Genesis 3.
Original sin. We all know the story of Adam and Eve. My first questions were, why did God not protect Adam and Eve when He made them so naive? They were innocent but God made them that way. So how is it they are punished for falling into the serpents trap?
After talking to a couple people, I quickly remembered why. Because God gave us free will. And though God said "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Genesis 2: 17) God told them what it was (well technically He told Adam, and made Eve after wards, but I'm assuming Adam told her or God repeated the rules to Eve. :-D) and they didn't even question it because they were so innocent. They were only occupied with performing their duties of tilling the earth and tending to the plants, trees, and animals like God intended. But the serpent talked Eve into having some of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
But God wanted them to remain innocent. And He expected them to simply trust Him and do what He said. Maybe God made us in His image to do good things because He had his angels. But they knew the difference between Good and Evil. And one angel was a fallen angel and God had to send him out of heaven. This angel knew the difference between good and evil, and was jealous that God was the one in charge. Maybe God wanted to create something that was still in his image but innocent. Innocent meaning that we as humans wouldn't know good and bad existed. Not to say that one can't be innocent when knowing of these two things and knowing the differences between them. However God did not create humans capable of handling the knowledge of right and wrong.
Which is way we constantly fall out of God's grace. Good news is that we have the beautiful gift of confession.
As babies though, we do not have the original holiness and justice God meant for us to be born with. This is because original sin is inherited so to speak, and this is why we have baptism. As a newborn, unable to understand what kind of world we have just come into, a very beautiful gift is bestowed upon us. That is the gift of baptism. At baptism we are dissolved of original sin and become truly innocent and free of things that are bad.
So now I know what to say when people have beef with the catholic practice of the sacrament of baptism. Or, if anyone catholic doesn't like that they were baptized at an age when "they had no say". What I would say is, you may not have had a say in whether or not to be baptized, but you also didn't commit the first sin yet it was still a mark on your soul when you were born. You were given the gift of innocence restored on your soul as a baby. A beautiful gift. Nothing that was forced upon you! You still have the free will to maintain the work on your soul or not. Because God gave us free will. But don't be mad because you didn't get to choose whether or not you wanted to be baptized.
Its like at Christmas. We ask for some of our gifts. But not all of them. God actually gives us gifts all the time. We just don't always recognize them as gifts. But if the gift is a good one and there was a good intent behind it, there is no need to be rejecting it and be offended by it.
One more thing I was contemplating. I was comparing how God handled disobedient children and how human parents handle disobedient children. God is much smoother about things then some human parents. I think God was not happy. Truly disappointed because from then forward his children wouldn't be delivering 100% joy and happiness. But God has never held grudges. Yelled off the handle. Said I never want to see your face again. Because humans cannot handle the differences between right and wrong, some parents can't handle when their child has done something "horribly wrong". God hands out the punishments. But its the punishment bottom line, no funny business beyond that. I'm sure if we all sat back in our lives and thought about the proper ways we received punishment for bad behavior, we would also find ways that we were inappropriately punished. Or how we were treated went beyond just a punishment. Perhaps we have children of our own and can think about what has been good or bad punishment. Maybe we don't have kids. But most likely have siblings or friends. They aren't perfect either. But there are appropriate ways and inappropriate ways to deal with them.
Sometimes its enough to just say what you don't like or what hurt you to the other person and that's enough. Sometimes sorry doesn't matter. Who hasn't said sorry for something even though they should? And why should we always say sorry about everything. I am guilty of saying sorry for things that don't need a sorry. But I am guilty of not saying sorry for things I should. Why are we so hung up on apologies?
As far as we know Adam and Eve didn't say sorry. As far as I know now (and that isn't much) I don't think anyone in the bible has said sorry to God. And there were so many who let God down. In fact we all do. But we have confession. And we need to repent of our sins, be free of them so we can find ourselves in God's grace again and continue having a great relationship with Him. The only person that matters we say sorry to is God. But He is in each and every one of our souls. because He made us all in His image. If we aren't sorry to each other, we aren't sorry to God for our own faults. Every single one of us will hurt each other because we do things right and wrong, good and evil. But we are incapable of knowing good and evil. Not forgiving another person for how they hurt you makes no sense. Because that means you can't be forgiven by God because you don't understand grace. If you understand that you want grace from God, we need it between ourselves and then He can give it to us. If someone has done something to you worth making you feel you cannot forgive them, chances are you did the same to them or someone else, if no one else then God. We all know what (hopefully few) terrible things we have done personally that would seem God could never forgive us. But He does. With all the love in His heart. And for that grace, we should let go of our human emotions that do not understand good and evil, and forgive. Because only then can we return to a place in this world where everything is good. If anything, at least there is one less bad in this world. And the goodness of a relationship with God is back on track.
