If Sin Had Not Entered the World

[Pugsly]

Daryll states…"…What is harder to grasp is that your perspective is not from the human point of view. What you in effect have taken is the point of view of God himself. The whole scroll of sacred history is laid out in front of you and the perspective of beginning and end, and then, now and next, are being regarded from a the point of absolute transcendence. Counter-factuals such as the OP cannot really be relevant to you, for all things that can be, have already been accounted ou in effect have taken is the point of view of God himself. The whole scroll of sacred history is laid out in front of you and the perspective of beginning and end, and then, now and next, are being regarded from a the point of absolute transcendence. Counter-factuals such as the OP cannot really be relevant to you, for all things that can be, have already been accounted for. Salvation exists for all possible choices in perfect plan of the Great I Am."

Brother…I love to study Wisdom…and Wisdom transcends everything…overviews everything…knows everything…even things to come. Sometimes…very rarely…She gives me a glimpse into deep realities…(always with myriad Biblical verse confirmation).
(I used to think myself especially blessed…but as I get older I realize such gifts are common to all of God’s children.)
If my posts seem arrogant…I beg your forgiveness…I only want to sound off some ideas and perhaps help an OP here and there…while keeping a watchful eye on possible heresy.

 

[Jennifoo]

A similiar statement may have been put to “the Dumb Ox” before he wrote the Summa.

Yes God reveals Himself through certain people throughout history, such as Saint Thomas Aquinas. This is a grace. But the Scriptures also state that " I do not run after knowledge too lofty for me". This is not an exact quote, but is very close. I’m not able to look it up just now. The point is that we are open to knowing what God chooses to make known to us, but that we don’t attempt to chase after knowledge too lofty for us or try to figure God out- that’s simply not possible. A big part of humility is in accepting human limitations, including knowledge. This fact goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

 

[Snowball7]

Some theologians, both East and West, suggest that Christ still would have entered the world even had we never sinned.

Whomever they are, they are wrong.

God became man, so that man may become god as the saying goes.

That’s evil.

 

[Formosus]

Whomever they are, they are wrong.

That’s evil.

How is that evil? It is Christ’s incarnation which allows us to participate in the Divine Life of God. That is what Athanasius means when he says “God became man so that man may become god.” This is the classic position of the Greek fathers, and western fathers and some Latin scholastics like Scotus (I believe).

 

[Pugsly]

Yes God reveals Himself through certain people throughout history, such as Saint Thomas Aquinas. This is a grace. But the Scriptures also state that " I do not run after knowledge too lofty for me". This is not an exact quote, but is very close. I’m not able to look it up just now. The point is that we are open to knowing what God chooses to make known to us, but that we don’t attempt to chase after knowledge too lofty for us or try to figure God out- that’s simply not possible. A big part of humility is in accepting human limitations, including knowledge. This fact goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.

Psalm 139…David is delighting in God’s transcendence and burst forth with the claim…“that it is a knowledge too great for me”. Some translations say “I did not go after a knowledge too deep for me”…but the context fits with the prior quote.
Nonetheless, if you are warning me out of Christian charity to beware of pride…thank you kindly.

 

[harinanga101]

To follow up on some of the previous posters, here’s a link to a website explaining Blessed John Scotus’ theory of the Absolute Primacy of Christ: absoluteprimacyofchrist.org/

The gist of it, as I understand it, is that Christ would have come into the world whether Adam sinned or not. This is because God planned from the very beginning that all of creation be made for Christ. God’s end goal for making creation was to unite it with Himself and this would come to be through the incarnation of the Word. And, as Scotus suggests, this end goal is what God actually first “thought” of. It’s like He planned in reverse, beginning with the ultimate goal (Christ) and then working backwards from it. …At least that’s what I understood from it .

 

[Pugsly]

To follow up on some of the previous posters, here’s a link to a website explaining Blessed John Scotus’ theory of the Absolute Primacy of Christ: absoluteprimacyofchrist.org/

The gist of it, as I understand it, is that Christ would have come into the world whether Adam sinned or not. This is because God planned from the very beginning that all of creation be made for Christ. God’s end goal for making creation was to unite it with Himself and this would come to be through the incarnation of the Word. And, as Scotus suggests, this end goal is what God actually first “thought” of. It’s like He planned in reverse, beginning with the ultimate goal (Christ) and then working backwards from it. …At least that’s what I understood from it .

I seem to remember that the Catholic Church posits that God is Perfect Act…and if so…then God moves toward a Perfect End…ie…the Glorified Body of Christ (His Bride…the Church).

 

[Darryl1958]

Daryll states…"…What is harder to grasp is that your perspective is not from the human point of view. What you in effect have taken is the point of view of God himself. The whole scroll of sacred history is laid out in front of you and the perspective of beginning and end, and then, now and next, are being regarded from a the point of absolute transcendence. Counter-factuals such as the OP cannot really be relevant to you, for all things that can be, have already been accounted ou in effect have taken is the point of view of God himself. The whole scroll of sacred history is laid out in front of you and the perspective of beginning and end, and then, now and next, are being regarded from a the point of absolute transcendence. Counter-factuals such as the OP cannot really be relevant to you, for all things that can be, have already been accounted for. Salvation exists for all possible choices in perfect plan of the Great I Am."

Brother…I love to study Wisdom…and Wisdom transcends everything…overviews everything…knows everything…even things to come. Sometimes…very rarely…She gives me a glimpse into deep realities…(always with myriad Biblical verse confirmation).
(I used to think myself especially blessed…but as I get older I realize such gifts are common to all of God’s children.)
If my posts seem arrogant…I beg your forgiveness…I only want to sound off some ideas and perhaps help an OP here and there…while keeping a watchful eye on possible heresy.

They don’t seem arrogant.

 

[grannymh]

I seem to remember that the Catholic Church posits that God is Perfect Act…and if so…then God moves toward a Perfect End…ie…the Glorified Body of Christ (His Bride…the Church).

My memory may be playing tricks with me…I thought that the members of the Catholic Church moved toward God and an eternal union with Him–the perfect end or goal or purpose of our human lives. On the other hand, God in His great love for us does move, via His grace, to bring us to Himself. Still, we have to accept His call and reach out to Him.

How wonderful is the Catholic Church which gives us God, truly present in the Eucharist.

 

[grannymh]

My memory may be playing tricks with me…I thought that the members of the Catholic Church moved toward God and an eternal union with Him–the perfect end or goal or purpose of our human lives. On the other hand, God in His great love for us does move toward us, via His grace, to bring us to Himself. Still, we have to accept His call and reach out to Him.

How wonderful is the Catholic Church which gives us God, truly present in the Eucharist.

 

[Darryl1958]

Some theologians, both East and West, suggest that Christ still would have entered the world even had we never sinned. Because it is not just our fallen state that needs to be restored by Christ’s sacrifice, but it is the union of the human and divine natures in the Hypostasis of the Logos that allows mankind to participate in the Divine nature. God became man, so that man may become god as the saying goes.

Just to look at the question philosophically, and recognizing that God is the being whom no greater may be conceived, to my way of thinking at least, God as Christians conceive him to be is greater than how Muslims and Jews conceive him. ‘God become man’ is inherently greater than God remaining fully transcendent to the human experience.

From our own point of view, the greatest human being is the hero, the one who gives his life for another. This is only possible if we are standing up against a power or an evil that is capable of killing us. There is no heroism in squashing bugs, for even the coward can do this without imperilling his life.
Conceiving an heroic God is conceiving a God greater than one whose transcendent state of omnipotent Being puts him above even the possibility of heroism. The nature of God as being that which none greater can be conceived necessitates that God become man therefore, in order to reveal himself as hero.
Heroism only becomes possible in the world of limits, our human world.

 

[draco_cupri]

We cannot know exactly what the world would have been like without the Fall. We can know some things, however.

If Lucifer had not sinned in Heaven, he would now be the Bearer of Light to the whole angelic hierarchy. He was the most exalted of all the angels. It was NOT Necessary for him to sin.

If he had not sinned, then it is likely that Adam and Eve also would not have sinned, since they only sinned at Satan’s suggestion.

The world would not be filled with suffering, disease, starvation, poverty, war, etc., etc. None of the maladies introduced with sin and death would be with us.

Our Lord would not have deemed it necessary to undergo His Crucifixion to save us.

Would any of us exist? That is an interesting question. I think it is possible some would and some wouldn’t. Simply factual is that God can bring good even out of the greatest evil, and He did so. He made the very death that Adam’s sin brought into the world, the cause of our salvation, by suffering it, Himself. But the suffering and misery that has characterized the world for at least six thousand years amply justifies God’s condemnation of Satan and his legions of evil.

 

[chimo]

Whomever they are, they are wrong.

That’s evil.

Not exactly snowball. You forget Jesus words to certain people who complained to Jesus in John 10:34 that Jesus who is a man claims to be God. He says to them “Is it not written in your Law: I said, you are gods? (Psalm 82:6) so the Law uses the word gods of those to whom the word of God was adressed, and scripture cannot be rejected.” Jesus created humanity so that through the process of theosis or deification we can all receive the Holy Spirit towards that Fullness of Grace where we can be like our Lord Jesus Christ. We become “gods” by grace and if you can’t understand that says Jesus then you cannot understand Him.

 

[grannymh]

If he had not sinned, then it is likely that Adam and Eve also would not have sinned, since they only sinned at Satan’s suggestion.

Please, what was Satan’s suggestion? My guess is that Satan’s suggestion was already in the mind of Adam. So, I would really like to know just what the suggestion was.

 

[draco_cupri]

Please, what was Satan’s suggestion? My guess is that Satan’s suggestion was already in the mind of Adam. So, I would really like to know just what the suggestion was.

Genesis 3:4-5,

"No, you shall not die the death. 5 For God knows that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. "

Notwithstanding the partial truth of the second part, the first part is clearly a lie. “You shall not die.” It is the same lie that Satan has been spreading all over the world since then, as well. It is the very basis of false religion. If we don’t really die, then there is no need for Jesus’ Sacrificial Death. But if He really died, then it is our task to really die to ourselves, so as to participate in the Life He won.

 

[grannymh]

As I learn about the relationship between Adam, the creature and his Creator, I find that the only way Adam, as creature, can remain in that relationship is if he freely lives in submission to his Creator. Obviously, there cannot be two Creator Gods.

Yet, it would be normal for anyone to wonder what it would be like to rise above the creature status and be like God. In order to do that, Adam would have to refuse to freely submit to God. He would do this through the actual Original Sin whereby he would stomp on his relationship and crush it with his prideful disobedience.

What people forget is that the relationship between humanity and divinity was not a relationship between equals. That is why there had to be a person Who was both True God and True man in order to restore the relationship through the supreme obedience unto death. This act would conquer death, by His resurrection, and reopen the doors to an eternal relationship of joy with the Beatific Vision.

 

[Love4All]

I think there was always only one plan of God.

This seems sound, since God is omniscient. God wouldn’t strictly need a contingency, the way a human planner would.

He knew that man would have sinned.

That seems a strange way of saying it. He knew that man would sin. “Would have sinned,” implies that he didn’t. Now if in this thread we are discussing the hypothetical that he didn’t, I think a better way to say that is, “He would know that man would have sinned,” but this implies, of course, “except. . .” We can’t get around the fact that since man did sin, any world in which he had not sinned would be a different hypothetical world. It would have at least one difference — namely, that Adam did not sin. In such a world, this world the way it turned out would qualify as a contingency on God’s part.

Actually, maybe that’s what it is. It seems to me that God would have preferred not to need to go through the Crucifixion for us. Yet, He knew, with infallible foreknowledge, that He would. What love!

And it is my observation that man would have sinned with or without the devil.

This, I’m not so sure about. Although, it does raise yet another hypothetical. If no angel had ever sinned, but man did, then perhaps man would be condemned without reprieve the way Satan and his angels were!

It is interesting to note the Eastern Church’s view on original sin is not as painful as it is portrayed in the West. The Eastern Church takes the view of her Church Father, St. John Chrysostom, that even though original sin entered into the world we are not guilty because of it or that this stain of original sin passes on to other generations.

I think the Catholic teaching is not that we are guilty but that we inherit concupiscence.

His views are quite remarkable and it is to my observations that he believes that Adam and Eve were not created at a very high height of sanctity but were created at the lowest level of sanctity and their sin was done at this level. It seems to this saint that man was created in order to become a saint. His fall while it is noted does not impress the saint to believe it was done at a great height.

If what you say about man being created to become a saint is true, then it seems that sanctification is a process he has to go through, so Adam and Eve were created, it would seem, in a “ground state.” The were created natural, and infused with supernatural grace. If increase in grace is sanctification, then it seems Adam and Eve would be created at a level 0 (lowest), and increase from there. Whether they sinned immediately after they were created or there was an interim time is a question. If there was an interim time, then it seems they would have increased in grace during that time, because the blessed in heaven continue to increase in grace and holiness, forever.

I guess it seems a little confusing to talk about a “very height” of sanctity — that seems like a possession of God alone. Human beings can be made more holy, more like God, but there is also always more holiness in store for us, since God is actually Infinite. So it seems Adam and Eve were created with a certain degree of holiness, and it seems they would have increased from there, but when they fell, it seems they lost what they initially had. In other words it seems that their state after the Fall was lower than their original state, if they were created in sanctifying grace and then lost that. So it seems sound to say that they fell from the greatest height of sanctity that they or any human had so far ever seen. Not that there are not greater heights — it is absurd to postulate an “absolute height” of sanctity unless we mean that possessed by God alone — but at that time, Adam and Eve, until they actually sinned at least in thought, were not on a decline in sanctity but an incline, the natural state of the blessed in God’s presence.

So it seems that, while Adam and Eve were certainly not created at any “very height” of sanctity, yet they were created without sin, so their sanctity, whatever the degree, was 100%. And they fell from that 100%. Perhaps, when they were created, they were kept in stasis with regard to their degree of sanctity, so that they did not actually increase beyond that in which they were created; perhaps, the choice of sin or virtue was first presented to them, before any increases of grace. Can it be that that was what Saint Chrysostom was saying?

 

[Love4All]

He said that the sin of one person cannot condemn humanity but the radiant love of one man can transform humanity.

Saint Paul wrote that condemnation came into the world through one man. While Adam’s sin does not condemn us, nonetheless Adam’s sin decided for us that we all are born into sin.

The Eastern Church while noting that sin is in the world takes a more merciful judgment on sin.

The Church, both in the East and in the West, is God’s instrument of His Mercy. There is no difference in the East and the West in that fact. You may say that some Eastern theological views strike you are more merciful, but to say that the Eastern Church is in fact more merciful than the Western, is to do violence to the concept of God’s Infinite Mercy. Mercy is Infinite, throughout God’s entire world on Earth.

It is interesting to note that the Eastern Fathers sees for instance physical death as a remedy to sin rather than a punishment for sin.

Was Jesus then not punished in His Crucifixion?

If physical death comes to man because of sin then man cannot sin forever.

Actually, according to my understanding of it, that simply isn’t true. Satan is guilty of an eternal sin, and so are the damned. To die in mortal sin, is exactly to sin forever. That is the reality of hell, the Second Death.

In hell, for example, they blaspheme and curse God constantly, which are sins.

God put limitations to sinning by permitting physical death to come as a result of sin.

Some say, death gives us “brakes.”

God can handle the sinful state of man for we see this in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ to give to man the necesssary way to get out what sin can do to the man. Paul in his letter to Rome chapter 5 says while it is the sin that can condemn us it is God who comdemns the sin. Paul is separating the sin from the sinner. What he is saying is God cannot condemn us. God condemns the sin which can condemn us. What God can do is remove the condemnation by which the sin can do to us. This is what He did for us on the Cross. What we need to do is the same.

It seems to me that if the Divine Judge says to one, “Depart from me, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” that is a pronouncement of condemnation from the Judge. So Saint Paul cannot be saying “God cannot condemn us.” This idea of “separating the sin from the sinner,” I’m not sure where it comes from, it seems like a “feel-good” philosophy kind of thing, like when Christians say, “we must hate the sin but love the sinner.” The simplicity of the reality is that it is up to the individual sinner to separate himself from his sins, with God’s help of course. His sins are going to be condemned one way or the other, and the operative question for the individual is whether he would rather hold on to his sins and experience condemnation with them, or accept God’s grace and let them go.

Since our Lord has a treasury of His Grace to be made available for us it was available to come to us because of the nature by which He created man. Man’s ability to rise through God’ Grace is part and parcel by why God made Man in the first place. The sin of man was to come anyway. God determined for Man to be healed through the actions of His Son.

Regarding the Immaculate Conception of Mary which determines that Mary is freed from the stain of any sin it is to more recent theologians that this predetermined Grace was actually Mary receivng the Fullness of the Holy Spirit all at once. It was in fact her baptism but with a very noticable difference. Whereas we are only given a portion of the Holy Spirit at Baptism Mary is given the totality or Fullness of the Holy Spirit. It seemed to be a great head start for her and this explains that this baptism which occured at her conceivement would have cleansed her just as it cleanses us when we are baptised. Mary’s cooperation with this Fullness of Grace enabled her not to sin ever in her life.

I like this last thing which you have said. Yes, Mary was conceived with the fullness of the Holy Spirit already indwelling in her. That is her unique privilege as the Immaculate Conception. Because of this, what you call her “advantage,” she did not experience concupiscence as we do. Adam and Eve also did not experience concupiscence, yet they sinned, with full consent of their wills. Mary, with full consent of her will, said, “let it be,” to God. So it is initially Mary’s free act of will, in giving her will completely to God, that repairs for Eve’s initial act of disobedience, which was just her refusal to give her will completely to God.

Mary is thus the real hero of the whole human race. It was her act of obedience that, in God’s perfect Justice, actually earned for us the right to receive our Messiah.