summary, starting on p. 194:

"....The human person is constituted by social relationships with other persons, by history and by the world in which she or he lives. Indeed, the human person is in a sense, a co-creator of the world with God."

Unfortunately, following McBrien's logic, if we are only constituted by such relationships, then an un-born baby would not be a person, and abortion would be all right.

In the same Summary, in item 23, he adds:

"....grace transforms not only persons but the whole created order (Romans 8:19-23)."

He does not understand the beautiful vision of St. Paul, who says that at the end, the whole world will be freed from slavery to corruption. But for St. Paul that is in the future, not now.

Item 15 of his Summary says:

"The Eastern tradition viewed grace as divinization."

This is true, and beautiful. But McBrien gives no explanation of this rich teaching of the Greek Fathers, a thing much needed.

Also, on p. 186 [of Summary], McBrien says:

"Although the later doctrine of 'Original Sin' has been read back into Paul's letter to the Romans, neither biblical scholar nor theologian would agree that it is in fact there."

This is a surprisingly bold contradiction of a defined Catholic doctrine. He dares to say the Council of Trent merely read into Romans what is not really there!

To conclude, McBrien neglects to give the best current explanation of 'Original Sin' (as given by [Pope] John Paul II) gives no explanation of what "divinization" means, and fails utterly to affirm the precise nature of 'Original Sin' as the Catholic Church has defined it. "The Credo of the People of God" [of Pope Paul VI] expounds the Catholic doctrine of 'Original Sin' with precision:

"16. We believe that in Adam all have sinned, which means that the original offence committed by him caused human nature, common to all men, to fall to a state in which it bears the consequences of that offence, and which is not the state in which it was at first in our first parents, established as they were in holiness and justice, and in which man knew neither evil nor death. It is human nature so fallen, stripped of the grace that clothed it, injured in its own natural powers and subjected to the domain of death, that it is transmitted to all men, and it is in this sense that every man is born in sin. We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that Original Sin is transmitted with human nature, 'not by imitation, but by propagation' and that it is thus 'proper to everyone.'

17. We believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the Sacrifice of the Cross, redeemed us from Original Sin and all the personal sins committed by each one of us, so that, in accordance with the word of the Apostle, 'where sin abounded, grace did more abound.'"

 

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