Original Sin and Concupiscence

[fhansen]

So you want to put the weight of origin of evil on shoulder of God! In the same time you believe that God is absolutely just but He punishes others (fallen Angels, Adam and Eve, etc.) for what He is responsible for. That seems like a Joke! Hence accepting that perfect God can always create a better or worst creation is complete nonsense.

Um, no. The origin of evil is obviously placed squarely on the shoulders of man- and angels-if angels have shoulders -as a result of their freely choosing to oppose Gods will. It’s pretty simple; creation either operates within the parameters that God allows, where peace and harmony prevail, or it doesn’t, so that strife and chaos and disorder prevail instead.

 

[frangiuliano115]

This verse is often misunderstood IMO. From the Catechism:

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:
For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.

Grugingly, eventually maybe, but I know not the day or the hour.

God permits evil?
He’s not a good God then!!

I thought this was the answer way back when, but it doesn’t satisfy.

God bless

 

[frangiuliano115]

That only means that the story of fall of Angels is fake, a simple myth people has accepted long time ago and still persist to believe!

It doesn’t mean it’s a fake. We’re just trying to figure out why the angels fell if concupisensce didn’t exist yet.

God bless

 

[fhansen]

Yes. I agree with much of the above. Some differences however. I was taught, and taught, that Adam was VERY culpable. God spoke directly to him and he disobeyed. How are we to behave if Adam couldn’t? He was also doubley responsibel (did Ijust make up a new phrase?) by accepting the fruit from Eve. I mean, if the serpent had offered it his resistance might have been more understandable, but Eve offered it - his equal - and he accepted.

I’d have to agree with those who believe his culpability was not reduced. He had enough knowledge to make the correct decision. Plus, who needs a lot of knowledge? We should just do what God wants us to do.

I also don’t understand what you mean by:

In fact he could learn-and apparently needed to learn-in order to contribute in his own way to his perfection.

I agree that he could learn, and had to if he wanted to live outside the Garden, but how did he contribute to his own perfection? Have never heard this concept before.

By “culpability reducd” I mean to say that he was very culpable-which is why he was held accountable-while still being less culpable relatively speaking than if he was less limited. Angels, being less limited than man, were apparently more culpable, and therefore held to a higher level of accountability. I mean to say that there’s a bigger picture to all this: God created Adam morally responsible for his actions, and God also created Adam in a “state of journeying to perfection”. God, in His goodness, created nothing without knowing its ultimate fate and without having goodness be the ultimate goal of His efforts.

 

[fhansen]

God permits evil?
He’s not a good God then!!

I thought this was the answer way back when, but it doesn’t satisfy.

God bless

Well then tell me, how could evil exist at all if God didn’t permit it? God permitted the very first evil, for man at least, Adams disobedience, and all evil that followed. This has always been the teaching of the Church. He permits, but doesn’t cause, evil.

 

[frangiuliano115]

I understand that maybe the best we can do is to say that the reason Lucifer sinned-and the reason Adam sinned- is because they willed to sin. But I can’t help but want to dig a little deeper. Adam was told, in one way or another, that he would die if he ate of the forbidden fruit. It’s said that he had full knowledge and deliberate intent. But does Adam know better now, after having tasted/experienced death, both spiritually and physically, than he did before? Does Adam now have an even fuller knowledge that may have helped lead him at some later point to repentance, metanoia?

I see this world as a reprieve, so to speak, from the eternal death suffered by the fallen angels, so that man may have the time and opportunity to change his mind. I don’t see Adam as some super-being. He was just a guy, like us in so many ways, but gifted/graced to one degree or another to a greater extent, and in possession of an innocence we can never quite seem to retain-or attain to-here in this present world. And he blew it, as God knew He would, while already having a plan to ultimately nurture Adam/humanity back to life, to an even fuller life than Eden originally provided, in fact.

This thread is moving too quickly…

I agree that it’s interesting to dig a little deeper.
I believe that Adam had a better knowledge after he was thrown out of the Garden and into the bitter world, which his fall created. I believe he may even have gained some wisdom.

The church has no position on whether or not he repented. it’s like Judas iscariot. You can have your own opinion.

Adam was definitely not a super human being or he never would have taken the fruit.

Your concept below is also very interesting and I’ve thought about it often:

**I see this world as a reprieve, so to speak, from the eternal death suffered by the fallen angels, so that man may have the time and opportunity to change his mind. **

We ARE taught that the reason we’re here is to know, love and serve God. So maybe this is our opportunity to be with Him forever. If we accept it.

I have to disagree with your very last sentence however:

And he blew it, as God knew He would, while already having a plan to ultimately nurture Adam/humanity back to life, to an even fuller life than Eden originally provided, in fact.

Part A okay.
Part B. How do you have a fuller life than Eden originally provided? I know Jesus said I Have Come That You May Have Life, and Life More Abundant. But more abundant than Eden? Adam spoke to God, literally.

God bless

 

[frangiuliano115]

God could always create something better, but could He create something perfect, as He is perfect; could He create another God? Maybe the Catechism can help here:

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.

I love your first sentence and I believe I’m going to accept that as my answer! You know why? I’ve been thinking about this forever and spoken to people up there in their theology and have been given so much mumbo jumbo that I just stopped asking. Look at these posts, we’re all over the place and we keep going back to fallen angels and free will - which have nothing to do with this dilemma of evil and its origin.

If God had created everything perfectly, we’d be little gods. Now this may not work for others on this thread, but I find it very helpful and a reasonable answer.

I didn’t need the CCC no. 310 quote. I’ve taught from the CCC and it gives me problems. There’s one even here. It talks about our going to a perfection, but the church does not teach this. It goes to the study of escatalogy. We won’t go there.

Anyway, thanks for the “solution”. Every 10 years I get a new one - so I’ll be good for a while!

God bless

 

[frangiuliano115]

Why it didn’t revealed to us? Because there is no solution for the origin of the evil in a perfect good creation.

You have a good point, Bahman!

 

[fhansen]

Part A okay.
Part B. How do you have a fuller life than Eden originally provided? I know Jesus said I Have Come That You May Have Life, and Life More Abundant. But more abundant than Eden? Adam spoke to God, literally.

God bless

This has also been the teaching of the Church historically. Eden wasn’t heaven. The Beatific Vision, alone, provides man with an uncompromised degree of life and happiness- which Adam & Eve hadn’t yet attained to in Eden. Eden was also a place where a choice had to be made, to be with God or without, before the reward of eternal beatitude would be theirs. Eden would also become one leg on their journey to perfection, IOW. As usual, the catechism chimes in with wisdom:

412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ’s inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon’s envy had taken away."307 And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature’s being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, ‘Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more’; and the Exsultet sings, ‘O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!’"308

 

[frangiuliano115]

Yes. I agree with much of the above. Some differences however. I was taught, and taught, that Adam was VERY culpable. God spoke directly to him and he disobeyed. How are we to behave if Adam couldn’t? He was also doubley responsibel (did Ijust make up a new phrase?) by accepting the fruit from Eve. I mean, if the serpent had offered it his acceptance might have been more understandable, but Eve offered it - his equal - and he accepted.

I’d have to agree with those who believe his culpability was not reduced. He had enough knowledge to make the correct decision. Plus, who needs a lot of knowledge? We should just do what God wants us to do.

I also don’t understand what you mean by:

In fact he could learn-and apparently needed to learn-in order to contribute in his own way to his perfection.

I agree that he could learn, and had to if he wanted to live outside the Garden, but how did he contribute to his own perfection? Have never heard this concept before.

 

[frangiuliano115]

It is illogical to conclude that God is not good because he allows free will.

What we hold as dogma of faith as Catholic is:

• Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil.
• The Devil possesses a certain dominion over mankind by reason of Adam’s sin.
• There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will.
• There is a supernatural influence of God in the faculties of the soul which coincides in time with man’s free act of will.
• For every salutary act internal supernatural grace of God (gratia elevans) is absolutely necessary.
• Internal supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the beginning of faith and of salvation.
• Without the special help of God the justified cannot persevere to the end in justification.
• The justified person is not able for his whole life long to avoid all sins, even venial sins, without the special privilege of the grace of God.
• Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths.
• For the performance of a morally good action Sanctifying Grace is not required.
• In the state of fallen nature it is morally impossible for man without Supernatural Revelation, to know easily, with absolute certainty and without admixture of error, all religious and moral truths of the natural order.
• Grace cannot be merited by natural works either de condigno or de congruo.
• God gives all the just sufficient grace (gratia proxime vel remote sufficiens) for the observation of the Divine Commandments.
• God, by His Eternal Resolve of Will, has predetermined certain men to eternal blessedness.
• God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection.
• The Human Will remains free under the influence of efficacious grace, which is not irresistible.
• There is a grace which is truly sufficient and yet remains inefficacious (gratia vere et mere sufficiens).
• The sinner can and must prepare himself by the help of actual grace for the reception of the grace by which he is justified.
• The justification of an adult is not possible without Faith.
• Besides faith, further acts of disposition must be present.
• Sanctifying grace sanctifies the soul.
• Sanctifying grace makes the just man a friend of God.
• Sanctifying grace makes the just man a child of God and gives him a claim to the inheritance of Heaven.
• The three Divine or Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity are infused with Sanctifying grace.
• Without special Divine Revelation no one can know with the certainty of faith, if he be in the state of grace.
• The degree of justifying grace is not identical in all the just.
• Grace can be increased by good works.
• The grace by which we are justified may be lost, and is lost by every grievous [mortal, serious] sin.
• By his good works the justified man really acquires a claim to supernatural reward from God.
• A just man merits for himself through each good work an increase of sanctifying grace, eternal life (if he dies in a state of grace) and an increase of heavenly glory.

Of course it’s logical. God is giving me free will. That means I can choose. Choose what? I could choose to do good or I could choose to do evil. See? Where does that evil come from?? You can’t seem to get to the nitty gritty of the problem.

God bless and thanks for the great work you did above. There’s a little problem with the last item, but we’ll let it go. (or at least it could be debated).

 

[frangiuliano115]

Certainly anything God creates has to be less than God, which by definition means imperfect.

Okay Charlemagne. I do believe Fhansen, and you, have hit the nail on the head. I’m glad you brought this question up.

God bless you
Well, for me at least.

 

[davidv]

If the demons were at some time good, what made them become bad?

You see, you keep quoting explanations of why there’s evil in the world. I think we know this stuff. No need to ask Thomas about that.

What we here all want to know is where did that evil come from?

It seems that this question makes the assumption that evil is a thing. In the context of Catholic theology, this not a valid assumption. Evil in this context is analogous to dark. It is lack of a good. Is this the assumption?

Why did satan angel have pride? What put that pride in him? He wasn’t the devil yet.

Why does the source have to be external? Can it come from within?

Mark 7:21

For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,

There’s some basic misundersanding here. It’s not like I would actually expect you to answer the question Vico. It’s just that I’m wondering if you’ve ever really thought this out, and I don’t mean that in an insulting way.

God bless

 

[fhansen]

In fact he could learn-and apparently needed to learn-in order to contribute in his own way to his perfection.

Adam hadn’t yet attained his perfection in Eden- he hadn’t yet reached or fulfilled his intended end or purpose. The whole point of the story-and of our faith-is that man’s will is involved, man has to decide, for life or death, good or evil, heaven or hell, God or no God. As this occurs, as man’s will unites with God’s, he tends towards the perfection that God has in store for him, with the ultimate goal being complete union with God via the Beatific Vision in heaven.

 

[frangiuliano115]

This has also been the teaching of the Church historically. Eden wasn’t heaven. The Beatific Vision, alone, provides man with an uncompromised degree of life and happiness- which Adam & Eve hadn’t yet attained to in Eden. Eden was also a place where a choice had to be made, to be with God or without, before the reward of eternal beatitude would be theirs. Eden would also become one leg on their journey to perfection, IOW. As usual, the catechism chimes in with wisdom:

412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ’s inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon’s envy had taken away."307 And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature’s being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, ‘Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more’; and the Exsultet sings, ‘O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!’"308

This is going off the topic, but just off the top of my head. I’m going to ignore CCC 412. For me, it just creates more confusion - different story for a different day.

The Beatific Vision. Okay. But, I mean, wouldn’t it have been better if they’d never sinned and we could have lived in the garden rather than go through all this to be in heaven??

Wasn’t the garden about as close to heaven as you could get? Wouldn’t YOU have been satisfied there??

Just a thought. We can’t go back…

God bless

 

[fhansen]

This is going off the topic, but just off the top of my head. I’m going to ignore CCC 412. For me, it just creates more confusion - different story for a different day.

The Beatific Vision. Okay. But, I mean, wouldn’t it have been better if they’d never sinned and we could have lived in the garden rather than go through all this to be in heaven??

Wasn’t the garden about as close to heaven as you could get? Wouldn’t YOU have been satisfied there??

Just a thought. We can’t go back…

God bless

IDK, I tend to think that we’d all eventually do what Adam & Eve did. Only the BV has the capability of fulfilling all that a human could possibly desire-and A & E didn’t yet have it in Eden. They were being asked there already to want it, to choose it, in a sense, to choose God.

 

[Bahman]

O.K. so now your calling Catholics on this board simple minded?

Look my friend. The situation is simple: It is not possible that Evil can emerge in a perfect creation. Evil can however emerge in a non-perfect creation assuming that God can do so. God however is responsible for the emergence of evil so a good God cannot create a non-perfect creation. Hence, we have to give up the concept of good God. Unfortunately there is no other solution around.

This is a typical atheist strategy. Are you atheist?

I believe on my own Gods, but it takes me and you a long way to get through my system of belief.

 

[Bahman]

It doesn’t mean it’s a fake. We’re just trying to figure out why the angels fell if concupisensce didn’t exist yet.

God bless

It is very simple:

A) Creation is perfect. Evil cannot exist since perfection can only lead to perfection.
B) Creation is in-perfect. Evil can exist in an in-perfect creation. God however is responsible for the emergence of evil since God’s creatures eventually fail.
C) Evil exists hence (A) is incorrect.
D) From (B) and (C) we can deduce that God and only God is responsible for all disasters.

 

[Vico]

It is very simple:

A) Creation is perfect. Evil cannot exist since perfection can only lead to perfection.
B) Creation is in-perfect. Evil can exist in an in-perfect creation. God however is responsible for the emergence of evil since God’s creatures eventually fail.
C) Evil exists hence (A) is incorrect.
D) From (B) and (C) we can deduce that God and only God is responsible for all disasters.

Catholic Encyclopedia:God was absolutely free to create or not to create, and to create the present or any possible world. This is an article of Catholic Faith defined by the Vatican Council (Can., De Deo Creante, v). It is the explicit teaching of Scripture, God “worketh all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), and of the Fathers generally. It is an obvious rational deduction from the infinitude and absolute self-sufficiency of God. The creative act, as a subjective aspect of the Divine Will, is necessary, but the external positing of a term is free.** This doctrine of creative freedom excludes the exaggerated optimism of Leibniz and others, who held that God was bound to create the best possible world. **The Divine act must be perfect, but the effect need not, and indeed cannot, be absolutely perfect; the creature being necessarily finite, a more perfect creature is always possible and creatable by infinite power. The world is the very best possible for the Creator’s purpose; it is relatively, not absolutely, perfect.
Siegfried, F. (1908). Creation. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
newadvent.org/cathen/04470a.htm

The Old Testament does not say that creation was perfect, but that it was good or very good (except day two was not explicitly mentioned as good).
Day One - created heaven and the void earth, light
Genesis 1:1-5
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good

Day Two - let there be a firmament
Genesis 1:6-8

Day Three - dry land, grass, herb, fruit tree
Genesis 1:9-13
1:12 … and God saw that it was good

Day Four - lights in the firmament of heaven (for signs, seasons, days, and years)
Genesis 1:14-19
1:18 … and God saw that it was good

Day Five - animals of the water and air
Genesis 1:20-23
1:21 … and God saw that it was good.

Day Six - bring forth the living creatures of the earth and mankind
Genesis 1:24-31
bring forth the living creatures
1:25 … and God saw that it was good.
mankind
1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Well then tell me, how could evil exist at all if God didn’t permit it? God permitted the very first evil, for man at least, Adams disobedience, and all evil that followed. This has always been the teaching of the Church. He permits, but doesn’t cause, evil.

Yes, God permits evil because there has to be free will. For there to be free will, one must be able to choose. But if one can choose only good without the option of evil, there is really no choice. The price of free will is the possibility and eventuality of evil in the world, not by God’s will, but by human choice.

When I used to teach playwriting courses, I would emphasize that the writer must keep a number of things in mind: plot, characters, theme, rising action, climax, denouement. The first thing to decide is whether you want to write a tragedy, a comedy. or a tragic-comedy.
Then you have to decide what kind of villain and what kind of hero you want. God has combined all of these choices in his creation of the human race.

The first tragedy is the Fall. The second is the Crucifixion. But the story ultimate ends on a positive note with the Resurrection and the rise to everlasting glory if that is what we choose.

If we do not choose that, it’s all tragedy.