Why am I punished for Adam and Eve’s sin Why should I have to die/suffer because of something someone else did? This doesn’t square with my notion of justice. In criminal law, you cannot prosecute someone unless two facts are present: (a) there is a guilty mind (i.e., the person meant to do the crime), and (b) there is a guilty action (we only punish acts, not thoughts). So why is it ok to punish all of humanity for that first fall? Looking for some thoughts please?
I don’t expect to know the answer in full, this side of Jordan. However, it is an interesting thing to speculate about.
I have, in one way or another, for all my life, been involved in ranching. As a young fellow, I often reflected on how cattle know so very little about what is good for them or not good for them. At the same time, they never exhibit remorse, and rarely even exhibit dissatisfaction. And when they do exhibit the latter, it is always on an extremely basic level (“no water here, break fence. Maybe no water there either, but break it anyway. Maybe not break it and die.”)
I have sometimes wondered whether perhaps at some point in human history (and with a bow to possible evolution here) our early ancestors were in a state of complete acceptance; rather like mystics sometimes are. Maybe paradise wasn’t such a paradise. Maybe they only accepted it. Maybe in that acceptance, they were in communion with God, in the same sort of way that cattle are. Cattle never depart from their basic purpose or nature. And could it be that some remote ancestors, through a direct gift or perhaps even an evolutionary change, or even a combination of such a change and a decision, had a sudden self-realization, but one of a different sort; a realization that brought the consciousness that they could rebel. And what, then was the “forbidden fruit”? Something, perhaps outside our nature? Or was it a moment of consent to that newly acquired ability to rebel; to resent a condition more natural to us; to no longer consent. Was that moment one of “I will not serve”?
Is it possible that our very ability to choose our own course is the result of a choice? And, being now what we are, are we only now capable of rebelling, of doing evil? Is electing to exercise choice; choice that may be good or bad, what Original sin really is? Is it a sin so much as it is a faculty and, being imperfect, are we then always subject to sinning?
Is it possible that, through an overwhelming abundance of Grace, Mary “saw” with a moral clarity we might, theoretically, have, but which we reject with the first choice we make that is knowingly against our proper nature? Is it possible that we find that choice and that moment perversely delicious and befoul our own wills?
Is it possible that we actually are able, through prayer and self-denial, to overcome that befouling and become saints on this earth? Is it possible that purgatory is our “second chance”; that seeing more clearly at our judgments, we choose to be purged of that wilfullness and tendency to rebel, and thus become, again, perfectly innocent, but in a world vastly more perfect than the one our first parents walked?
For me, it’s fascinating to think about such things. We are told by some scientists that all humans are descended from one woman. “Eve” they not surprisingly called her. Something they figured out from studying DNA, but which I couldn’t begin to explain. Is it perhaps possible that this “Eve” somehow actuated a capacity that was in herself; a capacity to rebel. Might “Eve” have elected not to actuate it, and had she not, would she have lived much as we live, perhaps more primitively, but not minded?
