Original Sin

[vames]

The holiness of Saints like Irenaeus, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas was at such a high concentration that they desired more explicit explanations for the truths accepted at the beginning of Catholic Church history. Two of these prominent truths are Chapter 6, Gospel of John and Romans 5: 12-21.

Yes, I know about Romans 5, it was the same source for defining the OS at Trent.
But I was hoping to find out that the Church did choose the harsh interpretation because of some other, superior reasons than a lack of knowledge about the original Greek version of a Romans 5:12. Was any of the people who chose to follow Augustine in defining the OS at Trent aware that the Greek grammar of Romans 5:12 can support more than one interpretation? And if at least some of them were aware of that, why they did choose the harshest, most condemning variant of all?

Then, if you know how is it to grow up without being taught a literal understanding of Genesis, do you feel compelled now to believe these paragraphs?

CCC 371 The woman God “fashions” from the man’s rib and brings to him elicits on the man’s part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”

CCC 766 As Eve was formed from the sleeping Adam’s side, so the Church was born from the pierced heart of Christ hanging dead on the cross.

CCC 1607 According to faith the disorder we notice so painfully does not stem from the nature of man and woman, nor from the nature of their relations, but from sin. As a break with God, the first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and woman. Their relations were distorted by mutual recriminations; their mutual attraction, the Creator’s own gift, changed into a relationship of domination and lust; and the beautiful vocation of man and woman to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth was burdened by the pain of childbirth and the toil of work.

CCC 1609 In his mercy God has not forsaken sinful man. The punishments consequent upon sin, “pain in childbearing” and toil “in the sweat of your brow,” also embody remedies that limit the damaging effects of sin. After the fall, marriage helps to overcome self-absorption, egoism, pursuit of one’s own pleasure, and to open oneself to the other, to mutual aid and to self-giving.

Is un-Catholic, heretical to disbelieve them?
Is un-Catholic, heretical to believe that death and pain are natural phenomena that happen to all creatures?
Is un-Catholic, heretical to believe that man was created imperfect and mortal?

 

[simpleas]

Please accept my apology for misunderstanding.

The reason for the mixed messages is that God is not an either - or personality; He is a both -and personality.

Correct

Regarding fear, there is a different connotation in Scripture. Please see fhansen’s post 708

A more realistic way of describing the state or condition of a human person is that
God loves us in any state or condition. This is evinced by the Resurrection.

Mortal Sin, a state or condition of the human person, does not block God’s love. Mortal Sin blocks God’s presence in our soul by eliminating Sanctifying Grace.
The* Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition*, describes Mortal Sin as “a grave infraction of the law of God** that destroys the divine life in the soul of the sinner** (sanctifying grace) constituting a turn away from God.” It then gives the three conditions for a sin to be mortal.

When we listen to Jesus’ words on His cross, Luke 23: 34,
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
we need to keep in mind that Jesus is True God and therefore He knows the state or condition of each person’s soul. We cannot assume that we have that knowledge.

What we do know is that Jesus was speaking about individuals who were part of a crowd, which did include Mary, His mother. There was Peter who knew his sin and began to weep bitterly. " …the cock crowed and the Lord turned and looked at Peter …" Luke 22: 54-62.

Jesus, being True God, knew which people were determined to remain in the state of full hatred toward Him. He also knew which people were sincerely sorry about what was happening to an innocent person even though they may not have known all the truths about Jesus. The forgiveness of Jesus on the cross settled on those who, in sorrow, sought God’s forgiveness. The choice to remain in mortal sin becomes a barricade to God’s forgiveness that includes Sanctifying Grace, that is, God’s gift of sharing His own life with human creatures.

Very important sources of Catholic information.

CCC, 1730; CCC, 355-421*; *
CCC, 1440-1460;
CCC, Glossary, Mortal Sin, Page 889; CCC, 1854 -1857; CCC, 1870-1876;
CCC, Glossary, Sanctifying Grace, page 898. CCC, 1998-2000; CCC, 2023-204.

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

usccb.org/beliefs-and-tea…tholic-church/

.

No need to apologise

we need to keep in mind that Jesus is True God and therefore He knows the state or condition of each person’s soul. We cannot assume that we have that knowledge

This I agree with.

I suppose you have heard the expression along the lines of " we are not of this world" I take this to mean the obvious, that when we die, we may go into eternal life, and be worshipped by the angels.
What I’d like to know or hear are posters own thoughts as to why God created us in the first place?
I know alittle of what the ccc says on it, but my question is more like, if God made this earth, and everything in it including Adam and Eve, to share in his life, why are we no longer of this world?
We aren’t supposed think we need not do anything for our earth, we must love it also along with other humans and animals, and enjoy the beauty, yet we will leave it behind for a new world.
So what really was the point of creating the world, animals and two perfect humans, for it all to go wrong before the world had even had a chance?

Hope this doesn’t sound to morbid! Just my crazy thoughts, and i’d love to hear what you good people think

 

[OneSheep]

Our, yours and mine, human nature includes a rational spiritual soul.

Since God is the Creator of this spiritual soul (CCC, 366), it is safe to conclude that God does not create ignorant blind souls in the image of Himself. (*CCC, *28 with supporting information in the small print) In addition, there is some fascinating information in paragraphs 29-35 which happen to include “Ways of Coming to Know God.” CCC, 1260 points out that the Holy Spirit offers to all human persons, the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery. (CCC, 1260; CCC, Glossary, Paschal Mystery/Sacrifice, page 891)

I flat out refuse to have anyone downgrade my human nature to that of a rock.

Lessee. Last time I checked, babies are born not knowing very much, and their nature is much more than a rock. We do, with some exceptions, have rational minds. Rational, though, refers to capability, not content, and content begins from birth, but increases for a lifetime. Jesus often observed the blindness of those who sinned. Desire blinds us. Contempt/resentment blind us.

I hope you find a moment to address my post 721. Blindness and ignorance are always elements of sin.

The “rulebook” states that the only adjectives that can describe granny are those which begin with the letter g. Therefore, it is permissible for me to be known as the genius granny.

Genius Glamorous Granny. I forgot what the other “G” was.

Even genius’ are ignorant, they know this more than the rest of us. The unknown is a universe of unknown.

 

[grannymh]

Yes, I know about Romans 5, it was the same source for defining the OS at Trent.
But I was hoping to find out that the Church did choose the harsh interpretation because of some other, superior reasons than a lack of knowledge about the original Greek version of a Romans 5:12. Was any of the people who chose to follow Augustine in defining the OS at Trent aware that the Greek grammar of Romans 5:12 can support more than one interpretation? And if at least some of them were aware of that, why they did choose the harshest, most condemning variant of all?

Time to face reality. The least harshest interpretation of the real Original Sin which is taught by the Catholic Church is really, really awful.

Then, if you know how is it to grow up without being taught a literal understanding of Genesis, do you feel compelled now to believe these paragraphs?

Off course. Read the complete paragraph 766 for some good symbolism on the origin and growth of the Catholic Church which helps the mind understand the follow-up to Romans 5:12-21. The possibilities of figurative language can be found by reading the complete paragraph 371 which underscores the humanity needed for the doctrine of Original Sin. Considering the effects of the real Original Sin, paragraphs 1607 & 1609 offer amazing insights regarding the importance of the Sacrament of Marriage.

Is un-Catholic, heretical to disbelieve them?
Is un-Catholic, heretical to believe that death and pain are natural phenomena that happen to all creatures?
Is un-Catholic, heretical to believe that man was created imperfect and mortal?

It is my personal choice not to use the four-letter word heretical especially when it is surrounded by vague interpretations.

For example, the reality of human mortality is due to the fact that Adam was not the Creator. Imperfect – that depends on whether or not the interpreter has a positive outlook. I do believe that death is a natural occurrence that happens to creatures like dinosaurs and human persons. However, before the real Original Sin, the natural phenomena of creature death was supernaturally removed from humanity on the condition that Adam would live in submission to his Creator. (CCC, 396; CCC, 404-405)

 

[grannymh]

Lessee. Last time I checked, babies are born not knowing very much, and their nature is much more than a rock. We do, with some exceptions, have rational minds. Rational, though, refers to capability, not content, and content begins from birth, but increases for a lifetime. Jesus often observed the blindness of those who sinned. Desire blinds us. Contempt/resentment blind us.

I hope you find a moment to address my post 721. Blindness and ignorance are always elements of sin.

Genius Glamorous Granny. I forgot what the other “G” was.

Even genius’ are ignorant, they know this more than the rest of us. The unknown is a universe of unknown.

My apology. I do have to confess that the challenges (huge plural intended) of post 721 are beyond this geriatric granny.

The real challenge is to observe how the avoidance of the real Original Sin impacts our spirituality, especially in areas of forgiveness, both Divine and human. Original Sin is based on the condition that Adam would freely live in submission to his Creator. God’s forgiveness of the individual is based on the condition that the individual freely wants to live in submission to the Creator. Deliberately remaining in the state of Mortal Sin is the difference between living in a friendship relationship with God and not living in a friendship relationship with God.

 

[OneSheep]

My apology. I do have to confess that the challenges (huge plural intended) of post 721 are beyond this geriatric granny.

Oh dear, please give me a break. You may be geriatric, but you are sharp as a tack. :bowdown::bigyikes:

You can take on much bigger challenges than post 721, :ballspin: so give it a shot!

Okay, I’m getting carried away with smilies. But seriously, glamorous geriatric genius, this is the spirituality forum, and I am asking you spiritual, not academic, questions. Pray on it, the answers will come to you. I have no illusions of changing your mind, but I would like to understand where you are coming from, because your statements seem contradictory.

Well, okay, maybe I don’t just want to understand you. I want to challenge your statements. The ball is in your court!

:flowers:

I keep snickering about some of those smilies, and my dog is looking at me funny.

 

[vames]

Time to face reality. The least harshest interpretation of the real Original Sin which is taught by the Catholic Church is really, really awful.

With the exception of the Protestant total depravity, which is derived from the Catholic (Western) understanding, I don’t know any harsher interpretation that the Catholic mainstream one. How is this the least harshest? There is the milder, much less legalistic Orthodox conception of the Ancestral Sin, based on the Greek original text of Romans 5. There is the original imperfection of man, taught by Irenaeus. There is the Incarnation as recapitulation, healing and sanctifying of human existence (Irenaeus, Duns Scotus), which would have happened even if Adam hadn’t sinned. The Jews, who gave us the story of Genesis, believe that each soul is born pure. Muslims, who inherited the same story of Genesis, believe too that each soul is born pure.

“Time to face reality” - the reality is that the mainstream Catholic interpretation (the one taught in catechisms) compels us to believe that God is surprisingly unforgiving, since forgiveness requires the greatest number of conditions imposed to escape the punishment for the OS and our own sins: man is born “stained” by the OS, Jesus has to die to make satisfaction for the infinite offense of the OS, man has to believe, to receive the sacraments, to do good works, to be found without any mortal sin when he dies and has to pay the punishment for his own sins by suffering here on earth or in purgatory and only if all these conditions are fulfilled he can be finally saved (from eternal hell). I just notice how this understanding looks like, by comparing it with all the other understandings, and I wonder why the Church chose to include it in the catechism, despite the fact that the ones taught by other ECF are not rejected. I guess I’m allowed to do that.

I do believe that death is a natural occurrence that happens to creatures like dinosaurs and human persons. However, before the real Original Sin, the natural phenomena of creature death was supernaturally removed from humanity on the condition that Adam would live in submission to his Creator. (CCC, 396; CCC, 404-405)

If you admit that death is a natural occurrence in all living beings and say that death was supernaturally removed from Adam before the Fall, then Adam was a true robot, not a human being, because death is not just a moment that comes and ends life like a magic wand. As biology teaches us, we simply can’t live without dying at the same time. We breathe, eat, process the food, our hearts pump the blood, our cells die, our body renews and transforms itself, our brain develops, we have nerves that allow us to feel pleasure and pain, i.e. the very wonderful and sophisticated things (not “fallen” and “wounded” at all) that make scientists to admire the work of God in all the living creatures. Oops, but A&E did eat from almost all the trees of Eden, so they didn’t enjoy such immortality at all.

So it means that the “gift” of bodily immortality described in my catechism and whose disappearance we are compelled to regret so much (with all the blame and shame attached to the OS) didn’t exist at all, since nobody ever had the occasion to enjoy it and since no living creature could ever live without dying. If human race were truly projected to enjoy bodily immortality (provided that Adam would have obeyed), then it means that God wanted to create a race of simple robots, without nervous and digestive systems, without internal organs, without the possibility to reproduce themselves, and all the wonderful and sophisticated things described above and which make life to be life would have been reserved only for animals and plants. Was God’s “plan A” so sad?

 

[fhansen]

Those conditions are:

1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent

The first and the third condition make sense, the second is the problem. Unless you are an Omniscient Glamorous Granny, the rest of us only sin out of ignorance and blindness. I’ve asked for a counterexample, and you have never been able to present one.

But if only out of ignorance and blindness, then we have no moral responsibility? I think church teachings are more balanced on this. There are degrees of deliberateness, recognizing that no evil is committed strictly out of the sheer desire to commit evil; there’s always a perceived good to be obtained. The harm done to a victim by a torturer motivated by the feeling of power he receives by hurting others or by a thief who values money more than your life is more deliberate than the harm done to the victim of a crime of passion or the victim of a burglary that goes wrong. And those are more deliberate than harm done by an accident caused by my negligence in driving safely. We can be more or less blind, more or less culpable.

 

[vames]

I suppose you have heard the expression along the lines of " we are not of this world" I take this to mean the obvious, that when we die, we may go into eternal life, and be worshipped by the angels.
What I’d like to know or hear are posters own thoughts as to why God created us in the first place?
I know alittle of what the ccc says on it, but my question is more like, if God made this earth, and everything in it including Adam and Eve, to share in his life, why are we no longer of this world?
We aren’t supposed think we need not do anything for our earth, we must love it also along with other humans and animals, and enjoy the beauty, yet we will leave it behind for a new world.
So what really was the point of creating the world, animals and two perfect humans, for it all to go wrong before the world had even had a chance?

Hope this doesn’t sound to morbid! Just my crazy thoughts, and i’d love to hear what you good people think

It’s not morbid, it’s logical
A priest that I know had a sermon where he spoke about the answers received from the children at the catechesis. Why God created man? A child said: “Maybe out of boredom?”. And the priest tried to explain that God is perfect, so He can’t be bored, but God’s perfection is creative, expanding, multiplying, which is to say that the principle of creation is love: love is meant to be shared and imparted and at the same time is meant to attract and unify all things in itself (this love is in fact the essence of the Trinity). That’s why theologians say that God loved us first and created us capable of love, creative, always inclined to aim higher, to want more from life, “to change the world” for the better.

You say: what really was the point of creating the world, animals and two perfect humans, for it all to go wrong before the world had even had a chance? That if you really believe that all went wrong before the world had even had a chance If you don’t, you can see the coherence of God’s plan and see His uninterrupted grace towards man, who is created imperfect (in the sense that a child is imperfect and any creature is imperfect and limited compared to God) and then helped to grow up, as individual and as a species.

One of the most important teachings of Jesus is this: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you”. So we are from this world, because the Kingdom of God starts here and is already here and we expand it whenever we do God’s will, when we love others and do good things, when we love and protect nature instead of destroying it. But at the same time we aren’t from this world, because the Kingdom of God and our life don’t end here. If we realize this continuity and don’t act as if only this life or the afterlife were important, we understand that our life is not a punishment, but a chance to realize our potential, to extract the good from suffering, to “evolve towards God”.

Again, we are imperfect and limited creatures, so we can always miss the direction (the Greek word for sin: “hamartia” = to miss the mark, to go wrong, to wander from the law of God) and can’t “evolve towards God” by ourselves. But there is God’s love that surpasses sin and renews our beings. Earlier I have tried to show that there are Early Chuch Fathers who didn’t need a plan A and a plan B. Because from the very beginning, God’s plan was to attract us towards Him by the Incarnation of Jesus, that shows us a perfected human nature, His love and solidarity with us, the unity between God and man. “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God” (St Athanasius). That’s why Pope Emeritus says: Christianity is not a set of laws, but the encounter with a living Person (Jesus) who loved us first.

 

[grannymh]

This is a wonderful morning because God wants us.

Today,
we have the amazing opportunity to share in God’s life. (Sanctifying Grace) When we deliberately prefer living in the state of Mortal Sin, we can be sure of God’s forgiveness by humbly participating in the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation.

We need to live our Faith by planning to go to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass this coming Sunday. And yes, we not only need to forgive those who have harmed us, we need to pray for them.

Our love should be given to our neighbor because God’s love includes all. All of us are in the image of God, because of our spiritual soul.

It may help our spiritual lives if we back up from Adam’s real Original Sin to Genesis 2: 15. “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.” This is not an ordinary situation. What differentiates it is that in Genesis, Chapter 1, we learn that we are in God’s image. We learn from the Garden of Eden that God’s love for us is beyond any love we can give to others. Divine Revelation tells us that God’s love in creating Adam included eternal happiness for us. Yet, eternal happiness with the Beatific Vision is not necessarily automatic; we need to freely choose and accept it by living in accord with God’s commandments.

Our Creator did not remove “His image” from Adam when Adam severed humanity’s bond with Divinity. God did not abandon Adam. God does not abandon us. (CCC, 410)

But like Adam, we are not equal to our Creator. We are unique creatures because of our intellect and free will. (CCC, 1730) This means that starting with Adam, all humanity can choose to live in submission to God, a loving Creator. (CCC, 396; CCC, 1260) Genesis 2: 15 makes it clear that we have the freedom to choose a life with God or to reject it via the spiritual death of Mortal Sin. Even when we deliberately block God’s life within us, we have to opportunity to sincerely seek God’s forgiveness which restores God’s life within our spirituial soul.

With 20-20 hindsight, because of Jesus Christ, we know for certain that death has been conquered. We know that we can freely choose to share in God’s life forever. Not only do we have the power of life in whatever garden we live in, we have to power to go beyond our creature status to a deep loving relationship with our Creator.

 

[OneSheep]

But if only out of ignorance and blindness, then we have no moral responsibility?

It depends on what you mean by “moral responsibility”. One of the most difficult parts of forgiveness is the drive, in the conscience, to hold onto blame. Everyone has the same hesitation about forgiveness itself. “If I forgive, I am letting them get away with something.” However, forgiveness is not so much (perhaps not at all) for the forgiven, but the forgiver herself.

As long as we cling to wanting to punish someone, then the forgiveness has not happened. To me, when I am able to let go, it is that very moment that my attitude has changed to wanting to help the person I had condemned. I even have the freedom to know that letting go did not mean I had to stop doing everything I could to resolve situations, including the unlikely possibility of punishment. Until I come to the point of letting go of the impulse to punish, in any particular example of forgiveness, the forgiveness has not happened.

We are responsible for every single one of our actions whether they fall under “moral” or not. No one “makes us” do anything unless they are physically moving our bodies. Even when we are being tortured, we still have the choice of telling the truth or not.

I think church teachings are more balanced on this. There are degrees of deliberateness, recognizing that no evil is committed strictly out of the sheer desire to commit evil; there’s always a perceived good to be obtained. The harm done to a victim by a torturer motivated by the feeling of power he receives by hurting others or by a thief who values money more than your life is more deliberate than the harm done to the victim of a crime of passion or the victim of a burglary that goes wrong. And those are more deliberate than harm done by an accident caused by my negligence in driving safely. We can be more or less blind, more or less culpable.

To me, the “more or less” does not apply to culpability, and even “deliberateness”, again depending on definitions. Did Lee deliberately kill Jack? Yes. Did Lee deliberately harm someone he saw of value? No, quite the opposite. Lee was blind.

We need to own all of our choices, even choices of negligence. Did I do all I possibly could to stop that accident from happening? If I was the responsible driver, the answer, when I get over my denial, will always be no. Then, I can begin the process of forgiving myself, and part of that forgiveness will be the awareness that we are not capable of omniscience.

We can, indeed be “more or less” blind, though, and the person who tortures is totally blinded to the value of his victim, whereas the negligent may harm someone they love and value very much. Negligence in such case not a matter of blindness to the value of the victim, but a matter of ignorance. That said, our normal consciences are going to react much more aggressively to torturer than to the negligent because the conscience immediately says “bad intent”. I do not ordinarily see a person’s blindness right away, that insight comes into awareness during the process of forgiveness.

The differences in the examples you gave were that some are more difficult to forgive than others. Culpability was there in all cases, but our normal consciences react much more strongly to the torturer and the thief. Do you remember the train-track survey I cited? The outcomes were the same, but the conscience reactions to the behavior options were much different.

It makes sense that the God we perceive is going to have the same reactions that we do. The “mortal sins” we perceive are going to be the ones we forever hold against people. In order to begin to see how God forgives, we have to learn how to forgive everyone.

 

[OneSheep]

With the exception of the Protestant total depravity, which is derived from the Catholic (Western) understanding, I don’t know any harsher interpretation that the Catholic mainstream one. How is this the least harshest? There is the milder, much less legalistic Orthodox conception of the Ancestral Sin, based on the Greek original text of Romans 5. There is the original imperfection of man, taught by Irenaeus. There is the Incarnation as recapitulation, healing and sanctifying of human existence (Irenaeus, Duns Scotus), which would have happened even if Adam hadn’t sinned. The Jews, who gave us the story of Genesis, believe that each soul is born pure. Muslims, who inherited the same story of Genesis, believe too that each soul is born pure.

Your scope of knowledge on the topic is amazing.

If you admit that death is a natural occurrence in all living beings and say that death was supernaturally removed from Adam before the Fall, then Adam was a true robot, not a human being, because death is not just a moment that comes and ends life like a magic wand. As biology teaches us, we simply can’t live without dying at the same time. We breathe, eat, process the food, our hearts pump the blood, our cells die, our body renews and transforms itself, our brain develops, we have nerves that allow us to feel pleasure and pain, i.e. the very wonderful and sophisticated things (not “fallen” and “wounded” at all) that make scientists to admire the work of God in all the living creatures. Oops, but A&E did eat from almost all the trees of Eden, so they didn’t enjoy such immortality at all.

I dunno, vames, I think the robot analogy is a little weak. If scientists were capable of stopping the process of DNA deterioration and other aspects of aging, immortality would be possible, and we would be no more or less “robotic” for it. I find a stronger argument in your pointing out (I think it was you) that all animals die, but we have no evidence of disobedience stories for other species.

But yes, absolutely, all the scientists I know are in awe of life, whether or not they see it as “created” by God.

 

[fhansen]

I didn’t ask what the CCC says. I asked why the Church did choose this harsh interpretation of Genesis 2-3 and didn’t follow St Irenaeus, for example. Irenaeus (#710) wasn’t more versed in natural science than Augustine or Aquinas, but he didn’t interpret The Fall like them - as the worst event in the history of humankind, that destroyed the whole relationship between humanity and Divinity, ended the short-lived epoch of man’s physical, intellectual and spiritual perfection and prompted God to resort to Jesus as a “plan B”. Why would the harsh interpretation be more in line with the Divine Revelation, as long as God Himself allowed man to research nature (which is a source of revelation) and to discover that human death, aging and pain are not unnatural things, but natural phenomena that happen to all the living creatures? And if Irenaeus was so wrong to think that man was created imperfect, why is he still a saint along with Augustine and Aquinas, who introduced completely other interpretations of Genesis?

I don’t know though. Irenaeus also had this to say in Against Heresies:

“Indeed, through the first Adam, we offended God by not observing His command. Through the second Adam, however, we are reconciled, and are made obedient even unto death. For we were debtors to none other except to Him, whose commandment we transgressed at the beginning.”

 

[simpleas]

It’s not morbid, it’s logical
A priest that I know had a sermon where he spoke about the answers received from the children at the catechesis. Why God created man? A child said: “Maybe out of boredom?”. And the priest tried to explain that God is perfect, so He can’t be bored, but God’s perfection is creative, expanding, multiplying, which is to say that the principle of creation is love: love is meant to be shared and imparted and at the same time is meant to attract and unify all things in itself (this love is in fact the essence of the Trinity). That’s why theologians say that God loved us first and created us capable of love, creative, always inclined to aim higher, to want more from life, “to change the world” for the better.

You say: what really was the point of creating the world, animals and two perfect humans, for it all to go wrong before the world had even had a chance? That if you really believe that all went wrong before the world had even had a chance If you don’t, you can see the coherence of God’s plan and see His uninterrupted grace towards man, who is created imperfect (in the sense that a child is imperfect and any creature is imperfect and limited compared to God) and then helped to grow up, as individual and as a species.

One of the most important teachings of Jesus is this: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you”. So we are from this world, because the Kingdom of God starts here and is already here and we expand it whenever we do God’s will, when we love others and do good things, when we love and protect nature instead of destroying it. But at the same time we aren’t from this world, because the Kingdom of God and our life don’t end here. If we realize this continuity and don’t act as if only this life or the afterlife were important, we understand that our life is not a punishment, but a chance to realize our potential, to extract the good from suffering, to “evolve towards God”.

Again, we are imperfect and limited creatures, so we can always miss the direction (the Greek word for sin: “hamartia” = to miss the mark, to go wrong, to wander from the law of God) and can’t “evolve towards God” by ourselves. But there is God’s love that surpasses sin and renews our beings. Earlier I have tried to show that there are Early Chuch Fathers who didn’t need a plan A and a plan B. Because from the very beginning, God’s plan was to attract us towards Him by the Incarnation of Jesus, that shows us a perfected human nature, His love and solidarity with us, the unity between God and man. “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God” (St Athanasius). That’s why Pope Emeritus says: Christianity is not a set of laws, but the encounter with a living Person (Jesus) who loved us first.

Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut.
You give lots to think about!

 

[fhansen]

It’s not morbid, it’s logical
A priest that I know had a sermon where he spoke about the answers received from the children at the catechesis. Why God created man? A child said: “Maybe out of boredom?”. And the priest tried to explain that God is perfect, so He can’t be bored, but God’s perfection is creative, expanding, multiplying, which is to say that the principle of creation is love: love is meant to be shared and imparted and at the same time is meant to attract and unify all things in itself (this love is in fact the essence of the Trinity). That’s why theologians say that God loved us first and created us capable of love, creative, always inclined to aim higher, to want more from life, “to change the world” for the better.

You say: what really was the point of creating the world, animals and two perfect humans, for it all to go wrong before the world had even had a chance? That if you really believe that all went wrong before the world had even had a chance If you don’t, you can see the coherence of God’s plan and see His uninterrupted grace towards man, who is created imperfect (in the sense that a child is imperfect and any creature is imperfect and limited compared to God) and then helped to grow up, as individual and as a species.

One of the most important teachings of Jesus is this: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you”. So we are from this world, because the Kingdom of God starts here and is already here and we expand it whenever we do God’s will, when we love others and do good things, when we love and protect nature instead of destroying it. But at the same time we aren’t from this world, because the Kingdom of God and our life don’t end here. If we realize this continuity and don’t act as if only this life or the afterlife were important, we understand that our life is not a punishment, but a chance to realize our potential, to extract the good from suffering, to “evolve towards God”.

Again, we are imperfect and limited creatures, so we can always miss the direction (the Greek word for sin: “hamartia” = to miss the mark, to go wrong, to wander from the law of God) and can’t “evolve towards God” by ourselves. But there is God’s love that surpasses sin and renews our beings. Earlier I have tried to show that there are Early Chuch Fathers who didn’t need a plan A and a plan B. Because from the very beginning, God’s plan was to attract us towards Him by the Incarnation of Jesus, that shows us a perfected human nature, His love and solidarity with us, the unity between God and man. “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God” (St Athanasius). That’s why Pope Emeritus says: Christianity is not a set of laws, but the encounter with a living Person (Jesus) who loved us first.

Is this an exact quote? It sounds like deus caritas est but I didn’t find it there yet. Great one in any case!

 

[vames]

I don’t know though. Irenaeus also had this to say in Against Heresies:

“Indeed, through the first Adam, we offended God by not observing His command. Through the second Adam, however, we are reconciled, and are made obedient even unto death. For we were debtors to none other except to Him, whose commandment we transgressed at the beginning.”

I didn’t say that Irenaeus or any other ECF ever denied the Original Sin. ALL of the Church Fathers affirm that Adam sinned, because ALL of them did read Romans 5 and the text of Genesis. You won’t find an Early Church Father saying that Genesis is a legend or that Romans 5 introduces the parallel between Adam and Jesus simply by way of literary analogy, like every ancient writer did. Ancient Rabbis justified veiling by saying that women must be ashamed of Eve’s sin and mourn it by covering themselves; or that Eve was created from the rib, which is a hidden thing within man’s body, so women must hid themselves and be silent (sounds familiar?). We are all aware that saying Jesus is the new Adam, Mary is the new Eve, Christ is the male and the head, the Church is the female and the body, the Church comes from the side of Jesus like Eve comes from the side of Adam etc. is to use a literary analogy, a figurative language.

That said, the differences between the ECF had to do with their answers to these questions: 1) how grave was Adam’s sin? 2) why did Jesus come here, live among us, teach people and die on the Cross? We are culturally conditioned to see these 2 things as fundamentally and naturally related, but they aren’t: our natural questions are 1) why do people do bad things? 2) what is the plan of God for us? But the Christian writers worked under the assumption that the Jewish Bible can’t be seen as a collection of texts in its own right, but only as a prefiguration of Jesus. That’s why they didn’t need to ask “why do people do bad things?” anymore and focused on “how grave was Adam’s sin?” instead.

And the ECF gave different answers, according to their own wisdom, temperament, personal history of temptations and sins and their cultural context. Basically, these were the answers:

1. how grave was Adam’s sin? like a dumb, but decisive misstep which allowed the devil to kidnap humans and use them against God… like “growing pains” or adolescent disobedience… like something that each adult does, not BECAUSE of Adam, but LIKE Adam, because we are all fallible humans… like a shameful crime which destroys the whole relationship between God and man and damages the soul and the body of every human because it is transmitted by generation… like an infinite offense towards God which can’t be repaired by humans, but only by someone possessing an infinite merit.
2. why did Jesus come here? to literally ransom us from the devil by sacrificing himself… to defeat and destroy our death, which is the only consequence of the Ancestral Sin and the cause of our sinfulness, and to open for us the gates of bodily and spiritual immortality… to perfect the human nature by healing everything and transforming it for the better, like in human disobedience/Jesus’ obedience until death… to satisfy the divine justice - as my old catechism says, “because the offence given to God by sin was, in a certain sense, infinite, and to satisfy for it a person possessing infinite merit was required”.

HOW they did define their understanding depended greatly on their cultural context. Augustine defined his harsh understanding of OS because he was fighting against Pelagians, who said that people don’t need divine grace to do good things and to avoid sin. So he felt the need to emphasize the gravity of the OS and our depravity because of it (our “flesh” became disobedient etc.). Irenaeus, who wrote “Against Heresies” to combat Gnostics, felt the need to emphasize natural human imperfection, the unity body-spirit that exists in the newborn, child, adult etc and the necessity of human experience, including the experience of sin, because some Gnostics despised the body, despised human imperfection and said that Jesus came on earth as a fully grown adult and the Incarnation is more or less an illusion.

 

[vames]

Is this an exact quote? It sounds like deus caritas est but I didn’t find it there yet. Great one in any case!

It’s not I had read “Deus caritas est” indeed, and when I wrote the post I actually remembered it and searched for a relevant quote, to show it to Simpleas, but then I decided to keep it simple and talk about what I think.
Anyway, I encourage everyone to read the encyclical and the other ones too: vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/index_en.htm

 

[Richca]

Then it seems that the current Catechism is even more inclined towards a literal reading? Because I wasn’t taught that Eve was made later than Adam, from a rib, or that childbirth pains are a punishment or a result of Adam’s disobedience. No priest has ever taught us such things. Even as children, we’d have laughed at them if they tried to do so. Natural science is restricted to the material universe, but God’s punishment had everything to do with our material universe, as aging, mortality and vulnerability to pain and sorrow are things that happen both to human beings and to any other living being. And nowadays people are able to explain the material universe better than the writers of Genesis. That’s why we were taught that Genesis 2-3 is allegorical and doesn’t have to be taken literally. If one says that death and pain are natural phenomena, he doesn’t deny God. So we don’t have to believe that human death and pain is something unnatural for a man who was originally immortal, unable to age and feel pain, or that all the past, present and future animals were punished with death and pain for one man’s sin.

I didn’t ask what the CCC says. I asked why the Church did choose this harsh interpretation of Genesis 2-3 and didn’t follow St Irenaeus, for example. Irenaeus (#710) wasn’t more versed in natural science than Augustine or Aquinas, but he didn’t interpret The Fall like them - as the worst event in the history of humankind, that destroyed the whole relationship between humanity and Divinity, ended the short-lived epoch of man’s physical, intellectual and spiritual perfection and prompted God to resort to Jesus as a “plan B”. Why would the harsh interpretation be more in line with the Divine Revelation, as long as God Himself allowed man to research nature (which is a source of revelation) and to discover that human death, aging and pain are not unnatural things, but natural phenomena that happen to all the living creatures? And if Irenaeus was so wrong to think that man was created imperfect, why is he still a saint along with Augustine and Aquinas, who introduced completely other interpretations of Genesis?

hi vames,
I was never taught that Genesis 2-3 is an allegory and for good reason because it’s not what the Scripture says nor is it the Catholic faith. Your inventing your own faith here and your own interpretation of Genesis.

Richca

 

[vames]

Hi, Richca,
I can assure you that all the priests who taught me were (and still are) very good traditional priests. But they didn’t attempt to tell us that the Bible is a science handbook, because they knew that it’s not a science handbook. Do you believe that Eve was made later than Adam, from a rib, that childbirth pains are a punishment for Adam’s disobedience, that the world was made in six days and that days, mornings and evenings could have existed before the existence of a sun and a moon?

 

[vames]

I dunno, vames, I think the robot analogy is a little weak. If scientists were capable of stopping the process of DNA deterioration and other aspects of aging, immortality would be possible, and we would be no more or less “robotic” for it. I find a stronger argument in your pointing out (I think it was you) that all animals die, but we have no evidence of disobedience stories for other species.

But yes, absolutely, all the scientists I know are in awe of life, whether or not they see it as “created” by God.

Yes, I know, but bodily immortality wasn’t supposed to be a result of human engineering, but a prize, a result of Adam’s obedience. And Adam wasn’t obedient. And people are still sinning just like Adam. Of course we can speculate that Jesus’ redeeming work has “bought” us even the chance of becoming enlightened enough so as to stop the process of DNA deterioration. But scientists (atheists or believers) are in awe of life not because they see it as an imperfect thing compared to an ideal model (which could have been real in the past or could become real in the future), but because of its actual and current sophistication. I happen to joke when I contemplate my hands or my eyes, saying that often my choices are so dumb that I don’t manage to “rise at the level” of their sophistication. Sometimes we become aware of this awe when we look at an animal. You get my idea.

As for my “scope of knowledge”, I sincerely envy the historians, historians of religions, anthropologists, folklorists, scholars who make their living by studying these fascinating things. The last book I bought is this. Why? Because I was aware of these things and I wanted to learn more. But who has enough spare time to do that?