Adam & Logic

[fhansen]

Genesis 3 records several reasons:

"But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die.”

“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

" the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

“and that it was a delight to the eyes,”

“and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.”

We know the fruit seemed desirable to A&E. Any idea why they didn’t listen to Him regarding it?

Any thoughts at all as to why man was exiled into this particular world rather than, perhaps being annilihated for disobedience? Is there a purpose? For example, does humanity, via the Old Covenant God established with His chosen people, learn anything of value?

 

[grannymh]

Genesis 3 records several reasons:

"But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die.”

“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

" the woman saw that the tree was good for food,

“and that it was a delight to the eyes,”

“and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.”

:doh2:
:blushing: I have gone over Satan’s temptation 1,537 times and I only saw “be like God” and “wisdom” as the temptations. Me, who lived in the era of “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

Thank you.

 

[Aloysium]

I’m not sure. The self-assertion referred to here is what’s called the “pride of life” by St John in his second letter, verse 2:16, where he also identifies the other two of the three-fold concupiscence. Pride or self-assertion manifests itself in our world regularly to the extent that we’re arrogant, self-righteous, manipulative, controlling, self-seeking, unloving, boastful, etc, really the opposite of the qualities used to describe love in 1 Cor 13 incidentally. Anyway, the three traits of triple concupiscence are considered to be “inordinate desires” resulting in our loss of control over otherwise “ordinate” desires, a loss of control which itself resulted from disobedience of God as man rejected being subjugated to Him.

Just to keep on track with this thread I am going to relate this to granny’s question:

What would be the problems associated with axiom 3 (God as Creator interacts personally with each individual human.)?

We have been blessed with different capacities, understandings, and knowledge.
Given this fact, I find it remarkable that people agree as much as they do.
It makes sense to me to say that God communicates with us through where we are in relation to Him and based on our understanding of the world.
There then arises a problem that it can be easier to stray from the truth when we have different perspectives on reality.
Things were easier pre-Vatican Council II when we were basically indoctrinated to repeat word for word what was in the Baltimore Catechism. This was a reaction to the schism created in God’s Holy Church by protestantism. While it made dogma clear to kids, it was IMHO less relevant to people.
I hear echoes from the past (not that I disagree) when I read:

I will not accept the weird speculations about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which lead to the eventual denial of Original Sin and attacks on God’s love.

The “weirdness” may actually relate to that person’s relationship with God: a very different world view and the particular issues they have to confront on their way to become more loving people, closer to God. As long as it conforms to what has been revealed, it does not matter to me how idiosyncratic a person’s understanding is. I have to bear in mind that I have limited understanding and that the person’s view may be divinely inspired after all.

Again, regarding the post quoted above:

Gen 3:5 God knows in fact that the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.’

It sounds to me that the temptation does appeal to pride, arrogance, self-assertion. Then Satan was needed to draw it out; we now merrily do so out of our own volition.
It makes sense to say that disobedience leads to a loss of control; if we don’t obey God, we will not obey our reason.
A lack of trust in God compounds the problem because we doubt what is good for us and become more vulnerable to our lies.
The choice itself, brought death upon us, as we were forewarned.

 

[fhansen]

Just to keep on track with this thread I am going to relate this to granny’s question:

We have been blessed with different capacities, understandings, and knowledge.
Given this fact, I find it remarkable that people agree as much as they do.
It makes sense to me to say that God communicates with us through where we are in relation to Him and based on our understanding of the world.
There then arises a problem that it can be easier to stray from the truth when we have different perspectives on reality.
Things were easier pre-Vatican Council II when we were basically indoctrinated to repeat word for word what was in the Baltimore Catechism. This was a reaction to the schism created in God’s Holy Church by protestantism. While it made dogma clear to kids, it was IMHO less relevant to people.

This is well-stated. Being old enough to be a pre-Vat II Catholic as well, and having come to cherish Vat II even as early on I opposed the excesses that seemed to blossom from it by overzealous types pushing their own agendas, it seems to me that it’s one thing to quote scripture and the catechism, and another thing altogether to have actually gained understanding from their teachings.

 

[fhansen]

Man’s purpose here is to learn of his need for God- something Adam obviously didn’t get.

 

[simpleas]

Man’s purpose here is to learn of his need for God- something Adam obviously didn’t get.

When you say this (just so I understand where you are coming from) do you mean Adam didn’t know God, he was the “dumb Adam” we often hear some people refer to him. OR
Adam had as good a knowledge of God as we have now, but some of us still don’t realise we need God, preferring to do or at least think we do all we want by ourselves?

Some thoughts…

Yesterday morning on a tv show here in the UK, the discussion was about religion, one person in the audience made a comment about how we are told to believe in a garden with a talking snake, and a woman and man eating an apple…

We don’t take the story literally,(only the fact of two first people) but some people do…we fail sometimes to read between the lines, that its just a story to explain a bigger picture. The genesis writer was from a different time, this was how best he could describe how man fell.
Like we know Genesis isn’t a book on science, its a book on spirituality.

 

[grannymh]

The “weirdness” may actually relate to that person’s relationship with God: a very different world view and the particular issues they have to confront on their way to become more loving people, closer to God.

Regarding my statement in post 772
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11687408&postcount=772
“I will not accept the weird speculations about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which lead to the eventual denial of Original Sin and attacks on God’s love.”

Every CAF post I have read contained one or both two basic positions regarding that tree, neither of which related to Adam’s relationship with God.

The first position is that Adam’s human nature was defective in some way. This reduces Adam’s responsibility. Subsequently, Original Sin can be reduced in importance to a symbol of the bad things in the world. The second position demanded (kind of a solution to Adam’s ignorant nature) that Adam eat the tree’s fruit before he could know how to sin. Often the two positions were combined; for example, Adam’s innocent nature had to eat “evil” first before he could commit the Original Sin. In both positions, Catholic teaching regarding human nature is discarded.

For some people, it was easier to skip the tree and simply deny Original Sin. No Original Sin means no need for the Sacrament of Baptism and no need for a Divine Savior. Of course, Jesus, the human prophet among human prophets, was good for society.

There is one way that we should consider Adam’s relationship with God and that way is an universal objective truth that is not affected by different world views and various issues of individuals. This objective truth was established the moment God created Adam and it has not changed to this day and it will not change after we die. This objective truth is for all people with no exceptions.

This universal objective truth is
“God created man in His image and established him in His friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God.” (CCC, 396; CCC, 1730)

 

[fhansen]

When you say this (just so I understand where you are coming from) do you mean Adam didn’t know God, he was the “dumb Adam” we often hear some people refer to him. OR
Adam had as good a knowledge of God as we have now, but some of us still don’t realise we need God, preferring to do or at least think we do all we want by ourselves?

I mean that even though Adam knew God and His will in a more direct and immediate way than ourselves, and was very possibly more gifted in terms of intelligence and definitely more so in terms of self-control, he still failed to recognize the value of God and His will.

I haven’t heard about a “dumb Adam”- I always believed him to be superior to ourselves in many ways, except, perhaps, his will, which was no better directed than our own apparently.

 

[fhansen]

Adam was perfect in his created humanness. He was perfectly man, no more, no less, different from present-day humans by virtue of being in possession of a few extra gifts. He wasn’t defective or flawed. He was intelligent and informed. But he was still limited, imperfect relative to God. So to speculate a bit I’ll propose this simple solution to the question of why Adam sinned: The limitations inherent in created beings, spoken of in paragraph 396 of the Catechism, limitations which Adam failed to “freely recognize and respect with trust”, are the very limitations that made Adam’s Fall possible. The creaturely limitations that he refused to acknowledge are the same limitations that allowed for his failure to acknowledge them. He lacked, IOW, the perfect wisdom of God.

Adam was a human being who was informed of God’s will…not a god-man. And though he “walked with” God, knowing Him in a more immediate way than we do now, he didn’t possess the Beatific Vision, he didn’t know God in the way God ultimately desires us to, in the way He leaves as optional, both for Adam and ourselves; He leaves us that choice, the choice to trust that He has something better for us, or the choice to turn to our own way. Had he eaten from the Tree of Life instead, Adam would’ve partaken in this more intimate relationship with God, possessing or growing in the knowledge God desired for us.

If we maintain that Adam was perfect but still able to commit an imperfect act then God would be responsible for Adam’s sin; God would be the cause of evil since his perfect creation would’ve failed in spite of its God-given “perfection”. Also, if we say that Adam was perfect from the beginning we’d be denying the Catholic teaching that God created His universe in a “state of journeying to perfection”: a process. Adam was sufficiently knowledgeable to be held accountable for his actions, but he wasn’t “irredeemably certain” of himself in his error-he was still ultimately moldable by the divine Potter Who seeks to bring all creation into alignment with His will, without force or coercion. We’re* all *Adam in that sense.

 

[simpleas]

I mean that even though Adam knew God and His will in a more direct and immediate way than ourselves, and was very possibly more gifted in terms of intelligence and definitely more so in terms of self-control, he still failed to recognize the value of God and His will.

I haven’t heard about a “dumb Adam”- I always believed him to be superior to ourselves in many ways, except, perhaps, his will, which was no better directed than our own apparently.

Thanks.
I never heard of the “dumb Adam” before I came on CAF!

Let me say I respect your opinion, I think we can read the Genesis account/ CCC and come up various ways to think of what Adam was actually thinking or not!

I still stand by what I said in post 738 :

*Adam and Eve walked with God. I’m not sure how this is interpreted, but I think it means they had full knowledge of God. Which would only be of holiness and goodness. But by knowing God, having full knowledge, they may have been able to understand what was right by God and what would be wrong by god. They could still be innocent in this knowledge because we are told Eve is deceived by satan.
If there was commands before the fall (which we know there was) then theres got to be a knowledge there too and not just free will.

When I said they may have lost knowledge of good and evil, maybe instead of lost, the word distorted might be better.
Knowledge of good and evil becomes distorted, when they decided to believe satan, holiness and grace is lost and man falls away from God. *

What I would be reluctant to think now, (I possible thought this a while ago,) is when you said :

*I always believed him to be superior to ourselves in many ways, except, perhaps, his will, which was no better directed than our own apparently. *

If we think of him as superior, I think we set him apart from ourselves as humans now
.
If he was superior then he would have had control over everything, including his will.

The only superior human I have heard of is Christ

I thought of both Adam and Eve being just human like us, with one exception of walking with God, so having that knowledge from the moment they are created. But saying this,
we to can walk with God through Christ if we really desire to.

Does that make any sense? Its only my way of thinking…

 

[fhansen]

Adam and Eve walked with God. I’m not sure how this is interpreted, but I think it means they had full knowledge of God. Which would only be of holiness and goodness. But by knowing God, having full knowledge, they may have been able to understand what was right by God and what would be wrong by god. They could still be innocent in this knowledge because we are told Eve is deceived by satan.
If there was commands before the fall (which we know there was) then theres got to be a knowledge there too and not just free will.
I think the question still begs to be answered: Why did Eve, with full knowledge, listen to satan rather than God?
simpleas;11694499:

When I said they may have lost knowledge of good and evil, maybe instead of lost, the word distorted might be better.
Knowledge of good and evil becomes distorted, when they decided to believe satan, holiness and grace is lost and man falls away from God.

What I would be reluctant to think now, (I possible thought this a while ago,) is when you said :

*“I always believed him to be superior to ourselves in many ways, except, perhaps, his will, which was no better directed than our own apparently”. *

If we think of him as superior, I think we set him apart from ourselves as humans now.
I understand what you mean here. In his human nature he’d be no different from us-and that’s important to keep mindful of. I think of superiority more in terms of advantages: closer union with/knowledge of God, preternatural gifts, etc.

If he was superior then he would have had control over everything, including his will.

The only superior human I have heard of is Christ

I thought of both Adam and Eve being just human like us, with one exception of walking with God, so having that knowledge from the moment they are created. But saying this,
we to can walk with God through Christ if we really desire to.

Does that make any sense?

Yes

 

[simpleas]

I think the question still begs to be answered: Why did Eve, with full knowledge, listen to satan rather than God?
I understand what you mean here. In his human nature he’d be no different from us-and that’s important to keep mindful of. I think of superiority more in terms of advantages: closer union with/knowledge of God, preternatural gifts, etc.

Yes

The only way I can try to answer that is by the use of the word deceived. We know deceived means to deliberately cause someone to believe something that is not true. By giving in to the temption to believe they could be God was never going to be true.
Even with knowledge of good and evil, they were still only human, able to stay close to God in goodness, but also able to make a choice.

Perhaps satan was working on Eve for a time, slowly putting the idea into her mind that God was lying and that he was telling the truth, until she finally believed him.

When we are young we are developing our conscience to know right from wrong, we make mistakes and learn from them, slowly growing closer to God when we acknowledge we have sinned against him.
In our later life, if we have stayed with God we get even closer to him, because by our actions of goodness toward others, we avoid anything that is not of God (evil). Adam and Eve had this closeness I think. But them like us, no matter how much goodness you have, you still can be deceived by people or choose something that isn’t of God.

I find it hard to really explain what I mean…sorry…but this is how I’ve come to think of Adam and Eve.

 

[fhansen]

The only way I can try to answer that is by the use of the word deceived. We know deceived means to deliberately cause someone to believe something that is not true. By giving in to the temption to believe they could be God was never going to be true.
Even with knowledge of good and evil, they were still only human, able to stay close to God in goodness, but also able to make a choice.

Perhaps satan was working on Eve for a time, slowly putting the idea into her mind that God was lying and that he was telling the truth, until she finally believed him.

When we are young we are developing our conscience to know right from wrong, we make mistakes and learn from them, slowly growing closer to God when we acknowledge we have sinned against him.
In our later life, if we have stayed with God we get even closer to him, because by our actions of goodness toward others, we avoid anything that is not of God (evil). Adam and Eve had this closeness I think. But them like us, no matter how much goodness you have, you still can be deceived by people or choose something that isn’t of God.

I find it hard to really explain what I mean…sorry…but this is how I’ve come to think of Adam and Eve.

And yet Adam …simply…ate

 

[simpleas]

And yet Adam …simply…ate

He did, but then what man doesn’t obey his wife? lol

 

[grannymh]

We have been blessed with different capacities, understandings, and knowledge.
Given this fact, I find it remarkable that people agree as much as they do.
It makes sense to me to say that God communicates with us through where we are in relation to Him and based on our understanding of the world.

Yes. That makes sense because God has a personal relationship with each person.

There then arises a problem that it can be easier to stray from the truth when we have different perspectives on reality.
Things were easier pre-Vatican Council II when we were basically indoctrinated to repeat word for word what was in the Baltimore Catechism. This was a reaction to the schism created in God’s Holy Church by protestantism. While it made dogma clear to kids, it was IMHO less relevant to people.

What you are saying could be another way of describing what I see. To me, there are a number of strong modern influences which apparently have taken hold to the point that people are questioning the validity of some, not all, Catholic doctrines. The “source” of reality appears to be shifted from the spiritual to the material. In other words, to me it seems that it is easier to look at current fads than to use our logical intelligence in understanding Catholic teachings.

I am not sure if I am saying what you are seeing. However, in any case, the chosen axioms have to be very clear and have Catholic doctrines as their foundation.

 

[fhansen]

He did, but then what man doesn’t obey his wife? lol

Yep-not much I wouldn’t do for a good prosciutto sandwich.

 

[simpleas]

Adam was perfect in his created humanness. He was perfectly man, no more, no less, different from present-day humans by virtue of being in possession of a few extra gifts. He wasn’t defective or flawed. He was intelligent and informed. But he was still limited, imperfect relative to God. So to speculate a bit I’ll propose this simple solution to the question of why Adam sinned: The limitations inherent in created beings, spoken of in paragraph 396 of the Catechism, limitations which Adam failed to “freely recognize and respect with trust”, are the very limitations that made Adam’s Fall possible. The creaturely limitations that he refused to acknowledge are the same limitations that allowed for his failure to acknowledge them. He lacked, IOW, the perfect wisdom of God.

Adam was a human being who was informed of God’s will…not a god-man. And though he “walked with” God, knowing Him in a more immediate way than we do now, he didn’t possess the Beatific Vision, he didn’t know God in the way God ultimately desires us to, in the way He leaves as optional, both for Adam and ourselves; He leaves us that choice, the choice to trust that He has something better for us, or the choice to turn to our own way. Had he eaten from the Tree of Life instead, Adam would’ve partaken in this more intimate relationship with God, possessing or growing in the knowledge God desired for us.

If we maintain that Adam was perfect but still able to commit an imperfect act then God would be responsible for Adam’s sin; God would be the cause of evil since his perfect creation would’ve failed in spite of its God-given “perfection”. Also, if we say that Adam was perfect from the beginning we’d be denying the Catholic teaching that God created His universe in a “state of journeying to perfection”: a process. Adam was sufficiently knowledgeable to be held accountable for his actions, but he wasn’t “irredeemably certain” of himself in his error-he was still ultimately moldable by the divine Potter Who seeks to bring all creation into alignment with His will, without force or coercion. We’re* all *Adam in that sense.

Thats the problem I think many people have when they look at the creation story as an adult. If we think of Adam being only perfect, he couldn’t possibly have thought anything that was not of God, then that would mean that God would have never given him free will. He would only ever choose Good. But because of that freewill God gave him, he was free to make his choice.
He was on the journey to perfection, but failed when tempted.
Not Gods fault, God gave him the knowledge, but also the freedom

 

[fhansen]

Thats the problem I think many people have when they look at the creation story as an adult. If we think of Adam being only perfect, he couldn’t possibly have thought anything that was not of God, then that would mean that God would have never given him free will. He would only ever choose Good. But because of that freewill God gave him, he was free to make his choice.
He was on the journey to perfection, but failed when tempted.
Not Gods fault, God gave him the knowledge, but also the freedom

Yes, and yet God managed to set him on the road to perfection anyway, in spite of himself, just taking the longer route.

 

[simpleas]

Yes, and yet God managed to set him on the road to perfection anyway, in spite of himself, just taking the longer route.

Yep, and like we all know, we can choose good or bad.

 

[fhansen]

Yep, and like we all know, we can choose good or bad.

Yes, God won’t force obedience-He wants more for us than that.