Speculation about the unfallen

  • Thread starter Thread starter Racer_X
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
R

Racer_X

Guest
Something that gives me trouble with Catholic theology is its doctrine of Original Sin. Oh, I believe it all right. I’m of the opinion that it best explains the human condition that we observe in the real world. But it does leave me with a few questions.

The way I understand it Catholic doctrine maintains both that all human beings are fallen, in a state of sin, and affirms free will. But if there is indeed free will, if we are truly free, then wouldn’t you expect that there would be some that refrained from sin. If we have free will, then wouldn’t someone, somwhere, out billions and billions choose “yes” to God instead of no? Any answer that says that we are all bound to sin negates free will. Oh, you can still call it “free will” but its pretty empty. Bound is bound. And if I am bound to sin, in what way is that my fault? Why should I feel the guilt and self-contempt that I do if it is impossible for me to avoid sin?

But I still maintain that the Catholic view is correct. It seems an obvious fact: we are free and we are fallen. I mean, don’t you feel free? Do you feel compelled to sin? Yet, all around us we see humans do that which they know is wrong, e.g., they are fallen. So where does that leave us?

The Bible reiterates this apparent contradiction. The Scriptures do not treat sin as if it is inevitable, as if we cannot possibly avoid it. We are blamed for sin. We are guilty. Yet “all have sinned,” “they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no,not one”

While you ponder that, consider these verses:

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons *who need no repentance. *

Who are these righteous persons that need no repentance? Are not all sinners?

*"See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? *
*And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the **ninety-nine that never went astray. ***
So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

A few items of note here. First, the “little ones” here–children–are identified with the lost lamb. Right! That supports Original Sin. Even children are fallen. Then Jesus makes the point that God will go out of the way to retrieve one lost lamb in spite of 99 that are safe. The illustration kind of loses its point if all 100 are lost. If all 100 are lost, then of course the shepherd will go out to search for them! But that leaves the same question as before, who do the 99 that “never went astray” represent?

Lastly, in the parable of the prodigal son, the son represents us: everyone that is need of repentance to be reconciled with God. The father is God. Who does the faithful son represent?

Speculation: are there brethren who are not fallen, who are in heaven (or somewhere else) completely at peace with God and who consequently need not ever been born here on earth? If so, that would reconcile the fact that all (here on earth) are both free and sinners. It is just what you would expect if we’re truly free. Some fell, some didn’t. And then God in His Wisdom put all the fallen ones on earth.

Of course this is pure speculation and I would not even bother with it except that (1) it makes free will and original sin clearly compatible and (2) it seems quite harmonious with the Scriptures. The question then is, is it compatible with Church teaching? Has the Church taught somewhere that every human soul created by God is embodied on earth and is fallen?
 
space ghost:
Little children that have been baptized have not fallen…
Click to expand...
Then why do they need to be baptized? Keep in mind that Jesus equates the lost lamb that needs rescuing with these little ones, ie., the child.

However, I don’t see the relevance of the distinction. Is it not true that given the chance, i.e., if they live long enough, all people living on the earth sin? If there are a few exceptions like Mary, they are so few as to be negligiable.
 
in scripture it clearly states that man must be born of the water and sprit to be saved… now that’s my take on it… not rocket science for me… doesn’t that make some sence to you…?
 
space ghost:
Little children that have been baptized have not fallen…
Click to expand...
And yet they are fallen, because their souls retain the effects of original sin (concupisence).

Mankind is not “bound to sin”, but because of Originl Sin his conscience is damaged. When we look at a choice to do good or evil, our conscience naturally seeks out the good. However, because of Original Sin, we perceive the good in both actions without the automatic ability to see which is the greater good. All sins contain at least one element of good, namely, that it is good that we excercise our free will. Because we have been damaged by Original Sin, we can be tempted to hold that good as higher than another, and therefore sin.

Is it possible for someone to say “yes” to God for their entire lives, never sinning? Yes and no. Mary was able to do it, yet was only able to because she was born without the stain of Original Sin. Original Sin is like a primordial “no” written on our hearts. We are born with a familiarity of saying no to God, and it takes a conversion of the heart in order to change that no into a yes. That conversion is a struggle, one which is so against our nature that it requires the infusion of supernatural Grace at Baptism. That Grace gives us the ability to say yes, but it does not remove our ancestral habit of saying no.

The Church teaches that every human being has free will. But the will is not simply a matter of the mind. In order to will something, we must desire it with our entire mind, body, heart and soul. Simply changing our “mind” to will against sin will not change the rest of us. We have to discipline our hearts and bodies, and while this is occuring, we can and will still sin, through our own fault.
 
Dogmas of the Catholic Church

For the performance of a morally good action, sanctifying grace is not required.

For every salutary act, internal supernatural grace of God (gratia elevans) is absolutely necessary.

There is a supernatural influence of God in the faculties of the soul which coincides in time with man’s free act of will.

God gives all the just sufficient grace for the observation of the divine commandments.

The human will remains free under the influence of efficacious grace, which is not irresistible.
 
Original Sin is NOT to be confused with personal sin. In Western theology, Original Sin is simply the sin of Adam and Eve which caused a distancing from God as a race. All children born to them inherit this distance through no fault of their own in the same way that a child in the back seat of a car is just as lost when their parents are driving the wrong way. If God is the destination, then the child is not going to reach it. That is the fate of humanity due to Adam and Eve’s original sin.

We are born off of the beaten path, and we can faintly see the destination, but we have little knowledge of the roads that lead to it now that we’re off of the main freeway. Once we’re in the driver’s seat we are free to go where we will, and God has the power and desire to lift us up and put us back on the freeway, but only if we have the desire as well. This is where Baptism, and later Reconciliation come in, I believe.

Now to deal with you post directly:

Human souls are not in existance prior to being united with the flesh. A human is flesh AND soul, and you can’t remove either element without destroying its humanity. One can be temporarily seperated from the other at a later time, such as death, but ultimately it is the body and soul together that makes a human being. Therefore there are no human souls who were never brought to flesh. I do believe that this is a doctrine of the Church, but I don’t have my Catechism handy at the moment.

I believe the lost lamb parable refers to those who are saved and go astray vs. those who are saved and never go astray. It’s not necessarily about “pure souls”. This is a matter of free will, as Catholics don’t believe “once saved, always saved.” We can choose to go astray after being saved, and we can also choose to never go astray of our own will, just as Mary did from birth, and others have done after Baptism. Free will has nothing to do with the initial state of seperation that comes from our inheritance from Adam and Eve; we are a fallen race, but individually we may not have fallen.
 
40.png
Ghosty:
Now to deal with you post directly:

Human souls are not in existance prior to being united with the flesh. A human is flesh AND soul, and you can’t remove either element without destroying its humanity. One can be temporarily seperated from the other at a later time, such as death, but ultimately it is the body and soul together that makes a human being. Therefore there are no human souls who were never brought to flesh.
Click to expand...
I did not mean to present my supposition with the assumption of the existence of disembodied souls. Or of the pre-existence of souls.

First, when you fully understand the relationship of time to the physical universe–that is, that time is part of the physical universe–the question of whether souls exist before embodiment is meaningless. If they are not embodied in the physical universe, you can’t ascribe a time to them. So that part of Catholic teaching is certainly true.

As for embodied, my original speculation did not depend on whether they are embodied or not. But let us say embodied. In that case, on further reflection I see my question is equivalent to the question, “Is the existence of other rational creatures on other planets, and could they be unfallen, compatible with Church teaching?” I believe the consensus to that is, yes. The Church can only leave that an open question as to whether it is true in fact.

But if true, it clears up the problem of free will. Those who God knows will submit to Him faithfully, in His wisdom he puts elsewhere. The rest of us go here, where our Lord was crucified and resurrected for us.

I’m ust feeling out the boundaries here, wondering what sorts of scenarios are compatible with what the Church teaches and which are not.
I believe the lost lamb parable refers to those who are saved and go astray vs. those who are saved and never go astray. It’s not necessarily about “pure souls”. This is a matter of free will, as Catholics don’t believe “once saved, always saved.”
Click to expand...
But there is still the question of the righteous vs. the repentant sinners. The language clearly distingues the “righteous” from the repentant sinners. If the righteous are not repentant sinners, who are they?And who does the faithful brother of the prodigal son represent?
 
Racer X:
I’m just feeling out the boundaries here, wondering what sorts of scenarios are compatible with what the Church teaches and which are not.
Click to expand...
I listed five dogmas of the Catholic Church that I thought were germane to your first post.

Do you have any problem with any of these five dogmas?
 
40.png
Matt16_18:
I listed five dogmas of the Catholic Church that I thought were germane to your first post.

Do you have any problem with any of these five dogmas?
Click to expand...
I don’t have a problem with ANY dogmas of the Catholic Church. 🙂

However, that said, I do not really understand them. The gist of them, though, seem to be that in a state of fallen nature I am not able to choose a sin-free life. I am not sure what it means to have free will then. I didn’t even choose to have this fallen nature, did I?

But I don’t feel compelled to understand these dogmas in their fine print. I think it is enough to recognize that (1) I am truly guilty of being a disobedient creature. I can’t blame God for causing me to be this way. (2) I can’t escape it without God’s help.

I strongly suspect that if I pursued these grace/will questions deeply, I would find at bottom it is a mystery, that we cannot fully state what our situation is, but only what it is not. It is not Pelagianism, it is not Calvinism, etc.

But in the context of this thread, is my supposition about the existence of unfallen brethren at odds with our Catholic teaching or not?
 
First, when you fully understand the relationship of time to the physical universe–that is, that time is part of the physical universe–the question of whether souls exist before embodiment is meaningless. If they are not embodied in the physical universe, you can’t ascribe a time to them. So that part of Catholic teaching is certainly true.
Click to expand...
Remember, though, that human souls come into existance in the “physical” world, not somewhere else. They are therefore tied to time, and can be said to “come into existance” rather than eternally existing. It’s a matter of semantics, but I just want to clear up what I mean.

Furthermore, I think you might be reading too much into the words of Jesus; it’s a parrable, after all, and limited in its scope of explaination. It doesn’t really suggest any “unfallen” souls per se, but only those who don’t stray from the flock. Whether this flock represents “born again” Christians, or humanity, or some other race is not perfectly clear. The point of the tale seems to be to show God’s devotion to bringing strays to God, not to illustrate deeper dogmatic Truths about the saved and unsaved. Most of Jesus’ stories are like this.
The gist of them, though, seem to be that in a state of fallen nature I am not able to choose a sin-free life. I am not sure what it means to have free will then. I didn’t even choose to have this fallen nature, did I?
Click to expand...
Again you must seperate Personal Sin from the fallen state known as Original Sin. Original Sin is not sin at all in the sense of us doing something bad, but rather the consequence of a particular sin, that of Adam and Eve. We can’t choose to be without Original Sin because we don’t control the transmission of the consequence through birth. We CAN choose to live without sinning, however. Mary, for example, COULD have sinned despite the fact that she was free from the consequences of Adam and Eve’s action. Such people are very, VERY rare, however, and are obviously blessed with many Graces (as we all are if we open ourselves to them).

Lets make a simple example: A person who carelessly plays with fire is doing wrong, and, as a consequence, his house burns down. Now if others lived in that house they have inherited the consequence of a burned down house even though they themselves have never done wrong, and may NEVER play with fire. They can choose to never abuse fire, but they can not choose to live in the house prior to it burning; the consequence of the other’s behavior is binding on all of them. These people “live with the burden of sin” for their entire lives, yet they may never do anything to deserve it personally. In the case of humans, there is no person (except Mary) who does not deal with the consequences of sin.

Now the consequences of the Original Sin push people towards personal sin, like an unwanted weight pulling a person down in the water. Most people fall to this, and are therefore personally fallen as well as corporately fallen as a member of our race. No person is naturally immaculate, however, as the consequence of the Original Sin is that all subsequent generations are distanced from God, and do not share the Beatific Vision and closeness to God that was Adam and Eve’s birthright. It doesn’t necessarily make us personally to blame, but the problem remains none the less, just as in the burned house example.
 
In a sense, the angels are “unfallen brethren” in that they are fellow creatures of God who haven’t fallen. There’s nothing at odds about this. The only thing at odds is if someone claims that there are unfallen humans.
 
Frank Sheed’s book Theology and Sanity gives an outstanding explanation of original sin and the fallen nature of man.
 
Racer X

I don’t have a problem with ANY dogmas of the Catholic Church. However, that said, I do not really understand them. The gist of them, though, seem to be that in a state of fallen nature I am not able to choose a sin-free life.

Let us discuss some dogmas of the Catholic Church in a chain of reasoning. If you aren’t following me, ask for me to clarify what I am saying, and I will do my best. 🙂

First step in my argument: Let us remember that Adam and Eve were in a state of grace when they chose to be disobedient. This is a key that opens up the problem that you are struggling with. Next, let me acknowledge that it is true that in your fallen state, that without God’s grace, that you are incapable of living a sin-free life. However, that does not mean that you don’t have free will in your fallen state. In your fallen state you have the freedom to accept the graces that God gives you to be saved from your fallen state.

Second step of my argument: Let us acknowledge that God desires all men be saved from their fallen state.

The Lord is … not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:9

God our Savior … desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
1Tim 2: 3-4

To sum up thus far: God desires that all men be saved. God understands that we are born in original sin. God understands that without his grace that we can never be saved from our bondage to sin.

Third step in my argument: It is a dogma of the Church that God gives to all men the sufficient grace necessary for their salvation.

Despite men’s sins God truly and earnestly desires the salvation of all men.

God gives all innocent unbelievers sufficient grace to achieve eternal salvation.

Dr. Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

**Catechism of the Catholic Church

2001** The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. …

2002 God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man.

Now let us go back to the beginning of the argument: Adam and Eve were in a state of grace when they committed the sin of disobedience. Accepting this truth, we should be able to see that a fallen man can be given the grace he needs to be saved, and that a man, by his own free will, can refuse to cooperate with the grace that is sufficient for his salvation. This too is a dogma of the Catholic Church.

“There is grace which is truly sufficient and yet remains inefficacious.”

Dr. Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

in·ef·fi·ca·cious adj. Not capable of producing a desired effect or result; ineffective.

Conclusion of my argument: It is never God’s fault that his sufficient grace is inefficacious. If the grace that God gives to a man for his salvation does not produce his salvation, then the fault lies with man that exercised his free will to reject the sufficient grace that was offered to him.

Now let me take that conclusion and go one step beyond what you have asked. We cannot say that because we are children of the Fall, that God’s grace is insufficient for the observation of God’s commandments.

God gives all the just sufficient grace for the observation of the divine commandments.

Dr. Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma

If we are damned to hell, it will be because we chose to exercise our free will for disobedience to God instead of obedience to God.
 
Racer X

Speculation: are there brethren who are not fallen, who are in heaven (or somewhere else) completely at peace with God and who consequently need not ever been born here on earth?

Mary was not born in a fallen state, she is at peace with God, and she is in heaven. We know for a fact that God preserved at least Mary from the consequences of original sin. Did Mary have a need to be born on earth? I can say for sure that I have a need for a Savior, and that without Mary’s fiat I would be in big trouble.

Who are these righteous persons that need no repentance? Are not all sinners?

A person that is baptized and living in a state of grace possesses the righteousness of Christ. On earth, at any given time, there are men that are in a state of sanctifying grace and men that are not in a state of sanctifying grace. Apparently, the angels and saints in Heaven rejoice when a man turns away from his sin, and accepts the graces that God gives to him so that he can possess the righteousness of Christ.
 
Racer X:
The gist of them, though, seem to be that in a state of fallen nature I am not able to choose a sin-free life. I am not sure what it means to have free will then. I didn’t even choose to have this fallen nature, did I?
Click to expand...
A couple of points:
  1. Because of original sin, our nature is damaged, making us more prone to personal sin.
  2. Through Baptism, original sin is removed and we are filled with sanctifying grace. It doesn’t fully restore our nature (we still have concupiscience), but by living in this state of grace, we are helped by God to avoid sin. We become adopted sons of God.
  3. Sanctifying Grace is an abiding grace. It is intended to stay with us and within us. If we do lose it through freely chosen sin, we can regain it by repentance through the sacrament of reconciliation.
  4. Through prayer and living a Christian life, God provides us with constant helps to avoid sin. (We always called this “actual grace” --a supernatural help.
  5. The church teaches that it is possible, using the sacraments, to grow in holiness and lead lives of heroic sanctity. We don’t have to sin. And we honor the saints who achieve such sanctity.
In summary, you didn’t choose to have a fallen nature, and can’t avoid having one. But, especially after receiving the Gospel and the graces of Baptism, you can avoid sin.

With regard to the parables, I don’t think that Jesus was referring to the children when he refers to the 99 sheep who stay and the one who went astray. He talks about the children’s guardian angels; then goes on to talk about those people who consistently follow his message (the 99) and the one who goes astray that the shepherd will seek out. It’s two separate sayings, even though they are close together.

JimG
 
JimG

Through Baptism, original sin is removed and we are filled with sanctifying grace. It doesn’t fully restore our nature (we still have concupiscience) …

The gift of the freedom of concupiscence that Adam and Eve possessed in the Garden is a preternatural gift, i.e. it is a gift that does not belong to the nature of men. We have a fully human nature with or without the preternatural gift of freedom of concupiscence.

In summary, you didn’t choose to have a fallen nature, and can’t avoid having one.

Of course you can choose not to have a fallen nature. All you have to do is to choose to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. 🙂

after receiving the Gospel and the graces of Baptism, you can avoid sin

Amen to that. 👍
 
Racer X:
Speculation: are there brethren who are not fallen, who are in heaven (or somewhere else) completely at peace with God and who consequently need not ever been born here on earth?
Click to expand...
Now for the speculative part.

Many decades ago I read a book of a most unusual genre which can only be described as “Catholic science fiction.” The title was Starman. I don’t remember the author.

The story involved a person who came to earth from another planet, by accident, if I recall correctly. He was not a weird looking alien, but human in appearance.

In the story line he happens to read the Bible, and is startled, because his world has nothing like it. Seems that no saviour had ever appeard on his planet. Did they not need one? Or did God not choose to send one? Wish I could answer but I just don’t recall the details! Sorry!

I guess the upshot is that if there are rational beings on other planets who are capable of sinning, then it’s between them and God, and something that we are not privy to. As I recall, the “starman” in this book was a bit envious that God had sent us a Savior.

JimG
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top