I totally understand personal sin. You do the crime–you do the time. I have done a LOT of time for my crimes.
But why does there have to be the concept of original sin? A state that affects the most innocent and helpless of God’s creatures, and says they must suffer because of OUR sins. That just doesn’t seem like something a suposedly loving and merciful God would say?
OS is a state, one we’re born into, but not guilty of committing. This state basically consists of being separated from God, not in the direct, intimate communion with Him that we were created for, without even knowledge of Him for all practical purposes. This is the honest reality we’re born into. It’s a state of injustice because we cannot be fully who we were meant to be until we’re freed from it. We cannot reach the heights we were made for. And if we look around, and in ourselves, we can observe the weakness and darkness, the proclivity to sin-everywhere. Our newspapers daily report human atrocities that just “should not be”, that cannot be in accord with God’s will but occur nonetheless. Whether or not we agree that we should be born into this state, the reality of OS should be self-evident in this world.
But why are things the way they are here? It’s because of
man’s will. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, whether we admit to it or not, we carry on the family tradition-of sin-that Adam began because that’s
our will; we don’t necessarily want God around either.
We don’t necessarily want His interference, even if we know its right.
We tend to prefer ourselves to God, as the catechism teaches Adam did, often even if we profess faith in Him. So we’re not so innocent in all this either. We’re responsible for our own sins, not Adam, or God, or the devil.
But all is not lost. God never abandoned man. He saw fit to allow man to fall into a world where man’s will reigns, where both good and evil are known, the good of God’s creation along with the evils that result from being apart from Him: sin, pain, suffering, and death. But ultimately this is meant to help lead us
back to Him so that, with the combination of revelation and grace, we may come to know God again, to see His goodness and trustworthiness, and of our need for Him, so that we may turn away from the evil and back to Him, the ultimate good, embracing Him above all else, our wills finally aligned with His. This is where man’s sheer, uncompromised happiness lies in the end, which is what He’s always wanted for us anyway.
The suffering of this life is temporary. The goal and reward-the happiness- at the end is eternal.
