Original Sin

[grannymh]

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

Thank you for your post. It is appreciated.

Unfortunately, for many years there have been people who want to change the basic Catholic doctrines about Adam and Eve and Original Sin. For example, there are Fr. Michael Guinan and Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest, and a few other priests and lay teachers who have been teaching various errors about Genesis 2-3. This is a very sad thing.

 

[fhansen]

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

Yes, it got at the pope’s thought very well.

 

[vames]

Unfortunately, for many years there have been people who want to change the basic Catholic doctrines about Adam and Eve and Original Sin. For example, there are Fr. Michael Guinan and Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest, and a few other priests and lay teachers who have been teaching various errors about Genesis 2-3. This is a very sad thing.

I agree with everything you say in post #738. This is my faith. I don’t say that we don’t sin, I don’t say that we don’t need the sacraments, that we shouldn’t live in accord with God’s commandments, that we don’t have to cultivate and care the garden we live in, that we are not created in God’s image or that God’s image is removed from us, that death hasn’t been conquered because of Jesus.

Michael Guinan and Matthew Fox who??
You are an American and probably you grew up being familiar with many Protestant denominations, perhaps even with the existence of “clown masses” or other liberties that Catholics took after VII and that I have never experienced. The only other Christian denomination that I am familiar with is the Orthodox one. Of course I’m curious about everything that is not a part of my experience and that could enrich and/or help my faith. I said elsewhere on CAF that I was shocked when I saw Brazilian Catholic masses (online) where the priest started to speak in tongues and there were EMHC, males and females, distributing the Eucharist. This is an example: it wasn’t and it isn’t part of my experience. But I am a Catholic and I don’t intend to leave my faith.

 

[grannymh]

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?

In my humble opinion,
it appears that St. Thomas Aquinas did not believe that the “Bible” is a science handbook. This is based on the observation that St. Thomas knew the difference between the material world which is the realm of science and the spiritual world which is the realm of the Creator.

If people in the time of St. Thomas could figure out the difference between Divine Revelation and the fact that water runs downhill…

I keep asking myself, why is it so difficult for some, not all, of today’s Catholics to recognize Divine Revelation in the first three chapters of Genesis. Could it be that for the last 60-70 years, a rough estimate, some, not all, teachers including clergy have moved away from teaching basic, foundational Catholic doctrines.

 

[grannymh]

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?

In my humble opinion,
it appears that St. Thomas Aquinas did not believe that the “Bible” per se is a science handbook. This is based on the observation that St. Thomas knew the difference between the material world which is the realm of science and the spiritual world which is the realm of the Creator.

If people in the time of St. Thomas could figure out the difference between Divine Revelation and the fact that water runs downhill…

I keep asking myself, why is it so difficult for some, not all, of today’s Catholics to recognize Divine Revelation in the first three chapters of Genesis. Could it be that for the last 60-70 years, a rough estimate, some, not all, teachers including clergy have moved away from teaching basic, foundational Catholic doctrines?

 

[OneSheep]

I keep asking myself, why is it so difficult for some, not all, of today’s Catholics to recognize Divine Revelation in the first three chapters of Genesis. Could it be that for the last 60-70 years, a rough estimate, some, not all, teachers including clergy have moved away from teaching basic, foundational Catholic doctrines?

What a great question! My own experience, in coming to the conclusions I had made, appeared to set me appart from basic, foundational doctrine. But here is how my experience unfolded.

I met the love of my life at a Newman retreat, where we were both eventually active on the core team. When we celebrated the sacrament of matrimony, I committed to loving and remaining committed to her unconditionallly. I went through every thing she could possibly do to me, and decided that I would remain loving her and committed to her no matter what. (In my own words today, this was setting the primacy of Love over the workings of my conscience.)

That was step one. Step two happened because at the first year of our marriage, I was at the height of my Catholic zealotry. I condemned people right and left. I even went to a priest and asked why the Church does not do more to stop evildoers. The priest, in his wisdom, saw my condition, and had these words for me. He said, “It is not to condemn or condone, but understand.” (In my own words today, this is a means of working through the acceptance/condemnation activity of the conscience to find a deeper truth). Did the priest set me in the wrong direction?

So, this is what I did. I sought to understand everyone I condemned, one at a time. And as I understood, my ability to forgive others followed. If the priest had simply told me to forgive everyone, I would have exercised a child’s forgiveness, a “stop being angry” forgiveness. This new forgiveness, that included understanding, was a much deeper forgiveness, a forgiveness that sees that I am no different from anyone else, a forgiveness that gave me the understanding of how I could do what even my worst enemies could do. I forgave everyone, including all of the worst evildoers in history, including myself, and including every part of myself that I condemned, still using the wise words of the priest. I had found a new, deeper way of loving God. It was a fascinating experience, and I came to an end point. The end point, for me, was when I forgave everything within the realm of my own awareness. I am not saying I am “done”, though, because there are still subconscious items to deal with, and those still surface occasionally.

But what happened to me was that every tiny bit of perception of a “force of evil” simply disappeared. It was like half of the universe vanished. With God’s help, I learned how to love everyone without condition.

Looking back, step one was crucial.

I sought the experiences of other people; were there others who experienced this? No one I knew. But I found my own experience, mainly my conclusions, voiced in St. Augustine’s Confessions, even though I could see that he very much struggled with forgiving some people, including himself. I could mostly relate to his newly found non-dualism, monotheism.

So, have Catholic priests steered me wrong? No, I have been given the gift of forgiveness through the words of a Catholic priest, and I cannot put my experience in reverse. In addition, the words of Cardinal Ratzinger and St. Basil posted on this thread reveal to me that my experience is indeed a genuinely Catholic one.

 

[fhansen]

1. 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”.

What’s your understanding of Ancestral Sin-especially on how death causes sin?
That doctrine still includes the belief that death entered the world with the first sin of
Adam. The early EOs also believed baptism was necessary for salvation in any case; they struggled with the fate of unbaptized infants.

And from probably before Gregory of Nyssa on to today most EO commentators still uphold the idea that man inherited a compromised nature in some capacity, passed on by propagation, even while rejecting the notion of corporate guilt, focusing on personal sins instead. But to describe man’s nature after the AS they generally still use terms such as tarnished nature, damaged image of God, corruption, spoiled energies, etc, perhaps a distinction without a difference from RCC terms or concepts such as fall from grace, loss of original holiness/justice, wounded nature, death of the soul.

I do appreciate the EO perspective that seems to emphasize the need for healing more than punishment, of mans woundedness rather than his badness, which isn’t a Catholic teaching either, BTW, not in the sense of total depravity and all that implies, although the emphasis has been different between east and west. And I’m sure the teaching regarding death as the primary cause of sin has much to offer; I’m just not sure I understand it well.

 

[vames]

What’s your understanding of Ancestral Sin-especially on how death causes sin?

Death causes sin because death comes first. Gregory Palamas described the sin of A&E as the breaking of a fast (don’t eat from this tree). But fasting is a commandment linked to life: A&E were asked to fast so as to guard the eternal life and the divine grace. Their lack of self-restraint when they listened to the devil results in losing eternal life and divine grace, so the soul is “dead” (only Jesus will harrow the hades and free the “dead” souls**) and this, in turn, makes people lose themselves in sin. Example: Moses fasted for 40 days on the mountain, which allowed him to receive the Commandments; by contrast, the people on the valley got bored of waiting, made a golden calf, partied and got drunk. So the lack of self-restraint leads people to forget about God and to worship idols. When you leave yourself to be taken away by the devil, you become dead inside, blinded, hardened, so you open yourself to any kind of sin.

But God doesn’t want anyone’s death, so He gave people the means to resist and to come back. “Fasting and lack of self-restraint are opposed as life and death”, says Palamas. In one of his homilies, John Chrysostom says that the fasting periods (and the Orthodox fasts are long, frequent and harsh by our standards) “make one wiser without realizing”, because they stimulate clarity of mind and vigilance against sin, so when people don’t fast, the usual sufferings and hardships of life somehow substitute the voluntary fast: in this sense, says John Chrysostom, “God the lover of people, who from the very beginning has punished man with toilings and hardships, by these very things shows His preoccupation for our salvation”.

So the life after the Fall is a helping hand offered to man in his fight against the temptations of the devil. Likewise, bodily death is a proof of God’s love, because A&E and their descendants were prevented, for their own good, to live forever in sin. So when one fasts (doing works of charity and avoiding consumerism are ways of fasting, too), he shouldn’t harm or debilitate himself by excessive physical abstinence, because the goal is not self-punishment, self-destruction, but staying or becoming more awake, “more alive”, more able to hear God’s voice, like Elijah and Daniel were able to do after fasting. That’s why an Orthodox will always say that salvation is the fruit of the collaboration (synergy) between divine grace and man’s will and effort.

**The Orthodox mindset is very influenced by the terrible prophecies and visions of the OT. Cyril of Alexandria (and others) say that when Adam listened to the devil, death swallowed everything and reigned over the land, like in Isaiah 24-27, until God decides to destroy the shroud that covers humankind, to “make unto all people a feast of fat things” and to mark His victory over death. All this explains the curious (for a Catholic) lack of insistence on the Crucifixion in Orthodoxy, because an Orthodox will always focus on the cosmic significance of the Resurrection. Christ destroys the shroud of death, harrows the hades and defeats the devil. The Orthodox Pascal chants have quite a lot of lyrics about “bare bones” waiting to be brought back to life. The Orthodox Easter is about shedding the fear of death and demons, about becoming free from the captivity of death, whose “sting” is sin.

 

[simpleas]

Death causes sin because death comes first. Gregory Palamas described the sin of A&E as the breaking of a fast (don’t eat from this tree). But fasting is a commandment linked to life: A&E were asked to fast so as to guard the eternal life and the divine grace. Their lack of self-restraint when they listened to the devil results in losing eternal life and divine grace, so the soul is “dead” (only Jesus will harrow the hades and free the “dead” souls**) and this, in turn, makes people lose themselves in sin. Example: Moses fasted for 40 days on the mountain, which allowed him to receive the Commandments; by contrast, the people on the valley got bored of waiting, made a golden calf, partied and got drunk. So the lack of self-restraint leads people to forget about God and to worship idols. When you leave yourself to be taken away by the devil, you become dead inside, blinded, hardened, so you open yourself to any kind of sin.

But God doesn’t want anyone’s death, so He gave people the means to resist and to come back. “Fasting and lack of self-restraint are opposed as life and death”, says Palamas. In one of his homilies, John Chrysostom says that the fasting periods (and the Orthodox fasts are long, frequent and harsh by our standards) “make one wiser without realizing”, because they stimulate clarity of mind and vigilance against sin, so when people don’t fast, the usual sufferings and hardships of life somehow substitute the voluntary fast: in this sense, says John Chrysostom, “God the lover of people, who from the very beginning has punished man with toilings and hardships, by these very things shows His preoccupation for our salvation”.

So the life after the Fall is a helping hand offered to man in his fight against the temptations of the devil. Likewise, bodily death is a proof of God’s love, because A&E and their descendants were prevented, for their own good, to live forever in sin. So when one fasts (doing works of charity and avoiding consumerism are ways of fasting, too), he shouldn’t harm or debilitate himself by excessive physical abstinence, because the goal is not self-punishment, self-destruction, but staying or becoming more awake, “more alive”, more able to hear God’s voice, like Elijah and Daniel were able to do after fasting. That’s why an Orthodox will always say that salvation is the fruit of the collaboration (synergy) between divine grace and man’s will and effort.

**The Orthodox mindset is very influenced by the terrible prophecies and visions of the OT. Cyril of Alexandria (and others) say that when Adam listened to the devil, death swallowed everything and reigned over the land, like in Isaiah 24-27, until God decides to destroy the shroud that covers humankind, to “make unto all people a feast of fat things” and to mark His victory over death. All this explains the curious (for a Catholic) lack of insistence on the Crucifixion in Orthodoxy, because an Orthodox will always focus on the cosmic significance of the Resurrection. Christ destroys the shroud of death, harrows the hades and defeats the devil. The Orthodox Pascal chants have quite a lot of lyrics about “bare bones” waiting to be brought back to life. The Orthodox Easter is about shedding the fear of death and demons, about becoming free from the captivity of death, whose “sting” is sin.

How hard is this to get ones head around!
Death causes sin…how? Adam and eve sinned, then caused the death of the soul only ?
They were always going to die as humans but their souls were destined to move into eternal life?
The church says they were perfect and immortal, is the church meaning in soul only rather then in body?

A&E had souls, (the kingdom of god already in them) What could possably be more powerful than God to invade that?

 

[grannymh]

How hard is this to get ones head around!
Death causes sin…how? Adam and eve sinned, then caused the death of the soul only ?
They were always going to die as humans but their souls were destined to move into eternal life?
The church says they were perfect and immortal, is the church meaning in soul only rather then in body?

A&E had souls, (the kingdom of god already in them) What could possably be more powerful than God to invade that?

The problem here is that a bunch of facts have been omitted like rain falling through an umbrella with holes.

The cliché of the “perfect” Adam misses the fact of “image”.

The mantra that the first Genesis chapter is not a science handbook misses the fact that the Creator designed two first decomposing anatomies with a unique purpose.

While everyone knows that babies do not come from the man’s rib, the fact that human nature needed a secure beginning is overlooked.
The Garden was a great place to live; however, the Kingdom of God is not reached by GPS.

 

[grannymh]

How hard is this to get ones head around!
Death causes sin…how? Adam and eve sinned, then caused the death of the soul only ?
They were always going to die as humans but their souls were destined to move into eternal life?
The church says they were perfect and immortal, is the church meaning in soul only rather then in body?

A&E had souls, (the kingdom of god already in them) What could possably be more powerful than God to invade that?

The problem here is that a bunch of facts have been omitted like rain falling through an umbrella with holes.

1.The cliché of the “perfect” Adam misses the fact of “image”.

1. The mantra that the first Genesis chapter is not a science handbook misses the fact that an extremely unique decomposing anatomy exists as the pinnacle of the material universe.

3.While everyone knows that babies do not come from the man’s rib, the fact that human nature needed a secure beginning is overlooked.

1. While the Garden was a great place to live, the fact is that the Kingdom of God is not reached by using GPS.

For centuries since Pentecost, the Catholic Deposit of Faith has been guarded by the Holy Spirit which means that brilliant humans cannot alter the events at the beginning of human history. In the 21st century, brilliant humans can teach the wrong perceptions of those true events. These people are not necessarily wolves in sheep’s clothing. Often, because of their desire to be up-to-date with modern culture, people will yield to misinterpretations of both Divinity and humanity and then add their own evaluations to account for their own feelings.

In other words, the current attack on God because He is so mean seems plausible because the original facts of Original Sin have been set aside.

If someone wants to understand Catholic teaching on human origin and human nature, then one needs to recognize and include basic original Catholic facts which, by the way, have not changed.

Perhaps it is time to discuss the facts referred to in the above four points. For example, when one examines “image”, then one can determine how perfect the cliché perfect really is according to Catholic Church teachings.

Note: “missing facts” is not an either - or situation. It is a both - and situation.

 

[vames]

How hard is this to get ones head around!
Death causes sin…how? Adam and eve sinned, then caused the death of the soul only ?
They were always going to die as humans but their souls were destined to move into eternal life?
The church says they were perfect and immortal, is the church meaning in soul only rather then in body?

A&E had souls, (the kingdom of god already in them) What could possably be more powerful than God to invade that?

The trick here, so to say, is to see the death in a more archaic and “cosmic” way, not like a logical concept (bodily vs. spiritual death), but like a force of mythic proportions. This is how the OT prophecies and visions worked: they had no problem to think about God’s wrath destroying the whole land for the sins of people and then God’s mercy restoring it, wiping the tears of people and “defeating death”, because they didn’t think “wait, but it wasn’t God who sent death to destroy the land? how it is God’s victory over death?” or “life and death are not things created by humans, so death must be a divine punishment for sins”. See Wisdom 1: “Do not invite death by the error of your life, or bring on destruction by the works of your hands; because God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living”. The early Christian writers adopted this mindset when they said “death reigned over the land” before Christ. But they wanted to emphasize God’s goodness, so the devil (who in the Book of Job is is seen like a subordinate of God) becomes the agent of death and sin who will be punished by God for tempting people and for robbing them of eternal life and divine grace.

In practice, this Orthodox kind of thinking is efficient, because it spares people both of the risk of accusing God for punishing them and the risk of seeing man as a wicked creature who singlehandedly can defeat God’s plan that wants man to be alive and happy. I have a book written by two prominent Old Calendarists (Traditionalist Orthodox, somehow the equivalent of the Catholic SSPX) where they criticize our CCC 602 (“Man’s sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death”) by quoting St Basil (“God didn’t make death. We, by our bad inclinations, have brought it on ourselves. No doubt, God didn’t prevent destruction: His goal in this is to defend us from an eternal [bodily life spent in] sickness”.

The same book explains the condition of Adam by quoting St Theophilus of Antioch, a very early Patriarch: “Was man made by nature mortal? Certainly not. Was he, then, immortal? Neither do we affirm this. But one will say, Was he, then, nothing? Not even this hits the mark. He was by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if He had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God. Again, if He had made him mortal, God would seem to be the cause of his death. Neither, then, immortal nor yet mortal did He make him, but, as we have said above, capable of both; so that if he should incline to the things of immortality, keeping the commandment of God, he should receive as reward from Him immortality, and should become God; but if, on the other hand, he should turn to the things of death, disobeying God, he should himself be the cause of death to himself. For God made man free, and with power over himself. That, then, which man brought upon himself through carelessness and disobedience, this God now vouchsafes to him as a gift through His own philanthropy and pity, when men obey Him”. Similarly, the Eden was seen an intermediate state, neither earth, nor heaven.

So spiritual death is seen as incited by the devil, the angel of death and father of lies, who leads man to sin, while bodily death is seen as a work of divine mercy. And the death of death becomes possible when God incarnates and endures the death of man. St Athanasius says in “On the Incarnation”: “For by the sacrifice of His own body He did two things: He put an end to the law of death which barred our way; and He made a new beginning of life for us, by giving us the hope of resurrection. By man death has gained its power over men; by the Word made Man, death has been destroyed and life raised up anew”.

 

[vames]

For centuries since Pentecost, the Catholic Deposit of Faith has been guarded by the Holy Spirit which means that brilliant humans cannot alter the events at the beginning of human history. In the 21st century, brilliant humans can teach the wrong perceptions of those true events.

If we assume that the events at the beginning of human history are described in Genesis, then we have to admit that Genesis is a text and every text can support more than one interpretation, at the same time and throughout history - in the second or third century or in the 21th century. As I have tried to show, when these early Christian writers have offered their interpretation of Genesis and Atonement, there was no Catholic teaching as we know it now. The Orthodox prefer them precisely because they see them as the “original” tradition, as opposed to the later Western developments. These variations and divergences are a fact of life and a product of different historical conditions.

 

[grannymh]

If we assume that the events at the beginning of human history are described in Genesis, then we have to admit that Genesis is a text and every text can support more than one interpretation, at the same time and throughout history - in the second or third century or in the 21th century. As I have tried to show, when these early Christian writers have offered their interpretation of Genesis and Atonement, there was no Catholic teaching as we know it now. The Orthodox prefer them precisely because they see them as the “original” tradition, as opposed to the later Western developments. These variations and divergences are a fact of life and a product of different historical conditions.

The text is the text and will forever be the text.

When one is interested in Catholicism, one discovers that the **first three chapters **of Genesis – I do not speak for “Genesis” because I have not read all 50 chapters – actually presents Divine Revelation which was completed in Jesus Christ. Thus, there is only one interpretation. (CCC, paragraphs 65-67) The confusion over this writer or that writer disappears when one realizes that it is the *protocol *of the visible Catholic Church on earth via ecumenical councils which defines Divine Revelation and which makes it more explicit.

Catholicism is really simple once one realizes that the early church writers were putting forth a variety of explanations in the attempt to discern the truth. They are saints because they humbly accepted the wisdom of the Holy Spirit Who guided church councils. Chapter 14, Gospel of John; post 726, forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11422481&postcount=726

The tail does not wag the dog.

 

[fhansen]

If we assume that the events at the beginning of human history are described in Genesis, then we have to admit that Genesis is a text and every text can support more than one interpretation, at the same time and throughout history - in the second or third century or in the 21th century. As I have tried to show, when these early Christian writers have offered their interpretation of Genesis and Atonement, there was no Catholic teaching as we know it now. The Orthodox prefer them precisely because they see them as the “original” tradition, as opposed to the later Western developments. These variations and divergences are a fact of life and a product of different historical conditions.

I’m still not seeing a great divergence. In both schools of thought we still have an onus place upon man to change-to become just-in some manner or another, with the help of grace, he and God working synergistically.

 

[Richca]

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?

Hi vames,
Yes, I believe Eve was made later than Adam and that she was made into a human being from Adam’s rib. This is what the Word of God says in Genesis. It is clear in Genesis that Adam was the first human being. When God formed Eve from one of Adam’s ribs and brought her to Adam, Adam said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken.”(Genesis 2:23).

Further, St Paul says “For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim 2:13). And “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man” (1 Cor. 11:8). St Paul is obviously alluding to Genesis.
However, to show the equality of man and woman, St Paul says: " Woman is not independent of man or man of woman in the Lord. For just as woman came from man, so man is born of woman; but all things are from God. (1 Cor 11: 11-12).

That childbirth pains are a punishment for Adam and Eve’s disobedience is clear from Genesis as well. God said to Eve "I will intensify your toil in childbearing; in pain* you shall bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. (Genesis 3:16).

We do not have to believe that the universe was created in six 24 hour days. This was a literary device used by the author of Genesis to teach the sacredness of the Sabbath rest on the seventh day in the Israelite religion.
Genesis says that God created light on the first day and seperated it from the darkness. On the fourth day, God created the sun and the moon. The Fathers of the Church give various opinions as to what this light of the first day is. St Thomas Aquinas, after listing some of the various opinions of the church fathers, is of the opinion that the “light of the first day was the sun’s light, formless as yet, being already the solar substance, and possessing illuminative power in a general way, to which was afterwards added the special and determinative power required to produce determinative effects.” (ST, Pt.1, Q.67, Art.4). Possibly, the author of Genesis placed the creation of the sun and moon on the fourth day after the creation of light because the ancient peoples were prone to worhip as gods the sun, moon, and stars which was forbidden the Israelites by God’s commandments.

I think we should also keep in mind that the order of creation laid out by the author or authors of Genesis may have a meaning beyond that of the literal meaning since this same author or authors were working under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who is the principle author of Sacred Scripture. And we know from the teaching of the Church that Holy Scripture can have a literal and spirtual sense; the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses (cf. CCC#115).

I also read in another one of your posts where you claim that the Israelites thought they were born pure or free from sin or uncleanness. On the contrary, however, David says in psalm 51:7 “Behold, I was born in guilt, in sin my mother conceived me.” Job says " Can a man be found who is clean of defilement? There is none, however short his days." (14:4) Again, David says in psalm 143:2 “Do not enter into judgment with your servant; before you no one can be just.”

St Paul interprets psalm 14: 1-3 (cf. Romans 3) as all humankind being under the universal bondage to sin, i.e., original sin “The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if even one is wise, if even one seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are perverse. Not one does what is good, not even one.”

Isaiah says in 64:5 “We have all become like something unclean, all our just deeds are like polluted rags.”

In JMJ, Richca

 

[vames]

I’m still not seeing a great divergence. In both schools of thought we still have an onus place upon man to change-to become just-in some manner or another, with the help of grace, he and God working synergistically.

It’s the focus that makes the difference. Earlier I quoted John Chrysostom saying: “God the lover of people, who from the very beginning has punished man with toilings and hardships, by these very things shows His preoccupation for our salvation”. He could have insisted here on the idea of punishment, but he didn’t: instead, he focused on the benevolence of God that spared man of an eternity lived in sin and gave him the hardships necessary for “staying alive”, to fight against temptations.

The same John Chrysostom says in one of his first homilies on Genesis: “Not only the first humans have sinned, but the following ones have sinned too. God is saying: ‘Why are you complaining? Because Adam has got you out of paradise by his sin? But do what is right and seek the right deed and I will open for you not only the paradise, but even the heaven, and I won’t let you suffer anything bad from the disobedience of the first man. Are you complaining that Adam has deprived you of your dominance over the beasts? But behold, I will even give you dominance over the demons if you pay attention to My teaching!’ So what He gave us is greater than what we have lost”.

The language of the early Fathers when they speak of the “vileness” or “wickedness” of A&E and the current sinners is very harsh. And they recognize that bodily suffering and death are not only a work of divine mercy, an occasion to make saints out of us, but also a source of fear which stimulates sinful behavior, because when one realizes that he is mortal, he becomes egoistic, he’s in a hurry to accumulate things and goes to great lenghts to avoid losing time, possessions, the love of other people. But they don’t insist on man’s guilt and fallen condition, because the primum movens of death and sin is the devil, the tempter, not man. Man can collaborate with the devil and so he chooses “the things of death”, in the words of Theophilus, or he can collaborate with God and so he chooses “the things of life”.

For an Orthodox, the idea that man deserved punishment and that’s why we have to feel guilty, wounded and to make reparation before an offended God is by far less important than the idea that God offers us all the means to fight against death: we have the sacraments and the fasting (with all its meanings) to fight the devil and so to avoid the death of the soul while on earth, which makes us prone to sin, and we have Christ’s victory against the devil and our death (eternal death, because the Resurrection has opened the gates of heaven; bodily death, because the Resurrection gives us the hope in our resurrection).

One of the many talks about how the Orthodox differ from (Western) Catholics:

Following Augustine of Hippo, the Latins teach that Adam and Eve sinned against God. The guilt of their sin has been inherited by every man, woman and child after them. All humanity is liable for their “original sin.”

Following the Holy Fathers, the Orthodox Church holds that when Adam sinned against God, he introduced death to the world. Since all men are born of the same human stock as Adam, all men inherit death. Death means that the life of every human being comes to an end (mortality); but also that death generates in us the passions (anger, hate, lust, greed, etc.), disease and aging.

Roman Catholicism has ordinarily paid little attention to the Orthodox conception of man as slave to death through his passions as manipulated by the devil. In fact, the devil has been pushed to the background. Thus, the Crucifixion has been understood by the Latins as Christ suffering punishment for the human race (“vicarious atonement”), when, in truth, Christ suffered and died on the Cross to conquer the devil and destroy his power, death.

In any case, Orthodoxy has always put great stress on “mastery of the passions” through prayer (public worship and private devotions), fasting (self-denial) and voluntary obedience and regular participation in the Eucharist (sometimes called “the Mysteries”). Thus, the highest form of Christian living (“the supreme philosophy”) is monasticism. Here all human energy is devoted to struggle for perfection.

ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html

 

[vames]

I also read in another one of your posts where you claim that the Israelites thought they were born pure or free from sin or uncleanness. On the contrary, however, David says in psalm 51:7 “Behold, I was born in guilt, in sin my mother conceived me.” Job says " Can a man be found who is clean of defilement? There is none, however short his days." (14:4) Again, David says in psalm 143:2 “Do not enter into judgment with your servant; before you no one can be just.”

St Paul interprets psalm 14: 1-3 (cf. Romans 3) as all humankind being under the universal bondage to sin, i.e., original sin “The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if even one is wise, if even one seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are perverse. Not one does what is good, not even one.”

Isaiah says in 64:5 “We have all become like something unclean, all our just deeds are like polluted rags.”

In JMJ, Richca

Neither the teachings of St Paul, nor the psalm that speaks exclusively about the personal guilt of David or the virulence of prophets against specific sins of the people of Israel are the foundations of any Jewish Original Sin. Man sins because he is not a perfect being: he has not risen far enough, not that he is fallen. Each man is responsible for his own sins.

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Original_Sin.html

ELOHAI NESHAMA: A Morning Prayer
My God -
The soul You have given me is pure.
You created it, You formed it,
You breathed it into me,
You guard it within me.
You will, in the future, take it from me,
And restore it to me at a future time.
So long as this soul is within me,
I thank You,
Adonai, My God, God of my ancestors,
Master of all creation, Sovereign of all souls.
Praised are You, Adonai,
Who restores the soul to the
Lifeless and exhausted.

 

[grannymh]

Neither the teachings of St Paul, nor the psalm that speaks exclusively about the personal guilt of David or the virulence of prophets against specific sins of the people of Israel are the foundations of any Jewish Original Sin. Man sins because he is not a perfect being: he has not risen far enough, not that he is fallen. Each man is responsible for his own sins…

Regarding personal guilt. I realize the confusion when there is sin and there is sin.
According to Catholicism, David does not have personal guilt for the real Original Sin.
Although “Original Sin” is proper to each individual, it is contracted and not committed.
David was born in the contracted state of Original Sin looking forward to the promised Messiah.

Human nature is transmitted in the contracted state of deprivation of original holiness and justice. Baptism, by bringing the life of Christ’s grace to the person’s soul, erases Original Sin. God’s Sanctifying Grace brings a new life to the soul. (CCC, Glossary, Sanctifying Grace, page 898)

However, human nature continues to carry the consequences for human nature.

God loves us no matter our degrees of perfection. We are meant to love Him by obeying His commandments. When we freely choose to disobey, regardless of our degrees of perfection, we need to again profess our love for God by seeking His forgiveness. We should not choose to remain in Mortal Sin. (CCC, 404-405; common sense 101)

This is a beautiful prayer. Especially the last lines. Thank you.

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Original_Sin.html

ELOHAI NESHAMA: A Morning Prayer
My God -
The soul You have given me is pure.
You created it, You formed it,
You breathed it into me,
You guard it within me.
You will, in the future, take it from me,
And restore it to me at a future time.
So long as this soul is within me,
I thank You,
Adonai, My God, God of my ancestors,
Master of all creation, Sovereign of all souls.
Praised are You, Adonai,
Who restores the soul to the
Lifeless and exhausted.

 

[OneSheep]

It’s the focus that makes the difference. …]

Reading through your comparison, I rather have to side with fhansen on this subject. If the difference is in emphasis, the doctrine is still there, and the dualism is still there, whether it is pounded in or not.

I supposed, over the years, that focus on one particular emphais over another would eventually render one approach “obselete”, but such obsolescence would be everyone’s loss. There is a place in the Church for differing approaches .