Original sin

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Matt16_18:
Their free will gave them the ability to choose love of self over love of God, and they chose love of self. It was an irrational choice, and that is why you can’t understand why they chose to be disobedient.
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I guess that’s what my question is all about. I don’t think it does any good to say, “It was irrational” and leave it at that. This isn’t the Trinity; it isn’t a mystery that by necessity is beyond our comprehension. There must be some answer that we can understand.

You said before that Adam and Eve’s choice was not sinful. Doesn’t that mean that the original sin–the act that introduced original sin into human nature–was not itself a sin?
 
captainkidd

I guess that’s what my question is all about. I don’t think it does any good to say, “It was irrational” and leave it at that. This isn’t the Trinity; it isn’t a mystery that by necessity is beyond our comprehension. There must be some answer that we can understand.

The Trinity is not irrational! Something can be beyond our understanding without being irrational. The mathematics of quantum string theory might be incomprehensible to me, but that doesn’t mean that the mathematics of string theory is irrational. Rationality is good, and God is all good. The Trinity is rational. To make an analogy between the Trinity and higher forms of mathematics is probably lame, but truth can be rational and not understandable at the same time.

Sin is an evil and hence it is irrational. Adam and Eve’s choice for sin can’t be understood because there was no truth in their choice for disobedience. Trying to understand why Adam and Eve committed sin is like trying to understand the equation 2 + 2 = 65467979876.287
  • You said before that Adam and Eve’s choice was not sinful.*
Huh? When did I say that? Adam and Eve’s choice for disobedience to the expressed will of God was certainly sinful. It was a very great sin because they were created in a very great state of sanctification. Not only did their sin have the consequence of dragging themselves into death world, their sin brought all of creation into death world.

… cursed is the ground because of you …
Gen. 3:17

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Psalm 51:5
 
We are taught that a mortal sin requires three things, one of which is willfully committing the sin. There would not be guilt if we did not have the ability (grace) to not commit the sin.

Adam and Eve were free from concupiscence. So they didn’t have the tension from desires of the flesh that we do. They were in the state of grace as well. Therefore the thing causing confusion (if I understand you correctly) is that everything was going for them, they were free from concupiscence and in the state of grace, yet somehow still sinned…without an apparent motivation.

Their sin is comprehendable to me because I do not see their sin as so much different than a modern day mortal sin. We too are in the state of grace, which is sufficient to enable us to make the right decision, even sufficient to overcome the concupiscence we do suffer from. In the end, what happens/ed is the willfull choosing of sin, though in hind sight we often see clearly the bad choice.

It seems to me you are assuming there must have been an underlying reason they chose sin, beyond the short term benefit of “becoming like God”. I don’t think there necessarily had to be.
 
What I’m saying is that you must be concupiscent in order to sin. If you do not have concupiscence–i.e., if you are in a state of original justice–then you’ll see sin for the evil that it is, because your intellect is in perfect harmony with the truth. Only if your nature is corrupted by concupiscence can your intellect perceive evil as good.
 
captain kidd
  • What I’m saying is that you must be concupiscent in order to sin.*
And you are blaspheming when you say that Adam and Eve were created with the corrruption of concupiscence, because you are turning the all holy and all good God into the ultimate source and cause of evil. Lucifer was not created with the defect of concupiscence, nor were Adam and Eve.
  • Only if your nature is corrupted by concupiscence can your intellect perceive evil as good.*
Concupiscence is not the perception that “evil is good”. An alcoholic can be fully cognizant that getting drunk is an evil – and in spite of that knowledge, he may still desire to get drunk. Concupiscence is a defect that the children of the Fall are born with, and it manifests itself in our preference for what is evil over what is good.
 
In captian kidd’s defense, I do not think he is saying Adam and Eve had concupiscence (reading his earlier posts). Rather, I think he is merely trying to understand a rather complex question. Our sins are easy to understand because of concupiscence (i.e. the example fo a drunk). But since Adam and Eve were free from this tension of the flesh, it is more difficult to comprehend.

His question is not without merit. I find it quite thought provoking. In the end we know two things for sure: 1) Adam and Eve were indeed free from concupiscence, and 2) they did sin.

One clue I see is this: We know Jesus was tempted in the desert by Satan. Yet we know Jesus was free from concupiscence, and all Good. If Jesus was tempted, and He is God, how much more would the tempting of the devil affect Adam and Eve.
 
I think captainkidd is simply looking for a Thomistic explanation for the fall, not trying to attribute evil to the Creator! As I understand it, if a being’s powers are fallible, then it is possible for there to be a failure of the intellect to correctly valuate relative goods or a failure of the will to follow the intellect’s judgment. In other words, fallibility is related to imperfection (and the potential for disordered use of) powers and not concupiscence per se. Concupiscence is the phenomenon by which lower appetites and reason were set at odds with one another. Sin for someone who is non-concupiscent results from failure of reason, while sin for someone who is concupiscent may result from failure to subject lower appetites to reason.
 
Blaming God for the sins that we commit is as old as Adam. Look at the dialog between Adam and God after Adam was caught sinning:

The LORD God then called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me–she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.”
Gen. 3: 9-11

Adam should have said, “Lord, I take personal responsibility for my sin of disobedience. Because you made me the head of the family, I should have stepped in when my wife was tempted and kept her from falling into sin. I am the one that deserves the punishment because of my failure to take charge of this situation.”

But nooooooo …instead taking personal responsibility for his own failure, Adam starts acting like a weasel. He tries to lays the blame on his wife, and even worse, he implies that God bears some responsibility for his miserable failure: “The woman whom YOU put here with me …”. Sound familiar?
  • One clue I see is this: We know Jesus was tempted in the desert by Satan. Yet we know Jesus was free from concupiscence, and all Good. If Jesus was tempted, and He is God, how much more would the tempting of the devil affect Adam and Eve.*
Excellent point.
 
Chris W
  • In the end we know two things for sure: 1) Adam and Eve were indeed free from concupiscence, and 2) they did sin.*
We know more than that.

We know that God’s perfect will cannot be in conflict with itself. God explicitly revealed to Adam and Eve that it was His will that they avoid eating the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God could not have created Adam and Eve with the desire to be disobedient to his will, because that would mean that God’s will was in conflict with itself.

We know that God is all holy and that there is no evil in God:

” God is light and in him is no darkness at all.”
1John 1:5

We know that God does not tempt anyone:

“Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one; but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.
James 1:13-15

God does not tempt anyone; less yet can God be accused of creating people with the desire to sin. Concupiscence is a corruption that infects God’s perfect creation, and the cause of concupiscence is Adam and Eve’s choice to be disobedient to God. There are great truths expressed in the Church’s teaching about original sin, and if we don’t understand them, we will never understand why Jesus died on the Cross.

There is an argument that is made that we should accept homosexuality because “God created homosexuals that way”. This argument implies that God is the cause of homosexuality, and that we should accept homosexuality as God’s will for the homosexual. It is an argument that stems from either a misunderstanding of or a rejection of the doctrine of original sin.
 
Agreed. I do not disagree with you. The reason I am interested in this topic is because it is difficult to grasp.

Perhaps we should just say that while God does not tempt (of course), and God did not create the propensity to error (ALL He made was good), He did make us with the ability to sin (free will). Free will means that sin had to be at least possible.
 
Chris W
  • The reason I am interested in this topic is because it is difficult to grasp.*
Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it. - Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

Free will means that sin had to be at least possible.

Free will is also what makes love possible.
 
Here’s an analogy: It’s as if each of us is going down a river in a canoe, and we come to a fork in the river. Freedom is the state of being at the fork. Free will is our capacity to choose one option or the other.

Now if you’re in a state of original justice, with your intellect in perfect harmony with the truth, then you’ll see each option for what it really is: The good option will appear rational and good, and the evil option will appear irrational and nonsensical. So, naturally, you’ll choose the good option.

If, however, you are infected with concupiscence, then the river’s current will push you toward the evil choice. You still may see it as evil, and you still have the capacity to choose otherwise, but your intellect will rationalize it, convincing itself that it is good after all. You succumb to the pressure, thus committing a sin.

Adam and Eve were in a state of original justice. They saw moral choices for what they were: Good was to be sought after, and evil was as nonsensical as jumping out the window for no reason. (“Why would I want to do that? That’s just stupid.”)

This is what I mean when I say that concupiscence precedes sin, that sin is explained only by a defect in our nature.
 
CaptainKidd

Now if you’re in a state of original justice, with your intellect in perfect harmony with the truth, then you’ll see each option for what it really is: The good option will appear rational and good, and the evil option will appear irrational and nonsensical. So, naturally, you’ll choose the good option.

But, of course, exactly the opposite happened. Adam and Eve made an irrational choice, and that is why you cannot understand why they made that choice.
  • Adam and Eve were in a state of original justice. They saw moral choices for what they were: Good was to be sought after, and evil was as nonsensical as jumping out the window for no reason. (“Why would I want to do that? That’s just stupid.”)*
Why would a human or an angel willingly choose eternity in hell over eternity in heaven? That choice is even more incomprehensible than the choice to jump out of window for no reason. Yet, in the end, God will reveal to all that the damned willingly made the choice for hell instead of heaven.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Rev. 20: 13-15
 
I think perhaps the fork in the river analagy is a little too simplified. I would say there needed to be signs on each side indicating what lied ahead. One side might say 70% of the water ahead is rapids and the other might say Smooth Water except 1 Water Fall, thus making the choice a little more difficult.

Perhaps that is not a good analagy but hopefully you get the point. Sin is not so cut and dry. Neither was it in the case of Adam and Eve, in my opinion. Neither was it is the case of Lucifer, in my opinion (He was created by God in the state of grace, and free from concupiscence as well, yet chose Sin).
 
Here’s a thought to add:

Since we are all thinking as fallen yet Redeemed persons, how can we expect ourselves to understand the state of mind Adam and Eve were in prior to the fall? The only other person who was created in this unique state of grace was Mary. So, how do you expect us fallen human beings to think in such a clear state of mind as to grasp fully the meaning? Hmmmmmm…

Sorry, just a thought.

Peace and all good,

Thomas2
 
Thomas2
  • Since we are all thinking as fallen yet Redeemed persons, how can we expect ourselves to understand the state of mind Adam and Eve were in prior to the fall?*
That is a good point. Even though we receive sanctifying grace in Baptism, we are still left with our concupiscence to struggle with. So we are always thinking as beings that struggle with concupiscence.
  • The only other person who was created in this unique state of grace was Mary.*
(And Jesus, of course). Here is a thought. If Adam and Eve’s sin brought about the fall of all creation, what would have happened if Mary had ever committed a sin?

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners!
 
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Matt16_18:
Adam and Eve made an irrational choice, and that is why you cannot understand why they made that choice.
Click to expand...
My question is not so much why they made that choice but how it was possible given their state of original justice. To put it in logical form:
  1. The will never chooses an action unless the intellect perceives it as good (cf. ST I-II, a. 8, q. 1).
  2. In a state of original justice, the intellect perceives good as good and evil as evil.
  3. Therefore, the intellect in original justice would not perceive evil as good.
  4. Therefore, the will in original justice would not have chosen an evil action.
  5. But Adam and Eve were in a state of original justice and chose an evil action.
Since we are all thinking as fallen yet Redeemed persons, how can we expect ourselves to understand the state of mind Adam and Eve were in prior to the fall?

To say that we can’t understand original justice because we’re fallen is problematic, I think. If that’s the case, then how can we understand anything at all, given our corrupt nature?
 
Hello Captain Kidd!

Just a little clarification needed: You quoted me as saying “The only other person who was created in this unique state of grace was Mary.”
to which you replied - (And Jesus, of course).

This cannot be because Jesus was never created - He is God and God is the only uncreated Being there is. He was and is and will come again. Jesus has no state of grace - He is omnipotent. He is the uncreated Creator.

Peace and all good,

Thomas2
 
captainkidd
  • My question is not so much why they made that choice but how it was possible given their state of original justice.*
It was possible because Adam and Eve are human beings with free wills. Life can exist without free will, but it won’t be human life. A tree is alive, but it has no free will. A tree can’t sin.
 
WOW ! What a great thread. I read every post right to the end, and the phone rang and I ignored it 😛

My head is spinning now.

I can understand where captainkidd is coming from, and I can also see the explanations he has been given.

My mum always tells me there are things in life we just arent meant to understand.

I think this is one of them.

Adam and Eve chose the lesser of 2 goods. But they wouldnt have known that was a sin would they, as they created that sin, hence original sin.

It would be like me doing an action that has never been done before in the world, and making up a word to go with it, and then being told I can never do that again.

Hmmmmm, I think Ive confused myself. :confused:

Well done captainkidd for starting such an interesting conversation.

Love Kellie
 
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