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Religion

2010-09-01 13:38:00

Was there sin before the commandments?

Answer: Yes, indeed mankind sinned from the time of Adam and Eve, from whom we have the original sin. This is clear in the first book of the Bible, Genesis; and their children sinned, e.g. Cain. Sin is in this world so abounded that God was moved to wipe-out by drowning all mankind in the time of Noah, whose family was saved in the ark. Even the holy patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their children sinned, and some of these repented of their sins. The Ten Commandments, promulgated by God to Moses, in the second book of the Bible, Exodus, spells out man's fundamental duties towards God and towards his neighbor. They reveal in their content, grave obligations, obliging man and woman always and everywhere. From the Creation these commandments are engraved by God in the human heart. The Ten Commandments from God became necessary because the light of reason in human beings was obscured and their will had gone astray. Not only in the Bible, but also in other ancient writings from before the time of Moses, it is clear that the sins you mentioned were abundant and considered evil. This is the natural moral law, the work of Divine Wisdom. It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to authentic happiness. It proscribes the ways of evil, which turn man away from God and his love. This natural moral law is the basis for the human conscience. Even in those erroneous persons who attempt to deny or ignore conscience. Thus, also before the Ten Commandments, human beings could be saved and go to God, Whom they did not know, by following the natural law of conscience. And those persons, who ignored the natural law and their conscience, even before the Commandments were promulgated, and died without repenting the evils they had done, went to hell. The Commandments and all law finds its first and ultimate truth in the eternal law, which is declared and established by reason, the source of which is God. The early Christian writer, Tertullian (c. 200 a.d.) wrote: “Alone among all animate beings, man can boast of having been counted worthy to receive a law from God: as an animal endowed with reason, capable of understanding and discernment, he is to govern his conduct by using his freedom and reason, in obedience to the One who has entrusted everything to him.” The natural law is engraved in the soul of each and every person, because it is human reason directing him to do good and forbidding him to sin. It's principal precepts are expressed in the Ten Commandments. This law is called “natural,” not in reference to the nature of irrational beings, but because human reason, which decrees it, properly belongs to human nature. St. Thomas Aquinas summarizes this beautifully: “The natural law is nothing other that the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given us this light or law at the creation” (Aquinas on the Ten Commandments, chapter one).