Original Sin Makes No Sense

[Nickkname]

You said “It dosen’t mean He has the power to destroy the grace of free-will.”

Do you mean that there is something God can’t do?

You’re thinking in earthly terms, as if God is a man. He is God. He can do whatever good He wants. He cannot do evil because He is goodness itself. To say that God is limited because He is goodness itself would be like saying God is old because He is eternal. There is nothing God can’t do - He can do all the good He wants.

 

[marchoi]

So you thereby limit the power of God?

So God doesn’t get what He wants? How is that omnipotent? He wants something that He can’t have?

No, God limits His own power. He can choose to make all human beings conform to His divine will and thereby have salvation, be in Heaven, and forever praise Him. But in His love, He chose to limit His own omnipotence and grant free will to humans, those beings made in His own image and likeness. And I suppose, if God wanted to do so, He could take away our free will and take us all to Heaven… After all, God doesn’t need us.

So… God is still omnipotent - He doesn’t always get what He wants because He realizes what’s best for us. Think of it like this - God has the potential to get whatever He wants, because He’s omnipotent. But He chooses to give us free will, in the hopes that we will come to love Him through our own volition, not through God’s mandate (because then it’s not love - love is a choice, not an emotion).

 

[EasterJoy]

So you thereby limit the power of God?

So God doesn’t get what He wants? How is that omnipotent? He wants something that He can’t have?

As others have pointed out: See how differently God thinks than we think? We think that being all-powerful means getting everything we want. God thinks that being all-powerful means creating other beings who are capable of freely giving and receiving love, even at the cost of allowing them to freely choose something else.

God is omniptent, but God isn’t a control freak. God willed that we have free will, and being also omniscient, he foresaw that we would choose to use our free will to try the impossible task of making ourselves omnipotent within our limited selves, rather than choosing to be one with God in the omnipotent unity of divine love. God made us, even though he foresaw we would need Jesus, who, unlike us, “did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at”. We, though by rights we belong to God, having no being or capacity apart from God, do grasp at the power that belongs to God alone. How is it that we can complain, when God, who by any measure of right may do with us as he pleases, was pleased to make us in his image, even though this would require that he become one of us and, as a human, surpass us in the obedience and love which by God’s perfect will would make us holy, happy, and capable of the love for which we were made? He gave us a share in his own life, and we complain because the nature of divine love requires that we have to freely choose it in order to live in it? He freely chose to endure the consequences of our impossibly self-centered choices, so that we might yet choose life, and we feel we have standing to complain? As the Scripture has it: whose way is it that is not fair?

We are born thinking we are the center of the universe, that everything revolves around us. Certainly even the most secular humanist in the world will agree that this attitude, if not abandoned, leads to a life of emptiness, frustration, and pain. The reality of original sin is the easiest thing in the world to believe: not that we are inherently evil, but that we are inherently resistant to admitting what our relationship with the rest of creation actually is.

Incidentally, while the Catholic Church teaches that any number of people have joined the kingdom of heaven as saints, the Catholic Church does not teach that any particular person has been damned. This includes the unbaptized, even those who would seem to have rejected baptism up until the moment of death. We teach what the consequences of rejecting God’s ways are–and the laws of love are, by the way, as immovably built into the nature of things as the law of gravity–but we are not judges of who has or has not gotten past the point of all hope.

 

[EasterJoy]

You said “It dosen’t mean He has the power to destroy the grace of free-will.”

Do you mean that there is something God can’t do?

It means that God has no need to second-guess himself. The whole universe, from top to bottom, came to be and is sustained in every moment by God’s divine will. Should his left hand bind even as his right hand loosens? Shall we be God’s judge, or God’s instuctor?

Keep in mind, too, that God is not tortured with the prospect that maybe things won’t come out OK. God is omniscient. To God, all places are present, all times are present, and all hearts are laid bare. God doesn’t have to guess at whether his set-up is cricket. His judgements lack nothing: not evidence, not wisdom, not justice, not compassion. Only we, and sometimes even when we are educated enough to know that we don’t fully understand so much as the limited circumstances of the moment we are in, have the chutzpah to judge when we lack jurisdiction, knowledge, understanding, and compassion.

 

[LilyM]

You said “It dosen’t mean He has the power to destroy the grace of free-will.”

Do you mean that there is something God can’t do?

No, just that there is something (in fact there are many things) that He chooses not to do even though He both wants them and is capable of them.

Just as I at this moment both WANT to stuff myself silly with chocolate, and CAN do so (there’s some in the house, and a convenience store across the road where I could purchase more), but I CHOOSE not to.

 

[SFD]

God is not bound by His sacraments. He can give the children the graces necessary for salvation. Infact, Baptism is in three forms: Water, desire, and blood. Baptism by water is the usual form, Baptism by desire is when someone would want a Baptism if they knew about it (in other words, they would choose to be baptized if they had knowledge of Christ), and Baptism by blood is when someone dies for Christ.** A child can very well have a Baptism of desire. **Moreover, God excludes no one from His Mercy - He desires all to be saved.

Desire requires an act of the will. This requires the use of reason.

Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia:
CE:

Finally, it is to be noted that only adults are capable of receiving the baptism of desire.

Theologians also call attention to the fact that as God sincerely wishes all men to be saved, He does not exclude infants, for whom baptism of either water or blood is the only means possible. The doctrines also of the universality of original sin and of the all-comprehending atonement of Christ are stated so plainly and absolutely in Scripture as to leave no solid reason for denying that infants are included as well as adults.

The perpetually insane, who have never had the use of reason, are in the same category as infants in what relates to the conferring of baptism, and consequently the sacrament is valid if administered.

If at one time they had been sane, baptism bestowed upon them during their insanity would be probably invalid unless they had shown a desire for it before losing their reason. Moralists teach that, in practice, this latter class may always be baptized conditionally, when it is uncertain whether or not they had ever asked for baptism (Sabetti, no. 661). In this connection it is to be remarked that, according to many writers, anyone who has a wish to receive all things necessary to salvation, has at the same time an implicit desire for baptism, and that a more specific desire is not absolutely necessary.

And Pope Pius XII, addressing this very question:
Pope Pius XII:

Supernatural life

If what We have said up to now concerns the protection and care of natural life, much more so must it concern the supernatural life, which the newly born receives with Baptism. In the present economy there is no other way to communicate that life to the child who has not attained the use of reason. Above all, the state of grace is absolutely necessary at the moment of death without it salvation and supernatural happiness—the beatific vision of God—are impossible. An act of love is sufficient for the adult to obtain sanctifying grace and to supply the lack of baptism; to the still unborn or newly born this way is not open. Therefore, if it is considered that charity to our fellowman obliges us to assist him in the case of necessity, then this obligation is so much the more important and urgent as the good to be obtained or the evil to be avoided is the greater, and in the measure that the needy person is incapable of helping or saving himself with his own powers; and so it is easy to understand the great importance of providing for the baptism of the child deprived of complete reason who finds himself in grave danger or at death’s threshold.

Undoubtedly this duty binds the parents in the first place, but in case of necessity, when there is no time to lose or it is not possible to call a priest, the sublime office of conferring baptism is yours

.
None of the above can be “explained away” by pointing out that the Church has never defined “limbo infantium”. It is irrelevant to the refutation of the statement of this poster, **" A child can very well have a Baptism of desire." **

This statement above is refuted here by two sources. And both sources are available “on-line” at “moderator approved websites”.

SFD

PS

God is not bound by His sacraments. He can give the children the graces necessary for salvation. Infact, Baptism is in three forms: Water, desire, and blood.

Baptism of Desire is not a sacrament. This is way God is not bound by His sacraments.

 

[Aramis]

So it is really believed that if a child dies without first having been baptised, it will be condemned to suffering?

not necessarily to suffering, but to never be united with God in the manner that a baptized Christian might, never to know the nature of God by personal encounter.

It was a long held theologumenon that limbo was separate from heaven, hell, and purgatory, and was a comfortable place for unbaptized infants to spend eternity.

Dante Alligheri, in the Inferno, places limbo in hell, but in the outermost reaches, and it is not a place of torment, merely of eternal separation from God.

Currently, the church teaches that it may be possible that they might be able to attain heaven, by the prayers of the faithful, but not to hold out much hope, for we have no evidence from scripture as to the fate of the unbaptized infants.

 

[SFD]

not necessarily to suffering, but to never be united with God in the manner that a baptized Christian might, never to know the nature of God by personal encounter.

It was a long held theologumenon that limbo was separate from heaven, hell, and purgatory, and was a comfortable place for unbaptized infants to spend eternity.

These are two separate issues. Because the answer to second question has not been defined by the Church it is assumed the the first question is irrelevant. It is not. The first question has been answered:

“With regard to children, since the danger of death is often present and the only remedy available to them is the Sacrament of Baptism by which they are snatched away from the dominion of the devil and adopted as children of God, it admonishes that sacred baptism is not to be deferred for forty or eighty days or any other period of time in accordance with the usage of some people, but it should be conferred as soon as it conveniently can; and if there is imminent danger of death, the child should be baptized straightaway without any delay, even by a lay man or woman in the form of the Church, if there is no priest, as is contained more fully in the decree on the Armenians.” (Decree for the Jacobites, Denz. 696)

The Council of Florence also defined, in Session VI, the following: “But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains.”

Pope Innocent III (III Decr. 42:3): “The punishment of original sin is the deprivation of the vision of God; of actual sin, the eternal pains of hell.”

SFD

 

[Nickkname]

Desire requires an act of the will. This requires the use of reason.

Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia:

And Pope Pius XII, addressing this very question:

.
None of the above can be “explained away” by pointing out that the Church has never defined “limbo infantium”. It is irrelevant to the refutation of the statement of this poster, **" A child can very well have a Baptism of desire." **

This statement above is refuted here by two sources. And both sources are available “on-line” at “moderator approved websites”.

SFD

PS

Baptism of Desire is not a sacrament. This is way God is not bound by His sacraments.

Thanks for the correction, also the two quotes on those with original sin going to hell. God bless!

EDIT: I found this in the Catechism. Not sure if it means the Church changed her position on unbaptized children or not:

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"63 allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

 

[bilop]

Thanks for the correction, also the two quotes on those with original sin going to hell. God bless!

EDIT: I found this in the Catechism. Not sure if it means the Church changed her position on unbaptized children or not:

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"63 allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

Not really a change in belief, just a change in emphasis.

Limbo was never doctrinal, i.e. the Church never proclaimed it true. It is a speculation, just like saying there may be some other way for unbaptized babies to gain Grace is a speculation.

Basically, we don’t know, and that is what the catechism is saying. We don’t know, we trust in God, but baptize them in order to make sure.

God Bless

 

[neitsab]

How can people be held accountable for an act that they did not commit? It seems to imply that humans are inherently bad and weak.

When you believe in God with your whole mind and soul, you accept everything that he said…Humans are weak, but through belief in Jesus he makes us strong. If you don’t believe then no one can explain it to you.

 

[RubyT]

Here is my take on the question:
God gave us free will so that we could freely choose our own path. If God were to mandate worship there would be no Glory for Him. By our personal choice to worship (Love Him) and follow His teaching we give the Glory to God. Through praise and worship the Glory is given to God.

Only God knows the mysteries of the universe. Our Lord is so deserving of Glory but Glory cannot be obtained through mandates. God knows things which we do not. We cannot create the universe but He can, thus many reasons for His ways and His will are not understood by us.

When two people are in love it is a glorious feeling.

Have you ever loved someone that did not return that love. You can’t force them to love you back but you still wish that they would (of their own free will). Its an awful feeling to Love and not be loved in return; there is no joy or glory in it.

Try to imagine being God, full of goodness, mercy and love. He can do anything, anything at all He wishes. Seems like that would be a lonely state to be in. Thus He created us to Love Him. He Graces us because He Loves us.

I think that God created us because He is Love but also desires to be Loved in return. What value does Love have if it is not given of free will? To force us to Love Him would negate the Love. There is no Glory in that.

So what does this have to do with original sin?
We are not perfect: ever since the original sin by Adam and Eve. Through faith (believing in Him and following His commandments) and love for Him, we redeem our far from perfect selves. Thus, through Loving God freely we give the Glory to God. The blood of Christ made this redemption possible for us. For God so Loved the world He gave His only begotten Son.

 

[marchoi]

Basically, we don’t know, and that is what the catechism is saying. We don’t know, we trust in God, but baptize them in order to make sure.

Just to clarify, you aren’t saying that we baptize infants who die before they can be baptized, right? Because we don’t. That’s the Mormons who do that.

And just to add:

How can people be held accountable for an act that they did not commit? It seems to imply that humans are inherently bad and weak.

I wouldn’t say that it’s the entire human race that’s “being held accountable” per se - more like we suffer the consequences nonetheless. The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve disobeying God) led to a corruption of human nature. As Adam and Eve were the only human beings at the time (and we all inherit our human nature from the two of them), it naturally follows that we inherit a corrupted human nature. As they say, “It might not be your fault, but it’s your problem.” The fallen nature isn’t our fault, but it is still our problem and we have to deal with it.

 

[SFD]

Not really a change in belief, just a change in emphasis.

Limbo was never doctrinal, i.e. the Church never proclaimed it true. It is a speculation, just like saying there may be some other way for unbaptized babies to gain Grace is a speculation.

Basically, we don’t know, and that is what the catechism is saying. We don’t know, we trust in God, but baptize them in order to make sure.

God Bless

But this is Catholic doctrine:

“With regard to children, since the danger of death is often present and the only remedy available to them is the Sacrament of Baptism by which they are snatched away from the dominion of the devil and adopted as children of God, it admonishes that sacred baptism is not to be deferred for forty or eighty days or any other period of time in accordance with the usage of some people, but it should be conferred as soon as it conveniently can; and if there is imminent danger of death, the child should be baptized straightaway without any delay, even by a lay man or woman in the form of the Church, if there is no priest, as is contained more fully in the decree on the Armenians.” (Decree for the Jacobites, Denz. 696)

The Council of Florence also defined, in Session VI, the following: “But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains.”

Pope Innocent III (III Decr. 42:3): “The punishment of original sin is the deprivation of the vision of God; of actual sin, the eternal pains of hell.”

Limbo was never doctrinal, i.e. the Church never proclaimed it true.

The Church never defined it. That is not to say it is not true. Most truthes of the Faith are not defined. The infallibility of the Church has never been defined…yet all Catholics must believe it.

It is a speculation, just like saying there may be some other way for unbaptized babies to gain Grace is a speculation.

Yes, it is a result of spectulative theology. Actually, and contrary to the English meaning of the word, “speculative” in this context does not refer to “speculation” as though the matter was uncertain. Speculative theology is the Scholastic Theology (theology developed by applying reason to the data of revelation), as distinct from Positive Theology (which is the arrangement of proofs from Scripture and Tradition).

Dogmatic theology since the Reformation tends to consist of a combination of the speculative and positive methods. That is what the theologians do…they abstract a thesis (speculative theology), explain it (speculative theology), and prove it from the data of Revelation (positive theology). They do the latter because they know that we have all heard the Protestant objections and therefore our Faith may need the support of knowing what data of Revelation supports our doctrines. This was unnecessary prior to the Reformation, for obvious reasons.

Mgr. J. H. Hervé

Manuale Theologiae Dogmaticae (Vol. III: chap. IV) - 1931

II. On those for whom Baptism of water can be supplied:

“The various baptisms: from the Council of Trent itself and from the things stated, it stands firm that Baptism is necessary, yet in fact or in desire; therefore in an extraordinary case it can be supplied. Further, according to the Catholic doctrine, there are two things by which the sacrament of Baptism can be supplied, namely an act of perfect charity with the desire of Baptism and the death as martyr. Since these two are a compensation for Baptism of water, they themselves are called Baptism, too, in order that they may be comprehended with it under one as it were generic name; so the act of love with desire for Baptism is called Baptismus flaminis (Baptism of the Spirit) and the martyrdom (Baptism of Blood).”

SFD

 

[RubyT]

How can people be held accountable for an act that they did not commit? It seems to imply that humans are inherently bad and weak.

Yes, in comparison to God, humans are inherently weak and sinful. That is why He sent us His son. God knowing this; wanted to ensure our salvation through the Blood of Christ. Jesus Christ had to suffer on the cross to enable the absolution of all of our sins because we are weak. The flesh is weak, the Spirit is strong.

By the way, Great post. These issues need to be discussed. If we don’t discuss the ways of our Lord than how do we find discernment? Lighten up people. :bounce:

 

[Namesake]

Yes, in comparison to God, humans are inherently weak and sinful. That is why He sent us His son. God knowing this; wanted to ensure our salvation through the Blood of Christ. Jesus Christ had to suffer on the cross to enable the absolution of all of our sins because we are weak.

That’s another question. Why is substitutionary sacrifice accepted by Christians? Seems a little like tossing virgins into volcanoes to appease angry gods.

 

[RubyT]

That’s another question. Why is substitutionary sacrifice accepted by Christians? Seems a little like tossing virgins into volcanoes to appease angry gods.

What you call substitutionary sacrifice; I see as wholehearted obedience to the Heavenly Father. Very different from tossing virgins into volcanoes. The virgins never rise again. The virgins do not cleanse the souls of sin, nor do they in any way redeem mankind.

I fail to understand how you see Christ on the cross as substitutionary sacrifice. He rises in 3 days and lives today. Sacrifice yes, substitutionary NOT.:tsktsk:

 

[EasterJoy]

That’s another question. Why is substitutionary sacrifice accepted by Christians? Seems a little like tossing virgins into volcanoes to appease angry gods.

If God sent no help when we got lost in our own self-admiration, what then? What would that seem like? Besides, he did not send a substitute. God came and achieved the reconciliation himself.

It is not as if the justice of God is arbitrary. The “punishment” for original sin is no more than the natural consequences of being utterly stuck on ourselves. It is what we choose, this is true, not because we inherently choose the evil over the good, but because we are inherently prone to mistake what we like for what is good, and in choosing the “good” choose what will never work.

We are not inherently evil, but neither are we inherently innocent. Free to choose, we choose ourselves as the good over what is actually good. That is why it is called sin.

 

[Namesake]

What you call substitutionary sacrifice; I see as wholehearted obedience to the Heavenly Father. Very different from tossing virgins into volcanoes. The virgins never rise again. The virgins do not cleanse the souls of sin, nor do they in any way redeem mankind.

I fail to understand how you see Christ on the cross as substitutionary sacrifice. He rises in 3 days and lives today. Sacrifice yes, substitutionary NOT.:tsktsk:

I think it’s pretty simple to understand. Christ substituted Himself in His sacrifice for us. The debt was ours but He paid it for us. How is that not substitution?

 

[bilop]

Just to clarify, you aren’t saying that we baptize infants who die before they can be baptized, right? Because we don’t. That’s the Mormons who do that.

Correct, I’m very well aware that only living children may be baptized. What I meant is, we don’t know what happens to unbaptized infants, so we baptize them to make sure of their salvation if they should die.

God Bless