ABSTRACT
The contemporary interpretation of original sin outlined in the previous chapter is indeed defensible; far more so, indeed, than the pre-critical, traditional, or “classic doctrine of original sin,”1 based on some degree of biblical literalism, which one still encounters in some Catholic and much Protestant catechesis. If this contemporary understanding were as widely known and accepted in Christian circles as it should be, the doctrine would not be the stumbling block that it still is for so many. Nevertheless, I wish to argue that this contemporary understanding can still be improved on. Although it does not conflict with modern ideas on evolution, neither does it make any explicit or constructive use of them; whereas such use, I suggest, is not only possible and necessary but highly fruitful. Indeed, the Darwinian account of our origins is nothing less than “a great gift to theology.”2 Still more can the older, literalist interpretation be improved on; and this latter task, as well as the more modest former one, are the aims of this book.
