The Fall of man

[GramdpaMunster]

When God created man he created us in his own image. This tells us that we are different from animals even though in a biological sense we’re really nothing more than another species. The image had nothing to do with physical characteristics, it had something to do with the mind. We can think abstractly. Man(Adam) was in a garden with the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good an evil. The serpant told man he would be like God if he ate the tree of knowlege. As you know Satan is the prince of lies and this has not happened. The knowledge of good and evil gave us reasoning ability that we can’t handle. Everyone knows that war is bad but no one can stop it. The same with vice and famine (most of which has a political cause).

• In what way was the knowledge of good and evil different from the mind that was created in the image of God? Man must have had the ability to engage in ethical reasoning before tha fall but the fall corrupted it.
• The lie “You will be like God” has to do with distorted thinking about our place in the earth. Many religions teach that our soul is divine and we are trying to reunite with God. Other religions teach that we live eternally and reincarnate. In reality we are made out of dust and to dust we shall return.

 

[durhamfire]

amen. bu our souls shall live forever with the lord in heaven and our bodies will be given back to us so we can be fully human in heaven.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

When God created man he created us in his own image. This tells us that we are different from animals even though in a biological sense we’re really nothing more than another species. The image had nothing to do with physical characteristics, it had something to do with the mind. We can think abstractly. Man(Adam) was in a garden with the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good an evil. The serpant told man he would be like God if he ate the tree of knowlege. As you know Satan is the prince of lies and this has not happened. The knowledge of good and evil gave us reasoning ability that we can’t handle. Everyone knows that war is bad but no one can stop it. The same with vice and famine (most of which has a political cause).

• In what way was the knowledge of good and evil different from the mind that was created in the image of God? Man must have had the ability to engage in ethical reasoning before tha fall but the fall corrupted it.
• The lie “You will be like God” has to do with distorted thinking about our place in the earth. Many religions teach that our soul is divine and we are trying to reunite with God. Other religions teach that we live eternally and reincarnate. In reality we are made out of dust and to dust we shall return.

Bible literalists, proud of the “It’s-literally-true!” rallying cry, make it difficult for us to understand the Adam and Eve story.

Instead of viewing the story as history, view it as Dr.-Seuss-level fiction, told with a smile.

If I steal something I shouldn’t have, after I do so my conscience bothers me. I think, “Oooohhhhh! That was bad! I should not have done that!” When my conscience “kicks in,” I suddenly “‘know’ what is good and what is bad,” "like God Who sets the rules.

That’s it. That’s what the serpent means in the story.

The story isn’t positing some deep, hard-to-grasp mystical truth about a step in the process of anthropological development.

The Satan serpent in the story is telling a kid-level lie comprising a kid-level joke in a kid-level story.

 

[Nita]

Instead of viewing the story as history, view it as Dr.-Seuss-level fiction, told with a smile.

.

If that’s how you view Scripture/Genesis, why even bother reading it?

I can’t think of a single doctor of the Church, saint, or Pope who viewed Genesis as a “Dr-Seuss-level fiction, told with a smile”.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

If that’s how you view Scripture/Genesis, why even bother reading it?

I can’t think of a single doctor of the Church, saint, or Pope who viewed Genesis as a “Dr-Seuss-level fiction, told with a smile”.

Why bother reading it?

Because the story, read as Dr.-Seuss-like fiction, suddenly makes perfect sense, and explains why Christ had to come.

If we view the story as kid-level Dr.-Seuss-like fiction, it can suddenly be a hypothetical applicable to all of us.

In fact, the story is a hypothetical showing what all of us would be like, and showing how all of us would handle every single moral decision, if grace were not available.

So, the story solves the problem of man – how all of us would handle every single moral decision badly if grace did not exist – by ending with a prediction of the “grace-generator,” Christ, and of His grace-generating crucifixion!

 

[Nita]

Why bother reading it?

Because the story, read as Dr.-Seuss-like fiction, suddenly makes perfect sense, and explains why Christ had to come.

If we view the story as kid-level Dr.-Seuss-like fiction, it can suddenly be a hypothetical applicable to all of us.

In fact, the story is a hypothetical showing what all of us would be like, and showing how all of us would handle every single moral decision, if grace were not available.

So, the story solves the problem of man – how all of us would handle every single moral decision badly if grace did not exist – by ending with a prediction of the “grace-generator,” Christ, and of His grace-generating crucifixion!

Who do you think authored the fictional story of Genesis - God or man? (Came up with the ideas of the characters and events in Genesis?)

 

[edwest2]

Bible literalists, proud of the “It’s-literally-true!” rallying cry, make it difficult for us to understand the Adam and Eve story.

Instead of viewing the story as history, view it as Dr.-Seuss-level fiction, told with a smile.

If I steal something I shouldn’t have, after I do so my conscience bothers me. I think, “Oooohhhhh! That was bad! I should not have done that!” When my conscience “kicks in,” I suddenly “‘know’ what is good and what is bad,” "like God Who sets the rules.

That’s it. That’s what the serpent means in the story.

The story isn’t positing some deep, hard-to-grasp mystical truth about a step in the process of anthropological development.

The Satan serpent in the story is telling a kid-level lie comprising a kid-level joke in a kid-level story.

That is not true. Learn what the Church actually teaches from the Library of this site:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

Peace,
Ed

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Who do you think authored the fictional story of Genesis - God or man? (Came up with the ideas of the characters and events in Genesis?)

I think that God the Holy Spirit “tickled” the minds of those responsible for making-up the story and rendering it, until it took its final form, in Scripture, as we know it.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

That is not true. Learn what the Church actually teaches from the Library of this site:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

Peace,
Ed

I know what the Church says about the story, by-and-large, to modern audiences.

I think that the main teaching of that story has been missed by the Church.

But, the same lesson comes out of Scripture, elsewhere:

The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9.

I believe that what Man would be like, if grace were not made available, is discussed, here. It is why we need grace – why Christ had to come, and suffer, and die.

I am not wrong.

 

[Nita]

I think that the main teaching of that story has been missed by the Church.

…

I am not wrong.

Interesting. At least we know where you’re coming from.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Interesting. At least we know where you’re coming from.

The Bible, too.

 

[bookgirl32]

I think that the main teaching of that story has been missed by the Church.

But you caught it huh?

I am not wrong.

Apparently so.

 

[dcdurel]

When God created man he created us in his own image. This tells us that we are different from animals even though in a biological sense we’re really nothing more than another species. The image had nothing to do with physical characteristics, it had something to do with the mind. We can think abstractly. Man(Adam) was in a garden with the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good an evil.

Being made in the image and likeness of God means, according to the catechism:

1. only man is “able to know and love his creator”. Animals cannot know and love
   God.
2. and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life.
   Animals cannot share, by knowledge and love in God’s own life

The serpant told man he would be like God if he ate the tree of knowlege. As you know Satan is the prince of lies and this has not happened.

Actually we can be like God. That is why He created us, to share in His own life.
But God wants us to do it His way, not Satan’s way.

The knowledge of good and evil gave us reasoning ability that we can’t handle.

Actually, Adam and Eve had far greater reasoning powers than us. They lost it
when they sinned. The Church teaches that their mind was darkened and their will was weakened. And we inherit those faults.

Everyone knows that war is bad but no one can stop it. The same with vice and famine (most of which has a political cause).

We have wars and famines, (which I agree, are mostly political) because men have free wills and some men often chose to do evil, instead of what is good.

The real evil that came from the fall, was that man is no longer master of himself.
He had become a slave to sin.

But, God loved us so much, that He sent His son, Jesus to free us from the slavery of sin. Thus salvation is the gift of God that liberates us from everything that oppresses us, especially the liberation from sin and the power of the devil.

 

[GramdpaMunster]

“Actually we can be like God. That is why He created us, to share in His own life.
But God wants us to do it His way, not Satan’s way.”

In what way can we be like God? We are dust and to dust we shall return. We were created to be caretakers of the garden of eden.

“Adam and Eve had far greater reasoning powers than us. They lost it
when they sinned.”
This may or may not be true, my first thought on it is if they had greater reasoning power than us why did they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and not the tree of life?

 

[Peter_Dawson]

But you caught it huh?

Yes.

I think that Bible literalism – the enormous demand that the Bible be read literally, only – has completely inundated and drowned any desire to read the story as it was written, and as it was meant to be read.

The ironic result of this is that it created complications – not simplicity.

For example, in the story God sets out to create a proper partner for Adam, and then stupidly tries to match Adam up with animals, and fails, and so He then finally gets around to creating Eve, when God perceives the error of His Own ways.

Viewing that story as “history” creates the belief that God errs.

Does God err? Or, isn’t that just a Dr.-Seuss-level joke in an ancient Hebrew children’s story?

Do you see what I mean?

In response to God’s second try, Adam says, “I will call her ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

Did that really happen? Is that history?

No. It is another ancient Hebrew joke. In Hebrew the line reads like this…

“I will call her ish-shah, for out of i-shah this one has been taken.”

If we translate the logic of the Hebrew language pun into English, and not the words themselves, here is what is going on…

“I will call her a ‘herman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

In Hebrew, Adam is calling Eve a “herman”!

The ancient Hebrew kids, sitting around the campfire as the ancient Hebrew storyteller told this, would laugh.

In other words, ancient Hebrew children viewed the story more intelligtently than today’s Biblical literalists, who completely misunderstand the story.

 

[bookgirl32]

Yes.

I think that Bible literalism – the enormous demand that the Bible be read literally, only – has completely inundated and drowned any desire to read the story as it was written, and as it was meant to be read.

It’s a good thing this is not how the Church insists we read the Genesis story, that is, literally.

The ironic result of this is that it created complications – not simplicity.

I personally don’t think it’s hard to understand. I think your idea of “simplicity” is irrelevant.

For example, in the story God sets out to create a proper partner for Adam, and then stupidly tries to match Adam up with animals, and fails, and so He then finally gets around to creating Eve, when God perceives the error of His Own ways.

Viewing that story as “history” creates the belief that God errs.

I think, again, you need to get a little better idea of how the Church reads Genesis.

Does God err? Or, isn’t that just a Dr.-Seuss-level joke in an ancient Hebrew children’s story?

Do you see what I mean?

No, I don’t. You could say that it was “simplified” in order to get the complex theological truth across. Again, we’re not required by the Church to read it word for word literally. I do think you are oversimplifiying it.

In response to God’s second try, Adam says, “I will call her ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

Did that really happen? Is that history?

No. It is another ancient Hebrew joke. In Hebrew the line reads like this…

“I will call her ish-shah, for out of i-shah this one has been taken.”

If we translate the logic of the Hebrew language pun into English, and not the words themselves, here is what is going on…

“I will call her a ‘herman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

In Hebrew, Adam is calling Eve a “herman”!

The ancient Hebrew kids, sitting around the campfire as the ancient Hebrew storyteller told this, would laugh.

Wow, maybe you should also run this by some Jews and see what they say as well.

In other words, ancient Hebrew children viewed the story more intelligtently than today’s Biblical literalists, who completely misunderstand the story.

Good thing the Catholic Church is not a Bible literalist, nor does it require this of it’s members. Did you think that it did?

 

[Peter_Dawson]

It’s a good thing this is not how the Church insists we read the Genesis story, that is, literally.

The Church read the story with substantial literalism for centuries. Most of the people in this website condemn those who, like you and I do, deny that “Adam and Eve existed.” (Post a denial that Adam and Eve existed, and watch what happens.) Functionally, they reflect the Church’s oldest position.

The Church still has within its teaching two remaining literalist interpretations: We are taught to believe that Original Sin was an actual sinful act in history, by the first two humans, which induced God to attach negative consequences to their 100-billion-or-so direct descendants; and we are taught to believe that every single ensouled human is directly descended from that sinful pair. I believe neither teaching, as taught, but amend them severely because I believe they are in need of severe amendment.

And then, the Church simply fails to teach what the story is undoubtedly intended to teach: LITERAL LEVEL LESSON: “Do you see Adam and Eve? Well, that’s each of us, without grace. That’s how every single one of us would handle every single moral question without grace – badly.” FIGURATIVE LEVEL LESSON: “The One Sent by God to purchase grace will willingly take the sins of mankind upon himself, and then be crucified.”

I personally don’t think it’s hard to understand. I think your idea of “simplicity” is irrelevant. I think, again, you need to get a little better idea of how the Church reads Genesis.

Nah! I’m good!

No, I don’t. You could say that it was “simplified” in order to get the complex theological truth across. Again, we’re not required by the Church to read it word for word literally. I do think you are oversimplifiying it.

One of the Church’s remaining literalist doctrines based on the story, “pure monogenesis,” requires that we believe that every single ensouled homo sapiens is a direct descendant of the first two ensouled homo sapiens. In other words, everyone’s family tree – everyone’s – begins with them.

That ineluctably requires incest.

I think that that teaching is very, very hardcore error, of the most elementary sort.

The other literalist doctrine based on the story, that Original Sin was in fact what the Baltimore Catechism referred to as “Actual Sin,” misreads our internal moral dynamics, and implies that God is “evil” in two important ways.

First, it has God unjustly extending the consequences of the sin of two people, centuries ago, to the next 100 billion human beings.

Suppose I punished my great grandchildren for a sin committed by my children. Would God be happy with me?

Or, instead, do God’s Own rules condemn God’s Own actions as taught by the Church?

Next, it has God extending concupisence – sin proneness – to the next 100 billion human beings as a “punishment” for the sin of those two ancestors, centuries ago.

In other words, God “punishes” the sin of two ancient people by intentionally “throwing a sin party” for the next 100 billion human beings.

Does that really make sense? Suppose I punish my children’s sin by leaving heroin and cocaine in the homes of my great grand children.

Is doing that good, or evil?

Re misreading internal dynamics, I will not go into that, now. It is a subtle problem.

Wow, maybe you should also run this by some Jews and see what they say as well.

I am married to one. She and her family and their rabbis all agree.

 

[paul_c]

I know what the Church says about the story, by-and-large, to modern audiences.

I think that the main teaching of that story has been missed by the Church.

But, the same lesson comes out of Scripture, elsewhere:

The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Jeremiah 17:9.

I believe that what Man would be like, if grace were not made available, is discussed, here. It is why we need grace – why Christ had to come, and suffer, and die.

I am not wrong.

Peter, you think that you understand the main teaching of the Genesis story that was missed by 2000 years of Catholic theologians and clergy. How is it that you are so confident in your own abilities?

 

[bookgirl32]

The Church read the story with substantial literalism for centuries. Most of the people in this website condemn those who, like you and I do, deny that “Adam and Eve existed.” (Post a denial that Adam and Eve existed, and watch what happens.) Functionally, they reflect the Church’s oldest position.

First of all, I never said I denied that Adam and Eve existed. Second of all, I do believe that a human actually committed the first sin, thus, original sin. You almost sound as if you think that God created us the way were are now so that we would have need for His grace. Would you say that is accurate?

The Church still has within its teaching two remaining literalist interpretations: We are taught to believe that Original Sin was an actual sinful act in history, by the first two humans, which induced God to attach negative consequences to their 100-billion-or-so direct descendants; and we are taught to believe that every single ensouled human is directly descended from that sinful pair. I believe neither teaching, as taught, but amend them severely because I believe they are in need of severe amendment.

So do you still call yourself Catholic? And by what authority are you making these statements of belief (and calling them correct), your own? Where do you get your authority?

And then, the Church simply fails to teach what the story is undoubtedly intended to teach.: LITERAL LEVEL LESSON: “Do you see Adam and Eve? Well, that’s each of us, without grace. That’s how every single one of us would handle every single moral question without grace – badly.” FIGURATIVE LEVEL LESSON: “The One Sent by God to purchase grace will willingly take the sins of mankind upon himself, and the be crucified.”

Again, are you saying that you think there was no original sin? That God originally intended us to be the way we are now?

Nah! I’m good!

Okay, then I urge you to look into that part about the Church being the pillar of truth, etc. and if you believe abslute truth was specifically revealed and if it is then who has the authority to claim it? I think you’re questioning of the Church is going far beyond the creation story in Genesis.

One of the Church’s remaining literalist doctrines based on the story, “pure monogenesis,” requires that we believe that every single ensouled homo sapiens is a direct descendant of the first two ensouled homo sapiens. In other words, everyone’s family tree – everyone’s – begins with them.

That ineluctably requires incest.

I think that that teaching is very, very hardcore error, of the most elementary sort.

Can you show me this in official Church teaching? I mean the pure monogenesis part. I’m not necessarily saying that it doesn’t exist within Church teaching, I honestly don’t know. I would, however, like to read it in context and not just take your word for it.

I am married to one. She and her family and their rabbis all agree.

So maybe you should, again, if you really consider yourself Catholic?

 

[paul_c]

Peter,
There was a time when I thought that I too, knew more than the church. Then one day, by the grace of God, I came to understand that this was a tremendously ignorant and egotistical way to think. After all, no matter how smart I thought I was, how could I ever hope to out think a 1Billion strong church, which had more time, insight and holiness than I had. I started opening up to listen to what the church had to say and why it said it. I quickly found that there were lots of things that I didn’t know or didn’ consider in making my own judgements. The more I studied, the more I came to understand that the Church has been teaching the same truths for 2000 years and that over that time, the reasoning had become very refined because it had to answer 2000 years of questions and objectives. I naturally became aligned to Chruch teachings and now, if something doesn’t seem right, (which happens very rarely now), I know that I just haven’t understood all the issues yet.

As for the original sin itself, this is the line the serpent uses in Genesis 3:5:
No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad."

Don’t you see. He promised that they would know what is good and what is bad. Well, they already knew what was good. But that wasn’t good enough for them. They wanted more, so they learned what was evil:. At its essence, this was following their own will, rather than the will of God. And once human kind became self centic rather than God-centric, it became part of the DNA so to speak.