Book contents
- Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution
- Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Augustine and the Long Twelfth Century
- 2 Aquinas on Original Justice
- 3 Aquinas on the Effects of Original Sin
- 4 Aquinas on Original Guilt
- 5 Original Sin and Some Modern Theologians
- 6 Original Sin and the Challenge of Evolution
- 7 Original Sin
- 8 A Response to Some Objections
- Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
7 - Original Sin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2020
- Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution
- Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Augustine and the Long Twelfth Century
- 2 Aquinas on Original Justice
- 3 Aquinas on the Effects of Original Sin
- 4 Aquinas on Original Guilt
- 5 Original Sin and Some Modern Theologians
- 6 Original Sin and the Challenge of Evolution
- 7 Original Sin
- 8 A Response to Some Objections
- Conclusion
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 7 proposes a new Thomist view of original sin. The core of Thomas’s proposal – that original sin has more to do with the lack of a right relation to the Triune God than the inheritance of personal guilt or corruption – is defensible today. His mature teaching stressing the necessity of supernatural grace for original justice, however, implies that he should have denied that original sin has a necessary connection to Adam’s failure to sexually transmit justice. I propose a “new Thomist view,” on which original sin is the lack of sanctifying grace. Grace is the Father’s gift of the Holy Spirit that orients the person to Jesus Christ. Every infant is born with human nature but called to exist in Christ. I construct this account in dialogue with biblical scholarship and respond to the challenges posed by evolution. I sketch two possible views of the Fall compatible with the new Thomist view of original sin.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution , pp. 200 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020