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Yes, of course.

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Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere. - St. Thomas Aquinas

So never having taken a breath, the stillborn is guilty of sin...

I'm sorry, that is utter nonsense.

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Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." -John 6:29

...he's been getting a good dose here, so its probably just a matter of time...I don't recognize "footwasher" from Crosswalk, unless I am simply having a "senior moment"...

...it begs the question as to what the impact and effect of original sin, absent committed sin, really is. You do acknowledge that people inherit the sin of Adam...?

If so...what does this mean for...to use your excellent example...the mentally handicapped, who are incapable of formulating the thoughts and willing the action of sin, for example. Great question...not entirely sure I have that resolved in my head...

...now here's some utter nonsense, in my opinion...
Sin is primarily characterized by injustice, which may rear its head in any number of forms...no wonder my previous posts regarding "temporal punishments" didn't make any sense, if sin is viewed as "normally referring to wrong doctrine"...

So...I guess this weekend we'll see who Oklahoma State will be playing in New Orleans in January...man, it feels weird to be even thinking that, let alone saying it...

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..."Absence of evidence" is not "Evidence of absence"...

The fact that the baby dies is evident itself of sin, original sin in your example of the stillborn.

"Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death." (Romans 5:12)

Campion

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Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere. - St. Thomas Aquinas

Goody, you want to go the methodology route. Why not just speak up then, it's free! Buy without money indeed!

If invented methodology, it was invented by others.

At one level, it was this path that others discovered, that serves all men, that eschews the fanciful interpretations found in Tertullian, Origen, Justin, Augustine, Aquinas, who formulate views and find support by pearl stringing diverse texts together, conveniently ignoring the verses that contradict their view. (That's the problem with paid hirelings: they never lay down their lives for the sheep, and they are only answerable to other paid hirelings, with no checks and balances built into the system).

At another level, it is God who leads one to this normal way of interpretation, vastly differing from the methodology adopted by the Western Church, whose conclusions need a specialised dictionary to translate the jargonese they adopt, without which the concepts appear to be from a different planet, inaccessible to ordinary human probing and grasp.

The conclusions reached by normal deductive processes have been confirmed by recent scholarship, and buttressed by archaeological finds.

The Problem
The text is highly context-dependent. As time and distance separate us from the actual events, we find it more and more difficult to find the framework of reference that the original issues were cast in.

The Solution
As with all dealings with God, humility saves the day:

“I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18

The child knows no reason; for him, the mother is there to care, the adult to administer justice:

“For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, 5yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’” 6And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; 7now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? 8“I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18

Heavily laden with the gadzillion interpretations doing the rounds in both the RC (they are not monolithic either) and the Reformed Traditions, I made myself like a child and cried out to God, and He answered me.


Idea 1
Nature is a good school. Observation of natural phenomena returns rich dividends. For example the doctrine of Original Sin is an unnatural concept. (Most doctrines are unnatural concepts. They require you to jump through a multitude of hoops to arrive at their destinations). Observation tell us that men come in different flavours, righteous and unrighteous (I have to thank Obadiah, our resident fount of knowledge for all things Talmudic and Hebrew for this view!).


Idea 2
God is good. Like the favourite teacher we remember from school, who introduced us to addition, and made sure we were grounded in it before taking us to multiplication (which is an advanced form of addition), He takes us up the educational spiral, building upon a theme, reiterating that teaching, drumming it into our heads, till we see the same motifs and lessons repeated throughout His Word...

In spite of the above, conclusions can still hidden. We must employ the methodology of the scientist to decipher the meanings, examine the evidence to form hypotheses, using syllogistic phrasing to shed light on those themes.

If we are like the detective who wishes to come to the answer which are obvious and simplistic, we may solve the crime quickly and superficially. But is the solution the right one? What about the curious incident of what the dog did in the night-time?

Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Silver Blaze.
Arthur Conan Doyle

IOW, what about the evidence that contradicts the simplistic answer?

Neat and clean answers appeal to us all: 3 follows 2 which follows 1, making a nice story. But doesn't real life play out rather as :


1
1a
1b

2
2a

3
3a
3b
3c

4

So like Holmes, we need to take all the evidence, including the fact that dog that did not bark in the night. We pin up all the facts on a board. We move them around in different combinations till we find the conclusion that best fits the evidence.

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Sam

All Scripture references from the NASB unless otherwise indicated.

Here's scholarship that finds fault with views formulated centuries after the text was written:

Quote
Another objection which is sure to be raised in several minds, around this table and farther afield, is whether this remarkable construct is predicable as having been in Jesus’ mind and worldview, or rather only in the evangelists and their sources. With this question, we are back to the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation. For my part, I believe it was a great gain in the 1950s and 1960s that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were recognized as theologians, not mere chroniclers. Perhaps the 1990s should become the decade in which we realize something that was after all staring us in the face, that Jesus too was a theologian — but one whose theology was expressed not as another movement in the history of ideas, or as a collection of texts finely exegeted, but as one who believed that in and through his own work, life, and death, the very subject matter of theology, of Israel’s prophetic, apocalyptic, eschatological, and redemptive theology, was coming to birth.

I suggest, then, that the categories of the sixth or fifth or fourth centuries B.C.E., and those of the sixteenth or subsequent centuries C.E., are not necessarily good guides for our understanding of Jesus.

The Servant and Jesus
The Relevance of the Colloquy for the Current Quest for Jesus
(Originally published in Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, ed. William H. Bellinger, Jr. and William R. Farmer. 1998, Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. 281–297. Reproduced by permission of the author.)
N. T. WRIGHT
http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Servant_Jesus.htm

Hi Euty, do you post on Theologyweb?

Hi DogHouse, yet to find the medicine you claim to have administered. Why don't we try our competing methods on the Doctrine of Original Sin? Great place to strut your stuff, and poke around what happens to little babies who die without sinning...

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Sam

All Scripture references from the NASB unless otherwise indicated.

Wow...anyone have a gibberish to English translator?

Footwasher, I have no idea what you just wrote, but I did think it humerous that you quoted N.T. Wright, for he very much believes in original sin (read his books, particularly the ones on St. Paul!).

Campion

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Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere. - St. Thomas Aquinas

This is gibberish:

Humerous.

Oh yes, even Wright is not always right. We'll deal with his fibula, oops fibbing, anon!

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Sam

All Scripture references from the NASB unless otherwise indicated.

The problem I have with your assertion here is that it is the equivalent to telling me that you have discovered a more authoritative way of learning Calculus, other than using the instructions (or opinions) of Sir Isaac Newton...but rather the opinions of "Joe Blow", whom I have never heard of.

What makes "Joe Blow' such a noted authority on Calculus beyond Sir Isaac Newton? This is an appeal to authority, which you claim, but can't demonstrate.

...if one simply approaches discernment as an extraction of meaning from a set of ancient texts... This is the argument Catholics use to support the idea of tradition being present in the magisterium, as well, to provide the context and to frame the meaning and intent of the original writers.

...or we could humble ourselves to acknowledge the authority of an institution who has been trying to preserve the deposit of faith for 2,000 years...rather than re-inventing our own "meaning" apart from the wisdom and resources of this institution...using whatever "methods" we invent and attempt to rationalize in this pursuit.

...Euty is laughing about your "Green" comment...I am a veteran poster of Christianity.com and Crosswalk, having posted since 2003 under the names "GoodME" (ME is Mechanical Engineer) and "Doghouse" (because my "mouth" frequently gets me in that place) I have over 6,600 posts online (Google "GoodME" or "Doghouse" and "Christianity"...the ones that haven't been taken down should be cached or archived for your consideration), defending my beloved Roman Catholic Christianity, educating folks who may not know a lot about just what Catholics believe and practice, and in the process, coming to "meet", admire and respect people like Euty - who in my book is blessed and highly favored...who are equally passionate about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and what they hold to be the Biblical Truths of the Deposit of Faith, and whose faith shines out like a beacon in the content and tenor of their posts. In addition to that, I have contributed articles to a variety of publications on faith in the last couple of years, and am getting pushed to compile some of my work into a book...which can't convince myself I have the time or the acumen to do...

...that's what the laughter was about...

When I said you are getting a dose...that is a dose of me participating in this thread...I do this because I enjoy it...

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..."Absence of evidence" is not "Evidence of absence"...

opinions vary & yours ain't the difinitive answer on the matter so get over it -- ya know, calling someone's view "nonsense" (DogHouse does likewise a few posts later) leads 1 on a dangerous path with arrogance & elitism as your only light source -- you are bound to stumble

so let's chill out & treat disagreements over ancillary doctrine with a less harsh tone -- otherwise we may start seeing words like "anathema" coming out of the woodwork

besides, it's Friday!

...this made me laugh so hard, I spilled my Dr. Pepper on my desk. That almost makes it venial sin...

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..."Absence of evidence" is not "Evidence of absence"...

Ha! Ha! Okay, chief, I hear ya!

My use of "green" was with respect to this forum. I get bombarded with Scripture when I put forward my views, which is as it should be.

We've had Catholic posters who quoted from the Traditions, and found that a difficult setting in which to talk about stuff...our authoritive source is only the Scriptures and those who hold views derived from it.

As for scholarly brilliance, if you have the central theme wrong, you can mess up spectacularly...

Quote
If we put the central things in the center, it is surprising how easily the other things settle down and make themselves at home. If our debate, not least its puzzles and unresolved tensions, serves to remind us that Christian theology is not about words and ideas but about a person, it will have had a relevance for the study of Jesus far beyond the dotting of a few i’s and the crossing of a few t’s. As the old saying goes, when you have dotted your i’s, it may be time at last to open them.

The Servant and Jesus
N. T. Wright

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Sam

All Scripture references from the NASB unless otherwise indicated.

So pleased you added that last bit, because this Forum is not set up so that you, or anyone else, can "defend Catholic views" nor to enable anyone "educate folks" (read the info at the top of the page, and note C of C re those who see themselves here as teachers ) ... but sure glad you enjoy being here anyway!

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Avid Reader

“Lord, in my zeal for love of truth, let me not forget the truth about love.” - Thomas Aquinas
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A while ago someone posted something similar to this that I believe answers the OP of this thread:

There are saved and unsaved people within the Catholic Church (Roman or otherwise) just as they are saved and unsaved people within the Protestant Church.

Having said that I think it's time for this thread to be put to bed.

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Jennifer Dent
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