The answer
Adam transgressed the commandment of God, and this an infinite sin, because it is against the Uncircumscribed God. So, its punishment must be unlimited. This is in accordance with the principle that the punishment fits the offense. This punishment can be summarised as follows:
- 1. Death in every form:
- Physical Death = Separation of the spirit from the body, which decomposes into dust.
- Moral Death = Disgrace of sin and its abominable treasury.
-Eternal Death = Perdition in the fiery Gehenna24 forever.
-Spiritual Death = This means the loss of communion between the spirit and God. The death of the spirit does not mean that it perishes, but rather that it loses its sensitivity towards God. In other words, every human being still has a spirit. However, this spirit-on account of the ancestral sin-has become darkened, and unable to commune with God. It exists, but is feeble.
- 2. Tainting of the human nature:
Human nature, which had been pure, has become tainted with sin, and unfit to enter Paradise, or to dwell in the presence of God. Thus, evil found its way to the whole of humanity. From Adam, all of his human progeny inherited his sinful way.
“I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5 LXX).
So, all of humanity was deemed sinful (Rom. 3:10-12).
- 3. Expulsion from the Presence of God (Paradise) (Gen. 3:23, 24).
The Perfect and Holy God cannot dwell with wicked sinners, but it is rather the pure in heart alone who beholds God, for there is no communion between light and darkness.25
His Holiness Pope Tawadros II
Notes
24 Translator’s note: The place of future torment; hell; a place of torture; a prison (cf. OED Online. September 2013. Oxford University Press. 21 October 2013.).
25 Translator’s note: Cf. 2 Cor. 6:14.
Pope Tawadros II, My Faith: A Series of Dialogues on the Creed (Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, 2014), 59–61.
The pages in the book (59–61)
