Are Men Born Sinners? - Library of Theology

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Chapter Six: How a False Doctrine Could Persist so Long
How could it be possible for the doctrine of original sin to persist so long if it were false?
Would not God long ago have purged his church from such an error? No, God permits
men to cling to darkness and error for as long as they will. The Dark Ages and the visible
church are a sad testimony to that fact. The church should have been a light to the world,
but instead it was filled with darkness, superstition, and error; a heathen doctrine of
purgatory; an unbiblical papacy and priesthood with its priestly rituals; the selling and
buying of indulgences for sin; the worship of Mary, saints, pictures, images, and relics;
the ascribing of magical powers to water, to sacred words, to signs and places, to amulets
and relics, and to certain rites and ceremonies; works of penance for forgiveness of sins;
and water baptism for the remission of sins. Darkness, superstition, and error reigned in
the church, and when a little light did spring up, it was resisted and put down as heresy.
Throughout the Dark Ages, the church sanctioned and protected the grossest kinds of
superstitions and errors. And God permitted this superstition and error to exist and
continue in the visible church for well over a thousand years.
I have already referred to the church's stubborn rejection of truth in the forgoing chapter,
and it bears repeating in connection with this chapter. Copernicus and Galileo brought to
the church the truth that the earth was not the center of the universe and was not without
motion, and that the sun did not go around the earth, but that the earth rotated on its axis
and went around the sun. However, the church had believed and taught for well over a
thousand years that the earth stood still, and that the sun went around the earth. So they
rejected the truth that these men taught and persisted in their long-held error.
Then Martin Luther stood up against the ecclesiastical corruption and false teachings of
the church. He wanted reformation in the church, but the church rejected the light that
Martin Luther tried to bring to it and Luther was forced to work for reform outside the
Catholic Church. So God permitted the church to go on in its error. The idea that God
will not permit false doctrine to exist in the church is just not true and is repudiated by
both church history and the Bible.
It is regrettable that Martin Luther did not perceive all the errors that existed in the
Catholic Church. For he, along with Calvin, still believed in the dogma of original sin,
and he, as well as Calvin, still believed that the earth stood still and that the sun went
around the earth every 24 hours.
Martin Luther called Copernicus an 'upstart astrologer' and a 'fool who wishes to reverse
the entire science of astronomy.' Calvin thundered: 'Who will venture to place the
authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?' Do not Scriptures say that Joshua