Adam & Logic, Genesis 1, 2, 3, CCC teachings

[fhansen]

Interesting, I’m not sure how much more fulfillment and happiness they would have needed being in the garden, but maybe they did seek more from God and were impatient, much like we are now. There isn’t much difference between them and us anyway, except the direct communion with God that they enjoyed in their sinlessness.

Yes, when things don’t go our way we can get quite annoyed, thinking we’re being deprived, only to find out later sometimes that our way might not have been the best way after all-and that the other way was an unexpected blessing. It can take time for us to give up our agendas tho. Anyway, I’ve always thought there was a relationship there between us and A&E.

 

[wmw]

Knock out Adam which knocks out Original Sin which knocks out the need for a Divine Redeemer. Jesus is then a wonderful prophet among [human] prophets. So, what happens to chapter six, Gospel of John, the mystery of the Eucharist?

This seem quite a straw man representation of anyone’s argument here. No one that I read has proposed any of these knock outs. Is OS so fragile that proposing that Adam and Eve share its formation would knock Adam or OS or the Devine Redeemer out?

Adam would still be the principal person of OS just as Christ was the one Crucified. Eve must cooperate in evil just as Mary must say yes to the conception of Jesus. The female role is required, necessary, and fully part of the fall and redemption.

 

[grannymh]

From granny

Knock out Adam which knocks out Original Sin which knocks out the need for a Divine Redeemer. Jesus is then a wonderful prophet among [human] prophets. So, what happens to chapter six, Gospel of John, the mystery of the Eucharist?

This seem quite a straw man representation of anyone’s argument here. No one that I read has proposed any of these knock outs.

I do wonder why some Catholics fail to understand the relationship between Adam, the human creature, and the Divine Creator. That failure is probably the reason that many, not all, Catholics are so utterly confused about the first three chapters of Genesis. Being confused about those first three chapters, including Genesis 3: 15, is why “Knock out Adam which knocks out Original Sin which knocks out the need for a Divine Redeemer.” goes right past them.

As a kid, reading my first adult biography of Jesus Christ, I easily spotted the attack on the Divinity of Jesus Christ. Maybe it is because it is difficult for a modern Catholic to grasp the significance of the original relationship between Divinity and humanity that there are so many unusual interpretations.

I am at a loss as to how to bring CAF Catholics back into the real world of Catholic teachings which flow from the first three chapters of Genesis. Perhaps, one way would be to teach the significance of the State of Sanctifying Grace also known in the Garden as the State of Original Holiness.

Is OS so fragile that proposing that Adam and Eve share its formation would knock Adam or OS or the Devine Redeemer out?

First, in my statement at the top of this post, there is absolutely no mention of Eve. What is it that you wish to ask?

Adam would still be the principal person of OS just as Christ was the one Crucified. Eve must cooperate in evil just as Mary must say yes to the conception of Jesus. The female role is required, necessary, and fully part of the fall and redemption.

Pardon me. Adam can be considered the principal person because he is the only one who can commit the Original Sin as taught by the Catholic Church.

But – “Eve must cooperate in evil just as Mary must say yes to the conception of Jesus. The female role is required, necessary, and fully part of the fall and redemption.”-- is not exactly what the Catholic Church teaches. Both Eve and Mary freely choose their actions.

Both Adam and Eve freely committed a personal sin and “this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.” (CCC 404. Italics are in the text.) Adam’s personal sin is also known as the Original Sin because Adam is the Original human.

 

[wmw]

Adam’s domino is not toppled into a knock out of Original Sin. He does originate it! Eve is not forced to make sins, sin must be freely done to be sin, just as Mary’s yes is freely given; so, where do you get this false idea that “required, necessary, and fully part of the fall and redemption.” says anything about not being freely done?

If your going to totally ignore what I write and complain about some non-sense you thought up yourself what does it matter to write any more?

 

[wmw]

The Bible adds Eve. She is right there sinning and supporting the sin of Adam. She is not first because Adam lets her go first. Adam is not alone in the Original Sin because Eve is coxing him along and serving it up. We are all taught to pull it apart, to dissect it into distinct pieces, but that’s not how the Bible presents it. Reality is a swirl of He did nothing when he should have done something and she leaped into doing before she knew what she should be doing.

 

[grannymh]

Adam’s domino is not toppled into a knock out of Original Sin. He does originate it! Eve is not forced to make sins, sin must be freely done to be sin, just as Mary’s yes is freely given; so, where do you get this false idea that “required, necessary, and fully part of the fall and redemption.” says anything about not being freely done?

If your going to totally ignore what I write and complain about some non-sense you thought up yourself what does it matter to write any more?

Please read post 237, especially this part. “**Eve must cooperate in evil …”

 

[simpleas]

In my imagination the garden with the first couple didn’t need to have one or the other have to be the one that stopped the other sinning. Of course caring for one another sure, but in a peaceful holy garden, none is head of the other, only God is head. Sin doesn’t exist yet.
Both failed in this story to seek God, both are responsible, why can’t people see that?
If we say Adam was the head and should have stopped Eve because she didn’t really know what she was doing, then what does that make the first human female?

As said before both were needed for the fall, male and female, and male and female are needed for redemption. But in the redemption it is God that reconnects the human soul back to him through his son. Adam was not Divine, neither was Eve.

What was the connection with Adam and the Divine Jesus, Jesus was far superior to Adam, yet he came to serve, not be served, as the story seems to fall into the idea that woman was to be a servant to her husband for less of a better word.
This story has many interpretations, and has altered throughout the generations in how we imagine what exactly A&E did to their spiritual connection to the Divine, that lost the grace they enjoyed in the beginning.
The one main point of the story hasn’t chanced, disobedience of God’s word. Plain and simple, for both humans, as one.

Sorry for the ramble

 

[grannymh]

Perhaps the problem is that I have been reading CAF posts for a long time and thus have gained knowledge about what is happening in regard to a real Adam. I have been in the middle of “doctrinal” battles before the ban on evolution discussion. In one battle, a poster referred to Adam and Eve as granny’s magical mystery tour. Thus, I am very familiar with what it means to “knock out Adam.”

Apparently, I thought that all CAF members knew the details about people who do not accept the full reality of the first human, Adam. My apology for that assumption.

Obviously, not everyone here has come across all the attacks against Catholicism. That became evident when, in post 65, I presented this for discussion.
Obviously, there are many, not all, Catholics who consider the figurative Adam as part of an allegory. A newspaper article reports that a prominent Catholic gave the answer that we should look in the mirror.

What do you think about this answer?

"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.”

​

 

[grannymh]

In my imagination the garden with the first couple didn’t need to have one or the other have to be the one that stopped the other sinning. Of course caring for one another sure, but in a peaceful holy garden, none is head of the other, only God is head. Sin doesn’t exist yet.
Both failed in this story to seek God, both are responsible, why can’t people see that?
If we say Adam was the head and should have stopped Eve because she didn’t really know what she was doing, then what does that make the first human female?

As said before both were needed for the fall, male and female, and male and female are needed for redemption. But in the redemption it is God that reconnects the human soul back to him through his son. Adam was not Divine, neither was Eve.

What was the connection with Adam and the Divine Jesus, Jesus was far superior to Adam, yet he came to serve, not be served, as the story seems to fall into the idea that woman was to be a servant to her husband for less of a better word.
This story has many interpretations, and has altered throughout the generations in how we imagine what exactly A&E did to their spiritual connection to the Divine, that lost the grace they enjoyed in the beginning.
The one main point of the story hasn’t chanced, disobedience of God’s word. Plain and simple, for both humans, as one.

Sorry for the ramble

May I respectfully ask – Do you really want to know the answer to this question?

“What was the connection with Adam and the Divine Jesus, Jesus was far superior to Adam, yet he came to serve, not be served, as the story seems to fall into the idea that woman was to be a servant to her husband for less of a better word.”

 

[grannymh]

May I respectfully ask – Do you really want to know the answer to this question?
“What was the connection with Adam and the Divine Jesus, Jesus was far superior to Adam, yet he came to serve, not be served, as the story seems to fall into the idea that woman was to be a servant to her husband for less of a better word.”

There are actually many kinds of connections between Adam and the Divine Jesus. So you may find many different answers to your question.

The answwer I like is that Jesus took the place of Adam in repairing the shattered relationship between humanity and Divinity. I connect that to CCC 404-405; Genesis 2: 15-17;
and Genesis 3: 15.

 

[wmw]

Please read post 237, especially this part. “**Eve *must ***cooperate in evil …”

And I ment every word, but in the same way Mary must agree to be the Mother of God. They were free to not be involved but the results of their involvement make the situation we are in today. They include the hardships of the results of sin and the grace we gain through the incarnation. Life would be very different if either had bowed out. Trying to guess at that difference is total conjecture and not a fruitful discussion, but understanding the wholeness of the human race’s fall as one being male and female is.

Why then the focus on Adam as the one? Yes, part of the answer is that he is the one to whom God deligated more authority. Could it just be a question of age. Could Adam have been months old while Eve was only days old? I discount this as not such a good reason. Yet,I think there are many other possibilities to talk about, but this advisarial shout down style sidelines way too much.

 

[simpleas]

There are actually many kinds of connections between Adam and the Divine Jesus. So you may find many different answers to your question.

The answwer I like is that Jesus took the place of Adam in repairing the shattered relationship between humanity and Divinity. I connect that to CCC 404-405; Genesis 2: 15-17;
and Genesis 3: 15.

Thanks for your answer.

To me it doesn’t explain it really, but like you said there are many answers.

The CCC is limited, although there is much information, I am not entirely satisfied when I read it, I need more.

Thanks again

 

[grannymh]

And I ment every word, but in the same way Mary must agree to be the Mother of God. They were free to not be involved but the results of their involvement make the situation we are in today. They include the hardships of the results of sin and the grace we gain through the incarnation. Life would be very different if either had bowed out. Trying to guess at that difference is total conjecture and not a fruitful discussion, but understanding the wholeness of the human race’s fall as one being male and female is.

Why then the focus on Adam as the one? Yes, part of the answer is that he is the one to whom God deligated more authority. Could it just be a question of age. Could Adam have been months old while Eve was only days old? I discount this as not such a good reason. Yet,I think there are many other possibilities to talk about, but this advisarial shout down style sidelines way too much.

Your explanation of “must” is accepted.

 

[Richca]

Truly it is mysterious. I’ve read Roman’s Chapter 5 and hear in it many times that by one entered death for all, even the innocent, and by one man grace entered for all; so, the single man to single man parallel is not in question, but the reason this parallel was maintained is not revealed. A mystery in deed.

Well, Jesus Christ is the universal savior of mankind and the one mediator between God and man. St Paul parallels Jesus with the first human being, Adam, from whom the entire human race descended, even Eve his wife, who was created from his rib and side. Being the first human being created by God, Adam is thus as the head and representative of the human race. Now, Adam ate the forbidden fruit as did Eve so they both were guilty of sin. St Paul says “Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned.” St Paul sees original sin and death being passed on to all through Adam as Adam is the first human being and head of the human race. And this is what the Church teaches because this is what is in the inspired word of God.

But, we can’t forget the role Eve played in the first sin of our parents. Eve sinned first and she gave the forbidden fruit to Adam to eat which he took and ate against the commandment of God. And from these two first parents is the human race descended with a fallen nature. Our blessed Lady is the new Eve who in union with Christ, her divine Son, brought about the restoration and redemption of mankind, unlike Eve, who played a role in the fall of mankind as we read in Genesis as well as in Sirach " With a woman sin had a beginning, and because of her we all die" (25:24). St Paul, of course, is not unaware of the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis and their fall for he says in 1 Timothy 2:14-15: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.” We are all descended from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and they both transgressed the commandment of God. But, as we read in Romans 5: 12-21, St Paul sees Adam who is the first human being and the one from whom the entire human race is descended, as the principle offender in the first sin of our parents and the one from whom original sin is passed down to us, though Eve too sinned and she is the first mother of the human race. Again, it was Eve who sinned first and then gave the fruit to Adam to eat. Thus, God says to Adam “because you listened to the voice of your wife…”

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I just don’t think saying one sin was worst than the other.

God saying “you listened to the voice of your wife” rather than saying you listened to the serpent, God here shows that Adam listened to his wife, because it isn’t written that he heard or spoke to the serpent. God doesn’t even say you disobeyed my command that I gave only to you, not to the woman.

Yes God does apply the law at one point in scripture to Adam alone.
In the Greek (Gensis 3:11), God explicitly says “unless you (singular) ate of the fruit I told ‘you’ (singular) not to eat.”
In Genesis 3:13 God does NOT say “Why did you eat, woman?”
That law didn’t necessarily apply to her – so God never asks.
If the law only would happen if they both equally ate – God ought to have asked, “Why did you eat?”

But God doesn’t ask that. Rather God takes Adam’s claim that she gave him the fruit, and asks her why she did THAT. It’s Only Eve who is confused about eating or not eating herself; God never accuses her of eating nor does he care even after she admits it – God never says word one about the woman eating anything.

eg: Isn’t it OBVIOUS that no bible says “because you [Woman] ate… you will be punished.”

From this thread that’s all I keep reading, that the command was given to Adam only, Eve sinned first, then needed the man to sin too…of course she did

Because that’s all that can be proven from scripture. It’s uncertain in what way it applied to the woman or why. The CCC even says the sin was symbolic, and not a literal account.

What I find puzzling is if Eve committed a personal sin first, before she needed Adam to, to complete her quest, how did she do it alone?

I have no idea what you mean by those words.

She fell first so to speak, being deceived and all, yet there was no sin, no inclination to sin yet present in the garden. Sin comes into the garden after Adam sins?

THere was no mortal sin, so concupiscence is not required yet.
Venial sins do not destroy friendship with God – therefore, if Eve’s sin was venial for any reason – she would not have fallen.

You have a half truth here; sin came into the garden when the devil entered – long before Adam or Eve ate anything. Sin was always present in the world. However, Death, Concupiscence, and the ruptured friendship with God did not happen until Adam.
Eve’s eyes were NOT opened when she ate – her eyes were opened when Adam ate.

Anyway, I can’t help but think that both were equally responsible for sinning, the headship thing doesn’t really exist in my world, a part from Christ being the head, as he is the creator, and both male and female humans are made in his image.

God said that Adam was to be Lord over his wife Eve. That’s headship right there.
So, Adam and Eve aren’t part of your world. OK. But, that’s a dream world…
Everyone has people in authority over them. The entire Church is hierarchical.
Unless you’re really a protestant who pretends it isn’t…

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I think the point of the first few chapters of Genesis is divine revelation and not on some concept of patriarchal society. According to the word of God, the man Adam is the first human being created by God and then God created Eve, the woman, from the side of Adam. So the man says “This one shall be called woman, for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.” Adam, therefore, being the first human being, is the head of the earthly human race as all people are the descendants of Adam and Eve, our first parents. Jesus is the head of redeemed humanity and the true head of all humanity as St Paul says Adam was a type of Christ. Our Blessed Lady is the new Eve and the mother of all the living, that is, those who are spiritually alive with supernatural grace. As Eve played a role in the ruin of humanity, our Blessed Mother played a singular role in cooperation with her divine Son in the restoration and redemption of humanity.

:clapping: Well Said.

And we can be inspired by Mary’s yes, yet we do not say she was equal to Jesus in the act of salvation. We can be sorrowful over Eve’s part in the fall, but there is no reason I can discern to say she must be an equal partner in the fall of humanity, either.

Jesus came to die, to be outcast, to suffer and be REJECTED.

He didn’t have to avoid being incarnated as a woman to do those things. A woman would get all those things automatically in a “patriarchal” society… but God chose not come as a woman – but to undo the fall of Adam and Eve in a very symmetrical way.

Patriarchal human society arguments really don’t have any satisfying answers to why the bible is the way it is.

The answers have to be rooted in the being and desires of God himself.

 

[simpleas]

Yes God does apply the law at one point in scripture to Adam alone.
In the Greek (Gensis 3:11), God explicitly says “unless you (singular) ate of the fruit I told ‘you’ (singular) not to eat.”
In Genesis 3:13 God does NOT say “Why did you eat, woman?”
That law didn’t necessarily apply to her – so God never asks.
If the law only would happen if they both equally ate – God ought to have asked, “Why did you eat?”

But God doesn’t ask that. Rather God takes Adam’s claim that she gave him the fruit, and asks her why she did THAT. It’s Only Eve who is confused about eating or not eating herself; God never accuses her of eating nor does he care even after she admits it – God never says word one about the woman eating anything.

eg: Isn’t it OBVIOUS that no bible says “because you [Woman] ate… you will be punished.”

Because that’s all that can be proven from scripture. It’s uncertain in what way it applied to the woman or why. The CCC even says the sin was symbolic, and not a literal account.

I have no idea what you mean by those words.

THere was no mortal sin, so concupiscence is not required yet.
Venial sins do not destroy friendship with God – therefore, if Eve’s sin was venial for any reason – she would not have fallen.

You have a half truth here; sin came into the garden when the devil entered – long before Adam or Eve ate anything. Sin was always present in the world. However, Death, Concupiscence, and the ruptured friendship with God did not happen until Adam.
Eve’s eyes were NOT opened when she ate – her eyes were opened when Adam ate.

God said that Adam was to be Lord over his wife Eve. That’s headship right there.
So, Adam and Eve aren’t part of your world. OK. But, that’s a dream world…
Everyone has people in authority over them. The entire Church is hierarchical.
Unless you’re really a protestant who pretends it isn’t…

God asked the woman “what is this you have done?”
God punishes the woman for what she did, if he didn’t care he wouldn’t have.
Why punish the woman if she was (in your opinion) confused? The woman tells God exactly what she did.

THere was no mortal sin, so concupiscence is not required yet.
Venial sins do not destroy friendship with God – therefore, if Eve’s sin was venial for any reason – she would not have fallen.

She ate from the tree that would cause mortal sin.

I never knew they could commit venial sin before eating from the tree, they had supernatural grace, which was lost after eating…

God said that Adam was to be Lord over his wife Eve. That’s headship right there.
So, Adam and Eve aren’t part of your world. OK. But, that’s a dream world…
Everyone has people in authority over them. The entire Church is hierarchical.
Unless you’re really a protestant who pretends it isn’t…

You are referring to Gen 3 :16. Yes God punishes Eve with child pain and yearning for her husband, yet the husband will lord it over you.
Doesn’t sound like headship, more like domination, which I don’t believe God meant it ever to be, nor stay that way. Woman do not refuse pain control during birth in the belief that it’s what God wants…

Yep maybe it’s the dream world of the garden of eden we are told exist before sin, sounds really dreamy.

Yep people are always in Authority over nations, not always the correct ones, and since I live in a nation that has male and female hierarchy , the whole man (male only) in headship is very out dated.

Of course I must be something other than Catholic because I question and ponder my faith.

 

[grannymh]

Yes God does apply the law at one point in scripture to Adam alone.

In reply to this interesting description, I have put the questionable word in bold --just in case I do not know what alone means.
“Yes God does apply the law at one point in scripture to Adam alone.”
I do not mean to be rude. However, in my geographical location “alone” means exclusive of anyone or anything else, that is, separate from others.

So what are we? Miscellaneous decomposing anatomies in a desert of darkness? What is meant by descending from Adam? Or is Adam a figure of something and we are …? Miscellaneous blood and guts waiting to die?

 

[grannymh]

In reply to this interesting description, I have put the questionable word in bold --just in case I do not know what alone means.
“Yes God does apply the law at one point in scripture to Adam alone.”
I do not mean to be rude. However, in my geographical location “alone” means exclusive of anyone or anything else, that is, separate from others.

So what are we? Miscellaneous decomposing anatomies in a desert of darkness? What is meant by descending from Adam? Or is Adam a figure of something and we are …? Miscellaneous blood and guts waiting to die?

To our gentle readers,

What is happening on this important thread is that there has been so many personal interpretations of the Adam story (allowed on this free speech public message board) that the interpretations have slipped away from actual CCC teachings and at times away from Genesis, first three chapters, teachings.

Post 249, above, by Richca has a good summary of actual Catholic teachings in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition and expressed in the first three chapters of Genesis. I hope that this thread can follow Richca’s lead.

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect – including Adam.

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

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

 

[wmw]

Symbolism:
What does it mean for the first three chapters of Genesis to be symbolic? The Catholic Encyclopedia provided this statement:

However literal may be our interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis, we cannot fail to recognize the symbolic element which pervades them. When we read for example how “God created man to his own image”, or how He “formed man of the slime of the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life”, we can hardly doubt that it was upon the underlying moral lesson rather than upon the material fact suggested by the words that the attention of the writer was concentrated.

See how the teaching here leaves the question of literal description of events vs non-literal symbolic parable as an open one. One that is not determinant in being Catholic or not.

Catholic Teaching:
Catholic teaching doesn’t dictate if Genesis need be taken as literal actions or not. The purpose of teaching is to tell what is required. The best list I’ve seen of Catholic Teaching for these three chapters is this list provided by user “buffalo” many moons ago:

The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)
Man consists of two essential parts–a material body and a spiritual soul. (De fide.)
The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body. (De fide.)
Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De fide.)
Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. (Sent. Certa.)
A creature has the capacity to receive supernatural gifts. (Sent. communis.)
The Supernatural presupposes Nature. (Sent communis.)
God has conferred on man a supernatural Destiny. (De fide.)
Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with:
Sanctifying grace. (De fide.)
The donum rectitudinis or integritatis in the narrower sense, i.e., the freedom from irregular desire. (Sent. fidei proxima.)
The donum immortalitatis, i.e.,bodily immortality. (De fide.)
The donum impassibilitatis, i.e., the freedom from suffering. (Sent. communis.)
The donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.)
Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity. (Sent. certa.)
Our first parents in paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment. (De fide.)
Through the sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God. (De fide.)
Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil. (De fide.) D788.
Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent. (De fide.)
Original Sin consists in the deprivation of grace caused by the free act of sin committed by the head of the race. (Sent. communis.)
Original sin is transmitted by natural generation. (De fide.)
In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity. (De fide in regard to Sanctifying Grace and the Donum Immortalitatus. D788 et seq.)
Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)

Therefore, we can be assured that the true Catholic faith teaches that Original Sin is Adam’s sin, but that Eve’s role in its coming about has wide breath in the possible belief without fear of being considered non-Catholic. Also, note the wide use of “First Parents” where the Church does not want to force too much separation between them in the teaching from such a complicated sequence as the Bible presents.

Yet, that is not the end of the moral lesions that we can also believe from the story. We must be careful not to invent error or to contradict the church’s teachings. The latter seems very clear, but it is in inventing error or continuing other’s previously made errors that are difficult.

The belief that the Genesis story instantiates a patriarchal society is one example of a belief that is beyond Catholic Teaching. Therefore, if it is not in conflict with Catholic teaching it cannot be a grounds for calling someone non-Catholic in their belief.

It can mean someone is in error and we can argue this all within the house of being Catholic. Even if it seems that someone is saying something contrary to a Church teaching I’d rather not immediately toss them to the curb, but do try to correct them very gently though directly by quoting the teaching they are breaking.