Tempted by the devil and not trusting in the One who had created them, Adam and Eve abused their free will and disobeyed God. This Original Sin, the first sin ever committed, allowed sin and death to enter the world.
Adam and Eve were created by God and lived in the Garden of Eden. These first human beings had special gifts and existed in a state of grace that would allow them to live forever, in perfect harmony with God and each other.
All mankind would have inherited these special gifts and lived forever with God, if Adam and Eve had obeyed God’s commandment to avoid the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Because God loved them, Adam and Eve could freely choose to love God in return. Instead, they freely chose to defy God and trusted the devil, who told them that they would become like God if they ate fruit from the tree.
Because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve fell out of God’s favor and were not in a state of grace. They immediately experienced a spiritual death, no longer living in the presence of God and having the tendency to sin even more.
Having been driven out of the Garden of Eden and away from the Tree of Life, Adam and Eve also lost their immortality. They would now experience physical death.
Instead of inheriting the special gifts and the grace that Adam and Eve had, man is born in a fallen state, inheriting all of the consequences of Original Sin, including death. He is separated from God and in need of Sanctifying Grace.
Because of his love and mercy, God gives man the opportunity to return to Him. He sent his only Son into the world as the new Adam, to conquer sin and death by his sacrifice on the Cross and his glorious Resurrection.
Only Jesus, the Savior promised by God, can take away Original Sin, save mankind from its effects, and restore man’s relationship with God forever.
Catholics are baptized into Christ’s death, which brings life by washing away Original Sin and infusing Sanctifying Grace into the soul, reconciling man with God and allowing him live with Him in Heaven forever.
God created man good and in a state of grace:
Original Sin is Adam and Eve’s first sin:
Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned – sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come.
Romans 5: 12-14
Man’s fall from grace results in a state of original sin:
Original sin has consequences:
Death entered the world because of Original Sin:
Because of Original Sin, man needs Grace:
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. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 397
Original Sin is contracted, not committed:
Original Sin and its effects are inherited by the rest of humanity:
We believe that in Adam all have sinned, which means that the original offense committed by him caused human nature, common to all men, to fall to a state in which it bears the consequences of that offense, and which is not the state in which it was at first in our first parents—established as they were in holiness and justice, and in which man knew neither evil nor death. It is human nature so fallen, stripped of the grace that clothed it, injured in its own natural powers and subjected to the dominion of death, that is transmitted to all men, and it is in this sense that every man is born in sin. We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, “not by imitation, but by propagation” and that it is thus “proper to everyone.”
Pope Paul VI, Solemni Hac Liturgia, 30 June 1968
God responded to Adam and Eve’s sin with love:
Baptism takes away Original Sin:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
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