Nature and the Fall

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Are you telling me mythic literature is clearly stating things using allegory and metaphore? I thought a good theology adjusts to scientific discovery as to not put the Gospel to shame.

Ad hominem statements too?
 
Its an ad hominem to ask if you were brought up Catholic?

Good grief.
I am off to bed.
 
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don’t act like we haven’t had theological discussions or that we don’t know about each others theology…I think just as I know you are a Catholic you know I am…
 
That is the narrative but to read it as history is a little naive. Nature is as it always has been. Human sin only makes it worse as in pollution.
 
SMHW said:
I have wondered about this too. All I can think is that Satan was at work from before the time that mankind came into being. As to how that plays out in our linear earth time, I don’t know.
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Respectfully opinion only have pondered on also. What does God say about this question? Does he give us an answer within His Spoken Word?

James " 1: 13 -15 " No one, when tempted should say, " I am being tempted by God" ; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s own desires, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived my beloved"

James 1:8 " You shall do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scriptures, " You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself"

Pondering maybe why God gives us his Royal Laws>> Ten commandments, that gives us instruction, teaching us, to know >>>>right from wrong and how to>>> Love your neighbor as you love yourself?

If one loves their neighbor, one does not steal from their neighbor do they, for the desires of the flesh, self interest? Does not bring about good either for the one who steals does it?

Ten Commandments do they not teach us also>>.How to love yourself? All his > Thou shall not’s given, brings about good for us also, if we obey and live by? We all want what is good for us, God tells us what is not good for us, what not to do? Peace 😉
 
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BlackFriar said:
Had Adam remained in God’s justice (ie Eden) he would have been immortal.
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Respectfully interesting in pondering opinion only.
Asking do immortal beings need to eat?
God provided did he not, immortal beings >> all fruits, vegetation to eat, call God Garden also, was around them to live immorally and are the animals immortal also?

What sin>> did the animals commit, that animals also, are punished by God and no longer live immorally within his Heavenly Garden?

Animals living not immorally, why? Animals experience pain? innocent suffering bringing forth birth also? suffer the pains of hunger? Animals get diseases>? Animals placed and live in harsh weather conditions? experience danger? Animals in need of shelter and go through the agony of death also?

What sin did all fruits,vegetation, within God’s Heavenly Garden commit, that wither, rot and die, not remaining continually fruitful with >>immoral flourishing? Trees breath also and are destroyed in harsh weather, get diseases and need also clean air to breath in and breath out do they not?

All within God’s Heavenly Garden that lived having immorality, their Immorality was effected, why?

Peace 😉
 
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rvonweber said:
•The harshness of nature is a consequence of man’s Fall – for it fell with us.

•If that is so, before our Fall nature herself was in a state of grace along with us.
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Respectfully opinion only when asking God finding within His Spoken Word for all to know maybe? James : 1:12 " Above all, my beloved, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your " Yes" be yes and your “no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation”.

Our personal Free Will Choices are ours to make?
Do we then bring about our own down fall, by what we choose or desire?

We cannot give what we do not have first for ourselves?
Become the fullness of Love within us first, then we can give what we have, to others, Love your neighbor as you love yourself?

And what we choose, is it always good for us or not good for us?
And what we desire or choose, say yes to or no to>>>what will the effects be on us, will it bring upon us>> what is good or not good for us?
And what we say yes to or no too, what we choose, will it effect upon the free will choices of others? Pondering on.🤔

Can Human Beings by our choices, effect and contribute to the harshness of nature around us, also?
Can nature through no fault of her own, be effected, innocently suffer by our ( human beings) free will choices also?
Commanded >Cultivate the earth, thus protect, care for, destroy not, but continue to provide, protect and nourish her?

Interesting topic leads to many other questions, does it not? Peace 🙂
 
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I believe you will find this a difficult proposition to defend as a Catholic.
The CCC teaches human nature (including the faculties of the body) was wounded in the Fall. Human nature is surely a part of nature in general.
 
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rose321 said:
Respectfully opinion only have pondered on also. What does God say about this question? Does he give us an answer within His Spoken Word?
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I am not really interested in text-proofing the Bible as if this has not been done by others better qualified than ourselves for the last 2000 years onm this issue before us. And even this is not enough as the limited Sola Scriptura of our Protestant brethren attests.

What is far more insightful is a knowledge of tradition/history, both Scriptural, the Fathers and the teaching of the Magisterium.

This question has been discussed at length since the second century of the Church. You assume a somewhat simplistic “modern” view of defining “immortality” being intrinsic. Immortality can be extrinsically dependent as well. That is the form of immortality that A&E possessed.

THe mainstream view of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church (well described by Augustine and Aquinas) is that A&E would have slowly aged in Eden. Only the extra gifts of God’s “Original Justice” preserved them from mortality - which is signified by the Tree of Life which they would have needed to eat from from time to time to maintain their condition.

Likewise with the animals.

But all that was lost when “the ground was cursed” and they were expelled from Eden (where the ground is not cursed).

What I am speaking from is a knowledge of Church history including the
 
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Benadam said:
don’t act like we haven’t had theological discussions or that we don’t know about each others theology
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Friend I have been on CAF since 2012. Currently I interact with perhaps 12 different persons in short bursts every week. I do not have the memory needed to remember all of them, including yourself. You obviously interact considerably less and remember me for some reason.

While I could look up a person’s history with me before posting I hardly think that is a reasonable demand in 95% of cases. I just take post’s at their face value merit.

If we want to be offended I am sure we can all find reasonable cause in an imperfect world.
Myself, I always try to assume the best of others as it makes for peaceful slumber at the end of the day and generally a better world.
 
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Its great theology to have a good imagination.
Probably good to do a bit of quick prelim research to make sure the boat will float for a while after enthusiastically pushing it out into deep water though 🙂.
 
No, there is fossil evidence. However one views evolution, the matter of the physical remains of the past is clear, apart from any attempt to explain change in the natural world through evolution.

Either the natural world was once in a state of grace with our first parents or it was not and has always been filled with pain and terror. If it was, then fossil evidence is a problem – it is clear that there is information about the world before man’s place in it, and that points to suffering (hence, not a state of grace). If it was not, why would a benevolent creator author such suffering for living things – especially if Man was to live apart from them in a blessed place like Eden? It seems to me that God intended animals to suffer, and that our Fall, if anything, made it worse through the curse we provoked.
 
rvonweber said:
If it was not, why would a benevolent creator author such suffering for living things
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Benadam said:
Romans 8

> 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;
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Because creation had fulfilled it’s purpose in man. Man being the pinnacle and summit of creation. Creation waits for the Glory of the resurrected Saints.
Benadam said:
for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
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God subjected creation to futility. Since man is the summit of creation it is proper that man free’s it from bondage. Man failed by rejecting the source of his fulfillment. Creation is in bondage to decay and waits for the Glorification of the bodies of the Saints. Our connection to the material creation is our bodies. When they are glorified the material creation is freed of it’s bondage to decay.
 
BlackFriar said:
The CCC teaches human nature (including the faculties of the body) was wounded in the Fall. Human nature is surely a part of nature in general.
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The human body is part of nature. Not as in a shared ontology but a symbiotic relationship of mutual service properly ordered towards the end of man. The ground is cursed relative to man. There is evidence that the human soul is wounded. There is no evidence of a curse in the ground. Just the futility and decay God subjected all of creation to.
 
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Benadam said:
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BlackFriar:
The CCC teaches human nature (including the faculties of the body) was wounded in the Fall. Human nature is surely a part of nature in general.
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The human body is part of nature. Not as in a shared ontology but a symbiotic relationship of mutual service properly ordered towards the end of man. The ground is cursed relative to man. There is evidence that the human soul is wounded. There is no evidence of a curse in the ground. Just the futility and decay God subjected all of creation to.
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Genesis: “Cursed is the ground because of you"
and 2000 years of common commentary by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church plus the teaching of the Councils and Popes and Catechisms on this truth is good enough for me.

The wounded condition of the world reflects the wounded condition of Man.
For me it simply isn’t worth arguing against sorry.
Though I get your point that the perfect integrity of nature requires additional gifts from God - which were given in Eden.
 
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rvonweber said:
No, there is fossil evidence.
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The fossil evidence has been found inconclusive. Many have said that the fossils were created during the Flood. This to me seems more likely, as it does away with any problem of suffering before the fall.
 
BlackFriar said:
2000 years of common commentary by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church plus the teaching of the Councils and Popes and Catechisms on this truth is good enough for me.
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BlackFriar, I couldn’t find treatment from Church Councils on the subject. No doctrinal statements. I did find one reference with your view but Aquinas and Augustine agree with me.

[http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3164.htm#article2]
)> If man had not sinned, the earth would have brought forth thorns and thistles to be the food of animals, but not to punish man, because their growth would bring no labor or punishment for the tiller of the soil, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. iii, 18). Alcuin [Interrog. et Resp. in Gen. lxxix], however, holds that, before sin, the earth brought forth no thorns and thistles, whatever: but the former opinion is the better.
 
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