Day 57: Consequences of Adam's Sin

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." CCC 402

In today's reading, the Catechism expounds further on the consequences of original sin, which we still deal with today. The sin of our first parents wounded our human nature and left us broken and in need of redemption. As the Catechism Companion, Vol I puts it:

Every one of us is born into this fallen, wounded state. We remain essentially good, but original sin has led to certain consequences. We have an attraction to sin (called concupiscence), and we have a darkening of our intellect and a weakening of our will. We suffer and die. (p. 118)

The heresiarch Pelagius taught that we could freely overcome this state "without the necessary help of God's grace," while some Protestant Reformers believed that original sin made each of us totally depraved (CCC 406). Yet the Church teaches that neither of these is correct. What God created in us is good, not depraved. Due to original sin, we are instead deprived of the "original holiness and justice" that Adam & Eve enjoyed before the Fall, which after left our wounded and broken nature "subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin" (CCC 405). It is through redemption in Christ that our nature is healed. Yet, as the Catechism Companion states:

Baptism erases original sin. But those consequences are still in us. (p. 118)

 It may seem unfair, which many of us have said at some point in our lives, but we do see the consequences in this world. Ultimately, this is "a mystery that we cannot fully understand" (CCC 404). The Catechism Companion deals with this feeling of "unfairness" in explanation:

One way of looking at this is that we are all part of the same human family. As with our own families, the decisions and choices of family members can impact everyone - either for good or bad. Similarly, the decision of our first parents to distrust God and disobey him had negative consequences for the rest of the family - for their descendants. (p. 119)