Claim. Sin is a violation of heavenly law committed when a person forms common base with Satan and engages in give-and-take with him. DP classifies sin into four kinds, ranked root-to-leaf: (1) original, (2) hereditary, (3) collective, (4) individual. Only Christ as the True Parent of humanity can uproot the original.
Elaboration. Per 4.5. Sin:
- Original sin — originated with the spiritual and physical fall of the first ancestors. Ingrained in lineage. The root of all sins.
- Hereditary sin — sin one inherits from ancestors through lineage connection. “The sins of parents will be visited upon their descendants” (Ten Commandments).
- Collective sin — sin for which a person is responsible as a member of a group, even though he neither committed nor inherited it. Example: the crucifixion of Jesus — though only the chief priests and certain scribes sent him to death, “the Jewish people and humanity as a whole have together shouldered the responsibility.” Consequence: Jewish suffering and humanity’s tribulation-path until the Second Coming.
- Individual sin — sin one personally commits.
The tree-metaphor structures their relationship: original = root, hereditary = trunk, collective = branches, individual = leaves. “All sins sprout from the original sin, which is their root. Without extirpating the original sin, there is no way to completely eradicate other sins.”
The christological consequence: “no man is able to unearth this root of sin, buried deep in the recesses of time. Only Christ, who comes as the root and True Parent of humanity, can grasp it and uproot it.” This is DP’s messianic functional definition — Christ = root-of-sin-extirpator, achievable only by re-establishing a sinless lineage.
See also. dp-original-sin-transmitted-via-blood-lineage, dp-fall-established-satan-centered-four-position-foundation