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Why did original sin leads to death? Catholic essay.

For since death came through a human being,the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ (1 Cor 15:21-22).

Original sin is presupposed for the universal need of redemption. All havenecessity of redemption. Moreover, only Christ can suffice this universal need.To understand the reality of sin is necessary to understand the profoundrelationship that existed between God and men, a relation that through sin has been broken.

We will see how original sin can be described as a privation of the sanctifyinggrace; we will answer the question of why original sin leads to death, passing throughthe doctrines of St Augustine, St Thomas and the Magistery of the Church, especiallythe council of Trent.

The fall

The lord God commanded the man, “you may freely eat of every tree of thegarden; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in theday that you eat of it you shall die” (Gen 2:16).

This text gives a proof of the initial freedom that man has had since the beginning. Later in the text, the serpent appears bringing the temptation, as something brought from outside. (Gen 3:1-5) The serpent will be later interpreted as the devil (Cf.Sap 2:24; Jn 8:44).When the serpent says to the woman “you shall be like gods”, the serpent puts before the woman not only a temptation, but in some sense an implied criticism too, asif the serpent were saying:

you want to be like gods, and you should be like gods, but you are not!

The serpent is undermining their reality of creatures, as if there weresomething wrong with just being human. Original sin then, is not (only) a sin of

Catechism of the catholic church

(CCC), (St Pauls, Homebush, 1994), 386

cf. Neil Ormerod,

Grace and Disgrace, anthology of self esteem, Society and History

,(E.J. Dwayer, Australia, 1992) 158-59.

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gluttony (they eat something that was good to the eyes), but as an act of wanting to become “like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5).A formal description of this sin would be disobedience, as we find in the letter tothe Romans, chapter 5:19, “

for just as by the one’s man disobedience, the many weremade sinners, so by the one’s man obedience the many will be made righteous

”. Thesame idea id found in the catechism: “

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in hiscreator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This iswhat man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience towards God and lack of trust in his goodness

”.

St Thomas would say latter that the tree of knowledge was called that not because it had the power to cause any knowledge, but because of the consequences: “

by eating of it man learned by experience the differencebetween the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience

”.

The biblical description of original sin, corresponds to the human structure of man, that is, of soul and body. On the one hand, original sin is an spiritual act(disobedience, pride); and on the other hand, the sensual pleasures are involved (Thetree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was to bedesired to make one wise. Gen 3:6). However, the decisive moment was the

pride

thatdetaches man from God. Man wanted to be like God, he preferred himself to God,against the requirements of his creaturely status, and therefore against his own good, hewanted to be like God but without God, before God, and not in accordance with God

;thus he disobeyed.

Original Justice

Before the fall, our progenitors lived in a state called by theologians as originalJustice. This state composed different elements:

Sanctifying grace

; Integrity;Immortality; Happiness; Enlightenment.

Let us, briefly, see each one of them.

Sanctifying grace

: this was the most precious of all the gifts, since it made them partakers of the divine nature. It would have made them pass to heaven to behold Godface to face in an eternal bliss. Without this sanctifying grace, this is impossible.

CCC § 398

Thomas Aquinas,

Compendium of Theology,

(B.Herder Book CO. London, 1948),ch 188.

CCC § 397

Michael Sheehan,

Apolologetics and Catholic Doctrine,

(The Saint Austin Press,London 2000), 360-1; cf. Joseph Pohle,

God the Author of Nature and theSupernatural, a Dogmatic Treatise,

(B.Herder, London; 1912), p 271.

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Integrity: since man was totally obedient to God, their passions were obedient toman, the appetites of the flesh were under the check of reason. This gift of integritygave them the fitness for receiving the sanctifying grace.Immortality and happiness: they were free (immune) from suffering and death.God shielded them or gave them such knowledge that they were immune to these evils.Enlightenment: God gave them power of speech, the knowledge of moral to liveand to pass to their children, and such knowledge of science as to be happy and torespond to the circumstances in which they lived.

Privation of grace and Death

The harmony and the integrity of the original justice, was utterly shattered after the sin of Adam. Once man did not accept the subjection to God, all the powerssubjected to reason of man rebelled too. They did not follow reason anymore, but rather they resist reason. This is the rebellion of which scriptures speak: “

Flesh against the spirit

” (Rom 7:23).

Adam forfeited all these privileges for himself and the wholehuman race, and they were replaced by their contraries: Privation of grace,concupiscence, mortality, and passibility.

It is in this sense, that all men are “children of wrath” (Eph 2:3).Through the sanctifying grace, the light of wisdom shone and guided man. After the sin, it grew dim in his intellect, and so, his love went to the sensible things (insteadof God), and loving them, he wandered further away from God and fell into repeatedsins. Moreover, in order to fulfil his disordered inclinations, his loyalty went to other things rather than God. hence idolatry and other various sins arose into humankind.(cf.Rom 1:24)

Privation of grace in a sense, means the impossibility of being united to God (thegiver of life) form whom we receive life. The submission of the body and the senses toreason depends upon the submission of the submission of our spirit to God. Since weare no longer in contact with the source of life, it is only coherent the entry of death on

Cf St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theological. i,q.94,aa.1,3.

Aquinas,

Compendium of Theology,

Ch 192.

Pohle,

God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural,

p 271.

Cf. Augustine,

On Nature and Grace, i

n Nicene and post-Nicene Fahters of theChristian Church. Ed Philip Schaff. (T&T Clark, Edinburgh; 1987), § 24; cf. Aquinas,

Compendium of Theology,

Ch 194.