Catholic Answer Girl!

[loveneverfails]

Ok, LJ!  Does anyone have any theological questions about the Catholic Church that I can help with?  Confused as to why the Church opposes contraception?  What's the story with stuff about condoms and Africa?  Why the hell should you listen to a bunch of old celibate white guys about what to do with sexuality?  Do you have any questions about Holy

Comments

[loveneverfails]

Original sin is the idea that there has been fundamental damage to the relationship with God that alters who we are. Nature as it was created by God is perfect, and God who is pure "to be" according to Aquinas holds all things in being. When we fell from grace, we distorted the way that God holds us in being. This alters our very being, from our intellects that can rationalize so many evil things, to our wills nagging us to do what we know to be wrong, to physical evils like birth defects, disease and death.

Before we fell, we were perfectly ourselves. Now we are a fraction of who we were meant to be, and the alteration from our original nature sets the stage for all manners of evil from misogyny to genocide. One of the constants of human existence that I can see is the certainty of error and regrets. We *all* are capable of cruelty and of doing things that are objectively wrong. Why on earth would we do that? Why on earth do we so easily slide into doing what we despise, hurting those that we love or those that we should love? There has to be another factor, and that's what I believe is original sin. In rejecting God, we have lost part of ourselves and it is only in the person of Christ that we can understand what it is to be fully as we are meant to be and icons of the living God as well.