No, you are misunderstanding what is happening entirely. You frame the issue incorrectly. No-one sinned at the time (not in so far as the per se taking a second wife was concerned). At this time, God did not oppose in any way (to my knowledge) the taking of multiple wives.
I am not speaking from the perspective of Jacob but rather from the perspective of God. God is also a moral being, that is, he abides by a set of moral rules and that’s by nature or definition. This means that eventhough he was not holding anyone guilty of a sin for a period of time, but God is still by His very nature obligated to not sin.
Romans 5:13
To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.
1 John 3:4 Sin is transgression of the law
According to your Church’s interpretation, monogamy was the Law of marriage since the “beginning”.
Putting these 3 verses together, if polygamy was indeed against the God’s moral law, then it was a sin even if He did not hold anyone guilty for it. However, even if humans did not have the moral Law YET, but God did since He is a morally good being by his very nature and can not sin.
Just as with Adam & Eve’s children who needed to marry each other - God used - in fact his creation required just that. Would you argue that the children of Adam and Eve sinned, or do you argue that siblings marrying today would be a moral act? Which is it?
I would only call incest a sin when God calls it sin. Incest was not a sin during some time-period that Genesis covers but now it’s a sin. However, some key differences between incest and marriage (polygamy included). During the time period of Genesis, God had some rules and expectations in place for marriage, like Genesis 2:24 which shows the claimed monogamy-only standard and Genesis 12:17-19 which shows adultery was not allowed. This means that it would be a sin in Genesis for someone to engage in non-monogamous marriages and/or adultery, unlike incest where there was no law on it, yet.
I hardly think we’re are debating whether God sinned!
Contrary to you shifting my position, I am indeed debating on whether or not God sinned following your logic. But if God can not sin, then it stands to reason that polygamy is morally good according to Genesis 29:30 to Genesis 30:23. As I previously mentioned, there were rules for marriage in Genesis that were expected to be followed. Polygamy would be adultery, and if God did not want the book of Genesis characters to commit adultery (Genesis 12:17-19) then He shouldn’t engage in it nor promote it based on His according to His all-good nature.
The question is whether the human acts of Jacob et al in taking more than one wife were immoral or moral. Taking a second wife at this time was, in itself, no sin, just as a son of Adam marrying his sister was no sin.
My earlier point about rules of marriage in Genesis answers this point of yours. However, I’ll add another point.
**If incest and polygamy were only allowed for a time so that the population could increase (this is YOUR reasoning), then why was incest banned later on in the Law and not polygamy? /B] Surely Moses did not add this Law because polygamous practices by a wide variety of population (native Americans, Sumerians, etc.) predates Moses. And please don’t just make up an answer but instead provide me with logic and evidence or tell me that you at least don’t know or that you could be wrong.
I also question if polygamy was needed to increase the population because it assumes that civilization back then had more women than men. If the ratio of genders was 1 male:1 female, then you would not need to doing anything drastic to multiply beyond just monogamous marriage.
That depends on what you mean by “things”. Not every “thing” lends itself to such a statement. That’s why I asked you whether you’ve studied moral theology. When a rich man donates money to the poor - could this possibly be a sin? I assure you it can. While the act done itself - handing over money to one who needs it - is not itself intrinsically evil (that is, “always and everywhere wrong to choose”), the morality of the act depends on Intentions and Circumstances. Your model is too simplistic - in your thinking, all that is immoral must be intrinsically evil. Whose theology is that?? Some “things” (such as giving money to the poor) may be a sin, or it may not be a sin. Certainly we can say that it is not always and everywhere immoral. We can say that too about marrying in the collateral line. And it may be that we can say that about polygamy.
Using the word “things” was a poor word choice on my part. I meant to say human acts. So when you say in reference to polygamy, that it is not “always and everywhere immoral”, this means that at one point it was not only allowed or tolerated but it was also not a sin? “Not a sin” meaning it was morally good at one point? The problem is I have not been able to find a clear consensus on this matter from Catholics.
In which sense did God allowed polygamy?
- God can allow a sin but not hold any of us accountable for it (Romans 5:13, Acts 17:29-30) but nonetheless it is still a sin.
- Or rules can be added or taken away just like incest and divorce, in which case, and there is no sin involved under those current terms.**
