Abstract

"The idea of original sin owes its development more to Augustine than to any other individual. We cannot understand this idea, much less believe it, unless we consider his primary motive for developing it. His 'Confessions', a masterpiece of personal reflection, reveals the psychological dynamic that renders a free person's implication in social and historical evil irreversible from the beginning. The author traces this interior bondage of the will through Augustine's own life from his infancy and youth, through his dramatic conversion, to his mature years of reflection and ministry as bishop. It presents original sin not only autobiographically, but also historically, as the first and universal sin of mankind, and primordially, as the fundamental cause and meaning at the root of all moral impotence and sin. This volume argues that the doctrine of original sin stands together with the doctrine of grace as the foundation of Augustine's teachings on confession and salvation; it rejects a recent development in Augustine studies that reduces Augustine's doctrine of original sin to an ancillary, polemical role as a weapon in the arsenal against Pelagian voluntarism. Above all, it allows this doctrine to live now as it did for Augustine, by permitting us to observe as he reflects theologically upon his personal experience of God." [Book jacket].