“Original sin” (September 25, 2007)
If someone asked me whether I believed in original sin, I would hesitate to answer out of fear of being misinterpreted by fundamentalists, but I’m positive that it’s an inescapable characteristic of human nature that we are utterly incapable of maintaining and sustaining the right frame of mind continuously, even just for one day at a time. The main reason I’m so convinced of this inability is that after all my years of spiritual work and of repeatedly excellent results produced when I am in the right frame of mind, I still have to work on it every day, and usually many times a day. I constantly have to reorient myself around God, making the choice over and over again for the good and creative over the negative and destructive. It’s amazing that after all these years I even have to fool with this issue at all, but the fact is that I am continually taking measures to get back into the right mood when I’ve happened to fall out of it, even though I KNOW that the secret to being happy is to link up with God and do whatever he leads me to do, instead of ignoring that fact and letting myself fall out of the mood and the connection!
I think this human shortcoming is probably an unavoidable result of our having free will, so that “original sin” may not be the best term for it, but it does seem clear to me that it’s always there in every one of us. As Socrates recognized 2500 years ago, despite the obvious irrationality, people frequently know the Good, and know that it is in their own best interest to DO the good, and yet they still don’t do it. Jesus showed us that God is love, but we still have to continually make the choice whether to link up with that love or to remain out in the cold, stupidly trying to accomplish things on our own power. Remaining in the wrong frame of mind is the sin, the thing we all do frequently even though we know it’s to our disadvantage to do so. Being momentarily accosted by the wrong frame of mind is the universal condition of humankind, or “original sin.”
