Does Baptism Wash Away Original Sin?
There is a verse in the second reading of today where Paul says: “….. sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.” This statement is often seen as a reference to the belief about original sin i.e. the concept that we are all born with sin because Adam and Eve sinned, and that unless baptized, we cannot be absolved of this sin. But this teaching has probably confused several of us: “How can a baby have sin even before it is born or how can it sin even for many years after it is born? Doesn’t sin demand some knowledge and will and intent - how can a baby have all this?”. Valid questions - and so we need to ask ourselves what is the meaning of original sin? And what is the meaning of Baptism?
First of all we must know that the Catholic Church itself teaches that “….. original sin is called ‘sin’ only in an analogical sense; …. it is a state, and not an act.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 404, 1992)
So what is this ‘state’ of sin that the Church talks about ? Early Christian thinkers probably felt the need to make sense of the common human experience that all human beings are born with a basic selfishness, which today we may call the survival instinct. After all a baby does not love anybody other than itself - the Mother is ‘loved’ only because she feeds it , looks after it, etc. And the Church concluded that there was something we are born with that tends to make us look out for SELF above all others. At the same time such a conclusion did not sit well with the Judaeo-Christian belief in the goodness of God who is the author of all human life, because the question that naturally arises is: “How can a loving and unselfish God create such ‘selfish’ beings?” As the Church teaches: Examining his heart, man finds that he has inclinations toward evil too, and is engulfed by manifold ills which cannot come from his good Creator. (Gaudium et Spes # 13).
The earlier common understanding that this state of selfishness was because of the sin of Adam and Eve can no more hold, since today the Church accepts that the Adam and Eve story and the allied stories in the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis are a ‘naive symbolic way of speaking, well suited to the understanding of primitive people” (cf Encyclical, Humani Generis). Added to this is the fact that the Church has also accepted that the theory of evolution does not go against Christian belief. Consequently, even as we do not have to accept the historicity of the Adam and Eve story, we have to find the religious truth that the writers of Genesis wanted to convey. And the truth is that we cannot ignore this innate ‘selfishness’ with which human beings are born. So, the Adam and Eve story is just a mythological explanation of how this innate ‘selfishness’ that is found in all human beings came to be. The way the Church chose to articulate the truth of this experience was to call this state of innate selfishness with which all human beings are born as ‘original sin’.
But does this ‘state of original sin’ get wiped out by baptism? It is interesting to point out that this understanding of an immediate ‘magical wiping away’ of Original Sin through baptism, though still common in the minds of many Christians, has been gradually downplayed even in Church rituals, so that today in the Catholic Church’s Easter vigil when the baptismal vows are reiterated by the whole community, there is no reference at all to original sin, but only to a renunciation of Satan and all his works. And the prayer of Exorcism that is articulated during the ritual of baptism is only a prayer to set free the one to be baptised from original sin, but there is no reference to a sudden wiping away of original sin.
Then what has baptism to do with this ‘original sin’? In Catholic teaching, all sacraments are external signs of an internal reality. As an example, if one pronounces one’s marriage vows during the ritual of the sacrament of Marriage, in a state of deception (e.g. I pretend to be someone I am not) then my sacramental marriage is not a sacrament. And so, though the Church does not accept divorce, it can declare such a marriage as annulled, - which in effect means that what looked like a sacrament of marriage was in actual fact not a sacrament, because the external ritual did not faithfully reflect an internal reality. Hence the person is free to marry again in the Church.
In the same way, Baptism, as a Sacrament, is an external expression of an internal reality - which is why, in the early Church, baptism was only conferred on a person when s/he had shown that s/he was ready to give up leading a life of selfishness. So the ritual or sacrament of baptism was an external sign of the internal reality - and that internal reality was that the person who came forward for baptism had already started to live a life in which s/he strove to renounce the Satan of selfishness.
Of course that raises the question, and rightly so, of whether there is any meaning to the practice of infant baptism, when it is clear that a baby really cannot make this kind of choice.
One explanation is that this practice of infant baptism probably started because of a false theological dilemma that the early Christians faced. In the early Church, Christians gradually came to understand that unless one died to one’s old selfish life and chose to live in a new way, one would not be saved. Since baptism was the external expression of this change in their lives, this belief was gradually and succinctly articulated as: “Unless one is baptised, one cannot be saved”. A valid expression if one understood what the external reality of the ritual of baptism stood for. However, as is often the case, gradually such an articulation of a valid belief, starts taking on a life of its own, when people gradually focus on the ritual (external reality) rather than on the internal reality that it represents. So in effect, in people’s minds, the belief gradually became: “Unless one goes through the ritual of baptism, one cannot be saved” - which is quite a different thing.
Consequently, and gradually, people started asking the obvious question: If one cannot be saved without baptism, what happens to babies and children who have not been baptised, i.e. who have not undergone the ritual of baptism? It seemed unfair that children who could not know enough to commit any kind of sin, would be punished for this ‘original sin’. Remember this was a time when infant mortality was a very real and common thing!
Thus an (artificial?) theological problem arose. The initial response to this problem was that such babies and children cannot go to “Hell” because they have not sinned, but yet cannot go to “Heaven” because they have not been baptised. And so they theologically ‘created’ a new place called LIMBO, which comes from the Latin word, ‘limbus” meaning ‘edge’. In other words, they created a belief that on the ‘edge’ or outskirts of Heaven was the place where LIMBO was situated, and this was where these innocent children were kept.
But this imaginary place was not a satisfactory solution, and so finally the Church caved in and started baptising children and infants, and looked for other ways to justify this. One of the reasons given today is that this baptism is a rite of initiation into a community that will help the child to BECOME a person who can overcome the evil of selfishness that we are all born with.
Obviously, then, if people are baptised when they are babies, the practice of adult baptism gradually would, and has become largely redundant. Today, there are adult baptisms in the Catholic Church, but only when a person converts as an adult into Christianity, as is seen most prominently at the Easter vigil Mass. But there are many Protestant groups which do not accept infant baptism and insist on youth or adult baptism in keeping with the original understanding that Baptism was the external expression of a complete change in one’s way of living, from a sinful to a salvific way.
So if Baptism is an external expression of an inward reality or change of heart, then of course it signifies the reception of grace that comes with that change of heart. Therefore, it must be understood that it is not the ritual in itself, but the change that the ritual outwardly expresses, that brings grace to help us overcome such selfishness. However, that ‘original sin’ we are born with is something we are always striving to overcome, which is why we continue to repeat our baptismal vows at every Easter vigil mass. And so, gradually, as the child grows, hopefully within a community that tries to overcome selfishness, it learns to expand its ‘survival instinct’ to include those closest to it and then beyond, until we truly learn to ‘love our neighbour’ (and this would include even our enemies) as much as we care for those close to us. So the overcoming of our original selfishness is a life-long process, not something that happens magically with the pouring of the baptismal water over our heads.
Paul writes, unlike the trespass of Adam that automatically affects all, the grace offered through Jesus/baptism is a free gift of God. And we must remember that this gift, like any gift, has no value for a person, unless the person accepts it - it is not something that automatically or magically has an effect on us. Therefore, if we are not, at the very least, continuously trying to go beyond our innate selfishness to try and embrace the whole world, then we could ask ourselves whether our baptism has any value. In fact, we could even ask ourselves whether our baptism is a valid sacrament, since the external reality would not be reflecting an ongoing internal reality.
1st Reading – Jeremiah 20:10-13
Jeremiah said: For I hear many whispering: “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. “Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous; you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord!. For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
2nd Reading – Romans 5:12-15
Brothers and sisters: Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.
Gospel – Matthew 10:26-33
Jesus said to the twelve, " So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
Comments
Post a Comment