"O necessary sin of Adam"

[seagal]

This phrase in the Exultet always makes me wonder but this is the first time I remember it after the fact

The whole sentence is “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

I can kind of get the concept of great good coming out of great evil, but if Adam hadn’t sinned then we wouldn’t have needed a Redeemer. If we existed at all we would be in paradise with God.

It just seems a strange turn of phrase to me and I wondered if anyone has any enlightening thoughts?

 

[GEddie]

This phrase in the Exultet always makes me wonder but this is the first time I remember it after the fact

The whole sentence is “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

I can kind of get the concept of great good coming out of great evil, but if Adam hadn’t sinned then we wouldn’t have needed a Redeemer. If we existed at all we would be in paradise with God.

It just seems a strange turn of phrase to me and I wondered if anyone has any enlightening thoughts?

I asked a priest about this, once; and his response was that while we would have kept our natural beings and bodies, we would NOT have the divinization of our beings that we will have in Heaven. He went on (IIRC) that as GOD became a human being and took on our propensities of, e.g. embodiedness, while maintaining HIS Divine personhood; when we are in Heaven, while remaining human beings, we will acquire the Divine propensities of immortality, perfection, sinlessness, etc. We will not “become God.” Rather, in Christ, Divinity became “wedded” to our humanness, and will give us, while maintaining our human personhood, the propensities that are proper to Divine being. Whereas, without a fall and without Christ, we would have only our natural being; no more, no less.

Another way to think about it is the way St. Paul compares our natural bodies to the Spiritual Body of life everlasting (1 Co 15). Without the fall and redemption, the natural body, although kept from dying, would be the sum total of our being. Wheareas in Heaven we will exchange it for the fullness of life, in our Spiritual Body, which will be a gain.

I hope this hasn’t been more confusing, ICXC NIKA.

 

[AJV]

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=2111030

 

[NPC]

I saw a video a while back of +Fulton Sheen speaking on Confession. At the end of the talk he said, “just remember that if you had never sinned, you would not be able to call Christ ‘Saviour’”.

I think the “O necessary sin of Adam” line in the Exultet is something like that. I suppose it’s difficult to know good if you have had no experience of evil, love without having had an absence of love, or light without having experienced darkness. The line preceding the aforementioned shows this: “…to ransom a slave, you gave away your Son”; the necessary sin of Adam “gained for us so great a Redeemer”. As lamentable as the sin of Adam was, we would not know the boundless merciful love of God had Christ not come to show us the extent of that love by dying for us. The knowledge of Good triumphing over Evil is much more meaningful and powerful than merely having Good - in saying this, what comes to mind is the piece from Luke 15:7: “…there will be more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance”. It’s good to have some who never ever sinned, but it is even better to see those who were sinners turn to God and be converted that they may live. It’s only because of Christ that we know just how much God does not desire the death of the sinner, but rather that they be converted and live (Ezekiel 18:23).

There is an old English carol which has the same idea as the Exultet, except in relation to Mary - it’s called “Adam Lay yBounden”. It says: “Nay had the apple taken been, nay had never Our Lady a been Heaven-e queen”. We would not have known Mary nor Christ had Adam and Eve not sinned. Knowing what Christ did for us, and the role that Mary played in our salvation, it is difficult for us to imagine not having been redeemed by Christ - even if it meant that Adam had to sin in order for this to take place.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I think that various theologians have discussed this; sometimes with a bit of heat. Some at least believe that Jesus would have become man in any case; though without the suffering and death. They maintain that He was always to be the first of many brothers and lead the human race. I don’t think there is any official teaching on this.

 

[EasterJoy]

It is not a statement of presumption, but of gratitude:
Whatever our faults, our felix culpa, God’s mercy and abundant love is greater!
It is a happy fault, necessary to make us see, because by it God demonstrates His love.
God’s antedote to the fault is so great that even the fault itself becomes a happy thing!

When you look at the Crucifix and think of how it applies to our lives, you see how true it is.
God does not promise that nothing bad will ever happen to us.
God promises, rather, that His goodness is always greater than whatever evil can dish up for us, if we will only believe that.

An all-loving God can allow suffering and evil and still be all-loving because God’s love is greater than all suffering and evil combined, no matter what happens. We know this, not through theory, but through God’s answer to Adam’s fault. Therefore, it is God’s nature of sacrificial love, not our nature that fails, that makes Adam’s deadly fault into a happy fault. It is a happy fault only because of God’s great bounty. Our creation was good, then, because God is so good.