A more charitable reading of the Adam and Eve story?

[agnimusca]

God gave both one command and they freely broke it. This led to a spiritual and physical condition called Original Sin. Prior to that, God had given them gifts, including bodily immortality. That ended, and Jesus Christ had to be born.

Thanks, @edwest! @OneSheep’s proposal can agree with all of that, I think. Were you responding to this part of my post?

[…] original sin involves ‘deciding for ourselves what is good’[, and I] think @OneSheep’s proposal […] might help explain what that means — maybe the difference between Adam and Eve before and after the fall is that before, they accepted what was given and were in harmony with creation, and afterwards (and constitutively as part of the fall) they came to see [parts of] God’s creation as unacceptable, in an emotional way, and willfully rejected it, leading to suffering and disharmony with God and His creation (including each other).

My take on the proposal wouldn’t entail that the difference I was talking about was the only difference, by any means – it could also be the differences you talk about. It just tries to explain what that spiritual condition of original sin amounts to, sort of psychologically, in a way that would make sense of the tie to suffering (and maybe in such a way that Jesus’s coming, death, and resurrection could be more deeply understood in its role as providing a real answer to that spiritual condition of original sin).

Does that make sense? Again, I’m not confident the proposal could work, so I’m very curious about inconsistencies with doctrine. So please followup if you get the chance!

 

[Gabika50]

Knowing is evil is not what caused the problem; choosing evil over good did.

 

[agnimusca]

This is super interesting! Do you have a sense of how it interacts with the proposal about ‘rejection of what God gave’? I get the impression there is some strong connection with the irascible appetite, but I’ll have to think more about it.

 

[agnimusca]

That definitely sounds right. But maybe we had to know evil in order to choose it?

 

[edwest]

No. Our first parents understood their choice. They were lied to.

 

[stephenSTOSS1]

This has always been something that has bothered me. The Pope is actually stating that the reason we have to hold that Adam and Eve are our historical first parents is because there is no way to reconcile the doctrines which came from the “Teaching Authority of the Church”

I think you are mischaracterizing the Popes words. The Pope accurately stated the position of the Church’s teaching in the first sentence. The second sentence is merely a characterization of the consequences of the relationship of the first sentence to a particular dogma, i.e. original sin. Let us not forget that the dogma of the Redemption of man would also be violated by an opinion contrary to the statement made in the first sentence. The historicity of Adam and Eve are doctrines of the Church that are theologically classified as sententia certa … theologically certain … based on Scripture and Tradition.

 

[Vico]

This is super interesting! Do you have a sense of how it interacts with the proposal about ‘rejection of what God gave’? I get the impression there is some strong connection with the irascible appetite, but I’ll have to think more about it.

God constituted them with original justice, both the preternatural gifts and sanctifying grace. By their free wills they chose not cooperate with the sanctifying grace, through which the fall would be avoided, so it was a rejection of the sanctifying grace.

 

[EvangAlived]

Catholics are bound to understand original sin as a rejection of/disobedience of God.

Good to know. What specifically was the “disobedience” then to God that Adam/Eve committed? Where specifically were they told to not do what they did end up doing?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Catholics are bound to understand original sin as a rejection of/disobedience of God.

Good to know. What specifically was the “disobedience” then to God that Adam/Eve committed? Where specifically were they told to not do what they did end up doing?

Do we need to know?

 

[EvangAlived]

Do we need to know?

Yes. See Romans 5:14; 1 John 3:4; 1 John 2:16; Job 31:33; Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:17-18; John 14:15; Exodus 20:6; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Revelation 2:7, 22:2,14

I accept Genesis as literal as it is written.

Therefore, the question what specifically was the disobedience to God, the sin of Adam/Eve, is important to know the origin of “sin” amongst mankind, and in such thinking as you gave, completely mysterious, nebulous, unknowable, and has no substance., no foundational definition.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Do we need to know?

Yes. See Romans 5:14; 1 John 3:4; 1 John 2:16; Job 31:33; Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:17-18; John 14:15; Exodus 20:6; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Revelation 2:7, 22:2,14

I accept Genesis as literal as it is written.

Therefore, the question what specifically was the disobedience to God, the sin of Adam/Eve, is important to know the origin of “sin” amongst mankind, and in such thinking as you gave, completely mysterious, nebulous, unknowable, and has no substance., no foundational definition.

The specifics are unessential for a theology of original sin. Man knowingly disobeyed God. Thag is sufficient. Whether it was eating a fig or something else doesn’t change things.

 

[EvangAlived]

The specifics are unessential for a theology of original sin. Man knowingly disobeyed God. Thag is sufficient. Whether it was eating a fig or something else doesn’t change things.

Actually it does. Look at Romans 5:14 again. Paul said that men sinned not after the sameness of Adam’s sin. How does he know this since you claim he could not have possibly known what specifically Adam/Eve did/did not do? How would I know I am not doing the exact same thing (right now), how about you?

It also gets into the justness of God’s character. Was God just in what was commanded? How would we know, since you claim there is no specifics? In such theology, it opens up the ideology (possibility) that Adam/Eve could have been in the right to disobey such command, and thus re-defines sin, and now we come to gnosticism.

 

[agnimusca]

Interesting again! I guess there are lots of ways of describing what Adam and Eve rejected, maybe? I suppose I like seeing @OneSheep’s proposal as playing with the idea that the fundamental rejection – sort of the basis of and explanation for all the other things they count as rejecting – is just rejection of what God gives us full-stop. So maybe that’s the same as rejecting sanctifying grace, but it seems possible for them not to have an understanding of grace as such but still know that their nakedness was from God, their emotions were from God, etc. So when they reject those things (or anything else, if it’s in the ‘adding more suffering’ way, though they could properly reject sin itself not in that way and just insofar as sin is itself a rejection of God’s creation), they enact the very essence of sin, or something. Does that make sense?

 

[Vico]

Interesting again! I guess there are lots of ways of describing what Adam and Eve rejected, maybe? I suppose I like seeing @OneSheep’s proposal as playing with the idea that the fundamental rejection – sort of the basis of and explanation for all the other things they count as rejecting – is just rejection of what God gives us full-stop. So maybe that’s the same as rejecting sanctifying grace, but it seems possible for them not to have an understanding of grace as such but still know that their nakedness was from God, their emotions were from God, etc. So when they reject those things (or anything else, if it’s in the ‘adding more suffering’ way, though they could properly reject sin itself not in that way and just insofar as sin is itself a rejection of God’s creation), they enact the very essence of sin, or something. Does that make sense?

Genesis is clear that it was a rejection of trust in their Creator. That can be general. The justified have been given a power to remain justified if it is so willed.

 

[OneSheep]

So when they reject those things (or anything else, if it’s in the ‘adding more suffering’ way, though they could properly reject sin itself not in that way and just insofar as sin is itself a rejection of God’s creation ), they enact the very essence of sin, or something. Does that make sense?

Hi Agnimusca!

I’ve been doing some catching-up, and I mostly get the gist of your observations and suggestions. I think if I start on this one, I might come closer to understanding some of the past posts I found a little confusing.

Could you word that quote in a different way for those of us whose elevator does not go all the way up? (It’s the qualifiers that threw me off)

Thankee