Jesus: Man, Messenger, Messiah · 4. Atonement
Original sin and the justice of God
In short
- 1.Adam's (PBUH) sin was his own; he repented and God accepted it [2:37] — the story ends in forgiveness, not a curse on humanity.
- 2.Every child is born upon fitrah, the natural disposition to know God.
- 3.Guilt is not heritable: 'no bearer of burdens bears the burden of another' [35:18].
- 4.A God who creates a being already guilty and then requires a death to fix it faces a problem of justice at both ends.
The claim being examined
Humanity is held to be born guilty through Adam's (PBUH) transgression, and therefore in need of redemption from birth.
The Islamic position
Islam holds every child is born in a state of natural purity (fitrah); Adam (PBUH) repented and was forgiven, and no one inherits his sin.
Analysis
Original sin as a doctrine of inherited guilt is largely an Augustinian development, resting heavily on a Latin rendering of Romans 5:12 and absent from Jewish readings of Genesis 3 to this day. Eastern Christianity itself speaks of inherited mortality rather than inherited guilt. The Islamic reading of the Fall — sin, repentance, forgiveness, and the beginning of human moral responsibility — is closer to the plain sense of Genesis than the doctrine built on it centuries later.
From the Qur'an
فَتَلَقَّىٰٓ ءَادَمُ مِن رَّبِّهِۦ كَلِمَـٰتٍۢ فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلتَّوَّابُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
fatalaqqā ādamu min rabbihi kalimātin fatāba ʿalayhi innahu huwa l-tawābu l-raḥīmu
Then Adam received words from his Lord, and He accepted his repentance. Indeed He is the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful.
وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌۭ وِزْرَ أُخْرَىٰ ۚ
walā taziru wāziratun wiz'ra ukh'rā
And no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another.
From the Bible
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים
The narrative of the Fall contains no statement that guilt passes to Adam's descendants.
Read it in their Bibleἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον
…because all sinned — rendered in Latin as 'in whom all sinned', the basis of the Augustinian doctrine.
Read it in their BibleFrom the Sunnah
Every child is born upon the fitrah; it is his parents who make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian.
Sources
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