Again, like I mentioned in earlier posts: Negative consquences for people’s sinful actions do affect the innocent.
I gave a couple examples already.
Here is another one: I decide to ignore the Speed Limit on a tight turn on the side of a mountain, as a result I go over the double yellow line as a consequence I hit a bus full of people causing the bus to fall off the side of the mountain. The bus lands and explodes - all the people on the bus are killed. I am injured in the accident, but will survive although I’ll never be able to walk again.
In this example, who is to blame? The answer is obvious - ME & me alone.
In this example, who is experiencing the negative consequences? The answer is me, all the people who died and all of their loved ones.
Yet, according to what you’re saying above the people who died are also to be blamed simply because they were affected by my sinful action. Your position is a faulty one.
Life just doesn’t work that way, just because someone is affect by another’s actions doesn’t mean that they are also blamed.
Similarly, Eve and Adam sinned by eating of the Tree God specifically told them not to eat of. They were affected by being thrown out of the Garden of Eden. As a consequence, every human being born was/is conceived & born outside of the Garden of Eden. Sin and death entered the world because of those two people’s actions.
Even though the rest of humanity feels the affects of their sinful action, does not mean that the rest of humanity is in any way to be blamed for Eve and Adam’s sin.
I have to say this has been interesting to me-in spite of levels of animosity that seem unavoidable, right or wrong, with these topics. The issue not fully resolved in this for me is the fact that all men were condemned to a life of exile from God-a sort of living death that we need to become aware of if we’re to live again- and in any case condemned to a life that includes decay, suffering and physical death. It’s the fact that we’re also held individually
accountable in some manner-that this condemnation remains unless we, accepting God’s help through His plan of salvation via Christ’s sacrifice, are willing to turn back to Him. What we are marked by-or guilty of -is not the offense committed by Adam but the very disobedience and mistrust of God that Adam and all mankind remained guilty of after the fall. This is what God resists in us only because this is what causes us to resist
Him. This is why Jesus died-not only to forgive but to
take away the sin of the world-to break through our hard-heartedness, the hearts of stone that cause post-fall man to sin to begin with- that enable sin to work within us. Overcoming death alone means nothing unless the cause of death-sin- is overcome as well. From what I’ve been told, some from the Eastern tradition say that physical death-a consequence introduced by Adam’s sin-is, mainly, what causes the rest of us to sin-in part due to their understanding of Romans 5:21. I think the problem is deeper than that and the truth is that* sin *in us-meaning spiritual death-is what causes us to continue to sin-because this spiritual death/separation from God remains a
preferred disposition in man and this preference-this waywardness that started it all- must be understood for what it is-basically a prodigal’s life spent in the pig-sty. And the conversion that effects a change, a return to the Father or a turning away from sin and back to God, is a process, not fully realized until we fully love as He has always willed that we should. I get different feedback depending on the Eastern source on this so I need to study more but I’m not so sure that the way you present the effects of the first sin adequately explain what I observe-what I encounter on a daily basis- in the world.
So it’s not just that we’re victims of Adams sin -like an animal trapped in a cage by the unnatural condition (for man) of a life hemmed in by the reality and finality of death, combined with ignorance and a weakened will. I think it’s also true that, for all practical purposes, the majority of us
deny death-still somehow buying the serpents lie that we shall not die, living as if there’s no tomorrow
for us and continuing Adam’s tradition of obstinately thumbing our noses at God. And we do this by our actions, regardless of our stated religious affiliation and beliefs-until hopefully, we no longer prefer
anything at all to the will of God.
Maybe the use of terms or concepts like stain or mark or guilt could be improved upon. But the notion of Adams sin, specifically, carrying on in each one of us as a state or disposition-as
sinfulness-still makes a lot of sense to me.
