Man and Woman in the Beginning
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In the Image of God • The Individual and the Race • Body and Soul • Male and Female • The Family Man in Paradise • Original Justice The Fall • The Fall of the Angels Original Sin • Freedom Put to the Test • The Consequences • The Battle • Errors
In the Image of God •
The Dignity of the Human Person • 356 Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and love his creator". He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake", and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity
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The Unity of the Human Race • Gaudium et spes 24 § 3 Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, "that all may be one. . . as we are one" (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God's sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. •
361 "This law of human solidarity and charity", without excluding the rich variety of persons, cultures and peoples, assures us that all men are truly brethren.
In the Image of God •
Soul and Body • 362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God. •
365 … it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
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366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.
In the Image of God •
Male and Female • 369 …. Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity "in the image of God". • 371 God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. … • 372 … he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine.
The Family as a Sign and Participation in the Trinitarian Life •
“God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Gen 1:26)
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Unity in plurality of God (Also see Mt 28:19)
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God is not alone. Therefore man cannot be alone, because man is to “image” God and God is a “communion of persons”
The Family as a Sign and Participation in the Trinitarian Life • Thus, in order to truly be like God, man needed a “suitable partner,” (Gen 2:20) who was an equal of his same essence • God puts Adam into a deep sleep and removes a rib from his side, which he created Eve from” (Gen 2:21-23). Thus, woman is created of the same essence of man.
The Family as a Sign and Participation in the Trinitarian Life • In order for this “partner” to be “suitable” she would need to complement man’s need to initiate (in the Father’s image) by her need to reciprocate (in the Son’s image) • “God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him, male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27)
The Family as a Sign and Participation in the Trinitarian Life • The unity in plurality of Man reflects the image of God. • This unity between man and woman is not merely one of the soul, but one of the body, for he said, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23) • This shows a unity of the whole human person, body and soul
The Family as a Sign and Participation in the Trinitarian Life • God commands man to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28) • Man will not simply have his wife as a helpmate, but will create a family. God desires male and female to be one in an intimate union with each other and also to be procreative. • This is how he most images God, for as JPII says, “God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since He has in Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love.”
The Family as a Sign and Participation in the Trinitarian Life • Therefore, man images God through his body (most especially in the marital embrace), because it is through our bodies that we are able to express/communicate love. • In this act male and female communicate complete self-giving love which also begets life. So much so that nine months later they have to give that love a name.
Man in Paradise •
374 The first man was not only created good, but was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him, in a state that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new creation in Christ.
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Original Justice • As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die. • The inner harmony of the human person • The harmony between man and woman • The harmony between the first couple and all creation,
Man in Paradise •
377 The "mastery" over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man himself: mastery of self.
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Mastery of Self • The first man was unimpaired and ordered in his whole being
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His body and soul were in perfect harmony and obeyed his will
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He was free from the triple concupiscence that subjugates him to the: • pleasures of the senses • covetousness for earthly goods • self-assertion
378 The sign of man's familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden. There he lives "to till it and keep it". Work is not yet a burden, but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation.
The Fall •
385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature
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The reality of sin • 386 Sin is present in human history; any attempt to ignore it or to give this dark reality other names would be futile. To try to understand what sin is, one must first recognize the profound relation of man to God, for only in this relationship is the evil of sin unmasked in its true identity as humanity's rejection of God and opposition to him, even as it continues to weigh heavy on human life and history.
The Fall •
387 ... Without the knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as: • merely a developmental flaw • a psychological weakness • a mistake • the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc.
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Only in the knowledge of God's plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another.
The Fall of the Angels •
391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy.
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The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.“
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392 …This "fall" of the angels consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter's words to our first parents: "You will be like God."
The Fall of the Angels •
393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."
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394 Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.
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It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but "we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him."
Original Sin •
396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God.
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Man’s freedom is tested • The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. • Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.
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397 Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.
Original Sin •
398 In that sin man preferred himself to God …. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to "be like God", but "without God, before God, and not in accordance with God".
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400 The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: • the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered • the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. • Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. • Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will "return to the ground", for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.
The Consequences of Original Sin •
"By one man's disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned."
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404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? • The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man". By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. •
By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.
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It is a sin which will be transmitted by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice.
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It is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.
The Consequences of Original Sin •
Original sin does not have the character of a personal fault.
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It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted
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It is wounded in the natural powers proper to it and subject to • ignorance • suffering • the dominion of death • and inclined to sin (concupiscence)
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Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
The Battle •
By our first parents' sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free.
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409 This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one" makes man's life a battle
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Finding himself in the midst of the battlefield man has to struggle to do what is right, and it is at great cost to himself, and aided by God's grace, that he succeeds in achieving his own inner integrity.
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Rom 7:18-21 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
The Battle •
412 But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? • St. Leo the Great, "Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away." • St. Thomas Aquinas, "There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. • Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; • The Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'"
Errors with Regard to Original Sin •
We do not need grace • Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example.
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We are totally depraved • The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom
In Summary • 421 Christians believe that • "the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator's love; • has fallen into slavery to sin • but has been set free by Christ, crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one. . ." (GS 2 § 2).