Original Sin Makes No Sense

[teachccd]

On the other hand - so what if they weren’t culpable? If you think of the episode as being similar to a child innocently putting its hand on a hot iron and getting burned, well that child may not be morally culpable for the act at all, but they certainly suffer consequences - they get burned and may well carry a big old disfiguring scar for the rest of their lives. So exposure, even the exposure of an innocent, to evil may have this sort of disfiguring effect on the soul.

Great analogy!!

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Pete,

One of your premises is wrong. Adam and Eve were moral agents, and understood the distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, obedience and disobedience.

You can’t extrapolate, I don’t think, from “The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” that Adam and Evil had no knowledge of good and evil before hand.1

VC

1 What would they have made of the tree’s designation, for instance, if they had no idea what good and evil meant?

 

[jesusismyrock]

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?

God is All-Good and ALL-powerful. That needs to be recognized. God can do whatever he wants to do Whenever and However he wants to do it. But in you saying that what God wants is for all to be saved so why doesn’t he just make it that way… Thats like calling us Robots. God wants us all to Choose him and to choose to be saved.

If you had a child and that child rebelled against you would you want that child to lie to you and say Yes mom or Yes dad I love you and they don’t really love you they are just saying it to make you happy. Let me ask you something, would that be True Love or True Happiness?

God does not want us to love him falsely. God wants us to Love him for him, just like he Loves us for us.

What you said previously asking if Original Sin was inherited… the answer to that is YES. Original sin was inherited by the human race. It was something so powerful (the 2 most powerful things in the world are Prayer and Sin) because sin was so powerful it affected the world. All human beings were then recognized with it. As some people have said Original Sin was like a huge disease that has been passed on from your parents… and It is such a powerful disease that it has spread to the world and there is only one way to cure that… and that is Jesus. When you are Baptized it washes away Original Sin… and so after that, if you honestly, completely, and totally devote your life to Christ Jesus then it is possible to become sinless.

But all in all God is All Loving, All Good, and All Powerful. Do not think though that God cannot and/or does not punish people. That is the reason for hell. And do not think that God cannot take away free will because that is putting a limit on God. But Believe that God is Love. And pray that God reveals himself to you if you are doubting. I promise you that once you come to know the Truth you will understand.

 

[jesusismyrock]

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.

So this means that infants who are not baptized because they do not have the reasoning to ask to be before they die, or that infants who die in the process of the mother giving birth and are not baptized, cannot and do not receive Gods graces? Does the church honestly not believe that God cares just as much about these infants as he does the most horrible sinner that he does not speak with them in his own way and help them to choose whether or not they wish to be saved.
What about the aborted children? They are Gods children too, and Jesus has revealed to different people (especially the mothers who have had abortions and then repented and turned to God afterwards) Jesus has said that there Children are not forsaken that they are with him and that they love him very much. What about in miscarriages? If a good and stable devout Pro-life Catholic family have a miscarriage are you saying that the child will not be saved, because surely it was part of Gods plan for that child not to enter into this world, but the child so innocent yet still conceived with original sin surely would be saved, do we not think that God gives them the choice. God gives all life the choice of free will, and if we believe that human life starts at the moment the child is conceived then surely God does not leave these children out.

 

[fbl9]

. What about in miscarriages? If a good and stable devout Pro-life Catholic family have a miscarriage are you saying that the child will not be saved, because surely it was part of Gods plan for that child not to enter into this world, but the child so innocent yet still conceived with original sin surely would be saved, do we not think that God gives them the choice. God gives all life the choice of free will, and if we believe that human life starts at the moment the child is conceived then surely God does not leave these children out.

my friend the couple you are speaking of would baptise the miscarried infant…there are a number of catholics who work in hospitals who do in fact baptise aborted children. as for the matter of abortion “mills” there are some catholics working in them so that they can try to council the mothers not to have abortions and do in fact baptise the aborted infants.

 

[jesusismyrock]

my friend the couple you are speaking of would baptise the miscarried infant…there are a number of catholics who work in hospitals who do in fact baptise aborted children. as for the matter of abortion “mills” there are some catholics working in them so that they can try to council the mothers not to have abortions and do in fact baptise the aborted infants.

Because of how they train you and because you get fired if you do not listen to them, you cannot work in an abortion clinic and be a True Catholic there is no way.

These forums state though that once the child dies it cannot be saved.

 

[fbl9]

Because of how they train you and because you get fired if you do not listen to them, you cannot work in an abortion clinic and be a True Catholic there is no way.

These forums state though that once the child dies it cannot be saved.

these forums are not the official teaching of the church,there lies a critcal period of time between clinical death and actual death it is in this time which the baptsim can take place…

 

[benedictus2]

How could Adam and Eve commit original sin?

Could someone please refute this?

1.) One is not culpable for sin committed in complete ignorance.
2.) Adam and Eve were ignorant of all knowledge of good and evil.

Therefore Adam and Eve could not be held accountable for their sin.

How could they be held accountable for original sin if they were in a state of ignorance?

They were in a state of innocence but not ignorance per se but ignorance in that they have never “known/experienced” evil.

The Devil promised them that they will be like gods and this I think is the root of it all. What they wanted was to be God and so supplant God. They wanted to be the moral arbiter of what constitutes good and evil.

Even to this day, this is evident. People have started to abrogate to themselves the right to determine what is right or wrong.
“If it feels good, do it”, “It’s my body, I get rid of the baby if I want to”.

So the fall, is a result of their rebellion, which is a result of their pride.

A priest boiled sin down to “a refusal to let God be God”.

God, not us, determines what is good and what is evil. And Adam and Eve did not like that.

The prohibition to know good and evil, is to stop them from having a working knowledge of evil.

…

 

[benedictus2]

One theory I’ve heard is that in this context, to ‘know’ evil is used in the same fashion as Mary’s ‘know’ man.

On an intelectual level, they knew the difference between good and evil in much the same way Mary knew the difference between men and women. What they lacked was practical, hands on experience. They knew it was possible to choose evil, but they had never done so.

So the devil convinced them to give it a try…

Hey, I have said the same thing myself. Good to know that someone out there thinks the same.

 

[Fran65]

With respect to unbaptized infants, whether miscarried, aborted or dying from another cause without baptism the Church has issued a fairly recent document after several years of study.

The 41-page document, titled “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized,” and authorized by Pope Benedict XVI was published in Origins, the documentary service of Catholic News Service on April 20th 2007.

In it, the Vatican’s International Theological Commission say that there are good reasons to hope that babies who die without being baptized go to heaven. The document states: that the traditional concept of limbo – as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God – seemed to reflect an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.”

The church continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants, the document said.

But there is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and “wants all human beings to be saved,” it says. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ’s special love for “the little ones,” it says.

“Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered … give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision,” the document says.

“We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge,” it adds.

I hope this clarifies things for jesusismyrock.

 

[lofktis14kr]

Adam and Eve were not ignorant in their sin. God expressly forbid them to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He even attached this prohibition with the threat of death.

We see this in Eve’s answer to the Devil, "And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden…’”

She knew it would displease God and lead to her death, but she did it anyway.

One might argue that the Devil made her do it, but if the Devil succeeded at anything, it was merely at preoccupying Eve’s thoughts with the tree. But notice that her thoughts about the tree were not about how awful it would be to disobey her loving heavenly Father, or about God’s threat of death. Rather, her thoughts about the tree accorded with a desire for the forbidden, she was lusting after the fruit. Before she even took the fruit in her hand, she took hold of it in her heart as she saw it was good for food: lust of the flesh, desirable to the eyes: lust of the eyes, and good to make one wise: the pride of life. (1 John 2:16)

 

[MoBeck]

Imagine that when they were young your parents ignored a warning sign and went into a radioactive building. The radioactivity damaged their genes and resulted in a mutation that was passed down to their children. They owner of the building accepted their apologies for breaking into the building and didn’t prosecute them. The owner even made available to them and their descendants a medication could help them overcome the weakness of the mutated gene when they took it regularly.

We do inherit a weakness from our first parents. We have a fallen nature. God has given us a medication (grace). But, left to ourselves, we aren’t by nature good and generous. Don’t you see weaknesses in yourself that you must work hard to overcome?

Au contraire.
The owner of the building made the building very attractive and, knowing how curious the parents were, not only failed to erect a fence but allowed easy access but allowed a creature to wander around the to try [successfully] to talk them into entering. In effect, it was a “Do Not Enter” sign against the serpent’s determined advertising campaign.

They never had a chance and He knew it, let’s stop pretending otherwise.

 

[jesusismyrock]

With respect to unbaptized infants, whether miscarried, aborted or dying from another cause without baptism the Church has issued a fairly recent document after several years of study.

The 41-page document, titled “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized,” and authorized by Pope Benedict XVI was published in Origins, the documentary service of Catholic News Service on April 20th 2007.

In it, the Vatican’s International Theological Commission say that there are good reasons to hope that babies who die without being baptized go to heaven. The document states: that the traditional concept of limbo – as a place where unbaptized infants spend eternity but without communion with God – seemed to reflect an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.”

The church continues to teach that, because of original sin, baptism is the ordinary way of salvation for all people and urges parents to baptize infants, the document said.

But there is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and “wants all human beings to be saved,” it says. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ’s special love for “the little ones,” it says.

“Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered … give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision,” the document says.

“We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge,” it adds.

I hope this clarifies things for jesusismyrock.

Thank You for the Response. And I appreciate the Vatican in saying it. But I have a firm belief that they seem to be lacking somewhat that all unborn or killed infants without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism do go to Heaven.

 

[GemmaRose]

Thank You for the Response. And I appreciate the Vatican in saying it. But I have a firm belief that they seem to be lacking somewhat that all unborn or killed infants without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism do go to Heaven.

I, for one, am not even sure why anyone argues about this subject at all.

Only God knows for sure. As Scripture says,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” (Romans 11:34)

“For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:16)

If HMC will not even say for sure that someone as evil as Hitler is in hell, but leaves all judgment up to the wisdom of God (for who else can know and distinguish the depth of Hitler’s sin and the depth of his mental illness), how much more so should we believe that the souls of these innocent little ones will be treated with the mercy of God Who is Mercy itself?

I just don’t believe that Love Himself would love these innocent souls any less than He loved the unwashed little ragamuffins who crowded to Him when He walked the earth.

 

[Alethiaphile]

The traditional understanding is while the child does not have the grace to enter heaven, the child does not have the sins to be punished in hell. It goes instead to a place of perfect natural happiness- a happiness better than anything on this earth

This idea of “Limbo” has been discarded by the western church (the Eastern Church never had it), and with good reason. There is no such thing as an eternal state of “natural happiness” or natural anything. Nature, as we know it, is coming to an end. What will be eternal is the New Creation, heaven and earth, and Hell. Everything else will pass away.

 

[CWBetts]

If God wants all to be saved, then if not all are saved, God doesn’t get what He wants. If God is omnipotent He should get what He wants. So maybe God doesn’t want all to be saved after all. Or maybe God isn’t omnipotent.

God is omnipotent. God does desire for all to be saved and do his will, bur He does not force the issue. You are denying free will.