Sin

The soul is the differentiating characteristic of the human species. The soul make us free and the soul makes us captive of our own thoughts and intentions. The soul connects us to God as it is our souls which we must maintain clean and unstained of sin to win eternal life.

We cannot refuse to have a soul even if we try or even if we deny it, the soul is something that make us what we are and what we carry over when our bodies stop living.

There should not then be a question with regards to the importance of keeping our souls clean and so it should be logically accepted to live in that connection with God. A clean conscience does not imply a clean soul although the reverse is true.

Many dispute the existence of God and with His that of the devil, an angel infinitely inferior to Him, believing to be the greatest among the great, he rebelled against God as he wanted to be more than Him. Of course it is the devil the one who, even if he incites people not to believe, believes in God, because is he who happens to know of the consequences of challenging His omnipotent power and almightiness as he is damned to the deeps of the Hades in Hell and so, the malign main task is to distort God’s creation by stealing as many souls as possible from His Kingdom.

How anyone can steal a soul if as mentioned a soul cannot be even refused or rejected let alone denied?

By enticing the person in charge of that soul to do as the devil would as opposed to as God commands us to do.

Many culprits of terrible crimes have claimed that the devil made them do the heinous  things they did and in this way, they seek a way out of their compromise with the devil which they think can be faked in. The truth is nevertheless, that the only way out is to do precisely the opposite; to accept the guilt and to repent, honestly and genuinely as well as sincerely, completely rejecting the devil’s purposes and suggestions. Humans are weak and our strength comes from God not the devil, through humility, love and forgiveness, faith, hope and charity.

Any action taken to satisfy the temptations of the devil, constitutes a sin and a so it is critically imperative to reject them, even though, there are sins and there are sins, all of them present a weakened soul becoming more and more inclined to embrace the malign advances falling trapped into his web of damnation.

Perhaps the most common way to dismiss the existence of the damned one is to pretend it to be just mythology, and invention of an ancient culture in a quest for moralizing its people if not scaring it away under a yoke of tyranny.

Mythology is certainly something that is real at least in concept, with truths not necessarily in the stories behind it but within them. Many of these stories are shown by all cultures across the centuries since creation, to somehow explain what at the time could not be explained because humans drifted apart from reality and lost contact with the truth of their origins. As much away the human soul drifts apart from the truth of our only living God, or as much human embrace their own ideals transformed in gods of their own manufacturing, as much they become slaves to fantasies and illusions becoming fertile grounds for the devil to tempt the people with his ‘rewards’.

We are able to recognize mythology  from legend and actual historical facts because of the understanding of reality we have as a gift from the Holy Spirit which along with the other gifts, like science, knowledge and council, make us capable to discern and decide on what the truth and what is not. God is the only truth and so to seek it is to seek Him. Illusions, fantasies and dreams are not bad or negative as long as they are placed in the proper perspective, without confusing them with reality.

There is a reason why Genesis was not the first book written in the Bible. Because the truth of its content had to be grasped as the truth and not as merely an exaltation of the moment even though its form had to accommodate to the level of knowledge of the time as well as the momentum lived by the chosen people. To be the chosen by God is a virtue of great responsibility because it makes us to live the truth. Traditions are important but the truth cannot be submissive to them.  

While we dismiss the different stories related by different cultures about their origins which contain some grasps of truth but which at the same time tell us clearly and without doubt of their unlikeness to be factual, we must see behind the form presented in these stories and realize in the truth behind them and the morality they contain and propose. There is but one absolute truth and it cannot be relative to anything, therefore, there cannot be equivalence in faith even if the truth comes to be present if at all broken on some more than in others. Only one faith can be truthful and is the one that sees God as our creator, all love and all truth.

The story in Genesis tells us about humans rebelling in disobedience against God and worst, trying to blame, Adam to Eve and Eve to the serpent, the devil for their sins, instead of accepting responsibility and repenting and seeking reconciliation with God, the only one living God who is all love and truth, omnipotent and almighty and Who, over and above everything is our creator not our creation, is not like us, but we are like Him in our dignity and so we are created free to take custody over His creation.

Mythology show us many characters supposedly identified as deities, gods and demigods, of one or another shape and form but with a concealed trace which defines them as created by the imagination of people, perhaps with traces of what was once a connection with the true God but nevertheless lost in their nomadic transition through history.

Sin is important because of its identity and so to pretend it is not what it is or that does not exist or that it is relative to time and space or this or that; only misses position in the reality that as absolute as truth is, so it is sin in its offence to God and thereby requiring our full repentance and contrition. There are some sins more mortal than others, but all are sins nevertheless and call for reconciliation with God, by confession, contrition and penitence.  

The one and only living God loves us and looks for us always to come back and join again His flock, but as close as is the relationship we maintain with Him, so it is the need to be us as individuals to act in confessing our faults. To discharge them in  solitude or to do so in assembly, tend to defeat the purpose and so it is that reconciliation has been instituted as a sacrament by the Church to be in secrecy and on a one to one confession to a priest, a man devoted for life to serve God and the Church, a man called and chosen by God and so invested with the ability to cleanse our souls of the stains left by sin.

As history shows, to be chosen by God, does not remove our freedoms and therefore, the chosen people remain weak and exposed to sin and therefore it is more imperative for them to keep maintaining the close relationship they have with God and for us to help them with such a responsibility.

Jesus has shown us the path and the essence of salvation which is love and forgiveness and it is through giving that we reach it and so it is not for us to judge and condemn sinners because we are all weak and prone to sin, over and over again, but to reject sin and its instigator, the devil.

As to judge is for God alone, we must maintain focus in what God commands us and so to build a society that is just is to look after the common good, from the individual up, not the other way around. It is the individual who can sin or be free of it by virtue of being free.