Did Adam and Eve have complete dominion of reason over appetite?

[OneSheep]

The problem is with free choice which allows us to do wrong. Rational choice is quite ok.

Exactly. In the absence of full awareness, there is no such thing as a free choice. However, when a person is either lacking awareness or blinded by emotion, they are not truly making a “free choice”, they are “free to make a choice within the confines of their own awareness”, which is what we do, correct?

 

[OneSheep]

You are comparing Adam and Eve to their children.

Actually, I am not. You stated that Adam and Eve had “full order”, and I asked " Wouldn’t it take something less than “full order” to make such a foolish decision?"

All sin is “foolish” and irrational

Exactly. The behavior of Adam and Eve does not indicate dominion of reason over appetite, quite the opposite. Appetite had dominion over reason, correct?

 

[OneSheep]

Yes, yet Adam and Eve had infused knowledge, which I believe means they didn’t have to learn some human traits they had them ‘built in’ so to speak.

So, why did God not give them enough “infused knowledge” to see better reason not to eat the fruit?

Maybe God did, yet he gave them each a conscience, they didn’t have children yet.

This opens more questions. Did God tell them about children? If not, then why not? If so, then how could a human parent possibly make a choice that would harm their own children?

Seems most writings guess or presume that they must have had this or that knowledge but no-one actually knows.

Yes, the narrative is footnoted to show that they had “complete dominion of reason” but made a ridiculous decision. What do you suppose the author of Genesis was trying to guide in our mind? What is the reader supposed to “come away with”? Does the narrative and the footnotes (i.e. “preternatural gifts”) lend themselves to enabling the reader to forgive Adam and Eve?

 

[OneSheep]

Adam and Eve fell because of the sin of pride also…

Logically, Angels had no appetite due to not having corporeal bodies, but they fell due to pride.

Adam and Eve fell due to pride.

Pride is not contingent on having a corporeal body, thus the sin of pride was not due to human appetites

What is your definition of “pride”?

 

[johnjacob2004]

Check the catholic dictionary. That’s my point of reference.

 

[johnjacob2004]

Pride involves jealousy or envy…

 

[runningdude]

Appetite had dominion over reason, correct?

No, they used reason to make an unreasonable choice; it is a perversion of reason. This is the definition of mortal sin.

Giving in to appetite is a mitigation against the mortal effects of sin.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

They did not have concupiscence then: the choice was not involving the lower appetites, rather it was involving the irascible appetites:

From your wealth of resource, what is the answer as to why God the Father would give the couple “complete dominion of reason over lower appetites” but not “complete dominion of reason over irascible apetites”?

See the previous post, Catechism 412: Did Adam and Eve have complete dominion of reason over appetite? - #236 by OneSheep

 

[simpleas]

It’s implied that God did give them enough, it’s up to us how we perceive what infused knowledge entailed I think.

He might have, though being told about something and actually experiencing it are too different things.

If not, then why not? If so, then how could a human parent possibly make a choice that would harm their own children

Good question, because we are speaking of two individuals that are not afflicted with a will that is selfish, yet some would suggest they were prideful and selfish in their choice because it harmed all humans that came from them.

What do you suppose the author of Genesis was trying to guide in our mind?

The reality that humans disobey commands even from God. The writer I’ve discovered didn’t have original sin in mind, but tried to show that humans were created good, but as individual humans given knowledge of the garden and how to maintain it were tested in their trust of God, which they failed on.
There are ancient writing before Genesis or around the same time, the writer probably relied on verbal interpretations.
I discovered recently that the tree was God, and that Adam was born from Eve, she was the goddess and he the Divine one. Very familiar to Jesus born of a woman and God the father.
But now I’m rambling…

What is the reader supposed to “come away with”?

I think there are many ‘outcomes’ for people to come away with, a first read may just have a person think that Adam and Eve were thirsty for that forbidden knowledge once it had been suggested that they could become gods. The ‘fruit’ is described as pleasing to the eye, something visual, but how did they know it was good to eat if they hadn’t eaten it before then? Maybe the snake was eating it or other people there (have heard that Adam and Eve should be thought of as a group of people not just two people)

 

[STT]

Exactly. In the absence of full awareness, there is no such thing as a free choice. However, when a person is either lacking awareness or blinded by emotion, they are not truly making a “free choice”, they are “free to make a choice within the confines of their own awareness”, which is what we do, correct?

We need to be rational to don’t get blinded by emotion. That is the thing which gives us the power to make the right decision, rationality. Free will in another hand, allows us to follow our emotion and make a wrong decision. We can even make a wrong free decision based on whatever. So I am questioning free will.

 

[OneSheep]

Check the catholic dictionary. That’s my point of reference.

From the Catholic Culture dictionary:

Pride: “An inordinate esteem of oneself. It is inordinate because it is contrary to the truth.”

Does a having a belief that is contrary to the truth demonstrate “dominion of reason”?

 

[OneSheep]

No, they used reason to make an unreasonable choice; it is a perversion of reason.

When a person is using reason to make an unreasonable choice, then they are operating from a position of untruth, which is already unreasonable.

You see, it makes absolutely no sense that a person who has “dominion of reason” will choose to make an unreasonable choice unless their own ability to reason has been compromised in some way. The person wants some sort of “good”, and Eve and Adam wanted the fruit, they desired the fruit because in their eyes it looked good.

What does make sense is that the reader is drawn to conclude that disobedience is bad, which is the point of the story, correct? If the reader takes too much time to understand and forgive the couple, then God’s subsequent behavior seems unreasonable. The objective of the story is to condemn disobedience, and to get the reader to blame Adam and Eve, right?

 

[OneSheep]

See the previous post, Catechism 412: Did Adam and Eve have complete dominion of reason over appetite?

Well CCC393 refers to angels, which is N/A

And CCC412 starts with the question as to why God did not prevent the first man from sinning, but that is not the question I asked.

The question I asked was:

What is the answer as to why God the Father would give the couple “complete dominion of reason over lower appetites” but not “complete dominion of reason over irascible apetites”?

It seems to me that the purpose of giving Adam and Eve complete dominion of reason over the lower appetites is to allow the couple to make a decision that is unencumbered by the appetites that we humans generally know, to make a decision that is unaffected by want.

So, why would God give them the ability to make such a decision over some appetites and not others?

 

[OneSheep]

It’s implied that God did give them enough, it’s up to us how we perceive what infused knowledge entailed I think.

Well, we still have a problem then. If we are deciding ourselves how to “perceive what infused knowledge entails” then we are making such a decision with on the basis of the knowledge infused. If we have “complete dominion of reason”, and the infused knowledge is accurate, then our perception will be accurate. We have to assume, of course, that the infused knowledge was accurate.

Good question, because we are speaking of two individuals that are not afflicted with a will that is selfish, yet some would suggest they were prideful and selfish in their choice because it harmed all humans that came from them.

Well, the suggestion would be unfounded unless the couple actually knew that their decision would harm more people. We have no evidence of this in the story.

I discovered recently that the tree was God, and that Adam was born from Eve, she was the goddess and he the Divine one. Very familiar to Jesus born of a woman and God the father.

This may have been some intent from a Mesopotamian source, but that is not our catechism, of course.

The reality that humans disobey commands even from God.

But when we do this, as Jesus observed, we don’t know what we are doing, correct?

I think there are many ‘outcomes’ for people to come away with, a first read may just have a person think that Adam and Eve were thirsty for that forbidden knowledge once it had been suggested that they could become gods. The ‘fruit’ is described as pleasing to the eye, something visual, but how did they know it was good to eat if they hadn’t eaten it before then?

Well, Eve saw that it was good to eat; she desired the wisdom it offered. We just have to “her word for it” so to speak.

Do you think that the story was meant to show that there are bad consequences for opposing God and authority designated by God (which were the tribal leaders, who were believed to be put there by God)?

 

[OneSheep]

We need to be rational to don’t get blinded by emotion. That is the thing which gives us the power to make the right decision, rationality. Free will in another hand, allows us to follow our emotion and make a wrong decision. We can even make a wrong free decision based on whatever. So I am questioning free will.

I think that you would agree that a coerced decision is not free. For a decision where there is emotion pulling one way and no emotion pulling the opposite direction, there is some coercion involved, right?

 

[STT]

I think that you would agree that a coerced decision is not free.

It could be free. You might be able to face and accept the thread yet decide not to.

For a decision where there is emotion pulling one way and no emotion pulling the opposite direction, there is some coercion involved, right?

What do you mean with no emotion, rationality for example?

 

[simpleas]

Are you talking about our knowledge or their knowledge? I’m speaking of perceiving as = interpret or regard (someone or something) in a particular way. that makes sense to the individual.

When some says A&E had been created by God, had infused knowledge, absence of concupiscence, and bodily immortality, yet willed to be like God, which is a form of lust I’d say…lusting after Godly power as an example, and didn’t regard anyone else but themselves, then I’d have trouble assuming the infused knowledge was accurate.

This may have been some intent from a Mesopotamian source, but that is not our catechism, of course

Yes it was before Genesis was written.

Yes Jesus said the crowd at his crucifixion didn’t know what they do, but you were asking what the authors intent upon writing down the disobedient part of creation was trying to portray.

Well, Eve saw that it was good to eat; she desired the wisdom it offered. We just have to “her word for it” so to speak.

Well we are taking the authors word for it really…

Do you think that the story was meant to show that there are bad consequences for opposing God and authority designated by God (which were the tribal leaders, who were believed to be put there by God)?

I would agree with that.

 

[Vico]

…
And CCC412 starts with the question as to why God did not prevent the first man from sinning, but that is not the question I asked.

The question I asked was:

What is the answer as to why God the Father would give the couple “complete dominion of reason over lower appetites” but not “complete dominion of reason over irascible apetites”?

It seems to me that the purpose of giving Adam and Eve complete dominion of reason over the lower appetites is to allow the couple to make a decision that is unencumbered by the appetites that we humans generally know, to make a decision that is unaffected by want.

So, why would God give them the ability to make such a decision over some appetites and not others?

It is the same answer. Also there is a difference between control and decision. To make a decision to do what is right, yet fail in action, due to lack of control is not a mortal sin. Man does not have complete control of these faculties by ordinary nature. Due to the supernatural gift of grace, there was no need to fall into mortal sin.

 

[OneSheep]

It is the same answer. Also there is a difference between control and decision. To make a decision to do what is right, yet fail in action, due to lack of control is not a mortal sin. Man does not have complete control of these faculties by ordinary nature. Due to the supernatural gift of grace, there was no need to fall into mortal sin.

If CCC 412 explains why God did not prevent man from sinning, it still does not answer the question, Vico.

If a person is “lacking control” in their action, that means that something else (an appetite) is in having a heavier influence than reason. So, it makes sense to the purpose of the story that a “preternatural gift” to Adam and Eve was given in order to keep the usual trappings of our nature from influencing (somewhat controlling) a choice/impulse to action.

However, their action ended up being heavily influenced by an appetite anyway, and you are saying that God did not add dominion of reason over irascible appetite. So the question remains:

If God intended to give man “dominion of reason over appetite”, why go half way? Why give man only partial dominion of reason over appetite? Surely a person of free will has the ability to choose against reason, so giving man dominion over all appetites would have gone much further toward helping man make a rational free decision.

Note: So far you have not presented something from the CCC that actually states that God did not give them dominion over their irascible appetites, and the encyclopedia article I referenced in the OP does not distinguish, it says “complete dominion of reason over appetite”.

Are you coming from a position such that if God gives a person all the necessary information, (including the consequence of damage to their children) and takes away all influence from appetite, that this takes the freedom away from mankind? It would be tough to make that case, Vico. A person can freely choose to defy all reason even if the person has all the information. It just so happens that people will not (because of survival instinct, etc.) choose to defy all reason (or act against reason) unless there is some appetite pulling their decision/action away from reason.

 

[OneSheep]

It could be free. You might be able to face and accept the thread[t] yet decide not to.

Yes, but the threat heavily influences the human’s reason. Reason itself becomes compromised. So, yes, a person could, with the right skill set, be able to ignore the threat and make a completely free decision, but even a skill set acquisition has to do with a knowledge base. So, a person who does not have the experience/knowledge base to transcend the threat is essentially less “free” to choose than a person of more experience, correct? Are you able to see that ability to make a free decision is highly dependent on the extent of knowledge base and experience?

What do you mean with no emotion, rationality for example?

Rationality free of the influence of emotion/desire, etc., yes.