Theological Tidbits

Theological Tidbits are prepared by our staff theologian, Jason Cox.

Mar. 22, 2026

Why did God take the rejection of His love as the definitive act of Adam and Eve? Could it not have been seen as one small slip among many positive, loving acts? Of course not. There were no other mature loving acts. According to the Genesis account of the first sin, the temptation of the devil was the first chance for them to choose to love God in a mature way (Gen 1, 2, 3). The devil presented Adam and Eve with the first opportunity to make a mature choice for God. Prior to the devil’s temptation, the love of our first parents for God was like that of small children for their parents. It never occurs to very young children not to respond to the love their parents show them. Similarly, with Adam and Eve, before the devil’s temptation, it never occurred to them not to love God. E.g., it never occurred to Adam to ignore God’s wish when God asked him to name the animals (Gen 2:19). The devil presented another possibility, another alternative, to Adam and Eve. The devil gave our first parents the chance to love God maturely, i.e., to choose to love Him above all things even in the face of other attractive alternatives. Therefore, until the devil’s temptation, Adam and Eve did not have an opportunity to love God in a mature way. This point reinforces the goodness of man. Man did not sin on his own. In fact, the thought of sin did not even occur to him. It had to be presented to him as a possibility by someone from the “outside.” Clearly, an opportunity for Adam and Eve to love God maturely was of the utmost importance. Perhaps God permitted Satan to tempt Adam and Eve so that they could come to a mature love for Him. Thus, the devil’s temptation gave Adam and Eve a chance to respond to God’s incredible gifts. It was their first real opportunity to satisfy God’s “longing” for His children to turn to Him.

Mar. 15, 2026

The sin of Adam and Eve was a catastrophe not only for them—but also for all their descendants. We are all conceived and born with the sin of Adam and Eve and its effects. Still, it hardly seems fair and just that we should suffer for the personal sin of Adam and Eve. This problem might be expressed with the question: If original sin is not our personal sin, why should we suffer its effects? For good or for ill, Adam and Eve were the representatives of the human race. They could have responded to God by acknowledging Him as Creator and giving Him thanks for what He had done. Instead, as our representatives, they chose not to thank Him and to reject Him. As a result, we, their descendants, live with their decision. Had they chosen the other path, we would have benefited. As it is, Adam’s sin is inherited by all. This inherited sin is transmitted to us through the natural generative process: “Adam’s sin is transmitted to all his descendants by generation and not merely by way of bad example” (Pope St. John Paul II). There are only two exceptions: our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is God and Who, therefore, could not have been tainted with sin; and Mary, the Mother of God, who was preserved from original sin and its effects.

Mar. 8, 2026

When Adam and Eve sinned, they hurt themselves in three ways. First, they lost the gift of God’s own life, grace, because God—Love and sin—anti-love cannot exist together. Second, they wounded their own spiritual faculties. Original sin caused a darkening of the intellect’s capacity to know the truth and a weakening of free will. Third, the bodies of Adam and Eve were wounded. Without grace, they could not come to the glory of heaven. Further, without grace and with the damage Adam and Eve did to their own natural being by acting against it when they sinned, it was almost impossible for them to love God. In addition, their bodies no longer responded properly to their choices—and their bodily desires now had an undue influence on their minds and wills. The ultimate result of the damage they did to their own bodies was death. “As a consequence of original sin, the whole man, body and soul, has been thrown into confusion” (John Paul II). The sin of Adam and Eve was a catastrophe for them. Of course, by not loving God and hurting themselves, they made it almost impossible from them to love each other. Thus, sin is an alienation from God, from oneself, and from others.

Mar. 1, 2026

God asked Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In spite of God’s wish, Adam and Eve did eat this fruit. They disobeyed God. They sinned. They acted contrary to God. However, since Adam and Eve were created to love God, when they sinned, they did not do what they were created to do. Thus, in sinning, they not only offended God, they also hurt themselves. “Sin is not only ‘against’ God, it is at the same time ‘against’ man” (Pope St. John Paul II).

Feb. 22, 2026

When God created Adam and Eve, they were naked and they were not ashamed (Gen 2:25). After sin, “they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons” (Gen 3:7). Obviously, their experience of nakedness had changed as a result of sin. “This passage…speaks of the mutual shame of the man and the woman as a symptom of the fall” (Pope St. John Paul II). Shame exists when one holds a particular value system and—in spite of what is believed—acts contrary to it. Before sin, Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed because they acted according to what they believed. However, after sin, they were naked and they were ashamed because they were engaged in an activity contrary to their value system—i.e., they experienced lust. They believed, as they had before sin, that each one of them was of incredible worth and value. They accepted the personalistic norm that the only proper and adequate attitude towards other persons is love. However, after sin, their bodies no longer always responded properly to their choices to love one another. Instead, their bodily desires sometimes influenced their minds and wills to use each other as a source of pleasure. The tendency to use one another was contrary to their own value system and was the cause of their shame.

Feb. 15, 2026

God did not create our bodies to influence our minds and wills unduly. Rather, God intended our bodies to express our persons. God could hardly have created us as enfleshed spirits and expected our bodies to express our persons—and be reflections of His own acts—without making the spiritual powers in the human person primary. The bodily desires and emotions should not be as powerful as they are. They should not be able to influence our minds and wills as they do because with their influence it is almost impossible for our bodies to express our persons. For example, as images of God, we are called to love in and through the familial and worker communions of persons in imitation of the divine communion of Persons. Love is a choice—founded on the truth—of at least two persons to give themselves totally to one another. These choices should then be expressed in and through their bodies. However, if their bodies do not respond to their choices and even unduly influence their choices, it is impossible for them to express love in and through their bodies. In other words, it is impossible for them to love as human beings. We appear to be the most pathetic of creatures because it is almost impossible for us to do what we are created to do: to express God-like acts in and through our bodies. We all experience this lack of wholeness or integration. We know our situation—but we do not know how it came to be. The story of the creation and the fall in Genesis explains why we are the way we are.

Feb. 8, 2026

Often our love is not expressed because our bodily desires influence our spiritual powers—our minds and wills—that enable us to love. In this case, we do not choose to love. Rather, we act unlovingly because we allow our bodily desires to unduly influence our minds and wills. However, despite the powerful influence we sometimes permit our bodies to have over our minds and wills, the human body is not somehow separate from the human person. The body does not have a mind and a will of its own in opposition to, as it were, the “real” human person “inside”. If we have eaten too much, we have decided to eat too much. If we have become angry, we have decided to become angry. Our bodily desires have influenced our minds and wills—and we have “changed our minds”. We have decided not to love. Therefore, we are still responsible for our own acts. Our bodies have not decided—nor can they decide—to do anything “on their own”.
To read older Theological Tidbits, click on the button.
Archived Theological Tidbits
To read Theological Tidbits about the Ten Commandments, click on the button.
Ten Commandments

Questions About Theological Tidbits?

Email Jason Cox
Staff Theologian

Email