Is My Autism Sinful?

    After watching the recent episodes of the lovely podcast Christianity On The Spectrum, I've been thinking theologically about my autism and ADHD.

    For those who might not know me, hi! My name is Maria, I am a transfem Christian with fairly severe ADHD and ASD2. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of the coping mechanisms my disabled peers have. I was told for most of my life, right up until I moved out very recently, that my disability was something I just have to overcome and ignore. This isn't a claim that my family was abusive, quite the opposite. I know they just wanted to see me happy and successful. Not to mention, I always had food on the table and a roof over my head, and for that I am endlessly grateful.

    However, as I got older and realized that this disability is a part of me, and I saw how my inability to meet basic standards of performance was hurting my family, I asked: Am I lesser in the eyes of God?    Do I have a greater natural proclivity towards sin? Can I ever live piously?

    I didn't approach this conundrum mystically, but scholastically. I define my Lord God through axioms, and I extrapolate from them. If any of these axioms are wrong, and I have misjudged the Lord, then I beg that He forgive me when I die, but this is how I reached an answer to this problem.

    I recalled three things I claim to know about God and Man: first, that God is infinitely loving; second, that God is infinitely knowing; and third, that Man is inherently sinful. From the first two, we can extrapolate that God knows my predicament and sees it with compassion. His omniscience understands that my problems with my disabilities aren't just imagined or excusatory, but real. He understands that I am trying to overcome something extremely difficult. Further, His knowing is fused with love and compassion, for He loves me infinitely, as He loves all His children. This resolves, for me, the idea that I may be lesser in His eyes, as if He loves us all infinitely and equally, then logically He should not view me as lesser.

    The third point is for myself: how do I know I'm not lesser? I may know that God does not view me so, and I may know that He is right in all things, but it's cold comfort when I can't internalize that truth. The fact of things, though, is that we are all sinners equally, because we are all equally capable of sin. The story of Adam and Eve shows us that, even when we are given everything, even when our lives are perfect, when we are given one singular order, we will disobey God. If I were not to be sinful in this way, I would surely be sinful in another, and time and time again I see that those in the world I idolize for being perfectly abled still commit acts of tremendous evil.

    Oddly, in the same way it's prideful to assume you're less sinful than others, it's prideful to assume you are moreso. To feel as though I knew better than God, and that I was separate from the whole of humanity in my sin, was proud. I don't have some "greater proclivity," but rather I am one of all the sinners on the earth. I try to do better, and like every living being aside from Christ Himself, I fail. God knows this better than I ever will, and He forgives me more than I ever will.

    This isn't to say I want to just lay down and accept that I can never do better. I can try, and in this reality where I am as doomed to be a sinner as anyone else, trying is the only virtue I can have.

    I hope this helps you if you struggle with these feelings as well. I don't credit this realization to myself, but to God, as it would have been impossible without His Word. I do not realize anything but what God has already placed before me, and for that, I am eternally grateful and in love with Him and His wisdom. You are only as much a failure as anybody else on this earth, and I hope you all can come to see that as I have.