Theological Tidbits

Why had God “worked” for so long to bring the people of the Old Testament closer to Him? From man’s perspective, all the merciful acts of God throughout the Old Testament would seem to have been totally in vain because God apparently had allowed the human race to suffer original sin and its most terrible effect: the loss of grace. Without grace, the Old Testament people could not come to the ultimate closeness with God: heaven. Further, original sin caused a wounding of man’s very nature. This damage, especially the lack of integration, together with the lack of grace, made it almost impossible for human beings to act as images of God. In other words, after original sin, it was almost impossible for human beings to love God and through Him other persons. The lack of a true, loving friendship with God on earth is clearly illustrated by the differences between the way Adam and Eve spoke to God before sin and the way they spoke to Him after sin. After sin, God asked Adam where he was, and Adam replied, “I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen 3:10). Man in the beginning—in the state of original justice—spoke to the Creator with friendship and confidence. Making it almost impossible to love God, original sin had nearly destroyed any possibility for man to come close to God. All God’s merciful acts in the Old Testament could never bring man as close to God as he was created to be. They were doomed to failure because they never overcame the ultimate obstacles to man’s closeness with God: original sin and its most damaging effects. Throughout the Old Testament, God seemed to be working only on the symptoms and not on the disease. Why did God not work on the disease itself?

From God’s perspective, His merciful acts in the Old Testament did not make it entirely possible for Him to continue His initial judgment that the creation of man was “very good” (Gen 1:31). The judgment of divine providence about man rested on man’s capability to act as an image of God. It was precisely this capacity that was almost destroyed through original sin. For the most part, divine merciful acts in the Old Testament did not even touch original sin or its effects. Thus, from man’s point of view as well as God’s, it seems that the divine merciful acts in the Old Testament were not very effective. Why did God not extend His mercy towards the real problem: original sin and its most serious effects?

The answer is clear: God had to prepare the way for the Redeemer Who would forgive sin, heal the wounds of original sin, and restore grace.

God’s response to the sin of Adam and Eve is very interesting. First, He announces the effects of sin on the serpent. Thus, God acknowledges the greater responsibility of the devil in the sin of Adam and Eve. Second, He announces the effects of sin on Adam and Eve (Gen 3:14-19). It is important to note that God is not punishing Adam and Eve. Rather, He is announcing what they have done to themselves. Original sin weakened Adam and Eve. They were no longer able to “orchestrate” their own bodily fears and desires, nor were they able to exercise the proper dominion over the world. The effect of sin mentioned by God to Eve—“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing” (Gen 3:16)—indicates that her body is no longer integrated. Most of the effects announced to Adam show that man could no longer exercise a dominion over the things of the world (Gen 3:17-19). Lacking this dominion, Adam and Eve were no longer in paradise because paradise was precisely the dominion of man over the elements. God had not thrown them out of paradise. Rather, their sin had wounded them and made paradise an impossibility. Third, “the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them” (Gen 3:21). Adam and Eve needed clothes to hide themselves from each other because their sin caused them to feel shame. Further, they needed clothes to protect themselves from the elements because their sin caused them to lose their dominion over things. Even though their need for clothing was the direct result of their sin, God did not let them suffer the full effects of their sin. They had hurt themselves. They had brought the need for clothing on themselves—but He fulfills the need. He does not eliminate the sin or all of its effects—but He does overcome some of the effects. The clothing provided by God for Adam and Eve is a sign of His continuing care for the human race. Might it be suggested that God’s care of the physical necessities is a sign of His care of the spiritual necessities? It is also obvious that Adam and Eve would have been grateful for God’s gift to them. God’s love—divine mercy—saves our first parents from some effects of their sin and encourages them to respond to Him in love.

Many of the events recorded in the Old Testament clearly demonstrate the tendency towards sin inherent in man after original sin. We see the effects of the lack of grace and the spark of sin within Adam and Eve immediately following their eating the fruit of the tree. When God asks if they have eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam replies, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate” (Gen 3:12). While there is some truth in this statement—Eve did bring the fruit to Adam, the implication that Adam was forced by Eve to eat the fruit is a lie. Adam is unable to control his own fear of how God would respond to his sin. Fearful of God’s wrath, Adam tries to deflect the evil from himself. He tries to pretend that he did not eat the fruit through his own free will. Of course, he was not forced by Eve. Rather, he made a free choice to accept Eve’s offer of the fruit. His attempt to elude the responsibility for his evil act is a lie, a further sin. It stems from a lack of grace and his own inability to “orchestrate” his own passions—spark of sin. Taking a cue from Adam, Eve also refuses to take responsibility. She blames the serpent for her sin as though she had no part in it, as though the serpent had deprived her of her freedom (Gen 3:13). Again, there is some truth in what she says, but, nevertheless, she had a choice to accept or not to accept the devil’s lies. She freely chose to accept the lies—i.e., she sinned. She blamed the serpent, ducking responsibility, because she, like Adam, feared her sin’s results. Lacking grace and integration, she lied. The effects of original sin afflicted her as well as Adam.

As God permitted the sin of Adam and Eve, so He permits their descendants to sin. For the most part, the people of the Old Testament sinned because they had a tendency towards sin, a lack of grace and a spark of sin. This spark of sin is a lack of integration, one of the effects of original sin. As God allowed Adam and Eve—and through them their descendants—to experience some of the effects of original sin, so He allows the descendants of Adam and Eve to experience some of the effects of their own personal sins. In other words, as God allowed Adam and Eve to suffer the destructive force of original sin, so He allowed their descendants to suffer the self-inflicted wounds of their own sins. As a good parent, God taught the ancient Israelites to take responsibility for their actions by allowing them to experience the effects of their sinful actions.

Although God permitted the people of the Old Testament to sin and to experience some consequences of their sins, He saved them from some of their sins and, more often, from the effects of their sins. Experiencing God’s love for them, the people of the Old Testament were often grateful to God—i.e., they often loved Him more. In other words, God was drawing good from the evil of sin. He was allowing the Old Testament people to experience merciful love. Thus, God was gradually preparing them to receive the promised Redeemer, the ultimate expression of God’s merciful love.

If God loves Adam and Eve and their descendants enough to save them from evil, why does He allow them to do evil in the first place? Certainly God has the power to prevent sin. Instead of exercising this power, God chose to permit sin and then to deal with its horrendous consequences. Would it not have been easier for God to have prevented the original sin in the beginning? As a conscious and free act, original sin was a choice. The only possible way for God to have prevented the sin of Adam and Eve would have been for Him to have eliminated their capacities of knowing and freely choosing. In other words, if God had wanted to prevent the original sin, He would either have had to create Adam and Eve without minds and free wills or He would have had to inhibit the functioning of these powers, at least at the time of temptation. Clearly, without the capacities for knowing and freely choosing, Adam and Eve would have been little better than the animals. They would not have been images of God—i.e., persons. If God had inhibited the powers of thinking and freely choosing, Adam and Eve would have been like robots operated by God.

When God created man and woman, He wanted neither another animal species nor robots. By creating Adam and Eve and their descendants as persons—in His own image, God willed that they should imitate Him by loving. God willed that there be love in the world and since true love is possible only on the basis of freedom, God was willing to risk the horrendous evil of sin in order that true love would exist. Human love was more important to God than the possibility that human persons might misuse freedom—i.e., that they might sin.

God also created the angels as free beings so that they might love. Thus, with the angels as well as with man, God risked the horrendous evil of sin for the sake of love.

Even while telling Adam and Eve the effects of their action, God gives them hope that He would conquer the evil they had brought upon themselves. For God says to the serpent, “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” (Gen 3:15). In these words, God is promising a Redeemer, Who, born of a woman, will crush the serpent–i.e., Satan. God will overcome the evil that entered the world through the surrender of our first parents to Satan’s temptation. God’s infinite and unbounding love for Adam and Eve and their descendents is quite clear from His promise to overcome the evil they had brought on themselves. Even though they had rejected God, God did not abandon them.

God’s love for Adam and Eve and their descendents, even after sin, is a continuation of the divine judgment made at the dawn of history that God’s creation of Adam and Eve was “very good” (Gen 1:31). In other words, God’s judgment on His own creative handiwork is not altered by sin. God’s creation cannot be overcome by evil. Even sin cannot ultimately thwart God’s infinite love as expressed in the creation of the human species. As a loving, infinite, almighty Father, God is able to draw from sin “the definitive good of the whole created cosmos” (John Paul II). Of course, it is true that sin is the cause of much evil, but it cannot block the construction of the kingdom of God.

The sin of Adam and Eve in a certain sense contains the original “model” of every sin of which man is capable. We oppose God everyday as Adam and Eve did. God gives us the commandments for our own good just as He had asked Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit for their own good. When we act against the commandments, we deny that the commandments are good for us just as Adam and Eve denied that God’s commandment was good for them. For example, when we steal, we believe that our own best interests are served not through avoiding this act—but by doing it. At least implicitly, there is a belief that God told us not to steal not for our own good—but rather to keep us as His slaves. In effect, we deny God’s love for us. We implicitly claim that God has given us the commandments not to benefit us—but to benefit Himself. We reject God because we deny the truth of what He has told us. Therefore, we determine that we know better than God. In effect, we claim to know good and evil as God knows good and evil.

Since we have all inherited original sin, we are all affected by Satan’s lies. We have a distorted view of who God is because we do not properly comprehend Him as a loving and caring Creator. With this false view of God accepted, man loses sight of himself because as images of God, we do not know who we are unless we know who God is.