You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
About the doctrine of Original Sin
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”1
Tom: “…they've grabbed an original sin doctrine on to transhumanism and you know they keep playing that game over, and over, and over again, it's the control system and you know ultimately (as you said earlier) you have to have enough self-awareness and self-respect to go “no i’m … not a bad person” or “I make mistakes but that doesn't make me a bad person”. This is a fundamental problem. I mean, I go through this—I was raised Catholic, so you were ingrained with this idea that if you made a mistake you were a bad person if—”
Matt: “That was the sin, right, it was the [thinking that the sin made you] burn in hell”
Tom: “Yeah, right, as opposed to saying ‘look, I made a mistake, i'm gonna learn from it’…”
(Slightly adapted for better reading)
While I am sure I would agree with Matt and Tom on what they think about transhumanism, the parts concerning original sin, sin itself, salvation, and the Catholic Church need to be explained. This subject has come up on other recent podcasts (ex: Timcast IRL) and it sparked a conversation in my family. This is my understanding of the concept of original sin.
First, what is sin? A sin is an offense against reason, truth, and the right conscience. It is something that you do deliberately, that you know you shouldn’t do, not something that you did without knowledge that it was wrong. For example, a child saying a bad word that they don’t know is bad is not a sin in and of itself2. We all sin; we all have at some point done things that are against our conscience3. What Mr. Luongo said in the end of the quote was correct, we are supposed to learn from our mistakes. That, though, does not make the mistake good. However, saying that sin makes you burn in hell comes from a wrong understanding of hell. If all sinners were sent to hell, hell would be quite full! Hell is for unrepentant sinners, those who “say they have no sin”4 and who die unrepentant.
This is not to be confused with original sin. Original sin is the sin of Adam and Eve, the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We inherit the effects of this sin, though not being directly guilty, like we sometimes suffer for the sins of our parents and grandparents. For example, the son of a bad king is not to blame if he is working in a pig-stye because the king’s subjects overthrew the kingdom. Though he is not culpable for the sins of his father, he suffers the effects. He is still the prince, he is also still in the pig-stye.
When Adam committed the original sin, he banished God from his soul. God was still on the outside, showering graces, but God was not in him, or his descendants—because God does not force Himself on us. Since God was not in them, they were more vulnerable to sins, hence the so-called “harsh treatment” of God in the Old Testament; they were weaker in a sense. They needed the harsher discipline.
Adam also, by eating the fruit of the tree, gained the knowledge of good and evil. Hence, he gained the inclination to sin. We have done stuff in the past that we knew was wrong, or even because it was wrong, like St. Augustine and the pear tree.5
Before the coming of Christ, God was not in our souls; he had been sent out by Adam, leaving a “God shaped hole”. Now, with the coming of Christ, we are able to bring back God into our souls, through baptism. We Catholics describe it as a “white garment” that is given to us at baptism. When we sin (for the inclination to sin never leaves us, and the devil is still here to tempt), we stain that garment. When we commit a mortal sin, one that is grave, that we know is grave, and that we choose deliberately to commit, we lose that garment, and send God out of our souls.
Think about it this way: when you are born, you have the hole in your soul created by Adam and Eve’s original sin; God is restored through baptism. When you commit a mortal sin, you are directly culpable and guilty of what you did, God leaves your soul, and you lose your white garment. Adam and Eve are not guilty of that!
However, when you commit a mortal sin, you are not doomed, or unredeemable. Some of the greatest saints started out by doing horrible things, like St. Paul. We can restore God into our souls after committing a mortal sin by going to confession.
Confession (also called the Sacrament of Reconciliation), is when you tell your sins, repent and say you are sorry, and receive penance. Confessions are heard by priests, but when you tell a priest your sins, it is not him, but Christ you are talking to. When a priest does this he is In Persona Christi, or In the Person of Christ. A priest is also In Persona Christi when he says the Words of Consecration in Mass. When we go to confession, we restore God back into our souls and receive grace.
So, any sin that you commit, obviously, has consequences. You hurt someone (another person, yourself, and God himself) by sinning. Saying that you are “going to learn from your mistakes” is necessary, but not sufficient.
First of all, you have to have an authority to tell you what is right and wrong. This authority comes primarily from God, that is, natural law, and secondly from the community, that is, civil law. To say that someone states that certain things are sins and that you shouldn’t commit them is shaming, or telling someone they are “bad”, is wrong-headed. You cannot always know what you did was wrong, or how wrong it was, without someone telling you. The Church is what tells us this.
Tom Luongo is talking about transhumanists, saying that they have “…grabbed an original sin doctrine on to transhumanism and you know … it's the control system…” (adapted for better reading). Transhumanists believe that one day computing power will overcome human capabilities, and run the world. They call it the “4th industrial-revolution”. They don’t believe in the power of the human mind. They believe that first, there is no God, and second, that they can become God. They tell you that you are a machine, that you don’t have free will, that after you die there is nothing, so you are supposed to keep yourself alive (artificially or horrifically or both), and absorb yourself in a fake “metaverse” that detaches you from that body that God gave you.
In a way, it would be great if the transhumanists had an “original sin doctrine”. They would recognize that man is created by God, was flawed by the original sin of Adam and Eve, and is made whole again through the Sacraments. Understanding this would destroy transhumanism as it is today, and promote the harnessing of new technologies for the betterment of humanity, so they can increase and multiply and fill the face of the earth.
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
— 1 John 1:8-9
If you have not seen The Princess Bride, you must, immediately.
The culpability of a sin is determined by how much you know. You can do something wrong and not sin. You can sin not because you did something bad, but because you were knowingly un-informed, similar to criminal negligence.
The conscience is defined as the “interpreter” of what God is telling us to do. Sometimes we are unsure of what to do, whether something is right or wrong. Hence the word “right conscience” or “informed conscience”.
See 1 John 1:8-9
Augustine’s Confessions 2:4