On the justice of original sin

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Catholicism teaches that because of the original sin, people suffer pain, diseases, and tendency towards evil. How can this be just?

Every person is a new person. If it is unjust for God to create Adam and Eve in such condition (or maybe not?), then why is it just for God to create any other person in such condition?
 
Well, let’s start with a question. What is original sin?
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What do you want to say? Don’t you know what Catholicism teach on original sin?
 
Maybe the better question is; Is the creation story in Genesis fact or allegory?
 
Maybe the better question is; Is the creation story in Genesis fact or allegory?
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Does it matter? Regardless of which case is true, every person is a new person, and after Adam and Eve, people are in a condition of being vulnerable to pain and having a tendency towards evil, since creation of them. Just considering this, how can it be just?
 
someone429 said:
Catholicism teaches that because of the original sin, people suffer pain, diseases, and tendency towards evil. How can this be just?
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Is it necessarily unjust to suffer?

If people suffer because of conditions that resulted from original sin, they aren’t suffering on account of their personal innocence (that would be unjust,) but because of a broken or fallen nature.

Is it unjust that breaking a limb or rupturing a spleen causes people to suffer? Is suffering because of a disordered soul any different?

You might claim it is unjust for God to have created us with arms that break, spleens that rupture or souls that can be corrupted, but it isn’t clear to me that responsible moral agents bearing no responsibility for their own actions is a logically coherent idea.

Merely because our actions and the conditions around us resulting from the actions of others can create suffering or pain does not mean those resulting discomforts are unjust. It does mean our actions have consequences – which is what would be expected in a moral world.
 
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It was an initial sin of disobedience. Regardless, we didn’t commit the sin; however, we’ve inherited the condition.
 
Maybe. But even the inheritance seems unjust. Anyway, it is ultimately God that creates every person, isn’t it? If it is, then, how can it be just for God to create any person in such condition?
 
We’re created through the union of a man and woman. God provides the soul and our parents through the marital act cooperate in God’s creation. That has led to further speculation that the Original Sin may have been sexual. Thus, it’s inherited upon our conception.
 
someone429 said:
Maybe. But even the inheritance seems unjust. Anyway, it is ultimately God that creates every person, isn’t it? If it is, then, how can it be just for God to create any person in such condition?
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It is our human nature, received from our genetic ancestors, that is corrupted. God creates every person with sufficient grace to overcome all the effects of original sin. Making use of that grace is up to each of us.

It isn’t as if God created us in that condition bereft of all possible redemption from it. He created a moral world with active moral agents that have the possibility of doing real good and real evil. He provides each of us personally with the wherewithal to overcome evil and attain perfection and eternal life in communion with absolute perfection and fullness of Being.

That isn’t unjust. That is perfect, infinite graciousness. In order to merit or attain that state we need to overcome all evil. Pain and suffering reveal to us in an undeniable way the real nature of evil. Why would it be an injustice done to us to expect that we renounce all evil? We do not merit eternal life. And merely stipulating that evil needs to be renounced completely in order to attain eternal fulfillment is not an unjust expectation.
 
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And merely stipulating that evil needs to be renounced completely in order to attain eternal fulfillment is not an unjust expectation.
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I agree this. However, God has also stipulated that if someone doesn’t attain eternal fulfillment, he or she will suffer eternally in hell. And it seems unjust to stipulate that evil needs to be renounced completely in order to NOT suffer eternally in hell, given that people have a damaged human nature that makes them have a tendency towards evil.

It is not like the case of angels, in which they only need to NOT choose to sin. It is like that you need to overcome all the difficulty, otherwise you go to hell.
 
You might claim it is unjust for God to have created us with arms that break, spleens that rupture or souls that can be corrupted, but it isn’t clear to me that responsible moral agents bearing no responsibility for their own actions is a logically coherent idea.
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Well, let’s consider this. If people who are in hell can still make offsprings, and they do make offsprings, and those new persons inherit the condition of eternal extreme pain of hell, is it just?

If it isn’t, why is the inheritance of results of original sin just?
 
I want to say that no one who isn’t a complete psychopath would make every single descending generation of a criminal pay for the crimes of that criminal
 
someone429 said:
And merely stipulating that evil needs to be renounced completely in order to attain eternal fulfillment is not an unjust expectation.
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Except that God provides a superabundance of grace to make it to eternal life, a destiny infinitely beyond what we possibly deserve, such that the only possible reason we don’t achieve eternal life is our own stubborn willfulness. If we don’t make it there we only have ourselves to blame.

Some theologians have characterized hell as the fire of God’s eternal love burning away evil and sin which we stubbornly refuse to let go of. That would mean hell is entirely of our own making.

I would be very careful how you portray God or hell, because it may be nothing like what you suppose and you may have talked yourself into a state you will regret eternally.
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Curious11 said:
I want to say that no one who isn’t a complete psychopath would make every single descending generation of a criminal pay for the crimes of that criminal
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That is what we would expect to hear from someone whose decisions and behaviours will, in fact, impact the generations that come after them and the generation that lives in their time.

That is the price of being a moral agent. Our actions have grave consequences.

Abdicating our moral responsibilities also comes at a price.

Only a complete psychopath would be willing to pay the price of the abdication of moral responsibility knowing how it will, in fact, impact others around them. Blaming their psychopathy on the fact of morality would be attempting to excuse their own behaviour by off-loading their responsibility onto God.
 
someone429 said:
Well, let’s consider this. If people who are in hell can still make offsprings, and they do make offsprings, and those new persons inherit the condition of eternal extreme pain of hell, is it just?

If it isn’t, why is the inheritance of results of original sin just?
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Yeah, except you are now misrepresenting the truth. This life isn’t hell and it isn’t eternal. Our offspring are not destined to hell unless they choose it.

There is a threshold of moral agency and responsibility each must attain, but that comes with the territory, so to speak. We should not expect that an infinitely good God would tolerate evil for long. Yet, here you want God and innocent others to tolerate evil eternally. Ain’t going to happen.

Comforting yourself regarding bad choices is not demonstrating thoughtful consideration of the topic. We can talk ourselves into ridiculous ideas to rationalize our concupiscence and disordered proclivities, but in the end we alone will bear responsibility for accepting those errant notions.
 
someone429 said:
Catholicism teaches that because of the original sin, people suffer pain, diseases, and tendency towards evil. How can this be just?
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Respectfully pondering upon opinion only asking questions in what one has stated.
What orignal sin did animals comment, that they too, suffer, feel pain, diseases, innocently hunted down, go their persecution within their own, or by human beings, feel pain, hunger, having to labor also for their own needs, go through Life dangers, >> All Life forms in the flesh, breathe>> animals having to go through the >>agony of death, also?

So what original sin did animals commit, that they too are being punished for?
Peace 🙂
 
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