Originally Posted by
Me
This is not correct. The notion of man as inherently evil (as seen in the notion of Original Sin) is a product of the 5th Century ala St. Augustine. Due to Augustine's massive impact on Latin Christianity both Roman Catholicism and its heir Protestantism generally hold to this view. The same cannot be said of the Greek Tradition.
Originally Posted by
Navaros
Actually this is not correct and the original post was.
Not so. My post was correct both in its doctrinal scope and theological chronology. As a simple illustration of the former: Bishop Kallistos is perhaps the most famous advocate of the Orthodox Church in the English speaking world. He writes in explaining the beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy:
"Orthodox do not say, as Calvin said, that man after the fall was utterly depraved and incapable of good desires. They cannot agree with Augustine, when he writes that man is under ‘a harsh necessity’ of committing sin, and that ‘man’s nature was overcome by the fault into which it fell, and so came to lack freedom’ ...And Orthodox have never held (as Augustine and many others in the west have done) that unbaptized babies, because tainted with original guilt, are consigned by the just God to the everlasting games of Hell. The Orthodox picture of fallen humanity is far less sombre than the Augustinian or Calvinist view."
One shouldn't confuse a personal sectarian penchant for the whole of Christendom.
Jesus himself has said that mankind is inherently evil...
No such citation exists.
Religion Part I: Christianity
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Yes, I agree fully. Having been a kid, who attended Catholic School, our Bishop and subsequent teachers would continuously pound into our heads that the bible was never meant to be literal.
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