Original Sin and Human Frailty
As taught in the Anglican / Episcopal tradition
Acknowledging the depth of human brokenness and the necessity of divine intervention.
The doctrine of Original Sin is often the most unpopular and yet the most empirically verifiable tenet of the Christian faith. Within the Anglican tradition, the question this subtopic answers is fundamental to the entire structure of the Gospel: "Why, if God is good and the world is His creation, does everything seem to go so persistently wrong—and why am I, despite my best intentions, so often the author of that wrongness?" To understand "Salvation and the Life of Grace," one must first understand the condition from which we are being saved. Anglicanism, following the via media (middle way), approaches this not as a abstract philosophical puzzle, but as a lived reality of "human frailty" that necessitates a total dependence on the grace of God.
By the end of this lesson
- **Identify** the biblical foundations of Original Sin in the narratives of Genesis and the theology of St. Paul.
- **Distinguish** between "actual sins" (individual acts) and "Original Sin" (a state of being or "infection of nature").
- **Explain** the Anglican "Middle Way" regarding human depravity, acknowledging both the gravity of the Fall and the persistence of the Image of God.
- **Articulate** the historical significance of Article IX of the Thirty-nine Articles in rejecting Pelagianism.
- **Trace** the liturgical expression of human frailty through the Book of Common Prayer, specifically the Litany and the General Confession.
- **Defend** the necessity of unconditional grace based on the reality of human inability to achieve righteousness through the Law.
- **Apply** the doctrine of Original Sin to modern ethics, social justice, and personal self-examination.
- **Compare** the Anglican view of "concupiscence" and the "infection of nature" with Roman Catholic and more radically Reformed perspectives.
Scripture
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