Original Sin

[simpleas]

We can believe in Christ as a matter of our own salvation. The “salvation” does not have to refer to a hoop we have to jump through in order to achieve the afterlife. The “salvation” is here and now. The call for people to unconditionally love and forgive one another is one that, if followed, would save our species, would it not? The call to repentance does the same; repentance saves us from the slavery our appetites can cause.

The salvation that comes from Jesus does not depend on a story about one man sinning in the beginning of creation. This “dependence” starts with the premise that God blames us, or Adam, in some way. To clarify, we are certainly to “blame” in terms of taking responsibility for all of our behaviors. “Blame” indicates an additional negative attitude or unacceptance. God, however, forgives unconditionally.

There isn’t so much that has to remain mystery. Jesus did not make an “ultimate sacrifice” to appease a resentful god.

You weren’t looking for someone to blame? Why not? We all do. It is our nature to try to find cause and effect, and if the effect is a negative one, we look for someone or something to blame. If you aren’t looking for someone to blame, you are fighting your nature, your conscience. So I say, go ahead and look for someone to blame, and then go ahead and feel really resentful toward whatever it is we blame. Let’s be realistic! But then, after we have done enough blaming, it is time to forgive.

It is our conscience that guides us to find the culprit and punish it. It is a good conscience, vital to our species. Think of the joy we get when we watch a movie where the villain gets battered down in the end. It does no good to try to deny or fight our conscience. It is Jesus, the “new Adam”, that calls us to love the parts of creation that our conscience tells us to despise.

I think there is a big difference between the movies and real life
Of course we all (barr maybe a few people) like to see the “baddie” get caught etc.
Satan would be the “baddie” in all this, and i don’t like him, but i’m not sure i hate him, like i don’t like or agree with many people’s beliefs/acts, but i don’t have a hatred for them, thats just me. My conscience i feel has changed/developed as when i was younger i used to think you needed to hate say Hitler for what he did, but now i don’t see it that way.

I lean more towards letting God take care of that.

I’m not sure i follow all that you said above. If what you say about salvation being here now, then why do we need confession? Why believe in the healing power of Jesus? Is there no hell/cut of from God?
Is it really our conscience that tells us to despise certain things in our lives or the church?

 

[OneSheep]

Yes, I have found the same. Discovering your posts and threads made me intensely happy, because it’s such a rare thing to see someone talking so clearly and coherently about these things. Thanks a lot for being here!

Now there are some different nuances, based on some of my empirical observations; maybe I’m wrong about them? Sorry for this long post:

1. You said that conscience (the tendency to judge, blame and punish) is somehow instinctive, “a thing of the body”. How do you know that? I think conscience is learned, a cultural thing - a luxury, if you want. A child who grows up constantly fearing his immediate environment, for ex. a violent father, doesn’t naturally develop this kind of conscience; he doesn’t morally blame his father, he only senses threat (“bad”, but not in a moral sense) and has the natural reaction - fight or flight. Moreover, such a child is so overcomed by fear that he can’t even bring himself to dare to judge his aggressor; he is always busy seeking ways to escape, forget, defend himself if he can or, more often, to appease the person(s) who threaten(s) him.

First of all, thank you very much for responding, and I appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut.
Studies in cognitive science have shown that moral reactions are totally tied up in emotions, and so we come back to “what comes first, the thought or the emotion?”. As soon as we make an observation, the emotion becomes stimulated, and thoughts are surely to come very quickly. I get into these discussion with my psych-major daughter all the time, the nature-v-nurture stuff, and we always end up agreeing that it is some of both, and our reactions are very automatic. So, as long as our reactions are automatic and very difficult to control (feelings and thoughts, that is, not behaviors), then does it matter much whether it is mostly nature or mostly nurture? I don’t make a big deal of the nature v. nurture question. The result is that our conscience is very mechanistic, though we can reason through responses once we have an initial moral reaction.

I am open to the idea that fear blocks the conscience. We can probably all think of examples where people’s moral reactions are inhibited by “ingroup” affiliation or dependence on a particular authority, i.e. plenty of people are blind to the idea that their favorite politician “can do not wrong”. To me, this is not a matter of absence of conscience, but an inhibition of its application. Every child develops a conscience, though some children’s conscience development are inhibited if they lack the ability to empathize. These children are a rarity, and have a definite pathology. Conscience development is as simple as, “when my toy my stolen, I was sad”. The child, from experience (nurture) informs his internal rulebook (nature) that stealing is bad. In addition, the violator becomes part of the child’s “outgroup”.

1. To be able to forgive someone is to be in a position of superiority over the others, or at least in a rather comfortable position of independence.

Very interesting. We obviously look at the definition of forgiveness in different ways. To me, the first step in understanding someone is to come to the point where I can admit that I could have done the same thing that the person I resent has done. As Simpleas said, “but as I have been taught to forgive, I don’t blame Adam and Eve for the O.S as they are human just as we are”

To me, the act of forgiveness requires the humility to admit that I am no better than the person I have condemned, that I am just as capable of atrocities. When we condemn another person, we put them beneath us, “that person is a piece of ______” or some other derogatory label. Part of forgiveness is putting aside the dominance/pecking order aspect and admitting our sameness. If I find myself superior in some way, I know I am not done yet. Every day, I have plenty of opportunities to forgive. I am certainly not superior to anyone who hasn’t forgiven others, though some may see it that way.

I agree that about the “independence” aspect. Resentment and grudge-holding are a chain around our necks. When we forgive, we are set free from the conscience holding onto moral indignation.

Forgiveness is something that one can do only after morally judging the “culprit” and concluding that there are good reasons to forgive or not to forgive. It’s not that a threatened child isn’t able to forgive because of some high moral standards; such a child simply doesn’t have the comfort and independence necessary for judging, blaming and/or forgiving.

A child that doesn’t judge or blame? I want to meet this child. Children do not have the experience adults do to understand the “other”, so forgiveness at a deeper level is not really possible. I don’t think it takes comfort or independence to judge and blame other people. When a child gets bullied, if he feels hurt, then he feels resentful toward the person who bullies. Isn’t this universal? This is the conscience working at a very simple level.

I will continue to work on your post, but this is all I have time for at the moment. Great stuff, Vames! Very thought-provoking.

 

[OneSheep]

I suppose I should restate why discussion of conscience is pertinent to this thread. To me it is pertinent because the creation story appears to be a story about how Adam and Eve acquired a conscience, that part of our nature that makes moral judgments and is compelled to punish wrongdoing. The least of such punishment is non-acceptance of the evildoer, which would enable the tribe to banish the violator, a very severe punishment in the tribal situation in which our ancestors evolved. I am coming from the position that such non-acceptance by one’s conscience is an automatic reaction.

There are abused children who grow up and never understand others’ reflections about the difficulty of forgiveness, because they have never been able to overcome their fear and really internalize the teachings (from school, church, friends, society) about good and bad, blaming and forgiving as moral concepts and processes. Sometimes, they mistake their fear of judging (or their mere wish to forget) for authentic forgiveness. Sometimes, they only want to please and appease their aggressors and this is the way their relationship with the world develops. They want peace with all people not because of their evolved conscience or empathy, but because they don’t want to upset anyone, not even by secretly judging them.

 

[BobCatholic]

I have a close friend whose expectations of family and friends can be unrealistic at times.

My expectations are quite reasonable. If I’m doing God’s will, I expect to have the resources need to carry out His will.

My vocation was husband and father. I hope it still is. Maybe God changed his mind on me? God doesn’t want to give me a job, and thinks I took a vow of poverty. Thus he is not giving me what is necessary to fulfill my vocation (which is his will) - so I think that is not a reasonable expectation of God’s.

When I go to Eucharistic Adoration at 2:00 AM in the morning, I assume that Jesus is awake and listening to my prayers even though at times my eyelids close longer than a wink. Because Jesus hung bleeding on a cross, I assume that He really wants me in His kingdom. When I feel the consecrated bread on my tongue, I assume that Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist, is loving me quietly at close range.

And when Jesus won’t tell me anything about how to get the punishment to stop, that doesn’t sound very loving to me.

 

[OneSheep]

I think there is a big difference between the movies and real life
Of course we all (barr maybe a few people) like to see the “baddie” get caught etc.
Satan would be the “baddie” in all this, and i don’t like him, but i’m not sure i hate him, like i don’t like or agree with many people’s beliefs/acts, but i don’t have a hatred for them, thats just me. My conscience i feel has changed/developed as when i was younger i used to think you needed to hate say Hitler for what he did, but now i don’t see it that way.

I think that people of normal conscience eventually come to the conclusion that hatred is evil. This is the conscience judging the conscience. No doubt, it is a great self-discipline to avoid hating, but when I did this, for years I was simply in denial. Hate of hate may help in self-discipline of behaviors, but it is still hate. Whenever we hate, we have a “divided self”. Let’s say I hate my own desire for status, or for power, or for sex. In doing so, I have condemned the appetites that God has given me. The appetites do not go away, so I see the world dualistically, with a power of good and a power of evil, a Star Wars model. I think all of us come to think of the universe dualistically, until we take the next step, as St. Augustine did.

The answer, again, is to forgive. We can actually “forgive” our own capacity to hate. Our capacity to hate is an aspect of our God-given conscience.

I lean more towards letting God take care of that.

I’m not sure what you are referring to here.

I’m not sure i follow all that you said above. If what you say about salvation being here now, then why do we need confession?

St. Thomas sums up the various aspects of sacramental signs: "Therefore a sacrament is a sign that commemorates what precedes it - Christ's Passion; demonstrates what is accomplished in us through Christ's Passion - grace; and prefigures what that Passion pledges to us - future glory."58

IN BRIEF

1131 The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.

It is my understanding that sacraments are signs of what has happened or will happen. The “required disposition” certainly comes later for baptism, because the sacraments of initiation (baptism, first communion, confirmation) are supposed to involve the will of the candidate, which is certainly not the case in infant baptism, and arguably a commitment above the ability level of a young child.

So, a person can go through confession but if the “required disposition” of sight and awareness is absent, then has reconciliation taken place? If I have sinned against my brother, and I leave confession thinking “he deserved what I did to him”, then true reconciliation has not occurred. The sacrament is a sign for what will happen - in the future. In order for a person to come to seeing eye-to-eye with God, they must forgive their neighbor. God is in the neighbor.

But why do we “need” confession? I think that is more of an existential question. If confession fulfills us, we need it. In the mean time, confession is an opportunity to talk to someone special about deepening a relationship with the Father. It is an opportunity to overcome the guilt that our conscience is feeding us.

Why believe in the healing power of Jesus?

I think that you will have to take ownership of your faith and answer that question for yourself. Does Jesus heal you? He healed me. So, I believe because what He did and said healed me.

Is there no hell/cut of from God?
Is it really our conscience that tells us to despise certain things in our lives or the church?

Hell is a tough one to answer. I don’t know about hell, except that we can experience plenty of it right here on earth. I do know that nothing separates us from the love of God, as Paul says. Is hell a spiritual bootcamp? If hell is an eternal (meaning forever) punishment, then that reflects an unforgiving God.

I think that the Church (with our compliance) can help us form our conscience, but when we despise something, it is certainly not the Church’s “responsibility” that such despising happens. I am responsible for my own conscience. If my conscience is wrong, it is certainly not the Church’s “fault”.

 

[vames]

Knowing that Catholic doctrine, what characteristics would Adam need to have? Before Original Sin could be committed?

I was taught according to the Catechism of St Pius X, who says the following:

35 Q. In what state did God place our first parents, Adam and Eve?
A. God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin.

36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?
A. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense and reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.

37 Q. What was the nature of Adam’s sin?
A. Adam’s sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.

The biblical text says “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die”. Now if they were innocent, didn’t know pain and death and didn’t have the knowledge of good and evil, how were they expected to understand the command and make a conscious choice? Isn’t this the very definition of a very small child? And if a small child disobeys a command from his father, does the father curse the child and punish him with death? The story of Adam and Eve make sense as a tale about but how each of us loses innocence as we grow up, but not as an explanation of why we are born with the capacity to do bad things, when we are the creation of a perfectly good God.

 

[vames]

This would mean that the person can forgive someone that God cannot, which means that he is more loving than God. Do people think this way? I suppose its possible.

If I “forgive” someone, but still think they deserve punishment, (vs enlightenment or correction of the person)then I haven’t forgiven.

Exactly, that’s why I said “to assume forgiveness” instead of “to forgive”. People notice sometimes that what Jesus teaches is unconditional forgiveness (do not judge, or you too will be judged; we should forgive 77 times…), but this gets quickly buried under the more powerful teaching that God’s justice is perfect, i.e. He punishes each and every sin, makes us pay until the very last dime and eternal hell is the punishment even for one single sin.

Perhaps this image of God (who 1. punishes Adam and Eve, 2. can be appeased only by the death of Jesus and 3. still punishes our sins) was once useful as a tool to civilize people, to help them change their bellicose culture simply by transferring to God their own collective wish to judge and punish. Something like “I forgive you, meaning I don’t kill you, because God will anyway punish you more than I could - there’s an eternal torture in hell waiting for you”. But this isn’t how Jesus taught us to forgive. So how does one overcome this contradiction - we are able to unconditionally forgive (like parents forgive their children), but God Our Omnibenevolent Father isn’t? As you say, are we more loving than God? If not, then how are we to understand this image of a punishing God?

So far, there’s the tendency towards an emphasis on God’s mercy and the admission that we can’t know for sure what happens with the souls of those from the old “outgroup” (unbaptized people, hereticals etc). But all the three principles that pertain to this image of God (who 1. punishes Adam and Eve, 2. can be appeased only by the violent death of Jesus and 3. still punishes our sins with eternal hell) remain. And of course these principles are here to stay and inform our consciences, as long as we are taught that whoever doubts them deserves to be eternally punished (at least it’s different from “will be surely punished”.)

 

[vames]

To me it is pertinent because the creation story appears to be a story about how Adam and Eve acquired a conscience, that part of our nature that makes moral judgments and is compelled to punish wrongdoing. The least of such punishment is non-acceptance of the evildoer, which would enable the tribe to banish the violator, a very severe punishment in the tribal situation in which our ancestors evolved. I am coming from the position that such non-acceptance by one’s conscience is an automatic reaction.

Fundamental tools for survival are innate indeed, so non-acceptance of an evildoer must be an automatic reaction, as you say. I used the example of abused children because I saw that they only want to escape or to defend themselves from the aggression of a relative - just because aggression hurts them like it would hurt a dog who then reacts - and they don’t think about anything else, because they don’t know any better.

But if the threat isn’t so persistent and if the same children have enough time to learn and internalize the adult moral code (standards of good and bad behavior - judgement - punishment/correction/forgiveness), then the “negotiation” takes place: my father is a bad man, not because I feel bad when he hits me, but because I learned that his behavior is sinful, motivated by hate or selfishness and deserves punishment, and/or because having a father who beats you is an awful social stigma - so can I afford to want him punished? how can I take revenge? maybe I deserved to be punished? can I forgive him? etc.

Of course, this evolution isn’t clearly cut. What I wanted to say is that the rationalization necessary for judging, condemning or forgiving seems to come later and depends on the type of social conditioning. A relative who hurts me is still a member of my “ingroup”; it takes the formation of another “ingroup”, better suited to defend and encourage my survival instincts (my colleagues, my extended family, my church, society as a whole), for my conscience to develop up to the point where I can coherently judge and condemn or forgive my relative, based on certain moral teachings. I am no longer alone now and I can “expell” my relative from my new “ingroup”, which offers me the reasons and sometimes the power and the means to do so.

Why does all this matter? Because from now on I adhere to the standards of this “ingroup”, which are not innate to me, as the primary fight-or-flight reaction. If my new ingroup teaches me that sinners had to be killed or that drinking alcoholic beverages or going at the theatre on Sundays is a sin, my brain will be washed accordingly. If my ingroup teaches me that I should forgive (=spare) my relative because he will be punished anyway by God, I will oblige And if my ingroup teaches me unconditional forgiveness, I will learn to forgive

 

[vames]

And really, forgiving others is forgiving ourselves. Much of what I condemn in someone else (in terms of motive, for example) is what I project on the person, i.e., “he did that because he is selfish”.

IMO growing up means exactly growing in humility - we see more and more how similar we are to others = we have the same potential to do bad things as others do and they have the same potential to do good things as we do. In this sense, our own sins teach us to forgive others. I only think that forgiving ourselves is sometimes harder, because we know what concrete circumstances made us commit a certain thing - about the others we can presume instead that perhaps they were blinded by something, they didn’t know better, especially if they have been raised in a harsher culture etc. I mean it can be easier to find excuses for others than to accuse them.

We obviously look at the definition of forgiveness in different ways. To me, the first step in understanding someone is to come to the point where I can admit that I could have done the same thing that the person I resent has done. As Simpleas said, “but as I have been taught to forgive, I don’t blame Adam and Eve for the O.S as they are human just as we are”.

I understood superiority here not as lack of humility, but merely as detachment from fear. The aggressor is in a position of superiority over the frightened one; when one overcomes fear or escapes aggression, he is “above” his fear and “above” his aggressor, so he becomes free to judge and forgive.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” indeed begins by becoming able to not demonize the neighbor anymore. Then seeing Jesus on the cross offers this revelation, that I am no better than those who crucified him, that I could have done exactly the same thing AND that I could have been included among those about Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”.

 

[grannymh]

I was taught according to the Catechism of St Pius X, who says the following:

35 Q. In what state did God place our first parents, Adam and Eve?
A. God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin.

36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?
From A.
" Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense and reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.

37 Q. What was the nature of Adam’s sin?
A. Adam’s sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.

1. Q
   From A. The state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin – simply means that they were created in the state of Sanctifying Grace without the presence of mortal sin. This is paragraphs 374-375 and 396 in the* Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition*.
2. Q
   From A.
   “(1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense and reason;” and “(4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.” make it doubly clear that Adam and Eve both had a conscience which was correctly formed in accord with God’s laws as He is their Creator.
   This is CCC 376-377 and CCC 396-397.

37 Q
A. “Adam’s sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.” is CCC 396-409

The universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition explains the answers found in the above question and answer format. Please refer to the two papal documents on pages xiii - xvi and pages 1 - 6.

Links to the Catechism
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
origin.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

 

[grannymh]

The rationalization necessary for judging, condemning or forgiving seems to come later and depends on the type of social conditioning.

Obviously, the skills of rational thought develop.

What happens when Adam and Original Sin are denied is that eventually the *spiritual *source for rationalization disappears from our language. By “source” I am referring to the spiritual faculties or abilities of the God-created soul which is the spiritual principle in human nature per se.

What is hard to understand is that the spiritual soul, complete in its faculties of intellect and free will, is directly and immediately created by God. (CCC 362-366)
Therefore, it is logically correct that Adam was created in accord with CCC 355-356.
In his own nature, Adam united both the material *and *spiritual worlds. Created in the image of God, Adam, created in an innocent state absent from sin, was able to maintain a direct relationship with God. (CCC 396) A direct relationship with God (Sanctifying Grace or original holiness) was possible for Adam and subsequently this amazing relationship is possible for us.

It is essential that we understand the fact that as a result of Adam’s choice (Original Sin), his human nature is transmitted to us in a contracted state of deprivation of original holiness and justice. — which does not mean that we have a corrupted nature. It means that we need to be spiritually aware of our contracted state and of our weakened nature and therefore we need to avail ourselves of the graces of Catholicism’s Sacraments. (CCC 404-409; CCC 396; CCC 390: CCC 1260)

Links to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
origin.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

 

[OneSheep]

Of course, this evolution isn’t clearly cut. What I wanted to say is that the rationalization necessary for judging, condemning or forgiving seems to come later and depends on the type of social conditioning. A relative who hurts me is still a member of my “ingroup”; it takes the formation of another “ingroup”, better suited to defend and encourage my survival instincts (my colleagues, my extended family, my church, society as a whole), for my conscience to develop up to the point where I can coherently judge and condemn or forgive my relative, based on certain moral teachings. I am no longer alone now and I can “expell” my relative from my new “ingroup”, which offers me the reasons and sometimes the power and the means to do so.

It obviously depends on the circumstances. You are talking about the actions of the conscience between a child and a parent, I am talking about other cases. I remember that many times I absolutely hated my siblings. Were they in my “ingroup”? Probably.

Why does all this matter? Because from now on I adhere to the standards of this “ingroup”, which are not innate to me, as the primary fight-or-flight reaction. If my new ingroup teaches me that sinners had to be killed or that drinking alcoholic beverages or going at the theatre on Sundays is a sin, my brain will be washed accordingly. If my ingroup teaches me that I should forgive (=spare) my relative because he will be punished anyway by God, I will oblige And if my ingroup teaches me unconditional forgiveness, I will learn to forgive

Consider me a member of your ingroup… but if your experience mirrors mine, then we both know that with forgiveness (and awareness), the ingroup/outgroup thinking disappears anyway.

I am very interested in your journey. Did you have an “order of events”? A key item of this aspect my journey was that it began shortly after matrimony, when I vowed to love my wife unconditionally, even in the case of infidelity. I was young, innocent, and naive, but totally in love (more so today!). So, though my awareness of this level of unconditional love began with my own private sentiments toward my wife, a person could make a commitment to love anyone unconditionally, most certainly one’s own child.

Did you have an “ingroup” that encouraged you to forgive unconditionally? You have stimulated some of my thoughts on this. My ingroup, the people I looked up to most, definitely included two priests somewhat opposite of each other, but both amazingly spiritual.

 

[OneSheep]

IMO growing up means exactly growing in humility - we see more and more how similar we are to others = we have the same potential to do bad things as others do and they have the same potential to do good things as we do. In this sense, our own sins teach us to forgive others. I only think that forgiving ourselves is sometimes harder, because we know what concrete circumstances made us commit a certain thing - about the others we can presume instead that perhaps they were blinded by something, they didn’t know better, especially if they have been raised in a harsher culture etc. I mean it can be easier to find excuses for others than to accuse them.

In addition, when we are in the mode of self-condemnation, we are blind to our own motives and ignorance. When you have forgiven yourself, do you find a beauty, a beauty that you see in everyone?

I understood superiority here not as lack of humility, but merely as detachment from fear. The aggressor is in a position of superiority over the frightened one; when one overcomes fear or escapes aggression, he is “above” his fear and “above” his aggressor, so he becomes free to judge and forgive.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” indeed begins by becoming able to not demonize the neighbor anymore. Then seeing Jesus on the cross offers this revelation, that I am no better than those who crucified him, that I could have done exactly the same thing AND that I could have been included among those about Jesus said “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”.

This is probably the case with some child molestations. The child may be frightened, but may also be blind to the possibility that this “caring person” may be doing something hurtful.

This may also be the case for Acts 5:1-10, about which I recently posted a thread. It is amazing that so many people look at the behavior that would be ordinarily condemned, yet completely rationalize. (What do the notes in your bible say?) To me, the apologetics for Acts 5:1-10 would be an encouragement to forgive unconditionally rather than try to gloss over or justify what Peter did. Peter was human, just as capable of blindness as I am, just as subject to the workings of his conscience. (Just a reminder, I think the conscience is a gift from God, but it can be as enslaving as our appetites).

 

[grannymh]

The human conscience is a function of the intellect apprehending the essence of some act in terms of its relationship to the true end of man. It is simply the intellectual act or trained ability to judge between right or wrong. A properly informed conscience is in accord with the commandments of God.

The conscience does not have the power to enslave.

Looking at the reality of Adam and his Original Sin reminds us of the importance of participating in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation on a regular basis.

 

[simpleas]

I think that people of normal conscience eventually come to the conclusion that hatred is evil. This is the conscience judging the conscience. No doubt, it is a great self-discipline to avoid hating, but when I did this, for years I was simply in denial. Hate of hate may help in self-discipline of behaviors, but it is still hate. Whenever we hate, we have a “divided self”. Let’s say I hate my own desire for status, or for power, or for sex. In doing so, I have condemned the appetites that God has given me. The appetites do not go away, so I see the world dualistically, with a power of good and a power of evil, a Star Wars model. I think all of us come to think of the universe dualistically, until we take the next step, as St. Augustine did.

The answer, again, is to forgive. We can actually “forgive” our own capacity to hate. Our capacity to hate is an aspect of our God-given conscience.
I’m not sure what you are referring to here.

St. Thomas sums up the various aspects of sacramental signs: "Therefore a sacrament is a sign that commemorates what precedes it - Christ's Passion; demonstrates what is accomplished in us through Christ's Passion - grace; and prefigures what that Passion pledges to us - future glory."58

IN BRIEF

1131 The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.

It is my understanding that sacraments are signs of what has happened or will happen. The “required disposition” certainly comes later for baptism, because the sacraments of initiation (baptism, first communion, confirmation) are supposed to involve the will of the candidate, which is certainly not the case in infant baptism, and arguably a commitment above the ability level of a young child.

So, a person can go through confession but if the “required disposition” of sight and awareness is absent, then has reconciliation taken place? If I have sinned against my brother, and I leave confession thinking “he deserved what I did to him”, then true reconciliation has not occurred. The sacrament is a sign for what will happen - in the future. In order for a person to come to seeing eye-to-eye with God, they must forgive their neighbor. God is in the neighbor.

But why do we “need” confession? I think that is more of an existential question. If confession fulfills us, we need it. In the mean time, confession is an opportunity to talk to someone special about deepening a relationship with the Father. It is an opportunity to overcome the guilt that our conscience is feeding us.

I think that you will have to take ownership of your faith and answer that question for yourself. Does Jesus heal you? He healed me. So, I believe because what He did and said healed me.

Hell is a tough one to answer. I don’t know about hell, except that we can experience plenty of it right here on earth. I do know that nothing separates us from the love of God, as Paul says. Is hell a spiritual bootcamp? If hell is an eternal (meaning forever) punishment, then that reflects an unforgiving God.

I think that the Church (with our compliance) can help us form our conscience, but when we despise something, it is certainly not the Church’s “responsibility” that such despising happens. I am responsible for my own conscience. If my conscience is wrong, it is certainly not the Church’s “fault”.

This is how the church slightly confuses me now with regards to hell. I was brought up (like many others i suppose) to believe that there is a place called hell, and this is the place non believers in God and very bad people are sent for all eternity. If we are good people and treat everybody with kindness and respect we will be happy with God in heaven forever.
Now the message seems to be, there isn’t really a Hell, even non believers of good lives can move on to heaven.

So why do we need our church to reach God, if people can be “saved” who don’t practise our religion, but are good people, why do we have to come before God as sinners if we are trying to please God by praising him every sunday, do good works etc, forgive each other, etc etc.

Can it all make sense about Good and Evil if now the message is, God already forgives you because he loves you unconditionally? Therefore no eternal punishment awaits us?

This says to me that we as people of good conscience, believers in God and his creation are not sinners, as in the sense of people who murder and unrepentant are.

So what would be the point of the O.S story?

We say we are no better than others, but if a person is a child abuser/murder without any mental problems, they just enjoy the power they have over their victim, do we still say we are no better than this person, knowing full well we would never abuse or murder?

We always judge people, we have our own human laws for that.

What i meant about leaving God to take care of hitler, was I believe God will do what he wishes with hitlers soul, i am a mere human, the power is all Gods

 

[vames]

Consider me a member of your ingroup… but if your experience mirrors mine, then we both know that with forgiveness (and awareness), the ingroup/outgroup thinking disappears anyway.

I am very interested in your journey. Did you have an “order of events”? A key item of this aspect my journey was that it began shortly after matrimony, when I vowed to love my wife unconditionally, even in the case of infidelity. I was young, innocent, and naive, but totally in love (more so today!). So, though my awareness of this level of unconditional love began with my own private sentiments toward my wife, a person could make a commitment to love anyone unconditionally, most certainly one’s own child.

Did you have an “ingroup” that encouraged you to forgive unconditionally? You have stimulated some of my thoughts on this. My ingroup, the people I looked up to most, definitely included two priests somewhat opposite of each other, but both amazingly spiritual.

When I said “if my ingroup teaches me unconditional forgiveness”, I rather fantasized about a ideal situation where this teaching would become indeed “mainstream” No, I didn’t and I don’t have such an ideal ingroup.

Having a disfunctional family (but not with the kind of abuse that I’ve talked about before), my only wish was to leave and gain my independence. This independence came with a lot of pride: I know what I am doing, reason is my guide and I can’t make this or that mistake. As for the others, I was mostly preoccupied to *tame *and help them instead of wasting time to judge them; I was already fed up with conflicts in my family, so I wasn’t tempted to treat others badly or to think bad about them. But I haven’t learned to understand the mechanism of sin and forgiveness until I did my own grave mistakes (my own eye-opening “original sins”, if you want - perhaps there are a few such fundamental mistakes in everyone’s life), the kind of absurd things that crush your pride and make you doubt everything you thought you knew about yourself.

The last one was that I left my mother when she was ill, despite of her asking me to stay, and when I came back she was dead. The guilt was such that I didn’t want to be forgiven by God; I only wanted her to forgive me, I wanted God to forgive her (as she died without having received any sacrament) and I wanted to be punished instead of her. I have spent many months trying to rediscover what I had been taught, as a cradle Catholic, about death, indulgences, purgatory, hell, redemption. I was terrified by a lot of the pre-VII literature… and then I got lost, because I realized that I didn’t understand anymore why God needed the violent death of Jesus so can He could offer us redemption, after the fall of Adam and Eve. I could totally identify, instead, with the cruelty of those who had crucified Jesus and I understood that they really didn’t know what they were doing, so to me, intuitively, the Crucifixion was the supreme way to show how we are, how limited and clouded our mind can be. A lesson in humbling? Yes, surely. But how about a supreme lesson in forgiveness, too, as Jesus said so clearly on the cross? That one dawned on me later, after other various chaotic and contradictory readings - Orthodox writings, Gnostic literature, Benedict XVI’s Spe Salvi, even Bishop Spong, many other texts about atonement and Eucharist, but also Traditionalist reflections on how the Church should restore the emphasis on Fear, Sacrifice and Punishment (an example here).

Probably the decisive elements in this awful “journey” were 1) that for some reason I couldn’t have access to Confession and Eucharist (so I couldn’t even think about finding peace, consolation) and 2) that I’ve managed to read the diary of my mother and through her eyes I have slowly understood the kind of unconditional love and forgiveness of a parent towards children and her own thoughts about the endless generosity of God. Now I could never think again about God as separated or separable from us, like an ancient tyrant who looks from above at his slaves. And I know that this is the Kingdom of God, as Jesus said: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you”. Jesus didn’t come to open a new cycle of blame and violence by his death, but to change the model of relationships based on debt and payment into a model based on grace and gift and to transform the fear and hostility among people into love and unity. It surely can sound like a platitude until it truly hits you, so to speak.

 

[vames]

In addition, when we are in the mode of self-condemnation, we are blind to our own motives and ignorance. When you have forgiven yourself, do you find a beauty, a beauty that you see in everyone?

When you have the tendency to punish yourself, you 1) see anything that could alleviate your guilt as a cynical attempt to find excuses and 2) invent new reasons for accusing yourself. So you don’t want to accept that something that you’ve done when you were 20 can’t be judged by the same standards like when you are 30; you blame yourself even for this immaturity and reject the idea that this is something natural. St Augustine once thought that the original, perfect man from the “city of God” could even rationally control the movement of his genitals, just because St Augustine was disgusted with his own sexual sins and considered the spontaneity of arousal as a defect caused by the Fall. Plus: nobody likes to think about himself as less rational than he thought he was and to admit that there are other natural forces which determine his behavior in surprising ways and that he can’t shift the blame to “the evil one” or to Adam and Eve for each wrongdoing. It takes a great deal to be honest, to learn not to fall into these 2 traps anymore and to see that, using the biblical words, “And God saw that it was good”.

Do I say that I am ready to leave the forces of my nature to manifest freely from now on? No. Every good tool for survival can transform itself into a devastatingly bad force if left unchecked. So where do I stop? How can I throw the bath water without throwing the child as well and ending up by hating myself, my body, my instincts, all humans, all the world? Well, it’s a matter of trial an error, a matter of growing up and understanding ourselves and the world better.

Like I said elsewhere on CAF, to me the most striking thing that Pope Francis ever said was his insistence at the Angelus of March 17th: “Never forget this: The Lord *never *gets tired of forgiving us, never! It is we who get tired of asking for forgiveness!” Is this forgiveness conditioned, like some saints say - we are only adopted sons, He can look at us only through the Blood of Christ, otherwise we are disgusting in His eyes and we deserve hell by default because of the consequences of the Fall of Adam and Eve? I’m afraid that the very context of the violent death of Jesus impedes me to think this way anymore.

This may also be the case for Acts 5:1-10, about which I recently posted a thread. It is amazing that so many people look at the behavior that would be ordinarily condemned, yet completely rationalize. (What do the notes in your bible say?) To me, the apologetics for Acts 5:1-10 would be an encouragement to forgive unconditionally rather than try to gloss over or justify what Peter did. Peter was human, just as capable of blindness as I am, just as subject to the workings of his conscience. (Just a reminder, I think the conscience is a gift from God, but it can be as enslaving as our appetites).

Yes, I have read it last week - it’s one of the most interesting threads on CAF.
My bible has a note about “How could you conspire to *test *the Spirit of the Lord?”, explaining that the verb “peirazo” is used here and elsewhere (Acts 15:10; Heb 3:9) to denote “the action of man who tests God to see if He is indeed omnipotent, if He sees the sin and leaves it unpunished”. So, again, we are invited to think that God has justly punished Ananias and Sapphira through the hands of Peter. As the commentary on the USSCB site says, “The sin of Ananias and Sapphira did not consist in the withholding of part of the money but in their deception of the community. Their deaths are ascribed to a lie to the holy Spirit (Acts 5:3, 9), i.e., they accepted the honor accorded them by the community for their generosity, but in reality they were not deserving of it”.

My opinion, honestly? On one hand, the new church had to issue rules and to enforce them, to ensure unity and obedience according to the perennial tribal mentality. The moral of the story was “Great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things”. Point taken; no more trespassings! Could Peter have said “Go, and sin no more”? Yes, but perhaps such an attitude would have been deemed as detrimental to the survival and growth of the tribe/community/church. So gone are the days when Peter had understood the forgiveness of Jesus and had chose to live, instead of killing himself out of guilt, like Judas. On the other hand, this story is not different from various OT stories that show how disobedience of various members of the tribe or the attacks of other peoples are promptly punished by God - only that here Peter speaks explicitly on behalf of God. There’s a sinister song of the Iron Guard that says “God is on our side - understand it, ye peoples, and bow!” When a tribe/community/church is struggling to survive and grow, the idea that “God is on our side” (and against “their/your side”) comes naturally as a defence mechanism.

 

[OneSheep]

The human conscience is a function of the intellect apprehending the essence of some act in terms of its relationship to the true end of man.

As I have mentioned before, studies have shown that our moral responses are very much caught up in emotion. Emotions are triggered, not ordinarily intended. Sure, through the intellect we can try to inform our conscience, but it is not always possible. Sometimes such modification of conscience involves “undoing” or rethinking a hurtful experience from the past.

It is simply the intellectual act or trained ability to judge between right or wrong.

It is not simple at all, though, granny. Let me give an example. Let’s say that a person reads something on this thread that he doesn’t like, he finds what he reads “blasphemous”, he has a moral reaction to what he reads. What happens in the mind is “that action is bad” and the origination of the action (the person who “blasphemes”) becomes the Object of Resentment (i.e. “he is a moron” or “he is a demon”). Next, the conscience mechanism seeks to control the “evil” by punishing the O.R. For example, when the O.R. happens to ask the resenting person a question, the person who resents “punishes” by not responding. This is all part of the activity of the conscience.

A properly informed conscience is in accord with the commandments of God.

The conscience does not have the power to enslave.

Here are some examples of the conscience enslaving:

1. At the center of the conscience is what can be best described as a “personal rulebook”. I have started many threads about forgiving people, especially those who are most commonly resented, and the most common reason why people do not forgive is because they say “It is not right for me to forgive that person.” This is a statement from a personal rulebook, and it is reasonable because of the perception that if Joe forgives Al for hurting Jim, then Jim may be offended. In this case, if Joe follows this rule and never forgives Al for what he did to his friend Jim, he hangs onto a grudge forever. This is not the “eternal life” that Jesus is talking about. This is slavery to the conscience.
2. The second most common reason why people do not forgive is because the person resented has not repented and/or is not sorry. The personal rulebook says “if he is not sorry, I am not to forgive him”. If the O.R. is never sorry, then the person hangs onto the grudge forever. This again, is enslavement.
3. A person may have in his rulebook that forgiveness only refers to people, not parts of ourselves. The rule may be “never forgive these parts of ourselves”, i.e. our desire for power, status, wealth, sex, wanting other people’s stuff, capacity to anger, capacity to hate, capacity for addiction, or capacity for depression. If a person never forgives these appetites and capacities, he will remain a divided self, seeing part of himself as bad, never having the ability to fully see the beauty of God’s creation. This is slavery to the conscience.
4. A person may decide that something he has done is so bad, that it is not right to ever forgive himself, “I will never forgive myself for that”. The conscience makes the person himself the Object of Resentment, and the person spends the rest of his life self-loathing. This is not eternal life, it is enslavement.
5. One of the main functions of the conscience is to do exactly what #3 refers to. When we think of parts of ourselves as bad, then we are compelled to control our appetites. Such self-control is undeniably a good thing. However, when we do not eventually forgive these parts of ourselves, we continue to have the illusion of dualism, the Star-Wars effect, the idea that there are two powers acting on us, the Manichean “heresy”. Dualism has its place in our species, but as long as we continue to see certain others or parts of ourselves as evil, we will continue to seek to destroy that evil. This illusion has its place, but is in itself somewhat enslaving.

Arguably, these cases all have to do with malformation of conscience. Well, malformation of conscience happens for very understandable reasons.

 

[OneSheep]

This is how the church slightly confuses me now with regards to hell. I was brought up (like many others i suppose) to believe that there is a place called hell, and this is the place non believers in God and very bad people are sent for all eternity. If we are good people and treat everybody with kindness and respect we will be happy with God in heaven forever.
Now the message seems to be, there isn’t really a Hell, even non believers of good lives can move on to heaven.

The idea of non-believers who live morally going to heaven is not new. The idea that there isn’t a hell is not Catholic doctrine.

So why do we need our church to reach God, if people can be “saved” who don’t practise our religion, but are good people, why do we have to come before God as sinners if we are trying to please God by praising him every sunday, do good works etc, forgive each other, etc etc.

Can it all make sense about Good and Evil if now the message is, God already forgives you because he loves you unconditionally? Therefore no eternal punishment awaits us?

Well, yes it can make sense, and I have explained how it makes sense to me. The question is, does the idea of a never-ending punishment make sense to you? What do you believe at this time? When we have not forgiven everyone, then it makes sense that God hasn’t either. When we have forgiven everyone, it makes sense that God has also.

This says to me that we as people of good conscience, believers in God and his creation are not sinners, as in the sense of people who murder and unrepentant are.

So what would be the point of the O.S story?

Please, do not veer away from the standard Catholic view of the O.S. story if it makes sense to you. Do you see the theme in my response? “Seek and you will find”.

We say we are no better than others, but if a person is a child abuser/murder without any mental problems, they just enjoy the power they have over their victim, do we still say we are no better than this person, knowing full well we would never abuse or murder?

The key part of what you say in this paragraph is “they just enjoy the power”. Can you forgive yourself for enjoying power?

Let us go back to the question. It is not “just” anything, it is not simple. Why do people murder and abuse? Answer: we are blinded, automatically, by resentment and desire. Our empathy is blocked. So, perhaps you have more self-control than people who abuse and murder, and that is great! However, are we “better”? I have made the painful admission that I am quite capable of abuse and murder. I have learned to forgive, and I repent from the desires that lead to blindness. I am not “better”, but I have a different set of beliefs and experiences.

We always judge people, we have our own human laws for that.

To me, human laws are the collective of our personal rulebooks. It is generally stuff we agree on. I am referring to when we personally judge others, which we all do, and Jesus asks us not to do. To me, my judging is so automatic that I cannot stop it from happening. When I come aware that I have judged, then I forgive. This is a matter of discipline. We have to support one another on this: Brother, I need your support when it is obvious that I am judging someone and I don’t have a clue. Point out my blindness, and encourage me to forgive.

What i meant about leaving God to take care of hitler, was I believe God will do what he wishes with hitlers soul, i am a mere human, the power is all Gods

True, but if we hold anything against Hitler, we are called to forgive him. Our media and history books do not encourage this, but it is our calling. If a person has never held anything against Hitler, he should read about the holocaust or go to a holocaust museum. Knowing about the atrocities should be part of every modern human’s knowledge base.

 

[grannymh]

As I have mentioned before, studies have shown that our moral responses are very much caught up in emotion. Emotions are triggered, not ordinarily intended. Sure, through the intellect we can try to inform our conscience, but it is not always possible. Sometimes such modification of conscience involves “undoing” or rethinking a hurtful experience from the past.

It is not simple at all, though, granny. Let me give an example. Let’s say that a person reads something on this thread that he doesn’t like, he finds what he reads “blasphemous”, he has a moral reaction to what he reads. What happens in the mind is “that action is bad” and the origination of the action (the person who “blasphemes”) becomes the Object of Resentment (i.e. “he is a moron” or “he is a demon”). Next, the conscience mechanism seeks to control the “evil” by punishing the O.R. For example, when the O.R. happens to ask the resenting person a question, the person who resents “punishes” by not responding. This is all part of the activity of the conscience.

Here are some examples of the conscience enslaving:

1. At the center of the conscience is what can be best described as a “personal rulebook”. I have started many threads about forgiving people, especially those who are most commonly resented, and the most common reason why people do not forgive is because they say “It is not right for me to forgive that person.” This is a statement from a personal rulebook, and it is reasonable because of the perception that if Joe forgives Al for hurting Jim, then Jim may be offended. In this case, if Joe follows this rule and never forgives Al for what he did to his friend Jim, he hangs onto a grudge forever. This is not the “eternal life” that Jesus is talking about. This is slavery to the conscience.
2. The second most common reason why people do not forgive is because the person resented has not repented and/or is not sorry. The personal rulebook says “if he is not sorry, I am not to forgive him”. If the O.R. is never sorry, then the person hangs onto the grudge forever. This again, is enslavement.
3. A person may have in his rulebook that forgiveness only refers to people, not parts of ourselves. The rule may be “never forgive these parts of ourselves”, i.e. our desire for power, status, wealth, sex, wanting other people’s stuff, capacity to anger, capacity to hate, capacity for addiction, or capacity for depression. If a person never forgives these appetites and capacities, he will remain a divided self, seeing part of himself as bad, never having the ability to fully see the beauty of God’s creation. This is slavery to the conscience.
4. A person may decide that something he has done is so bad, that it is not right to ever forgive himself, “I will never forgive myself for that”. The conscience makes the person himself the Object of Resentment, and the person spends the rest of his life self-loathing. This is not eternal life, it is enslavement.
5. One of the main functions of the conscience is to do exactly what #3 refers to. When we think of parts of ourselves as bad, then we are compelled to control our appetites. Such self-control is undeniably a good thing. However, when we do not eventually forgive these parts of ourselves, we continue to have the illusion of dualism, the Star-Wars effect, the idea that there are two powers acting on us, the Manichean “heresy”. Dualism has its place in our species, but as long as we continue to see certain others or parts of ourselves as evil, we will continue to seek to destroy that evil. This illusion has its place, but is in itself somewhat enslaving.

Arguably, these cases all have to do with malformation of conscience. Well, malformation of conscience happens for very understandable reasons.

Thank you.

Thank you for putting together some of the basic spiritual problems which occur in the absence of a sound understanding of the reality of Original Sin.

While I have already discovered some of those spiritual problems, the idea that at the center of the conscience is what can be best described as a “personal rulebook” is to date the most startling problem so far.