Hello all,
I haven’t posted on the forums for a while because I’ve been going through a period of intense doubt. I converted to Catholicism from Reformed/Calvinist Protestantism in 2007, but now I’m having a hard time with basic Christian beliefs. Protestantism is no longer a real option for me because if I’m going to be a Christian, I’m going to believe in historical Christianity, going back to Jesus and the apostles, but I don’t know if I can remain Catholic in light of my current difficulties, particularly issues surrounding the Doctrine of Original Sin.
My first problem is scientific. Humans came from multiple parents, not just two individuals. Evolutionarily speaking, two humans would not provide enough genetic diversity to allow the human species to continue to grow. All the scientific evidence points against a literal Adam and a literal Eve; yet theologically, Protestants and Catholics both view original sin as something inherited–like our eye color, it’s in our DNA, our genes. Cardinal George Pell recently said that Catholics can believe in evolution and without a literal Adam and Eve, but if there was no original Adam and Eve, there could be no original consumption of forbidden fruit. Therefore, how could we actually inherit original sin?
Because Catholics believe original sin is inherited, God, in His grace, gave Mary extra special graces to preserve her from inheriting original sin. This is the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This does fit in nicely with the sin-as-inherited view of Christianity because it explains how Jesus could be born without sin. But at the same time, the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception suffers from a problem of infinite regression. Why is this applied to Mary, but not Saint Anne, Mary’s mother? For that matter, why didn’t God preserve anybody else from original sin?
On a related note, the whole Garden of Eden scenario sounds like a cruel game. God created the forbidden fruit, knowing full well that it would cause multiple problems to Adam and Eve if they ate from it. Why create a forbidden fruit at all?
The typical response to this is usually something like, “God created the forbidden fruit to give Adam and Eve free will.” But this simply doesn’t make sense in light of Augustinian theology, which maintains that free will is nothing more than the ability to make the RIGHT choice, not the ability to make the wrong choice. Indeed, Augustine maintains that the will is most free when choosing what is right. If there were no forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve would still have been able to make the right choice.
The question of the forbidden fruit also brings up the question of theodicy. Adam and Eve, both chose to eat the forbidden fruit, but God still created it. Although the act of eating the forbidden fruit was sinful, God was still the primary cause of this sin because He created the fruit.
And this is where most of my questions return. How is God not responsible for evil, either in His direct actions, as the case with the forbidden fruit, or in His inaction?
Or, in Catholic theological terms, how is God not sinful in matters of commission (direct acts of evil) and omission (failing to do good, when good can be done)?
I know this is a lot for one post, and I don’t expect one person to address all these points, but even addressing a few of them would be helpful.
Thanks!
