Adam, Eve, and Satan in the Garden

[grannymh]

Are you insinuating that the story of Adam is a literal truth as recorded in the Bible? Are you not aware that the Church does not teach that the early chapters of Genesis to be a literal primordial history but an allegorical explanation as to the role of God as creator and man’s place in His creation? Your list reads like something from the Baltimore Catechism; not very insightful and far too general and unspecific to be of much help.

In that case, please read for yourself paragraphs 355-421 of the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. Be sure to first read paragraphs 18-22, Practical Directions for Using This Catechism.

usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

 

[Tim_D]

In that case, please read for yourself paragraphs 355-421 of the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. Be sure to first read paragraphs 18-22, Practical Directions for Using This Catechism.

usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

How to read the account of the Fall
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.

404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man.”293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand…Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” —** a state and not an act.**

Note the bolded. I believe that I have said as much.

 

[Tim_D]

"The matter of the historicity of the some parts of the Bible, especially the first eleven chapters of Genesis, is complicated.** Even accepting the basic premise that the Bible is free from all error**, since ultimately God is the Author and cannot deceive, is not to insist that all parts of the Bible are intended to be read without a consideration of the genre or type of writing. Some parts of the Bible, especially some descriptions in Genesis,** may not have been intended by God as strictly historical works, as we judge historical truth. For instance, a Catholic can in good conscience believe that the creation of the world may not have happened literally in the six days, precisely as described…It is the nature of the text itself which raises the issue and leads us to examine the content the sacred author intended to convey by knowing the literary mode by which he did it. For instance, the nature of poetry is far different from prose, and a narrative with mythical images in it differs from a strictly literal narrative.
**
With regards to Adam and Eve and their circumstances, it is important to make distinctions with regard to the revealed truth within the various details. Regardless of how God created them, there was a first set of parents who were individually endowed with a soul which exceeded anything physical evolution could produce. The Garden of Eden, if not literal, would certainly represent a world which had a beauty and harmony to it which was lost to man and woman by sin. And the tree, if not literal, can represent a command of God to man which was ignored and was the original sin. Whether it was a matter of eating a forbidden fruit or symbolically represents some other act by which our first parents rejected God can be debated, but the basic reality is the same."

ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage_print.asp?number=359658&language=en

 

[Tim_D]

"Similar debates between science and religion have gone on for a long time, and the Catholic Church has worked through those disputes for centuries, **according to Franciscan Father Michael D. Guinan, professor of Old Testament, Semitic languages and biblical spirituality at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.
**
“The 1993 instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission *on ‘The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church’ calls the historical-critical method ‘essential’ and ***rejects explicitly a fundamentalist reading of Scripture.” **

**When such an approach is applied to the Bible, he said, “Catholic scholars, along with mainstream Protestant scholars, see in the primal stories of Genesis not literal history but symbolic, metaphoric stories which express basic truths about the human condition and humans. **The unity of the human race (and all of creation for that matter) derives theologically from the fact that all things and people are created in Christ and for Christ. Christology is at the center, not biology.”

When such an approach is followed, he said, **Adam and Eve are not seen as historical people, but as important figures in stories that contain key lessons about the relationships of humans and their Creator. **

*The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “the account of the fall in Genesis … uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. 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.”

In that language, Father Guinan detects a straddling of the issue*.** “It recognizes that Genesis is figurative language**,” he pointed out, “but it also wants to hold to historicity. Unfortunately, you can’t really have both. The catechism is clearly not the place to argue theological discussions, so whoever wrote it decided, as it were, to have it both ways.”

In an article about the first couple,** Father Guinan wrote that Catholics who ask, “Were there an Adam and Eve?” would be better off asking another question: “Are there an Adam and Eve?”**

The answer, he said, “is a definite ‘yes.’ We find them when we look in the mirror. We are Adam, and we are Eve. … The man and woman of Genesis … are intended to represent an Everyman and Everywoman. They are paradigms, figurative equivalents, of human conduct in the face of temptation, not lessons in biology or history. The Bible is teaching religion, not science or literalistic history.”

catholicreview.org/article/work/catholic-church-has-evolving-answer-on-reality-of-adam-and-eve

 

[grannymh]

,** Father Guinan wrote that Catholics who ask, “Were there an Adam and Eve?” would be better off asking another question: “Are there an Adam and Eve?”**

The answer, he said, “is a definite ‘yes.’ We find them when we look in the mirror. We are Adam, and we are Eve. … The man and woman of Genesis … are intended to represent an Everyman and Everywoman. They are paradigms, figurative equivalents, of human conduct in the face of temptation, not lessons in biology or history. The Bible is teaching religion, not science or literalistic history.”

catholicreview.org/article/work/catholic-church-has-evolving-answer-on-reality-of-adam-and-eve

Not in my mirror.

I prefer the actual teaching of the Catholic Church over a personal rant.

 

[Tim_D]

Not in my mirror.

I prefer the actual teaching of the Catholic Church over a personal rant.

404 * The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man*.”293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice.

"And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is….**a state and not an act."
**

What Father Guinan said is in perfect accord with what the Church teaches according to the sources that you provided! This is not a “personal rant” but the teaching of the Church.

 

[Tim_D]

First, Original Sin (often referred to as the Fall) is an action and not a defect. It is not a tendency towards our own will instead of God’s, it is a deliberate action by a human being.

404 *The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man.”293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice.

“And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is…a state and not an act.”*

Wrong again.

 

[grannymh]

404 The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man.”293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice.

“And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is…a state and not an act.”

Wrong again.

Please read all the words in CCC 404. It is bad manners to omit pertinent statements.

 

[grannymh]

404 The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man.”293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice.

"And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is….a state and not an act."

What Father Guinan said is in perfect accord with what the Church teaches according to the sources that you provided! This is not a “personal rant” but the teaching of the Church.

Please read all the words in CCC 404. It is bad manners to omit pertinent statements.

 

[Tim_D]

Please read all the words in CCC 404. It is bad manners to omit pertinent statements.

It is also bad manners to avoid admitting when you are wrong.

 

[simpleas]

Original sin was an act to begin with, Adam and Eve’s own act.

We are born in the state of original sin, but not an act, because we didn’t cause sin, Adam and Eve did in their act.

That’s how I understand it.

404 The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man.”293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice.

“And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is…a state and not an act.”

 

[grannymh]

Original sin was an act to begin with, Adam and Eve’s own act.

We are born in the state of original sin, but not an act, because we didn’t cause sin, Adam and Eve did in their act.

That’s how I understand it.

 

[grannymh]

From the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

**CCC 404 **How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By **yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.

CCC **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. 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.

 

[Tim_D]

So, you agree with simpleas’ post but disagree with mine when we both said the exact same thing, echoed in the catechism that says that original sin is not an action but a “state.”

 

[Tim_D]

From the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

CCC 404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By **yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.

CCC **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. 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.

I know this post well since I used it to refute those things that you erroneously stated. As Father Guien stated, recognizing that the catechism, a resource originally aimed at bishops and priests for instructing the faithful and certainly not something that is authoritative or, dare I say, *infallible *in its statements of the Catholic faith…

"In that language, Father Guinan detects a straddling of the issue. **“It recognizes that Genesis is figurative language,” **he pointed out, “but it also wants to hold to historicity. Unfortunately, you can’t really have both. The catechism is clearly not the place to argue theological discussions, so whoever wrote it decided, as it were, to have it both ways.”

There exist the same problem with the Catechism’s stance on capital punishment in the 1st edition and the changes made in the 2nd edition. It was enough of a confusion that then Cardinal Ratzinger had to state that one was free to disagree with the position and still be in good standing.

 

[grannymh]

So, you agree with simpleas’ post but disagree with mine when we both said the exact same thing, echoed in the catechism that says that original sin is not an action but a “state.”

The difficulty for some, not all, people is that the words “Original Sin” can be properly used to describe both the action of Adam and the subsequent transmission of human nature. That is precisely why we turn to the doctrines of the Catholic Church on Adam and Original Sin, and Human Nature, and the Goal of Our Life.

I am confident that our readers are smart enough to read all the words, including the ones in bold, which appear in the two CCC paragraphs in post 91.

 

[simpleas]

If I may…

I think it was this line from post #77 that caused the misunderstanding.

First, Original Sin (often referred to as the Fall) is an action and not a defect. It is not a tendency towards our own will instead of God’s, it is a deliberate action by a human being.

That human being Adam, not his off spring.

I maybe wrong about the misunderstanding, so ignore this post if so.

 

[Dick_Fischer]

CCC 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. 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.

“Mankind” has a history that extends well beyond a million years. (Refer to any text book on paleoanthropology). If Genesis has its facts right, Adam lived in the Neolithic Period no earlier than about 10,000 years ago. So the idea that “a deed that took place at the beginning of human history” was instigated by our man, “Adam” is frankly indefensible. Adam “in the image of God” was God’s representative on earth, a role he failed to fulfill and it fell to Christ. Adam, who lived about 7,000 years ago, was the progenitor of the Semitic race, not the human race. My book, *Historical Genesis from Adam to Abraham *covers that.

 

[Tim_D]

You cite your own work as evidence to your statement???

 

[Dick_Fischer]

It’s my work with over 600 references to other authors compiled over 30 years of research in the Library of Congress. But you can read any text book on anthropology or paleoanthropology and compare it with Genesis 4:20-22 and draw your own conclusions.