Were you and I ever meant to be here originally?

[T432]

Just curious to get others opinions on this.My understanding is that because Eve ate the apple she caused humans to die which went against God’s plan of the Earth being heaven for humans. That humans were going to die originally was not in God’s plan.

If that is the case there is obviously only so much room on Earth. So, as we are so many generations forward was we ever in God’s original plan for everyone on the planet today and previous generations to ever exist at all ?

 

[Gorgias]

Just curious to get others opinions on this.My understanding is that because Eve ate the apple she caused humans to die which went against God’s plan of the Earth being heaven for humans.

No. That’s not something that the Church teaches. In fact, St John Paul II taught that a “return to Eden” isn’t at all what heaven is.

If that is the case there is obviously only so much room on Earth.

That isn’t the case. So, I’m not sure I’d spend much time worrying that God hadn’t planned for your existence and your salvation, if I were you.

 

[T432]

@Gorgias thanks for your answer.Am I not right in thinking that God’s plan for humans was to always stay on the Earth and not to die?

 

[White_Tree]

Am I not right in thinking that God’s plan for humans was to always stay on the Earth and not to die?

Paul didn’t think so:

Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. – 1 Cor 15:36-38

We need death in order to achieve resurrection. As he explains a few verses later, God’s plan for man is greater than Adam:

It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. – 1 Cor 15:42-45

We are like a seed. What we are now is not what we were meant to be. So the eating of the fruit was a necessary step in God’s plan for salvation.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

In my understanding (and if this is wrong, please correct me), if Man hadn’t fallen, he would have spent his life in the Garden, then would have passed into Heaven.

But Original Sin closed Heaven to us, and caused us to decay and die.

 

[T432]

Thanks. So, was Eve’s fate of eating the apple inevitable. Was she always planned to be the fallen woman? Was humans always going to fall, that wasn’t our free will.

 

[Gorgias]

Am I not right in thinking that God’s plan for humans was to always stay on the Earth and not to die?

I’m going to say “no”, for a few reasons.

First, to say “God’s plan was X and humans did Y” seems to suggest that God was in some way surprised by our sinfulness and had to say “whoops! I need a ‘Plan B’ to get humans to salvation!”.

That’s not the case at all. God created humans with the possibility of always living in His love and grace… but He always knew that we would sin and fall from grace and need a Savior. So, it follows that He always knew that we would reject His gifts and physically die. And, therefore, He always knew that we would be saved by Jesus and would attain to heaven, rather than always be in Paradise.

So, God created the opportunity for Paradise, but knew that we’d need Jesus, and would attain to bodily eternal life not in Paradise, but in heaven.

 

[Gorgias]

So, was Eve’s fate of eating the apple inevitable. Was she always planned to be the fallen woman? Was humans always going to fall, that wasn’t our free will.

No… not “planned”, but merely “known.” Humans made the choice to sin; it wasn’t forced on us. With our free will, we each choose sin.

 

[T432]

I see. So, heaven was always going to follow a humans life. There was earthly death always planned.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

One of the problems with these questions is we humans live in time and think in sequence.

But God is outside of time, and presumably doesn’t need to go from one thought to another the way we do.

Hence the problem of describing the way God thinks

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I see. So, heaven was always going to follow a humans life. There was earthly death always planned.

No, death was a consequence of sin.
If Man hadn’t sinned, there would be no death.

 

[fhansen]

Looking at it from the big picture God knew, in His omniscience, that man would fall before He created. But He also knew, in His wisdom, for His purposes, that creation was still worthwhile nonetheless, having planned to bring an even greater good out of the evil that resulted from the Fall. The catechism teaches that God made His world in a “state of journeying to perfection”. From the grand perspective, again, I think that applies here.

 

[Gorgias]

There was earthly death always planned.

No, the Church doesn’t teach that, per se.

Our first truly human parents – to whom Genesis gives the names “Adam” and “Eve” – were given certain “preternatural gifts”. Among these were eternal life: the Church teaches that they would not experience physical death. The death of the body was not inevitable, and that reality did not come about until humans sinned.

This was known, although not intended, by God.

 

[Gorgias]

It would seem obvious to God that creating people with free will would never lead to a perpetually sinful world. There never was an option for no death.

There was an “option for no death”. No one chose it, though.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Any person ever or just the first two?

Well, as it’s played out, the First Two were the ones who fell.
And the rest of us have sinned, also

 

[Latin]

THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION by John Salza (Catholic theologian.)

Page 113; “God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin.”

CCC 313; … Nothing can come but that that God wills.

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MARY WAS FREE FROM ALL PERSONAL SIN John Paul II

“Testifies that Mary, free from original sin, was also preserved from all actual sin and that this initial holiness was granted to her in order to fill her entire life.

Trent expresses this conviction, affirming that no one can avoid all sins, even venial sins, throughout his life, unless he is given a special privilege, as the Church holds with regard to the Blessed Virgin (DS 1573).

The Council of Trent asserts, a special privilege guarantees this immunity from sin. And this is what happened with Mary.

The special privilege granted by God to her who is all holy leads us to admire the marvels accomplished by grace in her life.”

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2BVM24.HTM
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For Mary to commit even one act of sin it was a theological impossibility.

Because God granted to Mary her special privilege the immunity from sin and all the graces necessary to infallible accomplish her God’s gift of destiny/ fate.

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Catholic Encyclopedia : Evil
“But we cannot say without denying the Divine omnipotence, that another equally perfect universe could not be created in which evil would have no place.”

If God would willed, He would create us with the privilege of immunity from sin and in this world would be no one could commit even a single act of sin.

CCC 310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it?
With infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world in a state of journeying towards its ultimate perfection, 314 through the dramas of evil and sin. – God created the dramas of evil and sin for our benefit.

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THE REASON GOD CREATED THE DRAMAS OF EVIL AND SIN.

Life without suffering would produce spoiled brats, not joyful saints.

Our struggle and tribulation while journeying towards our ultimate perfection through the dramas of evil and sin is the cost which in-prints the virtue/ nobility into our souls – the cost of our road to nobility and perfection.

In this world man has to learn by experience and contrast, and to develop by the overcoming of obstacles (Lactantius, “De ira Dei”, xiii, xv in “P.L., VII, 115-24. St. Augustine “De ordine”, I, vii, n. 18 in “P.L.”, XXXII, 986).
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As we see above, we are all sinners because God willed to create us to be sinners for good reason, for the benefit of the entire human race.
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If God would willed, He would granted all of us His special privilege the immunity from sin.

With the graces God granted to the Blessed Virgin, we all would accomplish the same holy life.

God designed the movie of the Blessed Virgin’s holy life from all eternity and given to her all the graces necessary to accomplish it.

In the same way, God designed the movie of our life from all eternity and given to us all the graces necessary to accomplish it.
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God bless

 

[Jen7]

If that is the case there is obviously only so much room on Earth. So, as we are so many generations forward was we ever in God’s original plan for everyone on the planet today and previous generations to ever exist at all ?

There was a a personal element to your question I don’t think has been addressed yet. Are you wondering if God planned YOU “from the beginning” or if God wanted YOU to exist? I think they are two separate questions. My understanding is that each of us is only “us” because our particular parents came together on a particular day. I wouldn’t be “I” if my parents had chosen a different day or a different month to procreate. It’s not just that my genetics would be different - I would be a different I (ie, not me). My particular soul only exists with my particular body. My soul was not just hanging out in outer space waiting for God to slide it into a body someday. In this sense, my existence at all depends on a wild number of things that easily might not have happened. What if my parents had gotten in an argument that night? The toilet had overflowed? The phone had rang and it was my moms talkative sister? So many reason I may not have come to exist! BUT, did God-who-exists-outside-time KNOW that one day I would exist? Of course. And he thought of me as he died for me on the cross. And he loved me. Because he is eternal and timeless and all knowing so he can do that.

 

[Latin]

No @Jen7, we are not an accident of man’s whim, we are God’s design from all eternity, our birth day, our future date when we will die, our life here on earth, includes every event/ act we will perform, all God’s design.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will explains;

“God is the author of all causes and effects, God’s omnipotent providence exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe.”

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains;

All things are created and governed with a view to man, to the development of his life and his intelligence, and to the satisfaction of his needs (Aristides, “Apol.”, i, v, vi, xv, xvi.

His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.

God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.

God is the sole ruler of the world. His will governs all things. He loves all men, desires the salvation of all, and His providence extends to all nation.

That end is that all creatures should manifest the glory of God, and in particular that man should glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of his nature and to eternal happiness in God.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12510a.htm
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For Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 1) that the "Divine will or power is called fate. "
But the Divine will or power is not in creatures, but in God. Therefore fate is not in creatures but in God.
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The Divine will is cause of all things that happen, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.). Therefore all things are subject to fate.

The same is true for events in our lives. Relative to us they often appear to be by chance.
But relative to God, who directs everything according to his divine plan, nothing occurs by chance.

Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)
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CCC 308 For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Far from diminishing the creature’s dignity, this truth enhances it.
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CCC 307 God thus enables men to be intelligent and free, causes in order to complete the work of creation, … Though often unconscious collaborators with God’s will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan. They then fully become “God’s fellow workers” and co-workers for his kingdom.
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As we see above, God is the CREATOR, CAUSER/ DETERMINER of our Free will, and we all freely will what God wills us to will and we all freely do what God wills and CAUSES us to do.
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There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will, (De fide dogma).
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God bless

 

[T432]

@Latin So, do we have a somewhat limited free will? If God knows the events already.

For example if God knew our birthdate and that we would always exist. A baby being born and was always meant to of been born, would of had to have had their two parents to meet and have sex at that precise time for them to come into existence. The parents have no free will in that event, even though we all believe we are making choices with the presumption of free will.

Also, what about a woman who has a baby out of wedlock. Say that baby was concieved from a one night stand from two strangers. So, there was no chance the two parents could be married beforehand.

As the baby was suppose from all time to exist at that precise time. God knew the parents would commit a sin?

Is the free will our choice to ask for forgiveness of our sins and not necessarily the events that lead us to the sin?

 

[Mmarco]

@Latin So, do we have a somewhat limited free will? If God knows the events already.

For example if God knew our birthdate and that we would always exist. A baby being born and was always meant to of been born, would of had to have had their two parents to meet and have sex at that precise time for them to come into existence. The parents have no free will in that event, even though we all believe we are making choices with the presumption of free will.

The parents have free will, but God has always known eternally what they will freely choose, and He has included their free choices in His plan.

Also, what about a woman who has a baby out of wedlock. Say that baby was concieved from a one night stand from two strangers. So, there was no chance the two parents could be married beforehand.

As the baby was suppose from all time to exist at that precise time. God knew the parents would commit a sin?

God has always known eternally all the sins we will freely commit.