Original Sin

[OneSheep]

quote (from Paula D’Arcy)

It has been said, “God comes to you, disguised as your life.”

Life is not fair. Therefore God is not fair.
Life provides suffering and does so without any way around it. Therefore God must be a sadist.
It leads to the wrong conclusions.

I think this is the point, Bob, hard as it is. Life isn’t fair. Life provides suffering. Can we see that life is a gift through all the hardship? God has given us this life. Can we love God anyway? Paula lost her husband and young child in a terrible accident, and she survived.

It is not our obligation to be thankful for our life. But such thankfulness goes a long way in experiencing the eternal life that Jesus was talking about.

 

[OneSheep]

I have been learning about “appetites’” and am finally used to the word as some kind of umbrella to cover a multiple of
humanly-desired actions in the same kind of way as the word conscience is used to cover both this and that actions. At least that is how the two words personally sound to me.

This is one of the reasons why I love conversing with you. I think you know by now that everything I say is personal also, it is based on my own relationship, based on the way I experience the world. None of us have a corner on truth.

The following from CCC 1798 is a mini encyclopedia of fascinating facts.
**" **Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings."

I already responded to this CCC entry on this thread, but I have something else to add. To me, not only did God give us the capacity for blindness to our own conscience, but he gave us the ability to substitute one conscience choice to rationalize ignoring another. For example, we have all heard of the international case where one group of people (let’s call it the “ingroup”) claims that a particular piece of property was theirs, given to them by God. However, another group of people (the “outgroup”) has been living there for centuries, and claims the land is still theirs. The ingroup is more powerful, and they have been confiscating land from the outgroup, which is wrong, but they want the land badly, and one of the reasons that they think they are doing the right thing is because they claim that the outgroup has not been taking good enough care of the land.

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

Eve’s appetite for wisdom was already present. It was God-given. Do you see what happened? “Surely, God was joshing me.” God gave us the capacity to doubt Him when he gave us our autonomy. Many species of animal and bird “lie” to each other. When scientists have done experiments where they create “autonomous” robots competing for food, the robots end up lying to each other to distract from a cache they have found. Okay, you are going to say that there was no competition in the garden of Eden, but in the real world (not the fictional creation story) there is always competition for resources. Our ancestors evolved in a competitive environment, not in Eden.

Original Sin, in addition to shattering humanity’s original relationship with divinity, resulted in a weakened human nature to be transmitted by that first loving couple to all their descendants. We now have to work at forming our spiritual conscience to be upright and truthful. As for our appetites, they willy-nilly seek all kinds of “good” things, some of which are not so good in reality. We have to bring those appetites back in line with God’s teachings to our first parents. “Man is dependent on his Creator and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.” (CCC 396 and CCC 311

Blaming man again for a break in the relationship. I still don’t see the need for this to continue, other than that we are to maintain a feeling of unworthiness. You have never answered by what means we would ever be unworthy. Would we be “unworthy” without Jesus’ coming? Why?

With my own eyes I see that humanity has come through ages becoming more and more aware of God. Jesus showed us who God truly is, but we (as the bulk of humanity) have only slowly been able to incorporate and understand over the centuries. Yes, we are that slow-witted. Are we to blame for being so slow? Possibly, but what good would that do? Can we forgive and accept our own slowness? That would be more in keeping with our calling. We can be thankful for progress.

That brings up another aspect of the whole picture. Is the world getting worse, or is the world getting better, in terms of mankind? I say better, and I can provide evidence, but actually I did not see the world as getting better until I first found unconditional love and gained the freedom to see the creation story as fictitious.

The price for acquisition of conscience has been our own feelings of unworthiness, which is exactly the way the conscience mechanism is supposed to function. To me, the creation story is not a metaphor for the story of God condemning man. The creation story is a metaphor for the history of man (his conscience) condemning mankind.

 

[simpleas]

This is one of the reasons why I love conversing with you. I think you know by now that everything I say is personal also, it is based on my own relationship, based on the way I experience the world. None of us have a corner on truth.

I already responded to this CCC entry on this thread, but I have something else to add. To me, not only did God give us the capacity for blindness to our own conscience, but he gave us the ability to substitute one conscience choice to rationalize ignoring another. For example, we have all heard of the international case where one group of people (let’s call it the “ingroup”) claims that a particular piece of property was theirs, given to them by God. However, another group of people (the “outgroup”) has been living there for centuries, and claims the land is still theirs. The ingroup is more powerful, and they have been confiscating land from the outgroup, which is wrong, but they want the land badly, and one of the reasons that they think they are doing the right thing is because they claim that the outgroup has not been taking good enough care of the land.

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

Eve’s appetite for wisdom was already present. It was God-given. Do you see what happened? “Surely, God was joshing me.” God gave us the capacity to doubt Him when he gave us our autonomy. Many species of animal and bird “lie” to each other. When scientists have done experiments where they create “autonomous” robots competing for food, the robots end up lying to each other to distract from a cache they have found. Okay, you are going to say that there was no competition in the garden of Eden, but in the real world (not the fictional creation story) there is always competition for resources. Our ancestors evolved in a competitive environment, not in Eden.

Blaming man again for a break in the relationship. I still don’t see the need for this to continue, other than that we are to maintain a feeling of unworthiness. You have never answered by what means we would ever be unworthy. Would we be “unworthy” without Jesus’ coming? Why?

With my own eyes I see that humanity has come through ages becoming more and more aware of God. Jesus showed us who God truly is, but we (as the bulk of humanity) have only slowly been able to incorporate and understand over the centuries. Yes, we are that slow-witted. Are we to blame for being so slow? Possibly, but what good would that do? Can we forgive and accept our own slowness? That would be more in keeping with our calling. We can be thankful for progress.

That brings up another aspect of the whole picture. Is the world getting worse, or is the world getting better, in terms of mankind? I say better, and I can provide evidence, but actually I did not see the world as getting better until I first found unconditional love and gained the freedom to see the creation story as fictitious.

The price for acquisition of conscience has been our own feelings of unworthiness, which is exactly the way the conscience mechanism is supposed to function. To me, the creation story is not a metaphor for the story of God condemning man. The creation story is a metaphor for the history of man (his conscience) condemning mankind.

If the creation story is a metaphor for man condemning himself, how do you know what way God wanted man to live his life?

 

[grannymh]

Blaming man again for a break in the relationship. I still don’t see the need for this to continue, other than that we are to maintain a feeling of unworthiness. You have never answered by what means we would ever be unworthy. Would we be “unworthy” without Jesus’ coming? Why?

I continue to say that Adam, the first live human on earth, broke humanity’s relationship with divinity and will continue to say it
is because that is the doctrine of the Catholic Church (CCC 396-409; Romans 5: 12-21; 1Corinthians 15: 21-22; the Council of Trent, etc.) For a deeper understanding, a suggestion is to begin reading at CCC 355, including checking the cross-references in the margin and the footnotes at the bottom. Warning! This Catechism is not a page turner.

As for my thoughts on “unworthy”, I am having trouble discerning whatever one would be unworthy of. Even this question – Would we be “unworthy” without Jesus’ coming? Why?" – has me wondering. According to Catholic teaching about the first human Adam, all of us, as Adam’s descendants, are worthy of a relationship with God *both *before and after the Incarnation. (Genesis 1: 26-28; CCC 410-411; CCC 1260; and common sense)

Since I prefer the positive approach to life, I choose being worthy as part of human nature over being unworthy of some kind of thing.

I love saying – “The human person is worthy of profound respect.” :clapping:

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

 

[BobCatholic]

Perhaps we are not in the Garden, but the existence of such is based on the literal interpretation of Genesis, which I do not ascribe to.

So there was no literal Adam and literal Eve? The Catholic Church teaches that they were real people, so this is literal. Was there a literal Garden of Eden? I think there was. Not sure if the Church said anything about that.

“temporarily held responsible” has a range of interpretation. Does God hold our sins against us? No. Should we, as a society, exact consequences for misbehaviors? Yes, this is the workings of our God-given conscience. My opinion, of course.

Temporally means that this is here on earth. Once we die, the temporal existence ends. During the temporal existence, we are held responsible for Adam and Eve’s sin. If we were not held temporally responsible, we’d be back in the Garden of Eden, and have the same preternatural gifts both of them had. No suffering. No pain. No unemployment. We could be tilling a garden in paradise. But nope. We’re still punished.

This is not about what society does to the individual for misbehaviors.

Spiritually, we are not punished. That happens only if one goes to hell after our death, but this takes place after the temporal existence is done.

 

[BobCatholic]

I think this is the point, Bob, hard as it is. Life isn’t fair. Life provides suffering.

And that’s proof of us being held temporally responsible for Adam and Eve’s sin.

Can we see that life is a gift through all the hardship? God has given us this life.

A gift is free of obligations to the giver. We are obligated to suffer because of this gift, an obligation imposed by the Giver. We also must follow the ten commandments, this is another obligation we have to the Giver. So life is not a gift. It is nothing but a test.

Eternal life, on the other hand is a gift. It was freely given to us, while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

It is not our obligation to be thankful for our life. But such thankfulness goes a long way in experiencing the eternal life that Jesus was talking about.

We are obligated to be thankful. We are required to say “thank you, may I have another” when life hands us suffering. God wants masochists. That’s why He doesn’t want me.

 

[fhansen]

I already responded to this CCC entry on this thread, but I have something else to add. To me, not only did God give us the capacity for blindness to our own conscience, but he gave us the ability to substitute one conscience choice to rationalize ignoring another. For example, we have all heard of the international case where one group of people (let’s call it the “ingroup”) claims that a particular piece of property was theirs, given to them by God. However, another group of people (the “outgroup”) has been living there for centuries, and claims the land is still theirs. The ingroup is more powerful, and they have been confiscating land from the outgroup, which is wrong, but they want the land badly, and one of the reasons that they think they are doing the right thing is because they claim that the outgroup has not been taking good enough care of the land.

The original choice, as outlined in Genesis, was whether or not man would listen to God-and heed Him, of course. According to the teachings of the church Adam’s choice resulted in not only separating him in some manner from God, but also caused division within *himself. *Truth/Reality/Reason were no longer necessarily his guides; moral relativism became normative, man ‘doing what was right in his own eyes’, to paraphrase Judges 21:25. Man-centered, self-righteousness, rules the day in our world, with sin often resulting, rather than “God-righteousness”, regardless of whether or not man might appeal to God as his source for righteousness. Blindness, an obscured conscience, was a consequence of that sin, the result of a preference to be blind to God’s authority perhaps, man’s preference for himself over God, as the catechism puts it. This is even related to Jesus’ retort to Pharisees in John 9:41: "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. As man truly humbles himself before God and before His authority, rather than relying or standing on his own “righteousness”: as God truly becomes the God of man again, man’s blindness begins to subside.

IOW, if true innocence prevailed in us, there would be no need to rationalize; man would simply never kill, rape, torture, lie, etc. But true innocence cannot prevail in man to the extent that he’s not in* intimate communion* with God, as was meant to be. IMO Adam hadn’t yet learned the value of God/Love, and humanity’s job from then on has been to learn that very lesson, as we’re willing and able, with time, experience, revelation and grace. As we do learn that lesson, obedience comes as a natural result; God will never force our obedience and yet obedience is only to our benefit, for our good. In Jesus of Nazareth Pope Benedict remarked that ‘God* is* heaven’. The opposite of our coming to know and love God, therefore, is hell.

Blaming man again for a break in the relationship. I still don’t see the need for this to continue, other than that we are to maintain a feeling of unworthiness. You have never answered by what means we would ever be unworthy. Would we be “unworthy” without Jesus’ coming? Why?

Our unworthiness, our unrighteousness, our injustice comes from-or rather *consists *of- one thing alone: separation from God. This separation constitutes OS-the original injustice- as well as provides the recipe or means for continued sin-humankind was thereafter enabled to sin in a sense, God’s control no longer effective. All sin that followed flows from this first act of disobedience according to the catechism. IOW, apart without God we can’t refrain from sin; with God we ultimately won’t sin. Other creatures (not man or angels) remain under His control for no reason other than that they have no choice-no gift of free will.

 

[grannymh]

We are obligated to be thankful. We are required to say “thank you, may I have another” when life hands us suffering. God wants masochists. That’s why He doesn’t want me.

God wants you. :flowers: Now and forever.
This often cranky (feminine of snarky) granny says so.

 

[BobCatholic]

God wants you. :flowers: Now and forever.
This often cranky (feminine of snarky) granny says so.

God wants masochists. I’m not a masochist. Thus he does not want me.

Please ask God to stop pushing me away.

 

[OneSheep]

If the creation story is a metaphor for man condemning himself, how do you know what way God wanted man to live his life?

I was being a little too simplistic there. The creation story has some very important points, and I in no way discount that God creates us, for example.

God gave us a conscience. Our consciences are uninformed when we are born, but they all do eventually become informed, though none of our consciences are “perfect”. We rely on the Church, the Spirit (working through others), and Christ Himself for knowing how to live our lives, we don’t need the creation story to do so. Ultimately, it is empathy, love of others, that guides us in how to live our lives. We are called to love God and one another.

The Old Testament is chock full of guidance about how to live our lives.

Something tells me I might have missed the underlying question… if so, sorry about that.

 

[OneSheep]

I continue to say that Adam, the first live human on earth, broke humanity’s relationship with divinity and will continue to say it
is because that is the doctrine of the Catholic Church (CCC 396-409; Romans 5: 12-21; 1Corinthians 15: 21-22; the Council of Trent, etc.) For a deeper understanding, a suggestion is to begin reading at CCC 355, including checking the cross-references in the margin and the footnotes at the bottom. Warning! This Catechism is not a page turner.

What I meant was, when it is already quite obvious that man needs redemption (common sense), what spiritual gain is there in knowing that we are in the state we are in because God banished us from Eden? This simply does not sound like a forgiving God. I respect your restatement of the doctrine, but I think it should be obvious by now that I do not believe doctrine just because the Church says it is so, especially if there are contradictions with other aspects of our faith. CCC 355 is a wonderful section of the cathechism, I see no contradiction there with the concept of an unconditionally loving God.

As for my thoughts on “unworthy”, I am having trouble discerning whatever one would be unworthy of. Even this question – Would we be “unworthy” without Jesus’ coming? Why?" – has me wondering. According to Catholic teaching about the first human Adam, all of us, as Adam’s descendants, are worthy of a relationship with God *both *before and after the Incarnation. (Genesis 1: 26-28; CCC 410-411; CCC 1260; and common sense)

Since I prefer the positive approach to life, I choose being worthy as part of human nature over being unworthy of some kind of thing.

I love saying – “The human person is worthy of profound respect.” :clapping:

I clap with you. And I agree, we are all worthy. To me “worthiness” has to do with the workings of our conscience, it is not a flow chart to God’s love. The human person is loved unconditionally.

 

[OneSheep]

So there was no literal Adam and literal Eve? The Catholic Church teaches that they were real people, so this is literal. Was there a literal Garden of Eden? I think there was. Not sure if the Church said anything about that.

Well, there may have been a literal Adam and Eve, and science has no evidence that there wasn’t. Belief in a literal Adam and Eve does not present a contradiction with other aspects of our faith.

Temporally means that this is here on earth. Once we die, the temporal existence ends. During the temporal existence, we are held responsible for Adam and Eve’s sin. If we were not held temporally responsible, we’d be back in the Garden of Eden, and have the same preternatural gifts both of them had. No suffering. No pain. No unemployment. We could be tilling a garden in paradise. But nope. We’re still punished.

This is not about what society does to the individual for misbehaviors.

Spiritually, we are not punished. That happens only if one goes to hell after our death, but this takes place after the temporal existence is done.

Spirituality encompasses much more than life after death. It sounds to me like you are living in plenty of hell right now.

And that’s proof of us being held temporally responsible for Adam and Eve’s sin.

Well, that’s one theory, but hardly “proof”. There are many other options.

A gift is free of obligations to the giver. We are obligated to suffer because of this gift, an obligation imposed by the Giver. We also must follow the ten commandments, this is another obligation we have to the Giver. So life is not a gift. It is nothing but a test.

You sound a little frustrated maybe. Are you living in pain? I have no argument against the perspective that life is nothing but a test. You are speaking as a person who has endured a great deal of hardship.

We are obligated to be thankful.

That is your conscience talking. God loves and forgives you whether you are thankful or not.

We are required to say “thank you, may I have another” when life hands us suffering.

This, again, is your conscience talking. My son, a philosopher, has done a lot of work on suffering. He equates condemnation and suffering. When we condemn, we suffer. I think suffering involves more than that, but he makes a valid point. Smart kid, if I may say so myself.

 

[BobCatholic]

Belief in a literal Adam and Eve does not present a contradiction with other aspects of our faith.

That’s because the Catholic faith doesn’t contradict itself.

Spirituality encompasses much more than life after death.

Only if it is God’s will. Otherwise, it is limited to that.

It sounds to me like you are living in plenty of hell right now.

Yup.

Well, that’s one theory, but hardly “proof”. There are many other options.

Like what? Genesis 3 makes it abundantly clear it is a punishment for Adam and Eve’s sin.

You are speaking as a person who has endured a great deal of hardship.

Yes.

That is your conscience talking. God loves and forgives you whether you are thankful or not.

Actually it is the Bible talking.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 - we are required to give thanks in all situations, suffering or not.

This, again, is your conscience talking. My son, a philosopher, has done a lot of work on suffering. He equates condemnation and suffering. When we condemn, we suffer. I think suffering involves more than that, but he makes a valid point. Smart kid, if I may say so myself.

Interesting theory. I thought it was the other way around. If I am suffering, it is because I am condemned, punished, pushed away by God.

 

[OneSheep]

The original choice, as outlined in Genesis, was whether or not man would listen to God-and heed Him, of course.

So, God creates a being that He already knows will not always heed Him, and then He condemns the human when he does exactly what God made possible. Do you not see the contradiction here? God creates a being that He plans to condemn?

According to the teachings of the church Adam’s choice resulted in not only separating him in some manner from God, but also caused division within *himself. *Truth/Reality/Reason were no longer necessarily his guides; moral relativism became normative, man ‘doing what was right in his own eyes’, to paraphrase Judges 21:25. Man-centered, self-righteousness, rules the day in our world, with sin often resulting, rather than “God-righteousness”, regardless of whether or not man might appeal to God as his source for righteousness.

The reality is that each and every one of us has a slightly differently formed conscience. To change it requires a lot of work for us adults. For the person who thinks abortion is okay, for example, the change requires gaining an appreciation of the value of the unborn, but people are very closed-minded about this. We do what we can. Everyone does what they think is right, or at least “good”, in their own eyes. We do not have God’s eyes. We can try to incorporate all that we hear is God’s perspective, but none of us is perfect. It is possible for a person to think convenience abortion is okay, and think that they are following God. They have a conscience formed out of ignorance. God forgives our ignorance. A young girl who ends up pregnant and wants her freedom may be blinded of empathy for her child. God forgives this too.

Blindness, an obscured conscience, was a consequence of that sin, the result of a preference to be blind to God’s authority perhaps, man’s preference for himself over God, as the catechism puts it. This is even related to Jesus’ retort to Pharisees in John 9:41: "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. As man truly humbles himself before God and before His authority, rather than relying or standing on his own “righteousness”: as God truly becomes the God of man again, man’s blindness begins to subside.

Here is the context. Jesus has been doing great works, but the pharisees perceive that Jesus is a fraud or worse.
39 Jesus said,[a] “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

It was the Pharisees condemnation of Jesus that blinded them. The pharisees are who he is referring to in v. 39. The pharisees are “guilty” of not seeing God, and refusing to do so. The crowd that hung Jesus on the cross was also guilty of not seeing God, but Jesus forgave them anyway, and Jesus stated quite clearly that they did not know what they were doing. Jesus forgave the Pharisees.

IOW, if true innocence prevailed in us, there would be no need to rationalize; man would simply never kill, rape, torture, lie, etc. But true innocence cannot prevail in man to the extent that he’s not in* intimate communion* with God, as was meant to be. IMO Adam hadn’t yet learned the value of God/Love, and humanity’s job from then on has been to learn that very lesson, as we’re willing and able, with time, experience, revelation and grace. As we do learn that lesson, obedience comes as a natural result; God will never force our obedience and yet obedience is only to our benefit, for our good. In Jesus of Nazareth Pope Benedict remarked that ‘God* is* heaven’. The opposite of our coming to know and love God, therefore, is hell.

I am with you on this, with some clarifications to suit my own experience. Such “obedience” is ultimately owned. Children have to be told to be obedient, because their consciences are still forming. Adults who have an underdeveloped empathy also need to be told to be obedient. However, the adult with a normally developed empathy will not need to think of “obedience” in order to behave. Adults with normal empathy behave because they do not want to hurt others, but there are some exceptions.

What humanity needs to learn is that our conscience essentially lies to us. When we condemn someone, our conscience blocks out the value of the person we condemn. Hitler was blind to the value of the Jewish people and others. In addition, desire blocks empathy towards people who appear to stand in the way of what we want. These are the exceptions, and there may be others.

Have you found your own innocence? When I say this, I mean have you found your own good intent in every sin you have ever done? This was St. Augustine’s endeavor. Have you tried this?

 

[OneSheep]

Our unworthiness, our unrighteousness, our injustice comes from-or rather *consists *of- one thing alone: separation from God. This separation constitutes OS-the original injustice- as well as provides the recipe or means for continued sin-humankind was thereafter enabled to sin in a sense, God’s control no longer effective. All sin that followed flows from this first act of disobedience according to the catechism. IOW, apart without God we can’t refrain from sin; with God we ultimately won’t sin. Other creatures (not man or angels) remain under His control for no reason other than that they have no choice-no gift of free will.

God created man with the capacity for sin, because he created us with the capacity for blindness, automatic blindness, and we are born ignorant. Start with the question: “Why would God create the human with the capacity for automatic blindness?” Where does that question take you?

“Free will” can definitely be overstated. Man does not have the choice of ridding himself of the appetites, he can only repent and keep them under control. Man does not have the choice of ridding himself of the possibility of the automatic blindness that comes from automatically judging others, he can only discipline himself to forgive when he is aware that such judgment has taken place in his mind. Man’s will is limited by his ignorance and blindness.

The whole concept of “separation from God” is contradictory. We are nothing without God. St Paul says that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. We can certainly choose to sin, but such sin is not because of separation IMO, it is because we are blinded and ignorant. But even when we are blind and ignorant, are we separated? No, not in the way I see my own experience. We can certainly think we are separated, though. Our conscience can tell us this. We can try pushing God away, or think we can. But even the energy that it takes to push God away comes from, well, God.

Our blindness separates us from our awareness. That, to me, is an non-contradictory use of the word “separation” when it comes to sin.

The idea of our “unworthiness” comes from the blindness we have toward ourselves and others because of the activity of our conscience. We self-condemn, then we think that we deserve the punishment. It is automatic. It works to moderate our behaviors, but to me, it is not to be equated with God.

 

[grannymh]

God wants masochists. I’m not a masochist. Thus he does not want me.

Please ask God to stop pushing me away.

My Mother was asked one time – why God never answered her prayers for good health. My Mother’s answer was that God always answered her prayers, but at the moment, His answer was “no, not now.” In other words, my Mother did not see God as pushing her away. She understood that it was most important for her to have love for Jesus hanging bloody on a cross. My Mother tried to focus on the future when she would be with Jesus in eternal joy. In the meantime, she would be a bleeding lamb in the arms of the Good Shepherd.

Was my Mother always successful in her desire to love God above her frustration? I doubt that. Still, I do not doubt that each time she slipped, she was honest with God and then continued to reach out to God. There would be times when my Mother would be relatively healthy; yet, she knew that relative health was a fragile surface of her being. She knew that Jesus meant what He said when He told us to come to Him when we are burdened. She knew she was not as holy as she would like to be. But being stubborn, she never stopped petitioning God in her love for Him.

 

[fhansen]

The whole concept of “separation from God” is contradictory. We are nothing without God. St Paul says that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. We can certainly choose to sin, but such sin is not because of separation IMO, it is because we are blinded and ignorant. But even when we are blind and ignorant, are we separated? No, not in the way I see my own experience. We can certainly think we are separated, though. Our conscience can tell us this. We can try pushing God away, or think we can. But even the energy that it takes to push God away comes from, well, God.

Everything comes from God. But why, then, do you think Jesus would say, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” in John 15:5 or “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” in Matt 19:26 if not for the possibility of man’s being apart from God? Our faith is nothing if not about the reconciling of man with God-after being exiled from Him, lost sheep in need of the Shepard.

 

[fhansen]

So, God creates a being that He already knows will not always heed Him, and then He condemns the human when he does exactly what God made possible. Do you not see the contradiction here? God creates a being that He plans to condemn?

No, God creates a being that He plans to form-the divine potter molding His clay;.Theosis is His actual goal for us.

The reality is that each and every one of us has a slightly differently formed conscience. To change it requires a lot of work for us adults. For the person who thinks abortion is okay, for example, the change requires gaining an appreciation of the value of the unborn, but people are very closed-minded about this. We do what we can. Everyone does what they think is right, or at least “good”, in their own eyes. We do not have God’s eyes. We can try to incorporate all that we hear is God’s perspective, but none of us is perfect. It is possible for a person to think convenience abortion is okay, and think that they are following God. They have a conscience formed out of ignorance. God forgives our ignorance. A young girl who ends up pregnant and wants her freedom may be blinded of empathy for her child. God forgives this too.

This only tells me that morality is relative-* in a fallen world.*

Have you found your own innocence? When I say this, I mean have you found your own good intent in every sin you have ever done? This was St. Augustine’s endeavor. Have you tried this?

Yes, but that doesn’t render it sinless, i.e. not outside the will of God.

 

[simpleas]

God created man with the capacity for sin, because he created us with the capacity for blindness, automatic blindness, and we are born ignorant. Start with the question: “Why would God create the human with the capacity for automatic blindness?” Where does that question take you?

“Free will” can definitely be overstated. Man does not have the choice of ridding himself of the appetites, he can only repent and keep them under control. Man does not have the choice of ridding himself of the possibility of the automatic blindness that comes from automatically judging others, he can only discipline himself to forgive when he is aware that such judgment has taken place in his mind. Man’s will is limited by his ignorance and blindness.

The whole concept of “separation from God” is contradictory. We are nothing without God. St Paul says that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. We can certainly choose to sin, but such sin is not because of separation IMO, it is because we are blinded and ignorant. But even when we are blind and ignorant, are we separated? No, not in the way I see my own experience. We can certainly think we are separated, though. Our conscience can tell us this. We can try pushing God away, or think we can. But even the energy that it takes to push God away comes from, well, God.
Our blindness separates us from our awareness. That, to me, is an non-contradictory use of the word “separation” when it comes to sin.

The idea of our “unworthiness” comes from the blindness we have toward ourselves and others because of the activity of our conscience. We self-condemn, then we think that we deserve the punishment. It is automatic. It works to moderate our behaviors, but to me, it is not to be equated with God.

If St Paul said nothing can separate us from the love of God, why does our church tell us that we do separate ourselves from God each time we choose to sin?
Do we only condemn ourselves if we refuse to confess to God?

 

[grannymh]

If St Paul said nothing can separate us from the love of God, why does our church tell us that we do separate ourselves from God each time we choose to sin?
Do we only condemn ourselves if we refuse to confess to God?

The answer is Romans 8: 31-37. Or Romans 8: 18.

St. Paul is no dummy.

He was blind to Jesus Christ in the beginning; but once St. Paul came down from his high horse of pride in himself, he was gifted with the task of teaching us Divine Revelation. In order to understand St. Paul’s task, we have to refresh our memory of Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit (chapter 14, Gospel of John) became present in the Catholic Church in order to set the world on fire with God’s love. John 3: 16.

The first basic truth in Catholicism is Genesis 1:1. From there one can follow the relationship between God as Divine Creator and Adam as human creature. Accepting the truth of Adam and Original Sin is key to understanding current human nature, ours.

St. Paul did not “reinvent the wheel” found in the first relationship between humanity and divinity. Unfortunately, in this century, there are some, not all, people who wish to redo or reinvent the spirituality found in Catholic teachings. That is really putting the cart before the horse. The tail does not wag the dog.