According to
Genesis (chapter 3), Adam and Eve, having obeyed the flattery of the serpent-devil,
transgressed the will of God, fell morally and sinned. Sin destroyed the
blessed and good harmony of the whole life of the transgressors.
The physical consequences of the fall
are diseases, hard labor, and death. These were the natural results of the
moral fall, the falling away from communion with God, man's departure from God.
Man became subject to the corrupt elements of the world, in which dissolution
and death are active.
Banished
from Paradise, the first people came to know hard labor in the struggle with
nature, illnesses, suffering, and death. Their spiritual forces began, not to
develop, but to fall. Vices and crimes appeared and began to increase. Already
the first steps of man outside the state of Paradise were sprinkled with the blood of fratricide. Then came polygamy, wars, corruption, and innumerable crimes.
Sin,
in the Christian view, is not only the transgression of divine law or a state
of lawlessness, even though there is no doubt it is that. It is not only what
can be called a judicial evil. Not only is sin an offence to divine truth, but
it is also treachery against God’s love on the part of man, a transgression by
him of loyalty to God, and an arbitrary violation of his sacred union with God.
Through sin, mankind, in the depths of his free will, rebelled against his
divine Creator, Who presented man with all the blessings, including the most
important of all blessings: the image and likeness of God. From such a
conception of sin stems the biblical teaching of the extreme criminality of sin
and the utmost gravity of its consequences for the “fate of man.”
The
world, created by God, represented a complete harmony of beauty and blessings.
The human spirit, violating the law of divine Truth, treacherously breaking
away from God’s love and entering a state of struggle against God, undergoes
suffering which would have been impossible had divine will been fulfilled. For
this will is a blessing for all. Sin breeds evil, and
evil breeds suffering. That there should be an absence of suffering as a result
of perpetrated sin would be the greatest logical absurdity, the greatest
wickedness, the greatest ethical injustice, and itself the greatest moral evil!