I was reading Saint Augustines confessions, and according to him infants can sin! Yep, he pretty much says that ignorance is no excuse. Lol. He says babys crying and having fits are sins. It actually got me thinking a bit. I mean, there is original sin, and we can all agree ignorance of that is no excuse. Then again, it is not the fault of the child. What do you think? Do you agree with Saint Augustine of Hippo on this one?
intersting question. i think it could be expanded to consider whether ignorance by anyone can exonerate them from guilt. Can one break the 10 commandments even if one doesnt know them?
This appears to be the standard statement of original sin. Infants can sin, and indeed are sinners not because of something they had done, but because of what Adam had done in whose image they are born. The sins they commit in crying, having fits, acting selfishly, petulantly and being vain, ie. all the sins St. Augustine had seen in them, in himself as an infant, and in the human race in general, are expressions of this original sin, and are present even in the ostensibly pure and pretty little infants.
I Indeed. My Church does say it is not sinful if one is truley ignorant. But with regards to an infants ignorance, my Church does not really seem to have anything. Either that, or it is assumed to be the same for infants.
Perhaps my previous experience in the Orthodox Church is at play here, but St. Augustine was wrong on so many issues, and this is one of them. http://apocryphile.org/jrm/articles/augustine.html
When I first read St. Augustine's confessions and came across this part, I thought I could hear him laughing. In any case, babies don't even know where their noses are, how the heck can they sin? Crying and throwing fits are biological functions at that point in development.
I have much admiration for S. Augustine, but, I think badness comes from the jungle we live in, poverty, sickness, neglect, fear anger, hurt and greed with just plain folly! When we change the world to a society based on Christ's teachings, where people give what they can to the community and take back only what we need to live, hopfully we will remove the tensions and urges that beset us!
Speaking of St. Augustine, he is making an appearance, at least part of him, in America's oldest city: http://m.staugustine.com/news/local-news/2015-07-06/catholic-church-getszfirst-class-relic
May I suggest that the answer to the question put to the forum in the title of this thread is not found in the writings of St. Augustine. It is to be found in holy scripture. The truth of St. Augustine's writings, to whatever degree they contain truth, is truth of scripture. So, what does scripture say on this issue? The words of St. Paul, instantly come to my mind: ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No exception for babies is expressed, nor can be implied from the context. Then of course the are the following passages from the psalms: Psalms 51:5 - Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalms 58:3 - The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Babies are conceived in sin, but more than that, they actively do so (they go astray). Certainly seems like there's a prima facie case supporting it.
The Eastern Orthodox concept of sin is completely different form the Western concept. The EOC would not agree with any of this or with Augustine. I favor the Eastern view. It is also the view of early Anabaptists, and can be found to some extent in Anglicanism.
There was a time when I agreed with the EOC on this, mostly because it seemed like a more comfortable stance. But I've come to the perspective that any tradition without a foundation found in or proved by scripture--even a very ancient tradition like some claimed by the eastern church--is not Apostolic Tradition. This is all the more apparent when Scripture provides us with at least some support to the contrary position. I can accept the argument that what the Apostles taught orally may not be fully developed and reduced to Holy Writ, but I cannot accept that they would teach something orally that contradicted either their writings or the teaching of the law and prophets in the Old Testament. A house divided, as they say.... I think Stalwart makes an important point here: Sin is a congenital, chronic, and, absent the saving work of the Great Physician, terminal condition for the whole human race. Maybe there's an distinction that could be made that Adam's descendants bear the consequence of his original sin rather than his guilt...but I think it's a distinction without a difference. The consequence of Adam's sin was in fact slavery to sin and death. We are, all of us, sinners, both in what we do and in who we are. Sinners sin. Its an obvious fact but one that is all too easy to ignore. Each and every one of us was not just born, but conceived in a state of depravity, a state of sinfulness. Not only do we sin, we like to sin, we like watching others sin, and when faced with the reality of our sins, we generally dream up ways to either justify why our sins don't really count or show that, on balance, our good works outweigh our sins. Children are not immune to this, at least I certainly wasn't. As a small child, I can remember getting into fights in kindergarten, and encouraging others to do the same. Part of the thrill of it was knowing that I was breaking the rules. As a father of two children (who are far better children than I ever was), I have had first hand experience with a child's capacity to sin. As babies, they were beautiful and fragile...but they were also selfish and would, like all children, cry if a want was not immediately and completely satisfied. The fault I see with the argument that babies are incapable of sinning, is that the proponents focus only on the outward aspects of sin, the actus reus, as it were. But, our Lord disabused us of the flawed notion that sins were merely external things in His Sermon on the Mount. Sins originate in the heart and to constitute a sin, all that is needed is the mens rea element. They look at babies, so cute and cuddly, and don't see them acting or communicating in a way that evidences a sinful intention and they assume there isn't any there. But absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Man does not see as God sees. We see little darlings that couldn't, wouldn't, do anything bad. God, however, sees a heart that needs washing and renewing by the Holy Ghost in baptism. In my view, babies are not incapable of sinning, they're just bad at it. Don't worry, one thing is certain, they do get better. The bad news is that sinners sin. The go astray from their birth. Its what they--we--do. The title admits the occupation. But the Good News is that we have a Savior in Our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Savior saves. Its what He does. He did it on Calvary. He does it today for any who would put their faith in Him for their salvation.