Author Archive
What was the original sin?
In speaking of “original sin” we can turn to a scholastic distinction between the PECCATUM ORIGINALE ORIGINANS and the PECCATUM ORIGINALE ORIGINATUM. These Latin phrases offer us a theological insight which we would otherwise miss in English. The first phrase refers to “original sin” in the sense of “originating.” This means the personal sin of Adam. The second is “original sin” [...]
How do we reconcile God’s omnipresence with the existence and agency of the Devil and with the presence of sin and evil in general?
A perennial problem in human thinking is the question of good and evil. How can we reconcile the presence of God and the presence of evil forces that we experience in the world? In Christianity, Gottfried Leibniz (d. 1716) was especially famous for framing the question of theodicy, that is, how to justify God when we face the problem of evil. If God is infinitely good, all-powerful, [...]