Original Sin or Original Self-Centeredness?

Posted on April 25, 2016 by jesuswithoutbaggage

Many Christians believe humanity is so broken, and nature so violent, because of
Adam’s disobedience in the garden. They say the world was originally perfect but Adam
ruined everything. Furthermore, all Adam’s descendants are born with ‘original sin’ and
alienated from God because of Adam.

Other believers cannot accept this explanation of our brokenness. Yes, the world is very
imperfect and often harsh. Yes, we are subject to the human condition of pain, suffering,
conflict, alienation, and death, but none of this is caused by Adam’s alleged sin.

Recently, I shared that the story of Eden is not an historical account but a marvelous
reflection on our human condition. In the following article I determined that ‘original
sin’ does not exist.
But if our problems are not caused by original sin from Adam, then how can we account
for them?

What Do We Mean by Sin?

First, I think we must determine what we mean by sin. Many define sin as violating
God’s rules (legalism), but I think Jesus’ teaching and example indicate otherwise. I
think sin is our behaviors that hurt people.

Sure we need to align ourselves with God, but Jesus’ focus was never on keeping rules;
instead his focus was on genuinely loving people, and he demonstrated it with empathy,
compassion, and reconciliation. This was the product of his alignment with God.

And he taught us to do the same. In fact, the well-known Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew 5-7) is all about how to treat people rather than following rules. Jesus,
himself, makes the contrast.

So sin is not breaking God’s rules; it is causing pain and suffering. We hurt people out of
hate, greed, and hunger for power; or from fear, insecurity, and retaliation. But these all
boil down to self-centeredness. Sin is a self-centeredness that puts our needs and desires
above other people, whether it is aggressive or defensive.
So we hurt people; and people hurt us.

We live in a difficult world, and we ask why are things so tough. Why is suffering,
alienation, and death so widespread? This is the question, but original sin from Adam is
not the answer.

The Origin of Original Self-Centeredness

Possible face of prehuman ancestor. By Losdelpalito (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
One source of our suffering is from natural forces; but nature is not hostile because
Adam’s sin corrupted a perfect world. Nature is dangerous because of the way the world
works: lightning, fires, floods; droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes; earthquakes, tsunamis,
and volcanoes are all natural events for an active planet.
This is not a broken world; this is what happens on a living world. If these things were to
stop we would have a dead, uninhabitable planet.

But the greater source of suffering is people hurting people, and I think the reason we do
this so much is quite simple: it is a product of our evolutionary development. The
driving force in life is survival; we see it clearly in animals.
This drive for survival requires a strong sense of self-centeredness, so there is rampant
violence as animals search for both food and security. The most successful animals often
have a strong sense of self-protection, protection of territory, and predation. This leads
to violence against other animals in order to best assure survival.
We see these same issues among humans. But what distinguishes us from other living
things is that we have a tremendous self-awareness that enables us to hurt others while
being fully aware of what we are doing. Whereas animals prey on other animals for their
own benefit, they do so without awareness of morality. When humans do the same
thing, we do so knowing the pain and suffering we cause. But we do it anyway.
We learned long ago that we can survive peacefully with cooperation rather than
conflict, yet we still bring harm to others as we exploit them to our advantage. In our
greed we want to take their resources and potential for ourselves. In response, those
who feel vulnerable resist with violence in defense of their own preservation.

The Remedy for Self-Centeredness

I believe when humans grew beyond the animal stage we retained our self-centered
sense of survival and only gradually developed a stronger moral sense. We began to
realize other people are like us and experienced empathy.

But far too many continue to exploit others for selfish purposes. Greed, power, and hate
still drive us to slavery, genocide, war (and hurting people in smaller ways) because of
our continuing self-centeredness. But there are those who lead us against this way of
pain and violence.

Jesus is among the most significant. He demonstrates this most clearly in his example of
embracing the marginalized and offering genuine love, healing, and reconciliation. But
his teaching adds words to his actions.

Jesus teaches us to genuinely love other people—all other people, even those who are
our enemies. He teaches us to forgive instead of retaliating. He teaches us to be agents of
reconciliation rather than perpetrators of hate and violence.

Loving people with empathy, compassion, and care is the opposite of ‘sin’ and should be
the guiding principle of our lives as followers of Jesus.
Now Jesus is not unique in saying these sorts of things, but he is unique in other ways.
As a representative of God, he teaches us that God is not angry, wrathful, and thin-
skinned as many suppose, and he resolves our feelings of guilt and alienation. Jesus also
tells us of eternal life, which he secured by his resurrection.
Jesus’ teaching and example empower us to drastically reduce our self-centeredness as
we genuinely care about other people—all of them. Our greed, hate, and exploitation is
replaced by empathy, compassion, and care. Our guilt, fear, and alienation is healed by
God’s love, which allows us to embrace other people—all other people.

This is the remedy for our human condition. We are human, and we are no longer bound
by the self-centeredness we inherit from our evolutionary development. We are free to
replace our aggression with love.

im, I really liked your post, because it sums up the situation on earth pretty well. It
seems to me that mankind has been well served by its women, but it is the men who
have been the originators of war and conflict. As you have stated, this almost certainly
came from the territorial behavior of animals, and we can easily see that hunters in a
hunter-gatherer society would regard territory as their own. By contrast, the women
would be in a tight-knit group from their own village and would rarely meet women
from other villages. The time that society would begin to change would come with the
development of agriculture and its associated trade and marketing. When this came, the
men would need to meet and co-operate, rather than posture or fight.

In regard to self-centredness, a significant problem in our society is that certain forms of

suffering during in childhood cause an increase in self-centredness, so some of our
problems in society are increasing, through a ‘feedback’ loop. It is of significance that we
have been through similar times in the past, when criminal activity has been high. The
more recent of these have been brought to an end, or severely reduced, when Christian
revivals took place and brought about social reforms or other improvements. Usually,
these revivals made people become more conscious of their own behavior and how
adverse behavior on their part could affect the well-being of others.

Good post. One of my thoughts in the matter is that I have always found it easier to
believe in pure evil than in pure good. In other words, it seemed to me that it was easier
to find an evolutionary explanation for altruism than it was for senseless hurting of
others. If you look hard enough, you can nearly always find an advantage to altruism (at
least in the sense of what is good for the tribe is good for the individual in some sense.)
Where Christ goes beyond is in his ideal of love where there is no apparent advantage
whatsoever. Love as an end, not a means.

On the evil side, the proof to me that evil exists in some form beyond simple selfishness
is the human tendency to harm others where there is no advantage – and even serious
disadvantages. This is the killing of a stranger for thrills, with no gain. This is the abuse
of children. The things that seem to bring no “advantage” in the evolutionary sense,
merely some sort of sick psychological payoff. (Not that this isn’t found in nature –
watch a cat torment a mouse…) But this is where a purely Darwinian explanation is hard
to find. Since we are rational and moral creatures, if there is no evolutionary advantage
and no personal advantage to be had, one is left with insanity or evil, and I don’t find
that insanity covers sociopaths entirely.

I very much agree that there is a problem in Fundamentalism (and most of American
Christianity at present) where sin is considered breaking the rules. This focus draws
attention away from the ways we harm others – and allows us to rationalize that harm.

Where Christ goes beyond is in his ideal of love where there is no apparent advantage
whatsoever. Love as an end, not a means.” Wow, Fiddlrts, what a statement! Well said,
and I think it connects to the problem of fundamentalism you mention.

Why do fundamentalists who work hard to follow God’s’ rules’, including loving the
‘sinner’ so often hurt other people in the name of God? I think part of it is because the
‘love others’ in response to God’s command, not because love wells up in their hearts. It
is as though we must love sinners by bashing them until they straighten up. Maybe their
advantage is getting to heaven by keeping a rule they don’t understand.

As to the difficulty of seeing an evolutionary reason for killing a stranger for the thrill,
you may be right, but I would suggest two possibilities. The first is a feeling of power,
which is often central to self-centered people–even well-known pastors.

The second is the result of genetics or early trauma in childhood; these would not
necessarily assist in survival, but there are always those who don’t survive in every
generation. And those who would not survive in archaic times can survive nonetheless
because the risks of poor survival behaviors are less powerful in modern times.

Of course, I don’t know an exhaustive answer to the question; I am just thinking off the
top of my head. You might think of a better answer to the question that does not involve
our evolutionary heritage of survival. Any thoughts?