Is it possible for an infant who has little understanding of the world around him/her sin in the Christian sense of the word?
I came up with this question while doing my homework. One of my assignments for World Literature is to read "Confessions" written by Augustine. Well, in his confessions he discusses the idea that infants can sin.
"[...] I must have acted reprehensibly; but since I could not understand the person who admonished me, neither custom nor reason allowed me to be reprehended. As we grow up, we eliminate and set aside such ways. But I have never seen anyone knowingly set aside what is good when purging something of faults.So, what do you think my readers? Can infants sin?
Yet for an infant of that age, could it be reckoned good to use tears in trying to obtain what it would have been harmful to get, to be vehemently indignant at the refusals of free and older people and of parents or many other people of good sense who would not yield to my whims, and to attempt to strike them and to do as much injury as possible?" (Taken from "Confessions" by Augustine, collected in The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume A. [pp. 1297-1328, p. 1303])
