Evidence for God from Science

Can someone explain to me what original sin is?

God bless!

Francesco

Original sin is that condition which all men and women are born into by virtue of our being identified with Adam who sinned and by his sin condemned all mankind who are identified in him.

The sins we commit are an expression of that condition, not the cause.

Jesus Christ, as the second Adam, represented all of mankind through his incarnation, life, death and resurrection and when we accept that gift then we are reckoned by God to have that original sin condition dealt with and we are saved in the eyes of God. This is by God's grace, and appropriated on our behalf by faith when we receive the gift God provides in Christ.

Romans 5 - 8 provides a pretty clear picture of this.

ahh okay thanx bart!

How come we are affiliated with Adam ? I mean don't i choose my own destiny in the sense to sin( thus entering the state of sin) or not?

Well, Cet-to, it may not be a satisfying answer, but the ultimate answer is because that is how God established things. In the plan of redemption, God identifies us all through Adam and provides us the opportunity to move that identification through Christ, the second Adam. In a sense, you do change your destiny by what you do (or don't do) with Jesus Christ.

If you read Romans 5 - 8 carefully, you'll see that it addresses a lot of this. While we're identified collectively through Adam, we also are shown by the law to not maintain the perfect standard of God with regard to sin. We are all included with original sin, but we show that God is just because each of us also sins ourselves.

This is central to message of the gospel as in order to be "saved" we need to recognize that we are in a state we need to be saved "from." If we don't recognize our need through Christ then why accept Him as Saviour?

There's a lot of questions that arise in this framework that are answered differntly by different people. It raises questions such as:

1. What about people who haven't heard of Jesus Christ. Are they, or can they be saved?
2. Along the same lines, what about the unborn, infants and children?
3. What's the balance in this system between the love of God and the justice of God.
4. What's the role of free will in these matters. Does God predestine everything in this regard, or are we moral free agents with the power to make decisions.

A lot of this is tied into systematic theology and how one views the world. A lot of our western views and constructs also tie into the application of greek philosophy which relies a great deal upon deductive reasoning and reduction of issues to limited eithor/or mutually exclusive propositions. That's why many of the views in these systems reduce down to 2 major camps. An example of this would be Calvinism and Arminianism which each answer the questions above in different ways, depending upon how the answer the question in their framework that provides the foundational assumotion upon which the rest of their system works.

Does this help?

CeT-To wrote:Can someone explain to me what original sin is?

God bless!

Francesco

CeT-To,

Since you're Catholic, may I suggest that you read up on the church's position wrt original sin. Here are a couple of links you might find helpful.

Original Sin
Early Church Fathers on original sin

How come we are affiliated with Adam ? I mean don't i choose my own destiny in the sense to sin (thus entering the state of sin) or not?

The word destiny is a nasty little Latin word that has creaped into Christian thinking. It is actually self-defeating to say you choose your own destiny.

Hey guys i just realised something ironic....hereditary diseases such as down-syndrome or colour blindness is brought to the child through mother and not the father.... yet the hereditary disease SIN is past through the father and not the mother(?) O_O i actually figured this out a long time ago but i had forgotten it until now. Is there anything wrong with that answer? Any theological problems with that?

Oh and thanx Jlay and Byblos those were great reads!

But yeah i don't know if i can fully comprehend it yet...but i have to say this was absolutely spot on!

"Original sin is not an act but, as already explained, a state, a permanent privation, and this can be voluntary indirectly — just as a drunken man is deprived of his reason and incapable of using his liberty, yet it is by his free fault that he is in this state and hence his drunkenness, his privation of reason is voluntary and can be imputed to him."

Hey guys what do you think of this?

hereditary diseases such as down-syndrome or colour blindness is brought to the child through mother and not the father.... yet the hereditary disease SIN is past through the father and not the mother(?) is there any theological problems to that answer?

Canuckster1127 wrote:Original sin is that condition which all men and women are born into by virtue of our being identified with Adam who sinned and by his sin condemned all mankind who are identified in him.

The sins we commit are an expression of that condition, not the cause.

Jesus Christ, as the second Adam, represented all of mankind through his incarnation, life, death and resurrection and when we accept that gift then we are reckoned by God to have that original sin condition dealt with and we are saved in the eyes of God. This is by God's grace, and appropriated on our behalf by faith when we receive the gift God provides in Christ.

Romans 5 - 8 provides a pretty clear picture of this.

That was rather weird, I was thinking about this topic for a while and it's been over a week since i've tried to finish reading the bible. Sure enough, i read your post and found i left off at romans 5, thanks lol