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Perhaps the most misunderstood topic of all and I approach with trepidation knowing how many weird ideas float around about this!

Some forty years ago someone who had been in the church for fifty years said to me, “I don’t and can’t believe in original sin. How can anyone who looks at a baby say that it sinful and evil?”

I have had people argue to death the issue of Adam and Eve. There are those today who take it literally and suggest the world is 4,000 years old. Others have laughed at it as a silly creation myth and dismiss it all out of hand. I think I have come across every possible point of view, but I acknowledge that I may yet stumble across another weird and wonderful explanation.

So let’s just throw out all our current ideas and look at the observational evidence as it presents itself to us in every day life and in our own experience.

Everyday around us we see things that are good and bad. Everyday we struggle within ourselves with good and bad choices. Perhaps we fight anger, or speak badly of another or even let prejudice and bigotry enter into our lives. We have all met lovely people and others less so. But not one of us is free from things which are less than ideal and none of us can make ourselves perfect and flawless. If you think you can then you are delusional and have certainly not learned to see yourself properly. It’s a fact of life from the moment we are born. There is an inherent selfishness and self centred nature which is there from the beginning.

We have a basic knowledge of the Divine, we are born with that, and yet looking at the evidence around us and within us, we can see clearly that the two are not compatible. We are separated from birth from God. We do not reflect the perfect image of the divine. As the story of Adam and Eve illustrates, they were able to walk and talk with God before they disobeyed Him. This story is designed to teach us in simple terms that we are not capable of such an intimate natural relationship with God. Sin does not necessarily equate to evil. It is a word so loaded now with false meaning we really ought to invent a new one for this present age. It is simply a word used to describe the fact that we are in reality separated from God by our nature and by our actions.

Some sins are obviously worse than others. The Church makes the distinctions between Mortal and Venial sins. This is easily understood if we take two extreme examples. If, I, with malice aforethought go out and murder someone, that is on such a level as to separate me from God forever, unless of course I take the appropriate measure of repentance and acceptance of my sin and sincerely set myself right with God. This normally would be through conversion of heart and confessing and owning our sinful action and seeking pardon and forgiveness from God. On the other hand I may get angry and say a few things I don’t mean because I have had a bad day. That’s what we call a Venial sin. It doesn’t separates irrevocably from God but our conscience is pricked and we apologise to the other party and to God.

It is important to know though that no matter how far we find ourselves in a state of sin there is nothing, no act that, rightly and sincerely confessed and repented of, is outside the mercy of a mighty and loving God.

The whole point of learning to see is to allow us to seek to align our wills with the will of God. We can only do that through the freely given grace of God. It is not something we ourselves can achieve by our own efforts.

On our journey we will stumble and fall frequently, we must never despair, no matter how often it happens, we just have to stand up again and press onwards on our journey. It is hard but the rewards are worth far more than we can imagine and God is always there with welcoming arms to hug us to Himself.