can the conceptions of a mother’s womb be without sin. We are conceived,
therefore, in the sin of our parents, and it is in their sins that we are born.”
St. Augustine of Hippo, Against the Pelagians 1, 2, 5 (420 AD)
“Who of us would say that by the sin of the first man free will perished
from the human race? Certainly freedom perished through sin, but it was
that freedom which was had in paradise, of having full righteousness with
immortality; and it is on that account that human nature has need of divine
grace.”
Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)
Pt. IV, Ch. XIII: Our condition, therefore, is entirely different from what
his and that of his posterity would have been, had Adam listened to the
voice of God. All things have been thrown into disorder, and have been
changed sadly for the worse...The dreadful sentence pronounced against us
in the beginning remains.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
No. 402:
All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms:
“By one man’s disobedience many (that is all men) were made sinners”:
“sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so
death spread to all men because all men sinned...” The Apostle contrasts
the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ.
“Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s
act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.”
No. 403:
Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the
overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination toward
evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with
Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we
are all born and afflicted, a sin which is the “death of a soul.”
No. 404:
How did the sin of Adam become the sin of his
descendants? It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all
mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original
holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an
 |
 |
 |