Ancestral Sin
Ancestral Sin • Scene: Paradise • Key Players: The Devil & Man • Plot: The Fall • Consequences: Death • Original or Ancestral Sin is not about guilt for sin of Adam, but about death, the consequence of his sin.
Paradise? • Then the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man He formed. (Gen 2:8) • Saint Ambrose: He placed man in Paradise, just as He placed the sun in the heaven. • At time of Adam’s creation Paradise was a place where God put Adam bodily.
Where is Paradise? • Saint Paul the Apostle I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago— whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. (2Cor 12:2-4) • At the time of Paul, Paradise was beyond earth in the third heaven.
Paradise is Beautiful • God caused every tree beautiful to the sight and good for food to grow from the ground. (Gen 2:9) •
Saint Gregory the Sinaite.
Placed between corruption and incorruption, it is always both abundant in fruits and blossoming with flowers, both mature and immature.
Mankind in Paradise? • Saint John Chrysostom Before the fall men lived in Paradise like angels; they were not inflamed with lust, were not kindled by other passions either, were not burdened with bodily needs; but being created entirely incorruptible and immortal, they did not even need the covering of clothing. Homilies on Genesis 13:4, 15:4
Paradise • Its site is higher in the East than all the earth: it is temperate and the air that surrounds it is the rarest and purest: evergreen plants are its pride, sweet fragrances abound, it is flooded with light, and in sensuous freshness and beauty it transcends imagination: in truth the place is divine, a meet home for him who was created in God's image: no creature lacking reason made its dwelling there but man alone, the work of God's own hands. John of Damascus
Mankind in Paradise • Made from dust and potentially immortal. • Made in God’s Image and placed in Paradise. • Not deified but created for deification. • Free of bodily needs yet bodily - like the angels • Free from suffering. • Free from passions. • Given a challenge and responsibilities.
The Devil
• What do you think about the Devil? Who is He or She?
What is Meant by the Term Devil ? • In the Greek New Testament the Hebrew word Satan is often translated into the Greek word diabolos, which most commonly is translated as Devil. • Diabolos means the accuser, slanderer, maligner, one who separates. • Known by numerous other designations In NT: devil (e.g., Matt. 4:1), the tempter (e.g., Matt. 4:3), the accuser (e.g., Rev. 12:10), the prince of demons (e.g., Luke 11:15), the ruler of this world (e.g., John 12:31)
Who is the Devil? Scripture tells us: Angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. (Jude 6, II Peter 2:4) Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. (Luke 10:18)
And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Rev 12:7-9)
• Stage set for Fall of Mankind • Man created in Image of God • Lives in Paradise • Devil working to deceive world
Fall of Mankind Michelangelo's Temptation and Fall from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.
Now the serpent was more cunning than all the wild animals the Lord God made on the earth. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat from every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat from it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not die by death. For God knows in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree beautiful to contemplate, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave it to her husband with her, and he ate. (Gen 3: 1-6)
Why Did the Devil Tempt Adam and Eve?
• He was envious. • He saw man as an inferior creature yet he as a superior creature is part of a non-spiritual existence.
Why Was the Devil Successful?
• He is devious, shrewd and clever. • He knew what was in the human heart: Man’s desire for worldly things. • They were not willing to submit to God’s will.
• Genesis continues the story: • Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (Gen 3:7)
What is the Significance of Hiding Their Nakedness? They lost the glory of God and now only saw the lower things of this earth. The soul came under the domination of the body and its passions. Became self-centered. They were separated from Spirit. They lost their dispassion and began the passionate earthly life.
What Was Godʼs Response? • Genesis story continues: And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” • Where are you? Indicates their separation from God and God’s immediate searching for them to return. • God is calling for them to repent.
How Did Adam and Eve Respond? • Adam says: • I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” • “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” • Eve says: • “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
How Did Adam and Eve Respond?
• Responded with self-justification. • Adam blamed Eve • Eve blamed the snake. • There was no humility, no remorse.
What are the consequences of the Fall? • And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 2:15-17) • Paul says: As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (Rom 5:12) The wages of sin is death. (Rom 6:23) • Death is what we inherited from the Original Sin.
What are the consequences of the Fall?
• Death, not guilt.
How does reality of Death impact us? • Self-Preservation, fear and anxiety: Self-assertion, egoism, hatred, envy. • Fear of our life becoming meaningless: Strive to prove ourselves, seek self-worth, compliments and success, fear insults, envy others success and want to be liked. • Seek either security and happiness in wealth, glory and bodily pleasures or a misguided individualistic possession of God’s presence that brings happiness. • Zealous over idealistic principles of love yet hate closest neighbor.
Death
• Evil force which came into the world by sin. • Primary power of Satan - “god of this world.” • Why Paul says the following:
Apostle Paul • For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God— through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:19-15)
Man lost his home in the Kingdom of God.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to ti$ the ground %om which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen 3:22-24)
Loss of the Kingdom of God • In place of the prospect of life eternal,
mankind beheld death, and separation from God.
• Did God reject Man? • God did not reject man. He took away neither His image, freedom of his will, nor his reason. Man still had image of God - tarnished. • Man now needed help of a supernatural power to overcome death, sin and return to a union with God.
• Man was created in Paradise in full communion with God • Rejected own vocation making what is created the object of his desire. • Looked at things of this world for fulfillment rather than his Creator, we separate ourselves from God.
God
God Soul
Body Body
Soul
Our Present Condition
Our Natural Condition
Review • What is the fallen nature of mankind? • How does this compare to his Natural or created nature? • What is Adam and Eve do to cause this condition? • Who was responsible?
Expulsion from Paradise
Other views? • Many Western Churches have a innovative view of Sin. Original Sin Leads to different view of Salvation.
What is Original Sin? • Unknown by East and West until Augustine in the 5th century (354-430). • Greeks used concept of ancestral sin. • Greek word is amartema - means missing the mark and applies to an individual. • Sin is not a violation of an impersonal law or code of behavior, but a rejection of the life offered by God. A separation in a relationship. • There is no concept of a guilt that is passed on from Adam and Eve. • It is not guilt that is passed on, but a condition we inherit, its like a disease.
SAINT AUGUSTINE • Augustine (354 – 430) introduced the notion that death was a personal punishment for Adam’s sin. • Paul views the Fall as a battle between God and Satan. According to Paul, Eve was deceived by Satan and they both were taken captive by the Devil through death. • Last enemy to be destroyed is death (1Cor 15:26) “the sting of death is sin.” Death is the weapon of the devil. • This is how Christ freed us from our enslavement. • The idea of guilt is misleading. We have a disease.
• The main act of Christ was His victory over death. He destroyed the greatest power of the Devil. • The spiritual war against the devil and the striving for selfless love is centered in the Eucharistic life of the Church Body of Christ who is the head.
Problem does not go away with payment • We are subject to sinful tendencies, sickness, suffering, and death as a result of our descendence from Adam. • Christ comes to free us from fear of death and showed us the way to perfection in union with Him.
• We need the help of the Holy Spirit to overcome our sinful tendencies. We get this only in union with Him as part of the body of Christ, the Church. Requires relationship not atonement. • Our goal is to perfect ourselves in cooperation with God so we can live in union with Him.
How did Man fall into Sin?
• God gave us the gifts of freedom, reason, and love. • With freedom there is the possibility of wavering in one’s choices thus temptation is possible.
Two Primary Temptations • Reason To grow proud in mind. To seek the knowledge of good and evil outside of God. Not acknowledging the wisdom and goodness of God. To desire oneself to be God.
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Love In place of love for God and one’s neighbor, Loves ourselves and everything that satisfies lower desires and gives earthly enjoyment.
What is Evil?
God did NOT create evil or death. Evil is the moral order that results from exercising our free will separating us from God.
Is Misfortune Evil?
• Misfortunes are in themselves neither evil or good. • Part of our fallen condition - fear of death • One must have reverence for the all-wise order of the world.
Endlessly, the various and mutually opposed strivings of blind elemental powers and organic creatures are colliding with each other at every moment, and are brought into harmony becoming a source for continual renewal in the world.
How About Our Difficult Sufferings? • Suffering began with the Fall. • The causes of diseases and sufferings are men themselves, • Consequences of moral evil spread from people to the animal world and to the whole of creation. • For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now… For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected it in hope: because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Rom 8:22, 20-21)
How About Our Difficult Sufferings?
• Evil is a deviation from the original condition of Paradise. • God is not the cause of moral evil. • Due to a separation from God, willingness to do as He commands, and the inability to do moral law which is written in the human conscience because of death. • This Separation is called sin.
Review • Man has free will. • Human action responsible for Sin. • Consequence of first sin was a separation from God Death and expulsion from Paradise. • Mankind’s nature was changed - image tarnished. • We inherit consequences of death and loss of the kingdom. • We are in need of healing to find union with God.
Ancestral Sin