A.Suarez's Treatment on a Pope's Formulation for Original Sin's Transmission!

[AntoineSuarez]

@GJDS

I said that the discussion becomes complicated.

I would say thought-provoking, rather than complicated!

@GJDS

The Gospel teaches us that all have sinned and have come short of the Glory of God. This shows that even if we view the Law of God as intrinsic via a human attribute, in practice, human beings would comprehend the negation of an attribute (e.g. if a person committed murder, he would be understood as “without a lawful attribute”, i.e. a criminal).

The “Gospel quotation” you refer to comes from Romans 3:23-24:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

It is worth matching this passage with these two other Romans’ verses:

God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (Romans 11:32).

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. (Romans 5:14).

These three passages together lead us straightforwardly to the following insights:

1. Adam sinned by “breaking a command of God” and lost the original state of grace in which he was created by God. However, God in his mercy did not damned Adam to join the devil but allowed him to remain on earth to have opportunity to atone and reach justification through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

2. After Adam’s transgression, God creates everyone short of the glory of God, that is, lacking the original grace offered to Adam. For this reason, after the first transgression, “death reigns over every human person on earth, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam”. In this sense it holds that “all have sinned”, i.e. “everyone is bound over to disobedience” and shares the same fallen condition of Adam.

3. Most important: The reason why God “bounds everyone over to disobedience” is “to have mercy on them all”, that is, to make it possible that all reach justification. Keeping on earth persons who could feel entitled to claim to be better than others would impair the work of redemption.

So what you call a “sin as an attribute of human nature” means nothing other than a sinful condition all of humanity is bound over to because of Adam’s transgression but for the sake of redemption.

This can be better understood if one keeps in mind that God’s mercy is the ultimate reason for God’s creative act. This means: God’s mercy is an essential ingredient of human nature; you cannot define humanity (even as a biological species) without invoking God’s intervention and thus God’s mercy. So, each sin attempts against God’s mercy, but uselessly because the only thing it achieves is to enhance such mercy even more. The first sin did this and, instead of damnation for the sinner, it elicited “need of redemption” for all!

It is worth studying more in depth the reasons why “keeping on earth persons who could feel entitled to claim to be better than others” would have impaired the work of redemption. I think @Mols has inspiring ideas in this respect:

@MOls

Since the Fall, all of humanity is now in the same “state” such that no one person can claim to be better than another. […] We are all in the same boat. Thus, by holding to the doctrine of Original Sin, we are setting up the idea of equality between all people. This idea of Original Sin also explains why God’s great sacrifice of Himself, Jesus on the Cross, was necessary for the salvation of all […].