Adam and Eve, Commandments and Law

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Eric_Hyom

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How were the moral laws applied to Adam and Eve? Did Adam have true freedom to do anything, could he have had an argument with Eve and attempt to kill her before the fall?
Or was the only sin open to them eating from the tree of good and evil?

Was there a law of thou shall not kill before the time of Moses? For example when Cain killed Abel was he breaking any law?

In the spirit of searching

Eric
 
Such questions presume more about this story than is warranted by its literary form. The story of the man and the woman in the garden is a myth. It is an imaginative story that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond our comprehension. The reality being explored is “Why do human beings suffer?” Given the beliefs that God is all loving and all powerful, that God made humans human beings in God’s own image, and that we are very good, why do we suffer? You would think God would have created things in an order that didn’t involve suffering. How can our belief that God is all loving and all powerful be made compatible with our experience of suffering?

The story does not date back to the beginning of time. The author is not contemporary whith the dawn of creation. This is a very sophisticated story. At the dawn of civilization society did not have a highly sophisticated view of marriage as expressed in Genesis 2:24. Neither farming nor the establishment of towns was an early development in prehistoric life, yet the fourth chapter of Genesis reports that Cain, who tilled the soil, married and built a town, all while separated from the family of his birth. This story, like the story in which God creates the world in a workweek, reflects a much more highly sophisticated society than would a story about the actual first human beings on the face of the earth. However, when we understand the literary form of the story, questions that presume historicity appear irrelevant. The text will simply not support a claim of historicity.
 
In 1909 Pope Pius X approved decisions of the first Pontifical Biblical Commission concerning the historical character of the first three chapters of Genesis.

Stated in a positive form, the decree teaches that Catholics may not bring into question the literal and historical meaning of Genesis 1-3, where those chapters touch upon the fundamental or foundational teachings of the Christian religion, including (inter alia):
(a) the creation of all things wrought by God at the beginning of time;
(b) the special creation of man;
(c) the formation of the first woman from man;
(d) the unity or oneness of the human race;
(e) the original happiness of our first parents in the state of justice, integrity and immortality.
(f) the promise of a future redeemer
(g) the fall of innocence of our first parents; Adam and Eve
(h) the unity of the human race; common parents for all
(i) the divine command on man to prove his obedience

Being created pure and completely innocent Adam and Eve did not have an inclination or even understanding of murder. It was through their temptation and fall to sin that they learned of such things. God gave them at creation the gift of life without death. Instead, the followed the temptations of the ‘serpent’ instead of the command of God.

God certainly had laws but human freewill got in the way. Eve was promised a seed that would conquer the ‘serpent’ and it is obvious that Cain was not that seed, nor was Able (who was righteous but murdered by his brother). It is through Seth, the third and righteous son who we may trace the lineage to Christ. God needed Moses to help Him set everyone straight (or at least try to).

Kelly
 
patg said:
Such questions presume more about this story than is warranted by its literary form. The story of the man and the woman in the garden is a myth. It is an imaginative story that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond our comprehension.
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These statements are not in line with Church teaching. Your “opinion” is completely unfounded.
 
1ke said:
These statements are not in line with Church teaching. Your “opinion” is completely unfounded.
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These statements are directly in line with Church teaching. Your “opinion” is completely unfounded.

And, they are not my opinion at all but almost direct quotes from the book *“And God Said What?” *by Margaret Ralph (Paulist Press) which is used as the textbook in many Catholic adult education classes. And it is fully in line with the recommendations of Dei Verbum.
 
Eric_Hyom said:
How were the moral laws applied to Adam and Eve? Did Adam have true freedom to do anything, could he have had an argument with Eve and attempt to kill her before the fall?
Or was the only sin open to them eating from the tree of good and evil?

Was there a law of thou shall not kill before the time of Moses? For example when Cain killed Abel was he breaking any law?

In the spirit of searching

Eric
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yes the ten commandments as the bible says many times are laws written on the human heart, binding on all humans at all times and places. The story of Cain and Abel proves it, as do the stories of all the bad consequences that occurred in humanity due to sins against the commandment in the time before Moses–the flood, tower of babel, the continual troubles in Jewish families and tribes due to murder, incest, adultery, stealing etc.
 
patg said:
These statements are directly in line with Church teaching. Your “opinion” is completely unfounded.

And, they are not my opinion at all but almost direct quotes from the book *“And God Said What?” *by Margaret Ralph (Paulist Press) which is used as the textbook in many Catholic adult education classes. And it is fully in line with the recommendations of Dei Verbum.
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DEI VERBUM
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
Does not claim that The creation story was a MYTH and for that matter you could claim that the Creation story is also in line with DEI VERBUM. However it does leave room for interpretation. What is more important than what happened is that it DID happen.
 
Robo40 said:
DEI VERBUM
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
Does not claim that The creation story was a MYTH and for that matter you could claim that the Creation story is also in line with DEI VERBUM. However it does leave room for interpretation. What is more important than what happened is that it DID happen.
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Well, you are welcome to that opinion. However, since the literary form is so clearly a symbolic myth, I am glad that the Church does not require us to believe otherwise. Dei Verbum clearly says:

However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.

To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms.” For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture.

A symbolic myth is certainly an “other form of discourse” and is certainly not an attempt at describing history. There is no basis for believing it DID happen (other than a misunderstanding of the form of the story).
 
I agree with Patg,

And quite honestly, I feel that the story loses much of its potency if viewed as history.
 
Eric_Hyom said:
How were the moral laws applied to Adam and Eve? Did Adam have true freedom to do anything, could he have had an argument with Eve and attempt to kill her before the fall?
Or was the only sin open to them eating from the tree of good and evil?

Was there a law of thou shall not kill before the time of Moses? For example when Cain killed Abel was he breaking any law?

In the spirit of searching

Eric
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The Ten Words come from the heart of God. God is Truth and you will not lie.

God is LIFE and you will not murder. Choose LIFE and not death.

God is LOVE and you will not hate.

The Ten Words were revealed to Adam and Mose. Moses went up Thorn Mountain. Adam and Eve had Life’s Tree. Both revealed God’s heart.

We now have the Ten Words in One, the Incarnate Word.

We are now children of God. We have new hearts and God’s love is being poured into our new hearts.

I think modern English is better for me. You will not murder. I have a difficult time with it, that is, You shall not murder. The you will not murder clearly teaches that it is a promise. God promises us: If you choose life (which is God and God is Love), you will not, and cannot murder. We have new hearts and new selves. We are new creations. His love is being poured into our hearts all of the time.

We are commanded to choose life. When we choose life we will not murder because God is life and He is love.
:tiphat: 😃 😃
 
CCC (as presented at scborromeo.org):
390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.265
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This Rock, from 2004:
The writings of the Fathers…There was wide variation of opinion on how long creation took. Some said only a few days; others argued for a much longer, indefinite period. Those who took the latter view appealed to the fact that “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8; cf. Ps. 90:4); that light was created on the first day, but the sun was not created until the fourth day (cf. Gen. 1:3, 16); and that Adam was told he would die the same “day” as he ate of the tree, yet he lived to be 930 years old (cf. Gen. 2:17; 5:5).
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Catholics are at liberty to believe that creation took a few days or a much longer period, according to how they see the evidence, and subject to any future judgment of the Church (cf. Humani Generis 36–37). They need not be hostile to modern cosmology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “many scientific studies . . . have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms, and the appearance of man. These studies invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator” (CCC 283). Still, science has its limits (cf. ibid., 284, 2293–4).
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Humani Generis, from the Vatican website:
  1. For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that…research and discussions…take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God…Some however…act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts…
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  1. …[T]he first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense…the same chapters, (the Letter points out), in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also **give a *popular ***description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.
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  1. Therefore, whatever of the popular narrations have been inserted into the Sacred Scriptures **must in no way be considered on a par with myths or other such things, which are more the product of an extravagant imagination **than of that striving for truth and simplicity which in the Sacred Books, also of the Old Testament, is so apparent that our ancient sacred writers must be admitted to be clearly superior to the ancient profane writers.
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So, from all this we can deduce:
  1. The Church acknowledges the presence of figurative language in the Creation stories (CCC).
  2. The Church recognizes the incorporation of culturally popular story elements into the Creation accounts (Humani Generis)
  3. The Church does not approve of comparing the Creation stories to “myths”, in the classical sense (i.e., those of the pagan ancient Greeks and Romans).
  4. The Church teaches that, although the Creation stories are not written as typical histories, they nonetheless report real events.
  5. The Church accepts that humans may have developed (by God’s will, of course) from lesser lifeforms, but that God is immediately and directly responsible for the creation of each human soul.
  6. The Church views science as a gateway to learning the true operations of our universe and thereby knowing more of the awesome nature of God’s creation.
Peace,
Dante
 
Wow, I got so wrapped up in the literal/figurative argument that I didn’t even notice that I hijacked this thread – my apologies!

Peace,
Dante
 
Greetings and peace be with you all, and thanks for all your (name removed by moderator)ut,

Sadly the story of Adam and Eve seems to leave out so much detail as to how they existed and what they did from day to day. Most societies have some kind of regulations of do’s and don’ts, but we seem to have a very sparse understanding about our first ancestors.

In a way I am trying to understand what God might call a perfect existence for Adam and Eve, was it to obey the Ten Commandments written in their hearts. The commandment of thou shall not kill might have been premature if they were immortal, just a thought. The commandments also seem to suggest the knowledge between good and evil.

In the spirit of searching

Eric
 
Eric,

It seems to me that the perfect existence for Adam and Eve, such as they were, would’ve been obedience to God’s commandment, and therefore avoid bringing the curse of Original Sin on themselves and their descendants. The Church teaches that
  1. There were, somehow, and Adam and Eve.
  2. They sinned, somehow, by direct and voluntary disobedience.
  3. This sin is passed on to all of us, because we are the descendants of Adam and Eve.
  4. That this understanding does not contradict things we know to be true about our physical universe, and does not preclude the possibility that some form of evolution is possible in human history.
Given that the Ten Commandments are “written on our hearts”, it is safe to assume that the natural law was something to which Adam and Eve were held accountable in their Original Sin.

Given that, it seems that all of the Commandments would’ve been effective. Remember: “Thou shalt not kill” doesn’t just mean “Don’t cause someone’s heart to stop beating and their brain to cease neurological function”.

In fact, if committing the first sin would end human immortality, does that not violate the saem commandment?

Peace,
Dante
 
Eric_Hyom said:
How were the moral laws applied to Adam and Eve? Did Adam have true freedom to do anything, could he have had an argument with Eve and attempt to kill her before the fall?
Or was the only sin open to them eating from the tree of good and evil?

Was there a law of thou shall not kill before the time of Moses? For example when Cain killed Abel was he breaking any law?

In the spirit of searching

Eric
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Natural law.
 
Greetings and peace be with you Dante;
Given that the Ten Commandments are “written on riour hearts”, it is safe to assume that the natural law was something to which Adam and Eve were held accountable in their Original Sin.
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Sorry to appear dumb but what is natural law?

When you say the Ten Commandments are written in our hearts, I can’t ever remember having any thoughts about them as a child. But I do remember having a strange feeling hearing the greatest commandments as a child, they seemed somehow familiar.

In the spirit of searching.

Eric
 
Greetings and peace be with you all,

Just some thoughts going through my mind, could ‘Natural Law’ be anything to do wioth the greatest commandments?

In the spirit of searching

Eric
 
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