Tag Archives: Original Sin

The Gateway Vice

Anthropology, Eucharist, Fasting, Virtue, , , , , ,

As Eve twisted the apple from its stem, little did she grasp that she was also twisting the desires of her progeny for all time.  By mingling good and evil, their desires would no longer be the North Star that God intended them to be.  For He had willed that man, in pursuing those things that were truly good for him, would be rewarded with pleasure.  Reason commanded the will towards the good and pleasure was its reward.  Adam seized the reward instead by choosing that which was “pleasing to the eye and good for food,” Adam truly upset the apple cart.  In choosing pleasure over reason, reason no longer ruled but instead wrestled with pleasure.  In seemingly becoming “like unto the gods” he became like unto a beast. 

God did not leave mankind unaware of its fundamental brokenness but instead left an orientation towards those things that are truly good for them intact.  It became difficult, but not impossible.  Generation after generation knew this and sought to root out vice and find fulfillment in virtue.  But few of those generations have embraced this brokenness with such gusto as our own.  Virtue is something to be signaled, not actually owned, and vice is to be rationalized away as, at worst, a “bad habit” akin to cracking your knuckles or clicking your tongue before you speak.  If virtue is to be more than signaled, then we must restore a proper understanding of vice. 

Following in the footsteps of the desert monks, St. Gregory the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas, Tradition has left us with Seven Deadly Vices.  St. Thomas called them Capital Vices because these seven vices are usually the source or head of all of the sins we commit (see ST II-II, q.153, art.4).  The reason why this is important is that these vices remain hidden to us as subconscious motivations for the sins we do commit.  They cause us to steal pleasure where none should be found.  Only once they are recognized can we restore pleasure to its rightful place as a side effect. 

A Useless Vice?

One of these vices, gluttony, at least on the surface does not seem to be a big deal.  How could a little overeating or carrying a little too much have anything to do with our spiritual life?  But, as St. Gregory the Great said, “unless we first tame the enemy dwelling within us, namely our gluttonous appetite, we have not even stood up to engage in the spiritual combat.”  His point is that gluttony is a gateway vice that, left unconquered, will most certainly lead to hell.  It trains us in the practice of self-indulgence and causes us to more and more of it.  Likewise, when we abandon reason when it comes to eating, we are almost certainly going to abandon it in other areas too.

Now I mentioned the connection between being fat and gluttony, but we would err greatly if we thought gluttony is all about whether we are fat or not.  The skinny woman who drinks a six-pack of Coke Zero a day is likely to be far more gluttonous than the man whose six pack is buried beneath 25 pounds of fat.  The latter might recognize that the purpose of eating is to provide nutrition while the former has no such awareness.  She merely wants the pleasure of Coke without the caloric consequences.  She is limited only by the amount of pleasure she craves, not by any bodily need or capacity.  And herein lies the vice of gluttony: “the sin of gluttony is when the desire for such pleasures goes beyond the rule of reason.  And so there is the saying that ‘gluttony is the intemperate desire to eat.’” (St. Thomas Aquinas, On Evil).  

The problem is not the pleasure attached to eating—God has attached that pleasure to eating because eating fulfills our nature.  Nor is it necessarily that we choose a food we like better than another to eat.  Gluttony is deeper than that, it resides interiorly in that it is the pleasure, rather than the reason for eating, that drives us.  Right reason says that food is necessary for humans in two ways: first as nutrition and second as a means of sharing life with others.  Anytime we go beyond those reasons, we are operating under the vice of gluttony. 

As proof that gluttony is more than just about girth, there are five ways in which it tends to manifest itself.  These can be remembered by invoking the acronym FRESH—fastidiously, ravenously, exceedingly, sumptuously, and hastily.

In the Screwtape Letters, Wormwood complains to Screwtape about how useless gluttony is for capturing humans.  Screwtape quickly corrects him and says that fastidious gluttons are often very easy to ensnare.  The Fastidious Glutton is the one who suffers from the “‘All-I-want’ state of mind.”  Its hiddenness makes it quite useful in capturing her in a diabolic net because she is so particular about her food and how it is prepared that she is miserably attached to the pleasure of eating foot that is “made your way.”  The taste is all that matters for the fastidious glutton.  The pleasure dominates her eating rather than coming as a side effect.  It also makes all those who have the misfortune of eating with her or preparing her food positively miserable.

There is also the glutton who eats sumptuously.  He is preoccupied with the pleasure of being full.  He will only choose those foods which are substantial enough to leave him with the feeling of fullness.  Reason should dictate when we have eaten enough to sustain ourselves and not the feeling of fullness.  When we eat to be full, we are again chasing pleasure rather than being controlled by reason.  Again there is no concern for what they are being filled with, only that they experience the pleasure of being full.   This is, by the way, the reason the Church in her wisdom traditionally recommends fasting from sumptuous foods during Lent and restricting the menu to bread and vegetables instead.

The ravenous glutton is the one who must eat as much as they can, regardless of whether there is enough food for anyone else and how full they are.  Their eyes might be bigger than their stomachs, but their stomachs will soon be bigger than their belts. 

Similar to the ravenous glutton there is the glutton who eats hastily.  This glutton treats his utensils like a shovel and must always have his mouth full without chewing or eating slow enough for digestion to occur.  The glutton who eats excessively.  He will eat past the point of fullness in order to indulge the tastes even if it leads to bloating and upset stomach later.

The Only True Antidote

The antidote ought to be obvious and something we have spoke about numerous times in the past—cultivating the virtue of fasting.  There is one particular aspect of fasting however that bears mentioning and that is the Eucharistic Fast.  We spoke of the reason for food and for eating being nutrition and sharing of life.  But the reason from God’s perspective is more expansive than that.  God gave us food as a sign of the only true Food that is the Bread of Life.  Therefore, we should forego the sign for the reality. 

The Church has us fast before receiving the Eucharist so that in experiencing bodily hunger we might recognize what that hunger actually points to.  By receiving the Eucharist in a state of hunger, it is Real Food that nourishes us.  To show us the truth of this, God gave a grace to the Saint of the Eucharist, St. Catherine of Siena by which she ate only the Eucharist for 7 years prior to her death.  This miraculous sign enabled her to eat only the Bread of Life and to suffer no ill effects from what would otherwise be a severe fast.  In order to truly hunger for the Eucharist then it becomes necessary to fast for more than just the obligatory hour before receiving.  We may choose to do something similar to what the Church had previously held that you could not eat anything during a day until you had received the Eucharist that day.

In his book Victory Over Vice, Venerable Fulton Sheen says that Christ’s cry of “I thirst” was His definitive destruction of the power of gluttony to rule the lives of Christians.  What better place then than the Mystical Foot of the Cross of the Eucharistic Sacrifice to receive those hard won graces to finally overcome the Gateway Vice of Gluttony.

Limbo and the Fate of Unbaptized Infants

Abortion, Church Fathers, Faith and Reason, Heaven, Mercy, Purgatory, Redemption, Relativism, Sacraments, , , , , ,

In an age of exaggerated mercy there is perhaps no doctrine that is more reprehensible than that of Limbo.  Developed early on in the Church’s history, it is the belief that children who die without receiving baptism go to a place of natural bliss in which they do not share in the Beatific Vision given to the Blessed in Heaven.  Treated as a theological pariah, this belief is summarily dismissed as harsh and medieval but no alternative is given to tackle the difficult question of the everlasting destiny of these children.  When millions of children are lost every year because of abortion it would seem that it should be treated with some theological urgency so that the Church might find a true means of salvation to these children.

Original Sin and Hell

Properly framing the problem helps us first to see why it is a problem of particular urgency.  All of humanity at the moment of conception is plagued with Original Sin.  This condition is not one of actual guilt per se, but of deprivation.  A child is conceived and remains devoid of sanctifying grace until they are reborn in the waters of Baptism (c.f. John 3:5).  Why this matters is because without sanctifying grace, a soul cannot enter into the Vision of God.  This is not because God is a stickler for rules but because Heaven is not natural for human beings such that in order to enter into the presence of the Consuming Fire that is God, a man must be properly clothed (c.f. Mt 22:11) with the “spiritual fire suit” that makes him capable of partaking of the Divine nature (c.f. 2Pt 1:4).

The fact that Heaven is not the natural destiny of mankind is also important for understanding Limbo.  Because no one sees the face of God and lives (c.f. Ex. 33:20), that is by nature man cannot stand before the face of God, it is a supernatural gift that God bestows upon men.  It is a free gift offered to all men, but only those who have been given the gift and maintained it, can actually receive it.  That it is a gift means that to be deprived of the gift is not exactly the same thing as having been punished.

We see an example of this among the righteous men of the Old Testament.  Prior to Christ’s descent into hell, which is understood not as the hell of the damned but as the limbus of Abraham’s Bosom, these men and women were in a state of natural bliss.  They enjoyed God, not face to face and as He really is, but according to their natural knowledge of Him that was illuminated by their faith in His revelation up to that point.  This was a temporary state so that once they saw the Messiah God had promised they were immediately given the Beatific Vision. 

This example is illustrative because it offers us glimpse of what a permanent state of the Limbus Infantium would be like.  Although laboring under the constraints of Original Sin, the children have no actual sin and thus do not deserve to be punished.  That is, they avoid the two punishments of hell: the pain of sense and the pain of loss.  Even though they are deprived of the Beatific Vision (usually considered to be the pain of loss in adults), they have no supernatural knowledge of glory and thus do not know what they are missing.  Because they do not have the natural capacity to achieve it, they do not grieve its loss.  No man grieves the loss of his inability to fly because it is not within his natural capacity to do so.  Instead they experience a natural joy in that they achieve a natural end—contemplation of God by natural means.  As St. Alphonsus puts it:

“children will not only not grieve for the loss of eternal happiness, but will, moreover, have pleasure in their natural gifts; and will even in some way enjoy God, so far as is implied in natural knowledge, and in natural love: ‘Rather will they rejoice in this, that they will participate much in the divine goodness, and in natural perfections.’( St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo, q.5, a.3)  And he immediately adds, that although they will be separated from God, as regards the union of glory, nevertheless ‘they will be united with him by participation of natural gifts; and so will even be able to rejoice in him with a natural knowledge and love.’”

The Great Means of Salvation and Perfection

“A Possible Theological Opinion”

Despite falling into theological disfavor, the theory of Limbo remains a “possible theological opinion” according to the International Theological Commission in their 2007 document Hope of Salvation of Infants Who Die without Baptism.  It remains possible because it offers a very reasonable solution to the problem.  It remains possible because it is also very hopeful in that it does not condemn otherwise innocent children to the hell of the damned.  It remains possible because it is really only a reasonable solution to the problem of which Revelation never treats directly and any solution would require us to piece together many different doctrines.  But the point is that we should also not be so quick to dismiss it because it is the best solution we have right now because it fits many, if not all, of the pieces together.  It is the best solution because it is the one that has the backing of numerous doctors of the Church, two of whom we have already mentioned—St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus. 

Nevertheless, the Holy Innocents teach us that there are extra-sacramental ways in which children can be saved, especially via a baptism of blood.  Cajetan thought that children could be saved also through a vicarious baptism of desire or others have posited that the children are given the use of their reason just prior to death in order to choose. 

That we don’t know however should spur us to do two things.   First is never to delay baptism.  Baptism remains the ordinary means of salvation and the only sure way we know by which children can be saved.  We should not delay their baptism any longer than is absolutely necessary regardless of a fear of germs or familial convenience.  Second is that the Church has a whole needs to be praying for these children, especially those in the womb who are in danger of death. 

Accepting Polygenism

Creation, Evolution, Magisterium, , , , , ,

Benjamin Franklin once quipped that nothing was certain but death and taxes.  If Mr. Franklin were alive today, he would add evolution to the list of certainties. The theory has become fact and has won uncritical acceptance from nearly everyone, Catholic or not.  Having become adamantine, this theory has broken Adam’s family into pieces with dire consequences both for the Faith and for the world because of one particular aspect, polygenism.  Polygenism, put simply, is the belief that, rather than tracing our human origins back to a single couple, we came from multiple couples.  Rather than look at each of the different theories in particular, we will examine the idea based through philosophical and theological lenses.

First it is worth mentioning that the Magisterium has cautioned the Faithful about accepting polygenism in any of its forms.  In his 1950 Encyclical, Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII spoke of the liberty the Faithful have in discerning the origins of the human body.  But,

“When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own”

Humani Generis, 36-37

It takes a bit of theological gymnastics not to read this as a blanket rejection of polygenism, but nevertheless some theological contortionists have posited that the door is still open.  What is clear however is that any polygenetic theory would have to maintain two truths about Adam.  First, that there are no men on earth that did not take their origin from him.  Secondly, we cannot see Adam as somehow an icon or symbol for a bunch of first parents.  Hard to imagine that any theory of polygenism could maintain this since it seems to assert its opposite, but even if the Pope did leave it open, there is no theory as of yet that meets this criteria.

Pius XII mentions the theological interest in the question as it relates to Original Sin.  It leaves open the possibility and historical reality of an unfallen race at various time points throughout history.  Even if all mankind eventually fell, there would have been a time when unfallen and fallen men lived together.  That means there may have been unfallen men who were conceived of unfallen parents.  This would then call into question the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by which Our Lady is said to have received a “singular grace”.  It also leaves open the possibility that men died without falling and thus would not be in need of redemption.  If all men did not sin in Adam then all men are not redeemed in Christ.

This is not the only way that polygenism tugs at the thread of the seamless garment of the Faith in ways we do not initially grasp.  It also puts in jeopardy the dogmatic truth of the special creation of Eve.  It is a matter of dogma taught through the Ordinary Magisterium, and first affirmed Pope Pelagius I in 561 and reaffirmed by Pope Pius XII in the aforementioned Encyclical that Eve was literally created from the rib of Adam.  This belief is protective of the equal dignity of men and women because they come from the same origin.

It turns out that polygenism not only leads to inequality between the sexes but between races as well.  The evolutionary model rests upon a progressive view of beings.  Things are always adapting and getting better.  From a philosophical perspective, evolution is the tool by which the rungs of the Ladder of Being are being added.  Beings on the same rung are equal in dignity, those above or below have more or less dignity.  Human beings are equal in dignity because they occupy the same rung of the Ladder of Being.  Under the model of polygenism this ceases to be the case.  With different evolutionary origins, different races occupy different rungs on the ladder.  In short, it gives both biological and philosophical justification for some human persons being more equal than others.

This is why the Francis Galtons, Margaret Sangers and Hitlers of the world have always loved the Theory of Evolution.  It justified their eugenic madness.  Under polygenism, some races would necessarily be inferior to other races.  This would justify their extermination and there would be no disputing them.  This is why Pope Pius XII thought it necessary to safeguard not just Revelation, but man’s unique place within visible creation against the threat of uncritical acceptance of Evolution.  Ideas have consequences and all of us, especially Catholics, need to be more critical in their acceptance of the Theory of Evolution.

Before closing, it is worth mentioning that many well-meaning Catholics accept polygenism because it seems better than accepting incest among Adam and Eve’s children.  Rather than revisiting that question here, I will simply point you to a previous post that deals with that objection.

Our Happy Fault

Sin, Spiritual Warfare,

In his classic book, Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton quipped that Christianity begins with the doctrine of Original Sin, which, he says, “is the only part of Christian theology that can be proved.”  His point is that all men must agree on the doctrine of the Fall regardless of whether they profess it or not.  Each of us experiences tugs in different directions that reveal a war going on in our members.  As we near the close of Advent and prepare to celebrate Christianity’s beginnings, meditating on this most important doctrine can bear much fruit.

Any discussion on Original Sin has to begin by recognizing the platypus-like quality of man whose nature is a spirit/matter composite.  He is formed out of the “dust of the ground” that is animated by the breath (or pneuma, from which we get the word spirit) of God.   This leaves man with in a state of being tugged in two directions.  Like all matter, his material being always tends towards decay and death.  His spirit, because it is not composed of parts cannot be subject to decay, is immortal.  As a material creature, man will strive to preserve his material being.  As spiritual creature, man will always feed on truth and goodness.  Despite these incompatibilities there is also a mutual dependence of the various faculties in man.  The material depends upon the spiritual in order to have life and fuller sensation while the spiritual depends on the material in order to know and love.

It would seem based on this description that man, by nature, is at war within himself.  But the spirit/material composite of man is not merely some haphazard mixture.  The spirit has a certain precedence over the material and the material is in the service of intellectual knowing and loving.  This integration in man’s faculties means that the will perfectly follows the intellect while the material faculties such as the passions enable the will to act with a certain intensity that spills into the body.

Even with this integration in man’s faculties, there is still the problem of death.  Because the body is material and subject to decay, the spirit will no longer be able to act through it when that decay reaches a certain level.  This leads to a monstrosity of a soul separated from its body.  To alleviate what appears to be a fundamental “flaw” in human nature, God bestowed Adam and Eve with the preternatural gift of immortality; the whole person, body and soul.  This gift however was conditional.  It was conditioned on the fact that Adam always oriented his faculties toward God and His will.  This immortality was also a result of a share in God’s eternal life which is called sanctifying grace.

Summarizing we can say that, prior to the Fall, man was gifted with sanctifying grace at his creation and bodily immortality.  It is important to remember as well that the perfect integration of his faculties was a natural endowment rather than a supernatural gift.

the-fall-of-man

While we do not know what the actual sin was that Adam committed, we can say what it was not.  It was not a sexual sin like lust as is often suggested.  To suggest that is more telling of us as fallen men rather than Adam as unfallen.  Because he enjoyed the perfect integration of body and soul, it had to be a spiritual sin.  That is why most theologians think that it was the greatest of spiritual sins, pride.  What we do know is that when Adam sinned he lost the gift of sanctifying grace.  In trying to “be like God” in knowing good and evil, he forfeited the way in which he was actually like God (sanctifying grace).  For being like God was not something to be grasped (Phil. 2:6) but instead something to be received as a free gift.  This loss of sanctifying grace is called Original Sin.  In God’s plan, Adam and all his offspring were to be gifted with sanctifying grace at their conception.  When Adam sinned as the head of mankind, he lost that gift for all his offspring.  He also lost the gift of immunity from death so that he and his offspring were made subject to their material limitation (“For you are dust, and to dust you shall return”—Gn 3:19).

Because of the supernatural height, from which he fell, Adam also did damage to his nature.  This damage is what we call concupiscence.  No longer did he have the perfect integration of his faculties.  The intellect became darkened so that the truth became blurry, the will was weakened so that the good became less desirable and the passions ran amok, inclining man towards unreasonable pleasure.  In other words, man was left worse off for having lost Sanctifying grace than if he had not been gifted with it to begin with.

Why would God leave man worse off?  In short it is because man has a supernatural end.  He was made to be with God.  Because friendship can only occur between equals, man cannot reach this end on his own. Therefore God must raise man up by giving him a share in His nature.

If man was left with his natural faculties intact, he would tend only towards his natural end, which is virtue.  By leaving his nature wounded, God knew that man cannot even reach his natural end.  This experience of frustration leaves man to seek outside help so that when God reveals the path out, man knowingly will follow (this is why the Bad News always must precede the Good News).  God offers this help to mankind through Baptism where the spirit is given the gift of sanctifying grace.  This is why it is said to “forgive” Original Sin.  But the effects or stains remain.  He may endow the soul with actual graces in overcoming these defects, but he leaves it to us to heal from the effects.  It is like when medicine is given for a disease—it is not the medicine that heals, but the body itself.  The medicine simply aids the natural healing process of the body.  This is why the distinction between Original Sin and its effects is important.  We are given an initial “shot” of sanctity, but we must then struggle to grow the divine life within us.  The full effects of the Fall will only be healed at the resurrection of the body.

Viewed through our post-Fall lenses, it seems somehow unfair that we all lost the preternatural gifts because of the act of one man.  To that I would reply that it is just as unfair that the actions of one man should redeem us.  Looked at from a deeper level, we see that we have everything upside down.

This deeper level has to always be from the standpoint of Christ and His act of restoration.  His intention is to restore us as a single people, so closely united that we are referred to as His Mystical Body.  From the economy of salvation God does not look at us as a collection of individuals but as a single body.  This is the doctrine of the Communion of Saints—there can be no good done by an individual member of the Church that does not redound to the welfare of all.   Among the members of the Mystical Body there is a spiritual commonwealth of riches which includes all the wealth of graces acquired by Christ and all the good works performed with the grace of Christ.  We have difficulty seeing this because there exists so much division even within the Church, but it does not take away from the truth that God’s intention for mankind was for us to be one.  Therefore it ought to be very clear that God would deal with us as one.  Otherwise Jesus taking on a human nature to redeem all mankind would not make sense.  Through the Hypostatic Union humanity is now by nature united to God and we, in response, must now become a mixture of Christ nature (both human and divine).

In truth, the question of fairness should really enter into the discussion.  The nature that has been transmitted to us as offspring of Adam may be damaged, but it is still a gift that we have no right to.  If we have no right to our nature, then we certainly have no right to the super-nature that Adam had.  In the end, it makes little difference because maintaining the divine nature requires a period of trial for all of us.  Now God simply grades on a curve by giving us a share in Christ’s virtues.  That is something Adam never had and certainly more than levels the playing field.