St. Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430 A.D.) had an original interpretation of original sin, predestination, and the like which forever changed the face of Christianity. He did not ascribe to the theory that Adam's legacy to man cam from the act of disobedience to God alone; rather, he believed that it was Adam's misuse of his God-given gift of free will and reason that led mankind to be forever cursed. Augustine believed that everyone has the ability to choose right from wrong, but man, as Adam did, will always make decisions in his own self-interest (the wrong road), instead of choosing the will of God (the right road). He also said that because of man's inherent selfishness, that he will never be able to improve his lot in life on his own because the only way he knows out of the hole is the way he got into it; therefore, the only solution was to be reborn.

St. Augustine had a confused upbringing as the son of a devoutly Christian mother and a non-Christian father (I am refraining from using the word "pagan" here because I find it extremely derogatory). He was of Latin stock but was born in North Africa. Despite her devotion, Augustine's mother did not believe in original sin; therefore, Augustine was not baptized until he was an adult.

Augustine was extremely dissatisfied with the religion he inherited from his mother, and tried Manichaeism and Platonism before returning to his Christian roots. Like so many of his contemporaries, Augustine was unwilling to give up his "pagan" ancestry entirely, and decided that the classics (Cicero et al) were safe for "religious purposes only," whatever that meant. However, theologians of Augustine's day loved their classics; even though they were terrified of getting to the pearly gates and being rejected as "Ciceronians," the appeal was too great , which led to the classics being declared contraband at one point.

Augustine made a very astute observation when he said that man will try to improve himself according to his own frame of reference; of course, this is the best most of us can do. It is a rare person who can actually put his or her own life aside and just look at the facts. As a person who loves to teach, this filtering that occurs in the brains of most people frustrates me the most. No matter how much you present the facts to some people, they will always try to reinterpret it based on what they can relate it to in their lives, rather than just looking at the data and accepting it for what it is. This mental censorship that takes place in the minds of most of humankind is not what perfection means. However, this is not to be confused with being gullible. If a person is centered with who he or she is as a person, then he or she will be able to discern what is the truth and what is not, with little or no subjectivity.

Historically, Augustine's lack of confidence in man's ability to reform himself and achieve eternal salvation had a widespread demoralizing effect, which is probably the exact opposite goal of what he originally intended, which is an old story. This is what I consider to be the biggest sin of all: the perpetuation of ignorance through fear of the unknown.

A contemporary of Augustine's, Pelagius (c. 360 to 420 AD), saw the consequences of Augustine's preachings in the scandalous behavior of the Roman population upon arriving in Italy from Britain toward the end of the fourth century. Pelagius stated that at birth, man had the ability to choose good over evil. He insisted that if people really wanted to, they could reform and live a good, clean life, that man had "sufficient free will" to perform his duty to God and should do everything he can to do so. Pelagius denied the taint of any version of original sin and Adam's legacy of that sin to his descendants. Pelagius' preachings were condemned by the Church ("the Pelagian heresy"), but that did not stop people from questioning Augustine's doctrines.

Augustine maintained in his "City of God" that history had a beginning and a culmination, which supports the Biblical view that God created the universe at a particular place in time, and that Armageddon will be the end of life as we know it. He regarded the passing of the Roman Empire with confidence and hope because he believed that it would be replaced by something infinitely better, established by God. Augustine felt that "from its very beginning, that all history has been directed and governed by God, and moves to a climax in a society where God's will is perfectly to be accomplished."

At this juncture, I would like to give my opinion on the above. I do not believe that the Fall applies to everyone. I do believe that both the Old Testament and the New Testament were strictly for one family, the Royal Messianic Line, and the people who worked for them. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus' genealogy is traced over and over again back to Adam. There is a reason for this. There were other people on the face of the Earth at the same time that Adam and Eve were languishing in the Garden of Eden. This is a biblical fact which is rarely mentioned, because it would destroy yet another myth. When Cain slew Abel, God put a mark on Cain's forehead before he was exiled, so that no harm would come to him. Not soon after his exile, Cain found a wife in the Land of Nod, so there obviously other people on the earth besides the so-called First Family of Mankind. What about them, then? How can the doctrine of Original Sin survive in the light of that fact, that we are not all descended from Adam and Eve?

I would never presume to know God's mind, but I do believe that there are no accidents, that all things evolve and follow a progression, that there is a definite cause-and-effect principle to everything, and the concepts of sin and perfection, good vs. evil, fall into this category. My observation has always been that there is good and bad in everything, and that this dichotomy is natural law, a fact of life. For better or for worse, these two opposing forces serve a definite purpose throughout the universe as we know it.

If these two forces did not exist, we would not be able to distinguish between right and wrong. If everything was perfect, there would be nothing to learn from and nothing to fight for. We need to channel our passions into something productive, and the only way we can do this is to live in an imperfect world. Thus we continue to evolve, achieving perfection through imperfection.