Original Sin

[OneSheep]

In the Catholic Church, there are necessary, essential conditions of sorrow and repentance on the part of the human creature in order to properly complete the process for God’s forgiveness.

This is called “conditional forgiveness”.

Here is the way that the priest who did the Bible study explained the apparent contradiction between unconditional love and condtional forgiveness:

If we are unrepentant (refusing to forgive people) then we will not know God’s forgiveness, for the God we project will be based on our own behaviors and perceptions. God always forgives, but we will not know God’s forgiveness until we repent, until we forgive everyone we hold something against.

So it is with all sin. If we do not repent, then we are not in control of our sin. When we are not in control of our sin, our good conscience is going to continue to self-condemn. When we are self-condemning, we perceive that God does the same. But God is not condemning us, He is the Father of the prodigal son.

The dark side of unconditional forgiveness is that an individual may bypass the importance of obedient love in a spiritual relationship with the Creator. (CCC

Au contrare! God has given every one of us a conscience! There is absolutely a reason to seek God’s forgiveness, because everyone with a normal conscience will feel very guilty when doing evil. What does God do with the adultress? Jesus shows the people that it is their consciences that condemn her, and that our consciences condemn all of us. Jesus showed the resentful that she is in the same condition that they are. Jesus shows that God’s love is deeper than all of the conditions, He forgives the woman. Did He ask if she was sorry first, if she was repentant? No, but her conscience, if formed normally, will continue to be a burden until she repents.

When a person equates the conscience with God, then telling them that God forgives unconditionally does not make sense. If their conscience tells them that some act is wrong, then they will avoid it, regardless of whether God loves them unconditionally or not. Do people ever say, “I can do lots of bad things, because God loves me anyway.”? If the person is doing evil under this belief, then he is lacking in empathy, and his conscience if malformed. Does a person need to “learn” that God loves them conditionally in order to develop empathy and a normal conscience? Absolutely not.

My point is simply that we need to recognize that while we can forgive others unconditionally, God, being our Creator, forgives according to His process. We, as creatures, cannot decide how we want God to forgive us.

This means, of course, that God is asking us to be more forgiving than He is. It means that we can be more forgiving than God, and therefore more loving than God. The catechism that I received is that God always forgives us.

And here is the deeper point, again. We are called to forgive unconditionally. Have you done this, granny? Your silence on this question continues to compromise your testimony. Have you forgiven? Spirituality, granny, is more than a book. I know what the CCC says. Spirituality is more than a “head” thing, it is also a “heart” thing. I am here in this forum because I like to discuss spirituality. Spirituality is based in our relationship with God. If you have not forgiven everyone, admit it. Such admission is the first step in reconciliation, The Sacrament of Reconciliation. Talk to your priest, granny. I am hearing from your posts that you are very hard on yourself

Sometimes, granny, our conscience tells us to not forgive someone. For example, our conscience may say that it is “wrong” to forgive the unrepentant. This is very common. Does your conscience tell you this?

 

[vames]

The church teaches that A & E were actually destined for immortality-not that they already possessed it in their original status-it was still contingent on their actions. I think the “knowledge of good and evil” is different in kind from the knowledge of right and wrong. The former is the experience of evil-the experience of existence without the immediate hand of God in control-along with the experience of good, the good inherent in creation- while the latter is our conscience-perceiving, on the first hand, that obedience to God is right and yet determining that disobedience might be better in spite of that.

In post #219 I quoted my old Catechism of St Pius X that states:
36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?

A. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense and reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.
37 Q. What was the nature of Adam’s sin?
A. Adam’s sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.

You say that in fact immortality wasn’t real at all, but only a virtuality, a promise, a prize. So A&E “lost” something that they never had to begin with. The language of the catechism (quoted above) leaves us in awe thinking about the love and goodness of God who gave A&E such marvellous gifts and leaves us regretting something that we lost. But if we, imperfect humans as we are, give something as a gift, we do that because we love someone and we don’t have the intention to take back the gift, regardless of the future behavior of that person. If the “gift” is conditioned and can be withdrawn anytime, then it isn’t a gift, but only the first installment of a loan. And God not only took away those “gifts” at the first mistake of A&E, but He punished A&E and all the other creatures, even those who lived before A&E. No second chance, no redeeming, no mercy: suffering and death is here to stay until the end of time.

CCC 396: “The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.”
But a creature is a creature, imperfect and limited; this objective fact can’t be changed, regardless of any illusions of the creature. Even if a creature says “I want to be like God” or “I can be like God”, she can’t actually become like God and all these childish affirmations don’t change anything. A creature is unable to acquire more knowledge or longevity than is allowed by God; as time passes by and the creature grows up and understands herself better, such illusions dissapear and she “freely recognizes and respects” this reality. So HOW can the God from Genesis feel SO offended and SO threatened by the mere illusions of a creature? Again, Genesis 3 says: “‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now,** he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever**’. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life”. For me, this quote is a clear proof that the authors of Genesis thought that God could feel offended and threatened exactly like a man.

 

[vames]

So…my question is … just what is that thing called “Original Sin” ?

“his only act of disobedience” is a category like “animal, vegetable, mineral” in the spirit of black and white TV.

Inquiring minds want to know – what kind of disobedience? What did the act consist of? Why only?

Or in the olden golden days of journalism – Who? How? What? When? Where? and Why?

CCC 397: “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.”
So far everything is clear. Command - disobedience - bearing the consequences.

What is less clear to me is how from this elementary explanation we should conclude that God thought that man “scorned” Him and “chose himself over and against God”.
CCC 398: “In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully ‘divinized’ by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to ‘be like God’, but ‘without God, before God, and not in accordance with God’’”.
Not every act of disobeying a command leads necessarily to a devastating, exemplary punishment. In the army, when a soldier disobeys a command issued by his superior, the superior can expel him from the army or can humiliate him by sending him to clean the toilets, just to show him who is the boss. Why? Because he can. But a military superior isn’t supposed to love the soldier.

 

[vames]

Here is the way that the priest who did the Bible study explained the apparent contradiction between unconditional love and condtional forgiveness:

If we are unrepentant (refusing to forgive people) then we will not know God’s forgiveness, for the God we project will be based on our own behaviors and perceptions. God always forgives, but we will not know God’s forgiveness until we repent, until we forgive everyone we hold something against.

So it is with all sin. If we do not repent, then we are not in control of our sin. When we are not in control of our sin, our good conscience is going to continue to self-condemn. When we are self-condemning, we perceive that God does the same. But God is not condemning us, He is the Father of the prodigal son.

So very true.
Remember Pope Benedict’s “His righteousness is grace” from post #383?
Now Pope Francis says the same thing:

What is the danger? It is that we presume we are righteous and judge others. We also judge God, because we think that he should punish sinners, condemn them to death, instead of forgiving. So ‘yes’ then we risk staying outside the Father’s house! Like the older brother in the parable, who rather than being content that his brother has returned, grows angry with the father who welcomes him and celebrates. If in our heart there is no mercy, no joy of forgiveness, we are not in communion with God, even if we observe all of his precepts, for it is love that saves, not the practice of precepts alone. It is love of God and neighbour that brings fulfilment to all the Commandments. And this is the love of God, his joy: forgiveness. He waits for us always! Maybe someone has some heaviness in his heart: “But, I did this, I did that…”. He expects you! He is your father: he waits for you always!

If we live according to the law “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, we will never escape from the spiral of evil. The evil one is clever, and deludes us into thinking that with our human justice we can save ourselves and save the world! In reality, only the justice of God can save us! And the justice of God is revealed in the Cross: the Cross is the judgement of God on us all and on this world. But how does God judge us? By giving his life for us! Here is the supreme act of justice that defeated the prince of this world once and for all; and this supreme act of justice is the supreme act of mercy. Jesus calls us all to follow this path: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36).

vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/angelus/2013/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20130915_en.html

 

[simpleas]

I have one of those silly granny suggestions which I believe in my heart would make conversations easier.

Simple suggestion. Let us first basically define “whatever sin it was that…”

Now, I do realize that there will be all kinds of suggestions including that human death is because Adam discovered half a worm in the apple he was enjoying. Yet, I believe we can come up with some reasonable definitions for Original Sin that go straight to the nitty-gritty.

We are told and I understand that it was disobedience, but we don’t take the story of the eating fruit from the tree literal, its just a story to explain a form of disobedience?
So we won’t ever know what form of disobedience it was that caused such a powerful effect on the human person.

Was it just one sin or a multitude of sins.
Seems to be one sin, God instructs them not to from the tree, but they do. Could it have just been once or many times? Because God comes looking for them, but they hide because of shame?

So that one time of eating from the tree, they knew instantly they had gone against God, or maybe they had eaten many times, knowing it was wrong, so when God called for them they hid from him because by now they would have known they had sinned.

If it was a multitude of sins there most likely would have been more people in the garden, or Angels.
But as we are told it was one sin then it could only have been one man and one woman.

 

[simpleas]

To me, the story of Noah is also a story based on God being our conscience. The ancient people felt guilty, and they perceived that God is equal to our conscience. Therefore, the condemnation. Remember, our consciences only “love us” conditionally. When we behave, we are worthy. When we misbehave, we are garbage, expendable, and worthy of destruction. This is not the deeper voice.

You know, simpleas, I think you are an amazingly spiritual person. It is really refreshing to see someone inquisitive and being open-minded to so many things. I think that this is part of the “child-likeness” that is promoted in the Bible. Your pain for the victims shows a mature development of empathy, in addition, you have not become desensitized to the real injuries that we see so often in the media.

It is so easy not think of forgiving someone. It is not automatic. What is automatic is our condemnation of people who we see doing wrong. That reaction is a good reaction. However, we are called to forgive, and it takes an action of our will to forgive. It is a discipline. If it was automatic, Jesus would not have had to spend much time emphasizing it.

Join me, simpleas, in encouraging forgiveness in this world. We don’t have to be religious to forgive. Everyone can forgive.

So the flood and Noahs ark didn’t happen exactly that way?

People believed that natural disaster was Gods anger on his people.

We don’t think that now, well I don’t anyway, (God love all the people in the philippines right now) but would any of us say, God did this because of the sins of the people?
No how could we say this now, knowing all that Jesus taught us. We believe in a God of love not of anger, so trying to combine that in with how we are as a people now is hard.

Thankyou for your comment on spirituality.

 

[simpleas]

So…my question is … just what is that thing called “Original Sin” ?

“his only act of disobedience” is a category like “animal, vegetable, mineral” in the spirit of black and white TV.

Inquiring minds want to know – what kind of disobedience? What did the act consist of? Why only?

Or in the olden golden days of journalism – Who? How? What? When? Where? and Why?

I like this

 

[grannymh]

For those who are interested in God and His conditions
here is a tidbit of information.

From this link
ewtn.com/library/catechsm/piusxcat.htm#Preliminary

I put the keywords in red.

42 Q. How is it possible for original sin to be transmitted to all men?
A. Original sin is transmitted to all men because God, having conferred sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts on the human race in Adam, on the condition that Adam should not disobey Him; and Adam having disobeyed, as head and father of the human race, rendered human nature rebellious against God. And hence, human nature is transmitted to all the descendants of Adam in a state of rebellion against God, and deprived of divine grace and other gifts.

For those interested in the universal Catechism
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

Paragraphs 396 and 398 must be read in addition to paragraph 397.

In addition, paragraphs 402-405 will also be helpful.

 

[fhansen]

We are told and I understand that it was disobedience, but we don’t take the story of the eating fruit from the tree literal, its just a story to explain a form of disobedience?
So we won’t ever know what form of disobedience it was that caused such a powerful effect on the human person.

Disobedience, itself, was what caused such a powerful effect. That’s all that was necessary. It seems subtle at first but it opens the door to any and all anomalies. It’s as if a dog says to the Universe, “I think I’ll be a tree. Yes, I’m quite sure I can be a tree and will be happier being a tree. There!” To disobey God is to firmly place a small wedge in the door between universal order and unreality.OS in the rest of us just means that wedge, that opening, is already in place…

 

[fhansen]

In post #219 I quoted my old Catechism of St Pius X that states:
36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?

You say that in fact immortality wasn’t real at all, but only a virtuality, a promise, a prize. So A&E “lost” something that they never had to begin with. The language of the catechism (quoted above) leaves us in awe thinking about the love and goodness of God who gave A&E such marvellous gifts and leaves us regretting something that we lost. But if we, imperfect humans as we are, give something as a gift, we do that because we love someone and we don’t have the intention to take back the gift, regardless of the future behavior of that person. If the “gift” is conditioned and can be withdrawn anytime, then it isn’t a gift, but only the first installment of a loan. And God not only took away those “gifts” at the first mistake of A&E, but He punished A&E and all the other creatures, even those who lived before A&E. No second chance, no redeeming, no mercy: suffering and death is here to stay until the end of time.

Should there be no consequence for evil? To put it another way, considering the worst acts that human sin perpetrates: rape, torture, etc, should that behavior be allowed to continue for eternity? Should God not desire perfection even as He allows gross imperfection to play out it’s hand- for the time being? And if He’s patient and kind, giving us the time and forgiveness to change, suffering Himself in this world to show He’s not unaware of ours, or too arrogant to experience what His own creation experiences, and then removing/squashing the power of death by the resurrection, then how do you say there’s no second chance? Isn’t that what this life is, in a sense? Didn’t He prove what we all want to be sure of: that our existence, that creation, is worth it after all, in spite of temporary suffering?

 

[simpleas]

The descendants of Adam and Eve who lived holy lives before the time of Christ were in a state of waiting for the gates of heaven to open. There is not a lot of nitty-gritty details.

Also, there is not a lot of nitty-gritty information about how many people lived at the time of Noah.

As for God not having regrets for man, but, rather having regrets for the sins of man, please refer to post 522
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11379698&postcount=522

It does say in the bible that God regrets having made man. But he still loves us enough to give us a second chance.

 

[simpleas]

The word sin can mean either the original or the personal or both.

Since the context is the power of Baptism, the “end of sin” refers to erasing the contracted state of deprivation of original holiness aka Original Sin. Baptism, which imparts the life of Christ’s grace (the presence of God), would be a new beginning of goodness aka holiness within the relationship of God. The person would now be in the state of Sanctifying Grace. (CCC, 405)

By the way, technically or philosophically, Adam’s “perfect state” would not happen until he was in the presence of the Beatific Vision, aka heaven. (CCC, Glossary, Sanctifying Grace, page 898)

Ok my confused time again…
I thought that Adam and Eve saw and spoke with God as our first parents?
The garden of eden sounds like Heaven on earth to me.

I’ve read a explaination about why God did not want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Life after eating and gaining knowledge of Good and Evil thus leading to Sin.

Adam and Eve were going to die at some point, but God hadn’t decided when.
They disobeyed God, therefore fell into sin and death for sure.
Since they now were in sin, God did not want them to eat from the tree of life and live forever in a state of sin.

I never thought of it in this way before, because I always go back to the belief that our first parents were perfect in every way, I think even PJP2 said we should try to live as Adam and Eve did in the garden in his theology of the body book.
But then if they were perfect, no sin would have happened.

 

[OneSheep]

What I mean is that you seem to look for naturalistic reasons for man’s motives. The doctrine of OS suggests that man set himself *apart *from nature in some capacity-and that’s the source of his problems today. I deal everyday with “blind” people. Angry, contentious folk who make life a bit more miserable for everyone else. I have a manger who can’t seem to control his temper, acts selfishly as a matter of course, quasi-ruthless in his trying to increase profit, hard on my employees, totally ego-centric, right even if he knows he’s wrong. If I fire him he loses his house. My patience and forgiveness are put into action by my keeping him, occasionally yelling at him, threatening to release him, giving him perks and raises as incentives, usually long talks directed at treating others the way he’d want to be treated, trying to get him to see/acknowledge that he’s not always right, to treat others with respect and dignity instead of like dirt under his nails. I understand him; he’s someone who suffered greatly by being bullied when young and later reacted by becoming worse than his persecutors. But he’s bad for my business and he offends me in general-countering the very values I’ve come to treasure more and more in my life.

Sounds miserable. Perhaps your employees are even more miserable. Your manager is out of control of his behavior, and perhaps needs some kind of security that you cannot provide. He has unmet needs, and he is trying to satisfy them in ways that are counter-productive. I see a control issue. Everyone has the desire to be in control of his environment, his destiny. It is a God-given appetite. In addition, his conscience, his personal rulebook, is perhaps being violated by his employees, and he is not taking the steps to forgive them. He may, for example, sense that the employees are disrespecting him, which would be very understandable on their part, but also makes his job even more difficult. To me, something big has to change that mess.

Evolutionary psychologists have recently done studies on anger. First of all, in the workplace, anger has been proven to actually benefit the person who angers often. People learn to walk on their tiptoes around the person with a “short fuse”, and so people who anger quickly, though not liked, do get their way. The anger-behavior is subconsciously rewarded in this way, and becomes habitual. In addition “attractive” people are more likely to have their anger rewarded at a young age, and also learn a greater sense of entitlement. Cute kids get to have their way more than the less-cute, that’s the sad truth.

I am not saying that anger itself is completely controllable. Anger is a triggered response. It often takes some counseling to learn to control it, it takes some “anger management”, which might be the ticket for your employee. Will he ever be able to overcome the negative feelings his employees have for him? Typically, people only forgive when they see repentance. Your manager would have to exercise some real humility and repentance to gain their respect.

In the mean time, I bet the employees really wished you’d get rid of that guy. When he lashes out in anger, your own anger is triggered; I am hearing that you also need some control over the whole situation, and he is not honoring your requests. Sounds frustrating.

(continued)

 

[grannymh]

It does say in the bible that God regrets having made man. But he still loves us enough to give us a second chance.

My Bible says a lot more that answers most of these questions Who? How? What? When? Where and Why? Speaking as the Queen of Cherry Picking, it is very helpful to read context below and above and sometimes the whole chapter plus the explanation in the New Testament.

In addition, when one considers the protocol of the visible Catholic Church on earth, one understands that not every word of every verse of every chapter of every book in the Bible automatically transforms into a Catholic doctrine. Many of these “words” can support a teaching. But then, one needs to know the teachings of the Catholic Church and how they come about.

Yes, both sides of the above circle are correct.

 

[OneSheep]

Quotes from fhansen:

Humans are amazing, beautiful, noble, awesome, courageous, gentle,…

So, the way I read this,( and there will be an infinite number of ways of reading this), I am hearing two different voices in that group of words. One is the voice that comes from the conscience, “these things are good, they are acceptable” and the other voice is one that comes from another place that says “these things are awesome, a wonder”. It’s the difference between looking at the grand canyon and looking at a young man opening the door for an old person. All positive, but coming from different places.

… weak, petty, back-stabbing, mean-spirited, warmongering, angry, arrogant, selfish.

All of these words, with the possible exception of “weak” and perhaps “angry”, come directly from the conscience. These are words that we use with the voice of resentment. Do you resent your anger?, your capacity for anger? When you say “angry, contentious folk” and “ego-centric” these are words that label in a negative way. When you behave as these others do, do you also label yourself in this way, do you “write yourself off” as a member of this negative?

God, IMO, desires to draw us into greater moral responsibility-the Old Covenant with its laws was a first step in that process- and so into making better and better choices, the ultimate expression of that would be in our freely loving God and neighbor.

When I think about it, we actually make pretty good choices. I mean, the choices we make are understandable in the context of our ignorance. Anger is not a matter of choice, at least not in the immediate sense. Anger is a triggered response. When I get angry at someone, my perception of their value is immediately greatly affected. The person is an immediate pile of scum in my eyes. All of us experience this. So, yes, we can make better and better choices, but to do so we have to have better lenses, lenses that we get through forgiveness of others and ourselves.

I think there’s still a more primordial condition at work in the background. Could there be a deeper cause for blindness than “God made us that way"? Can we conceive of blindness as benefiting us -can ignorance be bliss, or even profitable-or at least promise to be so?

I’ve never understood the “ignorance is bliss” thing. When wisdom is folly, there is simply not enough wisdom. I can accept ignorance as part of the human condition, but it is a mystery. Temporary blindness, however, is not a mystery. Temporary blindness is actually a benefit to our nature, and I think I have already explained that on this thread. I can explain again, if you like. The people who hung Jesus had a temporary blindness.

My questions: (1)Why does the human desire to seek the truth? (2) Why does the human think the truth he has found is better than someone else’s truth?

Because we’re lost from it? I believe in any case it’s all ultimately aimed at the bigger questions: why we’re here? what/who am I? where do we go from here?

That’s a good question-because I see an unreasonable quality to it. People will kill another person simply in defending their egos-their “rightness”, their “right to be right”, so to speak. We’re very, very sensitive beings in that area. And IMO this is related to the concept of man wanting to be God-a journey-an exile- into unrealityville.

Well, yes, people defend their values. My values are part of who I am. So, when people don’t respect my values, then my conscience kicks in. “Those people are wrong, they are bad.” Of course it is unreasonable, but the conscience can be very unreasonable. This is where awareness is very important, it is a matter of knowing that when I devalue someone or some part of myself in any way, that I feel negative toward anyone or any part of myself, I am living in an illusion. I cannot change the perception that I am in the center of the universe. When my “I”, when my self, extends to every person who has ever lived, then my “ego” includes everyone. Empathy teaches us this very thing. Love teaches us this very thing. The “I” only excludes the people we feel negatively towards.

The problem, fhansen, to me is not our desire to be right, or the idea that “my values (ideas, etc.) are better than yours.” That statement comes from a person’s experiences, whether aware or not, and may be an attempt to be helpful. The problem is that we have this blindness issue that we need to become aware of.

 

[grannymh]

Disobedience, itself, was what caused such a powerful effect. That’s all that was necessary. It seems subtle at first but it opens the door to any and all anomalies. It’s as if a dog says to the Universe, “I think I’ll be a tree. Yes, I’m quite sure I can be a tree and will be happier being a tree. There!” To disobey God is to firmly place a small wedge in the door between universal order and unreality.OS in the rest of us just means that wedge, that opening, is already in place…

Disobedience itself? Not exactly.

Note the plural in the last sentence of *CCC, *396. Both Adam and Eve committed a "personal sin [sic] but" in CCC, 404. CCC, 404 also attributes Original Sin to Adam because of his position, which is different from that of Eve.

Please check out post 559 for the basic meaning of Original Sin.

CCC, 1607 is down to the nitty-gritty of Original Sin in its statement: "As a break with God**, the first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and woman." (Genesis 3:12) The more complete meaning of original justice is given in the CCC, section “Man in Paradise” beginning on page 95, paragraphs 374-379 plus the cross-references in the margins.

Yes, Original Sin was a disobedience. Unfortunately, not knowing the kind of
disobedience has led to a variety of distortions aimed at tearing apart the credibility of Catholicism.

 

[simpleas]

My Bible says a lot more that answers most of these questions Who? How? What? When? Where and Why? Speaking as the Queen of Cherry Picking, it is very helpful to read context below and above and sometimes the whole chapter plus the explanation in the New Testament.

In addition, when one considers the protocol of the visible Catholic Church on earth, one understands that not every word of every verse of every chapter of every book in the Bible automatically transforms into a Catholic doctrine. Many of these “words” can support a teaching. But then, one needs to know the teachings of the Catholic Church and how they come about.

Yes, both sides of the above circle are correct.

Can i ask what Bible you use please.
I have the New Jerusalem Bible.

 

[fhansen]

Disobedience itself? Not exactly.

Note the plural in the last sentence of *CCC, *396. Both Adam and Eve committed a "personal sin [sic] but" in CCC, 404. CCC, 404 also attributes Original Sin to Adam because of his position, which is different from that of Eve.

Please check out post 559 for the basic meaning of Original Sin.

CCC, 1607 is down to the nitty-gritty of Original Sin in its statement: "As a break with God**, the first sin had for its first consequence the rupture of the original communion between man and woman." (Genesis 3:12) The more complete meaning of original justice is given in the CCC, section “Man in Paradise” beginning on page 95, paragraphs 374-379 plus the cross-references in the margins.

Yes, Original Sin was a disobedience. Unfortunately, not knowing the kind of
disobedience has led to a variety of distortions aimed at tearing apart the credibility of Catholicism.

Not knowing the kind of disobedience? The first sin was disobedience-rejection of God’s authority. That’s the whole point. Think you might be nitpicking a bit there.

 

[grannymh]

Not knowing the kind of disobedience? The first sin was disobedience-rejection of God’s authority. That’s the whole point. Think you might be nitpicking a bit there.

May I gently point out that the kind of Original Sin necessitates that it could only be committed by the first human in whom all humankind is as one body of one man. (St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo 4, 1. CCC, 404) This detail is what distinguishes the Original Sin from all the other personal sins of rejection of God’s authority.

Moreover, if one refers to the rejection of God’s authority, which is fine, then one has to provide what that authority consists of. This determination of the area of authority can be fascinating since there are some hints that God may not have authority over creature conditions based on Scripture.

As I am thinking about all this, it dawns on me that what may look like contradictions in Catholic doctrines are actually misunderstandings of Catholic doctrines caused by various omissions such as the surrounding doctrines of Original Sin plus the basic doctrines of human nature per se.

Obviously, when one avoids the nitty-gritty details of Original Sin and basic human nature, one’s spirituality is threatened. (CCC, 407-409)

 

[grannymh]

Can i ask what Bible you use please.
I have the New Jerusalem Bible.

I am using an older version of the New American Bible. When I was younger, the Jerusalem Bible was considered more expressive. However, the meanings would be the same. Using the two Bibles will certainly be informative.

I am looking at Genesis 6: 5-13. It looks like verses 11-13 is the summary. When I look at the difference between the who and the what, I am reminded that Genesis 1:31 is a confirmation that the who, either God or man*,* is good but that the what can be bad.

I will wait for your findings.