We know that our sins must be forgiven if we hope to get to heaven. But what about original sin? How can original sin have to be forgiven if all of humanity after Adam and Eve didn’t commit the actual sin?
The Catholic Church teaches that it is impossible for one person to be guilty of the personal sin of another. That is metaphysically absurd, as well as contrary to Scripture (see Ezek. 18:19-20, CCC 2056).
The Church teaches that Adam and Eve—and only they—committed the personal sin that we call original sin. All the rest of mankind inherits the sin of Adam, and as such is guilty of a real and proper sin, even though it is in its own category (CCC 402-406). This is a mystery, but what the Church makes clear is this that we inherit from Adam is “a state, not an act” (404). And as such, this fallen state represents a “sin” by analogy—a real sin, but not a personal sin.
Some people wrongly believe that we Catholics mean that original sin is not “real” when we say it is not “personal.” But “personal” sin is a category of sins that differs from “original sin,” as it relates to the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Personal sin means an actual sin committed by the individual person. Original sin, with regard to all of humanity after Adam, represents the effects of the personal sin of Adam, inherited by all of humanity via propagation. It represents, then, not a personal sin. Rather, it is a fallen state of being.
The easiest way to understand it is as the Church teaches in paragraph 404 of the Catechism:
How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man.” By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice.
Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind—that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice.
And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed”—a state and not an act.
Now that we have made the crucial distinction between the original sin committed by Adam and Eve and the original sin inherited by the rest of humanity, we have to make another distinction between the reality that is “original sin,” often called “the stain of original sin,” that dwells in all men from conception (Ps. 51:5), and the concupiscence that remains even after the sin or stain of original sin is remitted through faith and baptism (see CCC 508, 403, etc.). The first is a true and proper sin, even though, again, it is in its own category—“a state and not an act,” as we saw in the Catechism above.
Romans 5:12 is perhaps the clearest text of Scripture that teaches the heart of the doctrine: “Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.”
Again, it is a sin (real), but only by analogy. All of mankind is “implicated” in Adam’s sin, as the Catechism says above, but in a mysterious way we do not fully understand. As St. Paul says in Romans 5:18-19,
As one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
Concupiscence represents a proclivity toward sin inherited by the Fall, but it is not itself sin at all, properly speaking, even though Paul calls it “sin” in Romans 7. He calls it “sin that dwells in me,” because it represents the fomes peccati, or “tendency to sin,” that dwells in all of us due to the fall of Adam. In this instance, it is not even “sin” by analogy, as original sin is. It is as the Council of Trent, Session Five, On Original Sin, says:
This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.
In summary, notice that “original sin” is a true and proper sin, but it is very different when considering Adam versus the rest of humanity. For Adam alone (and Eve), original sin was a personal sin. For all the rest, original sin was and is also a true and proper sin, but not a personal sin. It was and is a sin by analogy, and as such, it is owned by each and every one of us as a true “sin,” but it is such as a state of being, not an act. And because it is a true and proper sin owned by each and every one of us, it must be cleansed through baptism.
Concupiscence, on the other hand, is not a sin at all. It does not have to be “forgiven.” It will be healed at the time of death. In other words, there will be no concupiscence in heaven. And this healing will be full and complete at the resurrection of the body at the end of time. Paul calls this “the redemption of the body” (Rom. 8:23).
But concupiscence does not need to be “forgiven” as if it were a personal fault, or even a sin at all, because it is not.
Redeemed? Perfected? Yes.
“Forgiven”? That’s impossible. There is nothing to forgive.