A Comparative Study: Original Sin On The View Between Augustine and Neo-Platonism

Abstract

Doctrine of Original Sin has been debated for centuries among the Theologians include Augustine. The understanding of the doctrine of the original sin as a theological term started from the teaching of Augustine around 5century B.C. Augustine‘s
understanding regarding of original sin derived from his problem and his question concerning the life of Adam and Eve, and particularly in his youth experiences of adultery. He believed that all men involved in Adam’s first sin and original sin was
transmitted through the parents to their children. Augustine learned Manichaeism, however he did not satisfied and then he went to learned Neo-Platonism and deeply impressed to him both for his Neo-Platonism and Christian life. Augustine respected
and received the Plotinus’ views as founder of Neo-Platonism. For Neo-Platonism the root of sin is discovered in the very nature of the soul and in relation to the body as self- isolation. Before it enters the body, the soul has a prior existence. When the
souls falls and that is how it comes to be in the body. But the point is that the soul has an unruly and evil nature in its irrational parts even before it enters the body, so that it in one sense the cause of evil is present even in the soul preexistence state.
Neo-Platonist believed that original sin is transmitted from one to another, Neo-Platonism underscored this notion by suggesting that in addition to such a transmission of evil, human souls would reappear via transmigration, bringing to the
new body their earlier errors and judgments of value. Therefore, this study is to analyze and to compare Augustine’s view as a theologian of the original sin with Neo-Platonism concept.