When a man is born into the world of phenomena he finds the universe when he is born from this world to the world of the spirit, he finds the Kingdom. Just as he is born into this world of imperfection from the womb of his earthly mother, so is he born into the world of spirit through divine education. The Prophets of God have been sent, the Holy Books have been written, so that man may be made free.
The sins of the father will be visited upon the son bible verse free#
Through education we must free ourselves from these imperfections. These are the sins of the world, the fruits of the tree from which Adam did eat. Sin is the state of man in the world of the baser nature, for in nature exist defects such as injustice, tyranny, hatred, hostility, strife: these are characteristics of the lower plane of nature. That’s because the Baha’i teachings generally don’t separate human actions into simplistic black-and-white categories like “good” and “sinful.” Instead, Baha’is view evil and sin in a more nuanced way, as imperfections that come from the lower nature of each human being and see our higher natures as the result of spiritual education and development:Įvil is imperfection. This concept of “sin” doesn’t appear very often in the Baha’i writings. If human beings were all inherently sinful, Irenaeus reasoned, then they could only escape that condition by turning to the church and its clergy for forgiveness. Irenaeus used his newly-invented doctrine of original sin to counter the arguments of the gnostics, the early mystical Christians who did not accept the authority or the doctrinaire views of the developing church. It was the invention of Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyon, who developed and formalized it in France in the 2 nd Century. When you hear the phrase “Jesus died for your sins,” it means that Christ’s crucifixion was supposed to expiate our universal human sinfulness, as long as we believed in him.Ĭhrist himself never taught the doctrine of original sin, though. In some Christian dogma, original sin-attributed to Adam when he ate that apple from the forbidden tree of knowledge-means that we all share a collective, essentially sinful human nature we can’t escape. If the father of a thousand generations committed a sin, is it just to demand that the present generation should suffer the consequences thereof? – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. Adam’s sin was not the sin of His posterity, especially as Adam is a thousand generations back of the man today. Granted the father committed a wrong, what was the wrong committed by the son? There is no connection between the two.
This seems a lot more logical, doesn’t it? After all, what fair and just Creator would make children pay for the sins of their parents-or all humanity responsible for the sins of their ancestors? The Baha’i teachings make that exact point about the doctrine of original sin:Ĭould we conceive of the Divinity, Who is Justice itself, inflicting punishment upon the posterity of Adam for Adam’s own sin and disobedience? Even if we should see a governor, an earthly ruler punishing a son for the wrongdoing of his father, we would look upon that ruler as an unjust man. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live.
Google the phrase and you’ll see what a wide impact the idea has had over time.īut if you look carefully, you’ll see that the handful of Biblical references about the sins of the father are completely contradicted by other Biblical passages like this one: – Exodus 34:6-7.ĭo you believe that children inherit the sins of their fathers? It’s a popular idea-maybe a million movies, television dramas, books, albums and other works of art all utilize that one ancient theme. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. Some would say, as the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament does, that the sins of the father are visited upon the children.Īnd the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,