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Of late, I've been coming across how numerous 20th century theologians (some considerably earlier) have basically rejected St. Augustine's views on this that and the other. One of the things is his concept of the Trinity that basically, besides some additions by St. Thomas Aquinas and Richard of St-Victor, stood until the 20th century (for all intents and purposes. Since it's not the aim of the thread to debate the trinity I won't go further into this).

But another concept of St. Augustine's that has cast a very long shadow is his doctrine of Original Sin. That we are somehow all flawed because of Adam and Eve's eating of the forbidden fruit. In his doctrine, St. Augustine laments the loss of a "perfect" humanity that can only be restored through relationship with the Second Adam (Christ).

Now, until St. Augustine started flogging the sale of this, one of the doctrines about the Fall was that of St. Irenaeus. Now St. Irenaeus had a different concept. Namely that the Fall was not as catastrophic as what Augustine later proposed. In fact, St. Irenaeus suggested that man was created "immature", and the Fall was merely the stumblings of a child learning to walk. And, as we grow to maturity, we can respond to God's invitations to interact with him. According to this concept, while there is a loss, it is not a permanent one (as St. Augustine reasons - since the perfection can only be restored through Christ, according to him). When I asked a friend of mine, who's a church minister about this, he responded that the reason that the Church would never in a million years have accepted Irenaeus' idea over Augustine's is because that Irenaeus' seems like a more conciliatory approach (don't worry if you're bad, you're just learning) than Augustine's black-and-white (you're bad, Christ is the only hope for you). I came back and asked him, "so what were they doing before Augustine got round to it?" Understandably I got no answer.

So, what if St. Augustine's idea never gains currency? Instead St. Irenaeus's doctrine does (or rather holds)? The idea of Original Sin as propounded by St. Augustine is that we as "fallen" humanity are intrinsically bad because of some fault in our genetics. Would the Church develop differently (the Doctrine of Original Sin is a pretty rooted concept)? And would St. Augustine, without such a key doctrine to his name, be regarded differently? I can only think that the effects on humanity's development would be way different.
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