Thanks again for the reply and conversation on this subject.
By the sixteenth century, the Protestant reformers taught that Original Sin had radically perverted human nature and thus destroyed its freedom. This teaching was dismissed by Major Church Councils according to the wisdom of the promised Holy Spirit.
I was not referring to this when I was speaking of mans nature. I was referring to what the Church Fathers taught with regards to original sin, and mans created nature.
I wish I could find again what I was reading and link it, but at the moment I can not find it. I was curious about the temptation of Christ one day and started reading up on the subject, and found something from one of the Church Fathers in which they discussed the nature of man when he was created, and how the temptation of Christ relates to Adam. In that document, he discussed how Jesus was tempted from without, not from within, because sin was not in Christs nature, just as sin was not in Adams nature when he was created. It was an outward assault of temptation, not an inward suggestion, that caused the first man to sin. Though he had the freedom to choose, sin was not in his nature.
There is this, which is a great article from the Catholic Encyclopedia on the subject of original sin:
newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm (though many articles in the CE can be a little hard to understand by the average reader)
It also indicates, logically, that the nature of man was changed with the first sin.
- Man is now born into sin. Sin is in his nature.
- The consequence of sin is death. Man was immortal in his original created state.
So when I talk about the nature of man being corrupted, this is what I am talking about. The immediate problem I see with the protestant teaching, is that it seems to indicate mans freedom was destroyed. That is clearly wrong to me. This sort of teaching would relieve man of all his sins, and suggest he has no control over it, and, therefore, no consequence (no corporeal punishment). No, I wouldn’t go along with that for even a second.
Pardon me. This is a popular misunderstanding of human nature itself. Common sense regarding human nature and its conscience is needed when dealing with Adam pre-Fall. Personally, I find the problem to be the modern loss of the “difference” between the Creator and the creature leading to the requirements for a real person such as Adam.
I’m not sure if I understand what you mean by modern loss of the “difference”…I’d need you to explain this a little more perhaps to understand what exactly you mean (do you mean, something was taken away? As in, we lost grace?-- If so, I agree, that is one consequence of sin though not the only one). My own personal point of view requires that a real person such as Adam did exist, that he did sin, and he brought the consequence of sin upon all of us.
The question we need to ask ourselves is --Was pre-Fall Adam rational with a conscience?
I would say he was rational, because Adam and Eve clearly reasoned that the food from the tree was good despite Gods command, through being tempted by the devil (Note: It must be made clear here that they did not have it within their nature to eat from the tree and disobey God-- there was no temptation from within to do so. It was the devil that tempted them from without that got the man to reason that the fruit was good, and sin against God— this relates to Christs temptation:
newadvent.org/cathen/14504b.htm)). Now, just because he was rational, does not automatically mean he had knowledge of good and evil.
Would a man free from all concupiscence have or need a conscience? At this point, I don’t see how he logically would. (
newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm))…I do not see how a conclusion can be logically made that man knew good and evil before the fall. It does not seem to work, because by saying so we must say that man had sin in his nature when he was created (Christ proves to us by His own temptation that this is not the case, for he shows us that He was able to overcome the assault that Adam chose to let overcome him).
So going back to the original post, I think my understanding of the subject is inline with Church teachings, and my answer was sufficient, though perhaps not a complete exegesis of the subject matter. I attempted to explain it in a way that the OP could understand it, but it is up to him/her to continue learning in order to obtain a more in depth understanding, while avoiding the pitfall of past heretical teachings, such as the one you pointed out.
Thank you for responding and challenging my explanation though. It got me reading some more and checking up on some things that I had concluded before. I’ll be sure to keep on examining the subject of original sin though, and I hope our conversation has helped the OP in finding the answer they are looking for.
