Lessons from the Garden of Eden8

Part Eight

Love, Original Sin and God's Will

 

To gain a deeper understanding of Original Sin, it is important to stop and take a look at the concept from 40,000 feet – that is, get the broadest perspective on it possible….

God is Love.  This is a basic tenant all religions embrace.  A basic tenant of Christianity (which will be embraced for this discussion) is this Love is available to all people equally.  Such Love does not show favorites.  No one person is more worthy than the next.  We are all equal in Love’s eyes. 

With Love being equal and available to all, it is reasonable to consider, then, that Original Sin, the one thing that breaks our relationship to God, is one, consistent situation for all people, regardless of who they are, where they reside and what they believe.  If this were not the case, sin would be different for everyone which would invalidate the concept of equality. 

Bottom line, sin has to be viewed as a universal condition shared by every living human on the planet.  This is the only view that rests in balance with the concept of God’s equal Love for everyone.

So, what condition is common to all humans regardless of economic status, geographical location and religious beliefs – even the choice to have no religious beliefs at all?  Our acceptance of our inadequacy.  We all – at one time or another – will feel we are not good enough as we are, as we are created by God.

This is our common bond.

Consider this:  If all are equal in the eyes of God, then as creatures created by Him, we would be well served by viewing all other humans as equal to us, would we not?  Yet, who amongst us does this?  Who hasn’t said, “At least I’m not like so & so.”

We all have feelings of superiority over someone else.  And those very feelings bear witness to our inability to not view ourselves through the lens of inadequacy.  Any one who doesn’t feel superior to another suffers from the opposite viewpoint – being not as good as so and so.

This is the sin that separates us from God.  This is the Original Sin.  And this is the only sin.

Just as there is no variation in Love, there is no variation in sin.  There is no value system in sin.  There is no category, grading or even a list.  There is just one condition: Inadequacy.

This means there is no longer a line of distinction between Original Sin and Sin.  Such a distinction was set up by “scholars and theologians” to define how sin is viewed.  It is time to reject this distinction for it is not supported by the text.  The Garden story covers the origin of sin.  That’s it.  As for the slicing, dicing and categorization of the concept, that is, frankly, an obfuscation of Satan.  In doing this, he is up to his old tricks -- “Let’s blur the lines of distinction and create confusion.”  He has certainly succeeded in that effort.

This leads to another point that needs to be cleared up:  The concept of God’s Will for our lives.  If God is Love, how is it that some people have cushy lives and others have lives filled with struggle and suffering.  To attribute these conditions to God’s choice – His Will – for these lives makes God capricious.  By any standard, granting one riches and another suffering is not a demonstration of the concept of equal Love.

So how do we reconcile such a fact of life with the concept of God’s Will?  The simple answer is:  we don’t.

And we don’t attempt a reconciliation because, with the proper understanding, none is necessary.

Just as Love is constant and the concept of sin is constant, so, too, is God’s Will.  God’s Will is not different for each person.  God’s Will is one thing and one thing alone:  He wants us to “be.”  That’s it.  He wants us to simply be who he created us to be.  Our “job,” therefore, is to get in touch with who we are and then simply be that person.  His Will for us is to be who He created us to be.  It really is all about us.

Simple enough, right?

Only we’re saddled with this propensity toward inadequacy and all the traps it sets for us.

The world in which we live (and it needs to be remembered that this is a fallen state of the world) is not a place that helps us easily over come inadequacy and all its trappings.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  The deck is stacked against us.  The world of our existence does everything it can to beat us down. 

And its success rate at doing this is 99.99999%.  It subjects everyone to inadequacy – except The One.