Sins of the Fathers

You have a limited choice about your native character.
People familiar with the Old Testament have likely run across something which seems ambiguous to our modern eyes. In one place it says flat out the children will pay for the sins of their fathers. God warns in the Books of Moses about visiting the sins of one generation upon the third generation. In yet another place, we are told in no uncertain terms, “the soul that sins, it shall die.” Indeed, Ezekiel goes on at length about the latter.
And this is the key. We happen to know Ezekiel was talking about the Law of Moses; specifically, it was about the individual obligation of every burn under the Covenant to live by it consciously. The specifics of Moses reflect a fundamental moral reality. On this plane of existence, if you walk in evil, then turn from that, you’ll find mercy and be forgiven. If you walk rightly, then turn and become evil, you’ll reap the consequences of God’s wrath. It’s simply a matter of actions, but what the actions say about what’s going on inside you. People make mistakes and regret them, and they tend to repent. People without regret are monsters, or in modern parlance, psychopaths.
Most Christians don’t realize — most openly deny — that there is a God of Laws over the Realm of Flesh. This is why most Western Christians are so utterly confused about morality, and so powerless to practice what they preach. They don’t understand the categories because they reject them.
But that business of “sins of the Father” is reference to another kind of sin. We recognize this as the influence of parents over their own children. The third generation is God’s general rule about how long it takes for a bad habit to be forgotten, barring other interventions. Thus, only after the third generation could certain resident aliens enjoy full citizenship privileges.
When I look in the mirror of my soul, I inevitably see the imprint of my dad. For the most part, we look nothing like each other, but there are distinct character traits from him for which I have no power to remove. They are burned into my very personality. By being aware of this, I am not powerless to turn his trash into some kind of treasure.
The trick is to first embrace the truth this is what I am. Then, I have to ensure I seek to understand human nature itself enough to recognize the difference between a manifestation and basic tendency. My dad expressed certain character traits in ways which didn’t work out for good to others. I have some of the same stuff in me, but I need not be bound to his way of expressing those things. I can choose to channel them in other ways. All I really need to do is understand what lay under the ugly manifestation. By rejecting his fears, angers, etc., I am able to be a different man. To suggest I’m actually “better” would be for later generations to say, since I am in the process creating my own huge mistakes. My son now has the task of deciding which of my traits are worthy of emulation, and which require adjustment.
You can’t fight evil until you understand the source.