Original Sin...Opinions

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IsaacSheen

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So, I’ve seen a lot of posts on Original Sin and what people think abou it. I’d like to offer one more look at it and get some opinions on it.

My theory up to this point in my life is that Original Sin is really what the Bible says it is. Knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge gives Adam and Eve Knowledge.

Before Adam and Eve had knowledge (of right and wrong etc.), they had God to depend on entirely. They didn’t need to depend on themselves at all.

Think about human knowledge. Is any of it really necessary? If you think about how Adam and Eve were before the Fall, they didn’t need it because God had provided everything for them (natural instincts). After the Fall, man has needed more and more knowledge to fix the problems from the fall.

Also, the first thing they realized were that they were naked. This is the first inkling (like that word?) of knowledge because man (yes women too) would immediately be aware of their own bodies.

The knowledge we acquire now is very often to fix problems we created do to the fall.

I realize this theory has many holes in it. Please, feel free to expose them all. I’ll answer any questions that I’ve already thought about and answered. Also, I’m sure that this has already been thought of before (2000 years of our Church) but please, if you are going to offer resources for me…post them, but join in the discussion. Thanks!

Isaac
 
So the answer is to return to our natural instincts?

And if we do return to our natural instincts, isn’t part of our natural instinct the desire for knowledge? It seems that God made desire for knowledge an inherent aspect of our lives.
 
IsaacSheen]So, I’ve seen a lot of posts on Original Sin and what people think abou it. I’d like to offer one more look at it and get some opinions on it.

My theory up to this point in my life is that Original Sin is really what the Bible says it is. Knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge gives Adam and Eve Knowledge.

Before Adam and Eve had knowledge (of right and wrong etc.), they had God to depend on entirely. They didn’t need to depend on themselves at all.

Think about human knowledge. Is any of it really necessary? If you think about how Adam and Eve were before the Fall, they didn’t need it because God had provided everything for them (natural instincts). After the Fall, man has needed more and more knowledge to fix the problems from the fall.

Also, the first thing they realized were that they were naked. This is the first inkling (like that word?) of knowledge because man (yes women too) would immediately be aware of their own bodies.

The knowledge we acquire now is very often to fix problems we created do to the fall.
I realize this theory has many holes in it.
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you and i agree about this… i respectfully disagree with the rest…

Please, feel free to expose them all. I’ll answer any questions that I’ve already thought about and answered. Also, I’m sure that this has already been thought of before (2000 years of our Church) but please, if you are going to offer resources for me…post them, but join in the discussion. Thanks!

Isaac
 
I feel it’s disobediance/rebellion. God asked Adam and Eve not to eat from certain trees. They ate anyway, disobeying God, rebelling against His law.
James
 
Wow, I just read what I wrote and how I wrote it…I didn’t mean that knowledge is Original Sin…oops!! I meant that knowledge is one of the by-products of Original Sin.

Come to think of it…forget this whole post…

I was trying to get out a thought I had the other day and now it just doesn’t fit what I was thinking and I can’t remember the thought!

Sorry for the waste of space.
 
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IsaacSheen:
Come to think of it…forget this whole post…

I was trying to get out a thought I had the other day and now it just doesn’t fit what I was thinking and I can’t remember the thought!

Sorry for the waste of space.
Click to expand...
:rotfl:

Sorry for laughing. You just reminded me of myself when I get a great revelation and then space it off right in the middle of trying to explain it.

I guess some truths are not yet ready to be formed into words.

Alan

P.S. OK, so I’m not really sorry for laughing. I’m actually filled with joy, and am prone to be amused or happy at any given time, without notice or obvious reason.
 
My truth-for-the-day thoughts on original sin is that is the first time there was an actual “will” exercised in opposition to God’s.

As I was thinking some stuff about what “I” and comparing it to ideas of the Catholic “false self” or the Freudian “ego” and some other things.

For the most part, we are indistinguishable from our environment. What are our bodies made of? Chemicals and other inert substances behaving in a really cool way. They are full of organisms of other species or they wouldn’t work right. Is it possible to describe which part of all this is “me” and which is “not me?” What about body systems? Do I breathe, or am I breathed? Do my autonomic reactions count as me? Is my heart really a part of me? If I remove a heart from a fish it continues to beat, without the rest of the fish.

Same way with the brain. What part of the brain, if any, is me? When one gets right down to it, there really is no such physical concept as I, defined apart from the entire physical world. What about my thoughts? They are almost entirely shaped by my language and culture.

Therefore, there is only one way that I can distinguish “me” from “not me,” as far as I have come up with so far. When I say “distinguish” that implies “separate.” That would be my will. That is the part of me that I am in charge of. That is the part of Adam that he exercised for the first time against his environment (God). This set the stage for man to have a will apart from God. Ever since then, good people have tried to reconnect with God by submitting their wills to His. Unfortunately we no longer have perfect knowledge of His will since the original sin (separation) since our collected minds have been so corrupted by tasting a bit of being God, something our will tends toward and opposes our efforts to submit.

It’s a rough draft; I just thought this stuff up yesterday and haven’t tried to put it into words until now. I say that not as an excuse for its silliness, but as an invitation to add to it or otherwise critique it.

Alan
 
We are held responsible for Adam’s sin. We may be forgiven of it, but we’re still suffering the temporal consequences of it.
 
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third_servant:
We are held responsible for Adam’s sin. We may be forgiven of it, but we’re still suffering the temporal consequences of it.
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I respectfully disagree.

We are not responsible for the sin of Adam, he takes that rap all by himself.

But, we have inherited a wounded nature, one of the consequences of which is our inability to agree on the consequences of original sin.

+T+
Michael
 
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IsaacSheen:
My theory up to this point in my life is that Original Sin is really what the Bible says it is. Knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge gives Adam and Eve Knowledge.
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But the Bible doesn’t say that. It says that God forbade Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not that God forbade Adam and Eve to have knowledge.

Adam and Eve certainly had knowledge before they became disobedient. They had knowledge of their surroundings (which God declared was good), knowledge of themselves (which God declared was very good), and most importantly of all, they had a knowledge of God (the greatest good of all). The knowledge that Adam and Eve possessed was a knowledge of the good, and the good alone. That is why Adam and Eve possessed holy innocence before the Fall.

The author of Genesis describes the forbidden fruit as the knowledge of good and evil, and in doing that, he reveals that he was inspired in his writing by the Holy Spirit. One can know the good alone if one possesses holy innocence, but one cannot know evil unless one knows how to abuse the good, which is incompatible with possessing holy innocence. Evil cannot be known in and of itself, since evil is only a parasite on the good. Hence the forbidden fruit is the knowledge of good and evil, because one cannot know evil apart from the good.

When creation is restored, the children of God will be possess once again holy innocence, but it will be a holy innocence that is far superior to that which Adam and Eve possessed before the Fall. There will be no tree of knowledge of good in evil in the restored creation, because that tree was used to test the faith of Adam and Eve. The children of the restored creation will have passed their test of faith, and they will never be tested again. In the restored creation, no one will sin because no one will have the knowledge of how to sin, and they will never be able to acquire that knowledge.

The blessed will still have free will in the restored creation, but they will only be able to exercise their will in acts of love.
 
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Matt16_18:
But the Bible doesn’t say that. It says that God forbade Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not that God forbade Adam and Eve to have knowledge.

Adam and Eve certainly had knowledge before they became disobedient. They had knowledge of their surroundings (which God declared was good), knowledge of themselves (which God declared was very good), and most importantly of all, they had a knowledge of God (the greatest good of all). The knowledge that Adam and Eve possessed was a knowledge of the good, and the good alone. That is why Adam and Eve possessed holy innocence before the Fall.

The author of Genesis describes the forbidden fruit as the knowledge of good and evil, and in doing that, he reveals that he was inspired in his writing by the Holy Spirit. One can know the good alone if one possesses holy innocence, but one cannot know evil unless one knows how to abuse the good, which is incompatible with possessing holy innocence. Evil cannot be known in and of itself, since evil is only a parasite on the good. Hence the forbidden fruit is the knowledge of good and evil, because one cannot know evil apart from the good.

When creation is restored, the children of God will be possess once again holy innocence, but it will be a holy innocence that is far superior to that which Adam and Eve possessed before the Fall. There will be no tree of knowledge of good in evil in the restored creation, because that tree was used to test the faith of Adam and Eve. The children of the restored creation will have passed their test of faith, and they will never be tested again. In the restored creation, no one will sin because no one will have the knowledge of how to sin, and they will never be able to acquire that knowledge.

The blessed will still have free will in the restored creation, but they will only be able to exercise their will in acts of love.
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Obviously, someone didn’t read my last post.

Here…
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IsaacSheen:
Wow, I just read what I wrote and how I wrote it…I didn’t mean that knowledge is Original Sin…oops!!

Come to think of it…forget this whole post…

I was trying to get out a thought I had the other day and now it just doesn’t fit what I was thinking and I can’t remember the thought!

Sorry for the waste of space.
Click to expand...
 
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Hesychios:
I respectfully disagree.

We are not responsible for the sin of Adam, he takes that rap all by himself.
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Then why are we out of the garden of eden? If we are not held responsible, why do we have to carry the temporal consequence?
But, we have inherited a wounded nature, one of the consequences of which is our inability to agree on the consequences of original sin.
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That’s a temporal consequence of someone else’s sin. How is that fair? We’re being punished for Adam’s sin!

Let’s continue this part of the discussion here:
forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=54389
 
Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity sheds a great deal of insight on the topic of this thread. I couldn’t reproduce it, as it has been too long since I read it. But I know it’s in there, and I know it’s good. It places the test in the Garden in the context of all of salvation history. Good stuff…
 
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