Creation Story

[smokey888x2]

(1) It seems to me that we have applied some standards to Adam and Eve that God doesn’t apply in almost all other instances. For instance, with Adam and Eve it was “one strike and you’re out” but the bulk of Catholic writing points toward a God who is all Loving and Unconditional Love. So much so, that I don’t accept this one strike you’re out for Adam, I feel it was a necessity in order to make stick, original sin, which I might add has a key error built within (see below).

(2) When Christ died on the Cross wasn’t that to restore what was lost? Then why wasn’t eternal life restored for mankind and Adam? Having given the angels intelligence and powers of a high order, God did not revoke those gifts, why do we say that we have to die now, in order to experience eternity?

(3) Adam sinned and we say that we inherit that sin but how does that set with that we are so individual that each of our names are written in the hand of God? That doesn’t seem to be consistent, how can both be true?

 

[Exporter]

quote=smokey888x2 It seems to me that we have applied some standards to Adam and Eve that God doesn’t apply in almost all other instances. For instance, with Adam and Eve it was “one strike and you’re out” but the bulk of Catholic writing points toward a God who is all Loving and Unconditional Love. So much so, that I don’t accept this one strike you’re out for Adam, I feel it was a necessity in order to make stick, original sin, which I might add has a key error built within (see below).

(2) When Christ died on the Cross wasn’t that to restore what was lost? Then why wasn’t eternal life restored for mankind and Adam? Having given the angels intelligence and powers of a high order, God did not revoke those gifts, why do we say that we have to die now, in order to experience eternity?

(3) Adam sinned and we say that we inherit that sin but how does that set with that we are so individual that each of our names are written in the hand of God? That doesn’t seem to be consistent, how can both be true?
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Lets look at your #2 and #3.
#2. You have assumed that eternal life was not resotored (given) to Adam. You ask why do we now have to die to become Spirits in heaven. Look at 1st Peter 3:19. Jesus’ (after His death) Spirit descended into shoel (what we now call Purgatory) to preach to the souls in prison.
These souls ascended into heaven when Jesus ascended. Jesus went there to spread the Good News. This is commentary from old Catholic Bibles. Adam was there in the prison (purgatory). Adam did go to heaven.

Then I tthink you asked why cant we go to eternal life without dying. See Genesis 3:19. God said you will die and return to dust. Thhats good enough for me.

#3. I don’t understand you. “Consistant” with what?

 

[smokey888x2]

Number 2: I couldn’t find it in print right now but I’m about 150% sure that Adam and Eve bit the dust on eternal life. That’s what they had before they sinned; supposedly, that’s what we had also.

They lost eternal life because of their sin and so it is with mankind today, we all die.

When Christ came here and died on the cross, that was suppose to restore what Adam lost. I don’t think anything was restored, we’re still dying.

You said, “See Genesis 3:19. God said you will die and return to dust. Thhats good enough for me.”

Surely, you are hoping for more than ‘dust’, arn’t you:yup:

Number 3 was basically the fact that ‘we inherit Adams’ sin’. I’m asking, WHY SHOULD “WE” INHERIT THE SIN THAT ADAM COMITTED?!!! He did it! Why do we ‘get his sin’ but yet we hear all this talk about our being so preciously individual and our names are written in the hand of God.

Hey, unless we resolve this, we can’t move on to all the other aspects of christianity. For me, christinanity is stuck in the mud with this as noted above.

Don’t forget number 1 from original post.

Take care

 

[Jeremy]

1. The essence of any sin is rejection of God. That is what sin is. God can love you all he wants, but if you reject his love, what do you want him to do? Override your will? He respects you too much for that.
2. We do have eternal life. We die once, at baptism, when we die to sin. From that moment on, assuming we do not embrace sin again, we live forever. Mortal “death” is a completion of a journey, or to use the word the CCC uses, a “pilgrimage”. It is death in name only; in Scripture the dead faithful are often said to have “fallen asleep” because it is understood that they are not actually dead.

God did not give death to man as a punishment, or as a result of revoking some gift he had bestowed upon then. It is the nature of fallen man to die, just as it is the nature of unfallen man to live forever. “The wages of sin are death.” The angelic traits you refer to are not gifts, they are intrinsic parts of their nature. God might as well have changed them into trees as remove these things from them when they fell.

1. Inheriting original sin is like when someone “inherits” the poverty of their parents. We are born in poverty, meaning we are born to sin, because Adam “spent” his wealth and we are heirs to his wastefulness.

 

[Steve_Andersen]

*…
#3. I don’t understand you. “Consistant” with what?

He appears to be saying that on one hand we are to be judged individually for our personal sins in life while on the other we were condemned en mass literally for the sins of the father

 

[jdnation]

The one strike and you’re out thing is consistent with God. He warned Adam and Eve what would happen, and it happened as He said it would…

Christ did restore what was lost, but we will still have to earn it. Eternal Life isn’t a free pass, though there are no restrictions for qualification.

Children inherit the sins of their parents, just as God said He would punish generations for one sin, He would also bless generations who keep His commandments. This is sensible when you realize that your sins aren’t just something personal, they affect others around you as well. Like achian reaction when a husband cheats on his wife, not only are his wife and children to suffer, but so will other family members be affects especially their parents… If one foolishly raises his children they wil get into trouble. If you waste your family’s finances on say, gambling, they will suffer, and thus their grandchildren will suffer due to benefits deprived from their children’s education etc. Just as Adam’s sin did not only affect him, but all of creation. When we sin we forget to take into account that we will indirectly affect others, because by sins very nature we’re always thinking selfishly.

 

[Steve_Andersen]

jdnation:

…
Children inherit the sins of their parents,…

what?

I love my parents dearly but my soul is my own (as are my sins)

 

[Jeremy]

Christ did restore what was lost, but we will still have to earn it. Eternal Life isn’t a free pass, though there are no restrictions for qualification.

I vehemently disagree that we in any way earn our salvation.

 

[Steve_Andersen]

Jeremy:

I vehemently disagree that we in any way earn our salvation.

Then what’s the point?

Eternity is a looooong time
And this little bit of time on earth is nothing compared to it
So it must be very important in the grand scheme of things or why bother?

We’re obviously here to DO something

 

[enanneman]

Number 3 was basically the fact that ‘we inherit Adams’ sin’. I’m asking, WHY SHOULD “WE” INHERIT THE SIN THAT ADAM COMITTED?!!! He did it! Why do we ‘get his sin’ but yet we hear all this talk about our being so preciously individual and our names are written in the hand of God.

Peace be with you, Smokey.

What the Church teaches about original sin is that because of Adam and Eve’s sin, all of humanity lost God’s grace. It’s not that we have a stain on our souls, rather, we a void, which is filled upon our baptism.

Certainly one could say that this was God’s plan–that He knew Adam and Eve would fall and that we would need a Redeemer to bring us back into communion with Him. And, further, one could say that this process makes us true children of God because we are forced to comfront our fallen natures, and through God’s grace, overcome them to become His sons and daughters that He intended.

We are not punished because of Adam and Eve’s sin. Rather, all of humanity lost something very precious. And, through Christ’s church, we are able to receive it again.

Peace and God bless!

Eric

 

[enanneman]

Number 3 was basically the fact that ‘we inherit Adams’ sin’. I’m asking, WHY SHOULD “WE” INHERIT THE SIN THAT ADAM COMITTED?!!! He did it! Why do we ‘get his sin’ but yet we hear all this talk about our being so preciously individual and our names are written in the hand of God.

Peace be with you, Smokey.

What the Church teaches about original sin is that because of Adam and Eve’s sin, all of humanity lost God’s grace. It’s not that we have a stain on our souls, rather, we a void, which is filled upon our baptism.

Certainly one could say that this was God’s plan–that He knew Adam and Eve would fall and that we would need a Redeemer to bring us back into communion with Him. And, further, one could say that this process makes us true children of God because we are forced to comfront our fallen natures, and through God’s grace, overcome them to become His sons and daughters that He intended.

We are not punished because of Adam and Eve’s sin. Rather, all of humanity lost something very precious. And, through Christ’s church, we are able to receive it again.

Peace and God bless!

Eric

 

[patg]

Some of your questions may be answered if you consider the following:

The story of the man and the woman in the garden is a myth. It is an imaginative story that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond our comprehension. The reality being explored is “Why do human beings suffer?” In its present position, coming after a story nowhere near as old, the question becomes even more mysterious. Given the beliefs that God is all loving and all powerful, that God made humans human beings in God’s own image, and that we are very good, why do we suffer? You would think God would have created things in an order that didn’t involve suffering. Why pain in childbirth? Why death? Suffering appears to be part of the order of things. All of this is very mysterious. How can our belief that God is all loving and all powerful be made compatible with our experience of suffering?

The author who cose to explore this question does not have the option of giving an historical explanation. He doesn’t know a historical explanation. The author makes it very evident that his genre is not historical by his obvious use of symbols.
What in the story is an obvious symbol? Every reader, once he or she thinks about it, recognizes the tree of a knowledge of good and evil as a symbol. Such a tree does not in fact exist in the order of reality. Notice there is no apple tree in this story. There is a tree of a knowledge of good and evil and a tree of life - another obvious symbol. If one can eat every day from the tree of life, one will not die. A third obvious symbol is the talking snake. Notice too that the snake is not referred to as the devil. The snake is a character in the plot, just as God, the man, and the woman are characters in the plot.

You may ask “How do you know that these are symbols? Maybe back at the beginning of creation there were trees like that and snakes could talk.” The story does not date back to the beginning of time. The author is not contemporary whith the dawn of creation. This is a very sophisticated story. At the dawn of civilization society did not have a highly sophisticated view of marriage as expressed in Genesis 2:24. Neither farming nor the establishment of towns was an early development in prehistoric life, yet the fourth chapter of Genesis reports that Cain, who tilled the soil, married and built a town, all while separated from the family of his birth. This story, like the story in which God creates the world in a workweek, reflects a much more highly sophisticated society than would a story about the actual first human beings on the face of the earth. However, when we understand the literary form of the story, questions that presume historicity appear irrelevant. The text will simply not support a claim of historicity.
And the autor’s bottom line is that we suffer when we go against the spiritual order established by God.

 

[patg]

Some of your questions may be answered if you consider the following:

The story of the man and the woman in the garden is a myth. It is an imaginative story that uses symbols to explore a realty beyond our comprehension. The reality being explored is “Why do human beings suffer?” In its present position, coming after a story nowhere near as old, the question becomes even more mysterious. Given the beliefs that God is all loving and all powerful, that God made humans human beings in God’s own image, and that we are very good, why do we suffer? You would think God would have created things in an order that didn’t involve suffering. Why pain in childbirth? Why death? Suffering appears to be part of the order of things. All of this is very mysterious. How can our belief that God is all loving and all powerful be made compatible with our experience of suffering?

The author who cose to explore this question does not have the option of giving an historical explanation. He doesn’t know a historical explanation. The author makes it very evident that his genre is not historical by his obvious use of symbols.
What in the story is an obvious symbol? Every reader, once he or she thinks about it, recognizes the tree of a knowledge of good and evil as a symbol. Such a tree does not in fact exist in the order of reality. Notice there is no apple tree in this story. There is a tree of a knowledge of good and evil and a tree of life - another obvious symbol. If one can eat every day from the tree of life, one will not die. A third obvious symbol is the talking snake. Notice too that the snake is not referred to as the devil. The snake is a character in the plot, just as God, the man, and the woman are characters in the plot.

You may ask “How do you know that these are symbols? Maybe back at the beginning of creation there were trees like that and snakes could talk.” The story does not date back to the beginning of time. The author is not contemporary whith the dawn of creation. This is a very sophisticated story. At the dawn of civilization society did not have a highly sophisticated view of marriage as expressed in Genesis 2:24. Neither farming nor the establishment of towns was an early development in prehistoric life, yet the fourth chapter of Genesis reports that Cain, who tilled the soil, married and built a town, all while separated from the family of his birth. This story, like the story in which God creates the world in a workweek, reflects a much more highly sophisticated society than would a story about the actual first human beings on the face of the earth. However, when we understand the literary form of the story, questions that presume historicity appear irrelevant. The text will simply not support a claim of historicity.

In short, we suffer when we deviate from the spiritual order created by God.

 

[buffalo]

jdnation:

The one strike and you’re out thing is consistent with God. He warned Adam and Eve what would happen, and it happened as He said it would…

Today, we forget that God is perfect therefore He is perfectly just. He will judge us perfectly and not like we suppose. ie: "I can’t believe in a God who will send me to hell because I did xxxxx …for He is all loving and we all go to Heaven, right? syndrome.

 

[smokey888x2]

patg:

Some of your questions may be answered if you consider the following: … In short, we suffer when we deviate from the spiritual order created by God.

PATG: I’ve been reading “The Faith Explained” which turns out then, not a very good explanation, hu Ok, then, by any chance, has anyone else written a better book about this that would ‘include’ some of the points and items you brought forward?

In short, surely someone can deliver a good solid foundation of our beginnings?

 

[patg]

smokey888x2:

In short, surely someone can deliver a good solid foundation of our beginnings?

This is what is used in Catholic adult ed classes in my area:

*And God Said What?: An Introduction to Biblical Literary Forms *by Margaret Ralph (Paulist Press). Its on Amazon and in bookstores.

Pat

 

[smokey888x2]

This “*And God Said What?:” contains *the part about the Adam and Eve story being a myth or is it just the facts like in “The Faith Explained”?

I don’t need more of the latter, thats how I got into this mess the frist place. I wanted to read something of what you responded with, just double checking. thanks

 

[patg]

smokey888x2:

This “*And God Said What?:” contains *the part about the Adam and Eve story being a myth or is it just the facts like in “The Faith Explained”?

I don’t need more of the latter, thats how I got into this mess the frist place. I wanted to read something of what you responded with, just double checking. thanks

Yes, what I entered is a small excerpt/summary from the chapter on myth which deals with the 2 creation stories. There are also similar chapters on legends, oral traditions, the infancy narratives, the parables, allegories, and so on. Not at all “just the facts”.

Pat