Original Sin - Banishment from Garden of Eden

The concept of “original sin” and its consequences has been debated and disputed for centuries. Romans 5:19 states: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Paul is thought to be contrasting Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden and Jesus’ obedience on the cross.

 Pelagius. a 5th century Christian, taught that God made human beings free to choose between good and evil and that sin is a voluntary act committed by a person against God’s law., His disciple,  Celestius, denied the church’s doctrine of original sin and the necessity of infant baptism.

St. Augustine subsequently weighed in on the question, writing that: “the deliberate sin of the First man is the cause of original sin” (De nuptiis et concupiscentia,  II, xxvi, 43).  Martin Luther further clouded the issue with his statement in Omne peccatum, quod ad substantiam facti attinet, est mortale. (In Gal., III. 24.) that every sin committed before the sinner believes is mortal in its nature, i.e., “There is no longer any sin in the world except unbelief.”  As soon, however, as the sinner performs his act of faith, wrongly so called by Luther, the sin is no longer his. Christ has now accepted it; it “adheres” in Christ.

The Council of Trent in 1545–47 defined the nature and consequences of original sin, unanimously agreeing on the truth of the original sin which separated the soul from God and made justification necessary at al.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirmed this definition (403) and added a key nuance: original sin is called sin “only in an analogical sense: it is a sin ‘contracted’ and not ‘committed’—a state and not an act” (404).