Original Sin question

[grannymh]

What along with pain, death did Adam suffer? The whole men have it easier than women, women suffer monthly and suffer in birth, men do not, what is a man’s extra pain that a women doesn’t suffer?

I know women say once they have given birth, gone through intense pain, they forget it once they see the child, which is great because not many women would want to go through child birth more than once.

I can’t help but think none of us are in a state of Grace, because all of us suffer from pain, physically or spiritually so what is the point…?

Grace helps us when choosing which path to take, but it never erases pain, pain seems to have been there from the beginning.

Briefly,
The State of Sanctifying Grace is sharing in the life of God.
Actual Grace is God helping us … Sometimes physically. Always spiritually.

Helpful link. catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-difference-between-sanctifying-and-actual-grace-do-we-receive-special-gra

 

[guanophore]

What along with pain, death did Adam suffer? The whole men have it easier than women, women suffer monthly and suffer in birth, men do not, what is a man's extra pain that a women doesn't suffer?

See post 76. Men had to support women for the bearing of children, and the consequences of the choice made this more difficult.

I can’t help but think none of us are in a state of Grace, because all of us suffer from pain, physically or spiritually so what is the point…?

This is a good question. Although humankind lost the grace in which we were created, being in a state of grace now can still occur, despite the consequences of the choice. And being in that state of grace can alleviate our pain at times, and most especially, bring meaning to it so that we do not suffer without hope.

 Grace helps us when choosing which path to take, but it never erases pain, pain seems to have been there from the beginning.

Grace makes the pain bearable. God is with us in and through our suffering.

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross…” Heb. 12:2

 

[simpleas]

See post 76. Men had to support women for the bearing of children, and the consequences of the choice made this more difficult.

This is a good question. Although humankind lost the grace in which we were created, being in a state of grace now can still occur, despite the consequences of the choice. And being in that state of grace can alleviate our pain at times, and most especially, bring meaning to it so that we do not suffer without hope.

Grace makes the pain bearable. God is with us in and through our suffering.

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross…” Heb. 12:2

The only thing I will say is men supporting women in childbirth and then providing for the child and mother would have been difficult, but it was not a extra pain to endure. If we are to believe the scripture as literal then God gives this exclusivity to the woman alone, which isn’t justice from a loving God.

PS (I do not believe that God isn’t a loving God, that is why I am questioning the scripture)

 

[simpleas]

Briefly,
The State of Sanctifying Grace is sharing in the life of God.
Actual Grace is God helping us … Sometimes physically. Always spiritually.

Helpful link. catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-difference-between-sanctifying-and-actual-grace-do-we-receive-special-gra

Thanks.

When I work out why there has to be two types of Grace when both sound the same I’ll be on the same page.

Does anyone have any examples of what actual grace does v sanctifying grace?

Thanks.

 

[guanophore]

The only thing I will say is men supporting women in childbirth and then providing for the child and mother would have been difficult, but it was not a extra pain to endure. If we are to believe the scripture as literal then God gives this exclusivity to the woman alone, which isn’t justice from a loving God.

PS (I do not believe that God isn’t a loving God, that is why I am questioning the scripture)

You seem like a person that has no experience with farming!

 

[simpleas]

You seem like a person that has no experience with farming!

What a weird statement to make…

 

[meltzerboy]

But is it just how reality seems to be? If the father is a gambler, the son doesn’t receive an inherence? The son isn’t at fault, but he still suffers the consequences?

Christi pax,

Lucretius

This is exactly what the Hebrew Scriptures mean by noting the sins of the father are visited upon his children. Not that the children inherit their father’s sins at birth but that the consequences of the father’s sinful behavior can have a negative effect on his children’s behavior by means of the way the father raises them. According to Judaism, our sins are our own.

 

[Bradski]

As far as I am aware A&E were not subject to any pain before the fall.

An almost certainly fatal affliction.

And how can God increase something that doesn’t exist?

 

[OneSheep]

No sin happens by accident. It is always freely willed, whatever the motivation. It often means we are pursuing a lesser good, like money, power or pleasure.

So yes it is inaccurate to say we are inclined to do what we think is best. This is not an inclination, it is our nature. What with think is best often has to be rationalized against what we know is best.

Hi David,

Is it inaccurate for a Catholic to say that our inclination is what is guided by our nature?

Thanks.

 

[guanophore]

What a weird statement to make…

The consequences to Adam with regard to his relationship to the land is a very good descripton of the struggles faced by farmers.

 

[davidv]

Hi David,

Is it inaccurate for a Catholic to say that our inclination is what is guided by our nature?

Thanks.

Yes this is inaccurate. Concupiscence is this inclination and it is contrary to the human nature God created.

 

[OneSheep]

If what is best is defined as what is desirable but that may be contrary to reason. Temptation to sin occurs when what is best is in conflict with what is most desirable. The inclination, susceptibility to temptation, is not sin, but rather what is willed in response to the temptation is the sin. The will determines what is best from the moral character of an act or omission and this moral truth is learned from the Church and from the conscience.

Catechism

1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.” 121

1872 Sin is an act contrary to reason. It wounds man’s nature and injures human solidarity.

Hi Vico,

I agree with you, humans do not have a tendency to sin.

Is it inaccurate for a Catholic to say that desire affects reason?

Thanks

 

[guanophore]

Is it inaccurate for a Catholic to say that our inclination is what is guided by our nature?

The inclination is something that affects our nature, so that the compass intended to guide us is no longer oriented toward good, but tends toward evil.

Guidance comes from a number of sources. The inclination makes us more prone to responding to desires of the flesh, rather than those of the Spirit. Our conscience, that through which God intended to be our guide, is brought into conflict through the inclination.

 

[OneSheep]

You are incorrect.

An impoverished understanding or a removal of one doctrine NECESSARILY leads to an impoverished understanding or removal of another doctrine.

I think this drawing limns it quite well:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...sts,_E._J._Pace,_Christian_Cartoons,_1922.jpg

NB: The doctrines delineated there are not exclusive but only representative.

Hi PR,

So, if a Catholic has an impoverished understanding of one doctrine, he necessarily stops receiving communion, stops a prayerful relationship with Abba, and becomes atheist?

Thanks.

 

[guanophore]

Hi Vico,

I agree with you, humans do not have a tendency to sin.

I don’t think this is a fair assessment of Vico’s position. He has not abandoned the Catholic teaching about human beings having a tendency to sin.

Our conscience battles the inclination to sin, creating a conflict inside us. A well formed conscience will testify within us that sin is contrary to reason, to love.

Is it inaccurate for a Catholic to say that desire affects reason?

Thanks

Yes, desire affects reason, primarily BECAUSE of the inclination. The broken compass allows desire to have too much influence over reason, causing greater temptation to fall into sin. These principles are well explained in Scripture, if a person had a desire to understand what the Catholic Church believes and teaches, it would be a good place to begin.

 So, if a Catholic has an impoverished understanding of one doctrine, he necessarily stops receiving communion, stops a prayerful relationship with Abba, and becomes atheist?

Thanks.

That graphic is not describing an “impoverished understanding of doctrine” but a willfull choice to reject that doctrine. Rejection of the Truth revealed to us by God causes us to walk further and further away from Him.

There are many faithful Christians that have an impoverished concept of many doctrines. The stand in the tradition of Apollos, very fervent, but not well catechized about their faith. Most of them are not Catholic.

Catholics have a responsibility to learn and be obedient to their faith. Some Catholics neglect this duty, and some outright refuse to undertake it, preferring rather to insert their own ideas into their religion, rather than meekly becoming formed by it. Ths type of rebellion can also result in walking away from the faith.

 

[PRmerger]

Hi PR,

So, if a Catholic has an impoverished understanding of one doctrine, he necessarily stops receiving communion, stops a prayerful relationship with Abba, and becomes atheist?

Thanks.

This demonstrates an impoverished ability to reason.

And, unfortunately, I’m not in the mood to engage in dialogue with folks who cannot make logical inferences.

 

[grannymh]

An almost certainly fatal affliction.

And how can God increase something that doesn’t exist?

It is my understanding that animals including ants have existed along with bacteria as material beings in time and space for billions of years. At least I know ants exist because every so often they have a convention in my kitchen.

However, it should be obvious that ancient material creatures did die otherwise we would have terrible traffic jams, worse than current ones. Dying is the result of a decomposing material anatomy. Decomposition pain, such as losing one’s hair, is mild compared to decomposing stomach pain, etc. Pain is normal in material beings such as dogs and cats. That is why when dogs and cats have severe pain, we put them down.

If I am understanding correctly, there is some curiosity about some non-existent pain in Adam and Eve’s anatomy before the Fall. And how can God increase something that doesn’t exist? To get a decent answer to that question, we need to understand the Catholic teaching about human nature. Human nature is an unique unification of both the material world characteristics such as decomposition and the spiritual world which includes life eternal (spiritual soul). God put these two worlds together in the dramatic shift from Genesis 1: 25 to Genesis 1: 26-27.

Going slowly. God as Creator created Adam and Eve as the first two real human beings whose nature was uniquely material and spiritual. Having a material anatomy, they could procreate real human descendants in time and space. Eventually, their material anatomy would decompose like birds and bears. God used His divine power to suspend the normal material decomposition in Adam and Eve. Thus, no pain and no need for death as a result of decomposition. Please note that Adam and Eve’s material anatomy did not disappear.

When Adam got bored being a gardener, he scorned his Creator and stomped on the requirements for the original friendship relationship. In other words, Adam shattered the original humanity relationship with Divinity. This free act of disobedience also destroyed the “suspension of material pain and decomposing death.” Adam and Eve’s material anatomy returned to the normality of the material world. The “suspension” of ordinary characteristics of the material nature was removed. Please note that Adam and Eve’s material anatomy did not disappear; it simply went back to the normal material. Adam and Eve’s spiritual soul, being non-material, remained in the image of God.

 

[PRmerger]

However, it should be obvious that ancient material creatures did die otherwise we would have terrible traffic jams, worse than current ones.

Indeed.

If there was no death prior to the Fall, what, exactly, did the saber tooth tiger and wooly mammoth eat?

Rather, there was no human death and corruption of the material prior to the Fall.

 

[Vico]

Hi Vico,

I agree with you, humans do not have a tendency to sin.

Is it inaccurate for a Catholic to say that desire affects reason?

Thanks

I did not say that, see the Catechism 405 and 406 below. From Aristotle we have the distinction between 1) intellect, as the intuitive faculty, and 2) reason, as the discursive or inferential faculty. The judgement of reason may be effected by passions.

Catechism 1778 “Conscience is a judgment of reason” and 1792 … enslavement to one’s passions, … can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

Also regarding conflict between feeling and reason, Catechism 1773:

1773 In the passions, as movements of the sensitive appetite, there is neither moral good nor evil. But insofar as they engage reason and will, there is moral good or evil in them. Passions are said to be voluntary, “either because they are commanded by the will or because the will does not place obstacles in their way.” 44 It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason. 45

44 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II,24,1 corp. art.
45 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I-II,24,3.

Catechism on how human nature is wounded and inclined to sin, to evil:

405 Although it is proper to each individual, 295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529) 296 and at the Council of Trent (1546). 297

295 Cf. Council of Trent: Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum 1513.
296 Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum 371-372.
297 Cf. Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum 1510-1516.

 

[OneSheep]

This demonstrates an impoverished ability to reason.

And, unfortunately, I’m not in the mood to engage in dialogue with folks who cannot make logical inferences.

I think that you just admitted that the slippery slope was contrary to reason… the slippery slope from “impoverished understanding” to atheism is in itself based on fear, and fear, like desire, compromises human ability to reason.

The 1922 cartoon was a reflection of that fear .

Thanks for responding!