Original Sin - Not A Reason To Continuing Sinning

Death is the consequence of Original Sin. [1]  Perhaps with the exception of aging which leads to death, there is no other consequence.  People sometimes say that "we are all sinners." This is true because everyone who is born with Original Sin dies.  What is not true is the underlying assumption that some people tend to make is that because of Original Sin, sinning is therefore normal.

Sinning is not normal.  Breathing is normal.  A newborn baby breathes but does not sin.

Sinning is a deliberate act.  It requires an affirmative exercise of one's Free Will.  Free Will is a power of God that God has given to Adam and Eve who continued to retain it after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.  It is neutral and is part of every individual ever lived.  Free Will neither compels nor predispose one to sin.  No one ever sins automatically or accidentally, and no one is ever forced to commit a sin, not even when one is placed under the threat of torture and death.

Therefore, Original Sin is not to be blamed for the continuous commission of the many sins that follow it, nor is Satan, the one putting in front of man a delectable plethora of sins to choose from with free unlimited refills, to be blamed.  Man, himself, is the one who must accept full responsibility for every single choice he makes.  Whether good or bad, a choice is a deliberate act whether or not it is made after pondering, for whether or not to ponder is itself a deliberate choice however fast one makes it.

Unlike deliberate choice, one's immune system, when functioning properly in accordance with nature, heals the body.  It is automatic.  It knows what needs to be done and when for the good of the body.  It is smarter than the brain and makes the right choices.  The body's power to heal itself, like life and Free Will, is given to man by God.  Imagine having to decide what the body has to do every time it needs to heal a minor cut or bruise.  God could not leave up to man's deliberate choices to ruin God's gift of life because man will first go to the buffet table set by Satan to choose what may or may not be necessary to feel better based on the condition he is in.  Driven by gluttony, avarice, pride and/or lust, he can easily make the wrong choices and make his body worse if not killing it.  God did not give the gift of life just so than man can by his choices kill it, but killing it man sometimes does nonetheless by abusing his body, the "temple of the [H]oly Spirit." [2]

Driven by such desires, a man who is whole and well would at times choose to engage in perversions and/or excite his senses.  Sometimes, this does not only harm the life of one, but lives of others as well.  An example is surrogacy.  It terminates the natural and loving birth mother-child bond before it even has a chance to thrive [3] and the harm may not end there since the children would grow up without a biological mother.  They (and the surrogate mothers) would never know what they have missed after the unrecoverable passage of time that would have fostered a unique mother-child bond that is not severable even when the umbilical cord is cut.

Surrogacy is an example of a compound sin.  For purposes of this entry, a sin is compounded when its commission harms the lives of others.  Eve committed a grave sin the moment she bit into the apple.  It became compound when she offered the forbidden apple to Adam.  Death that became the consequence [4] was eternal until it was overcome by the resurrection of Christ.  Those who would like to make reparations for Eve and Adam's Sin (not loving God enough and disobeying God) will have to do the opposite, by choosing not to sin deliberately, by following Christ, by keeping the "temple of the Holy Spirit" clean, by being humble, by loving God and neighbor. [5]  Those who can actually live up to these ideals and choose consistently not to sin are probably far and few in between and this blogger would like to learn from them, if they exist.

Having asserted that Original Sin is not an excuse to continue sinning, one has to wonder how strong must one's will be to choose not to sin every time?  From this perspective, one can appreciate how strong-willed Christ was as man in overcoming Satan's temptations and how strong-willed the Blessed Virgin Mary was in rejecting them too, and realize how pure both their love is in loving each and every sinner.  Because the draw of sin is so forceful, refusing it deliberately requires the strength of will that can only be had with the grace of God, and one must supplicate before God to have it for the alternative is untenable on the Day of Judgment, having knowingly made repeated deals with the Devil for temporal pleasure and satisfaction in exchange for eternal fulfillment and joy that can only be regretted without penance and pardon.


[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis3:27, 2-4.
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/6, at 19.
[3] In a previous post some time ago, the blogger made the mistake comparing the birth of Christ from the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a surrogacy.  He no longer agrees with this comparison and wants this mention to be a confession, a retraction and a reparation.  The Blessed Virgin Mother is the Mother of God.  She is not a surrogate.  The Mother-Child relationship began the moment the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and it continued on through life on earth and is continuing on in eternity in Heaven.
[4] http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis3:27, 2-4.
[5]  http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/12, 28-31; http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/22:1517, 34-40; http://www.usccb.org/bible/lk/10:52, 25-28.