Were you born without sin?

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Emad

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Here is a short article I posted a while back on the WhyIslam forum:

Would God blame you for someone else’s mistake? We all have heard that we were born with sin-and some people believe that. Think about it for a moment. Would the Just God blame you for a sin you never committed? Would He hold you responsible for what someone else did? Definitely not! God’s book teaches that you are responsible for only your own actions. You can’t sin until you do something wrong, and you certainly could not have done something wrong before you were even born.

We often meet people who say somehow we are born in sin. Could that possibly be true? They say that the first human Adam, sinned, and through him sin entered the world; and now sin corrupts everything, including every newborn baby. Can you follow that logic? Can you believe that human beings are condemned before they do anything? Which judge would condemn people for crimes they never committed? A just judge can’t do that except by mistake. What about God? Would He make such a mistake? We can’t imagine such false ideas about God. He is Just. He holds you responsible for what you do, and He does not blame you for what the first human being did.

Even after you do wrong, God is always willing to forgive. He is full of loving kindness, and He loves to forgive. He is willing to forgive anyone who turns to Him and seeks forgiveness. This means that if you do something wrong you can still turn back to God and He will forgive you, if you sincerely decide to give up that sin. Isn’t this refreshing to know? If you live a whole life full of sin and decide to change and obey God He will forgive you that second. Thats just between us and God. We don’t need any confession box, and we don’t need anyone to suffer for our sins. Can anyone resist the loving kindness that God is offering?

God wants us to know the truth about Him so that when we turn to Him we know whom we are turning to. But there is so much misinformation about God and the place to get the correct information about God is in His book. We owe it to ourselves to see what God has to say about himself. Shouldn’t you be reading God’s book? Here is God’s message to you in His book:

O mankind! Now has a proof from your Lord come to you, and We have sent down to you a clear light; as for those who belive and hold fast to Him, them He will cause to enter into His mercy and grace, and will guide them to Him by the straight road. (Quran surah Nisa 4:174-5)

The Quran is God’s final book which He revealed for the guidance of all humankind
 
I would like to know what Christians find wrong in the below article please.
 
It seems you have some false notions of what the Catholic Church believes. The link I am posting enters into the Catechism of the Catholic Church (basically, the official book of “what we believe”). Please read the whole page. If you want to read more, the whole Catechism is linked with an index and a cross-search utility. Let me know what further questions you have.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p7.htm#385

Shalom,
RyanL
 
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RyanL:
It seems you have some false notions of what the Catholic Church believes. The link I am posting enters into the Catechism of the Catholic Church (basically, the official book of “what we believe”). Please read the whole page. If you want to read more, the whole Catechism is linked with an index and a cross-search utility. Let me know what further questions you have.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p7.htm#385

Shalom,
RyanL
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I have read what the link says about original sin and the consequences of Adams sin for humanity and I don’t see where my false notions are. It is still all of humanity somehow suffering for the sin of one man. I might have missed something. If you don’t mind can you please point it out.

Thank you. 🙂
 
This is interesting. Do Muslims not believe in the Garden of Eden?
 
This is what the Quran says about it. It is probably what this guy has been referring to all along:

[Sura 2:37]
Then Adam received from his Lord words and He accepted his repentance. Lo! He is the acceptor of repentance, the Merciful.

HOWEVER, this comes from one of the hadith. The interesting thing is that not only does the hadith support the idea that Adam’s sin affected all of humankind afterwards, but it was apparently predestined, too:

[Bukhari, volume 6, book 65, no. 4736]
Allah’s Apostle said, "Adam and Moses met, and Moses said to Adam “You are the one who made people miserable and turned them out of Paradise.” Adam said to him, “You are the one whom Allah selected for His message and whom He selected for Himself and upon whom He revealed the Torah.” Moses said, ‘Yes.’ Adam said, "Did you find that written in my fate before my creation?’ Moses said, ‘Yes.’ So Adam overcame Moses with this argument."

Bear in mind that Bukhari is one of the “authentic six” that the consensus of Muslim scholars have classified as reliable after doing thorough research on them. Bukhari, in fact, is one of the two most famous collections of hadith.
 
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exoflare:
[Bukhari, volume 6, book 65, no. 4736]
Allah’s Apostle said, "Adam and Moses met, and Moses said to Adam “You are the one who made people miserable and turned them out of Paradise.” Adam said to him, “You are the one whom Allah selected for His message and whom He selected for Himself and upon whom He revealed the Torah.” Moses said, ‘Yes.’ Adam said, “Did you find that written in my fate before my creation?’ Moses said, ‘Yes.’ So Adam overcame Moses with this argument.”
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Just to digress from the subject of this thread.

…Adam and Moses met, …

Goodness! When did they meet? As far I know from the Bible, Adam was far away long off even before Moses was born. How could they ever meet? Or maybe this meeting was in heaven after both died?

Forgive me for my ignorance.

Peace

Reuben 🙂
 
It is still all of humanity somehow suffering for the sin of one man. I might have missed something. If you don’t mind can you please point it out.
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Emad,

The reality that all human beings faces death is a clear evidence that Adam’s sins affected all humanity. If you can name just one man who didn’t die, let us know. Maybe that one doesn’t have any sin. We all suffer one way or another. That’s the reality of life.

Sacred Scriptures tells us that the wages of sin is death. That’s why the doctrine of original sin attests to the reality of original sin that was passed on from Adam up to the last man before judgement. However, original sin is not the same as personal sins.

Pio
 
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hlgomez:
Sacred Scriptures tells us that the wages of sin is death. That’s why the doctrine of original sin attests to the reality of original sin that was passed on from Adam up to the last man before judgement. However, original sin is not the same as personal sins.

Pio
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Oh geez, I think you just unknowingly opened up another can of worms here. Just be prepared to hear the standard “Well why do you say Jesus and Mary died then??” 😉
 
Oh geez, I think you just unknowingly opened up another can of worms here. Just be prepared to hear the standard “Well why do you say Jesus and Mary died then??” 😉
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Let them read the catechism of the Catholic Church. 😛

Pio
 
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exoflare:
This is what the Quran says about it. It is probably what this guy has been referring to all along:

[Sura 2:37]
Then Adam received from his Lord words and He accepted his repentance. Lo! He is the acceptor of repentance, the Merciful.

HOWEVER, this comes from one of the hadith. The interesting thing is that not only does the hadith support the idea that Adam’s sin affected all of humankind afterwards, but it was apparently predestined, too:

[Bukhari, volume 6, book 65, no. 4736]
Allah’s Apostle said, "Adam and Moses met, and Moses said to Adam “You are the one who made people miserable and turned them out of Paradise.” Adam said to him, “You are the one whom Allah selected for His message and whom He selected for Himself and upon whom He revealed the Torah.” Moses said, ‘Yes.’ Adam said, “Did you find that written in my fate before my creation?’ Moses said, ‘Yes.’ So Adam overcame Moses with this argument.”

Bear in mind that Bukhari is one of the “authentic six” that the consensus of Muslim scholars have classified as reliable after doing thorough research on them. Bukhari, in fact, is one of the two most famous collections of hadith.
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Yes this is an authentic hadith. Adam and Moses met in paradise, however look at the outcome “so Adam overcame Moses with his argument”
 
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hlgomez:
Emad,

The reality that all human beings faces death is a clear evidence that Adam’s sins affected all humanity. If you can name just one man who didn’t die, let us know. Maybe that one doesn’t have any sin. We all suffer one way or another. That’s the reality of life.

Sacred Scriptures tells us that the wages of sin is death. That’s why the doctrine of original sin attests to the reality of original sin that was passed on from Adam up to the last man before judgement. However, original sin is not the same as personal sins.

Pio
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Death is not something bad, it is something that God planned for us. We are here to be tested and when our test is over we die and return to God. What is the difference between original sin and personal sin? I will also ask the question exoflare mentioned, why did Jesus peace be upon him and Mary die?

Again I want to make it clear that I am not asking to debate or aruge for the sake of it. I want to understand and learn. It seems like some people get mad when others ask questions. Please don’t take this in the wrong way.

🙂
 
I understand the question about justice, as on the surface it seems unjust for everyone to suffer for the sins of their parent.

However, this is a mistaken notion. Number one, the whole nature of humanity changed on the day Adam and Eve sinned. Judging by what we know scientifically, genetics play a large role in determining personality traits. Obviously, not all personality traits are reliant upon genetics, but they do play a role.

Maybe its just the nature of free will that creates sin. But an unjust God would be one who denied free will to His rational beings. God could have, and in fact in some parts of the Bible, He laments having allowed creation. God could have ended the whole experience immediately after the first sin.

How do we know that it is not more just to have allowed sin than to not have allowed it? Maybe God isn’t punishing us by allowing us to sin. In fact, God is not punishing us, we are punishing ourselves. Suffering is the result of our acts, not God’s. He merely allows us to sin, and we pay the consequences.

As for justice, God sent His Son to pay for those sins. In essence, He sent Himself to be punished for OUR misdeeds. He took His wrath out on Himself instead of us. That to me is the ultimate in justice.

Also, He allows us to repent for our sins, to be in communion with Him. My guess is that it will be better in the long run that we have tasted sin, and through redemption, it will make things all the better for God and those who are saved. I believe that is why God allowed us to live and allowed us to sin. He sees a better future through the allowance of sin. This is something we cannot see.

Also, the point of the doctrine of original sin suggests that we are all under the spell of sin. Is it inherited or is it simply something that we all do on the basis of free will mixed with material (animalistic) nature? I would say that is an unanswerable question, but the doctrine merely shows in simple terms that we are all subject to sin, unless God wills otherwise.

I believe the transmission of original sin from parent to child has something to do with our genetic makeup. Based on our material being, when sin happened, it changed our whole material makeup, along with the material makeup of the physical world. My guess is that the spiritual fall polluted the material world, and that probably left God with a couple of options. He could eradicate the world, including the beings He created and loved, and start all over.

He could have immediately purified nature, but in the process, he would have eliminated free will, since by changing nature around Adam and Eve, would ultimately leave them without a choice. For instance, let’s say I’m walking along and come across a banana tree. I could eat as much as I want, but if God wanted a pure being with free choice, and if He just eliminated the amount of bannana’s to the point that would be temperate for me, I essentially wouldn’t be choosing. Hence, I would have no free will

Finally, He could allow creation to be corrupted, leave His beings free, and send a Redeemer. Essentially, the only way I see rationally possible to keep His beings free, and to get them to choose Him, was to do things the way He did; through Jesus Christ.

All in all, He did the just thing, but what can you expect, He is Justice.
 
**ORIGINAL SIN: **The sin by which the first human beings disobeyed the commandment of God, choosing to follow their own will rather than God’s will. As a consequence they lost the grace of original holiness, and became subject to the law of death; sin became universally present in the world. Besides the personal sin of Adam and Eve, original sin describes the fallen state of human nature which affects every person born into the world, and from which Christ, the “new Adam,” came to redeem us (396-412).

PERSONAL SIN: that is the things we ourselves do that are not pleasing to God or against his laws and decrees.

…the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed”—a state and not an act (Catechism #404).

Pio
 
I will also ask the question exoflare mentioned, why did Jesus peace be upon him and Mary die?
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Jesus delivered us from eternal death, which is different from physical death. This is what Jesus came for to re-establish the original plan of God for man. That’s why when Jesus died, he rose again to prove that he conquered death. And for Mary, she followed her Son by conquering death thru her bodily assumption into heaven. Thru one man, Adam, death came into the world, and thru one man Jesus Christ, eternal life came for all (who will believe in Him).

Pio
 
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Emad:
Yes this is an authentic hadith. Adam and Moses met in paradise, however look at the outcome “so Adam overcame Moses with his argument”
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You mean “…with this argument” right?

I thought all that meant was that Adam was correct. How does his statement negate original sin though? He wasn’t arguing against the concept of original sin, only trying to prove that his sin was not his fault because it was predestined from the beginning. At least that was my impression.
 
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hlgomez:
Jesus delivered us from eternal death, which is different from physical death. This is what Jesus came for to re-establish the original plan of God for man. That’s why when Jesus died, he rose again to prove that he conquered death. And for Mary, she followed her Son by conquering death thru her bodily assumption into heaven. Thru one man, Adam, death came into the world, and thru one man Jesus Christ, eternal life came for all (who will believe in Him).

Pio
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I think Emad was asking why Jesus dying was what it took to accomplish this, rather than God just deciding to forgive everyone. Sorry if I’m wrong. :o

EDIT: JP2admirer, I did like your explanation though… just now saw it.
 
I think Emad was asking why Jesus dying was what it took to accomplish this, rather than God just deciding to forgive everyone. Sorry if I’m wrong. :o
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Exoflare,

I think Emad was asking about the physical death, but I’m pointing out that the mission of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was to deliver us more than just the physical death. Adam and anybody else, not even Muhammad, can give us eternal life.

And yes there is forgiveness, but the justice of God requires an expiation for our sins. And this was done by the Son of God, the perfect sacrifice, in expiation for our sins.

Pio
 
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