Why does man suffer?
Original Sin is probably one of the most misunderstood doctrines of the Church. It emerged, as a doctrine, from the Apostolic Teaching, and in the works of the Fathers from the contemplation of that Teaching and of Scripture.
The usual view of Original Sin is as a punishment upon humanity for the error of its parent, an assumption which is not theologically correct, nor philosophically precise. Most people reject the idea of original sin from the sentimental notion of how cruel to condemn innocent babies, etc. and certainly there were some statements made — about the eschatalogical condition of unbaptised babies perhaps the most famous of those made during the Medieval era — which were not doctrine then, and have been revised since.
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According to Tradition:
If Adam and Eve acted according to their nature, then there is no sin.
If Adam and Eve acted out of free will, knowingly disobeying the commandment given to them, and thus contrary to nature (which is believed as ordered towards the good), then they have sinned.
Then suffering is an inescapable consequence, if justice is to have any meaning at all.
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Catholicism holds that:
1 - God made man, and He saw His creation was 'very good'.
2 - God and man dwelt together in a paradisical state.
3 - Man transgressed a Divine commandment, knowingly, and of his own volition.
4 - Justice inevitably followed.
5 - The paradisical state was lost.
There post-paradisic condition, as detailed in Genesis 3, is the inevitable consequence of their action.
Catholicism assumes, that:
1 - Because human nature is deiform — created to know God and
2 - Because man does not know the Beatific Vision, and finds its requirement all but impossible to fulfill, then
3 - Something effects that nature and prevents its fulfillment.
Why does man suffer?
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Why is not man born into the beatific vision? Why is man born, bound in darkness, ignorance and suffering?
What prevents us from realising the beatific vision, if not an action of our own doing? Bearing in mind that to sin requires the knowing and willing freely-taken decision of a rational being, and that 'children' are not born with a fully-formed sense of responsibility, with the capacity to make informed moral and ethic choices, then again children cannot sin and cannot be held guilty of sinning.
But then why are we as children not born into the beatific vision, and stay there?
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If Adam and Eve sinned, and God decides to punish the whole of humanity for ever more, then God does not qualify to be called either 'just' or 'good' by any objective measure. Certainly not in any absolute sense of the term. That God is free to do as God wills is a given, but that does not immediately determine that what God does is either 'just' or 'good'.
Assuming God is both Just and Good in an absolute sense, and assuming therefore that humanity is not born under any punitive limitation, then we should be born in paradise.
But we're not. So what does that tell us?
Either:
1 - God is flawed, or
2 - Creation is flawed, or
3 - A flaw has been introduced that effects all that flows from it.
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This begins to approach the idea behind the doctrine, an idea that can only be properly contemplated if one avoids sentiment and focusses on the objective situation: Man suffers,
Not through God's will,
Nor through his own choice ...
... but suffers the consequence of some calamitous accident.
Catholic doctrine believes that this consequence is a 'wound' or a disordering of human nature that is transmitted from one generation to the next (like a genetic disorder or an inherited disposition). Adam sinned, and in Adam it seems we are incapable of not sinning, we are incapable of altriusm as a natural condition, and Catholic doctrine holds that unless we determine God as a being subject to vice, or rather, a being presenting less than the fullness of virtue, then there must be some order of transmission of fault, and there must be some order of participation in that fault, lest agin God is punishing the innocent for a crime for which they bear no responsibility.
Note:
As warm to Orthodox theology as I am, I find the Orthodox theology of Original Sin insufficient. The Orthodox hold that we are born under the impediment of sin, but not complicit in it. A simple analogy I have seen is akin to the family of a criminal, wherein the family suffers because of the crime of the father ... I find this oversimple and too anthropomorphic ... we must assume that God can distinguish between the guilt of a father and the innocence of the child ... society certainly does. Perhaps someone could explain this better for me.
Thomas
Original Sin is probably one of the most misunderstood doctrines of the Church. It emerged, as a doctrine, from the Apostolic Teaching, and in the works of the Fathers from the contemplation of that Teaching and of Scripture.
The usual view of Original Sin is as a punishment upon humanity for the error of its parent, an assumption which is not theologically correct, nor philosophically precise. Most people reject the idea of original sin from the sentimental notion of how cruel to condemn innocent babies, etc. and certainly there were some statements made — about the eschatalogical condition of unbaptised babies perhaps the most famous of those made during the Medieval era — which were not doctrine then, and have been revised since.
+++
According to Tradition:
If Adam and Eve acted according to their nature, then there is no sin.
If Adam and Eve acted out of free will, knowingly disobeying the commandment given to them, and thus contrary to nature (which is believed as ordered towards the good), then they have sinned.
Then suffering is an inescapable consequence, if justice is to have any meaning at all.
+++
Catholicism holds that:
1 - God made man, and He saw His creation was 'very good'.
2 - God and man dwelt together in a paradisical state.
3 - Man transgressed a Divine commandment, knowingly, and of his own volition.
4 - Justice inevitably followed.
5 - The paradisical state was lost.
There post-paradisic condition, as detailed in Genesis 3, is the inevitable consequence of their action.
Catholicism assumes, that:
1 - Because human nature is deiform — created to know God and
2 - Because man does not know the Beatific Vision, and finds its requirement all but impossible to fulfill, then
3 - Something effects that nature and prevents its fulfillment.
Why does man suffer?
+++
Why is not man born into the beatific vision? Why is man born, bound in darkness, ignorance and suffering?
What prevents us from realising the beatific vision, if not an action of our own doing? Bearing in mind that to sin requires the knowing and willing freely-taken decision of a rational being, and that 'children' are not born with a fully-formed sense of responsibility, with the capacity to make informed moral and ethic choices, then again children cannot sin and cannot be held guilty of sinning.
But then why are we as children not born into the beatific vision, and stay there?
+++
If Adam and Eve sinned, and God decides to punish the whole of humanity for ever more, then God does not qualify to be called either 'just' or 'good' by any objective measure. Certainly not in any absolute sense of the term. That God is free to do as God wills is a given, but that does not immediately determine that what God does is either 'just' or 'good'.
Assuming God is both Just and Good in an absolute sense, and assuming therefore that humanity is not born under any punitive limitation, then we should be born in paradise.
But we're not. So what does that tell us?
Either:
1 - God is flawed, or
2 - Creation is flawed, or
3 - A flaw has been introduced that effects all that flows from it.
+++
This begins to approach the idea behind the doctrine, an idea that can only be properly contemplated if one avoids sentiment and focusses on the objective situation: Man suffers,
Not through God's will,
Nor through his own choice ...
... but suffers the consequence of some calamitous accident.
Catholic doctrine believes that this consequence is a 'wound' or a disordering of human nature that is transmitted from one generation to the next (like a genetic disorder or an inherited disposition). Adam sinned, and in Adam it seems we are incapable of not sinning, we are incapable of altriusm as a natural condition, and Catholic doctrine holds that unless we determine God as a being subject to vice, or rather, a being presenting less than the fullness of virtue, then there must be some order of transmission of fault, and there must be some order of participation in that fault, lest agin God is punishing the innocent for a crime for which they bear no responsibility.
Note:
As warm to Orthodox theology as I am, I find the Orthodox theology of Original Sin insufficient. The Orthodox hold that we are born under the impediment of sin, but not complicit in it. A simple analogy I have seen is akin to the family of a criminal, wherein the family suffers because of the crime of the father ... I find this oversimple and too anthropomorphic ... we must assume that God can distinguish between the guilt of a father and the innocence of the child ... society certainly does. Perhaps someone could explain this better for me.
Thomas
