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a formation in the moral life according to the pattern of
Christ’s cross and Resurrection, death to sin and life on
high in Christ Jesus.
Original sin in contemporary context
The most fundamental elements of the Christian faith
are in play in the doctrine of original sin. God’s intention
in creating human persons is to make them sharers in the
divine life and thus in the communion of Trinitarian life.
For this reason, the first human beings were created in grace,
or at least immediately thereafter constituted in grace. Only
from divine revelation itself do we know that the first hu-
man beings momentously turned away from this invitation
to share in divine life, and, further, that their doing so had
inescapable consequences for the human race which could
only be undone by Christ. According to Catholic doctrine,
just by virtue of being part of the human race, all human
beings are born in a state of sin—a state that is thus said to
be acquired not by
imitation
but by
propagation
.
Two crucially significant elements of Aquinas’ theology
of original sin address some of the most vexing issues that
have arisen in recent writing: (1) his insistence that the first
personal sin of Adam was not merely the transgression of
an arbitrary command but an interior disobedience rooted
in pride, which could be rectified in the divine economy of
salvation only by the perfect obedience of the Only Begotten
Son, and (2) his understanding of original sin in us as a lack
of original justice—a lack of facility in choosing the good,
not a fatal inclination to evil. By considering original sin
within the context of the factors that affect our capacity for
moral action, Aquinas leaves us with a remarkably sober
and relatively optimistic account of the consequences of
Adam’s sin. Clearly, for him, we are not born bad.