If our children disobey us and take sweets from strange men etc. then we admonish them sure but we don’t visit cosmic vengeance on them and their descendents! .
But what can we promise our children? We have given them life – a gift we don’t really possess ourselves (we are not the authors of it). We can give them some promise of protection and support. But we cannot protect them against many things – and ultimately, we give them a life that will end (in materialistic terms). It will end sooner or later. So, we admonish them with a goal in mind. Parents might want the child to be successful in business or sports or the arts – so the punishment will be aligned to the promise of the future.
The promise that God gives is eternal – far, far greater than anything we can give anyone. We are entrusted with greater things – deep treasures.
If you were entrusted with the retirement fund of a large corporation – would you expect a greater or lesser punishment for defrauding that versus losing someone’s pocket change?
Those who have been given more, of them, more will be expected.
Adam and Eve were given profound treasures of knowledge and grace and happiness and life. They were asked to be grateful for that and obey a simple commandment. They carried the fate of humanity in their decision.
We all do the same. Our own sins affect our children – but we sin anyway.
Moral perfection. That is something to consider. We are called to strive for that lofty goal – moral and spiritual perfection.
If the strange man was dressed as a policeman, a doctor or any other figure that we had taught our children to respect then we would not blame the child for not seeing through the deception.
Well, God did not teach them to respect the serpent. But the deception requires a willingness to be deceived. Eve knew the tree was off-limits, but she drifted over to it. She had a willingness to sin in her heart – a willingness to risk God’s love by betraying him.
If the serpent was able to deceive them into thinking that they would benefit by disobeying God then their understanding of the situation was clearly flawed.
Their understanding was flawed because even while living in a blessed condition, they were still required to have faith. So, they had some limits – as all creatures (even the angels) must have.
They had been deceived into thinking that they could benefit by eating the forbidden fruit.
Yes, they re-defined “benefit” as something oriented in themselves, and not as a gift from their Father. That’s the classic temptation. They saw a partial good – which proved to be evil because it was chosen against God’s plan.
They had never encountered deliberate deception before ( let alone the supernaturally empowered kind) so how could they be expected to see through it?
Their knowledge was angelic (virtually). Their minds were not obstructed by ordinary human tendencies to error, laziness, distortion, misunderstanding. Additionally, the human being is not simply a “walking intelligence”. Even the greatest minds can make immoral choices. There is the heart or will to consider. If it is directed to the ultimate good, then all choices will be good. If it wanders and seeks itself or lesser goods, it can fall very badly, as Adam and Eve did.
It is reasonable to suppose that Satan would know that and be well able to distort Adam and Eve’s perception of reality so that when they exercised their “free will” they did what he wanted them to do. Good detective fiction does that kind of thing all the time and we love it.
If that was true, then Adam and Eve would not have guilt. That’s Catholic morality itself. If the person is not free to choose, then there can’t be any guilt assigned. But we have to accept that Adam and Eve had pure minds with great intelligence. They spoke directly with God and were friends of God. That only happens rarely, with people who are so pure in mind and heart that God can live in and with them without any obstacle. They had that quality. So how could they be deceived by Satan?
But doesn’t that mean they never had any opportunity at all to think about morality and discuss it with others? They would have known less than a modern 3 year old child when they met the supernatural serpent deceiver.
I don’t see it that way at all. Again, they were like angels in their intelligence (a much lesser degree, but still very advanced).
Merely having a vision of God communicates vast knowledge and wisdom to a person. To live with God is to be transformed within. We could call it “infused knowledge”.
But what language did they speak, if any, and how did they learn it?
Some studies of Catholic visionaries and seers showed that they communicate with God often in an unknown language.
There were no “saints” and we would not call a modern human who’s judgement was totally uninformed by any knowledge of sin and it effects “wise”.
Again, I’d use the example of angels who do not know sin at all (they can’t possibly commit a sin). They have immense wisdom.
So how can the naive childlike Adam and Eve be to blame for a sin worthy of cosmic levels of vengeance?
Adam and Eve were creatures of God so whatever innocence they had came from him. The concept of innocence came from him – as did the possibility of sin. Animals don’t have the chance to sin, but Adam and Eve did. But they also had a huge responsibility to all of their ancestors.
We also shouldn’t consider their sin to cause a hopeless situation. It provides us with a challenge – Satan is able to have tremendous influence against us, and there is a great deal of suffering as a result. But by overcoming sin, we achieve remarkable things that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
Well, I for one can’t see any “obvious” evidence of God’s love and care? So you are saying that I need to be “most severe punished” (rather than educated) for that. That claim is, in itself, hardly evidence of a loving God?
Well, it depends. I asked you on another post where and how you have looked for God’s love and care. St. Paul did say that evidence for God was so obvious that nobody could be excused for not-believing, even pagans who had no benefit of the Jewish scriptures.
As for the punishment attached, we’re taught certain things about that, but I didn’t intend anything to you personally. I didn’t know that you were an atheist before I started posting on this thread.
in spite of 15 years of Catholic Education, I am unable to see the God idea as being a credible model of reality.
Well, you should be quite familiar with Catholic mystics and of the writings of the saints. Personally, I’d wonder how you’ve been able to deny the existence of the supernatural, or why you’ve found those many writings to lack credibility.
I don’t control what I believe and I can’t see why I should be severely punished for something that I don’t control.
You’re not punished for things you don’t control, but for the misuse of the things that you do control. First, that would be your mind and your moral faculties. You control those (or are expected to control them) by directing them to whatever is good and avoiding what is evil. When the proposition of God is offered for consideration (the ultimate good), we all have the responsibility to pursue that idea and to seek it.
Even if a person denies the existence of God (perfect, goodness, justice, eternal wisdom, etc) – there is a responsibility to posit the “next best thing”. Why? Because we are required to seek the highest good. If it’s not God, then it’s something else. So it depends.
