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I don't believe the Lord holds all accountable to sin at the same level: children, if they do something wrong, do it in innocence and do not know what they do is wrong. I think he personally, when it comes to children, people who have different mental/physical problems, and people who have never heard of Him, judges them by what they do know about them: one way or another, I believe everyone has a chance, and everyone has a choice. Babies are not really baptized, I don't believe: they are too young to even have any idea what is going on. He's a fair and loving God, so I believe he gives everyone a chance, and judges everyone accordingly to who they are, how they lived, how they tried to live, and what they knew to be right and wrong. (In other words, I think that he will show himself to everyone, either during life, waiting for judgment, or in the second coming when he goes through his list of life again.)

It doesn't contradict the bible at all.


Romans 5: 14-15

14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.

The above is what the concept of Original Sin covers. In the book of wisdom it expands on this as well as in other places in the bible:

Wisdom 2:23-24

23 For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him.
24 But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world:


1 Cor. 15: 21

21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.


What the passages you've quoted refer to is something different, they aren't about the initial sin but the evils the follow as a result of that. What they were saying, is that if for example your father murders someone and is unrepentant then that transgression is not something that you will be held responsible for. Adam's sin on the other hand is the reason why we all need to be saved which is evident in the last scripture that I quoted from 1 Cor.

What is the book of wisdom?

Yes, death came into the world, but sinning is some thing we choose to do, we don't automatically inherit it just because we were born



Again, it only is talking about death. Not sinning.



Obviously, but still why would I be held accountable for Adam's sin, when I didn't commit it? Adam isn't going to be held accountable for my short comings.



Yes, I agree with that to a point, but every one is not evil by nature because of what Adam did. The way I look at it is if we were all so evil by nature, then we wouldn't want to repent, we wouldn't want to be saved. I feel that we are good by nature and the only way the fall tainted us is that we will die, not be sinners automatically at birth.

Death is the result of the original sin. Acting against God is sinning, God told Adam not to eat the fruit, Adam ate it and thus committing the first sin.

I don't think we are all evil either.

Here's how the Catholic Church explains it:

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
CCC 405

The book of Wisdom is a book in the Old Testament. Not all Churches consider it to be inspired but it's been a part of the Canon since the earliest Church councils at Carthage and Hippo, Martin Luther and his crew decided to get rid of it along with a few other text. He actually tried to take out the book of revelation, James, Esther, Hebrews and Jude as well. I don't think Calvin much cared for the book of revelation either. That's a completely separate topic of discussion though.

The answer is quoted below in the CCC 405:



I'm not sure where you get that from. Pelagianism is a very old heresy, it was deemed as such back in the 4th century (around that time). We all die physically, and we only are saved through the grace of God. Mormon theology says otherwise?




The author is unknown but it's written in the person of Solomon (his sentiments are expressed).



The Vatican didn't take any books out of the bible, the Canon recognized by the Church to day was established and recognized back at Carthage and Hippo (4th to early fifth century). The protestants removed the deuterocanon (seven books in the OT) from the bible.


That's one reason why protestant Christianity never really made sense to me. It's all dependent upon a book compiled by the Catholic Church through the authority of God, without that authority of God part it's far to easy to fall astray from the inspired text since God gave us his church to guide us.

The punishment for Adam's sin was mortality (in the physical sense); if you are mortal, then you are suffering Adam's punishment, plain and simple.

Shadows-shine, how are you missing the blatancy of Romans 5:14?

"y that one person's transgression the many died"!

Because of one person's sin, we are all physically mortal.

Shadows-shine

Now how unfair is that for God to judge me according to Adam's transgression on top of my own.

How would it be unfair? He made you, he can do what he wants with you!

"Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for an ignoble one?"

That's how I view too, but I don't call it the original sin.

That's not what I said. I know that doing some thing God tells you not to is a sin, but I don't agree with the whole "Just because one sinned, every one is a sinner" idea.