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Pope_Noah_I
Guest
It seems that there are certain sections of the Scriptures that record God making men evil or, “hardening hearts”. Doesn’t this kind of blow the whole, “God is not the author of evil” argument out of the water?
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fermat
Guest
Case in point, Pharaoh. God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. So what does that mean?
If someone chooses to reject God and do evil, go is not the cause of that; however, God can use someones disposition against Him for good. God allows Pharaoh to go on his course of action and uses that stubbornness for His own good. The author of Genesis is probably skipping over the detailed explanation and stated that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart with the knowledge that the readers, pre-Messianic Jews, are going to have the context to understand the statement.
In short, God respects the freewill he gave us. Rejecting God does not prevent Him from using our own stubbornness to get the job done.
If someone chooses to reject God and do evil, go is not the cause of that; however, God can use someones disposition against Him for good. God allows Pharaoh to go on his course of action and uses that stubbornness for His own good. The author of Genesis is probably skipping over the detailed explanation and stated that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart with the knowledge that the readers, pre-Messianic Jews, are going to have the context to understand the statement.
In short, God respects the freewill he gave us. Rejecting God does not prevent Him from using our own stubbornness to get the job done.
J
JoshuaNY
Guest
That was very well said. I subscribed to this thread because I was very curious of the answer as well. Thank you for that explanation
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franny50
Guest
God made us with free will,to choose evil or good.Humans became capable of sin after Adam first sinned by challenging God
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EricFilmer
Guest
In addition to fermat’s excellent answer, we also have to keep in mind that Exodus represents an early period in the development of Old Testament theology. Jews from this period did not have the same sort of understanding that we do today concerning the distinction between God’s active will and permissive will. They saw God’s omnipotence as meaning that God directly causes everything to happen. For example, this is why Job said that we should “accept evil” from God as well as good.
In light of all this, the ancient Jews did not think that Pharaoh could defy the will of God unless God was somehow behind it. In a way, this is a truthful statement, but it is a question as to exactly how God was behind it. As fermat and franny50 pointed out, God gave Pharaoh freewill, and permitted him to exercise his freewill in a defiant way. But it was his persistent choice to abuse his freewill that led to Pharaoh hardening his own heart. But based on the limitations of their theological language at the time, the Jews expressed this as God being the one who was doing the hardening.
In light of all this, the ancient Jews did not think that Pharaoh could defy the will of God unless God was somehow behind it. In a way, this is a truthful statement, but it is a question as to exactly how God was behind it. As fermat and franny50 pointed out, God gave Pharaoh freewill, and permitted him to exercise his freewill in a defiant way. But it was his persistent choice to abuse his freewill that led to Pharaoh hardening his own heart. But based on the limitations of their theological language at the time, the Jews expressed this as God being the one who was doing the hardening.
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WesleyF
Guest
“For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance;** but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away**.” (Matthew 13:12)
What this verse indicates is that to him who bears fruits, God gives more grace to bear more fruits, but to him who bears no fruit, God makes him even more miserable.
The same thing happens when God hardens the hearts of people. He hardens it because of the evil deeds they have done. They have shown no fruits, so God makes their state even more miserable. It’s a direct consequence of sin. It’s a punishment.
What this verse indicates is that to him who bears fruits, God gives more grace to bear more fruits, but to him who bears no fruit, God makes him even more miserable.
The same thing happens when God hardens the hearts of people. He hardens it because of the evil deeds they have done. They have shown no fruits, so God makes their state even more miserable. It’s a direct consequence of sin. It’s a punishment.
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Little_One0307
Guest
Hi,
I have been watching this thread since its inception last night and it has been a very interesting and informative thread.
I thought of something last night at 0300 hrs and wanted to share.
This comes from Romans 1:24, but I do not want to just pull a verse out of context so I will start back a little and work to it.
[vs. 18 starting from] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for imaged resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiled.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themseves… [skipping to verse 26]
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. [skipping 2 verses to verse 28.]
And since they did not see fit to acknolwedge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.
Commentary under 1:24 - God does not hold back his judgement on sin until the end of history but manifests it throughout history as well. One severe form of judgment is for God to allow recalcitrant sinners to continue in their sin. [Souns like Pharoah.] The gracs that would have moved sinners to repentance have been rejected. As a consequence, a dulled moral sense and intense, disordered desires are forms of punihsment that such hardnened sinners often experience when they revel in their sin. Paul sees this punishment at work among the Gentiles, whom God has handed over to a thousand obsecenities and sins against nature because they would not acknowledge him or his truth. In effect, God says to them, “Have it your way.”
I will be following this thread with great interest. Thanks to the OP who posted it.
God bless you all.
I have been watching this thread since its inception last night and it has been a very interesting and informative thread.
I thought of something last night at 0300 hrs and wanted to share.
This comes from Romans 1:24, but I do not want to just pull a verse out of context so I will start back a little and work to it.
[vs. 18 starting from] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for imaged resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiled.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themseves… [skipping to verse 26]
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. [skipping 2 verses to verse 28.]
And since they did not see fit to acknolwedge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.
Commentary under 1:24 - God does not hold back his judgement on sin until the end of history but manifests it throughout history as well. One severe form of judgment is for God to allow recalcitrant sinners to continue in their sin. [Souns like Pharoah.] The gracs that would have moved sinners to repentance have been rejected. As a consequence, a dulled moral sense and intense, disordered desires are forms of punihsment that such hardnened sinners often experience when they revel in their sin. Paul sees this punishment at work among the Gentiles, whom God has handed over to a thousand obsecenities and sins against nature because they would not acknowledge him or his truth. In effect, God says to them, “Have it your way.”
I will be following this thread with great interest. Thanks to the OP who posted it.
God bless you all.
W
WesleyF
Guest
Exactly. I had listened to the Our Father’s Plan serious by Dr. Scott Hahn and regarding this passage in Romans, he said this -
“The punishment for temptation not being fought is sin succumbed to! Romans 1:17-32 God’s punishment for sin is the pleasure that we experience when we commit that which ruptures the family bond between us and our father. God punishes us by allowing us to experience illicit pleasures, and then the punishment for enjoying these illicit pleasures is what? The punishment for enjoying illicit pleasures sinfully is the addiction, the attachment, the idolatrous yoke that enslaves us to sin.”
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chosen_people
Guest
In the Jewish creation story in Bereishit (Genesis), that brilliant polemic against the Enuma Elish, every time that God completes something to perfection He declares that it is good. No such declaration is made after the creation of Man. However, that does not mean that Man is evil, only that Man is not perfect and complete. On the contrary, God does not create things that are evil and not inherently good. Man is born pure without sin and with a great capacity for good.
If so, what is the source of evil? In Christianity the source is the Devil. However, such an entity can not exist in the pure monotheistic concept of Judaism. There can be no independent and free willed entities in existence between Man and God, only Man and only the One God. Satan in Judaism, is not a free willed entity but a messenger of God carrying out God’s will. Similarly, Angels have no free will in Judaism.
If so, what is the source of evil? Man has two inclinations, a good inclination and an evil inclination and the free will to choose between them. The evil inclination is one of self indulgence, the good inclination is one of altruism. It is the evil inclination which can lead to evil acts. However, it is important to note that in giving man free will and also the evil inclination, God has not created something inherently evil. Without the evil inclination, Man would not get married, raise families or get a job and work for advancement. Man has to find the balance between the good and evil inclinations. For the Jew, the guidebook for finding this balance is Torah.
If God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart then He has denied Pharaoh his free will. Without free will, how can Pharaoh be responsible for his sins against the Jewish nation? Without free will, what are the purpose of the plagues? If they are to change Pharaoh’s attitudes and make him release the nation of Israel from slavery, then why harden his heart to prevent this from happening? If God has hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then the plagues become not a source for bringing about the release of the Jews from slavery but an unavoidable preordained punishment of the Egyptian people.
If we study the Jewish sages on this subject, I believe we can see three different approaches. I personally define these three approaches as the weak argument, the strong argument and the interesting argument.
The weak argument: According to this approach when we speak of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart it in no way implies that God has denied Pharaoh his free will. On the contrary, this passage emphasizes Pharaoh’s free will. When we speak of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart we are merely saying that God was the source of the plagues as He is the source of all things. Pharaoh hardened his heart to God’s plagues and refused to let the children of Israel go. So when we speak of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, what we are really saying is that Pharaoh hardened his heart to the plagues brought by God.
The strong argument: God indeed hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but this did not deny Pharaoh his free will, but allowed Pharaoh to have free will. Had God not done this, then Pharaoh would not have been acting from free will but merely under the coercion of the plagues. By God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, He gave Pharaoh the ability and strength to freely exercise his free will in deciding how to react to the plagues.
As an aside, it should also be noted that the plagues cannot be seen as some sort of arbitrary act against Pharaoh in which the Egyptian people suffered. The plagues allowed for the punishment and contrition of the Egyptian people which would allow repentance and forgiveness for the cruel and sinful acts of the Egyptians against the nation of Israel while in Egypt.
The interesting argument: According to this argument, there comes a time when God has given a person so many chances to repent and the person has rejected so many of these chances, that God is no longer willing to forgive (take for example Sodom and Gomorrah - this is a concept rejected by Christianity which believes every soul, no matter what, can gain forgiveness up until the moment of death - so a Catholic could argue that there is a possibility that Hitler is in the world to come - a concept repugnant to both Jews and Judaism). According to this argument, after the first five plagues God was no longer willing to give Pharaoh any additional chances for forgiveness and that is why at that point God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
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RosaryFan
Guest
Since evil is the absence of God and the absence of good, then I don’t see how God could make somebody absent from Himself. God makes all things out of love and makes all things good. Anyone who has a hardening of the heart, it is a result of the choices they make in accordance with the free will God has given them.
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Luke65
Guest
Pharaoh first hardened his heart to God (Ex. 8:15), then God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 9:12). It means that Pharaoh refused to cooperate with the graces that God gave him but instead chose to do evil, so God withdrew those graces.
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” (Titus 2:11)
And when God withdraws His grace from people they become irrational…
“They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” (Ephesians 4:18)
And this is what we see in the example of Pharaoh. So no, God does not create evil, His creatures do when they refuse to do His will. Nor is God an idle observer; sometimes He exercises His righteous judgment on people here and now - if He can bring good from it for those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). God bless.
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” (Titus 2:11)
And when God withdraws His grace from people they become irrational…
“They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” (Ephesians 4:18)
And this is what we see in the example of Pharaoh. So no, God does not create evil, His creatures do when they refuse to do His will. Nor is God an idle observer; sometimes He exercises His righteous judgment on people here and now - if He can bring good from it for those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). God bless.
J
john_aurelius
Guest
Actually there are a couple of goodness declarations… firstly that it is not good (lo tov) 2:18 for man to be alone and secondly after man and woman had been made in God’s image and all living things given to them God comments that it was VERY GOOD (tov meod) 1:31…
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Odell
Guest
wouldn’t you say this is like habitual sin? Couldn’t this be incorporated in somehow? I’m for a lack of words but maybe someone can help?
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dmar198
Guest
That is very observant of you, but in fact man is called good, because immediately after He made Man, the Bible says God called everything He had made “very good.” (Gen. 1:31)
Man is not born pure or David would not say “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psalm 51:5. But he does have a great capacity for good, if he responds to the helps of God’s grace.
You will find Satan quite real if you read the Old Testament rightly. Job 1:6-12 and Job 2:1-7 both present Satan as an angel who denies God’s words and afflicts God’s people, by God’s permissive will, while God brings from these evils a greater good. In Zechariah 3:1-3, Satan is rebuked for arguing with God unjustly to try to keep a righteous man out of heaven.
First, Satan is not depicted in the Old Testament as a mere messenger carrying out God’s will. He speaks and acts in violation of God’s will; his actions are not favored by God, and so they aren’t produced by God. Rather, they are produced by Satan himself, and that is proof that he has free will.
Second, if God’s free will doesn’t preclude Man’s free will, then how does it preclude it in angels? What’s to stop Him from creating millions of free spirits, some of them (men) united to bodies and some of them (angels) pure spirit? If one freedom doesn’t destroy another, then this freedom doesn’t preclude that freedom. All the ingredients for freedom are present in angels: you have activity, and you have reason, which has, as one of its powers, the power to direct activity. Activity directed by a person’s reason is the definition of free will. All the ingredients are there; therefore, angels have free will.
No disagreement here. But man did not start out with evil inclinations. He was given free will and the knowledge of God’s will, and he had to prioritize these things rightly; he wrongly decided to put his own self-advancement ahead of doing the will of God, and that’s when he fell.
First, God did not create the evil inclination in man. Man did, because he was given power to freely decide his own priorities, and he put a relative “less-good” (his own self-advancement or “becoming God”) ahead of the highest possible good (doing God’s will). Second, getting married is not an evil inclination, and it does not ever have to involve them. It can be a supremely humble and self-emptying act, and those who do it rightly are to be praised. The same goes for raising a family and getting a job. Obtaining finances does not have to be selfish; it depends on what you are obtaining the finances for: selfish purposes or noble purposes.
Also for Christians, and the rest of the Bible is part of that guide too, along with the teachings of the Magisterium.
Wrong. A man who acts out of a hardened heart is acting out of his own responsibility and poor judgment. For God to harden someone’s heart is to withdraw His graces which would have aligned man’s heart with His own; but He withdraws those graces in response to man’s hardening of his own heart, and that means it is a reaction to a man’s own free choice, and leaves that free choice intact, just without the help of grace to overcome our evil inclinations, because by our own freedom we rejected that help. So you see that hardness of heart presupposes a man’s free choice, and is not at all opposed to it; to harden one’s heart is merely an unfortunate use of free will – and to become hardened is an unfortunate consequence of freedom abused.
He couldn’t be. That is a proof that to be hardened does not remove a man’s free will.
Read it; God explains why He hardened Pharoah’s heart, and it had nothing to do with destroying Pharaoh’s freedom. Cont’d next.
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dmar198
Guest
Cont’d from last.
Secondly, you cited a poor example with Sodom and Gomorrah, for God was willing to forgive them, under very merciful conditions, as is shown by Abraham’s pleading with Him: ten righteous men in the city would have been enough.
Third, a Jew, acting on his own principles, must believe that even Hitler may have repented. If not, then men do not really have free will. Grant free will, and the possibility of repenting immediately follows; deny that God would ever forgive, and you impugn His justice. So even Hitler may have been visited with an ocean of mercy, and if he accepted that mercy, even at the very moment he died, he could have sincerely repented, and you ought to be glad of it if it happened. For reconciliation is more powerful than enmity; and to hope for a man’s repentance is better than to hope a man rots in the grave.
The plagues were both a punishment of the Egyptians and a source of freedom for the Jews.
I don’t agree that that is a weak argument, but perhaps it is incomplete; Pharoah was the first one to harden his heart (Exodus 8:15), by rejecting the graces God gives to help a man do His will; in response, God hardened Pharoah’s heart (Exodus 9:12), meaning He withdrew the graces that would have saved the man, if he had merely chosen to accept God’s grace. Thus his hardening was totally his own responsibility; God’s action in hardening was a reaction to his own choice to harden himself.
That also seems like a reasonable interpretation, and not at all in conflict with the one I gave above.
Good point. Well-spoken, too, and one we can draw from against the Calvinists, who say repentance isn’t free or possible for the non-elect.
First, Christians know that men who consistently reject God’s will may not be visited with the grace of repenting at the end of their life; that is why we tell people to repent now, and not wait for their deathbed, because, though a death-bed conversion is possible, it is very unlikely, since a man who has sinned all his life does not have the predisposition to accept God’s grace at his death. Rather, after rejecting God throughout his life, what makes him think his heart will have the preparation necessary to accept Him at his death? Only a singular grace could accomplish that, and we cannot presume upon God’s mercy. So there is a problem with your understanding of Christian doctrine on this point.
Secondly, you cited a poor example with Sodom and Gomorrah, for God was willing to forgive them, under very merciful conditions, as is shown by Abraham’s pleading with Him: ten righteous men in the city would have been enough.
Third, a Jew, acting on his own principles, must believe that even Hitler may have repented. If not, then men do not really have free will. Grant free will, and the possibility of repenting immediately follows; deny that God would ever forgive, and you impugn His justice. So even Hitler may have been visited with an ocean of mercy, and if he accepted that mercy, even at the very moment he died, he could have sincerely repented, and you ought to be glad of it if it happened. For reconciliation is more powerful than enmity; and to hope for a man’s repentance is better than to hope a man rots in the grave.
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chosen_people
Guest
While a discussion explaining why God did not say it was “good” at the end of the second day (which leads to our understanding why God twice said it was good on the third and when and why He says it) as well as the meaning of the words “very good” at the end of creation, is an interesting topic, it is outside the scope of this thread. If you start a thread on the subject, I would be happy to elaborate these points from a Jewish perspective.
Judaism is a pure monotheistic religion and it is devoid of pagan mythological influences. This link: beingjewish.com/basics/satan.html may help the Christian reader understand the concept of Satan in Judaism (as opposed to the Christian concept of the devil) and subsequently lead to understanding the Jewish take of the allegorical book of Iyov (Job)
You mention of Psalms 51:5 (sic) to support the Christian contention that “we are born in sin”. The Rabbis translated the Torah in Greek (called the “Septuagint”), but they did not translate the other two parts of the Jewish scriptures. In order to prevent a later corruption of their translation they placed 15 key passages of their Torah translation into the Talmud (see Tractate Megilla 9a-9b) so we could always be able to compare these passages to the original translation. In the current Christian version of the Septuagint, Christian translators have altered and falsified 13 of the 15 passages.
Psalms 51 in the Christian version is missing the first two verses. The relevant verse that you quoted is therefore verse 7 which states “חן-בעוון חוללתי ובחטא יחמתני אמי”
or in English “Behold, in iniquity was I fashioned, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (in other words: the impulses which can cause man to sin are present in him from his very inception. It is man’s duty to control and channel them properly see Ibn Ezra). This is something quite different then “being born in sin”, which is contrary to Jewish belief and not surprisingly does not appear in the Jewish scriptures. Incidentally, this particular passage is translated more or less correctly from the Hebrew in some of the Christian English translations but, as seen in your example, not in all. The changing of the tenses, pronouns, genders, punctuation as well as the creative translation of words, all in an effort to change the Jewish text to somehow reflect Christian beliefs or to obscure the real meaning of the text, may be shown in countless examples (my personal favorite is Hosea 14:2). Now you may believe in any textual translation of the Jewish scriptures you choose, however, obviously from a Jewish perspective any translation contrary to the Hebrew text can carry no weight.
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dmar198
Guest
Fine and good. I won’t press you on it, though it would be an interesting discussion.
(As is Christianity)
The article asserts that Satan has no free will (nor does any other angel) and is assigned a mission by God of tempting people in this life, in the hopes that they will not succumb to his devices, so that we can improve ourselves by resisting evil impulses.
Yes, you read that right: the author wants you to believe that Satan tempts you, indeed, but really wants you to overcome his temptations, and be united with God.
But this generous theory does not account for what Job and Zechariah tell us about Satan. In Job, Satan tells God that He is wrong: Job is not really righteous at heart: he only loves God because God has made him rich. Now think of an angel; and think of an angel arguing with God over what is in the heart of man. The whole tenor of the allegory presupposes that Satan and God have different perspectives, and Satan thinks he can prove himself against God. It is comical, yes, and a light-hearted portrayal of their relationship; but it is revealing nonetheless, and shows that Satan’s mind is not in line with God’s.
And then there’s Zechariah 3:1-2. In that passage, Michael the Archangel rebukes Satan. Now one or the other of them was acting with the mind of God; they cannot both be, or we are left concluding that God’s message to Satan was a word of rebuke for following His will! Utterly ridiculous. Satan is shown to be an adversary of holiness. He tries unjustly to keep a good man out of heaven, and is rebuked by an angel in the name of God. His enmity with God is made manifest, and not so comically as in Job.
The author of that article also tries to prove that angels have no free will. He does this by arguing that, first, angels are surrounded with the vision and presence of God; second, no one, in such a state, could do anything unholy, being as they are permeated by Holiness. It follows that evil is not an option for angels. But if they were free, they could do evil; they cannot, and consequently they are not free.
The answer is this: it is not that no one in God’s presence COULD do evil; it is that no one in God’s presence WOULD do evil, not if they loved Him. Ability to do something does not mean one will do it. An opera singer COULD sing wildly off key and screw up her final performance; but she would not choose to do such a thing, because she believes in the good of singing well. Well, the angels know the good, see the good, and love it. (Except the devils, who don’t believe God’s goodness is all that great, and prefer their own devilry. Once again, free choice.) But the fact is that freedom rests in what one CAN do; not in what one DOES do. The angels COULD rebel against God; some of them did; this is proof of free will. But, among the angels of heaven, none of them DO rebel against God; and that also, in a certain sense, shows us their free choice.
By the way, you did not answer my counter-argument for why angels have free will. It is because they are active creatures and they have reason, one of which’s powers is to direct activity. When activity is directed by reason, a free choice has been made; so the angels have all the ingredients necessary to make a free choice, and therefore have it. How do you respond?
Cont’d next.
D
dmar198
Guest
Cont’d from last.
Regarding Psalm 51, I don’t think you completely understand the Christian doctrine on original sin. It’s not all that different from the remarks you made about being born with evil inclinations. Original sin means we are born without the holiness and proclivity to supernatural justice that Man was originally made to share, as the image of God; but it does not mean we are born guilty of some particular sin. Lacking the holiness proper to Man, through no fault of one’s own, is not the same thing as sinning.
What we believe is this: Adam and Eve had bodily and spiritual holiness in the Garden; but they lost it; and we, their descendants, get our nature from them. Well, you cannot give what you do not have, and they no longer had the righteous human nature they were given; so they could not pass on the holiness they lost to we, their descendants. Thus we don’t get our more noble nature back, until the Resurrection happens and our bodies are glorified; and in the meantime our nature is repaired somewhat through the graces of the Sacraments.
I hope you are beginning to see that the differences between Jews and Christians on some of these points in some ways point toward one another. On original sin, there is some substantive disagreement, but also substantive commonalities; on Satan, the realities you admit point to the further truths we teach, though there are some errors in the Jewish understanding that have grown up along with the truths. When a Jew converts to Christ, he adds to his religion its fulfillment, and the only things he casts away are the foreign things that were inserted after Christ to push Him and His religion away. There are no real obstacles between authentic Judaism and its Messiah; only bitter rivalries have added what we now see between us. I pray that we can grow out of them and bring in all the Jews to the fulfillment of their faith. St. Paul prophesied that all Israel would be saved; and to those who are ready to correspond with God’s grace, know that that is all you need, and He will guide you home.
God bless!
-Dan Marcum
First, I would like a link to an essay or something comparing the differences and defending the position that it was the Christians who altered it, rather than the Jews. For I know that the opposite argument has been leveled against the Jews: it was not us Christians who removed parts of the Hebrew Bible; rather it was the Jews who removed the parts that proved Christianity true, and re-translated other parts that were too holy to get rid of. Perhaps the reason the Talmud passages are altered is because the Jews altered the original to remove Christian doctrine, rather than the other way around.
Regarding Psalm 51, I don’t think you completely understand the Christian doctrine on original sin. It’s not all that different from the remarks you made about being born with evil inclinations. Original sin means we are born without the holiness and proclivity to supernatural justice that Man was originally made to share, as the image of God; but it does not mean we are born guilty of some particular sin. Lacking the holiness proper to Man, through no fault of one’s own, is not the same thing as sinning.
What we believe is this: Adam and Eve had bodily and spiritual holiness in the Garden; but they lost it; and we, their descendants, get our nature from them. Well, you cannot give what you do not have, and they no longer had the righteous human nature they were given; so they could not pass on the holiness they lost to we, their descendants. Thus we don’t get our more noble nature back, until the Resurrection happens and our bodies are glorified; and in the meantime our nature is repaired somewhat through the graces of the Sacraments.
Very often, when someone confronts me that a translation I’ve quoted is inaccurate and biased, they produce one that is not very different at all – so it is in this case. I quoted, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” You responded, “Behold, in iniquity was I fashioned, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Where is your vast difference? It is not in the translation, I say, but in your interpretation, that we disagree. And even there we are not in complete conflict: I agree that we are called “conceived in sin” because we are born with a proclivity to sin. But I say it is also because we lack the holiness we are meant for as the Image of God. And I think I can prove it from the very principles you’ve admitted: for we would not be born with that proclivity to sin, if we were holy! An uncorrupted Man would not tend toward sin; but we tend toward sin from the day we are born; therefore we are born with corruption already in us. And that is the doctrine of original sin.
I hope you are beginning to see that the differences between Jews and Christians on some of these points in some ways point toward one another. On original sin, there is some substantive disagreement, but also substantive commonalities; on Satan, the realities you admit point to the further truths we teach, though there are some errors in the Jewish understanding that have grown up along with the truths. When a Jew converts to Christ, he adds to his religion its fulfillment, and the only things he casts away are the foreign things that were inserted after Christ to push Him and His religion away. There are no real obstacles between authentic Judaism and its Messiah; only bitter rivalries have added what we now see between us. I pray that we can grow out of them and bring in all the Jews to the fulfillment of their faith. St. Paul prophesied that all Israel would be saved; and to those who are ready to correspond with God’s grace, know that that is all you need, and He will guide you home.
God bless!
-Dan Marcum
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