My understanding is that it goes back to Adam and Eve eating from the fruit of the tree that God expressly told them not to. From that moment on there was sin. It’s in our being as soon as we are conceived in the womb.
There is an interesting story which leads to the actual Original Sin.
No I get that part. What I don’t understand is why we suffer for other people’s sins. I understand why we suffer for our own sins, that makes sense!
That is very funny about the baby. Thank you for your help. I have a relative who is Missouri synod Lutheran
It is not uncommon that one suffers for another’s sin. It does not seem just to us.
One way I heard it explained is this:
First, Adam is not “other people” as in the comment “What I don’t understand is why we suffer for other people’s sins.”
Pardon me.One way I heard it explained is this:
Imagine if your grandfather were a billionaire. But he was also a compulsive gambler. And he ends up spending his entire life savings on a poker game and loses. What’s going to happen to his descendants? They are going to be born into poverty. This might seem unfair, it is unfair, but it’s the way life works. The grandfather made a decision, and that decision affected all of his family.
Our actions have consequences. (something we tend to forget today in America but our ancestors were keenly aware of) Not just consequences for ourselves, but for the people around us as well. If a pregnant mother gets addicted to cocaine, her baby will be addicted. The baby didn’t do anything, but now he has to live with the consequences of his mothers poor choice. We are not isolated individuals, we are all connected.
So with Adam and Eve, they were created in perfect union with God. There were two benefits that this union gave them. 1. Eternal benefits. They had access to the Beatific vision. 2. Physical benefits. There was no sickness, death, or disease for them. Not because those things didn’t exist (they did in the animal kingdom, according to Aquinas) but because their union with God prevented those things from affecting them. But when they sinned, they cut off not just themselves, but the entire human race, from communion with God. As a result, humanity lost the gifts it had which were only available to it because it was united to God. Just like if a tree gets cut off from its root, it withers, we got cut off from our ‘‘root’’ - God - and so we fell back into the state that all nature falls into apart from God’s grace. Death, disease, suffering.
So that’s why there is original sin, and all the things that entails. It’s not so much that we are being ‘‘punished’’ for Adam’s sin. But we do have to deal with the consequences of it. Thankfully though, that’s not the end of the story. Christ’s death and resurrection undoes the sin of Adam. He heals and bridges the gap between God and man. He infuses sanctifying grace - the grace that Adam and Eve had but lost - back into our souls and we have access to heaven again, as long as we are united to Christ. And in the resurrection, our physical bodies will be completely made new, to something even better than Adam and Eve had.
Does that explain things a little better? Let me know if something still doesn’t make sense. And sorry for such a long post. I wasn’t planning on writing that much when I started haha.
Right sorry, I meant they COULD enter, but as far as I know they hadn’t yet. Although they did have a more intimate relationship God than we do, since they had no sin.
Good question, but actually, original sin was included. That primarily was what He died for, to heal the gap between man and God that Adam’s disobedience caused. Remember, when we are baptized, we put on Christ, and the original sin that we receive from Adam is completely washed away. We now have access to heaven again.
Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the transmission of original sin it is a mystery:
I hope readers spend at least five minutes on each information-packed sentence. The phrasing is excellent.
God permits us all to suffer from concupiscence—even to suffer at all—for the very basic reason that He therefrom is able to draw a greater good.
For more information, I’d recommend these two audio sources for study:
Grannymh, I don’t understand what you’re saying here. According to the teaching of the Church, Adam was a person and he is not the same person as the original poster. To me, that makes him fall within the set of ‘other people’. Or am I missing something here?
And ultimately, why is it right that Jesus suffers for ours?
It did. That’s what the resurrection was all about. Christ’s victory over death, which Adam brought into the world through his disobedience. We just don’t experience the full fruit of it right now. We have to wait for the end of time for that. But He did undo it.
I used the grandfather as an analogy for how people can and do suffer for the poor choices of their ancestors. It wasn’t meant to be a perfect parallel. But the fact remains, the grandfather spent his inheritance, and that caused his children to be born into poverty.
Thanks granny.