The Original Sin
ONE
In Genesis 2:15-17 we read;
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying; ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’”
Genesis uses poetic language to convey truth. God said; "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden.” This signifies we have free will – we must choose to do good or to do evil. Then God said; “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil signifies the capacity to determine good and evil. Only God has the power to determine what is good and evil. We do not have the power to determine what is good and what is evil.
God is love and he made us in His image. Our design is love and we were made to love. That is the moral reality. The Commandments, the moral law, and the rules of the Catholic Church are an expression of our design. The Ten Commandments, for example, are just the owner's manual that explains we were designed to love God and love one another. If you break a Commandment, we don’t break a rule, we break our design, we break ourselves. God doesn’t want us to break ourselves or one another. That is why he tells us how we were designed, he tells us the moral laws.
Physical laws exist and moral laws exist. If we obey the physical laws – we thrive. If we disobey the physical laws – we will harm ourselves. If we obey the moral law – we thrive. If we disobey the moral law – we destroy ourselves. But we do not have the freedom to rewrite the laws according to our personal preference. We do NOT have the freedom to “determine good and evil.”
TWO
The moral law, and the laws of the Catholic Church express our design.
But we erroneously think the moral law or the laws of the Church are restrictive.
Imagine I just bought a new car – a red Ford Mustang
As soon as I got it home I read the owners manual which told me:
· Change your oil every 3,000 miles
· Inflate the tires to 35 psi
· Use unleaded fuel only
Imagine me flying into a rage; “Who does Ford think they are! This is my car, I own it. I am free to do whatever I want with my car. And you know how expensive gas is these days. But hey, wait, the grocery store down the street is selling kool-aid for 24 cents a gallon
So I use my freedom and my last fumes of gas
· And I drive to the store and buy enough green kool-aid to make 15 gallons
· and I put it in my gas tank.
Was I free to do this? Yes. But now what am I? A pedestrian!
Ford wasn’t trying to deny my freedom by giving me the owner’s manual. Ford designed the car. They knew how it worked. Ford wanted me to know what I needed to do
· so the car would reach its full potential.
· So that I would be happy
· And tell other people to buy a Ford
The moral law is a reflection of ourselves, of our design. If we break the moral law, we break our design, we break ourselves.
2.5 The Equality Act is a perfect example of man trying to play God.
This bill defines and includes sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation.
The Equality Act is not about the equality of persons. It is about the equality of moral positions which is logically impossible. If I say murder is right and you say it is wrong we can’t both be right at the same time. Both are not equally true. There is not a universal equality of different moral positions. To say one denies the other. The Equality Act eliminates biological sexes saying we are not male or female based on God-given DNA. Instead, the law is saying it is up to you to determine your gender, not God. Ultimately this law will be used to destroy God’s plan for marriage between one man and one woman.
This is just the temptation of the devil in its most modern form. You decide for yourself what is right and wrong, not God, then you too can be gods.
THREE
St. John Paul II wrote that a correct understanding of the Fall is the key for interpreting reality.
The key is this; “The devil seeks to abolish the Fatherhood of God by placing in doubt the truth about God who is love.”
Genesis 2:17
God told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die.
Genesis 3:5
The devil spreads a lie that sows doubt in the Goodness of God:
· You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, determining good and evil.
The Devils tactic: spread a Lie that sows Doubt:
· God is not a loving Father
· He is a Master and we are His slaves
· God told you not to eat of the Tree because He does not want you to become like Him
· God’s laws are keeping you from Freedom and Happiness
· The devil sows doubt in the Goodness of God
CCC 397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command…
All subsequent sin would be:
And a lack of trust in His goodness
Disobedience toward God
Every sin we ever commit follows the same pattern from distrust to disobedience.
FOUR
Original Harmony
Wouldn’t you like to know what life was like in the Garden of Eden before the fall? CCC 374-379 what it was like. “Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original ‘state of holiness and justice.’ This grace of original holiness was to “share in…divine life.”
The CCC speaks of a four-fold Harmony we call Original Justice which consisted of:
First we were in harmony or relationship with God. Genesis 2:7 tells us after God gave us human life, He breathed His Holy Spirit into our soul, gave us a share in His own divine life as His adopted children who would live forever.
Second, there was a profound harmony between man and woman. That is almost beyond imagination…
Third, there was harmony between man and creation. There were no natural disasters.
Fourth, we enjoyed harmony within the powers of the soul and between the soul and the body.
This four-fold harmony meant there was no sickness, no disease, and no death.
FIVE
Consequences of Original Sin
Every sin is a turning away from God that injures the soul, does harm to our relationship with God and one another and does damage in the world around us.
With Original Sin our first parents turned away from God, broke their relationship with Him, rejecting His divine life dwelling in their souls. The Powers of their soul were damaged. The union between man and woman became subject to tensions. The harmony between man and creation was broken so that now we suffer from natural disasters. And once the harmony between the soul and body is broken we begin to suffer from disease and death.
Where does evil, suffering and death come from? From us. We brought it upon ourselves by sin. And we can’t fix it. No government program, no economic or education system, no scientific or medical advance, no philosophy or military power – only God can save us from ourselves.