Author Topic: Adam and Eve (Read 537 times)

Magdalene · « **on:** January 19, 2007, 11:46:17 PM »

I bought this book from Ebay that was printed in 1927. It is called Catholic Doctrine and was written by a Jesuit priest. It does not have an imprimature. I was skimming through some of the pages and came across something that the author had written concerning the condition of Adam and Eve after the Fall. If I understood correctly, the Jesuit author claimed that Adam and Eve, before the Fall, were not living in an earthly paradise, even though they possessed supernatural grace and had certain gifts such as immortality etc... Below is what the author wrote. Maybe I didn't understand his words correctly. Can someone please tell me what the author is saying here (I'm kind of dense).

"...The Fall, then has to do with this deprivation of supernatural grace, and nothing directly to do with natural life at all. After the Fall, Adam and Eve were on exactly the same plane, in exactly the same conditions, naturally speaking, as before. True, God had also given them certain preter-natural gifts which they would have retained had they retained their "grace", especially a harmony of their instincts with reason, and exemption from physical death: but these had nothing to do with the constituents of their nature as such, still less, with their level of civilization. Of that we know nothing, save that they moment after the Fall, it was just as it was the moment before it. Dismiss, then, the caricature, so often put forward, of the Fall - that Adam and Eve were on some exalted level of natural civilization, off which they fell. No doubt the withdrawal of supernatural grace and preternatural assistance left them to that limited human intelligence which so soon becomes darkened, and to those weaknesses that are inherent in human will, and to that rapidly aroused tumult of the instincts that we all experience; but these are echoes of the Fall, not the Fall itself."

Kephapaulos · « **Reply #1 on:** January 20, 2007, 01:25:40 AM »

Well, the paradise that Adam and Eve lived in was something that would still of course be bound by nature. It was not heaven perse or a "quasiheaven" really. The paradise in which they would have lived would simply be perfectly harmonious according to the natural laws put by God in creation. Now, also, let us hypothetically imagine if the Fall never happened, and we exist now still then in the state of sanctifying grace, but the other things that we would have are exemption from physical death and no concupiscence, i.e. struggle between body and soul. Everything would be in perfect order according to how God created the world. Yet, it would only be a mere reflection of God's heavenly order. We are of course not made for this world, but for God Himself.

Miss_Fluffy · « **Reply #2 on:** January 20, 2007, 09:15:40 PM »

I don't get it. I thought the ground itself became cursed after the fall. Now Adam would have to work harder to grow food, to me that's a big difference!

Kephapaulos · « **Reply #3 on:** January 20, 2007, 10:47:19 PM »

Quote from: Miss_Fluffy

I don't get it. I thought the ground itself became cursed after the fall. Now Adam would have to work harder to grow food, to me that's a big difference!

Well, of course, since Adam and Eve sinned, there then came the possibility for imperfection in the environment due to our imprudent decisions having to do with our fallen nature inherited from Adam through Eve.