On Original Sin and Martin Luther
This summer I have been studying a religion lecture which Eli Siegel gave on March 31, 1967. It is titled "There Are God and Man." At one point in the lecture, Mr. Siegel discusses a number of the 95 thesis that Luther nailed to the doors of Wittenburg Cathedral, which sparked the Protestant Reformation. Here is what he says about the first thesis, which includes an important explanation of the idea of original sin:
"Some of the best German writing is Luther’s, including his translations and his songs. There are 95 thesis and all 95 could be read. The first is theoretical.
1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying “Repent ye,” (“Penitentiam agite”) has intended that the whole life of believers should be penitent (“penitentia”).
This is deep in the unconscious and it goes along with the notion of sin had by Aesthetic Realism: that in being born you don’t love enough and there’s a greater tendency to care for yourself than for what is not yourself. This tendency is equivalent to original sin. And it’s not something that you get rid of in a hurry. While you can see the outside world better, love it more, be more just to it, there is something to be penitent about.
Luther would talk about this differently, but he would say essentially--and this is the idea in accepting Christ--that you love something outside of yourself as a means of fighting the narrowness you were born with. To say there is original sin is to say there is organic narrowness. There is no other meaning. It should be seen that way and something of that is in Luther’s writing."
"Some of the best German writing is Luther’s, including his translations and his songs. There are 95 thesis and all 95 could be read. The first is theoretical.
1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying “Repent ye,” (“Penitentiam agite”) has intended that the whole life of believers should be penitent (“penitentia”).
This is deep in the unconscious and it goes along with the notion of sin had by Aesthetic Realism: that in being born you don’t love enough and there’s a greater tendency to care for yourself than for what is not yourself. This tendency is equivalent to original sin. And it’s not something that you get rid of in a hurry. While you can see the outside world better, love it more, be more just to it, there is something to be penitent about.
Luther would talk about this differently, but he would say essentially--and this is the idea in accepting Christ--that you love something outside of yourself as a means of fighting the narrowness you were born with. To say there is original sin is to say there is organic narrowness. There is no other meaning. It should be seen that way and something of that is in Luther’s writing."
posted by Rev. Wayne Jack Plumstead | Wednesday, July 02, 2008
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