Why is sin heritable?

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The kids are only impacted by the actions of their patients because Yahweh decided that it should be so because he wanted it that way. He could have (in his infinite power) have chose another way.

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Yahweh could have decided that only the commiter of sin should suffer any consequences.

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Why would Yahweh choose this set of condition when he could have (in his infinite mercy) chose another way?

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You're talking about consequences, not sin. Sin is the breaking of a religious or moral law. Without a religious or moral law, one cannot sin. If you want to take the story as an actual event, I can't answer those questions. You'll have to talk to God about those questions. Neither Adam or Eve or their children were cursed with "sin". As I said, they were capable of disobeying before they ate the apple. The ability was there. Mankind still has that capability today, some people are more inclined to wickedness than others. Christians still have that capability. That capability isn't removed when they start believing.Why did YHWH give us that capability? Since we are made in his image, I would say probably because God has that capability or maybe it was something in the dirt. Doesn't most intelligent life have the capability to make bad choices or go against the norm of their group?Edited by purpledawn, : Added comment on sin.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

A & E sinned. They disobeyed Yahweh. Now sin has first entered into creation by the actions of A & E. Those that followed sinned. And as such they died. It wasn't 'passed down' it was just a repeating pattern of people not obeying god's admittedly very high standards. Depends on which variant. The Yahweh that didn't know where Adam was in the Garden, that didn't foresee the consequences of the flood, that was constantly being morally corrected by Moses, that Yahweh isn't all knowing when it comes to the world of mankind. He frequently makes errors and tries new tactics. The Christians believe his final idea was to send the Christ to suffer the consequences of sin so that Yahweh could resurrect him due to the power of the Christ's faith and provide a way for mankind to escape the pattern of sin and death. They also tend to believe that that was his plan all along, but that just makes him out to be a monster as you point out.

I gotcha. This is a bit over my head as far as bible study is concerned. Thanks for the explanation. I may interject at a later point, though.

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if Jehovah was happy about our sinful condition, he would not have provided us with a way out.The fact is that Adams sin put him out of harmony with his Creator. It damaged his relationship with God with himself and with his wife. It affected his mind, heart, and body. Its due to those ill effects that we also had sin passed onto us. Its the law of hereditary that determined what we inherit from our parents, we dont only get their physical traits but also their personality traits and diseases. We know the law of hereditary is a fact, we can see it.The personality traits that we inherited from Adam are things like rebelliousness, independence, unrighteousness, guilt, anxiety, insecurity, shame....these traits came from his willful act of disobedience which put him out of harmony with God and caused all these sorts of traits to affect his mind and heart. And physically we inherited his short life span.Its these traits that alienate us from God. When we display such traits, we are not reflecting Gods glory or his image. We were created to reflect his image and glory which means our minds and hearts should be representative of Gods mind and heart....but while we have such traits, its impossible for us to represent Gods image. And while we die its impossible for us to reflect his eternality.This is what makes us sinners. And to sin means to 'miss' It means that we have fallen from the mark of Gods perfection. His personality and his traits are impossible for us to fully reflect in this state because the traits that we have inherited as part of our nature make it impossible for us to reflect the traits of God to his perfect standard.This is why God is not happy with our sinful condition and why he provided one who could remove sin and death from us. Our purpose on this earth is to reflect Gods perfection...until we are perfect like him we are sinners.

False. Satan first introduced sin into the world i.e first being to sin Adam and Eve were the first humans to sin. But I think Larni's question is, why was it a repeating pattern i.e why did God allow it to become a repeating pattern and not just curb it (after all,He hates it)? There has to be a reason why it is a recurring pattern i.e what theologians commonly refer to as original sin.Larni, I don't know the answer. I'm questioning along with you...It seems to me that if Adam's soul was marred because of his sin, then God would give Adam's son a pure soul like Adam once had, making only Adam pay for his sins. It is difficult to not know why....and still believe. Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

its the law of hereditary.Adam could no longer pass perfection of mind body and heart to his children. He could not pass on Gods perfect image (the image that he was created to reflect) because he stopped reflecting those perfect qualities when he willfully disobeyed....the consequences of which affected him physically and mentally. He could only pass on the traits and qualities that he now possesed.The law of hereditary states that both physical and mental traits will be passed onto the offspring and this is why we recieved his imperfection...or his sin.An imperfect man cannot bring forth a perfect man. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

Ok fair enough- clearly you know the truth and I am a poor fool. Take it up with Saint Paul since it was he that deceived me. From Romans 5:12-14

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Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.

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How could Yahweh stop humans with free will from doing what they wanted to do, which was sin. He told them they had a choice, they could master their urge to sin - but they did not. And that's Adam's fault, not Yahweh's. Yahweh did curb it, but he could not eradicate free choice (which is what you are asking he do): he found a loophole. Through trusting that he will keep his promises, and via the resurrection of Christ, we can all escape sin and death entirely. We don't need to resist the urge to sin, just trust that Yahweh will free us from it. Cain had a choice. Yahweh said: You can choose to disobey me, or obey me. You have the power within you to do the right thing.
Genesis 4:7

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If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.

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His soul was not 'tainted'. It was as pure as Adam's. He had the choice to sin or not to sin and the capacity for both. He freely chose to murder his brother. He cursed him, and then protected him from mortal retribution for being cursed.

So perfection of mind body and, heart is how you're defining God's image. But I say its more than that. Anyway, the main point is, the inheritable traits and qualities that the sinful Adam possessed do not include his soul, do they? I've never come across a Bible verse that says souls are inheritable i.e a bad person's son will automatically also be bad or vice versa. Its not a question od whether or not Adam's character was marred, its why, because of Adam, are all of our characters automatically marred? And to say that Adam's soul was passed to us all is, to my knowledge, not Biblical. So the law of heredity thing sounds very unconvincing... Dandy statements and all. Nevertheless like sponges, devoid of weight. But, where does perfection lie? In the soul, yes? And we know souls are not inheritable, yes? So where did human perfection get lost or what did God do with it? We never received his sin. We received his sin nature..and we're trying to figure out why we did.

Your intelligence and knowledge, some could only dream of achieving, Modulus. Far from me thinking what you said. I only pointed out a small mistake. Yes, That's how sin entered the world. You said that sin entered creation through Adam and Eve. And I understood your usage of the word "creation" to mean everything God ever created, which includes angels..which includes lucifer. Apparently, you seem to be referring to the earth/world when you say creation. In this sense, Paul, you and I all agree.But when you say, One has to ask, what do you mean by creation? And unless you specifically say something like earth or world something to denote the natural created world, people are prone to assume that you're talking about all of creation--natural and supernatural.Anyway, my intention was only to clear the statement's ambiguity---which might have been present only to my eyes, in which case, I apologize if I offended you.But it is fact that sin entered creation through satan. The question is, WHY did they want to sin as opposed to not sin?
WHY did they not want to master the sin urges as opposed to master them?There must have been some sort of spiritual, i supernatural intervention than brought about this unexpected affinity towards sin in Adam's descendants. I don't see any logic in the idea Adam's soul-now sinful was passed on to us and therefore we are sinful. Yes. The Apostle Paul's not going to side with you on this one. In that case, why do we need Jesus, His death, and resurrection since you seem to imply that perfect purity can be achieved through proper exercise of freewill?Or are you implying that Christ's sacrifice was pointless? Edited by Dr. Sing, : formattingEdited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

thats probably because the bible does not say that mankind has 'a' soul. It tells us that we ARE souls. A living person is a soul.Adam became a living soul
All the animals that were brought forth became living soulsThe hebrew word defined as 'soul' is Nephesh and it means the physical living person or creature. So we did infact inherit Adams 'soul'....his living body was his soul and therefore the traits of that living body were passed onto us the same way we pass our physical traits onto our children. perfection lies in Gods perfect standards. His righteousness, love, justice are all perfect standards that we fail to reach.Human perfection became lost when Adam failed to live up to those standards. Perfect righteousness would have prevented Adam from disobeying God, Perfect love would have kept Adam loyal to God and perfect justice would have caused Adam to reject his wifes offer to eat the fruit.The consequences of not living up to those perfect standards caused Adam to have great internal conflict which became like a scar on his mind, heart and spirit. It caused him pain and grief, it made him feel shame, anxiety, fear and guilt...these were feelings that he had never known before but now they were a part of his physical and mental health. because traits are passed on from parents to children. Genes dictate, not only hair, skin and eye color but also mental ability,inclination and personality.Because we inherited some of his personality and mental traits, we think the same way as him....this is why we also fall short of Gods image and glory. We do not hold to Gods righteousness or love or justice....we reflect the image of Adam which puts us at odds with God.hence why we too are sinners because to sin means to 'miss the mark' that God sets for perfection.

Lucifer isn't mentioned in Genesis. Where does he disobey Yahweh before Adam and Eve? Even the serpent didn't disobey Yahweh if that's what you were thinking. Because dualism is true and they have absolute free will. There is no further reasoning because dualism doesn't imply a deterministic soul where one can point to cause and effect and answer 'why'. That's just what happened when humans realized they could disobey Yahweh courtesy of Adam's first foray into doing just that. Adam ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and his eyes were opened. No longer under the impression that obeying Yahweh was the only way to do things he entered into sinful behaviour. That's his fault, his responsibility, his free will. Sure Paul would say we should try to resist the urge to sin, but he would argue that we needn't succeed to gain salvation. Yahweh tried that, by creating a strict law and covenant. It didn't free mankind from sin. He could keep trying something that didn't work, but that would make him a fool. Christ needed to have faith in Yahweh's promises to such a degree he would willingly be tortured, humiliated and executed on the basis of that faith. This faith (which allowed him to walk on water), was so strong it allowed the resurrection - an act through which Yahweh was able to free mankind from sin and death if only they tried to emulate the faith in his promise that Christ had.

Hi Dr, God formed a man from the dust of the ground. He then breathed the breath of life into him and he became a perfect living being.That perfect man was put in a perfect garden with one instruction not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The results of eating the fruit would be death.Thus Pauls statement: One man disobeyed God and by that act brought death into the universe.Had that man not eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would still be tending the garden today and we would not exist. Only he and the woman made from his rib would exist.So everyone is under the penalty of sin which is death.One other thing happened that day when he ate the fruit. God drove the man out of the garden.Up until this time the man was allowed in the presence of God but from this moment on he was separated from God. There is no place that God came and talked with this man again. He did speak to Cain.Therefore the penalty of sin entered into the universe by this man's disobedience. All men are under the penalty of sin. The death rate will be 100%. There was two fellows who got out of this world alive and they still have to die. They will be the two witnesses.Mankind was separated from God by the disobedience of this man.That is why it was necessary for the sacrifice of Calvary to reunite mankind and restore him to the perfect condition that first man was in when he was placed in the garden.That sacrifice was made from the foundation of the universe. God is all knowing and knew man would disobey so before God made mankind He counted the cost of creating a being with freewill and decided it was worth the cost.But it was decided beforehand that God the Son would come and die to restore mankind to the perfect condition the first man was in before he disobeyed God.Thus God offers a free gift to anyone who will believe His Word and receive the gift of eternal life.All those who do not accept the gift of God will remain separated from God for eternity.It is not about being good or bad. It is about believing God is who He says He is and trusting Him to do what He says He will do. The gift of God is eternal life. Verse 16 tells us that God loved the universe and you and I enough to let God the Son die in our place.(For the space of 3 hours while on the cross God the Father and God the Son was separated. Don't ask me to explain how this is possible I don't know.)Verse 17 tells us that Jesus did not come to condemn the world. That was not necessary as the next verse tells us condemnation existed already.Verse 18 tells us that those who believe are not condemned.
It also tells us that those who do not believe are condemned already.John then gives us the reason for that condemnation when he says, "because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God".There is no mention of condemnation for sin of any kind.
It could have given all the reasons that man has contrived and put forth but it does not.It simply say a man is condemned because he has not believed.Sin is not inherited.The penalty of sin exists. It was brought into existence by the first man.Death exists.Mankind is separated from God and condemned already.Unless mankind is reunited by accepting God's gift he will be separated from God for eternity.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Hi Larni, It is not heritable.Sin is an act of mankind which is committed by choice when mankind exercises freewill and disobeys God's orders.Death exists because of the disobedience of one man.All mankind was separated from God because of the disobedience of one man.No one goes to the Lake of Fire for committing a sin of any kind.Man goes to the Lake of Fire because he will not Believe God and receive His offer of the gift of eternal life.God Bless,Edited by ICANT, : add signture

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

The real reason: Because it is the only way the whole system works. You cannot blame someone for not following a rule they don't know about, so the reasonable method to save people is to never tell them about God. This prevents them from ever being punished.No religion would be created with this setup, and any religion that morphed into such a form would almost immediately vanish. Ironically religions obey the same selection pressures as organisms; evolution functions to make religions that cannot effectively reproduce extinct.

False. God brought sin into the world by creating beings capable of going against his will. Violating his will is the definition of sin, so the introduction of free will is inherently tied to sin.You can argue if this was a good idea, but sin being God's fault is beyond discussion.