Carnal knowledge the result of original sin?

[JAGCath28]

I had a discussion over the weekend regarding the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Someone tried to say that the “punishment” for original sin was carnal knowledge and that the Church (including Christianity as a whole) teaches that sex is bad. He was saying that women having children was also part of the punishment with regards to this carnal knowledge. He was trying to insinuate that Adam and Eve did not have relations until they were expelled from the Garden because prior to that, there was no carnal knowledge.

Anyway, I was at such a loss. I had no idea how to even begin to refute this. I tried to stress that sex is a beautiful, sacred act between man and woman…not a sin! The sin is not keeping holy which is what happens when for example it is used outside the bonds of marriage. But, I thought the Fall was pride, and that the “punishment” was that they would no longer have everything provided for them directly by God, but instead it would be from the fruits of their own labor.

Any help?

Happy Advent (Almost Christmas!!!)

Jessica

 

[JimG]

Adam and Eve were created as sexual beings, and were intended to be fertile and multiply and fill the earth, even had they never committed original sin.

Sex is not the original sin, but disobedience and pride. God did not create sex as an evil; that would be impossible. He created it as a good. But the Fall resulted in concupiscence–a disorder in our ability to control our passions, whether sexual or otherwise.

 

[chessmane4e5]

The Catechism says:

397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of.278 All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.

398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God”.279

I do not see any mention of sex.

Sex is a major way that we sin. In fact, married couples can sin if their sex is merely for pleasure, namely using their spouse as an object for gratification.

“Theology of the Body” by John Paul II explains this and so much more, but for a shorter version, I recommend the book in my signature

 

[1ke]

I had a discussion over the weekend regarding the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Someone tried to say that the “punishment” for original sin was carnal knowledge and that the Church (including Christianity as a whole) teaches that sex is bad. He was saying that women having children was also part of the punishment with regards to this carnal knowledge. He was trying to insinuate that Adam and Eve did not have relations until they were expelled from the Garden because prior to that, there was no carnal knowledge.

Well Jessica, your friend needs to better acquaint himself with the Bible.

Genesis 1: 27-31

27 God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth." 29 God also said: “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; 30 and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food.” And so it happened. 31 **God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed–the sixth day. **

Genesis 2: 2-25

22 The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, 23 the man said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body. 25 **The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame. **

God created Adam and Eve as complementary sexes from the outset and gave the blessing and command to be fruitful and multiply, and he looked upon his creation and declared it good.

The Fall, OTOH, had nothing to do with sex. Regarding the proposition your friend puts foward that childbirth was a consequence of original sin, again they need to brush up on their Bible. The bible does not say that childbirth is a consequence of original sin, but rather the pain women endure in childbirth:

Genesis 3:16
16 To the woman he said: “I will **intensify **the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master.”

And the Church does NOT teach sex is bad. It teaches the opposite:

1601 "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."84

I. MARRIAGE IN GOD’S PLAN

1602 Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of "the wedding-feast of the Lamb."85 Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its “mystery,” its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal “in the Lord” in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church.86

Marriage in the order of creation

1603 "The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. . . . God himself is the author of marriage."87 The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity,88 some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life."89

1604 God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love.90 Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator’s eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: "And God blessed them, and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.’"91

1605 Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone."92 The woman, “flesh of his flesh,” his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a “helpmate”; she thus represents God from whom comes our help.93 "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."94 The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been “in the beginning”: "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."95

 

[Transformer]

I had a discussion over the weekend regarding the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Someone tried to say that the “punishment” for original sin was carnal knowledge and that the Church (including Christianity as a whole) teaches that sex is bad. He was saying that women having children was also part of the punishment with regards to this carnal knowledge. He was trying to insinuate that Adam and Eve did not have relations until they were expelled from the Garden because prior to that, there was no carnal knowledge.

It’s a ridiculous claim. You can support your position that Christianity has never considered sex to be evil or the result of the fall with a reference to just about anyone who mentions the subject–any Church Father, any document, anything. The burden of proof is on him to provide a single citation from any Catholic Christian who says sex is bad. I’ll be damned if he can find anyone besides bona fide gnostic or otherwise dualistic heretics who say anything of the sort. He certainly won’t be able to find any person or document that stands within the Tradition and is still widely cited today to support his position.

I just got finished reading St. Augustine’s Confessions and City of God. A lot of people think Augustine teaches that sex is a result of the Fall–or even that the Fall was Adam and Eve having sex for the first time–and that he considers sex bad even when excused in some sense by the intention of procreation. They are totally wrong. St. Augustine says explicitly and with perfect clarity that marital sex is good. It’s true that he teaches that sexual pleasure is a result of the Fall, but he largely stands alone in saying that (at least outside some parts of the middle ages), his position is largely explainable by Augustine’s personal struggles with sexual sin, and that isn’t anywhere near as strong an anti-sex claim as the ones your guy is claiming Christians have made.

 

[Secret_Square]

I can’t remember exactly where I read this, but supposedly there were ancient Fathers of the Church who believed not only that sex existed BEFORE original sin, but also that sex would have been even MORE pleasurable than it is now had man and woman never fallen. Without original sin, you see, sex would never have become soiled by lust, perversion or exploitation, nor would men and women have such a hard time getting along with or understanding one another.

In fact all bodily appetites would be much more in proportion to their actual function, and easier to control (addictions and compulsions would not exist) if man had never fallen. They would probably be indulged in less than they are now, but those times when they were enjoyed would be more pleasurable and not shadowed by guilt, regret, or loss of reason.

Also, doesn’t the Nuptial Blessing given to brides and grooms say something about marriage being the only blessing that was NOT taken away as a result of original sin? If marriage and the relationship of “one flesh” and the command to “be fruitful and multiply” existed before original sin, that would logically mean sex existed before the Fall as well.

 

[ulfat_riaz]

The Carnal knowledge is not the result of original sin. more

 

[ulfat_riaz]

one of the basic attribute that god has given us is the free will to choice what we do in out lifetime. we are individuals who out of the millions sperms and egg haqve been given the chance to exist . that chance should not be wasted in trying to interprete the concept of origin of sin . the only sin one has to come to terms with is the one you can not forgive yourself for. god in his wisdom looks after the rest