If my grandfather committed a crime, should I be held responsible?
If your father commits a crime, should you go to jail?
If you commit a crime or a moral sin, should your children be held responsible?
If offenses were committed against your great-grandfather, should the criminals pay you for it today?
Should any group pay for it today?
So well said and no we are not responsible for sins committed in the past by others.
Hard to believe this question needs to be asked? Of course, not.
Kevin Monahan is the best!
Good Morning Larry! This is an interesting question that has been debated extensively in religious circles. That is because the Bible states in Exodus 34:7 that the “sins of the father will be visited upon the children and grandchildren to the 3rd and 4th generations.” However, later in the Bible in Deuteronomy 24:16 and in other places it states that, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.” It further states in Ezekiel 18:20 that, “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.” Given this line of reasoning we can not and should not be held accountable for the indiscretions of our past relatives. Throughout history people of all kinds have endured hardships for some reason or another. Many have died but many more have persevered. I believe hardships, no matter how they are inflicted, can be used to make us better people. I believe the world is a much better place to live than it was 500 years ago. I have to believe that the hardships our ancestors endured led us (drove us?) to where we are today.
This is an interesting topic. No, I don’t believe people who did not commit a crime or offense should be punished. As for the Bible’s perspective, it does seem to contradict itself when it speaks to this saying the “sins of the Father shall be visited to the 3-4th generation”, and then later says “sons shall not be put to death for their fathers etc..”.
However, i don’t see it as contradictory.
My perspective is that without some sort of miracle or intervention we can not escape the future generational impact of our actions either positive or negative. We end up suffering or benefiting greatly for things our ancestors did. (sins of the father shall be visited upon 3-4th generation).
This does NOT mean that we should seek to go punish people for things that they did not do. That is not justice.
The interesting question is, what if the crime is ongoing? If your grandfather stole my grandfather’s land, and you’re living in the house my grandfather built (and I am his heir), then I’m going to try to get a court to make you give up the stolen property — even though YOU didn’t steal it. How to apply such a rule to anything beyond such a simple example is the difficult question.
The simple answer is no. As I understand the Bible this is also true. This is the dilemma in the above post, how I see it it we are not to judge, fortunately that task was never put on us, but for god to be the final judge. This is why my answer is a no, will there be punishment for the later generations? Maybe, that is what is written.
History is very interesting, unfortunately we sometimes get stuck on one part is one timeframe, to fully understand it we most keep digging deeper in the past. what happened prior to that point of time. What were the living conditions for the previous generation? Would that generation survived if there would of not been any interaction? our history makes us what we are today, we can learn from it, but we don’t have to repeat it or relive it.