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Chapter 6. Man and Woman in the Beginning • 71
UNDERSTANDING SIN
In recent times the comment frequently arises, What’s happened to sin?
Where has sin gone? There is a perceptible discomfort in our culture
with the notion of sin as an evil for which we must give an account to
God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Judge. This tendency applies not just
to everyday evil acts, but even more so to Original Sin, something that
seems to have little to do with us. The origin of this attitude may be
found in an underdeveloped sense of Revelation: “Without the knowl-
edge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are
tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological
weakness, a mistake. . . . Only in the knowledge of God’s plan . . . can
1. What are some implications of being made in the image
of God?
Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love
his creator” (GS, no. 12). He is “the only creature on earth
that God has willed for its own sake” (GS, no. 24), and he
alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s
own life. (CCC, no. 356)
2. What is the main result of Original Sin?
By his sin, Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness
and justice he had received from God, not only for himself
but for all human beings. (CCC, no. 416)
3. Why didn’t God prevent the first man from sinning?
God gave us free will and would not interfere with the use of our
free will:
Christ’s inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than
those the demon’s envy had taken away. (CCC, no. 412, cit-
ing St. Leo the Great,
Sermo
73, no. 4)
FROM THE CATECHISM