The Fall

  • Thread starter Thread starter truthseeker32
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

truthseeker32

Guest
In my quest to build my faith in the RCC I have hit another road block. I have a few questions regarding the fall.

Assuming that you take the story of the fall of Adam and Eve literally:
  1. how did evolution take place if there was no death and suffering prior to the fall?
  2. If Adam and Eve were ignorant to good and evil prior to the fall, how can god justify punishing them and their posterity for their choice?
 
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

"How to read the account of the fall

390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.265"

264 Cf. GS 13 § 1.
265 Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513; Pius XII: DS 3897; Paul VI: AAS 58 (1966), 654.

vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is found in full online.

Original sin:
newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm

God had set a rule. They disobeyed the rule They had access to everything else, but in what is often human response they rejected the one rule God had made. They were free to obey or disobey.
You tell your small child not to touch the hot stove. He or she is free to play with everything else. Your child broke the rule. Until your child burned its hands it was innocent of the consequences, a burn injury.

For propensity to sin of all people who live. Yes, we have the gift of free will, but which of us doesn’t use it against God’s commands many times in our lives.
 
truthseeker32 said:
In my quest to build my faith in the RCC I have hit another road block. I have a few questions regarding the fall.

Assuming that you take the story of the fall of Adam and Eve literally:
  1. how did evolution take place if there was no death and suffering prior to the fall?
  2. If Adam and Eve were ignorant to good and evil prior to the fall, how can god justify punishing them and their posterity for their choice?
Click to expand...
Trishe gave you great links. Also check out Aquinas’ philosophy on the condition of man, pre-Fall in his Summa Theologica. Look under the head "Man (Spirit and Matter) where it says “ORIGIN (FIRST MAN)”

As to #1, consider the possibility that original sin affected creation in 2 directions of time, not by erasing history and re-doing it, but in anticipation of that sin.
 
truthseeker32 said:
In my quest to build my faith in the RCC I have hit another road block. I have a few questions regarding the fall.

Assuming that you take the story of the fall of Adam and Eve literally:
  1. how did evolution take place if there was no death and suffering prior to the fall?
  2. If Adam and Eve were ignorant to good and evil prior to the fall, how can god justify punishing them and their posterity for their choice?
Click to expand...
  1. Death is natural for man, but man was preserved from death in the Garden by a special act of God (we call this a preternatural gift). It is possible that God allowed physical evil and the death of creatures in the world prior to our first parents, but as soon has he infused the first human soul, gave man the gift of immortality and freedom from suffering. Thus, one might theorize that there was an evolutionary development, but when man first truly became man (i.e. with the infusion of a rational soul by God), then at that moment the preternatural gifts began.
  2. They had knolwedge of good and evil in the sense of knowing right from wrong. They did not have the experience of evil, however. Knowing it was wrong to break God’s commandment is suffient grounds for culpability.
 
Great answers. Thank you so much. I’m glad Catholics aren’t bible literalists.
 
Genesis 3 interestingly does not contain the words “sin” or “fall”.
 
truthseeker32 said:
In my quest to build my faith in the RCC I have hit another road block. I have a few questions regarding the fall.

Assuming that you take the story of the fall of Adam and Eve literally:
Click to expand...
Don’t know about assumptions… The best bet is to look at Divine Revelation as protected by the Catholic Church.
  1. how did evolution take place if there was no death and suffering prior to the fall?
Click to expand...
Catholicism does not have dogma’s regarding evolution in general. It does have dogma’s regarding God as Creator, etc.
  1. If Adam and Eve were ignorant to good and evil prior to the fall, how can god justify punishing them and their posterity for their choice?
Click to expand...
Adam was not ignorant.* Genesis 1: 26-27; Genesis 2: 8-9; Genesis 2:15-17; Genesis 3: 1-2; Genesis 3: 11; Genesis 3: 17.*

Basic Catholic teaching regarding Adam and the Fall (Original Sin) is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, ISBN: 1-57455-109-4
Paragraphs 355-421.

The good news of Jesus Christ follows in Paragraph 422, etc.

One can put the word paragraph and its number in the Catechism’s search bar in link www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
Entering topics, like Adam, is also very useful.

When you enter a paragraph number, like “paragraph 355”, and then click on the opening line, CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 355 you will see the following under the paragraph:

»
»
»
»St. Charles Borromeo Home

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect from the moment of conception.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top