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Hubriss
Guest
What exactly is the difference between a person born with original sin, and a person not born with original sin? I want to know exactly because as far as I can tell, there is no difference.
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fhansen
Guest
A person born with OS is separated from the creator and lover of his soul. This, in the Christian view, is a great universal disorder and injustice, and it accounts, essentially, for all human angst and misery. Man was born to know God. The reason that faith is so important, in this view, is because, for all practical purposes, man lost faith at the fall. By rejecting any authority God might have over him, God was no longer the god of man, i.e. man became his own god, i.e. man had no God. But man was created to have more than just faith in Gods existence, man was created to know and love God. This constitutes mans justice, this is what gives him his full integrity. Without this, he’s sort of like a partially malfunctioning machine, a highly complex one that operates so well that at first glance no one might realize a part is missing. And unless man freely assents to and acknowledges Gods “value” this integrity is absent; only when he freely accepts God as his God is this integrity present…This is what mans free will consists of.
But there are other, more directly observable means of identifying differences. Why, for what possible reason, does man sin? Why would we ever, in small ways or large, lie, cheat, or steal? Are there always mitigating circumstances that reduce our culpability? Are there always good reasons that fully explain why we might act selfishly, to be egocentric, to put another person down so we can look good, let alone to chop someone elses’ head off because we’re so convinced of our righteousness and his wrongness? Or to rape, torture, and kill? Is this normal for man? Is there not an innocence lost? Is not, perhaps, that very innocence-perfect, unabashed truth-what man hated in Jesus?
We’re not even totally comfortable with ourselves, let alone with others. It’s said that, in the garden, humans were naked and didn’t even know it. Human shame, IOW, is another difference. Man, unconsciously, seems to have taken Gods creation and our existence in it and made determinations about it that tend towards the negative-that pull us down rather than build us up. And this all gets back to man being his own God, making his own rules about what is right and what is wring-being *self-*righteous, one “difference” I think we might all agree can be observed in ourselves and others if we look closely enough.
But the main difference in fallen man is that God’s not part of his world-this world- for all practical purposes. And, one of our main problems-or differences-according to the Catechism, is that we prefer things that way, we prefer ourselves to Him, at least until we get tired of the the differences-tired, like the Prodigal Son, of “our way” and so turn back to Him.
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Pfaffenhoffen
Guest
There is no person born without original sin.
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philial
Guest
Er, shouldn’t that be " There is no person born without original sin, except Jesus and His mother" ?
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Hecares
Guest
Adam and Eve, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Jesus Himself were the only humans born without original sin. Those born with original sin have a greater inclination to evil. Until Jesus died for us they had no hope of becoming one with God for eternity.
Jesus, of course, was God and therefore not inclined to sin although He was tempted. Mary though was totally human and found the strength to avoid sin altogether in her relationship with God which was strong in part because of her freedom from original sin.
Jesus, of course, was God and therefore not inclined to sin although He was tempted. Mary though was totally human and found the strength to avoid sin altogether in her relationship with God which was strong in part because of her freedom from original sin.
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Hubriss
Guest
So there are a lot of points in your answers. My reason for saying that there appears to be no difference is because humans today and in the past seem to be no different from Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had a HUGE inclination towards sin, especially considering they had no reason to doubt or deny God since they talked to him regularly, yet they screwed it up so quickly.
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tonyrey
Guest
Everyone who prays talks to God regularly! There is no fundamental difference between us and Adam and Eve - apart from the fact that we have been affected adversely by their choice of evil. They had free will and were obviously not immune to temptation…
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Pfaffenhoffen
Guest
but that’s obvious…Er, shouldn’t that be " There is no person born without original sin, except Jesus and His mother" ?
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razredge
Guest
Original Sin means we are born into a world with damaged relationships, so there’s no real difference betwen the two, Original Sin is the fallen state of the world rather than some actual difference in the human makeup
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fhansen
Guest
OK, but what’s the meaning of a “fallen state of the world” and how’d it get to that point?
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razredge
Guest
Haven’t you read my often posted quote from Ratzinger’s book ‘In the Beginning’ where he explains Original Sin as humans being born into a world with damaged relationships?
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fhansen
Guest
Yes, I have-I’ve read the quote directly. But even if this is a workable model, it still doesn’t explain why/how the relationships should be damaged in the first place.
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razredge
Guest
He talks about that too - humans freely disobeyed God and entered into conflict with each other (due to greed, jealousy etc) rather than living in harmony.
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