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August 13, 2005

Ch. XV. Q. 89. The First Sin

OUR FIRST parents did not obey the will of God, but fell into avoidable sin. According to the symbolical description of Genesis, at the suggestion of the serpent they ate of the forbidden fruit; as a penalty were banished from Eden, and deprived of the food of immortality of the tree of life. In brief, they reverted to the moral and physical corruptibility, and the mortality of man's natural state.1

2. Some have thought that God ought not to have permitted a condition of things in which sin was possible. But such a possibility is a necessary incident in the moral probation of really free creatures. Therefore, if God was to be glorified by free creaturely service, the inevitable cost of such consummation was the possibility of sin. Moreover the coming in of sin cannot be considered justly without reckoning with the dispensation of redeeming grace.2

3. Temptation was permitted because in no other way can human obedience to God be adequately tested and perfected. It is by resisting temptation that men prove thair conformity to God's will to be positively energetic and spiritually significant—not merely passive.3 The primitive temptation was threefold, enlilisting the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life,4 and thus assailing our first parents through all ppossible avenues of huhuman temptation.5

4. The consequences of sin to man were immediate and twofold (a) A loss of grace, because of which he became subject to natural corruptibility, both physical and moral; (b) A disturbtince of his external relations, that is, alienation from God and enslavement to Satan. If the dispensation of redemption had not been vouchsafed, the spiritual ruin of mankind would have been hopeless.


1 On human sin at large, Creation, ch. viii. 9-12 and ch. ix; Evolution, pp. 133-149 and Lec. vi; St. Thomas, I. II. xviii-xxi; H.P. Liddon, Some Elements, Lec. iv; D. Stone, Outlines of Christ. Dogma, ch. v.; Chas. Gore. in Lux Mundi, App. ii; H.V.S. Eck, Sin, Pt.II; Wilhelm and Scannell, Cath. Theol. §§ 155-161. For evolutionary views, F. \R. Tennant, Origin and Propagation of Sin; and The Concept of Man; W.E. Orchard, Modern Theories of Sin. For non-Christian ideas, J.A. MaccuIloch, Compar. Theol., ch. vii.

2 Creation, pp. 137-138; E.H. Jewett, Diabology, pp. 59-64; J.R. Illingworth, Reason and Revel. p. 224; A.M. Fairbairn, Philos. of Christ. Religion, pp. 153-163.

3 St. Thomas, II. II. clxv.; I. II. lxxx; A.J. Mason, Faith of the Gospel ch. iv. 6-7. A.C.A. Hall, Christ's Temptation and Ours, pp. 8-12.

4 Gen. iii. 1-6. Cf. St. John ii. 16.

5 Creation, pp. 271-273.

Posted by AKMA at August 13, 2005 02:17 AM

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