Unoriginal Sin?

Question

Does it make sense that innocent babies and children are sinful, whereas the Bible insists that children are not to suffer for their parent's sins according to these verses:DT 24:16, 2KI 14:6, 2CH 25:4, EZ 18:20

But the New Testament insists that death is passed to all men by the sin of Adam. RO 5:12, 19, 1CO 15:22.

Which make sense to you??

Answer 1

Another R&S regular asked a similar question today, and many of the answers were from christians who stated that babies were sinful. There is (apparently) no christian consensus on this and so many other areas.

Answer 2

The difficulty here relates to the difference between "personal sinfulness" ie those sins which we willfully commit and therefore are individually responsible for, and "general sinfulness" (Paul's "All men are ...") which is, since Adam at least, an integral part of our human nature and our relationship with God. Rather than getting hung up on the question of who's sin/responsibility things are, it is much more uplifting to consider that God in His wisdom and infinite mercy, by the sacrifice of His only son, has provided us the opportunity to avoid the penalty for ALL sin regardless of its origin. Remembering that there are no "degrees" of sin, and that all sin is abhorant to God, it makes sense to me to focus on the fact that we have been offered a "way out" rather than look for loopholes or justifications. We should, in a way, be happy that we are sinners as that gives us access to the mercy, forgiveness and grace of a loving and understanding God.

Answer 3

I'm still working it out, myself. Let me see if I got this straight.... Don't punish children for their father's sins, says God... but then God punishes EVERYONE for a sin committed by our (alleged) original father, Adam. So now everybody is born with sin and deserves to die just because ONE guy ate a piece of fruit that he shouldn't have, which is kind of like me being put in jail because my great-great-great-grandfather was a horse thief.

...

No, it doesn't make sense. Can someone e-mail me a detailed description of how this works? A Power Point chart would be helpful, too.

Answer 4

the unique sin is the only which you have been born with that is going back through fact the begining of time with Adam and Eve, on condition that they have been the 1st sinners, and the unoriginal sins are those that any human beingcommits on a daily basis

Answer 5

It's soooooooo typical to deliberately take things out of context. IF you want to say that Adam is everyone's father and that sin entered the world through him; THEREFORE, we all suffer because of "our father" then I guess all I can say is, knock yourself out. But that is NOT a classic interpretation. When we speak of Adam, we speak of him as the first man and yes and the one who first sinned and with that sin did indeed introduce sin into the world. But at the same time, we always refer to God as "the father," not Adam.

Elsewhere we see that we DO suffer for the sins of our fathers.
For instance, in Leviticus 26:39 we read: Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their fathers' sins they will waste away. Are you trying to confuse the matter or to truly understand it?

Answer 6

They both work, but you have to take the OT stuff in context. The original sin brought a specific curse (death), which affected everyone - that's the one referenced in the NT verses. The OT parents' sins were different, and brought their own particular curses, which were not to affect the children. Different sins, different results. Confusing, definitely!

Answer 7

They do not disagree. We definitely inherit sin from Adam and no we do not bear the sins of our Fathers and all children belong to God. They both are true. Sin entered the world through Adam and in this way we all do inherit sin and through sin we do die. We do not inherit our Fathers individual sin as we all have sins of our own.

Answer 8

If Adam and Eve hadn't sinned and tried to be smarter than God, then we wouldn't be filled with sin. It only means that we have to come to jesus to be filled with His forgiveness by our repentance.. I think if babies and small children die before an age of aacountability, then God just brings them to heaven.He is a very very very loving God, and is not mean. Most of our human problems we have we have brought on ourselves just like when we disobeyed our teachers and parents etc. If you have or have had small children, do they just sit their sweetly and innocent ? No, they keep trying to do things their way and you have to discipline them. They aren't born angels

Answer 9

No, it doesn't make any sense that a god would condemn unborn children to eternal torment. Try and be the best person you can be. Is this so hard?

Truly, it's such a waste of time. Your relationship with your god is between you & your god.

Leave it alone people.

Answer 10

babies are born with a sinful nature meaning that one day they'll want to comit sin so they will but they dont sin til they're old enough to know right from wrong according to mormons that age is 8.