Ask a Question - or - Return to the Faith and Spirituality Forum Index

Question Title Posted By Question Date
Does God Plays Favorites: Original Sin and Immaculate Conception all rolled into one question? Mahina Monday, September 8, 2008

Question:

My understanding is that with "original sin" all of humanity (i.e., every man and woman ever to live, except the Blessed Virgin Mary) get "blamed" or tainted (or however you might describe it) for what Adam and Eve chose to do; however, I know I was not there. I didn't eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge; I was not a part of any of their choices: Adam and Eve are two people not humanity; they don't even represent humanity since they don't make up a majority vote. Any explanation I have heard doesn't explain WHY I am punished for my first ancestors’ transgressions; it simply states that I am. My question isn't "am I?” but "WHY am I?" Why is each person not given the same option to start out in sanctifying grace and choose to remain so or forfeit on his or her own accord (like Adam, Eve, and particularly Mary through Immaculate Conception, because that option is available for each of them, it could clearly be done for us all)?

On that note, I guess I just don't exactly understand why God favors some people above others. He has highly favored people, and chosen people who he gives preference and special privilege to. But God being perfect also says he loves everyone equally; how can this be when by His own example, He doesn't do that because He favors the Jews as His chosen people, He favored Mary with Immaculate Conception, and I am sure He has many other favored people such as Peter and so on. I understand the difference between fairness and equality. He can still love us all equally and not give us all exactly the same things because, for example, one person may not need lots of social interaction (as they like to be alone) and feel God's love better while alone whereas another person needs the social support of friends to really feel God's love. But giving people very different starting places is unequal. Putting sin on all humanity for the choice of two people is unequal. Having a chosen people who are above others (and even referring to the others as "dogs") is unequal. This doesn't make sense based upon the concept of an all loving God. All this to ask why does God favor people but then claim to love us all equally?

Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM

Dear Mahina:

All people are of equal dignity with God. No one is better than another. He loves us equally and His love is perfect and complete.

But that does not mean that we all have the same talents, intelligence, abilities, job, role, or calling in life. We are all called by God, but not all to the same thing.

God gives us the image of the Body. We are all members of that body. Some may be the hand, others a toe, others an arm. Each has its role to contribute to the whole body and without each part, no matter how little or great, must work together for the whole body to work properly.

He chose the Jews to Reveal Himself because had to choose some group of people to be the one to bring His message to the earth. He chose them for reasons only He knows completely but I am sure that one major reason is because the Hebrew people had already responded to what God had planted in everyone's heart -- a knowledge of himself. The Hebrew people already worshiped one God. They were prepared to be the people that God would bring His word into the world.

We can ask, why did Joe pick Sally instead of Carol to be hired as a secretary? Well, maybe because Sally prepared herself and learn how type and do dictation at a high level of expertise and Carol didn't prepare herself. This is not rocket science. Between Carol and Sally, Sally got the job. She was not "favored", for that implies untoward prejudice, rather Sally was more qualified.

Jesus tells a similar story:

Mat 25:1 "Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom.

Mat 25:2 "And five of them were foolish, and five were prudent.

Mat 25:3 "For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them,

Mat 25:4 but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps.

Mat 25:5 "Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep.

Mat 25:6 "But at midnight there was a shout, 'Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.'

Mat 25:7 "Then all those virgins rose, and trimmed their lamps.

Mat 25:8 "And the foolish said to the prudent, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.'

Mat 25:9 "But the prudent answered, saying, 'No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.'

Mat 25:10 "And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut.

Mat 25:11 "And later the other virgins also came, saying, 'Lord, lord, open up for us.'

Mat 25:12 "But he answered and said, 'Truly I say to you, I do not know you.'

The five virgins who admitted to the wedding feast were not "favored", they were the ones prepared when the Lord called.

God calls whom He wills to do whatever He calls them to do. Other people's calling may seem great to us while we see our own as small and insignificant. That is ego and pride.

The little toe may not seem as important as the head, but without the toe the body cannot walk in balance.

John Henry Newman said:

"Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random...God see every soul, He lodges it in the body, one by one, for a purpose, He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us. He has an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labour in them for Him. As Christ has his work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also."

God favors all of us with some task, some work, some mission to do. He favors all of us with the grace to do that task, work, mission.

The Blessed Mother was called to be the Mother of God. She was called to be the Ark of the New Covenant. God prepared her for that task. Her immaculate conception, virgin birth, perpetual virginity, and assumption into heaven was REQUIRED in order for her to be the Ark of the New Covenant. If she was to carry God in her womb, her womb had to became the Ark. The Ark must be perfect, unblemished and untouched forever. We learn this from the Old Testament. Thus, Mary was not "favored" in the sense of prejudice over others, rather she was chosen for a task and was prepared and willing to do that task.

As for Original Sin. We all suffer the consequences for other people's sin. If a company dumped toxic waste in your yard 50 years before you were born you will still suffer the consequences even though you were not there at the time the sin was committed.

Here is the Catechism on Original Sin (it is long):

III. ORIGINAL SIN

Freedom put to the test

396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" spells this out: "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die."276 The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"277 symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

Man's first sin

397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of.278 All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully "divinized" by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to "be like God", but "without God, before God, and not in accordance with God".279

399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness.280 They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.281

400 The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.282 Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man.283 Because of man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay".284 Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will "return to the ground",285 for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.286

401 After that first sin, the world is virtually inundated by sin There is Cain's murder of his brother Abel and the universal corruption which follows in the wake of sin. Likewise, sin frequently manifests itself in the history of Israel, especially as infidelity to the God of the Covenant and as transgression of the Law of Moses. And even after Christ's atonement, sin raises its head in countless ways among Christians.287 Scripture and the Church's Tradition continually recall the presence and universality of sin in man's history:

What Revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which should link him to his last end, and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures.288

The consequences of Adam's sin for humanity

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."289 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."290

403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards 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 afflicted, a sin which is the "death of the soul".291 Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.292

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".293 By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 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 analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

406 The Church's teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297

A hard battle. . .

407 The doctrine of original sin, closely connected with that of redemption by Christ, provides lucid discernment of man's situation and activity in the world. By our first parents' sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free. Original sin entails "captivity under the power of him who thenceforth had the power of death, that is, the devil".298 Ignorance of the fact that man has a wounded nature inclined to evil gives rise to serious errors in the areas of education, politics, social action299 and morals.

408 The consequences of original sin and of all men's personal sins put the world as a whole in the sinful condition aptly described in St. John's expression, "the sin of the world".300 This expression can also refer to the negative influence exerted on people by communal situations and social structures that are the fruit of men's sins.301

409 This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one"302 makes man's life a battle:

The whole of man's history has been the story of dour combat with the powers of evil, stretching, so our Lord tells us, from the very dawn of history until the last day. Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.303

IV. "YOU DID NOT ABANDON HIM TO THE POWER OF DEATH"

410 After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall.304 This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium ("first gospel"): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers.

411 The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the "New Adam" who, because he "became obedient unto death, even death on a cross", makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience, of Adam.305 Furthermore many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the woman announced in the Protoevangelium as Mary, the mother of Christ, the "new Eve". Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life.306

412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away."307 And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'"308

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary


Footer Notes: This forum is for general questions on the faith. See specific Topic Forums below:
Spiritual Warfare, demons, the occult go to our Spiritul Warfare Q&S Forum.
Liturgy Questions go to our Liturgy and Liturgical Law Q&A Forum
Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) Questions go to our Divine Office Q&A Forum
Defenfing the Faith Questions go to our Defending the Faith Q&A Forum
Church History Questions go to our Church History Q&A Forum