Читать книгу The World's Christians - Douglas Jacobsen - Страница 41

Salvation in the Catholic tradition is set within a grand narrative of God’s eternal love for the world. God made the world out of nothing, out of an overflowing abundance of divine love (see Voices of World Christianity 2.2). And God created people as beings who have the capacity to experience that love and reflect it back to God. Catholics believe that this original relationship of love between God and humanity has been disrupted by humanity’s sin, but despite that disruption God’s love for humankind continues. God is constantly trying to woo people back into the loving relationship for which they were created. This explains why Christ said that the greatest of all the commandments is to love God with all one’s heart, mind, soul, and strength. The love of God is “commanded” not because it is a duty that humanity owes to God, but because people can only truly and fully be themselves when they exist in a mutually loving relationship with God.

For individuals, the day‐to‐day experience of salvation has a somewhat different focus: the forgiveness and elimination of sin. Sin is an attitude or action that transgresses God’s law or that directs humans away from the life‐affirming goals and purposes for which they were created. Sin often takes the form of wrongful attachments to crass desires, the dogged pursuit of material comforts which makes people less than they were meant to be and which undermines the bonds of human care, affection, and solidarity. The Catholic tradition makes a distinction between original sin and subsequent sins. Original sin, which humanity inherited from the first human beings (Adam and Eve) who also committed the first sin, consists of a lack of trust in and love for God. The various specific sins which people commit, ranging in gravity from mortal sins such as murder and adultery to venial sins such as telling a “white lie” or being intentionally rude or disrespectful to a neighbor, all flow from this underlying defect in human nature.