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Question

 Good morning dear Father Bellon,

I know this topic has been discussed at least a couple of times, but I’d need a clarifying summary. If I’m not wrong the Church teaches us that, if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned, they wouldn’t have known neither any sorrow (physical and moral) nor the corporal death. Am I wrong in saying that this is a truth of Faith? A friend of mine told me instead that this biblical story refers to the soul’s immortality, that is to say the sin caused the death of our progenitors’ souls, but the death of their bodies would have taken place anyway. I believe that my friend is wrong, because  many passages of the Holy Scripture talk about death as a consequence of the original sin.I have no problems in accepting this truth of Faith: nothing is impossible to God. If He had wanted, He could have undoubtedly established that Adam and Eve hadn’t had to suffer or die, neither in body and soul. I find instead harder to accept another statement of the Church, namely that all nature has been submitted to corruption due  to our progenitors’ sin. What should we imply : that animals, before man’s appearance, didn’t suffer and didn’t eat one another? This would be refuted by scientific data:Tyrannosaurus surely was a carnivore animal that lived millions of years before man’s appearance…In a nutshell science shows us a terrestrial ecosystem that experienced, in the animal kingdom, sorrow, fight for surviving, sickness and death, way before the first man’s appearance on earth.These are the two main questions, then, and, since we’re talking about it, I’d like to present a thought of mine, and ask your  opinion about it as well. Science talks of a range of anthropomorphic monkeys, that at a certain point of the evolution started to show features similar to Homo Sapiens, the species all of us belong to. For instance, Homo Habilis had the ability to craft weapons for defense and hunting. That is until the man of Neanderthal, who wore skins, did wall paintings, and buried his own dead with precise rituals. It looks like the species Homo Sapiens isn’t the only one having an immortal soul, because hope in an afterlife is a precondition for burying the dead and performing funeral rituals, and only the immortal soul can give us such hope. At the beginning I was confused because I’ve always thought that the man himself was to be considered only as Homo Sapiens, and that hominids were just precursors. Perhaps it was an unintentional act of pride. Maybe man is to be intended as a wider range of species, all belonging to the genre Homo. I hope it isn’t heretic.The Truth, inspired by the Spirit, is certainly that evil and death weren’t in God’s plan, but got in the world because of the devil and the man’s sin. Concupiscence especially, that is the tendency of man to sin, is a consequence of that first rebellion  before God. And all  men’s sins share a similar root to the one of the original sin: pride, the preference of the ego to God. Those having the gift of Faith can’t believe that God did something bad, or induced man to sin. Although the previous considerations make me falter, doubt. I ask you Father to help me clarify.

Greetings in the Lord,

Marco

Priest’s answer

Dear Marco,

1.yes, if our progenitors hadn’t sinned they would have enjoyed the preternatural gifts: an infused knowledge and  immunity from pain and death. This is what arises from the biblical story and it is what the Church has always taught and continues to teach.

2.Your friend is wrong: the original sin didn’t deprive man from the immortality of his soul. The rational soul of man is for its nature spiritual and immortal. Soul is what brings the body to life. If the soul was dead, man would have turned into a corpse.

3.Soul provides our body with a triple ability: to assimilate  food and breath (it’s the vegetal life), to be  in touch with other realities through body’s senses (it’s the sensible life) and at the same time, to overcome the material limits in  getting to know the material reality in its intimate constitution, shaping it, molding it , transforming it (it’s the rational life that transcends the material, therefore it’s spiritual).

4.By getting away from God, our progenitors lost the sanctifying grace that used to infuse their soul and  bodies of a divine light and could no longer feed themselves from the tree of life, which was in the middle of the terrestrial paradise. Thanks to this mysterious nourishment they wouldn’t have risked death. It was the grace of God that preserved their body from pain, sickness and death. Getting away from God and from the tree of life, man found himself in his mortal nature, subjected to fatigue, sickness, pain and death.

5.All of this, except from the spiritual nature of the human soul, which can be proven with the resources of reason only, belongs to the Truth of our faith. These everlasting truths are expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Number 399 claims: “Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness (cfr Rm 3,23). They become afraid of God (cfr. Gn 3, 9-109) of whom they have conceived a distorted image, that of a God jealous of his prerogatives (cfr. Gn 3,5), (The Catholic Cross Reference).

6.Before the original sin everything in man was well harmonized: the senses didn’t rebel against the brain and will. On the contrary, they were perfectly subdued. The brain directed the will and the will followed it generously. The brain and the will were in total harmony  with God. With the rebellion against God, man started to experience the rebellion within himself at the same time : the will is sometimes reluctant to follow the dictates of intelligence. Therefore, even if it’s up to something good, it acts wrongly, as Saint Paul said (cfr. Rm 7,19). The senses started to show their arrogance. They drag to their obedience instead of letting themselves freely be ruled by the intellect and will. The universe itself, that previously was obedient to man’s orders, now resists him. Man works hard and nature itself sometimes seems to get rebellious and become hostile to him. 

7.That’s why number 400 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “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 (cfr. Gn 3,7); the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions (cfr. Gn 3,11-13), their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination (cfr. Gn 3,16). Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man (cfr. Gn 3,17; Gn 3,19). Because of man, creation is now subject to its bondage to decay (Rm 8,20). Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience (cfr. Gn 2,17). will come true: man will return to the ground, for out of it he was taken (cfr. Gn 3,19). Death makes its entrance into human history (cfr. Rm 5,12)”. (The Catholic Cross Reference).

8.To your second question the Catechism answers: “Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man (cfr. Gn 3,17; Gn 3,19). Because of man, creation is now “subject to its bondage to decay “(Rm 8,20). The original sin has had cosmic effects…You say: “Science shows a terrestrial ecosystem that experienced, in the animal kingdom, the pain, the fight for survival, the sickness and the death, years before man’s appearance on earth”. You can find the answer in Gn 2,8: “Then the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.”. (biblegateway.com). That Then means there was a story before man’s appearance and that had planted a garden in the east, in Eden means the terrestrial paradise wasn’t everywhere. Had planted in Eden is a geographic name that slips away from any location. It doesn’t matter where it was. It matters to know that it didn’t occupy all the terrestrial space. This provides space  to everything else that  science can prove.

9.Finally, you talk about the Homo Habilis who had the ability to craft weapons for defense and hunting, the man of Neanderthal who wore skins, did wall paintings and buried his own dead with precise rituals. These are all signs of man’s transcendence on material, of the immortality and spirituality of his soul, of the man already made in image of God, even if he brings with him the poverty and the fatigue of someone who’s coming off the original sin, that is “restless wanderer on the earth.”(Gn 4,12). (biblegateway.com). 

I gladly return your greetings to the Lord and I bless you and remember you in  prayer.

Father Angelo