Period of Inquiry

Sin and its Consequences

God's love is revealed in creation, and it is also revealed in our salvation. God is always faithful in his love and show's his love for us constantly. But... we cannot experience the love of God and the salvation in Jesus because sin separates and alienates us from God, the only fountain of life. The Word of God affirms this: "They have forsaken me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water" Jer 2:13, "...all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God Rrn 3:23.

There is a wall that separates us from God, and an impassable abyss that keeps us from the fountain of life. The result of this is death. "For the wage paid by sin is death." It is losing and missing the only true Life.

Man and woman scorned and rejected the tree of life and preferred the nourishment of the tree of knowledge. They did not want God's guidance and elected to walk alone with their own strengths and to build their own lives. They felt autonomous and rejected all dependence on God, believing themselves to be the only creator and author of their own destiny.

From the beginning, humanity rejected God's love and lost all interest of being in communion with Him. Man chose to build a kingdom without God, and instead of worshipping the true God he worshipped idols - the things of this world, his own handiwork - and in fact, he worshipped himself.

Consequently, fear, shame, hate, violence, and death entered the world. Humans are profoundly divided within themselves. Their individual and collective lives portray the dramatic battle between good and evil and light and darkness. By taking a deeper look at the human heart and contemplating his/her life, we can see that they find themselves not only disposed toward evil but truly submerged within a multitude of evils. Mankind feels chained.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN
Evil progressed more and more after man's initial sin. The sin of the world generates multiple and serious consequences in all areas.

THE PERSON
 In the body: suffering all kinds of afflictions, disease and illness, minor or severe, slight or incurable. There are deteriorating cells, diseased organs and impeded bodily functions; in all, an organic equilibrium that is torn and dysfunctional.  In the mind and the mind's behavior, there are all kinds of maladjustments, breakdowns and imbalances. Within ourselves, with others and with all creation we find disorder and lack of harmony. There are addictions and bondage, anguish, fear, shame, restlessness, anger, stress, sadness and depression, and life without meaning.

THE RELATIONSHIPS
 Interpersonal relationships are either nonexistent or false. They are in conflict or sick. Married and family lives are maladjusted and dysfunctional and their serious wounds last a lifetime. We are unable to love in a healthy and constructive way. We cannot express love. Emotional, physical and sexual abuse of children and adolescents is commonplace. Sex is dehumanized and depersonalized. Aggressiveness is manifested in words and actions. Relationships turn deceitful, selfish, and possessive There are addictions and codependency, distrust and loneliness. " Social relationships in groups and nations: corruption, oppression, exploitation of the weak, injustice, violence, slavery, colonialism, imperialism, the search for power and dominion, racial conflicts and wars, segregation and marginalization, misery and hunger, manipulation of the mass media and factual information.

THE EARTH
The earth is seriously damaged: The air, springs, rivers, lakes, and oceans are contaminated. Forests are being razed. Animal species are becoming extinct and our natural resources are being abused and destroyed.

VAIN SOLUTIONS SOUGHT BY MANKIND
God is not responsible for all of this. He neither wants it nor sends it. Humanity itself, having rejected God, created the havoc and the chaos, the imbalance, the illness and the death. Humanity itself is responsible.

Man stubbornly returns to the origin and cause of all the evils and problems - the tree of knowledge. He searches and pretends to find the solutions to all his problems in his own science and wisdom. Man trusts his OWN strengths. Man's solutions, however, are all deceiving and false. And even though some of them seem legitimate, they prove to be only partial, superficial, and temporary.

Totally false: Satanism, occultism and esotericism. Magic, witchcraft, sorcery, quackery, spiritism and invocation of the dead, fortunetelling, trying to know the occult and the future, and all superstitious objects and beliefs, such as charms and talismans.

Futile and highly dangerous: Include the search for and the promotion of mental powers and extrasensory faculties, mind control and transcendental meditation, dianetics, and non-Christian orientalisms, etc.

Deceptive messianisms: Rationalism without faith, humanism without God; materialism without transcendence; political ideologies and economic systems that seem to offer a better world.

Legitimate in principle: Solutions offered by science and technology. But since they do not respect ethical and religious values, only having material, economic, and temporal interests, they fail to give real solutions. Therefore, they are only partial, superficial, and temporary.

God is not responsible for any of this; He doesn't want it, and He doesn't order it. Mankind is guilty of all the disorder. Mankind has become a slave to disordered tendencies. In interpersonal relationships, man and women have become addicted or codependent, and they have been oppressed by all kinds of social dependencies: Cultural, economic, and political. We are enslaved by things of which we should be master. For example: Work should creatively actualize humans, but it has become a heavy burden and has unjustly subdued them. Where then can the solution be found?

SUPPLEMENTARY 

Read  7 How did sin enter the Father's creation?

God did not create evil. Our first parents in their origins were created in a state of knowing God. But they freely chose evil. As a result, the state of "knowing God" was lost: our nature as created by God was disturbed. This fallen nature was transmitted by way of generation to all people. The first sin, original sin, is described in a symbolic way in Genesis 3.

The guilt and effects of this unique 'original' sin remain as the initial reason for sin in the world. In personal sin, for which each individual is actually responsible (actual sin), we freely follow our inclinations toward evil. This sin is symbolically described in the story of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11).

The Scriptures and tradition tell us far more of restoration and redemption than of original integrity and original sin. "However great the number of sins committed, grace was even greater" (Romans 5:20). In the story of Noah, for example, the rainbow becomes a sign of God's promise of restoration (Genesis 9).

  "Whatever else is true of man, man is not what he was meant to be." Chesterton's remark reflects our own experience. We seem to have all the ingredients for happiness. But the power of evil within us and outside us seems to triumph. Our hearts are restless, sometimes broken. "Our hearts were made for you, O God, and they will know no rest until they rest in you" was how Saint Augustine put it.

  Unhappiness and evil in the world are definite problems. If the world was created by God who is infinitely good, how did evil come to reign so powerfully? Our question was asked and answered under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the writer of Genesis. The story of Adam and Eve and how they fell from God's grace is familiar to us all. But as we have seen, the Church has to answer the question: "What did the writer of the story intend to convey to the people of his own day?" And the Church, of course, enjoys the assistance of the same Holy Spirit who inspired the writer.
 
  The Church's answer is in the doctrine of ï "original sin," a term which was first used by one of her greatest teachers, Saint Augustine, in the fifth century. The outline of this teaching is given in the illustrations. The Church tells us that our first parents were made to know God but rebelled against him. By their own sin they became separated from God and from one another. All people, with the exception of Mary, share this sin when they are conceived and born into the world.

  It would be foolish to pretend that the story of the Fall is fully understood. Pope Paul VI asked those who study the Scriptures to present the teaching of "original sin" in a more modern way which "answers the demands of faith as expressed by men of our day."

  How, for example, is the Church to explain what life was like before original sin? The writer of Genesis shows Adam talking with God as "he walked in the garden in the cool of the day." Saint Augustine explained to his contemporaries that in the state of "original justice" the body was submissive to the soul. The findings of science do not demand that we abandon these explanations of our original condition in which God revealed himself and humankind was without sin.

  The findings of science show, for example, our physical evolution as a gradual process. There is no reason why we should not also see our spiritual development as a gradual process; as our mind physically grew so also did its capacity to receive the all-powerful God. Our nature, which thus consisted of a body dominated by the soul, was destroyed by sin.

  "O happy fault," the Church exults on Easter night, "O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!"

Now do the self-correcting quiz #7 by clicking on this link:

 
CRACKER BARREL DISCUSSION
1. Discuss in detail and give examples of the negative stream of consequences of the sin of the world in mankind: Body and mind in interpersonal and social relationships and on Earth (in our planet).

2. Be conscious how humankind seeks and intends to give what are vain solutions to problems because of the consequences of sin, going back stubbornly to the cause and root of the first sin and ultimately of each and every sin: The tree of knowledge of evil and good. That is to say, mankind intends to be autonomous and decide what is good or bad or what is convenient or not convenient, self fulfilling or destructive and diminishing.

3. Reflect and dialogue about humankind's vain solutions: Apparent, superficial, temporary and partial; men contemplate God's solution; what is true, radical, definite and integral .

FOR YOUR NOTEBOOK

In your Bible: mark all the passages mentioned in the above article with a dark color, e.g., brown, to show the negative effects of sin.

Summary: In spite of God's design and desire for mankind to live in the harmonious and abundant life relationship with Himself and all creation... the sinful choices of mankind result in separation from God as a consequence. Seeing the chaos in His creation and more directly, our lives, God offers a single, complete and radical solution — His Only Son Jesus.

1. When do you notice the occasions of sin in your life?

2. What are the areas of weakness in your life through which sin enters?
How do your surroundings contribute to your lack of awareness of these sinful situations?

(Please be reminded we do not want to encourage or allow the sharing of material appropriate for the confessional!)