Consequences Of The Original Sin : The Physical

[Dr_Asik]

I’d like to thank Raphael for his awesome reply to [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=92603"]my previous question[/url]. I couldn’t do it in the thread, so there.

My second question goes thus. I have a hard time with the “before” and the “after” of the original sin, as the Catholic Church explains it. I won’t quote the whole of CCC here but here’s the [url="http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm#III"]link[/url].

There are two ways to look at this, physical and spiritual. In this question I'll talk about the physical. Before the original sin, man was a in a “state of holiness”, “destined to be fully "divinized" by God in glory.” What can that mean? No death? No suffering?

I’m not entirely positivist, that is, I acknowledge the possibility of miracles even though I think they are extremely rare and unlikely to happen. But why would God have given us a mortal body, a body designed for withstanding pain, disease and death, if our true destiny was immortality, and not experiencing pain? Why are we corruptible when we are destined to be incorruptible? Why has he made us some sort of hybrid? It seems forced, it seems unintuitive. Every creature in the universe, including the angels, has a nature fitting to its destiny, except for us!

Now, let’s look at this very crudely. If we were somehow immortal, we couldn’t have been living in this world, for if a heavy rock had fell on Adam, he certainly would have been injured or killed. If a poisonous spider had bitten him, he would have died. If he had walked bare footed on a pointy object, he would have yelled in pain. In short, try to imagine a life, with our body, in our physical world, and without the possibility of enduring pain or corruption... This calls for not just a miracle, but a continuous miracle; and a world and a human body that are radically different from what we know. In fact, what could it have in common with our world? Skulls that don’t break, skin that doesn’t tear, rocks that don’t fall, spiders that don’t bite?

Now Adam commits some first sin. What happens? Is he teleported from a parallel world to this planet? Does the world undergo a radical change? That last possibility is incoherent with natural history, which shows predators and natural dangers well before man appeared.

From the current point of view of biology, man appeared on this planet as the result of evolution. We have learned that there have been similar beings on this planet, such as Neanderthal. Neanderthal had a crude language and he buried the dead, a sign of religiosity. It seems the rational mind isn't something that appeared brutally but existed in various shades of intensity. Where does the man in the "state of holiness" fit in current natural history? Is he teleported away at an arbitrary state of his evolution ? Is he granted total invincibility, in violation of the laws of nature, at some point?

To be honest, it seems to me like an incoherent science-fiction novel.

What is the current take of the Catholic Church on this? Thank you very much.

Edited April 11, 2009 by Dr_Asik

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Hello, I've gone back and forth on how to reply to this thread and I've opted for the following way. I hope that it is taken well and gets my point across sufficiently, but if you need further discussion, please feel free to ask for it.

[quote name='Dr_Asik' post='1831607' date='Apr 11 2009, 12:51 AM']I’d like to thank Raphael for his awesome reply to [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=92603"]my previous question[/url]. I couldn’t do it in the thread, so there.

My second question goes thus. I have a hard time with the “before” and the “after” of the original sin, as the Catholic Church explains it. I won’t quote the whole of CCC here but here’s the [url="http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm#III"]link[/url].

There are two ways to look at this, physical and spiritual. In this question I'll talk about the physical. Before the original sin, man was a in a “state of holiness”, “destined to be fully "divinized" by God in glory.” What can that mean? No death? No suffering?[/quote]

When it comes to moral theology (which would involve original sin and its effects, among other things), it is imperative that we do not view things in a dualistic way. To pretend that the physical effects of sin are somehow unrelated to the spiritual effects or to separate them is to fall short of a complete understanding of the Church's teaching on the matter.

The CCC says that God created the world "in a state of journeying" (CCC 302). The world was not complete when God made it. As Franciscan theology often emphasizes, God made man with the intention of doing even more for him than his mere creation. One of the parts of this goal God had in mind for man was the ability to love. Love is a choice and therefore involves a decision between loving and not loving. When it comes to man loving his Creator, he must show this in part through obedience (obedience is due to the one who has authority over another; in the case of God as in the case of all those who truly command others for their own good out of love, the will of God to which Adam was supposed to be obedient was that Adam should share in His life). Love being a choice, there was a way to choose not to love (hence the metaphor of the fruit). God told Adam and Eve that the fruit was forbidden. If they loved Him, they would obey, if they chose not to love Him, they would disobey. Until the time they made the choice to sin, they enjoyed the benefits of sharing in God's life. Precisely what that means, we do not know. Let's take your example of a pointy object in the Garden of Eden. Some theologians would say there would be no objects there that could hurt, others would say that there would be such objects, but Adam and Eve would not be hurt by them. Exactly which is correct, none can say. You mentioned that the near inconceivable difference between the pre-fallen world and the post-fallen world is like a bad science fiction plot. It seems so, yes, but which is more bizarre: that man sins and the world changes in an instant or that man sins and man changes in an instant? I think they are both quite odd, but they are not unrelated. Man changes relative to nature. Their relationship changed. Our relationship to God also changed: having chosen against His love, how could we receive His life, which is the gift of His love? So man was cut off from life and made to be corruptible, both in the spiritual way and in the physical way, both of which came from God and both of which found their life in Him.

Anyone who believes that God made us in an original state of justice and holiness must see that this is not now the case. We changed. Our relationship to the world changed. What would not before harm us now does because we are weak.

[quote]I’m not entirely positivist, that is, I acknowledge the possibility of miracles even though I think they are extremely rare and unlikely to happen. But why would God have given us a mortal body, a body designed for withstanding pain, disease and death, if our true destiny was immortality, and not experiencing pain? Why are we corruptible when we are destined to be incorruptible? Why has he made us some sort of hybrid? It seems forced, it seems unintuitive. [b]Every creature in the universe, including the angels, has a nature fitting to its destiny, except for us![/b][/quote]

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, but our heart is restless until it rests in you!" -St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 1, Chapter 1

This is exactly the point. We are out of sync with creation. We are made to live in the heights of the angels with God, but we prefer to dwell in the dirt with the pigs. Yet despite our sins and the place where they put us, we long for God and face the confusion of searching for our purpose and the meaning of our lives. Animals finish their hunting and activities and go to sleep, but we finish our work and stay up pondering something higher.

God originally gave us bodies capable of living with Him, but because we chose against Him, we lost the life He offered, which was the source of everything we are. Nonetheless, God wishes to restore us (and make us even better; remember that He did not make us complete at first). He gives us a mortal body because we have chosen a mortal body (the human race, through Adam, chose a mortal body). He offers us a life of grace through Jesus Christ so that we may be restored. What does the Bible say, "These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents (with their hands), and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover" (Mark 16:17-18). We are not to take this literally in every sense (although all these things have been done by one saint or another), but we are to see that the original invulnerability and power of the human race is being restored as God's life flows again through His people.

[quote]Now, let’s look at this very crudely. If we were somehow immortal, we couldn’t have been living in this world, for if a heavy rock had fell on Adam, he certainly would have been injured or killed. If a poisonous spider had bitten him, he would have died. If he had walked bare footed on a pointy object, he would have yelled in pain. In short, try to imagine a life, with our body, in our physical world, and without the possibility of enduring pain or corruption... This calls for not just a miracle, but a continuous miracle; and a world and a human body that are radically different from what we know. In fact, what could it have in common with our world? Skulls that don’t break, skin that doesn’t tear, rocks that don’t fall, spiders that don’t bite?[/quote]

A continuous miracle is perhaps one of the best definitions I've heard for heaven or for paradise before the fall. Yes, it seems counterintuitive and incredible, but is belief in something that is easy to believe really believe or is it simply knowledge? Faith sees and acknowledges everything that science does, but sees beyond the empirical and into things that science can never explain. If the angels can defy the laws of physics (which they can, being non-corporeal), I do not see how glorified (or pre-fallen) man could not defy the laws of physics and not be crushed by a boulder, however, again, this is not necessarily relevant, it may be possible that God Himself would have prevented such an occasion.

[quote]Now Adam commits some first sin. What happens? Is he teleported from a parallel world to this planet? Does the world undergo a radical change? That last possibility is incoherent with natural history, which shows predators and natural dangers well before man appeared.[/quote]

Which is why I prefer to believe that man changed, not that the world did, although since we are human, the fact that man changed relative to the world makes the world seem to us to have changed and it has on a subjective level at least. Were there hurricanes before the fall? I tend to think so, but that they simply didn't pose a threat to man. Adam had dominion over all creation and could have commanded the hurricane just as Christ commanded the storm (in fact, that Christ did so is a sign that the effects of original sin did not apply to Him, and that He says those with faith can uproot trees simply by commanding it says that His will is to restore human authority over nature), so it seems to me that whatever threat may have come toward Adam, he would not have been harmed. Notice Adam had complete authority over nature (including, by the way, to toss out the serpent), so that it was only his authority over himself that could lead him to sin.

[quote]From the current point of view of biology, man appeared on this planet as the result of evolution. We have learned that there have been similar beings on this planet, such as Neanderthal. Neanderthal had a crude language and he buried the dead, a sign of religiosity. It seems the rational mind isn't something that appeared brutally but existed in various shades of intensity. Where does the man in the "state of holiness" fit in current natural history? Is he teleported away at an arbitrary state of his evolution ? Is he granted total invincibility, in violation of the laws of nature, at some point?

To be honest, it seems to me like an incoherent science-fiction novel.

What is the current take of the Catholic Church on this? Thank you very much.[/quote]

I am not certain that burial of the dead strictly means religiosity. There could have been other reasons for it. However, I am not an anthropologist. Whether Neanderthal man was endowed with a soul or not is beyond my ability to speculate.

However, when it comes to the laws of nature, they are the laws written by nature's God. If He is free to break them Himself, then certainly He can impart that ability to those whom He wishes. The truth is that science cannot tell us what life was or wasn't like before the fall. It's ultimately irrelevant.

I hope this helps.

God bless,

Micah