Augustine speaks on the innocence of babies, which I felt was done in a blunt manner. This has always been a particularly interesting topic for me to study. When I look at a baby, that is one of the clearest pictures of innocence to me. I believe most people would say that they do not look at an infant on the day it was born as a dirty sinner. Augustine says, "if babies are innocent, it is not for lack of will to do harm, but for lack of strength" (28). He compares this to a baby throwing a tantrum for something that he desires, but will do him harm. Augustine goes on to say, "where, I ask you, Lord, where or when was I, your servant, ever innocent?". This question stuck out to me because I know Augustine believes in total depravity (aka The Pear Tree), but I had never thought of this in the way his thought process moves through this question. This is the beginning to questioning it. I see a baby, and I see innocence. It would be interesting to me to pursue the thought of innocence in the womb. The baby is alive, the baby is a being. I feel it cannot be anything but innocent. Is Augustine saying that as soon as you enter the world (a baby being born), that that is when you lose your innocence? Can you even ever be innocent? How could a baby in the womb not be innocent??
I commented on Nate and Darby's.
Didn't we already answer this with Origen? We are born into sin. Therefore, we cannot escape it. It doesn't matter what you have or have not done. You don't go through life and suddenly steal a cookie from the cookie jar at age 2 and now you're a sinner. That would imply you were perfect until that point. You never were perfect and never will be. So yes, even and unborn fetus is a sinner.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Briana that we are born into sin. This is something we are all aware of, but this idea of being innocent or not in the womb is confusing to me also. What makes an unborn fetus guilty? I understand that all of us are in sin, but are we ever really innocent?
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting question to wrestle over, but yes I agree that all humans are born innately sinful. We are never innocent because we descended from Adam and Eve who introduced sin into the world - we are born tainted by sin.
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