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

[OneSheep]

God’s purpose for creating people with free will.

I think the answer has to come phenomenologically.

Do you, personally, have a purpose? Is there a reason for your existence?

 

[Wesrock]

Let’s go back to appetite. To quote Thomas Aquinas (ST I: Q80: A2)

Objection 1. It would seem that the sensitive and intellectual appetites are not distinct powers. For powers are not differentiated by accidental differences, as we have seen above (I:77:3). But it is accidental to the appetible object whether it be apprehended by the sense or by the intellect. Therefore the sensitive and intellectual appetites are not distinct powers.

I answer that, We must needs say that the intellectual appetite is a distinct power from the sensitive appetite. For the appetitive power is a passive power, which is naturally moved by the thing apprehended: wherefore the apprehended appetible is a mover which is not moved, while the appetite is a mover moved, as the Philosopher says in De Anima iii, 10 and Metaph. xii (Did. xi, 7). Now things passive and movable are differentiated according to the distinction of the corresponding active and motive principles; because the motive must be proportionate to the movable, and the active to the passive: indeed, the passive power itself has its very nature from its relation to its active principle. Therefore, since what is apprehended by the intellect and what is apprehended by sense are generically different; consequently, the intellectual appetite is distinct from the sensitive.

Reply to Objection 1. It is not accidental to the thing desired to be apprehended by the sense or the intellect; on the contrary, this belongs to it by its nature; for the appetible does not move the appetite except as it is apprehended. Wherefore differences in the thing apprehended are of themselves differences of the appetible. And so the appetitive powers are distinct according to the distinction of the things apprehended, as their proper objects.

So there is a distinction between intellectual appetite and the sensitive appetite. So when we say short hand that Adam and Eve had their appetites subject to reason, we specifically mean their sensitive appetites. The intellectual appetites proceed from their reason, or rather, their intellect.

 

[STT]

Do you, personally, have a purpose?

I was not asked whether I would like to come to this world or not. This world does not make any sense to me. What is God’s purpose?

Is there a reason for your existence?

I don’t know.

 

[OneSheep]

So there is a distinction between intellectual appetite and the sensitive appetite. So when we say short hand that Adam and Eve had their appetites subject to reason, we specifically mean their sensitive appetites. The intellectual appetites proceed from their reason, or rather, their intellect.

So, which appetite was affecting the young couple?

 

[OneSheep]

I was not asked whether I would like to come to this world or not. This world does not make any sense to me.

Well, there you have it. If the world does not make sense to you, then it won’t make any sense for God to create it. Can you rest with that, or do you want something more?

What is God’s purpose?

Well, based on the above, there is no purpose at all. I’m not saying that I don’t see a purpose for my life, but I can completely accept someone else saying that they see none for their own.

I don’t know.

Again, maybe that is good enough for your own life. Nobody has answers for everything, right? One of my last questions is, “Why does creation happen so slowly?”. I don’t have an answer to that one, I just continue to find joy in the process of creating, in which I also find purpose.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

So there is a distinction between intellectual appetite and the sensitive appetite. So when we say short hand that Adam and Eve had their appetites subject to reason, we specifically mean their sensitive appetites. The intellectual appetites proceed from their reason, or rather, their intellect.

So, which appetite was affecting the young couple?

Affecting might not be the right word in this case. But “being like gods,” or the “fruit,” was the object of their intellectual appetites.

 

[OneSheep]

Affecting might not be the right word in this case. But “being like gods,” or the “fruit,” was the object of their intellectual appetites.

So, did the couple have complete dominion of reason over their intellectual appetite, or did they not?

Were desire for power and autonomy also part of their appetite-in-action?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Affecting might not be the right word in this case. But “being like gods,” or the “fruit,” was the object of their intellectual appetites.

So, did the couple have complete dominion of reason over their intellectual appetite, or did they not?

You’re basically asking if their reason had dominion over their reason.

The point is they weren’t led astray by sensitive appetites.

 

[OneSheep]

You’re basically asking if their reason had dominion over their reason.

The point is they weren’t led astray by sensitive appetites.

So, God gave them dominion of reason over their sensitive appetites, but did not give them dominion of reason over other appetites?

I threw in another question at the same time you responded.

 

[PetraG]

So there is a distinction between intellectual appetite and the sensitive appetite. So when we say short hand that Adam and Eve had their appetites subject to reason, we specifically mean their sensitive appetites. The intellectual appetites proceed from their reason, or rather, their intellect.

Adam and Eve were tempted by both appetites: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” Gen. 3:6

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

You’re basically asking if their reason had dominion over their reason.

The point is they weren’t led astray by sensitive appetites.

So, God gave them dominion of reason over their sensitive appetites, but did not give them dominion of reason over other appetites?

I threw in another question at the same time you responded.

He allowed them to make their own judgments with their intellects. You’re basically asking if he gave them power to use reason to dominate their reason. It’s nonsensical. He did not obliterate their free will. It’s the fact that the decision to disobey God was entirely intellectual and not mitigated by sensitive appetites that they are fully responsible.

 

[OneSheep]

He allowed them to make their own judgments with their intellects. You’re basically asking if he gave them power to use reason to dominate their reason.

Actually, it is not nonsensical, but we can look at it both ways.

If there was a desire for ability to reason, then it would be an appetite. If A&E had complete ability to reason, then they would know that they have such and it would be nonsensical for them to want more. However we know from the narrative that Eve saw something in the fruit that she did not have, so she did not have the knowledge to know she already had what she was missing.

OTOH, if what Eve and Adam desired was “gaining wisdom”, then their desire was not focused on the ability to reason itself, but the knowledge base from which to operate the ability to reason.

He did not obliterate their free will.

Of course He did not. Their free will was limited or compromised by something, there was something amiss in their reasoning, correct?

It’s the fact that the decision to disobey God was entirely intellectual and not mitigated by sensitive appetites that they are fully responsible.

So, we go back to the question you didn’t answer. Did God give them dominion over their sensitive appetites but not over their intellectual appetites? (Feel free not to answer, but the next question is more interesting):

Why do we want to blame Adam and Eve?

 

[Wesrock]

Why do we want to blame Adam and Eve?

Adam and Eve were not mechanical pieces. They were rational animals moved to pursue their ends from their own intrinsic and voluntary principles, not moved about like puppets or mechanistic clocks set in motion at some distant time in the past. As such, they are culpable for their actions, as we are culpable for our actions. What moves us are the internal principles of our own nature.

The Church does not take a mechanical view of nature. To use an analogy provided earlier, they each drove their own car. There was nothing broken with the car they were given that caused them to go anywhere they didn’t intend to go. They ended up precisely where they intended to go, not where the car was pre-programmed to go.

 

[STT]

Well, there you have it. If the world does not make sense to you, then it won’t make any sense for God to create it. Can you rest with that, or do you want something more?

I want more. I want to know why I am here.

Well, based on the above, there is no purpose at all. I’m not saying that I don’t see a purpose for my life, but I can completely accept someone else saying that they see none for their own.

Hmmm…

Again, maybe that is good enough for your own life. Nobody has answers for everything, right? One of my last questions is, “Why does creation happen so slowly?”. I don’t have an answer to that one, I just continue to find joy in the process of creating, in which I also find purpose.

Creation happen slowly?

 

[o_mlly]

He allowed them to make their own judgments with their intellects. You’re basically asking if he gave them power to use reason to dominate their reason. It’s nonsensical. He did not obliterate their free will. It’s the fact that the decision to disobey God was entirely intellectual and not mitigated by sensitive appetites that they are fully responsible.

The proper object for the appetite of intellect is the truth. God gave Adam and Eve the truth; the snake not so much. Adam chose to believe a lie.

The story is figurative, not factual. A parallel analogy is the parent who forbids the child to run into the street. The child, ignorant of the consequences of disobeying (the reasons for the rule), disobeys and is killed.

His ignorance does not exculpate his disobedience. Neither does his ignorance bring him back to life. Because he knew the rule and willed to disobey, he’s dead.

 

[STT]

Adam chose to believe a lie.

Did they know that what snake told them was a lie?

 

[OneSheep]

His ignorance does not exculpate his disobedience. Neither does his ignorance bring him back to life. Because he knew the rule and willed to disobey, he’s dead.

I hope you see the irony, here. Wesrock is saying that humans are not mechanical, that we had complete free will to not eat of the tree.

Using your analogy, God’s banishment of Adam and Eve was as mechanical as a person getting hit in the street.

 

[OneSheep]

Creation happen slowly?

Sure! We humans are creating our world, to some degree, and creating our lives and surroundings. We don’t do this alone, of course, but we participate in it.

The civil rights movement, for example, was a big creative act that brings forth a more realized Kingdom of God. Your own civility and kindness does the same. There is something being created, a Kingdom, that we can find joy in participating in such creation.

But some mistakes we seem to have to repeat before we get it right. It happens very slowly. Do you see the world as getting better, or getting worse?

 

[PetraG]

He allowed them to make their own judgments with their intellects. You’re basically asking if he gave them power to use reason to dominate their reason. It’s nonsensical. He did not obliterate their free will. It’s the fact that the decision to disobey God was entirely intellectual and not mitigated by sensitive appetites that they are fully responsible.

Entirely intellectual?
What, may I ask, is so magical about intellect?

No, the command is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) It isn’t “you shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole mind, full stop, done.”

The Fall was surely a renunciation of the 1st Great Commandment in its entirety–that is, a deliberate choice made without qualm of heart, mind or soul, a whole-hearted capitulation to a deliberate act of rebellion meant as the first act of a pattern of life in which the judgment of the individual soul would be given precedence over Divine Law.

But yes, you are right: it was not an impulse or a “weak moment.” It was a choice that surely involved the intellect in its entirety. I am only quibbling with the idea that it did not come with full cooperation of the whole person.

 

[PetraG]

Did they know that what snake told them was a lie?

They surely had normal use of adult intellect.
They clearly knew that either the snake was lying or else God was lying.
The snake directly contradicted what they had been told concerning the consequences of rebelling against Divine law. He didn’t sneak a fruit from the tree and slip it into a salad. He didn’t spin them around so they were dizzy and innocently collected fruit from the incorrect tree. He convinced them to deliberately choose to reach out and grasp what was forbidden on the theory that God’s laws were not true and they would be better off having what they were forbidden to have rather than trusting that it was in their best interest to avoid what God in His Infinite Wisdom and Love told them to avoid at all costs.