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Article: Sin, theodicy & politics.
- Article from:
- First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life
- Article date:
- November 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Institute on Religion and Public Life. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It is a pleasure to recommend to readers Father Edward Oakes' masterful essay on original sin elsewhere in this issue. My own pleasure in reading it was augmented by the reflections, both personal and political, it triggered in me.
It was the doctrine of original sin that made me, in my youth, an agnostic. I was a freshman at Valparaiso University taking a required course in basic Christian doctrine. (The main text for the course was C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.) I thought I knew Christian doctrine fairly well, but the instructor's discussion of Augustine and original sin early in the semester threw me for a loop. He wrote on the blackboard--I remember it ...