Good Morning, fhansen,
I was going to let your response stand as a great end to a side-topic, but since it is better-than-great, I need to thank you and hope that I’m not veering too far from the center of the thread here.
Maybe you hear the voice differently-I can’t say. God loves but God also forgives, meaning that He’s obviously concerned with, not unaware of, sin. And of course He’s patient and kind in dealing with us, in “elevating” us from sin and towards His own image, helping us to love too, IOW. We wouldn’t really need Him if we’ve already “arrived”, if He only intends to accept both ourselves and our sin, leaving it undealt with.
What has to be carefully considered is that we can all experience God as infinitely merciful, unconditionally loving and forgiving. For me, there has been an “elevation” to a deeper faith in such a light. Faith is the opposite of fear, and we can come to faith by learning, and for me teaching, that we can trust the Father. And how do we know that we can trust our Father? We can trust Him because through the Spirit we can see that His infinite mercy is constant and unwavering.
So, yes, sin is an issue, but given that our God is also omniscient, we know that He saw our sin well before the moment of creation. It would only be anthropomorphizing for me to think that His love for us rises and falls depending on how sinful I am at any moment. In other words: He knew my sin was coming before I did, and He knew why, and he already forgave.
This is not to say that sin is “undealt with”. With sin comes enslavement, suffering; there are formative feedbacks weaved into the human “program” so to speak. Sin carries its own consequences.
Anyway, I haven’t followed so much of this thread. Are you maintaining that A & Eve weren’t real historical figures, who actually committed the original sin? That part of Genesis is not figurative according to Church teaching as I’m sure you must know.
Well, as I was taught in our Church, we are to take the Bible literally unless something appears to contradict, and we can most certainly address the CCC and tradition the same way. If something doesn’t make sense, we do what we can to make sense of it, but if it continues to contradict the idea that God loves us unfinitely and unconditionally, then contradiction stands as an erosion of faith itself, as I described its foundation above. (Note: the foundation does not come from simple assertions “God loves unconditionally”, for me this had to be verified by carefully scrutinizing my life and my nature. I speak for myself in saying that my own faith is solid prayer-centered.)
That said, there is no reason to disbelieve the existence of an Adam and Eve, we can certainly take the existence of these two literally, as there is no contradiction. In addition, we can totally accept the assertion that A&E sinned, because we all have the capacity to sin. However, the idea that God punishes all of his creatures because of their behaving in exactly the way He created them is not in itself “elevating”, and runs contrary to even anthropological notions of love. When we punish, it is meant to serve a purpose, it is meant to correct people’s behaviors. Increased pain in childbirth? Making life harder for people in toiling the land? Death? Concupiscence? And all of these for all future generations? These do not make sense as punishments, they appear to contradict. These “punishments”
do make sense in terms of helping people not to blame God for their own suffering and circumstance, but the trade-off is that God Himself is presented as having a compromised love.
Indeed, there are many such places in the OT that appear to contradict God’s infinite mercy, but the writings themselves were inspired in context, they served a purpose at the time. And the same can be said for all of the contradictions, they were still inspired writings because they served a purpose at the time. This leaves us with a question, though, what are the writings that serve a purpose at *this *time? I find a sample in my choice of signature below…
Much of the bible is both a message and historical fact at one and the same time. The historical drama as it is acted out creates it’s own lasting message, in picture form, so to speak. The history of the Jews as recorded in the OT similarly paints its own spiritual messages regarding man’s relationship with God, “salvation history” as they say. Christ’s passion and death and resurrection impresses a shocking image of the awfulness and reality of sin, and God’s serving love for us in spite of it. The cross, the crucifix, brings this all into sharp relief, providing an eternal symbol of God’s own humility, justice, and love, in contrast to the world’s proclivity for pride, self-serving greed, lust for power, wealth, etc above love. Just some thoughts.
Thoughts so well-stated and brief, too. The way I see it is that God not only gave us those capacities for such “proclivities” but He also, through Christ, gave us the means to overcome them. The proclivities in themselves are part of our nature and serve us, but they are all capable of enslaving us.
There is one proclivity that you did not mention, the proclivity for blame, accusation, holding grudges, the proclivity to condemn. Like the rest of the proclivities, the capacity for condemnation and blame serve us, they are part of the formation of our consciences, but this “blame function” can also enslave us. Jesus specifically addresses this in the Lord’s prayer, and in the end forgives the unrepentant from the cross. In doing so He not only provides the antidote for our condemnation of others, but He shows us the face of our Creator, the Face of Unconditional Love.
– that means, according to Catholicism, that Adam could and actually did reject God.
