Anything which disrupts the proper working of humans is a flaw. From Down’s syndrome to to a proclivity to a certain type of sin to cancer to mental illness, these are flaws in the functioning of the human who has one or more of them. And they are all crosses. We are to accept them, overcome them if necessary, and grow in holiness by doing so.
I think this is the key. For there are many human conditions that are not ideal, nor part of God’s ultimate plan. But as someone else said, they are part of his permissive will.
The question then becomes – do such conditions, such as Down’s Syndrome, or even same-sex attraction – only exist because of the Fall?
I guess my problem is this: On the one hand, we have a traditional narrative that states that the Fall introduced evil, including physical evils, into the human world. This would mean that it was the Fall that brought about diseases, sickness, and disordered conditions. Some go further and say that the Fall brought about all physical evils and imperfections, such as animal pain and suffering. However, I think science rejects that view, and the Church does not require that view.
Even so, and although we can never have scientific evidence about what the conditions for the first man and woman were like (since their innocence in “paradise” or the “garden” lasted so shortly), it seems odd and out-of-place that the first humans were placed in a world that included natural processes, such as biological evolution, plate tectonics (produces earthquakes and volcanoes), certain atmospheric conditions (producing deadly storms), and everything else that renders a Universe imperfect and in a state of “journeying” (as the Catechism likes to say). When we especially consider biological evolution and related processes, we have to recognize the features built into nature that allow for imperfections, sicknesses, and disease. For example, consider animals before the fall. I do not think anyone honestly open to the evidence and science would say that animals did not feel pain or get sick before the fall. The gist of what I’m saying is that it seems the same, fundamental properties that allow for sickness and disorders in humans (such as Down Syndrome, same-sex attraction, or anything you want to consider destructive to a creature’s well-being) have always been built-into nature as part of our Universe.
On this basis, it seems that the fall of man should not be considered an introduction to a world with different physical properties as much as it should be considered the
removal of some kind of special *divine protection *from a world that *would otherwise *contribute pain, suffering, disease, and even disorders such as homosexual attraction or intersex phenomena.
The basic dilemma then becomes: Why a world set up like this, in the first place? Why place humanity in a world that consists of natural processes that allow for disease, destruction, and disorder? It does not make much sense to me to say God made a world like that but desired to alter how humans particularly experience that world (with divine protections, for example). We know that one day, in a New Heaven and Earth, there will not be natural processes with the same effects. Why, then, create a Universe at first with these effects? Why place Man in such a universe?
