Eve and Original sin

[laocmo]

Did you ever consider just how ridiculous the concept of original sin is? Here we have two supposedly primitive ignorant humans, probably child-like beings who have no knowledge of any other like beings, or any beings at all, listening to some mysterious voice telling them not to partake of the fruit of some tree ie. the knowledge of good and evil. It’s doubtful if they even recognized the terms. And then an equal convincing talking serpent who tells them it is really OK to do so. That the first mysterious voice is just worried that they will be like him? Come on, so somehow they learned about good and evil. Big deal, now they knew how the real world works. They had no reason to believe the first voice was the powerful unreachable God that today we recognize him. Why should they listen to him any more than the serpent? So the first voice got really ticked off and made life miserable for them and all their descendants down to this day, including you and me. The first voice decided to send his son, actually himself, to earth as a bloody sacrifice to make it all right, to somehow satisfy himself for what those ignorant primitives did to offend him. If this story was told to you by some ancient Aztec, as the basis of his religion, you would be tempted to laugh at him. You should laugh at yourself for buying into this tale.

 

[ffg]

Did you ever consider just how ridiculous the concept of original sin is? Here we have two supposedly primitive ignorant humans, probably child-like beings who have no knowledge of any other like beings, or any beings at all, listening to some mysterious voice telling them not to partake of the fruit of some tree ie. the knowledge of good and evil. It’s doubtful if they even recognized the terms. And then an equal convincing talking serpent who tells them it is really OK to do so. That the first mysterious voice is just worried that they will be like him? Come on, so somehow they learned about good and evil. Big deal, now they knew how the real world works. They had no reason to believe the first voice was the powerful unreachable God that today we recognize him. Why should they listen to him any more than the serpent? So the first voice got really ticked off and made life miserable for them and all their descendants down to this day, including you and me. The first voice decided to send his son, actually himself, to earth as a bloody sacrifice to make it all right, to somehow satisfy himself for what those ignorant primitives did to offend him. If this story was told to you by some ancient Aztec, as the basis of his religion, you would be tempted to laugh at him. You should laugh at yourself for buying into this tale.

Per what is written in our only source for the Adam and Eve story, your tale of Adam and Eve doesn’t align.

What is written implies very much a tight bond between God and His creation, which includes communication.

One example - read again the process of determining that Eve was necessary. You see ignorance / child-like in Adam’s analysis? God and Adam seem to be working together to name animals, with Adam doing the naming. While they were evaluating the goal of finding a partner for Adam.

Here, for ease:

Gen. Ch 2 18-23
18 The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.

19 So the LORD God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name.

20 The man gave names to all the tame animals, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a helper suited to the man.

21 So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

22 The LORD God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman. 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 man this one has been taken.”

Source: usccb.org/bible/genesis/2

What is written in the Bible doesn’t demonstrate what you wrote.

Not accepting it as informative is one thing, twisting it into what it is not, is not going to help anyone.

Take care,

Mike

 

[laocmo]

…God and Adam seem to be working together to name animals, with Adam doing the naming. While they were evaluating the goal of finding a partner for Adam…Mike

You really think Adam, who probably had not yet developed a language, would name the animals? Sounds like some kid’s fairy tale.What was his language? What did he call a cow? It would have taken him a thousand years 24/7 to name just a minuscule portion of the animals supposedly created. When will you hard core bible believers ever accept that Genesis is just that, a big fairy tale written by bronze age authors. It is not history, it is not fact.

 

[ffg]

(A) You really think Adam, who probably had not yet developed a language, would name the animals?

(B) Sounds like some kid’s fairy tale.What was his language?

(C) What did he call a cow?

(D) It would have taken him a thousand years 24/7 to name just a minuscule portion of the animals supposedly created. When will you hard core bible believers ever accept that Genesis is just that, a big fairy tale written by bronze age authors. It is not history, it is not fact.

Wow, a lot of great questions.

I’ll label them to keep us straight.

A) While considering that the Bible is written for teaching purposes, and that writing was once done only for ‘a purpose’ as 100 words per minute can’t even be considered a dream for OT folks - I have no reason not to trust the teachings from the only source on the subject.

If you have a better source of the Adam and Eve story, I’m sure folks would be interested. But we know it couldn’t contrast what we already trust, only support. But we’re all ears (pixels). Feel free to share.

B) If the story is a ‘true’ event - I don’t know how God and Adam communicated. But I have my guesses, as you’ve shown you have yours, though you don’t believe.

C) I don’t know, but a quick google search would help you see that cow is the English word for what I’m assuming you mean - Informal. a domestic bovine of either sex and any age.

How does the fact that you call a cow, a cow, have any purpose to Adam’s work?

D) Ok, do you have some insight as to time and it’s state and effects in the biblical ‘paradise’? If Adam was in time, all he would have is time. If he had God as a best friend, it seems work might go fairly quickly.

But again, this source being trustworthy (to me), regardless if the events happened or are for educational purposes only, the takeaways are worth it.

There are arguments much better than ‘what was a cow called in Adam’s native language?’ to challenge the Bible.

Take care,

Mike

 

[fisherman_carl]

But this is not Church teaching.The Church only goes so far as to teach that OS is transmitted by propagation.

Yeah, it seems like Aquinas is wrong as he seems to think propagation happens only through the semen. I guess they didn’t know about the egg.

 

[fisherman_carl]

St. Thomas Aquinas said in his Summa Theologica: “Accordingly the original sin of all men was in Adam indeed, as in its principal cause, according to the words of the Apostle (Romans 5:12): ‘In whom all have sinned’: whereas it is in the bodily semen, as in its instrumental cause, since it is by the active power of the semen that original sin together with human nature is transmitted to the child.”

I was reading Aristotle thought that the way propagation worked was by the power of the semen acting on the material of the menstrual fluid to make a fetus. This is where Aquinas gets this from. Of course Aquinas did not know any better on this issue in his day.

 

[fisherman_carl]

You really think Adam, who probably had not yet developed a language, would name the animals? Sounds like some kid’s fairy tale.What was his language? What did he call a cow? It would have taken him a thousand years 24/7 to name just a minuscule portion of the animals supposedly created. When will you hard core bible believers ever accept that Genesis is just that, a big fairy tale written by bronze age authors. It is not history, it is not fact.

We do know that how you interpret something will depend on the preconceptions you have going into it. If you read Scripture with a sceptical view it will affect how you interpret it.

 

[fhansen]

But we aren’t given justice like they were given because we are born in a state of original sin until baptism.
My point is, Eve sinned without Adam. She was able as a fully human female to sin, no need for her husband to sin first or second or any time, she did it by herself.
She sinned where there was no Original sin to begin with.

Yes, IMO her sin was just as grievous as Adam’s. You also seem to still be asking how a being created in original justice could sin at all, which is a good question. But consider that original justice, even perfect justice, doesn’t necessarily mean perfection per se. Perfection should necessarily entail a being’s choosing justice, not merely possessing it as a gift. Exactly at this point is where God means to stretch us, to challenge and refine us. So true perfection is a matter of the will- our willing justice, not merely God willing it for us. And this is the meaning of our free will: God will not override or violate it.

 

[paduard]

You really think Adam, who probably had not yet developed a language, would name the animals? Sounds like some kid’s fairy tale.What was his language? What did he call a cow? It would have taken him a thousand years 24/7 to name just a minuscule portion of the animals supposedly created. When will you hard core bible believers ever accept that Genesis is just that, a big fairy tale written by bronze age authors. It is not history, it is not fact.

That comment is understandable; but foolish.

Because, unless I have misunderstood contributors, most replies are based on the assumption that Adam was created either slightly before or during the Holocene period [11,700 year to present]. If creation occurred earlier e.g. 5 million years ago during the next earlier period i.e. the Pliocene period, then a thousand/or thousands of years would be but a blip compared with millions.

So as I have remarked above, such questions based on unproven assumptions, is foolish.

You will have to think a lot harder than that.

paduard

 

[Rohzek]

St. Thomas Aquinas said in his Summa Theologica: “Accordingly the original sin of all men was in Adam indeed, as in its principal cause, according to the words of the Apostle (Romans 5:12): ‘In whom all have sinned’: whereas it is in the bodily semen, as in its instrumental cause, since it is by the active power of the semen that original sin together with human nature is transmitted to the child.”

You do realize that this assumption is based upon the Ancient and Medieval understanding that the woman contributed nothing to child, but merely housed it as a vessel until birth, right? We now know of this thing called an egg, so we have plenty of reason to disregard this argument.

 

[Rohzek]

You really think Adam, who probably had not yet developed a language, would name the animals? Sounds like some kid’s fairy tale.What was his language? What did he call a cow? It would have taken him a thousand years 24/7 to name just a minuscule portion of the animals supposedly created. When will you hard core bible believers ever accept that Genesis is just that, a big fairy tale written by bronze age authors. It is not history, it is not fact.

Unless a human being is kept in extensive isolation from birth, they develop a language whether one exists prior to it or not within an extremely short period of time. It’s called Generative Grammar, because we have an innate capacity to develop a language based on simple genetically grounded rules in a segment of our brain. Word order, verb tense, etc. may vary from language to language, but those rules don’t bend because they are a part of our genetic makeup. What language Adam used? Who knows?

 

[simpleas]

Yes, IMO her sin was just as grievous as Adam’s. You also seem to still be asking how a being created in original justice could sin at all, which is a good question. But consider that original justice, even perfect justice, doesn’t necessarily mean perfection per se. Perfection should necessarily entail a being’s choosing justice, not merely possessing it as a gift. Exactly at this point is where God means to stretch us, to challenge and refine us. So true perfection is a matter of the will- our willing justice, not merely God willing it for us. And this is the meaning of our free will: God will not override or violate it.

Well I was thinking more about the teaching that Adam as head of the human race is the one responsible for the sinful nature of the human race, because as the first original human he is responsible. Yet Eve isn’t considered as much responsible because she isn’t the original human, but made from the original human, yet it is she who using her intellect, freewill etc decides what course of action she will take.

It’s all to do with Adam/Jesus/ men only able to offer the sacrifice of the mass to God because they are male, women would never be able to do such a thing.

I do not want this thread to turn into a debate about female priests, I just assume it is all tied in together from the sin of Adam, the understanding through the centuries of how life is conceived and traditions held.
I know I learnt that it was both Adam and Eve who sinned, both fell and that Jesus died for all, it was never taught to me that Adam was head of the race and therefore the one who sinned. I just learnt Jesus was the King.

 

[fisherman_carl]

You do realize that this assumption is based upon the Ancient and Medieval understanding that the woman contributed nothing to child, but merely housed it as a vessel until birth, right? We now know of this thing called an egg, so we have plenty of reason to disregard this argument.

We still have Romans 5:12 though.

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned

Of course in Catholic teaching the role that Mary played in her obedience undoes the first Eve’s disobedience.

Just as the human race was subject to death by a virgin, it was freed by a virgin, with the virginal disobedience balanced by virginal obedience(St. Irenaeus, AD189., 5.19.1).

 

[fhansen]

We still have Romans 5:12 though.

Yes, but there’s a difference between how sin first entered the world and the means or mechanism by which sin is transmitted to each newborn.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Yes, but there’s a difference between how sin first entered the world and the means or mechanism by which sin is transmitted to each newborn.

Sin isn’t really transmitted though. Original sin is a deprivation of original justice. So it’s not passing on that original grace that Adam and Eve possessed but then lost. The effects we receive is a result of that lack of grace. Sin isn’t transmitted through semen or eggs. These are merely the means to procreate. Yet, each person born is born without that original justice and therefore has the effects of original sin, which includes death. Which is why we baptize babies to undo the damage of original sin. Yet, the damage will not be fully undone until the general resurrection.

 

[fhansen]

Sin isn’t really transmitted though. Original sin is a deprivation of original justice. So it’s not passing on that original grace that Adam and Eve possessed but then lost. The effects we receive is a result of that lack of grace. Sin isn’t transmitted through semen or eggs. These are merely the means to procreate. Yet, each person born is born without that original justice and therefore has the effects of original sin, which includes death. Which is why we baptize babies to undo the damage of original sin. Yet, the damage will not be fully undone until the general resurrection.

Yes, that’s good. OS is a negation or lack of something originally possessed. And yet the Church in para 404 of the CCC puts it this way: “…the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand.” It goes on to teach that the fallen nature was somehow transmitted. In general though, either way, humans are now simply born without intimate knowledge of God, without His life in them.

 

[Vico]

Did you ever consider just how ridiculous the concept of original sin is? Here we have two supposedly primitive ignorant humans, probably child-like beings who have no knowledge of any other like beings, or any beings at all, listening to some mysterious voice telling them not to partake of the fruit of some tree ie. the knowledge of good and evil. It’s doubtful if they even recognized the terms. And then an equal convincing talking serpent who tells them it is really OK to do so. That the first mysterious voice is just worried that they will be like him? Come on, so somehow they learned about good and evil. Big deal, now they knew how the real world works. They had no reason to believe the first voice was the powerful unreachable God that today we recognize him. Why should they listen to him any more than the serpent? So the first voice got really ticked off and made life miserable for them and all their descendants down to this day, including you and me. The first voice decided to send his son, actually himself, to earth as a bloody sacrifice to make it all right, to somehow satisfy himself for what those ignorant primitives did to offend him. If this story was told to you by some ancient Aztec, as the basis of his religion, you would be tempted to laugh at him. You should laugh at yourself for buying into this tale.

Catechism:

How to read the account of the fall

390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.265

So from the beginning, conscience is the witness of universal truth of the good.

Catechism:

1776 "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."47

1781 Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed. If man commits evil, the just judgment of conscience can remain within him as the witness to the universal truth of the good, at the same time as the evil of his particular choice. The verdict of the judgment of conscience remains a pledge of hope and mercy. In attesting to the fault committed, it calls to mind the forgiveness that must be asked, the good that must still be practiced, and the virtue that must be constantly cultivated with the grace of God:

We shall . . . reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.52​