“And God saw everything that he had made. And they were very good” (Genesis 1:31). Man was made perfect and without sin, and expected to be born perfect and without sin.

But disobedience to God’s command was the primal sin of Adam and Eve that robbed them of the beauty and serenity of the Garden of Eden, the guilt of which had been passed on to generations yet unborn. 

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) puts it: “In that sin man preferred himself to God, and by that very act scorned him…” (CCC, 1994:118).

Thus, disobedience has evolved as the most capital of sins, even ahead of murder, which Cain later introduced. Samuel said to disobedient Saul: “Does the Lord want holocausts and victims, and not instead that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed? For obedience is better than sacrifice. And to heed is greater than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). 

Original sin is far more than a generational sin, visited from fathers to sons “to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me” (Exodus 20:5; 34:7). The guilt of original sin is shared by mankind in perpetuity, beyond the third and fourth generations. Original sin is acquired and not committed.

Hence, every new born baby arrives the world bearing the burden of original sin of which humanity is vicariously guilty. It would appear that injustice is inherent in the shared guilt of original sin, given the fact that the innocent is being punished along with the guilty.

But, by that guilt, humanity had been tainted, and the shared glory had become a shared guilt. 

The implication is that the entire humanity has lost the God-given original grace, which would have been inherited by the whole of mankind, in the same way that the original sin is being passed down the line. What is good for the goose is certainly good for the gander.

This was clearly the position of God in the Old Testament, visiting the sins of one generation on another. Before banishing them from the Garden of Eden, God placed a potent curse on the trio of Adam, Eve, and the devil (in the guise of the snake) which was equally inherited by succeeding generations for all eternity (Genesis 3:14-19). They were promised a life of hardship and mutual antagonism. 

However, the New Testament has put in place the sacrament of baptism to wipe away the guilt of original sin, which is the strongest argument in favour of infant baptism.

But, even though baptism nullifies the guilt of original sin, the deadly curse remains in perpetuity. Part of the consequences of original sin is that the human nature has become easily susceptible to sin. “Behold, I was brought up in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5, King James’ Version).

The perfect nature of man that God created has become imperfect, and the proclivity to sin which we call concupiscence, has taken over the excellent state of man. That is why it is said that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves… all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (1 John 1:8-9; Romans 3:23). The sacrament of baptism is thus a corrective measure for the restoration of the original purity of man. 

But succeeding generations have continued to commit sin, including the sin of murder by Cain on his younger brother, Abel. All this had further complicated the guilt of mankind, and aggravated man’s worsening relationship with God, such that an urgent saviour was needed to come to the rescue; that Saviour turned out to be Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

His intervention was for all sins, past, present, and future; for both acquired and committed transgressions. But, there were some select human beings whom God spared the guilt of original sin because of the role they were destined to play in life. An outstanding example is Mother Mary who had been chosen as the Mother of Jesus, even before she was born. 

God knows the end from the beginning, and so puts a long-term plan in place for each and every one of us. Certainly, Jesus was not born with this guilt of original sin, but submitted himself for baptism by John the Baptist as a living paradigm for every person born of a woman.

Each person has been sent into the world to fulfil a purpose; and the individual challenge is to be able to discover that purpose and fulfil it at the appropriate time, before it gets too late. Beyond the fact of original sin, what makes man to be so easily disposed to sin is the perennial conflict within him between free will and determinism. 

While determinism has to do with forces external to the human will, free will is man’s freedom to make a choice of action, and stay with the consequences of that choice. Determinism has to do with destiny which is of God, what your life has been predetermined to be.

Everyone’s initial destiny is good, but it is the Evil One who sows tares in a man’s wheat garden to choke the wheat. But God is perfectly capable of restoring that original good destiny, if you give Him a place in your life. 

Determinism is simply the planned fulfilment of God’s purpose previously conceived, and putting the necessary conditions in place to facilitate it.

But the decision ultimately belongs to the individual to obey God’s command like Abraham did and have Abrahamic blessings, or do otherwise and fall into depravity. The single greatest virtue of Abraham was unquestioning obedience to the voice of God. 

Original sin ushered death into the world through the first Adam; forgiveness and life everlasting got restored through a second Adam in the person of Jesus Christ. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin, death; so also death was transferred to all men, to all who have sinned” (Romans 5:12). But Christ came to conquer death and sanctify the grave. 

Both the acquired or inherited guilt and the committed guilt are nullified by baptism and Christ’s crucifixion, respectively. Man should be less concerned about the original sin; rather he should be more preoccupied with making restitution for his committed baggage of sins.