How does Original Sin work?

[grannymh]

Sorry. We become justified at Baptism, sanctifying grace being a way to term that new justice wrought in us by God.

Thank you. I did a tiny CCC search about Baptism.

Are you referring to CCC 1266?

The Most Holy Trinity gives the baptized sanctifying grace, the grace of justification:

• enabling them to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him through the theological virtues;
• giving them the power to live and act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of the Holy Spirit;
• allowing them to grow in goodness through the moral virtues.
  Thus the whole organism of the Christian’s supernatural life has its roots in Baptism.

This sounds like the unjustified human is in the State Deprived of Sanctifying Grace. This state is also known as the state of Original Sin. CCC 404-405

A person cannot be born in the State of Mortal Sin, because an infant under the age of reason, in the womb, cannot commit Mortal Sin. See CCC Glossary, Mortal Sin, page 889.

The State Deprived of Sanctifying Grace is not equal to a Mortal Sin. “Deprived” is the key word according to Catholic teachings.

Another thought. God is continually giving actual graces to those Deprived of the State of Sanctifying Grace. See CCC Glossary, Grace, page 881.

 

[fhansen]

Thank you. I did a tiny CCC search about Baptism.

Are you referring to CCC 1266?

The Most Holy Trinity gives the baptized sanctifying grace, the grace of justification:

• enabling them to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him through the theological virtues;
• giving them the power to live and act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of the Holy Spirit;
• allowing them to grow in goodness through the moral virtues.
  Thus the whole organism of the Christian’s supernatural life has its roots in Baptism.

This sounds like the unjustified human is in the State Deprived of Sanctifying Grace. This state is also known as the state of Original Sin. CCC 404-405

A person cannot be born in the State of Mortal Sin, because an infant under the age of reason, in the womb, cannot commit Mortal Sin. See CCC Glossary, Mortal Sin, page 889

The State Deprived of Sanctifying Grace is not equal to a Mortal Sin. “Deprived” is the key word according to Catholic teachings.

Yes, you are correct in your understanding-it had to do with justification, how we become just in the eyes of God. We’re born in an unjust state, due to the Fall. I had misread your post, BTW, but in any case disagree with your statement that lack of SG is different from mortal sin. Adam brought death into the world, upon all men, and so man is “mortally wounded” from the get-go, in need of grace in order to be made alive again. Adam’s willful and deliberate and grave act brought this upon us.

 

[grannymh]

Yes, you are correct in your understanding-it had to do with justification, how we become just in the eyes of God. We’re born in an unjust state, due to the Fall. I had misread your post, BTW, but in any case disagree with your statement that lack of SG is different from mortal sin. Adam brought death into the world, upon all men, and so man is “mortally wounded” from the get-go, in need of grace in order to be made alive again. Adam’s willful and deliberate and grave act brought this upon us.

Please, please, I did not, repeat not, use the word “lack” in my statement in post 98."
Here is my statement.
“The State Deprived of Sanctifying Grace is not equal to a Mortal Sin. “Deprived” is the key word according to Catholic teachings.”

Please understand that the word “lack” has a different connotation from “deprived” which is why I normally do not use the word “lack.” No wonder there are difficulties when people think “lack.” Perhaps that is why there are problems with the wrong use of the description “mortally wounded.”
I need a break.
:sad_yes:

 

[fhansen]

Please, please, I did not, repeat not, use the word “lack” in my statement in post 98."
Here is my statement.
“The State Deprived of Sanctifying Grace is not equal to a Mortal Sin. “Deprived” is the key word according to Catholic teachings.”

Please understand that the word “lack” has a different connotation from “deprived” which is why I normally do not use the word “lack.” No wonder there are difficulties when people think “lack.” Perhaps that is why there are problems with the wrong use of the description “mortally wounded.”
I need a break.
:sad_yes:

Oh…ok. Anyway for some reason you failed to address the matter. But ok. I’ll restate my post. Maybe that will make a difference.

Yes, you are correct in your understanding-it had to do with justification, how we become just in the eyes of God. We’re born in an unjust state, due to the Fall. I had misread your post, BTW, but in any case disagree with your statement that the deprivation of SG is different from mortal sin. Adam brought death into the world, upon all men, and so man is “mortally wounded” from the get-go, in need of grace in order to be made alive again. Adam’s willful and deliberate and grave act brought this upon us.

Take a break instead if you need, granny. You’re loved in any case-just so you know-FWIW.

 

[Daniel_Lysinger]

Note that we also don’t directly inherit the spiritual state of a particularly depraved or vice-ridden ancestor. We all get the same deal – a will and intellect that don’t always control our passions and appetites, plus the offer of God’s grace to strengthen the one against the other. Our First Parents got a better deal, sure, but they still screwed it up and God is under no obligation to keep dispensing His grace the same way.

They got a better deal, but because they screwed up we don’t get the same deal. Your argument, with the idea of grace as a freely given gift of God, gets farther than the idea of grace as a necessary precondition to any happiness. However, it still falls short. Imagine a homeowner who has a spare house – he rents out the house to a family who betray him and trash the house. Now, a just homeowner would demand repayment of the damages, and rent. However, what has happened is the homeowner has evicted the family and sentenced them and all their descendants to death (a lack of sanctifying grace is the equivalent of spiritual death). You may propose that sanctifying grace is just a trinket that God is free to dispense however he chooses, but sanctifying grace (in Catholic theology) is so much more than that. It is literally the difference between spending eternity in happiness and living forever in misery. Given the Catholic definitions of God (all just, all merciful, Love itself), isn’t God obligated to dispense it in a just, merciful fashion? Not in the sense of an “obligation,” but more like something that he will DO because to not do it would be to contradict his very nature.

A fallen but redeemed and glorified humanity is a higher thing even than unfallen humanity.

I am not entirely positive of the Catholic theology on which state is better, so I will refrain from making any statements here – however, it does seem strange that committing a sin ended up making man more powerful…

No one inherits guilt for the first sin. We inherit a broken and deprived state, yes, but not moral fault.

It’s true that, without sanctifying grace supplied by God (whether through the ordinary means of baptism or by some extraordinary exercise of His mercy), even a human innocent of personal sin cannot enter Heaven. However, with only a few exceptions (such as the rather pessimistic St. Augustine), theologians do not generally consign infants to eternal suffering. They may technically be in Hell because that’s the only permanent alternative to Heaven, but we have always realized that it would be unjust to punish them as “proper” mortal sinners are punished, and God is not unjust.

The thing is, God hasn’t revealed to us what happens to such children, so we have had to hypothesize over the millennia, taking into account that baptism is the only definite means revealed to us for receiving sanctifying grace the first time. As others point out, those hypotheses have gotten ever more generous over time, increasingly recognizing that God is perfectly merciful and loving and isn’t going to lose a soul just because we couldn’t baptize someone before death. Thus the speculation has moved from lesser punishment in Hell, to existence in a very pleasant “top layer” of Hell (Limbo) that is Hell only in the sense that it is not Heaven, to the current “God can save whom He wills regardless of the rules He gives us, so entrust them to His mercy.” We only stop short of outright saying they all go to Heaven because God has revealed no such thing and there must be some reason baptism of infants is important. (Oddly, some Protestants who are totally okay with assigning any and every adult non-Christian to Hell do make that leap and assert that all children below a certain age go to Heaven, even though that really doesn’t seem to fit with their idea of how Original Sin and “the sin nature” work. I do not speak of all Protestant groups, of course.)

First, I would like to commend you on your response. You are the first one that I saw to make a coherent defense of Church teaching, and that is impressive.

You say that human kind does not inherit the guilt of the first sin. This is a very just and honorable thing, but it directly contradicts CCC 402 which explicitly states “All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: ‘By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners.’” Later, it also quotes the Bible (Romans 5:18) “‘Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.’” How can one be condemned if one is not guilty? Clearly, the Bible and the Church both affirm humanity’s guilt in the matter. Also, how is it true that all men have acquittal and life if it is impossible for those men and women who are killed in the womb to have this? Is it possible that they are not considered real “men” by St. Paul? What is meant here?

Your point about innocent babies being unable to get to Heaven is a pretty big problem. If it is true that God is all just and the very essence of Love, how can it be that he doesn’t give the gift of his grace to those who (perhaps more than any of us) merit it? Certainly, the unborn have not done anything to please God, but they also have never committed any fault (which is contrary to the nature of God, and therefore those who have willfully sinned cannot enter the perfection that is Heaven). There is a passage in the Bible where Jesus says “unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). How is it possible that under our theology, the littlest of little children will not enter into heaven? This seemingly contradicts one of the central ideas to the NT, namely that children are very close to God, and are certainly part of his kingdom.

 

[Daniel_Lysinger]

Let us start with a general foundation.

These three axioms of Catholicism are what make Original Sin work. There is the Divine Creator and the human creature.

1. God as Creator exists. Genesis 1: 1
2. God as Creator interacts personally with each individual human, that is, Adam. Genesis 2: 15-17
3. Every individual human, that is Adam, has the inherent capacity to interact with God as Creator. Genesis 3: 11-12

Please let me know if you are interested in this type of approach as a way of observing how Original Sin works.

I’m very interested, this looks promising.

I apologize for posting twice, it was too long with this included in the first post.

 

[grannymh]

These three axioms of Catholicism are what make Original Sin work. There is the Divine Creator and the human creature.

1. God as Creator exists. Genesis 1: 1
2. God as Creator interacts personally with each individual human, that is, Adam. Genesis 2: 15-17
3. Every individual human, that is Adam, has the inherent capacity to interact with God as Creator. Genesis 3: 11-12

I’m very interested, this looks promising.

I apologize for posting twice, it was too long with this included in the first post.

What this structure does is to help you put your gathered information into a deductive format, that is a top-down logic. Or we can say that we go forward from a foundation of truths.

The first thing to do is to place your comments and concerns with the proper axiom. Some comments might fit more than one axiom. At this point, I am not concerned about the value or truth of your points. For example: axiom 1. God can exist as a loving God or a punishing God. We can put there the Garden of Eden as a demonstration of God’s love. And then slip down to understanding Adam’s action of eating organic fruit there as part of axiom 3.

This is not a term paper. For axiom 1. you could note that “God punishes” or God loves. Or maybe it is a both/and position instead of an either/or position. Axiom 3 could be simply Adam sinned.

I have become an experiential learner in that I see information as physical in that the Original Sin stuff is physically in this corner or that corner. I can “stand in an axiom” and look at another one and have a debate between the two. When I landed on CAF and opened the Bible, all I saw was a maze. I had to eliminate dead ends.

Practically speaking, you do not have to do the above if you can keep your points moving in your mind as you analyze them.

I am sharing how I learned the Original Sin story. We started with a few truths and then figured out what could happen next and if our idea of what could happen next was probable. We also learned the basic Catholic doctrines which flowed from the first three exciting chapters of Genesis. Finally, we could say that our story about Original Sin works.

And, yes, you are the person who will be working hard. In one way or another, you have covered most of the difficulties. There are probably a few more you can add.

In my opinion, Original Sin works because I found the facts that make it work. I should say I sorted out the facts which make it work. And I still find interesting info in Scripture.

One last condition. I am not concerned if you believe in Original Sin or not. My main goal is that you have a basic understanding of Original Sin.

I will be taking a short break from this thread. Or I may stop in.

I have run into an unexpected problem about the word “deprived.” I should have realized that this word can be confusing. Instead, I mistakenly thought that because “deprived” has been used in describing the state of Adam and Eve in various catechisms’’’ …
For example: The Baltimore Catechism, Revised Edition (1941)

1. What has happened to us on account of the sin of Adam?

On account of the sin of Adam, we, his descendants, come into the world deprived of sanctifying grace and inherit his punishment, as we would have inherited his gifts had he been obedient to God.
But, by the envy of the devil, death came into the world. (Wisdom 2:24)

This error on my part means I need to add to my position the depths of the word deprived.
This needs quiet time.

 

[Vico]

“Baptism washes away all, absolutely all, our sins, whether of deed, word, or thought, whether sins original or added, whether knowingly or unknowingly contracted” -St. Augustine, A.D. 420

Catholic doctrine clearly states that Original Sin is on everyone’s soul at birth. The results of having this on your soul is you do not have the benefit of Sanctifying Grace, essentially dooming you to eternal damnation if you do not rectify the situation. The reasons they posit for the reasonableness of the transmission of this sin are many, including considering it as a “disease that spreads down through the generations,” or simply a state of necessity because of the transgression of the “head” of the human race, namely Adam. I prefer the latter explanation simply because physically comparing sin to a disease seems to me to be a bit lacking in the concept of sin (which is willfully choosing a lesser good over a greater). However, if you have a better explanation please tell me.

On to the main question – how does it work? I mean, it is true that the state of Adam’s soul after he committed the sin was passed down. It is also true that no means for getting rid of the mark of Original Sin existed before the sacrament of Baptism was initiated. So, why doesn’t the state of the parent’s soul (assuming that the parent has had a legitimate Baptism) pass on to the child? If the undoings of one parent can pass on, why can’t the benefits of another get passed down? It is impossible from a reasonable point of view to argue that babies in the womb choose to sin Adam’s sin, and therefore the results of the sin are simply passed down regardless. But if that is the case, wouldn’t it also be reasonable for the good deeds of more recent parents to be transmitted? If it is simply a matter of who your parents are, why should each individual have to “start all over again” in redeeming himself from a parent’s sin regardless of any other person in the family tree (say if the grandfather and the dad got baptized)…

It just seems logically incoherent. Please enlighten me.

Catechism

417 Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called “original sin”.

418 As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”).

419 “We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, “by propagation, not by imitation” and that it is. . . ‘proper to each’” (Paul VI, CPG § 16).

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Every human is made in the image and likeness of God, there is a relationship.

That makes us a being with a spiritual component to out nature, but it does not say anything about the necessary presence of sanctifying grace - other than implying we have the capacity for such.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Naturally, it is logically incoherent because there is too much misinformation that the basics are either missing or turned inside out.

Let us start with a general foundation.

These three axioms of Catholicism are what make Original Sin work. There is the Divine Creator and the human creature.

1. God as Creator exists. Genesis 1: 1
2. God as Creator interacts personally with each individual human, that is, Adam. Genesis 2: 15-17
3. Every individual human, that is Adam, has the inherent capacity to interact with God as Creator. Genesis 3: 11-12

Please let me know if you are interested in this type of approach as a way of observing how Original Sin works.

Questions?
comments!

I always thought OS was a religious explanation for the obvious evils apparently inherent in the human condition - yet your “three axioms of Catholicism” say nothing of this.

Can you quote and reference a text which directly speaks of these three axioms?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You say that human kind does not inherit the guilt of the first sin. This is a very just and honorable thing, but it directly contradicts CCC 402 which explicitly states “All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: ‘By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners.’” Later, it also quotes the Bible (Romans 5:18) “‘Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.’” How can one be condemned if one is not guilty? Clearly, the Bible and the Church both affirm humanity’s guilt in the matter. Also, how is it true that all men have acquittal and life if it is impossible for those men and women who are killed in the womb to have this? Is it possible that they are not considered real “men” by St. Paul? What is meant here?

You may be getting snagged on the meaning of “sin” and “sinner”.
In traditional moral theology there are two types of evil: malum culpae (moral evil) and malum poenae (physical evil). Hence there are two types of sin and sinners and punishment.
So not all sinners who are “condemned” are with moral fault.

Your point about innocent babies being unable to get to Heaven is a pretty big problem. If it is true that God is all just and the very essence of Love, how can it be that he doesn’t give the gift of his grace to those who (perhaps more than any of us) merit it?

Must a king who justly treats his subjects offer his personal friendship to all of them and install them all in his guest house? None who do not receive his friendship are upset because it is not on their horizon of possibilities. But if it happens, it is a wonderful gift.
It is not deserved.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Current humans, are in the State of Sanctifying Grace, or in a state deprived of Sanctifying Grace, or in the State of Mortal Sin, or they are dead.

What brought this on exactly .
I don’t quite understand, you seem to imply the categories are exclusive yet they do not seem to be upon reflection?
What is a current human exactly?

 

[fhansen]

You may be getting snagged on the meaning of “sin” and “sinner”.
In traditional moral theology there are two types of evil: malum culpae (moral evil) and malum poenae (physical evil). Hence there are two types of sin and sinners and punishment.
So not all sinners who are “condemned” are with moral fault.

Must a king who justly treats his subjects offer his personal friendship to all of them and install them all in his guest house? None who do not receive his friendship are upset because it is not on their horizon of possibilities. But if it happens, it is a wonderful gift.
It is not deserved.

The big problem, as I see it, is that neither would eternal punishment be deserved. And, for a human, could any life sans God be worth living eternally?

 

[Daniel_Lysinger]

You may be getting snagged on the meaning of “sin” and “sinner”.
In traditional moral theology there are two types of evil: malum culpae (moral evil) and malum poenae (physical evil). Hence there are two types of sin and sinners and punishment.
So not all sinners who are “condemned” are with moral fault.

Well, this is quite wrong. I was immensely confused when you stated that there are “two types of sin,” and for good reason. It looks to me like you just made this up on the fly.

Firstly, you translate malum culpae and malum poenae horribly. The literal translation of malum culpae is “evil of fault,” while the translation of malum poenae is “evil of punishment.” Malum poenae is not a sin any more than jail time is a crime – rather, it is simply a description of an evil that has occurred to someone. These came from St. Thomas’s Summa when he is discussing the nature of evil, and not the nature of sin. Sin is that evil of which you are culpable (malum culpae) while the punishment due to sin (malum poenae) completes the definition of evil (sin and punishment). You cannot have (logically, at least) punishment due to sin if you have not sinned (or are guilty of it). Ergo, there is no such thing as “two types of sin,” rather two types of evil (which is something entirely different).

It should sound silly that you can be sentenced without being condemned. That’s because, quite frankly, it is.

Must a king who justly treats his subjects offer his personal friendship to all of them and install them all in his guest house? None who do not receive his friendship are upset because it is not on their horizon of possibilities. But if it happens, it is a wonderful gift.
It is not deserved.

With the guest house analogy, this sounds ok. However, look at it from the point of the kingdom (heaven is often referred to as a kingdom, and not a guest house). There is infinite space in the kingdom, but the king (who is all just) decides not to allow a group of people who through no fault of their own were displeasing to the king at the time of entry into the kingdom (imagine that another group of people ahem parents who get abortions decided to muddy their clothes). This is not a perfect analogy, but I think it is better than the guest house one.

Re: How does Original Sin work?
These three axioms of Catholicism are what make Original Sin work. There is the Divine Creator and the human creature.

1. God as Creator exists. Genesis 1: 1
2. God as Creator interacts personally with each individual human, that is, Adam. Genesis 2: 15-17
3. Every individual human, that is Adam, has the inherent capacity to interact with God as Creator. Genesis 3: 11-12

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Lysinger View Post
I’m very interested, this looks promising.

I apologize for posting twice, it was too long with this included in the first post.
What this structure does is to help you put your gathered information into a deductive format, that is a top-down logic. Or we can say that we go forward from a foundation of truths.

The first thing to do is to place your comments and concerns with the proper axiom. Some comments might fit more than one axiom. At this point, I am not concerned about the value or truth of your points. For example: axiom 1. God can exist as a loving God or a punishing God. We can put there the Garden of Eden as a demonstration of God’s love. And then slip down to understanding Adam’s action of eating organic fruit there as part of axiom 3.

This is not a term paper. For axiom 1. you could note that “God punishes” or God loves. Or maybe it is a both/and position instead of an either/or position. Axiom 3 could be simply Adam sinned.

I have become an experiential learner in that I see information as physical in that the Original Sin stuff is physically in this corner or that corner. I can “stand in an axiom” and look at another one and have a debate between the two. When I landed on CAF and opened the Bible, all I saw was a maze. I had to eliminate dead ends.

Practically speaking, you do not have to do the above if you can keep your points moving in your mind as you analyze them.

I am sharing how I learned the Original Sin story. We started with a few truths and then figured out what could happen next and if our idea of what could happen next was probable. We also learned the basic Catholic doctrines which flowed from the first three exciting chapters of Genesis. Finally, we could say that our story about Original Sin works.

And, yes, you are the person who will be working hard. In one way or another, you have covered most of the difficulties. There are probably a few more you can add.

In my opinion, Original Sin works because I found the facts that make it work. I should say I sorted out the facts which make it work. And I still find interesting info in Scripture.

One last condition. I am not concerned if you believe in Original Sin or not. My main goal is that you have a basic understanding of Original Sin.

I like this logical approach. And I agree, the belief in the matter is not the issue here – rather the reasonableness of it (as to fully know God, one must exercise both reason and faith). I will attempt to find out how it fits together using your axioms, and post my conclusions soon.

 

[Daniel_Lysinger]

Well, this is quite wrong. I was immensely confused when you stated that there are “two types of sin,” and for good reason. It looks to me like you just made this up on the fly.

Firstly, you translate malum culpae and malum poenae horribly. The literal translation of malum culpae is “evil of fault,” while the translation of malum poenae is “evil of punishment.” Malum poenae is not a sin any more than jail time is a crime – rather, it is simply a description of an evil that has occurred to someone. These came from St. Thomas’s Summa when he is discussing the nature of evil, and not the nature of sin. Sin is that evil of which you are culpable (malum culpae) while the punishment due to sin (malum poenae) completes the definition of evil (sin and punishment). You cannot have (logically, at least) punishment due to sin if you have not sinned (or are guilty of it). Ergo, there is no such thing as “two types of sin,” rather two types of evil (which is something entirely different).

It should sound silly that you can be sentenced without being condemned. That’s because, quite frankly, it is.

Edit I misread your post slightly. My argument is that it does not follow that there are two types of sin just because there are two “parts” or definitions of evil.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The big problem, as I see it, is that neither would eternal punishment be deserved.

Not quite sure what you mean. An eternity in a natural paradise (which is far better than what the best lives of the best people on earth ever had) sounds OK with me even though I know of God and his promises (and unbaptized babies are said never to know).

And, for a human, could any life sans God be worth living eternally?

The medievals gave a clear yes to this. If you do not know what friendship with a king consists in and you never had any knowledge of a king or even the possibility of friendship and a new life with him…there is no loss to experience.

I still remember discovering the new world’s of possibility open to me when after 18 months I discovered what a “firewire” port was and that my work purchased laptop had one. This was well before the days of USB. Firewire failed (it was little known by most even in its brief heyday) and USB eventually succeeded. It allowed me to transfer HDef data from my advanced vidcam to disk extremely fast.

But if I had not researched what this funny looking port was and found the answer I would have been none the wiser. I would never had known that data could be transferred so quickly and helpfully.

Likewise with heaven and eternal life surely?
If we have absolutely no awareness our nature has the passive capability for something truly amazing - the heart does not pine until it is known.

 

[fhansen]

Not quite sure what you mean. An eternity in a natural paradise (which is far better than what the best lives of the best people on earth ever had) sounds OK with me even though I know of God and his promises (and unbaptized babies are said never to know).

The medievals gave a clear yes to this. If you do not know what friendship with a king consists in and you never had any knowledge of a king or even the possibility of friendship and a new life with him…there is no loss to experience.

I still remember discovering the new world’s of possibility open to me when after 18 months I discovered what a “firewire” port was and that my work purchased laptop had one. This was well before the days of USB. Firewire failed (it was little known by most even in its brief heyday) and USB eventually succeeded. It allowed me to transfer HDef data from my advanced vidcam to disk extremely fast.

But if I had not researched what this funny looking port was and found the answer I would have been none the wiser. I would never had known that data could be transferred so quickly and helpfully.

Likewise with heaven and eternal life surely?
If we have absolutely no awareness our nature has the passive capability for something truly amazing - the heart does not pine until it is known.

I’m not so sure the medievals had it right then. Eternity is a very long time . Would anyone really want to live *this *life…eternally?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Well, this is quite wrong. I was immensely confused when you stated that there are “two types of sin,” and for good reason. It looks to me like you just made this up on the fly.

Firstly, you translate malum culpae and malum poenae horribly. The literal translation of malum culpae is “evil of fault,” while the translation of malum poenae is “evil of punishment.”

Malum poenae is not a sin.
You cannot have punishment due to sin if you have not sinned (or are guilty of it).

While my quick contribution was no doubt a little clumsy it is essentially correct. Those who suffer this evil (i.e. contract rather than commit the punishment called Malum Poenae) may be validly called sinful. Not all sin incurred is voluntary.

That is, a “sinner” is someone who has a privation of what should be. It doesn’t have to be a privation we caused ourselves (malum culpae ,moral fault), it could have been done to us by another (malum poenae). Hence we read in John about the man born blind “born a sinner” as the Pharisees cruelly remark.

So “sin” is validly predicated not only of evil internal acts (MC) but also of evil external acts (MP).

**Evil, sin and moral wrong **are related on a continuum going from the more general to the less general.

Evil is the most general (privation of due form). Thus we can say that a crooked leg is a bad or evil leg (though we cannot say it is a sin, except loosely in the sense whereby we call the effects of sin sin).

After evil comes sin. Thus we can call limping a sin, since we can call any incomplete act a sin, whether of nature (malum poenae) or of morals (malum culpae).

**Moral wrong **is a subset of sin. Sin has the nature of moral wrong only when voluntary, since we do not impute any disordered act (eg limping) to anyone as moral wrong unless the act is within the person’s power.

And so sin is evidently more general than moral wrong, although the common
usage often considers sin and moral wrong to be exactly the same.

For some reason most people without formal theological training somehow think sin must always be voluntarily incurred. Yet this is not a full definition of the Catholic understanding of the word “sin”.

This is the mistake I was observing in your understanding of “sin”.

 

[grannymh]

Please note that there are multiple ways to approach Axiom 1. In addition to explanations of His nature, God can also be described by His actions, for example, one action is that He provided food for Adam. Genesis 2:15-17.

Axiom 1.

1. God as Creator exists.

What I would place here is that there is only one God.

Not all peoples of the world agree as evinced in the many legends of gods responsible for love, war, abundant crops etc. I see these ancient legends as a demonstration that early humans had a sense of the super-natural. Ancient Shaman convinced people that it was possible to connect with the super-natural.

With only one God, it is possible to credit Him as being all mighty as the primary Divine Being etc. When it comes to Genesis 1:1 One God is common sense. Can we imagine the Creator God as a committee? LOL

One omnipotent God is the foundation of the Hebrews spiritual life. And it is possible that Adam had to obey, that is, live in submission to the One Creator God.

Link to Bible usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm

 

[grannymh]

Originally Posted by simpleas forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
Every human is made in the image and likeness of God, there is a relationship.

That makes us a being with a spiritual component to out nature, but it does not say anything about the necessary presence of sanctifying grace - other than implying we have the capacity for such.

Of course you are welcome to your opinions.

My opinion is that I cannot imagine God giving us the capacity to share in His life and then He makes this capacity inoperable for the relationship purpose.