Sin death and beyond

SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN
CHAPTER THREE
ORIGINAL SIN
A
WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL SIN?
The only religions that speaks of a fall of man from a pristine original state of existence are the
Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All other religions assume the human state was same as it is
today.
For many Christian denominations the doctrine of the fall is closely related to that of original
sin; ie., they believe that the fall brought sin into the world corrupting the entire natural world,
including human nature, causing all humans to be born into original sin, a state from which
they cannot attain eternal life without the grace of God.
The term "prelapsarian" refers to the sin-free state of humanity prior to the fall.
The Eastern Orthodoxy accepts the concept of the fall but rejects the idea that the guilt of
original sin is passed down through generations, based in part on the passage Ezekiel
18:20 that says a son is not guilty of the sins of his father.
Calvinist Protestants believe that Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for the elect, so they may
be redeemed from their sin. Other religions, such as Judaism and Gnosticism, do not have a
concept of "the fall" or "original sin" and have varying other interpretations of the Eden
narrative.
The question of whether the sin is transmitted through genetic coding or not is not really the
question because every act or impulse or thought is forever recorded and transmitted subtly to
32