Humans were created sinful. Then we were told not to sin. Is that a fair demand?

[salvete]

John 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee.

“…sin nor more…” That is the whole point to repentance. When we are truly sorry, we will try to not commit the same sin again. The love of God is that even though we are sinful and He does not want us to sin, he will always forgive us if we are truly sorry. You should focus on the fact that He is so freely willing to forgive us even though we are sinners.

 

[Loml]

We were created perfect. It’s just our fault that every human being has sinned.

Yes it is our fault, finally we’ve got somewhere… (by the way not everyone has sinned)

God created us perfect but he sent his son*to forgive us for not being perfect.

To forgive us for rejecting His perfection… right!

 

[Charlemagne_II]

York

*Not a false analogy. All people with free will have sinned. Telling people not to sin is no more successful than holding water in a leaky bucket. *

Sigh. For the umpteenth time, still a false analogy!

A bucket that leaks cannot help leaking. Nor can it repair itself.

A human can freely choose to let sin leak into his soul, and by the grace of God can freely choose to repair the leak.

 

[BlueShadow123]

God definitely did allow sin to be a possibility, which is why I don’t understand it.

He knew lucifer was going to go against him, so why did he even bother making him?

 

[grannymh]

Humans were created sinful.

This is not a Catholic teaching.

 

[grannymh]

God knowing the future will have known that humans were always going to sin. It’s a design fault.

Catholic teaching is that God created humans with intellect and will. Because of this, humans can freely choose to live with God eternally or not. There is no design fault in the original first human, Adam. However, Adam did freely choose to leave the friendship of God; thus, his nature was wounded but not corrupted.

 

[grannymh]

Not the potential to sin. Guaranteed to sin. It’s the way we’re made.

This is not a Catholic teachng.

 

[grannymh]

God definitely did allow sin to be a possibility, which is why I don’t understand it.

One first has to understand that God created us in His Image. We, as spiritual/material creatures can live in God’s friendship only in free submission to God. We are dependent on God and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom. In order for us to live in free submission God gave us our spiritual soul, intellect and will. Our choice is the real possibility.

 

[genevievelives]

"God created us perfect but he sent his sonto forgive us for not being perfect." *

Are we not born with Original Sin? Can you point out one human being who has ever existed without committing a single sin (Christ notwithstanding)?

We’re not perfect. We are not perfect creations. We fail and sin, commit transgressions and evildoing, and then some of us pray to be forgiven. Yet, even in forgiveness we do it all over again.

I can’t claim to understand the genius of this plan, but it does have the feeling of a set-up to me. I do know that it will be spiritual millennia before God ever takes me in and shares the humor.

gen

 

[grannymh]

No one has explained how it’s reasonable to expect a creature designed with “the capacity to sin” - not to sin. A bucket designed with a hole in it has the capacity to leak and leak it does.

When trying to find a reasonable explanation, one must figure out what humans were designed for in the first place.
The purpose of a bucket is to carry water. What is the designed purpose of a human?
What if the purpose of a bucket is to carry frozen water, then why the fuss over an impossible leak? So, then what is the designed purpose of a human.
What if the purpose of a bucket is to act as head gear, then why bring up the subject of water?

The question is still – what is the designed purpose of a human?

 

[vsedriver]

Let’s live in the real world not a world that only exists theoretically. Humans, designed by God, all sin. The church teaches we are all sinners.

God will have seen into the future when he designed humans that every single one of us would sin.

People have been patronisingly telling me of free will. I’m perfectly familiar with the concept. However you want to describe what humans are like you have to concede we are endlessly sinning. It’s in our make-up.

If God says don’t sin perhaps he should have designed us differently.

It’s a bit like deliberately designing a bucket to have a hole in it and then expecting it not to leak.

Therefore if you can prove that there is at least one perfectly sinless human being your argument will be false.

the Virgin Mary, was sinless, therefore disproving your your theory.

 

[The_Exodus]

Humans were created sinful. Then we were told not to sin. Is it a realistic demand given that we were designed as sinful beings to expect us not to sin?

This is a good question. I would ask you, however, to think objectively about your objection. Be open minded to other opinions. Consider that you may very well be wrong, despite your emotions at the moment which seem to be accusing God of injustice.

God indeed created man, as well as Lucifer and all the evil angels, knowing they would all sin. Further, he created them all knowing that, should he create them, certain ones would suffer reprobation and eternal punishment.

But that does not mean God caused them to sin. As St. Thomas says, God neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but permits it to be done. Why? To bring about a greater good. God is not bound to hold a defective will in a state of innocent existence. He may certainly do so, if he pleases, but he is not bound to.

Again, I don’t see how it follows that, simply because man “went bad” (just like your car analogy), that God therefore “made” him bad. He certainly permitted him to become bad, but to permit is not to make. It also seems to me – as well as St. Thomas – that God could not logically make a being naturally impeccable (see dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer24.htm). He may indeed hold it in an impeccable state supernaturally, as in the case of Mary, but he cannot make it impeccable by its own nature. So to ask why God did not create mankind naturally unable to do evil is to ask why God did not create an intrinsic impossibility, like asking why he did not create a round square, or two right hands, etc. Perhaps you could be more specific concerning where you feel God to blame?

These are good questions though. I only hope you keep searching for the truth in an objective manner.

 

[The_Exodus]

This is a good question. I would ask you, however, to think objectively about your objection. Be open minded about other opinions. Consider that you may very well be wrong, despite your emotions at the moment which seem to be accusing God of injustice.

God indeed created man, as well as Lucifer and all the evil angels, knowing they would all sin. Further, he created them all knowing that, should he create them, certain ones would suffer reprobation and eternal punishment.

But that does not mean God caused them to sin. As St. Thomas says, God neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but permits it to be done. Why? To bring about a greater good. God is not bound to hold a defective will in a state of innocent existence. He may certainly do so, if he pleases, but he is not bound to.

Again, I don’t see how it follows that, simply because man “went bad” (just like your car analogy), that God therefore “made” him bad. He certainly permitted him to become bad, but to permit is not to make. It also seems to me – as well as St. Thomas – that God could not logically make a being naturally impeccable (see dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer24.htm). He may indeed hold it in an impeccable state supernaturally, as in the case of Mary, but he cannot make it impeccable by its own nature. So to ask why God did not create mankind naturally unable to do evil is to ask why God did not create an intrinsic impossibility, like asking why he did not create a round square, or two right hands, etc. Perhaps you could be more specific concerning where you feel God to blame?

These are good questions though. I only hope you keep searching for the truth in an objective manner.

 

[PRmerger]

What I’ve had is a bunch of very varied answers. Everyone has their own ideas

That’s patently untrue. There has been a very consistent theme on this thread from knowledgeable Catholics: God did not create us sinful. Your premise is false.

(Bold mine)

Yes. So** humans were created good**, right? Yet had free will, and so the potential to sin?

Who said humans were created sinful !!!

GOD created us perfect but Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree which turned us into different species (aka. sinners)…

The Adam and Eve story is about wilful disobedience. God did not make a mistake. When they were first created they were full of sanctifying grace, which was discarded freely through their disobedience.

Your supposition rests on a false premise.
**Your first claim is that human are “created sinful” yet have no official teaching to back this up. **
The assertion that humans will inevitably sin is not proof that we are created sinful any more than saying that humans will inevitably die means we were created dieful.
You have not demonstrated that we were “created sinful”.

That’s your position as a non-Catholic.

But the CC teaches that we were designed in holiness:

“But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature.” CCC 404

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

If God says don’t sin perhaps he should have designed us differently.

It’s a bit like deliberately designing a bucket to have a hole in it and then expecting it not to leak.

Veritatis splendor:

1. “It would be a very serious error to conclude… that the Church’s teaching is essentially only an “ideal” which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to the so-called concrete possibilities of man… And if redeemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act, but to man’s will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act. God’s command is of course proportioned to man’s capabilities; but to the capabilities of the man to whom the Holy Spirit has been given; of the man who, though he has fallen into sin, can always obtain pardon and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit”.

God made us knowing that His only Son was to redeem us on the Cross. This means more than the initial design and it is clear from the above encyclical that this does not stop the redemption process. Blaming God, though, does stop the redemption process.

It is like continuing to harp at the manufacturer of a leaky bucket while refusing all their attempts to fix it.

 

[mdgspencer]

There seems to be some confusion when it comes to two questions, God’s knowledge and free will. If we simply say that God knows everything we will do from now on , there may seem to be no free will at all. However, to take God’s viewpoint, he doesn’t foreknow what we will do. God is outside time and in eternity is simultaneously aware of everything in the past, present, and future. God’s knowledge of what happens in time has been compared to a man on a high mountain who sees all the landscape spread before him in a single view. God as He looks on all of time is fully aware in one eternal instant of everything that we have freely done, freely are doing, and freely will do. Our sins remain our own choice.
So it really isn’t correct to say that God foreknew we would sin when he created mankind. God doesn’t foreknow anything, as if he lives in time foreseeing the future. God does not live in time at all.

 

[tonyrey]

1. We are not created sinful but with the capacity to make **our **decisions.
2. If you are not responsible for your decisions your arguments are worthless.
3. If you are responsible for your decisions where do you obtain the power to make your decisions?

 

[Yorkshireman]

*Telling people not to sin is no more successful than holding water in a leaky bucket. *

Still a false analogy. A leaking bucket cannot choose not to leak. A human can choose not to sin.

No it’s fine. The free will-driven person “chooses” to sin every single day.

 

[Yorkshireman]

John 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee.

“…sin nor more…” That is the whole point to repentance. When we are truly sorry, we will try to not commit the same sin again. The love of God is that even though we are sinful and He does not want us to sin, he will always forgive us if we are truly sorry. You should focus on the fact that He is so freely willing to forgive us even though we are sinners.

You wrote (strangely) that you didn’t believe God told us not to sin. You are wrong.

 

[Yorkshireman]

York

*Not a false analogy. All people with free will have sinned. Telling people not to sin is no more successful than holding water in a leaky bucket. *

Sigh. For the umpteenth time, still a false analogy!

A bucket that leaks cannot help leaking. Nor can it repair itself.

A human can freely choose to let sin leak into his soul, and by the grace of God can freely choose to repair the leak.

The bucket leaks and the human always sins.