Original Sin: Giordano Bruno Against Augustin-Lutheran Tradition

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Literature and Foreign Languages, University of Allame Tabataba'i, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Christianity is based upon the idea of original sin. In other words, Christianity began by establishing a doctrine for the sin which is executed by Adam and Eva. In different eras, Christian theologians and before them, Church’s Fathers, tried to formulate this idea in a justificatory manner and to find a way for human salvation. The summit of these efforts could be seen in Saint Augustin and Luther writings. But, in the renaissance era, their approach converted and lead to another way and the thinkers of this age tried to revise the idea of original sin. One of these thinkers is Giordano Bruno. He disputed with Lutheran tradition and announced that this idea is false. In this article, first we try to sum up Bruno’s arguments and then we analyze phrases from Bible which is deeply related to the idea and by doing this we shall try to enforce Bruno’s thesis and to show in which way he was right. In the conclusion, we make this point evident that the revision Bruno made, lead Renaissance to a new kind of believing in God and by asserting this it will be intelligible that contrary to common beliefs, Renaissance rather than being era of leaving God behind the doors of Church, is the era of deification of every single part of World.

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Main Subjects


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