Chapter 14 – The Fall of Man

Posted on 11/06/2018 by Dick Landkamer

Chapter 14: The Fall of Man

  1. Introduction
    • A Note on Sheed’s Enumeration of the Effects of Adam’s Sin
      • In this chapter Sheed speaks well of the effects of Adam’s sin, but his enumeration of these effects is not consistent. For example:
        • He refers to the “immediate” effects of Adam’s sin as being the shame and fear that came upon Adam after his sin (190-191). Clearly, this effect is no more immediate than the loss of sanctifying grace, for their experience of shame and fear is the result of the loss of sanctifying grace.
        • On p. 195 he refers to the infinite breach as being the third effect of Adam’s sin, by which he seems to intend the loss of sanctifying grace and loss of integrity as being the first and second effects; he does not number the “immediate” effects of shame and fear among these effects.
        • He speaks of the infinite breach as an effect of Adam’s sin, but he doesn’t speak of the infinite debt as an effect, though it surely is.
        • The headings for these notes have been written so as to accommodate all of the effects Sheed speaks of with a systematic enumeration scheme. This scheme necessarily diverges from the enumeration used by Sheed.
      • The effects he speaks of are the following:
        • Shame, guilt, fear
        • Loss of sanctifying grace and integrity
        • Infinite breach and infinite debt
        • Loss of creation’s respect for man’s dominion
        • Disordered universe
    • The Immediate Effects of Adam’s Sin
      • Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were in a state of Original Innocence, in which they were oblivious to their nakedness; hence, there was nothing about them for which they could be ashamed:
        • “The man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed” (Gen 2:25).
      • Immediately after the Fall, shame came upon them, concomitant with their loss of innocence; this shame is symbolized by their making garments of fig leaves:
        • “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Gen 3:7).
        • “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to” (Mark Twain, “Following the Equator,” 1897).
      • In addition to shame, they also began to experience servile fear, which is symbolized by their attempt to hide from God. Their fear was not without reason, for the punishment to be meted out to them, of which they had been warned, would bear heavily upon them (191-1).
        • “And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8).
      • Sheed doesn’t explicitly mention guilt, but the recognition of a loss of innocence necessarily coincides with the recognition of the acquisition of guilt. This guilt is actually the source of their fear:
        • “Servile fear looks upon God as the cause of the infliction of punishment . . . as the active cause of guilt” (Summa II of II, q. 19, a. 5, ad. 2).
    • The Punishment for Their Sin
      • God said to Eve:
        • “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16).
          • One should not take this as a mandate from God for husbands to rule over their wives. Rather, it should be understood as a prophecy of the evil that would come about as a result of their fallen state.
      • God said to Adam:
        • “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:17-19).
      • Adam and Eve were evicted from Paradise:
        • “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen 3:24).
  2. Excursus: Mortal and Venial Sin
    • Degrees of Sin Rooted in Scripture
      • “If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal” (1 Jn 5:16-17).
      • “Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin’” (Jn 19:11).
      • “And in his teaching [Jesus] said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to go about in long robes, and to have salutations in the market places and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation” (Mk 12:38-40).
    • Mortal Sin: Turning away from Our Last End
      • A violation of God’s law is a turning away from our last end (i.e., the purpose of our existence), God. Hence, it is a mortal sin, which involves the loss of sanctifying grace and, therefore, the loss of charity, for charity is concomitant with sanctifying grace.
        • “A sin committed against God [i.e., a turning away from our last end] has a kind of infinity from the infinity of the Divine majesty, because the greater the person we offend the more grievous the offense” (Summa III, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2).
    • Venial Sin: An Inordinate Use of Creation (a Means to Our End)
      • On the other hand, a mere disorder in the use of some created thing (a means to our last end) is a turning toward that created thing, but it is not a turning away from God. Consequently, such an act is a venial sin and it does not involve the loss of charity.
    • Mortal Sin versus Venial Sin
      • “Now sin comprises two things. First, there is the turning away from the immutable good, which is infinite, wherefore, in this respect, sin is infinite. Secondly, there is the inordinate turning to [some] mutable good. In this respect sin is finite, both because the mutable good itself is finite, and because the movement of turning towards it is finite, since the acts of a creature cannot be infinite. Accordingly, in so far as sin consists in turning away from something, its corresponding punishment is the “pain of loss,” which also is infinite, because it is the loss of the infinite good, i.e. God. But in so far as sin turns inordinately to something, its corresponding punishment is the “pain of sense,” which is also finite” (Summa I-II, q. 87, a. 4; also see article 5).
      • “Mortal sin is a turning away from our last end, is simply against the law, and is in itself irreparable, whereas venial sin is not a turning away from our last end, but a disorder in the use of means, and is rather beside the law than against it, halting us on our road to God. It is therefore reparable” (Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, 290).
  3. Two Personal Effects of Adam’s Sin: A Double Loss
    • The Double Life of Adam
      • “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 die’” (Gen 2:16-17).
        • “But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death” (Gen 2:17 DR).
      • As we have seen before, Adam had two lives, a natural life of body and soul by which he was a man, and a supernatural life of sanctifying grace, by which he was a son of God (192-1).
      • To each of these lives there is the potential of a corresponding death. Adam’s sin made that potential a certainty. He would experience both deaths as a result of his sin.
        • The Hebrew phrase from which we get “die the death” or “you shall die” can also be translated as “dying you shall die.” One can argue that this is actually the best translation, for it indicates an immediate death of some sort (i.e., the death of the soul) that will eventually result in what we commonly think of as death.
        • “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire” (Rev 20:14).
    • First Personal Effect: Loss of the Principle of Supernatural Life
      • We don’t know the specifics of Adam’s sin, but we know from the consequences of which God warned Adam that the sin involved grave matter.
        • “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 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 die’” (Gen 2:16-17).
      • Consequently, Adam’s offense was a mortal sin because “mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent” (CCC 1857).
        • “If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal (i.e., deadly). There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal” (1 Jn 5:16).
      • The death that Gen 2:17 speaks of is primarily spiritual death, and secondarily physical death. Spiritual death is the loss of sanctifying grace, the principle of the supernatural life of the soul.
      • “The vivifying element in sanctifying grace is charity, which is the love of God. Adam, setting his own will against God’s, in that very fact annihilated love [i.e., charity], thus [having] lost the living principle in sanctifying grace, was supernaturally dead” (192-2).
        • Recall from chapter 12 that the universe, having been brought into existence by God’s will, must have His will as its rule of operation, its law (170-3). Because “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8), every expression of God’s will must be an act of love (170-3). Therefore, God’s love is the rule of the universe’s operation. It follows that any act contrary to God’s law is necessarily contrary to charity.
        • Now, charity consists of self-gift, which can only be directed outwardly. Self-love, on the other hand, can only be directly inwardly. Hence, its motion is in opposition to that of charity. It is an attempt to gain for oneself something that is contrary to the law of charity. Being opposed to charity, such acts constitute sin.
      • Because the primary function of sanctifying grace is to provide the soul with the power to experience the Beatific Vision, heaven was closed to Adam and Eve (192-2).
    • Second Personal Effect: Loss of Integrity and Its Four Attendant Freedoms
      • Along with the loss of sanctifying grace came the loss of integrity and its four attendant freedoms:
        • Freedom from death (immortality) -> mortality: his body would experience “wear and tear” to a degree such that the soul would not be able to sustain the life of the body indefinitely.
        • Freedom from ignorance -> ignorance: the darkening of his intellect would result in decision making that would not always be to his benefit.
        • Freedom from inordinate desire -> concupiscence: inordinate desires would contribute to the demise of the body.
        • Freedom from suffering (impassibility) -> suffering: the created universe would inflict harm upon him in various ways (e.g., disease, accidents, hostile animals, human enemies)
      • By his rebellion against God, Adam set in motion a state of competing powers within the soul, and the rebellion of his body against his soul (192-3).
      • Prior to the Fall, the various powers of the soul worked together in complete harmony, and the powers of the soul ruled the body without rebellion (183-3).
        • “The soul had ruled the body [by a natural right] while [i.e., as long as] the soul preserved its right relation of loving obedience to [God]” (192-4)
      • However, once the soul rebelled against God, it lost its right to the body’s absolute obedience (192-4).
        • “The soul’s various powers had maintained harmony [with respect to one another] because all alike were directed toward God” (193-1).
        • “Having turned aside from God, [the soul’s powers] no longer had any one end to unify them.” As a result, each of the soul’s powers began to pursue its own satisfaction. The soul’s concord was turned into discord (193-1).
      • Consequently, the soul was faced with the rebellion of the body as well as warfare among its own powers (193-1).
      • “The splendor was most miserably and thoroughly wrecked. Adam had to struggle, as we all since have [had] to struggle, against the insubordination of the body and a wavering in the soul’s direction” (193-1).
        • In chapter twenty-three, we will return to this idea of the soul’s wavering (see 327-3).
  4. Two Effects of Adam’s Loss of Integrity
    • First Effect: Loss of Control of the Passions
      • “We find it nearly impossible to control our passions” (193-1)
      • “Passions” is the philosophical name for the “emotions.” There are eleven passions, six of which are concupiscible and five of which are irascible.
        • Concupiscible Passions – the powers of the sensitive appetite that seek what is suitable, according to the senses, and flee that which is hurtful (Summa I, q. 81, a. 2; I-II, q. 23, a. 4)
          • Love of an apparent good that is easy to obtain (this is really “like” as in one liking chocolate. One doesn’t choose to like something; hence, this is an unwilled “love.”)
            • Desire of the apparent good that is “loved”
            • Joy when the apparent good is possessed
          • Hate of an apparent evil that is easy to avoid
            • Aversion when the evil is not presently afflicting the person
            • Sorrow when the evil is presently afflicting the person
        • Irascible Passions – the powers of the sensitive appetite that resist that which is harmful, according to the senses. These passions originate and terminate in the concupiscible passions (Summa I, q. 81, a. 2; I-II, q. 23, a. 4)
          • Absent good that is difficult to obtain: Love for the good/Hate for the obstacle that stands in the way
            • Hope while the good appears attainable
              • Hope terminates in Joy when the good is attained.
              • Hope gives in to Despair if the good is found to be unattainable.
            • Despair when the good appears to be unobtainable
              • Despair terminates in Sorrow
          • Absent evil that is difficult to avoid: Love for that which will negate the evil/Hate for the evil
            • Daring while resistance seen as being within the agent’s power to resist)
              • Daring gives in to Fear when resistance appears to be beyond the agent’s power.
            • Fear while resistance seen as not being within the agent’s power to resist
              • Fear rises to Daring if resistance appears to be within the agent’s power
              • Fear terminates in Sorrow when the agent is unable to resist the evil
          • Present evil
            • Anger (a continuing resistance to a present evil)
              • Anger terminates in Joy if the evil is conquered.
              • Anger terminates in Sorrow if the agent is conquered by the evil.
        • The passions, in their first movements, are unwilled responses to some desirable or undesirable thing (see Summa I-II, q. 24, a. 1)
      • The mere observation of human society would necessarily lead one to conclude that if God created man, He surely didn’t create him like this! (193-1).
        • “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. . . . [They] admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street” (Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908).
    • Second Effect of the Loss of Integrity: Imagination’s Usurpation of the Intellect
      • Though intended to be a servant of the intellect, the imagination has instead usurped the role of the intellect to a large extent. “For about nine-tenths of our living activities, imagination practically runs the whole show” (193-2).
      • Three ways in which the imagination hinders/usurps the role of the intellect (see chapter 1, p. 32-36):
        • Distractions
        • Acts as a censor (it claims as unimaginable that which is conceivable)
        • Substitution of an image for a reality that has no image (e.g., the shamrock and the Trinity; images aren’t bad in themselves, as long as we recognize that they are signs that point to some other reality)
    • The Passions: Before and after the Fall
      • “That man should have passions is natural; what is tragic is that they should escape the domination of his mind” (194-1)
      • Prior to the fall, they were unperturbed by their nakedness and, in a sense, not even aware of it: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen 3:7).
        • Though they had sexual passion, as an element of their human nature, and had been told to be “fruitful and multiply,” the sexual passion was not their master (194-1)
      • After the Fall, “the passions passed out of the [ready] control of will and intellect: from now on they were to harry man perpetually” (194-1).
        • Immediately after the Fall, they discovered their nakedness (Gen 3:7).
        • Their first recorded action after being evicted from Eden was sexual intercourse (Gen 4:1).
        • The result of that act was the conception of Cain, the first murderer, who killed Abel in a fit of passion (Gen 4:8).
  5. The Possibility of Restoration
    • Innocence Lost; Memory and Free Will Retained
      • “What [Adam] knew of God before the Fall, he still knew after the Fall.” In seeing what he had lost, he could clearly see how good God had been to him (194-2).
      • Adam also retained his free will. He could “place his love anywhere between nothingness and God Himself” (194-2).
      • Seeing the goodness of God and the evil of his own sin, Adam had motivation for repentance (194-2).
    • Restoration of Sanctifying Grace
      • “He was not bound to repent, but he was able to repent; and theologians have never doubted that by God’s grace he did repent and received the supernatural life again into his soul, though not in its former plentitude – his troubled nature was not capable of that” (194-2).
        • “The Church Fathers generally, supported by Wis 10:2, teach that Our First Parents did atonement and ‘through the blood of the Lord’ were saved from eternal destruction” (Ott, “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma,” ch. 2, III, p. 107)
          • “Wisdom protected the first-formed father of the world, when he alone had been created; she delivered him from his transgression, and gave him strength to rule all things” (Wis 10:1-2).
        • Regarding the lack of full restoration of sanctifying grace, this is similar to, if not the same as, the case with the sacraments. The grace we receive is measured out according to our disposition.
        • In particular, with respect to mortal sin, the Church teaches that when mortal sin is forgiven the grace of some sacraments “revives,” but this does not mean that the penitent is fully restored to his original state of sanctifying grace. Those sacraments include all except the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist (Haffner, “The Sacramental Mystery,” p. 19).
          • “Though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right, he shall surely live” (Ez 33:14-16).
      • “If he had not thus received the supernatural life and died with it, he could not have entered heaven” (195-1).
    • Human Nature Not Fully Healed
      • Though sanctifying grace was restored to Adam, his nature was not healed merely by that fact (195-2).
      • Consequently “it remains true that the damage done to our nature has to be healed by an immense striving within our nature itself” (195-2).
        • A full healing of our nature is not possible, though one can go a long way toward that healing. The lives of the saints are characterized by the transforming union (i.e., the highest stage of the spiritual life). In the transforming union, one experiences that which “appears very much like the state of original innocence that theologians speak about” (Dubay, “Fire Within”, 183-2; Dubay gives an excellent teaching on this stage of the spiritual life in this book).
          • “Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully ‘divinized’ by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to ‘be like God’, but ‘without God, before God, and not in accordance with God’” (CCC 398)
          • “Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image – that of a God jealous of his prerogatives” (CCC 398).
          • “The harmony in which [Adam and Eve] had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed [by their sin]” (CCC 400).
          • “We do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. 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. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice” (CCC 404).
      • As long as our nature remains unhealed, we suffer from “the warfare of the body against [the] soul, the warfare of the soul’s powers among themselves, the swollen power of imagination, the clouding of the intellect and the distorting of the will by passion, [and] the ever-present possibility of falling again into sin” (195-2).
    • Excursus: Extra Sacramental Reception of Sanctifying Grace
      • This leads to a question regarding the manner in which Adam was restored to sanctifying grace without the aid of a sacrament, for the sacraments are the ordinary means of sanctifying grace.
      • Of this, Lagrange writes: “The state of grace is possible outside the visible Church. It is realized by men who, with the help of actual grace, do what is in their power and thus come to love God efficaciously more than themselves with a love of esteem if not a love of sentiment. ‘To anyone doing what in him lies [with the help of actual grace], God does not refuse [sanctifying] grace’” (Garrigou-Lagrange, “Our Savior and His Love for Us,” p. 378, quoting the Summa I-II, q. 109, a. 6; q. 112, a. 3).
      • The possibility of the reception of sanctifying grace in an extraordinary manner rests on 1 Timothy 2:4:
        • “[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).
      • Doctrines admitting extraordinary means of grace:
        • “[Perfect] contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible” (CCC 1452).
        • “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but He Himself is not bound by his sacraments” (CCC 1257).
  6. The First Effect of Adam’s Sin on the Human Race: The Infinite Breach
    • The Biological Unity of the Human Race
      • “The Third effect of the Fall . . . [is] the broken relation[ship] between mankind and God” (195-3).
      • This breach between God and man is the most serious effect of Adam’s sin (195-3).
      • We tend to overlook the importance of the biological unity that exists among the members of the human race:
        • “We have no natural and spontaneous response to the concept of the human race itself – not only all men now living but all men who have ever lived or ever will live” (196-1).
      • Because of this defect in our thinking, we are inclined to find the concept of God seeing the entire race as a whole, and, therefore, testing the whole race in one man, as something “improbable and almost grotesque” (196-1).
      • But it would be strange if God did not see the human race as a whole and treat it as such, for there is no member of it who is more immediately present to Him than any other (196-1).
      • This holistic view of man is exactly what we see in the story of God’s first dealings with the human race (196-1).
    • Man’s Broken Relationship with God: From Son to Servant
      • God had given the principle of supernatural life to the human race via Adam as head of the human race, for the entire race was seen by God as incorporated in Adam (196-2).
        • As we see in the creation account, the entire human race existed in Adam. Eve was taken from Adam, and all future human beings would be their biological offspring (Gen 2:22; 168-2).
        • “[God] made from one [man] every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).
      • The relationship between God and man was of the supernatural order, because man possessed sanctifying grace, the supernatural life of the soul, which made Adam and Eve adopted children of God through a participation in the divine nature (196-2).
        • “[Sanctifying] Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an ‘adopted son’ he can henceforth call God ‘Father,’ in union with the only Son” (CCC 1997).
        • “He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may . . . become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4).
      • “Had [Adam’s] relation[ship] remained unbroken, we should all have received from God the same supernatural life merely by being members of a race that had it” (196-2).
        • Individually each of us would have been sons of God merely by being members of the race of Adam, because corporately we stood in the relationship of sonship to God (196-2).
      • The entire race was thus put to the test in Adam; he sinned and the relationship between God and man was broken because Adam lost the supernatural principle on which his sonship with God was based (196-2).
      • “The race had been at one with God, as a son with his father: now it stood facing God as a servant [facing] his [master]. There was a breach between [God and the human race]” (197-1).
  7. The Second Effect of Adam’s Sin on the Human Race: The Infinite Debt
    • The ‘In Between” State of Adam and Eve
      • Though Adam and Eve were restored to sanctifying grace, as mentioned above, heaven was closed to them because the human race was no longer at one with God (197-1).
      • On the other hand, they could not be condemned to hell because they had the principle of supernatural life.
      • Hence, the problem for the human race was the restoration of oneness, the problem of “at-one-ment” (197-2).
      • God knew eternally what He would do to restore sonship to the human race, but until God acted there was nothing man could do to restore the race to sonship (197-2).
        • The reason there was nothing man could do lies with the degree of Adam’s offense, which will be discussed below.
      • We know from experience that man has the power to destroy what he cannot restore. Such was the relationship of the human race to God (197-2).
    • A New Element in Man’s Relationship with God
      • There was a new element in man’s broken relationship with God: sin. Because of Adam’s sin, the human race now stood at a lower level than it did originally, for it had incurred a debt to justice because of Adam’s sin (197-3).
        • “The act of sin makes man deserving of punishment, in so far as he transgresses the order of Divine justice, to which he cannot return except he pay some sort of penal compensation, which restores him to the equality of justice” (Summa I of II, q. 87, a. 6).
      • In terms of strict justice, something was due from man in expiation of the sin, in repayment of the debt, and in the restoration of the right order of reality (197-3).
        • “The man who commits sin, violates order; sin of its nature is disorder” (1 Jn 3:4 Knox).
      • The glory of God, which is the key to reality, had been denied by an act of human nature. Such a denial necessarily puts everything that follows from the denial into a state of unreality (198-1).
        • Hans Urs von Balthasar has said: “Sin obscures sight.”
          • “Wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul” (Wis 1:4).
          • “Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, “We see,” your guilt remains’” (Jn 9:41).
        • For example, on an individual scale, to the degree that one’s view of the world is affected by sinful desires or attitudes, his view is unreal; he is not seeing the world as it really is.
        • Adam placed the human race into the situation where the effects of his sin would tend to have some effect on everything we do. Hence, the race was, to some degree, placed in a state of unreality as a result of Adam’s sin.
        • Consequently, the human race needed something (Someone) to show us the way to reality.
      • “Some act of human nature at least as definitive in the opposite direction [of Adam’s sin] would seem to be required” in order to atone for Adam’s sin (198-1).
    • The Measure of Honor and Offense
      • The word “atonement” can be understood in two ways, and these two ways speak of the two problems for the human race that are the consequence of Adam’s sin (198-2):
        • The original sense of the word speaks of the healing of the breach between God and man (198-2).
        • Contemporary use of the word typically refers to the expiation of sin (i.e., payment of a debt so as to restore the right order of things) (198-2).
      • To understand the magnitude of these two problems, we need to understand something about the way offense and honor are measured. Let us begin with a note on the dignity of human persons:
        • “[Mankind is] one great family, in which all share the same fundamental good: equal personal dignity” (John Paul II, “Evangelium Vitae”, #25).
        • “Precisely by contemplating the precious blood of Christ, the sign of his self-giving love (cf. Jn 13:1), the believer learns to recognize and appreciate the almost divine dignity of every human being” (Ibid., 25).
      • To the intrinsic immeasurable dignity of human persons, the dignity of office also comes in to play when speaking of moral actions.
        • This is so because God has established such offices for the governing of man.
      • The measure of offense:
        • An offense directed against a person holding no civil office is considered to be of lesser degree than an offense directed against the mayor of a city, which is, in turn, considered to be of lesser degree than an offense directed against the governor of a state, which is, similarly, considered to be of lesser degree than an offense directed against the president of a country.
          • “A sin [involving grave matter] committed against God [i.e., a turning away from our last end] has a kind of infinity from the infinity of the Divine majesty, because the greater the person we offend the more grievous the offense” (Summa III, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2).
        • Consequently, we easily recognize the principle that offense is measured relative to the dignity of the person who received the offense.
      • The measure of honor:
        • An honor bestowed by a person holding no civil office is valued less than an honor bestowed by the mayor of a city, which is, in turn, valued less than an honor bestowed by the governor of a state, which is, similarly, valued less than an honor bestowed by the president of a country.
        • Consequently, we easily recognize the principle that honor is measured relative to the dignity of the person who bestows the honor.
    • Regarding the Infinite Breach:
      • As was noted above, Adam’s sin was a mortal sin, which is a “turning away” from our last end.
        • “Mortal sin is a turning away from our last end [i.e., God], is simply against the law, and is in itself irreparable” (Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, 290).
      • To turn away from something is to lose the relationship that one formerly had with that thing, as we see in Scripture:
        • “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water” (Jer 17:13; the same concept of “turning away” is stated in converse fashion in many other verses, such as Prv 3:7, 4:14-15; Ez 14:6, Dn 9:16, 2 Ti 4:4; 1 Pt 3:11).
      • If that from which one has turned away is infinite, the loss incurred is also infinite. Hence, in turning away from God, Adam, the representative man, lost for the human race the relationship between God and man with which he had originally been endowed; thus, Adam’s sin created an infinite breach between God and the human race.
        • “In so far as sin consists in turning away from something, its corresponding punishment is the pain of loss, which also is infinite, because it is the loss of the infinite good, i.e., God” (Summa I of II, q. 87, a. 4).
    • Regarding the Infinite Moral Debt
      • As was noted above, offense is measured according to the dignity of the one offended. For this reason, Adam’s sin “has a kind of infinity” because it is an offence against a person of infinite dignity.
      • Consequently, the moral debt to justice incurred by the human race is an infinite debt.
      • Note two things about the text:
        • First, Sheed does not explicitly state that the moral debt is infinite, but only that it is beyond fallen man’s ability to pay.
          • Garrigou-Lagrange is explicit on this point: “Mortal sin, by which man with full knowledge and [deliberate] consent scorns divine law on a serious matter by disobeying that law, [is a] turning away from [the infinite] God [and for that reason] has infinite gravity . . . If an offense increases in gravity with the dignity of the person offended, the injury done to God by mortal sin is limitless in gravity . . . To repair this disorder, an act of love of God of infinite value was necessary” (Garrigou-LaGrange, “Our Savior and His Love for Us,” 199).
        • Second, Sheed writes in 198-2: “Man himself was too badly damaged to offer any perfect act of reparation.”
          • As worded, this statement unintentionally implies that a human person who had not contracted the moral effects of original sin could offer an appropriate act of reparation.
          • Now, the Virgin Mary was such a person. If it were possible for her to offer a suitable act of reparation, there would have been no need for the Incarnation. Since God doesn’t do needless things, it is clear that even the act of a perfect human person would be an insufficient act of reparation.
      • Clearly, the price for man’s restoration was beyond the ability of man to pay, even in his original state, for atonement in both senses of the word was dependent on an infinite act with its corresponding infinite value. (198-2):
    • God Desired Man’s Restoration
      • God desired the restoration of sonship for the race (see 1 Tim 2:4 below), but this required expiation for Adam’s sin. How could expiation even be possible? (198-2).
        • “[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4)
      • Until God Himself restored the oneness between God and man, the human race was left in a state where individuals could be restored to the state of sanctifying grace, in anticipation of the Redemption, which gave them the power to live in heaven. But heaven itself was closed to the race.
      • Therefore, those who died in the state of sanctifying grace “must wait until heaven should be once more open to the race to which they belonged” (199-1).
  8. The Third Effect of Adam’s Sin on the Human Race: Transmission of a Fallen Nature
    • Recapitulation of the Fall
      • Adam was created in the supernatural order of sanctifying grace. As long as Adam submitted his reason to God, the passions would be submissive to reason and the body would be submissive to the soul.
        • “God raised primordially the whole human race in its root and head to the supernatural order of grace. . . . As long as reason submitted to God . . . sanctifying grace [served as] the root and source of the other two subordinations, of passion to reason, of body to soul” (Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, p. 197).
      • By choosing self over God, Adam fell out of the order of original justice.
        • “Original sin . . . is a sin of nature, which is voluntary, not by our will, but only by the will of Adam. Hence original sin consists formally in the privation of original justice” (Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, p. 199).
      • Adam’s “preternatural” gifts were lost. He was reduced to a purely natural state by his sin.
        • “Human nature is transmitted from parent to child by transmission of a body into which then the soul is infused” (Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, p. 199).
      • There were two lives in Adam (see 192-1):
        • First, a natural life of body and soul by which he was a man.
        • Second, a supernatural life of sanctifying grace, by which he was a son of God.
      • To each of these lives there was the potential of a corresponding death. Adam’s sin made that potential a certainty. He would experience both deaths.
    • Transmission of a Fallen Nature
      • We were all involved in Adam’s fall from grace (199-2) because we were all, in a sense, “in Adam” when he sinned.
        • “[God] made from one [man] every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).
        • “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom 5:12).
      • Because Adam sinned:
        • “We are all born into this life without supernatural life, with natural life only” (199-2).
        • “[Our] natural life is a damaged life, doomed inescapably to break up in death” (199-2).
      • Our souls are a direct creation by God; our bodies, on the other hand, come to us through Adam. Because his nature was damaged, the material element of human nature that he passes on to us is also damaged, for he can only pass on to us that which he himself possessed (199-3, 201-1)
        • That fallen nature lacks original justice, which is a lack of integrity and its four attendant freedoms. Hence, the nature Adam passes on to us includes (195-2, 199-3):
          • The body’s rebellion against the soul
          • The warfare of the soul’s powers among themselves (which could be a result of the body’s rebellion against the soul and/or the soul being created without sanctifying grace)
          • The imagination’s chronic usurpation of the role proper to the intellect (199-3).
          • The clouding of the intellect
          • The distorting of the will by way of the passions, which receive their stimulus from the bodily senses; hence, passions that are difficult to control (199-3).
      • The souls of Adam’s descendants incur the stain of original sin when infused into the damaged body to form a single nature. Consequently, the body-soul union of ours is that of a fallen nature (199-3).
        • “The soul of the child incurs [i.e., takes on] the original stain, because that soul constitutes with the transmitted body one nature. If the soul were not thus united to form one nature, but were only united as an angel is united to an assumed body, then the soul would not incur this original stain” (Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality, p. 199).
    • Summary Considerations
      • Note that original sin is contracted by way of generation, but not by the act of generation. The act of generation results in an instance of human nature that lacks original justice, which is the condition for contracting original sin. (See the excursus, “The Transmission of Original Sin,” which follows below.)
      • The effect of Adam’s sin on the nature of man was not as severe as the effect of the fallen angels’ sin.
        • From chapter 13: The sin of the fallen angels was pride; it had a radical effect: “The Devil and the other demons were created good in nature by God, but by their own act they became [confirmed in] evil” (Decree “Firmiter,” Fourth Council of Lateran).
        • “Love of self grown monstrous turned them to hatred of God, and in this hatred of God their wills were now set [i.e., fixed] so that they would [could] not change” (181-2).
      • What if Adam had not sinned?
        • “[Had Adam and Eve not sinned] it is clear that children [still] would not have been born confirmed in righteousness” (Aquinas, “Summa” I, q. 100, a. 2).
          • In other words, they would have been conceived in righteousness, but that righteousness did not have a permanent character. It would have had to be sustained by each individual through the avoidance of serious sin.
  9. The Fourth Effect of Adam’s Sin on the Human Race: Loss of Dominion
    • Dominion Conditioned on Righteousness
      • God gave man dominion over creation, so much so that the universe could not harm him (184-2):
        • “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen 1:28).
      • “[However] from Adam onward, man has been fighting for his life and rights in a universe that no longer acknowledges him as its lord.” Indeed, the greatest conqueror can be brought down by a mere microbe (199-3).
      • The dominion God had given man was lost with the Fall of Adam and Eve; but when God blesses Noah after the Flood there is a new note, and the implication that the righteousness of Noah produced a restoration of sorts:
        • Regarding Noah:
          • “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God” (Gen 6:9).
          • “Noah was found perfect and righteous” (Sir 44:17).
        • Regarding the restoration:
          • “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything’” (Gen 9:1-3).
  10. The Fifth Effect of Adam’s Sin on the Human Race: A Disordered World
    • The Earth Was Cursed by Adam’s Sin
      • Mysteriously, the earth itself was cursed by Adam’s sin, which, in some way, damaged the order of the universe.
        • “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Gen 3:17).
          • Obviously, sin is not merely something between the sinner and God.
      • In the beginning, God declared the universe to be very good:
        • “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day” (Gen 1:31).
      • The universe was still good, but now there was a disorder in it. The root cause of the disorder is Adam’s sin, which is the new element in man’s relationship with God (197-3).
      • Why would Adam’s sin have an effect on the material universe? There are two things to consider here:
        • First, “the material universe is so closely interlinked, inter-balanced, that the catastrophe in its highest part spread damage downward through all its parts” (200-2).
          • Note: It is not clear from Gen 3:17 that the curse extends beyond the ground. However, Romans 8 extends the curse to all of creation:
            • “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope . . . [that] creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Rom 8:20-21).
        • Second, “we have fallen into the naïve habit of thinking of matter as wholly self-contained, affected only by material causes” (200-2).
          • As we learned in earlier lessons, matter was (1) created by Spirit, is (2) continually held in existence by Spirit, and is (3) wholly under the control of Spirit. Hence, why would we think that what happens to spirit at any level leaves creation unaffected? (200-2).
        • We can’t say specifically what damage was caused to creation by Adam’s sin, but there is some new element of perversity in creation that damaged the order of the universe (200-2).
          • This provides a hint as to who it is that will be called upon to restore the order. Recall that when the Father expresses Himself in the created order, the idea in His mind is His self-expression in the uncreated order (i.e., the Word, the Son) (139-2).
  11. Supernatural Effects of Adam’s Sin That We Experience
    • Conceived without the Principle of Supernatural Life
      • As has been seen, the natural effects of Adam’s sin are significant. Nevertheless, “the supernatural effect is immeasurably more serious” (201-1).
      • We are conceived without the principle of supernatural life. This is not because Adam had lost it, for it is most probable that he regained it (201-1).
        • “The essence of original sin consists in the lack of sanctifying grace, in consequence of the fall of Adam” (Ott, “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma,” p. 199).
      • However, the principle of supernatural life is not inheritable for Adam’s descendants, for “he could not transmit to us what he did not have himself” (201-1).
        • That is, Adam’s fallen nature lacks the condition (original justice) that is necessary for his descendants to receive sanctifying grace at conception.
      • Because of Adam’s sin, we are conceived without the principle of supernatural life because the condition by which God would give it to us was that Adam would not fail the test in the Garden of Eden. But he failed (201-1).
      • Adam left the human race in a state where heaven was closed to it. In that state, the only other option after death is hell.
    • The Mystery of Original Sin: Our Guilt
      • “In some profoundly dark way Adam’s sin is in his descendants as real sin: they are not only affected by the results of his sin, they are somehow involved in the guilt of it:
        • “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Rom 5:19).
      • Note that the guilt Paul speaks of, in Romans 5:19, does not exist in us as the guilt of actual sin, that is, it is not a personal sin that we “actually” commit. Rather, it is in us as an “habitual” sin, a state of unrighteousness (a lack of original justice) which is the reason for the absence sanctifying grace (201-3).
      • We can easily see how the privation of sanctifying grace is an effect in us that is the result of Adam’s sin. But how is it sin in us if it is not a personal sin? (202-2).
        • Recall the difference between person and nature. Person answers the question “who,” nature answers the question “what.” The sins that we commit are associated with our (ontological) personality. Original sin is associated with our nature.
        • But note that we have only a shadowy notion of our nature in its root reality, and an even more shadowy notion of self. We are more in darkness than light with respect to nature and person; hence, we cannot answer the question as to whether person and nature are two different realities or two aspects of a single reality (93-2, 94-1).
      • “Theologians teach that it is transmitted by the natural way of sexual generation: it comes to us because we are ‘ex semine Adae’ or Adam’s seed” (202-2).
      • The difficulty with the doctrine of original sin lies in our inability to see two things clearly:
        • First, the relationship between person and nature within ourselves (201-2)
        • Second, “the relation of each man’s nature with the nature of those through whom [it passes from Adam] and ultimately from whom it comes to [us]” (201-2)
        • Read through the quotation from Odo of Cambrai (202-3)
  12. Excursus: The Transmission of Original Sin
    • Justice Is a Necessary Condition for Holiness
      • Holiness is the condition of being in the state of sanctifying grace. One who possesses sanctifying grace to some extent is in a state of holiness to that extent.
      • The possession of sanctifying grace requires that a person be in a state of justice. That is, for a person to receive and possess sanctifying grace there can be no outstanding instances of unrepented grave injustice for which he is responsible, for a grave injustice destroys charity, which is the life-giving element of sanctifying grace.
      • Consequently, justice precedes holiness and is a prerequisite for holiness.
    • Original Sin and the Headships of Adam and Christ
      • The headship of Adam is a natural reality to man, whereas the headship of Christ is a supernatural reality for man.
      • We come under Adam’s headship via carnal generation, for a progeny takes on the nature of its progenitor.
      • We come under the headship of Christ through baptism.
      • Hence, we are necessarily under the headship of Adam before we have an opportunity to come under the headship of Christ.
      • “The contraction of original sin is caused in each of us by coming under the moral headship of the first Adam before coming under that of the second Adam” (Miravalle, “Mariology,” 253).
    • The Condition for Original Sin
      • “The Augustinian doctrine on the transmission of original sin: the concupiscence involved in the generative act stains the flesh generated; this stain affects the soul when body and soul are joined somewhat later” (Bastero, “Mary, Mother of the Redeemer,” 187).
      • Contrary to the teaching of Augustine, John Duns Scotus correctly taught “the ‘infectio carnis’ [inflection of the flesh] is the condition for, not [the] cause of, contracting original sin at conception” (Ibid., 250).
      • “Because the children of Adam after Adam’s sin are conceived without the state of original justice, therefore they are lacking in the necessary prerequisite ordained by God for the conferral of sanctifying grace. The absence of original justice, otherwise called the debt of contracting original sin, not the ‘infectio carnis,’ is [the] reason for the non-conferral of sanctifying grace” at the time of ensoulment (Ibid., 250).
      • It follows that original sin is contracted through the process of carnal generation, but not by carnal generation itself. “Generation is but the condition for coming under the moral headship of Adam, not the reason for contracting original sin” (Ibid., 254).
  13. Excursus: The Human Natures of Jesus and His Mother
    • Subjection to Original Sin
      • Jesus was not subject to Original Sin; Mary was preserved from it.
        • “Original sin is propagated by natural generation. Since Jesus was conceived in a supernatural manner, He was not subject to the general law of original sin” (Ott, p. 168).
        • “The Most Holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of her conception, by a unique gift of grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin” (“Ineffabilis Deus,” quoted in Ott, p. 199).
          • Note that she was preserved from original sin, not cleansed from original sin.
    • Concupiscence
      • Jesus was generated from non-concupiscent flesh; Mary was preserved.
        • “Christ was generated . . . without any concupiscence of the flesh, and thus remained free from every stain of original sin” (Augustine quoted in Ott, p. 168).
        • “From her conception Mary was free from all motions of concupiscence” (Ott, p. 202).
    • Human Defects
      • Jesus voluntarily adopted them; Mary took them on naturally.
        • “In Christ, by virtue of His freedom from original sin, bodily defects were not as in other men, consequences of original sin, but He voluntarily adopted them” (Ott, p. 173).
        • “Freedom from original sin does not necessarily involve freedom from all defects which came into the world as a punishment for sin. Mary, like Christ Himself, was subject to the general human defects, in so far as these involve no moral imperfection” (Ott, p. 202).
    • Freedom from Personal Sin
      • Jesus could not sin; Mary was confirmed in grace and, hence, would not sin.
        • “Christ has not merely not actually sinned, but also could not sin” (Ott, p. 169)
        • “In consequence of a Special Privilege of Grace from God, Mary was free from every personal sin during her whole life [i.e., confirmed in grace, as indicated by Lk 1:28]” (Ott, p. 203).
    • Integrity: Harmony of body and soul
      • Sensual human nature was completely subordinate to reason for both Jesus and Mary.
        • “As Christ was not subject to original sin, there was no need for Him to take on Himself this consequence of original sin, nor was it demanded by His redemptive task. Christ’s sensual nature was, therefore, completely subordinate to the direction of reason” (Ott, p. 168).
        • “It is not to be doubted that, as regards her spiritual perfection, Mary possessed all the privileges which would have fallen to the lot of the children born in the original state of grace” (Sheeben, Mariology, II, p. 22).
  14. Original Sin and the Objection of Unfairness
    • No Question of Unfairness
      • It will seem to some that “we are being treated unfairly in thus being started off in life with a damaged nature and with no supernatural life at all, because of something done by someone else unmeasured ages ago” (202-4).
      • But the charge of unfairness will not “survive a little reflection” (203-1)
        • First: Sanctifying grace is not an element of human nature; it is a supernatural gift. Our human nature is complete without it; hence, we have no right to it. It is purely a gift from God and has been from the beginning (203-1).
        • Second: We owe our nature to Adam.
          • Were it not for him, we would have no nature at all, meaning no existence, and existence is certainly better than non-existence (203-1).
          • Before we existed we were not even entitled to a fallen human nature. Therefore, we cannot claim to have a right to a super nature (203-1).
          • We cannot say that we earned (and thus have a right to) a better nature than what we were conceived with (203-1).
          • We have not been cheated out of a better nature; there was nothing to cheat us out of (203-1).
    • Solidarity of the Human Race
      • “The complaint [of] our being thus bound up with Adam’s disaster shows a failure to grasp the organic solidarity of the human race” (203-2)
      • We are not isolated units of humanity; rather, we are all members of one thing, the human race, and it would be no advantage to any one of us to be cut off, somehow, from the rest of the race.
      • If we were cut off from the ill deeds of other members of the race, we would also be cut off from their good deeds.
      • “The same solidarity of the race by which we receive the effects of Adam’s defeat enables us to receive the fruits of Christ’s victory” as St. Paul says:
        • “Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men” (Rom 5:18)
  15. The Devil’s Part in Man’s Fall and Restoration
    • Identity of the Serpent
      • Genesis does not tell us who the serpent is, but we can deduce the serpent’s identity from other parts of Scripture (204-1):
        • “Through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it” (Wis 2:24).
        • “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Rev 12:9).
    • What Did the Devil Gain by Tempting Eve?
      • Recalling that it was “through the devil’s envy [that] death entered the world” (Wis 2:24) we see a motivation for the Devil’s desire that man suffer the same condemnation the Devil brought upon himself.
        • Concomitant with Satan’s desire to be like God (the motivation for his rebellion) is the desire to be above all other creatures. In their original state they were above all other creatures but their fall from grace was a fall in their moral state.
        • Hence, in their self-induced fallen nature they found themselves in a moral state far below that of the original state of man. This was a source of envy for these infernal spirits; it provided a motivation for the tempting of Adam and Eve.
      • “Man had been established by God as lord of the world, and some sort of lordship passed to his conqueror” (204-2). We see this in the references to the Devil as being the “prince of the world.”
        • “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out” (Jn 12:31).
        • “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming” (Jn 14:30).
        • “[When the Counselor comes He will convince the world] . . . of judgment: because the prince of this world is already judged” (Jn 16:7-8, 11).
      • Satan became the “lord of the world” in the way that alcohol can become the lord of a man, or, as Scripture says, for those who are “enemies of the cross of Christ . . . their god [i.e., lord] is the belly” (204-2, Phil 3:18-19).
      • “[Did Satan actually] gain some sort of rights over the world?” (204-2).
        • The answer is no, for nothing can be gained by sin because sin is fundamentally an absence of good (Summa I-II, q. 25, a. 2). Since nothing exists except that which God created, and all that God created is good (Gen 1:31), the absence of good is identically the absence of being. Consequently, sin produces nothing; hence, there can be no gain from sin.
          • “By the name of evil is signified the absence of good” (Summa I, q. 48, a. 1).
      • The Devil’s power over fallen man is a “horrifying fact” (205-1).
        • However, we must remember that the good angels desire our salvation at least as much as the fallen angels desire our condemnation, and they have the power of God on their side, and we know that the good angels will be victorious over the fallen angels.
          • “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven” (Rev 12:7-8).
    • The Devil’s “Gain”: Power but no Rights
      • “To say that Satan gained the right to tempt mankind by his victory over Adam would be too strong,” for his action was sinful and rights cannot be acquired by sin (205-2).
      • However, “it would seem that God saw a certain fittingness in allowing Satan to tempt man: the human race, in Adam, had chosen to listen to Satan; very well, let them go on listening to Satan” (205-2).
        • We all have the experience of Adam in listening to the Devil and being seduced by his empty promises. In this, “[we] make a sort of solidarity in sin between us and him that is a horrid parody of the [human race’s] solidarity in nature” (205-2).
      • “On the whole our record is not too glorious,” and this should not be a surprise considering how easily Satan defeated unfallen man (205-2).
      • On the other hand, strife against such a powerful enemy can greatly strengthen the soul, “and this also God may have had in mind in allowing Satan to tempt us” (206-1).
      • There are two ways (and perhaps other ways) in which we can understand the Devil’s dominion over man:
        • First, following Adam’s sin, man had no kingdom that could effectively do battle with Satan and his demons.
          • This thought will come up again in chapter 19; the Kingdom of Heaven will be introduced in chapter 20.
        • Second, consider the natural state of the angels and Adam prior to their respective falls; the Devil’s sin caused his moral state to fall below that of man’s moral state.
          • When Adam sinned, his state likewise fell such that the Devil once again had the advantage over man in some sense. But he gained the advantage because of Adam’s sin, not because of his own sin, and the advantage lies in fallen man’s weakness, not the Devil’s powers.
          • However, it should be noted that man is capable of gaining tremendous spiritual strength by advancing in holiness, a strength that the Devil and his demons fear. This is the constant witness of the saints.
    • A Second Chance for Individuals
      • “God knew what He would do so that the race of man might return to His friendship: otherwise there would have been no point in giving sanctifying grace to individual men” (206-2).
      • We have already spoken of the possibility of man’s restoration to the state of grace (194-2), but something more than that was needed. Sanctifying grace gives one the power to live in heaven, but it doesn’t open up heaven if it is closed.
        • There is a hint of restoration of grace in Gen 3:15:
          • “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
        • There is a hint of a general restoration of grace near the end of the account of the Fall where Adam names Eve:
          • “The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20).
      • Mankind’s second chance would involve an individual test for each of us, and that testing would involve the Devil just as it did for Adam (206-2).
      • Our testing is fundamentally a test of the will, to choose God, or to choose self over God (206-3)
        • The latter choice is typically begins as an indirect choice of self which develops over time as one “seeks for happiness according to one’s own desires” (206-3).
    • Our Individual Testing Involves Natural and Supernatural Forces
      • There is so much in this world to tempt us that one might ask why the Devil should bother with us (206-3).
        • Recall from chapter 13: In their hatred of God, they could only hate His good works. Hence, they could only hate one another, for the good work that God had put into their being was still there. The same is true of mankind, for in the material world, mankind stands out as having been made “very good” (Gen 1:31). The demons see that goodness and are repulsed by it (182-2).
      • Some elements of this will have to wait till later (see 350-3). However, one of the elements needs to be addressed now.
      • Evil might very well have had a carnival with man if he were just left to his own inclinations to damage and diminish himself. “But it would be a somewhat chaotic carnival” (207-1).
        • Satan was stymied in his efforts to bring a lasting condemnation upon the entire human race, for God immediately promised a Redeemer (Gen 3:15).
        • That left the Devil with the lesser option of capturing some portion of the human race. A mere chaos of evil would not suffice to accomplish his goal of maximizing the number of condemned human souls.
      • Hence, what we actually see in the world is not a chaos of evil, but evil with “a drive and a direction . . . [that] suggests a living intelligence coordinating what would otherwise be only scattered and unrelated plunges of the human will” (207-1).
    • The Erroneous Modern Conception of the Devil
      • “The modern mood . . . will have none of this notion of a personal Devil,” preferring instead to speak of “forces and tendencies” because “forces and tendencies” are much less threatening to us than the reality of a Devil who is a person with great intelligence (207-2).
      • This refusal to give “personality to the Devil is part of the general modern attack upon personality”
        • We have already seen this with respect to God, in chapter 3, where we considered two aspects of a common view of God in which He is considered to be an extra:
          • There is the sentiment that “[Religion] has no place in the practical business of man’s life” (49-2).
          • There is the ubiquitous and false idea that “what a man believes about God is his private affair” (49-2).
        • The book will discuss this with respect to man in chapter 27, Habituation to Man, 375-2.
          • One example of this in today’s society is found the utilitarian philosophy that promotes the making of medical decisions based on a relativistic “quality of life” criterion rather than the authentic criterion of intrinsic human dignity which has its basis in human personality.
            • “Precisely by contemplating the precious blood of Christ, the sign of his self-giving love (cf. Jn 13:1), the believer learns to recognize and appreciate the almost divine dignity of every human being” (John Paull II, “Evangelium Vitae,” 25).
      • If we refuse personality to God and man, it only seems natural that we would also refuse personality to the Devil.
      • Now, if we reduce the Devil to a “tendency,” we must throw out a vast amount of Christianity, for the Devil appears frequently throughout Christian history, from one end to the other, as someone rather than something, as a being of intelligence and will (207-3).
      • Thus, “it is not for nothing that the first statement God made of what He would do, He made not to Adam and Eve but to the Devil” (207-3).
        • “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise [i.e., “crush”; see Rom 16:20] your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15).
    • Encounters with the Devil
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About Dick Landkamer

In my day job, I'm an IT Analyst (BSEE, University of Nebraska) for Catholic Charities of Wichita. Outside of my regular job, I have a passion for theology (MA Theology, Newman University), sacred music, traditional church architecture, logic, philosophy, mathematics, physics, astronomy, and a host of other related things.
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