Was Adam representitive of the entire human race?

[Benadam]

.

God wanted man to know good and evil to become like him. Therefore, he had to sin to be Godlike. If there was no evil, nothing could exist save God himelf. The inevitable fall was part of making man Godlike.

Hello Minkymurph,

I agree with alot of what you posted with the exception of the statement above.

I thought hard before deciding to post a disagreement because you don’t seem to be the confrontational sort and I hate to disrupt a disposition such as yours.
That being said;

A theological definition of evil is; that which lacks good.

Imagine that you make a cake. You wouldn’t need to see a cake that lacks one piece in order to know your cake as it was before that piece was eaten. On the contrary you would have to have seen your cake before it lacked a piece to know that a piece is missing.

I think it is St. Paul who teaches Truth exposes error by contrast. By no means can error expose truth by contrast. Knowing what is not true doesn’t reveal what is in regards of the absolute truth.

A fulfilled life doesn’t require unfulfilled life in order for it to be fulfilling. An unfulfilled life does require a fulfilled life in order for it to be known. Evidence of that is the obscurity of Original Innocense. How many people today think " it doesn’t get any better than this"? Even in our fallen state few realize the natural bliss that accompanies a conscience unburdened by personal sin. Personal sin in no way reveals what that feels like. But if one were to experience that natural bliss they would immediately know that what they experienced before lacked good.

That good requires evil to be known is an error that many anti-god people use to support their view. It’s the kind of error that casts an intense hue on almost everything one believes.

I hope you reconsider your belief that good requires evil, that God requires evil, that ultimately evil is good and that there is no such thing as evil.

 

[fhansen]

.

Hello Minkymurph,

I agree with alot of what you posted with the exception of the statement above.

I thought hard before deciding to post a disagreement because you don’t seem to be the confrontational sort and I hate to disrupt a disposition such as yours.
That being said;

A theological definition of evil is; that which lacks good.

Imagine that you make a cake. You wouldn’t need to see a cake that lacks one piece in order to know your cake as it was before that piece was eaten. On the contrary you would have to have seen your cake before it lacked a piece to know that a piece is missing.

I think it is St. Paul who teaches Truth exposes error by contrast. By no means can error expose truth by contrast. Knowing what is not true doesn’t reveal what is in regards of the absolute truth.

A fulfilled life doesn’t require unfulfilled life in order for it to be fulfilling. An unfulfilled life does require a fulfilled life in order for it to be known. Evidence of that is the obscurity of Original Innocense. How many people today think " it doesn’t get any better than this"? Even in our fallen state few realize the natural bliss that accompanies a conscience unburdened by personal sin. Personal sin in no way reveals what that feels like. But if one were to experience that natural bliss they would immediately know that what they experienced before lacked good.

That good requires evil to be known is an error that many anti-god people use to support their view. It’s the kind of error that casts an intense hue on almost everything one believes.

I hope you reconsider your belief that good requires evil, that God requires evil, that ultimately evil is good and that there is no such thing as evil.

But the result of the fall-of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil-was that man now experiences, or knows, good and evil, something he didn’t know in his original innocence. I think mm is saying that God intended from the beginning to bring a greater good out of the evil He knew would inevitably occur, which is a thoroughly Catholic concept, I believe. The idea, in my mind, is that man has the opportunity in this life, due to the conditions here and the revelation God has given us, to learn to choose the good-to choose to let God be God-as opposed to Adam & Eves’ wrong choice.

 

[Benadam]

But the result of the fall-of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil-was that man now experiences, or knows, good and evil, something he didn’t know in his original innocence. I think mm is saying that God intended from the beginning to bring a greater good out of the evil He knew would inevitably occur, which is a thoroughly Catholic concept, I believe. The idea, in my mind, is that man has the opportunity in this life, due to the conditions here and the revelation God has given us, to learn to choose the good-to choose to let God be God-as opposed to Adam & Eves’ wrong choice.

fhansen, hello

I enjoy reading your posts. Your contributions are thought provoking and insightfull.

The evil works of the devil turned to the good works of God can be a difficult concept to distinguish in words from the concept that evil is good. My apologies to minkymurph if I misread his post.

As for God knowing His creatures would reject Him I believe that to be true in the Beginning. We know in faith that the order God established in the beginning is the order that sustains all that exists and is fulfilled in time and human history when eternity envelops it in the hypostatic union established in Christ. That is a Divine revelation held in faith but like the concept of predestination, apart from the mystical experience, it can only be realized in eternity. For all practical purposes it must be stored away in order for us to remain grounded in the state of becoming natural to our earthly life. I think that we have to do the same in regards of God’s omniscience when considering how God relates to us. God stoops down to us. I believe the Incarnation reveals that He relates to us as one of us limited in as much as He deems good as we are limited. God, I believe wants us to know Him as He really is as we are able but wants more for us to relate to Him as one who shares with us a likeness and an image.

Time, I don’t doubt you know, is not linear to God since He is eternal but I believe when He communes with us He chooses to experience time as a human person without sin would. In the book of Revelation God makes the past as something that never was. Something that will never be present to the Divine Mind again. I believe God does the same with the future in the aspects of it that make relating to us unpractical. (not sure if that is the word. (name removed by moderator)ractical?)

For that reason I don’t subscribe to the philosophical hoops we tend to jump through in order to make relating to a being we are unable to fathom into something that resembles a meaningfull two way relationship. God, I believe has taken care of that.

The order God established in the beginning manifests His omniscience but that doesn’t prevent him from stooping down to us so low as to become one with us within that order so as to enjoy a practical meaningfull , loving, relationship as beings who share a likeness and an image.

Didn’t intend to be this wordy, sorry about that.

Peace

 

[minkymurph]

Will you and others here simply look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church (available online) and get the clear, total truth. All human beings contain Original Sin due to a sin freely committed by our first parents, Adam and Eve. All future human beings came from Adam and are descended from him.

That is the truth and the facts.

Stop speculating.

God bless,
Ed

I have to speculate I have an essay to write! I have to read more than the Catechism as well. I can’t just quote it and use it as my only source can I? I’m well aware I’m speculating but I don’t believe I’m speculating contrary to Church teaching. Theologians have speculated from the dawn of time. Not to refute established truth but to gain a deeper understanding of them. I believe there is deep, theological meaning to everything in Genesis. I believe it reveals the deepest mystery, the mystery of life itself. Not that we humans can grasp that mystery entirely, but we can deepen our understanding. I believe this is a philosophy forum and therefore we can discuss more than the Catechism.

 

[minkymurph]

I

who else but Eve would Cain’s image originate?]

 

[minkymurph]

My religious storm chasing seems to have gotten me sucked up into this here twister, and I appear to be heading southwest with the rest of the ejecta at about 158mph at an altitude of…

I love your humour! :extrahappy:

 

[minkymurph]

Since angels apparently didn’t have to go through the kinds of trials man must endure, do you think that man becomes “more Godlike” than them if he perseveres and wins the race set out for him? How would you compare unfallen angels, who also possess free wills, to man?

Haven’t a clue as I haven’t studied fallen angels. I don’t have an opinion on Saten’s fall as I don’t know enough to have an opnion. Can’t explain why some angels fell and some didn’t. I don’t know of any writings or Church teaching teaching on this subject either. If anyone can enlighten me feel free, it’s an interesting subject.

 

[minkymurph]

.
I hope you reconsider your belief that good requires evil, that God requires evil, that ultimately evil is good and that there is no such thing as evil.

It’s not my belief. I have a confession to make. I stole that idea from another medievil mystic. Meister Eckhart I believe. I’ve committed the mortal sin of plagerism but I’ve confessed. I don’t believe good requires evil. What I would say though, is the blackest times of our lives are often the times we learn the most. The blackest times of our lives can prompt us to return to God, (prodigal son) and can prompt us to take our faith less for granted. I’m not saying joyful times can’t do that. It happens in a different way though. I think of sin and knowing evil as more of a learning process for man. Not that good needs evil as God is the ultimate good who does not need evil. I think the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in Genesis is representitive of what man would inevitably have to know. While God is the source of all good and there is nothing evil in God, God has a knowledge of evil. It’s not that good depends on evil. Am I making sense?

 

[minkymurph]

.
I hope you reconsider your belief that good requires evil, that God requires evil, that ultimately evil is good and that there is no such thing as evil.

It’s not my belief. I have a confession to make. I stole that idea from another medievil mystic. Meister Eckhart I believe. I’ve committed the mortal sin of plagerism but I’ve confessed. I don’t believe good requires evil. What I would say though, is the blackest times of our lives are often the times we learn the most. The blackest times of our lives can prompt us to return to God, (prodigal son) and can prompt us to take our faith less for granted. I’m not saying joyful times can’t do that. It happens in a different way though. I think of sin and knowing evil as more of a learning process for man. Not that good needs evil as God is the ultimate good who does not need evil. I think the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in Genesis is representitive of what man would inevitably have to know. While God is the source of all good and there is nothing evil in God, God has a knowledge of evil. It’s not that good depends on evil. Am I making sense?

 

[minkymurph]

.
I hope you reconsider your belief that good requires evil, that God requires evil, that ultimately evil is good and that there is no such thing as evil.

It’s not my belief. I have a confession to make. I stole that idea from another medievil mystic. Meister Eckhart I believe. I’ve committed the mortal sin of plagerism but I’ve confessed. I don’t believe good requires evil. What I would say though, is the blackest times of our lives are often the times we learn the most. The blackest times of our lives can prompt us to return to God, (prodigal son) and can prompt us to take our faith less for granted. I’m not saying joyful times can’t do that. It happens in a different way though. I think of sin and knowing evil as more of a learning process for man. Not that good needs evil as God is the ultimate good who does not need evil. I think the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in Genesis is representitive of what man would inevitably have to know. While God is the source of all good and there is nothing evil in God, God has a knowledge of evil. It’s not that good depends on evil. Am I making sense?

 

[minkymurph]

fhansen, hello

My apologies to minkymurph if I misread his post.

No need to apologize for that but I’m a her not a him. That’s more offensive than disagreeing with my philosophy! Just joking.

 

[Karlsruhe]

Will you and others here simply look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church (available online) and get the clear, total truth.

This dear Ed
I’m afraid is totally, fully and altogether WRONG.
I thought I had posted it here these days, but I never owned a Catechism, nor looked anything up in such one.
Fact is, that when you believe, you “automatically” live in God. And when you live in God, you feel what’s right or wrong as sure as you know your name. And it comes naturally to you, that the word of Jesus Christ is purified truth.
It’s all that simple.

 

[santodomingo]

This dear Ed
I’m afraid is totally, fully and altogether WRONG.
I thought I had posted it here these days, but I never owned a Catechism, nor looked anything up in such one.
Fact is, that when you believe, you “automatically” live in God. And when you live in God, you feel what’s right or wrong as sure as you know your name. And it comes naturally to you, that the word of Jesus Christ is purified truth.
It’s all that simple.

Why do you assume that understanding the Catholic faith should be simple? Is the path to sainthood easy? Remember that most heresies have originated as an attempt to “simplify” the Truth. The definition of a mystery, according to St. Augustine, is a truth that one can never fathom. That does not mean it is meaningless or that it´s not worth studying the mystery.

I find it hard to get to grips with several truths of the catholic faith, including original sin, but I´m not going to give up. I´ll probably die trying to understand these things, but that doesn´t really matter, as I´ll get the answers in the other life!!

To abdicate any responsability in the area of religious education is extremely dangerous and silly. It´s like saying “I don´t care about my child´s education, as long as his heart´s in the right place”. Our brain was given to us to THINK. So why does anybody believe that God doesn´t want us to put our brain to use, thinking about Him?

 

[fhansen]

Haven’t a clue as I haven’t studied fallen angels. I don’t have an opinion on Saten’s fall as I don’t know enough to have an opnion. Can’t explain why some angels fell and some didn’t. I don’t know of any writings or Church teaching teaching on this subject either. If anyone can enlighten me feel free, it’s an interesting subject.

It’s not particularly important. The question comes up because angels, like us, have freewill but the unfallen ones apparently didn’t need to be cast out and separated from God-needing to know evil in order to learn to choose good. I suppose it just has to do with different purposes and roles God has for His creatures.

 

[Sam88]

While God is the source of all good and there is nothing evil in God, God has a knowledge of evil. It’s not that good depends on evil. Am I making sense?

Yep, perfect sense. I was about to challenge a statement in your prior post, but this clarification shows it is not necessary.

On your original question, I could agree that certainly Adam can be taken as a representative of a group of individuals that sinned, but that he due to the particulars of his situation bore a different kind or degree of culpability. By this however, I don’t mean some hypothetical group of individuals around at or near the beginning, but all of us who have sinned. Adam is in a sense our representative and prototype, and is our figurative as well as our literal father. So I have no problem seeing Adam as both a particuar person, and as a representative of all of us.

I wish I knew more about Julian – it sounds like you may not get much help on that here. But it sounded like you interpret Julian as suggesting that Adam was somehow not culpable for this sin (which makes no sense to me at all), or that that God in some sense did not hold it against him. Fine if this is reference to forgiveness, but IMO if Julan thought that Adam had diminished or non-existant culpability for this sin due to its supposed inevitiblity then this seems to me to be clearly in error. Whether the error is Julian’s or one of interpretation I do not know.

 

[minkymurph]

Yep, perfect sense. I was about to challenge a statement in your prior post, but this clarification shows it is not necessary. But it sounded like you interpret Julian as suggesting that Adam was somehow not culpable for this sin (which makes no sense to me at all), or that that God in some sense did not hold it against him. Fine if this is reference to forgiveness, but IMO if Julan thought that Adam had diminished or non-existant culpability for this sin due to its supposed inevitiblity then this seems to me to be clearly in error. Whether the error is Julian’s or one of interpretation I do not know.

I think I understand where I may have mislead you all. I said if evil did not exist nothing other than God would exist in the context of nothing other than God is purely good and has no evil present in it. Anything that is good, is due to the presence of God given grace as God is the source of all good. God does not need anything other than himself to exist. Hope that clears that one up. I can understand why so many theologians were accused of heresy. They where really expressive and one really needs to be careful of one’s language, particularly when you could be burned at the stake if you really upset people. Julian received 16 Revelations which she herself said she did not understand. They puzzled her. It’s the fact that she said God did not blame man for sin. I don’t think she meant that Adam was not culpable. If he was not culpable, would there be such a thing as sin? Not blaming someone can mean not condoning what someone did but understand why they did it. Ultimately, God does know why Adam sinned. We don’t really. We know he chose to and we know it was disobediance, wanting to be God-like, but only God knows really why. Julian also said that there is a part of us that never fully consents to sin which is the God-like part of our soul as I understand her. That while we are tempted and still sin, there is part of us that does not really want to commit the sin. She was obviously speaking of the righteous in this instance and not those who do not repent. She also speaks of Gods compassion for fallen man so maybe she is talking of forgiveness.

 

[fhansen]

For that reason I don’t subscribe to the philosophical hoops we tend to jump through in order to make relating to a being we are unable to fathom into something that resembles a meaningfull two way relationship. God, I believe has taken care of that.

The order God established in the beginning manifests His omniscience but that doesn’t prevent him from stooping down to us so low as to become one with us within that order so as to enjoy a practical meaningfull , loving, relationship as beings who share a likeness and an image.

Didn’t intend to be this wordy, sorry about that.

Peace

Thanks, Benadam, I think I see what you’re saying-that Gods’ ineffably beyond us and any knowledge we may have of Him comes solely from the revelation He’s graciously stooped to grant.

On the other hand, I’m sure you agree that He’s given us minds with which to ponder His revelation and some of the specific revelations can be vague or maybe require more spiritual maturity to comprehend-so I keep trying in my own feeble way.

I may’ve misunderstood mm but in any case it would definitely be wrong to say that evil is good and right to say that God doesn’t will evil.

I think the situation with man is that he needs to grow in wisdom because he didn’t choose the good –he didn’t recognize or know it as such-even though he experienced it continuously by walking with God in the garden. So the idea in this case would be that man does need to know the “lack of good” in order to be able to appreciate the good he rejected. He needs to learn that his life was already full or perhaps that fullness of life can only be experienced through obedience to God because, with seemingly not much reason, man bought the lie that God was holding something out from him.

But maybe it could also be true to say that, even though all of creation is good, it possesses the one element of evil or potential evil in being inherently less-than-perfect by virtue of being less-than-its-Creator who alone is perfect. Maybe anything God created has one “flaw”-that it’s not Him -and none of that matters unless or until He decides to infuse creation with freewill -as He did with us and angels. In this case, that one flaw-of not being Him-allows for the possibility of a tragic effect-i.e. the fall. I believe that in us, creation can come to the conscious awareness that it is not Him and come to be united in will with Him by agreeing that He’s deserving of our love and obedience-that this has always been our ultimate good.

 

[edwest2]

This dear Ed
I’m afraid is totally, fully and altogether WRONG.
I thought I had posted it here these days, but I never owned a Catechism, nor looked anything up in such one.
Fact is, that when you believe, you “automatically” live in God. And when you live in God, you feel what’s right or wrong as sure as you know your name. And it comes naturally to you, that the word of Jesus Christ is purified truth.
It’s all that simple.

You are absolutely incorrect. The Bible tells us: with wisdom get understanding. The Bible tells us that scripture is suitable for all things. We need to read it and understand it on a spiritual level as well. This spiritual understanding surpasses what the mind of man alone can grasp. This understanding comes to us through the Holy Spirit.

The simplicity you speak of is inconsistent with proper Cathechesis, the knowledge that needs to be given to all who come to the faith. Parents do not send their children to Catholic schools just so they can know how to read but to gain a working knowledge of their religion, the Bible and the established Catholic tradition.

God bless,
Ed

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by edwest2
Will you and others here simply look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church (available online) and get the clear, total truth.

This dear Ed
I’m afraid is totally, fully and altogether WRONG.
I thought I had posted it here these days, but I never owned a Catechism, nor looked anything up in such one.
Fact is, that when you believe, you “automatically” live in God. And when you live in God, you feel what’s right or wrong as sure as you know your name. And it comes naturally to you, that the word of Jesus Christ is purified truth.
It’s all that simple.

Actually, when we “have faith”, hold our beliefs as we are told to do (faithfully), our capability to DISCERN truth (right and wrong) is improved over time, but the first thing (and the ALWAYS-done-first thing) that we discover that we must do in being discerning is to check our “private revelations” against the Church’s magisterial teaching of truth.

Private revelation of truth is great, but it must always be subservient to the Church’s teaching of truth.

It’s a truly wonderful thing that we have access to the incredible source-book that is the catechism! Always go there first AFTER any private revelation, and it’s a wonderful tool to use to INVOKE private revelation from which to learn more truth about God and His creation.

 

[Benadam]

I think the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in Genesis is representitive of what man would inevitably have to know. While God is the source of all good and there is nothing evil in God, God has a knowledge of evil. It’s not that good depends on evil. Am I making sense?

Yes I think I get your meaning now. And I agree that the forbidden fruit was not meant to remain forbidden. In fact I believe it is the fruit of eternal reward meant to be food when their earthly life was complete. I think it was a gift not yet received and best left unrevealed. The serpent presented it as something God was keeping from them maliciously. Like a parent hiding a birthday present and someone coming along and instead of it being something you will eventually be given it’s presented as something you will never have because your parent doesn’t want you to enjoy it.