by Athena Garner

Created on: July 15, 2008

Augustine gave Christianity one of its main tenets by promoting the idea of Original Sin. Augustine argued that Adam and Eve's sin alienated the entire human race from God. He said that since the Fall, man remained under the dominion of Satan until the Incarnation. In other words, man couldn't save himself from his fallen state without Christ. No individual could free himself from the sin he inherited simply by being born. Augustine saw evil as a result of man's folly and less a matter of Satan's power. This was the theological idea he promoted, but Augustine did not invent the idea of Original Sin himself.

Augustine drew his views on God, humanity, and the problem of evil from the New Testament and other traditional Christian writings. His contribution was to bring previous views and ideas together to try and answer the question of God's involvement in evil's existence. By placing the cause of evil on man's choice, God is relieved of the responsibility for evil. This was not a wholly new idea, but Augustine was perhaps the first to bring all the elements of the thought together and gave it scope.
Ultimately, Augustine still believes that God is responsible for all things, even evil. But his responsibility for evil is indirect and is much more man's fault than His. By giving mankind free will to do as he chooses: obey God's commands or stray from the path, God in effect relinquishes accountability for man's choices. Augustine arrived at this conclusion by studying the Bible's representation of the situation and God's attempt to rectify man's failures due to lack of obedience through Christ's sacrifice. God once again gives man a choice, though. Christ doesn't automatically free all men from Satan's power, but he gives them the opportunity to free themselves by following him. Augustine simply took the already existing view that God is responsible for all things and applied it to human imperfection and evil.
One aspect of the concept of Original Sin that Augustine did invent is the idea that evil does not truly exist. He decided that man's choice to disobey God allowed for imperfection and thus evil. God once again had nothing to do with this since He created nothing but perfection and good.
Augustine of Hippo is one of the greatest figures in the history of Christian theology. He is considered great not for revolutionizing Christian thought by creating a wholly new perspective on human sin and evil, but by sifting through previous writings and ideas and shaping them into a consensus. This amalgamation became the concept of Original Sin.

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