Original Sin
Objection: “How can any reasonable person accept the Catholic
doctrine of original sin? Why should we be punished for the alleged
sins of others committed so long ago?”
The state of Original Sin is the consequence of the sin of our first parents
Adam and Eve. This sin involved their disobedience through pride, in
eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil located in the
Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:6).
Adam and Eve were endowed with various supernatural and preternatural
gifts. By definition, a gift is something freely given that is not owed. The
supernatural gifts were given by God to raise man above his nature so as to
share in the divine life, to know and serve God far beyond his natural
capacities and to behold God in the Beatific Vision in the next world. They
included sanctifying grace, the supernatural theological virtues of faith,
hope and charity, the supernatural infused moral virtues of prudence,
justice, fortitude and temperance, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Concomitant with sanctifying grace is Uncreated Grace, or the indwelling
of the Blessed Trinity (St. John 14:23). The preternatural gifts were given
by God to perfect man as man, not to elevate him above his nature. These
gifts included immortality, impassibility (freedom from suffering), integrity
(freedom from disordered passions) and infused knowledge. Through
natural generation, all these gifts were to be transmitted to the whole
human race. By their disobedience, Adam and Eve lost them for themselves
and for all future generations.
The loss of sanctifying grace is the greatest consequence of Adam’s sin. It
carried with it the privation of the supernatural destiny God willed for
humanity, namely, heaven. Man was also expelled from the Garden of
Eden and became subject to sickness, suffering and death. In addition, our
natural powers were “wounded”––ignorance in the intellect, malice in the
will, concupiscence in the concupiscible appetite, and debility in the
irascible appetite. Pain and sorrow in childbirth, together with subjection to
the lust of men, were to be the special lot of women. The natural elements,
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