Further refutation of Mormon errors on original sin

 Introduction

This paper will be discussing some of the errors and arguments of Mormonism in regard to original sin. The reader is recommended to study this section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church before reading further here, in order to have a better understanding of what the true Catholic position is.

What is the Mormon distortion of the doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin?

The Mormon distortion is based on the big lie of exaltation to godhood. While in Christian theology the goal of life is to get to heaven and enjoy the beatific vision for eterntiy, the goal of Mormons is to become a god. While in Christian theology, Adam and Eve enjoyed supernatual grace (life in God) before the fall, and lost it because of their sin, the Mormon distortion says Adam and Eve were stuck in Eden unable to get out until they “transgressed” then they knew good from evil, they knew how to reproduce (ie give bodies to spirit children) and they knew how to become gods. The Mormon denial of original sin is found in their scriptures:

“the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt, wherein the sins of the parents cannot be answered upon the heads of the children, for they are whole from the foundation of the world.” (Moses 6:54)”Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.” (Doctrine & Covenants 93:38 )

So in discussing the fall, Mormons do not want to her about loss of sanctifying grace, rather they are only interested in the steps needed to overcome the obstacles to godhood.

The remainder of this page will refute some of the LDS errors regarding original sin and baptism.

 

First, a quick clarification: The central differences between Catholic and LDS baptism:

 

• 1) Catholics believe that baptism removes the stain of “original sin” or “original guilt,” (ie the deprivation of supernatural grace to Adam and hsis posterity on account of his sin), necessitating the baptism of infants, while Latter-day Saints believe that Christ has already atoned for the “original guilt,” and thus infants need not be baptized 
• 2) Catholics baptize by immersion, pouring, or sprinkling, while Latter-day Saints baptize only by immersion. We shall not be examining this difference further in this paper.

Mormonism fails to understand the difference btween personal sin (actual sin committed by a person) and original sin (correctly understood as the stain or deprivation of supernatural grace causes by Adam’s sin).

 

Bogus argument #1: Original sin only affects the body

According to Mormonism the soul is not subject to original sin. This is an error, based, ironically enough on a Platonist teaching that the body is a hindrance to the soul, and that the soul on its own makes a person. In support of this view, they sometimes cite Romans 7: 14ff and 24) where St. Paul speaks of a conflict between the body and the soul. Hence, the Mormons say, the body is fallen, the soul is not, else why would there be a conflict between body and soul if both are in the same fallen state? So only one must be fallen. They conclude that the earliest Christians did not believe the soul came tainted from God.

A quote from the early Church which is sometimes used to is from St. Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata 7:3, in ANF 2:528. (ca. 200 A.D.) which says that “the contest, embracing all the varied exercises, is ‘not against flesh and blood,’ but against the spiritual powers of inordinate passions that work through the flesh.”

i) The conflict St. Paul speaks of is not really between a fallen body and an unfallen soul (Mormonism) but rather the desire to please God agianst a fallen body-soul combination (Catholicism)

Acoccording to Ludwig Ott (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 94), St. Paul

“is not thinking of the body in its physical construction, but in its condition of moral disorder occasioned by sin”.

This is exactly the Catholic position. Both body an soul are in the fallen state, yet we have the free will to acknowledge that body and soul are fallen, and this gives rise to terrible conflicts with our will to please God, not conflicts between body and soul per se. So we see that St. Paul is not saying the soul is not fallen. The same can be said for St. Clement of Alexandria’s remark cited above.

Now that we see there is no Scriptural support for the Mormon claim that the body only, and not the soul, is fallen, we shall now see that the nature of man necessitates that body and soul are both essential parts of human nature.

We first note with some interest that Platonism taught that the body is a hindrance to the soul. Given the Mormon charges against the Catholic Church that she (the Catholic Church) allegedly went wrong in the early centuries after Christ because she incorporated Hellenistic philosophical ideas (i.e. Platonism) into her teaching, this is a very big contradiction on the part of the Mormons to now propose the Platonic teachings on the body and soul (namely. That the body is a hindrance ot the soul) as authentically Christian!

Mormons use verses such as Hebrews 12:9; Zechariah 12:1 and Ecclesiastes 12:7 to show that our fleshly nature comes from our earthly fathers (like Adam), but in contrast our spiritual nature comes from God. This is identical to the Platonic view just described.

In contrast to this Platonic view of a spirti-body dichotomy, the Catholic Church says that

ii) the body is an essential part of human nature. Here is what Ott says (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, page 95):

“According to the teaching of Holy Scripture, man is composed of two essential components…Gn. 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man out of the slime of the earth, and breathed in his face the breath of life (Spiraculum vitae= life principle, soul), and man became a living soul.” Prov. 12:7 “Think of thy Creator…, before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the Spirit of God who sent it.”"According to Gen. 2:7, the body-material, by virtue of the increation of the soul, becomes aliving human body, and thus a component part of human nature. Accordign to the vision of Ezekiel,37:1ff the dead members of the body are awakened to life through the spiritual soul.”

Therefore: Given the union of body and soul, it is not possible to consider the fallen state of the one (the body) without also admititng the fallen state of the other (the soul).

Hence we have shown that the Mormon view against original sin, that the soul is not fallen, is false. Mormon attempts to say the battle between the flesh and the spirit shows that only the flesh is fallen fails to take into account that the flesh is fallen BECAUSE of the fall of the spirit (ie the sin of Adam). This however is their inevitable conclusion because they do not believe Adam sinned (See my paper Response to Mormon Objections to the Doctrine of Original Sin )

 

Bogus argument #2: Original sin was first taught by the Gnostics, then taken over by the Catholic Church. The “smoking gun” verse used to support this view is St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 3:16:

“It is for them to tell us how the newly born child could commit fornication or in what way the child who has never done anything at all has fallen under Adam’s curse. The only thing left for them to say and still be consistent, I suppose, is that birth is evil not just for the body but for the soul for which the body exists.” Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 3:16, transl. J. Ferguson (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991)

So, in other words, St. Clement’s refutation of the Gnostics is proof the early Church rejected the doctrine of original sin. A look at the context of the debate shows that this is certainly not what St. Clement is saying. The Gnostics held matter to be evil, hence they said the body was evil. Clement is saying the body of a baby can’t be evil as it can’t commit formication; he is refuting the gnostic duality of body and soul, not the idea that the baby has a fallen soul. The gnostics were saying the the baby was under a curse precisely because he had received a body, not because he had inherited the stain of Adam’s sin. This is the essential difference.

 

Bogus Argument #3: In regard to Acts 16:15, 32-33 and 1 Corinthians 1:16, which speak of entire households being baptized, when LDS missionaries speak of “whole households” being baptized, they do not mean to include children.
Therefore these Scripture verses do not include infants, and therefore infant baptism was not practiced in the New Testament. The point therefore being, children can’t have original sin, else they’d be baptized.

This argument was brought up by Mormon apologist Barry Bickmore in a debate with Catholic apologist Steve Clifford. The rejection of infant baptism by the Mormons is related to their belief that infants do not have original sin (note: it does not concern the various traditional protestant reasons for non–baptism of infants). Hence, rejection of infant baptism is a point to show that original sin does not exist.

The obvious error with this view of Bickmore’s is that he has a pre-defined belief that “whole families” cannot include infants because infant baptism is not done by the LDS church. In the New Testament church, there ws no such preconceived notion, so why should the LDS read their additional “condition” into the Biblical text? Answer: because their erroneous theology demands it.

 

Bogus argument #4: If original sin is true, then babies are born guilty of sin, totally depraved, and destined for eternal punishment. Yet Matthew 19:14 says otherwise.

There are several errors in this short sentence, which can be summarized as follows: a) it assumes original sin is an actual personal sin. In contrast, Catholicism teaches original sin is a deprivation.We are born totally deprived of supernatural grace, not totally depraved in our nature. Hence children who die unbaptized do not deserve hell fire, as they have committed no actual personal sin, but are deprived of the beatific vision (on accout of Adam’s sin). Of course, there is speculation as to how God may admit these children to His presence, a question we shall never know in this klife. Suffice it to say, however, that His ways are far above ours. We can safely entrust the souls of departed unbaptized infants to His fatherly care, at the same time not neglecting our Christian duty to baptize these little ones without undue delay. B) The doctrine of total depravity is an error of Calvinism. Even those who commit personal sin are not totally depraved. b) Matthew 19:14 does not address original sin. Of course Our Lord can say that to children belongs the Kingdom of heaven: these have committed no personal sin (at least no mortal sin before they have reached the age of reason). Again, the Mormon position is mixing up personal sin and original sin. The same error applies to the Mormon understanding of verses such as Psalm 106: 37, 38:

“They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.
They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.” (NIV)

and Jeremiah 19:4,5

“they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal” (NIV)

which refer to the deaths of innocent people. Again, this refers to the absence of personal, not original, sin. Mormonism, it must be remembered, is unable to distiguish personal sin and original sin. This is because it does not understand original sin as a privation.

 

Bogus argument #5:
a) If we can inherit Adam’s guilt, why not inherit the guilt of all our ancestors?
b) And why can’t we inherit righteousness too?

If our parents were Christians who have been cleansed from all sin (see for example the verses 1 John 1:7,9; Heb. 7:25), then there would be no sin for us to inherit, so we would be born pure.

To show the guilt of parents is not inherited, Mormonism points to Ezekiel 18:20 :

The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

As to the first part of this argument, the reason is because Adam was the head of the human race. None of our other ancestors were head of the human race. And what difference does this make? Well, for one thing, our other ancestors did not have supernatural gifts which the children could inherit, these had been lost already by Adam. But more importantly, if your first ancestor throws away your supernatural inheritance in the heavenly city, none of your later ancestors can do anything to recover it. Error (b) actually answers error (a). We do not inherit righteousnes or sin from our parents, (just from Adam) so Christians cleansed from sin will still have children born with original sin.

 

Bogus argument #6: Original sin is not mentioned throughout the Old Testament, so it must not be true.

Answer: In the Old Testament, the Jewish people didn’t have a concept of original sin, because they could not grasp the ultimate meaning of original sin, namely, the loss of sanctifying grace. It is only when we know Jesus as the source of sanctifying grace, that we can really understand Adam as the source of original sin. in any case, the Old Testament (and the New Testament) makes no mention of many Mormon doctrines.

 

Conclusion

We have seen that the Mormon denial of original sin is a teaching which cannot be defended either from Scripture, history, or reason.

The next paper will refute the erroneous Mormon doctrine of pre-existence, a teaching which means that as souls (supposedly) exist from eternity, they could not pick up “original sin” from Adam, so the traditional Christian doctrine of original sin must be wrong. Also, theories of the origin of the soul will be discussed.

 

 

 

 

Appendix: Was St. Augustine the first Church Father to teach original sin?

Bogus argument #7 : The doctrine of original sin was invented by St. Augustine as a throwback to his Manichee days (Manichaeism taught that matter was evil).

On the contrary, St. Augustine in his “Contra Jul.”, II, x, 33,( the full title being “Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum” (Unfinished Work against Julian) [429/430], concerning his dispute with the Pelagian bishop of Eclanum (Italy)..cites 11 Fathers in support of original sin.

Finally, here is a citation from the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Original Sin which effectively destroys the notion that St. Augustine invented the doctrine:

 

IV. ORIGINAL SIN IN TRADITIONOn account of a superficial resemblance between the doctrine of original sin and and the Manichaean theory of our nature being evil, the Pelagians accused the Catholics and St. Augustine of Manichaeism. For the accusation and its answer see “Contra duas epist. Pelag.”, I, II, 4; V, 10; III, IX, 25; IV, III. In our own times this charge has been reiterated by several critics and historians of dogma who have been influenced by the fact that before his conversion St. Augustine was a Manichaean. They do not identify Manichaeism with the doctrine of original sin, but they say that St. Augustine, with the remains of his former Manichaean prejudices, created the doctrine of original sin unknown before his time. It is not true that the doctrine of original sin does not appear in the works of the pre-Augustinian Fathers. On the contrary, their testimony is found in special works on the subject. Nor can it be said, as Harnack maintains, that St. Augustine himself acknowledges the absence of this doctrine in the writings of the Fathers. St. Augustine invokes the testimony of eleven Fathers, Greek as well as Latin (Contra Jul., II, x, 33). Baseless also is the assertion that before St. Augustine this doctrine was unknown to the Jews and to the Christians; as we have already shown, it was taught by St. Paul. It is found in the fourth Book of Esdras, a work written by a Jew in the first century after Christ and widely read by the Christians. This book represents Adam as the author of the fall of the human race (vii, 48), as having transmitted to all his posterity the permanent infirmity, the malignity, the bad seed of sin (iii, 21, 22; iv, 30).

…That this doctrine existed in Christian tradition before St. Augustine’s time is shown by the practice of the Church in the baptism of children. The Pelagians held that baptism was given to children, not to remit their sin, but to make them better, to give them supernatural life, to make them adoptive sons of God, and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven (see St. Augustine, “De peccat. meritis”, I, xviii). The Catholics answered by citing the Nicene Creed, “Confiteor unum baptisma in remissiomen peccatorum”. They reproached the Pelagians with introducing two baptisms, one for adults to remit sins, the other for children with no such purpose. Catholics argued, too, from the ceremonies of baptism, which suppose the child to be under the power of evil, i.e., exorcisms, abjuration of Satan made by the sponsor in the name of the child [Aug., loc. cit., xxxiv, 63; Denz., n. 140 (96)].

So Augustine is proved not to be the inventor of the doctrine of original sin.

The rational soul is immediately the essential form of the body.