Immaculate Caonceived? Are you?
Assuming that the Church says it is ok to believe in evolution and that the story of creation related in the book of Genesis says nothing about the original state of Adam and Eve in regard to a fall.
Assuming too that The Church does not teach the existence of Limbo and therefore accepts that 'original sin' is natural weakness rather than a real sin.
Christ says that sin is not passed on genetically. Following these statements can it not follow that each of us is Immaculately Conceived?
S.J., your post is very
S.J., your post is very interesting. The scientific evidence is both logical and compelling. However, I have some serious problems with it when the jump is made from being genetically programed to selfishness to that being sinful. It seems to affirm that a genetic predisposition to selfishness, without which life would not have survived and without which we would not exist, is essentially sinful. Thus, living beings, following their very nature, sin and, without sinning, would not survive. Is to be altruistic and loving therefore to act contrary to our very nature? If we follow the logic of Natural Law, would that not make altruism and love sinful since they are contrary to our very nature? If "Free will enables us to override this tendency, but only sporadically and with great effort; we more readily opt for self.", would that not midigate culpability rather than establish sinfulness?
Years ago, when science affirmed the earth could not possibly have been formed in six days, there were those who responded by saying that the Bible, Genesis, did not define a day as 24 yours. I believe it was called "Accomidation" and that is exactly what I see here.
To define something as dogma and then to redifine it so that it has an entirely different meaning defies all logic.
Your critique really raises
Your critique really raises the question for me of whether or not theology should continue working with these dogmas or simply leave them be. It's a hard question. Can a biological reinterpretation of original sin still honestly be called original sin, or is it something else entirely? If it isn't, does that mean that the doctrine of orginal sin is unsalvageable?
It's unfortunate that despite the obvious importance of these questions Rome does not appear to even raise them, much less attempt to answer them. The truth is that we're hearing less and less about original sin from the pulpit. If that's kept up for fifty or sixty years, then original sin might possibly go the way of limbo, and even give way to some sort of a teaching on original selfishness. Of course, for this to successfully happen the questions of the Immaculate Conception, baptism, etc. need to be answered first.
There is still the issue of
There is still the issue of the appearance of a self reflective conciousness, and just when this appears in evolution. It so far appears to be a strictly human phenomenon, although there is some data which points to some aspects in whales and dolphins.
There is also current neural research which points to the unique aspects of the prefrontal cortex which develops relatively late in life, between 18 and 25 years of age, and seems to have a transcendant spiritual bent.
From an evolutionary standpoint, original sin is a problematic theological issue only if it's kept to a strictly biological interpretation. Humanity appears to be much more than biology when consciousness is added. It may be better the Church not make much of an issue of this until all the data is in. Mankind may turn out to be much more than the sum of our bioligical parts.
Daryl P Domning, Fr McBrien
Daryl P Domning, Fr McBrien and I are on the same page then but they seem to be argueing from the conclusion to the first premise. The church seems to be doing the same thing but with the purpose of justifying the stories and myths of the bible.There is no question that evil exists and that we all have a tendency toward not rejecting evil. There no question that Mary was a special person. Baptism then could be the innitiation of our desire to fight the tendency to evil, and a donning of the uniform of Christianity and our desire to control our will
I like your line of thought
I like your line of thought in regards to baptism. Still, you seem to speak of it as being a decision made by a mature individual. Infant baptism is a practice which grew out of the traditional understanding of original sin. If that understanding is no longer viable, the immediacy of baptism seems unecessary.
As for the Immaculate Conception, one of its problems is that it presupposes not only that one accept some sort of theory of original sin, but also that one accept the dogma of Papal Infallibility. That raises more problems for many Catholics than does original sin.
The question is not whether
The question is not whether or not Mary was conceived without sin but are not all of us conceived without sin? The redneck anti-abortion statement 'God didn't make no trash' can be amended to say 'God didn't make no sinners'[there ain't nothing wrong with double negatives] As to baptism--Parents make a lot of decisions for children from life to health to nourishment and these decisions are affirmed in later life. The mature Christian affirms his baptism later in life. One can play with the concept of sacraments too. Is confirmation not an affirmation of baptism? Is the church itself not a sacrament?
It's been a while since I've
It's been a while since I've posted, but this just caught my eye, so I had to respond:
The question is not whether or not Mary was conceived without sin but are not all of us conceived without sin?
The answer, in short is: No. Only Mary is the only human being ever created without the capacity to sin,hence the Immaculate Conception. The rest of us were born with that capacity, and we do fall short!
The redneck anti-abortion statement 'God didn't make no trash' can be amended to say 'God didn't make no sinners'[there ain't nothing wrong with double negatives]
LOL..you are correct, God does not make sinners, but we are born with the capacity to sin. And we are born with the stain, or mark, of original sin on our soul. Baptism gets rid of that stain and our souls are washed anew as we are accepted into the family of faith and become God's children.
As to baptism--Parents make a lot of decisions for children from life to health to nourishment and these decisions are affirmed in later life. The mature Christian affirms his baptism later in life. One can play with the concept of sacraments too. Is confirmation not an affirmation of baptism? Is the church itself not a sacrament?
Certainly confirmation is like a "completion" if you will, of baptism, and I daresay that we adults make the decision every day to live our life in the faith. We reject it and accept a thousand times a day.
Hermeneutic of Continuity
Good comment and good
Good comment and good recovery for the Church--but the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is not specific about 'capacity to sin' and I was not specific about 'incapacity to sin' I am only talking about the state of the individual at conception. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is based on the traditional belief of Catholics prior to the change in church belief on evolution. I think your remarks are 'from the conclusion to the first premise' and that is not my type of logic.
If what you say about original sin,being 'the tendency to sin' then We are not really in posession of totally free will but a will that is tilted toward sin. It is important that the Church defend free will not tear it down.
The only way this really
The only way this really works---a tendency toward sin---is if we have this reincarnation thing going. Interestingly enough, even though the church doesn't subscribe to the idea of reincarnation, they haven't totally written it off. If the soul is eternal, then eternal is eternal. No defined past or present. So sayeth quantum physics as well as some less scientific spiritual traditions.
"No. Only Mary is the only
"No. Only Mary is the only human being ever created without the capacity to sin,hence the Immaculate Conception. The rest of us were born with that capacity, and we do fall short!"
The Catechism seems to understand Original Sin as the inclination towards sin. Lacking the inclination doesn't necessarily mean lacking the capacity to sin. To put it positively, Ineffabilis Deus seems to say that Mary was conceived good with a tendency towards goodness. I don't think they go so far as to say that Mary lacked even the ability to sin, as this would put her beyond human personhood.
Tendency to sin does not
Tendency to sin does not mean that we MUST sin. It simply means that sin is a choice and that we have the freedom to choose it. If we did not choose it, then we would remain as sinless human beings. We would be perfect and we would have no free will. "Tendency to sin" admits that we have such a will, and we freely choose to sin or not to sin.
I don't think the creation story in Genesis is to be taken as literally true as many Protestants believe it should, but that it is mythologically (that is, profoundly) true and tells the truth of human existence: that God created us in His image; that we are not robots; that we were given free will; that we can choose good and we can choose evil; that when we choose evil we separate ourselves from God and yet God still wants relationship with us; that the first time we disobey God or fall out of communion with God, we lose our innocence and thus become aware of good AND evil.
Hermeneutic of Continuity
Good question you raise,
Good question you raise, Sevenup. With respect to propositions of syllogisms: a conclusion based on an absurd proposition is an absurdity. (I am not making a judgment about the Immaculate Conception.) SWV casuistry advances any number of absurdities. EWV challenges and requires new analysis and synthesis. When we try to be too specific about things which we cannot know and/or about which we are misinformed, we enlarge on our confusion.
Interesting points, Sevenup.
Interesting points, Sevenup. I understood the pope was to make a statement on evolution in Feb. but I have not seen anything. Perhaps I just missed it. Be that as it may, evolution is here to stay and the evidence for it makes it very difficult to reject. Interesting article on it in this weeks Newsweek.
As for the creation myth of Genesis, it is the Judeo-Christian attempt to explain the presence of evil in a world created good by God and cannot be taken as historical fact. I feel quite sure snakes crawled on their bellies, females suffered in childbirth and death was present in the world long before humans came on the scene. If there were no Adam and Eve, there was no fall.
The Church is backing off its teaching on Limbo and, while I do not see it backing off Original Sin, I see it as a doctrine with no historical foundation.
I’m not sure where Christ said sin could not be passed on genetically, but I sure agree with it.
So, what about the Immaculate Conception? It is a doctrine I have never been quite comfortable with but always considered as academic. However, recently I have come to see it as an articulation of the same mentality that wants to prevent so many people from receiving Christ in the Eucharist. If Mary had to be sinless to be a worthy vessel to receive the Christ child, then one must be sinless to receive the Eucharist. This, it seems to me, is contrary to the notion that the Word was made flesh and pitched his tent among sinful men and women. He did not seem at all reluctant to approach or be approached by sinners when he walked among us as a man and I do not see him, present in the Eucharist, as now having had a change of mind.
"Assuming that the Church
"Assuming that the Church says it is ok to believe in evolution" > Incomplete, the creation of a soul and it being inserted at some point signals the beginning of the human race is also necessary part of Christian belief, as well as Intelligent Design.
"and that the story of creation related in the book of Genesis says nothing about the original state of Adam and Eve in regard to a fall." > Really? Not unless Genesis 1-3 get removed from the Bible. Genesis 1 man is good; Genesis 2 man is naked without same; Genesis 3 man falls, is ashamed, gains knowledge of evil, as well as that whole enmity thing.
"Assuming too that The Church does not teach the existence of Limbo" > this is correct, Limbo was never more than theological speculation. It also seems irrelevant as your next point:
"and therefore accepts that 'original sin' is natural weakness rather than a real sin." > ... is a non sequitur. Concupiscence (the tendency of man to sin, particularly as evident in the exaltation of the emotional and physichal over the rational), is a result of Original Sin, but is not Original Sin itself.
"Christ says that sin is not passed on genetically." > I am having trouble locating this. He does say that physical ills are not always the result of sin, but could you point out what passage you're referring to? St Paul certainly held that the effects of sin are transmitted to all from the fall of one man.
"Following these statements can it not follow that each of us is Immaculately Conceived?" > Your argument rests on only one point, namely the un-cited quote from Christ.
What is the exact quote?
What is the exact quote? 'Who sinned this man or his parents?' Christ answered ' Neither this man or his parents' Not an exact translation.
I thought as much, but let's
I thought as much, but let's look at the whole bit:
---
John 9: 1As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
---
It does not say that sin is not passed down, which would be contrary to the Decalogue:
---
Exodus 20: 4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments."
---
So it seems that sin, or at least the effects of it, is inherited. Not all physical ills can be blamed on sin (obviously), which was the common belief at the time. This is similarly countered in the recent Gospel reading (Lk 13:1-5).
Why teach or try to teach
Why teach or try to teach the most confining interpretation of scripture when the more obvious interpretation is acceptable.
You say the above reading indicates that the effects of sin can be inherited when the writer was really only offering the stick and carrot method of conversion. The Tradition of the church [of which the bible is only a small part ] has been to interpret the Christ message in way that is least burdensome manner. It seems that the Prarisees were the ones to lay on the guilt,the 'sin',and the depression on the church even after Christ's death and resurrection.
There are lots of pharisaical interpretations rampant in the church and they seem to destroy the message and change it from positive to negative.
The "more obvious
The "more obvious interpretation" would be the one that follows with the rest of Scripture and is based on what is actually on the page. The verse says nothing about inheriting sin, only that this man is not blind because of his parents' sin. The Sacred Scriptures are a large and essential part of the Teaching of the Church, so important that Catholic theology rejects propositions directly opposed to Scripture. The positive message, the Gospel, if you will, is that we are freed from our sin through the Blood of Christ poured out on the Cross.
I thought that was the
I thought that was the statement you were thinking of. Sevenup, and I see your understanding of it as valid.
This is a long post so bear
This is a long post so bear with me.
Daryl P. Domning wrote an article about biology and original sin in the November 12, 2001 issue of America Magazine. I'm going to quote from it, but you can read the full thing at http://www.americamagazine.org/gettext.cfm?articleTypeID=1&textID=1205&issueID=350
"From ants to apes, the animal world is awash in intraspecific [intraspecies] aggression, deceit, theft, exploitation, infanticide and cannibalism. Our cousins the great apes are adept at political intrigue and quite capable of serial murder and lethal warfare. If any of this language seems inappropriately anthropomorphic, I invite you to read these scientists’ voluminous, carefully documented technical reports and draw your own conclusions. The inescapable fact is that there is virtually no known human behavior that we call “sin” that is not also found among nonhuman animals. Even pride, proverbially the deadliest sin of all, is not absent. De Waal has observed that, when seeking to make up after a fight, chimpanzees use not only third-party mediation but elaborate, mutually-agreed-upon public pretense simply to save face (Peacemaking Among Primates, pp. 238-39)...
"These revelations lead at once to an unambiguous conclusion. Logical parsimony and the formal methods of inference used in modern studies of biological diversity affirm that these patterns of behavior are displayed in common by humans and other animals because they have been inherited from a common ancestor which also possessed them. In biologists’ jargon, these behaviors are homologous. Needless to say, this common ancestor long predated the first humans and cannot be identified with the biblical Adam.
"Furthermore, it is demonstrable by experiment and fully in accord with Darwinian theory that these behaviors exist because they promote the survival and reproduction of those individuals that perform them. Having once originated (ultimately through mutation), they persist because they are favored by natural selection for survival in the organisms’ natural environments. Since these behaviors are directed to self-perpetuation and succeed in a world of finite resources only at the expense of others, it is accurate to call them, in an entirely objective, non-psychological and non-pejorative sense, selfish. Natural selection enforces selfish behavior as the price of survival and self-perpetuation in all living things, even the simplest imaginable. Where cooperative or outwardly altruistic behavior has evolved, it seems always (at least in nonhuman creatures) to be explainable in terms of selfishness and individual advantage; but the reverse is not true. Hence selfish behavior must be the more primitive and fundamental condition.
"The juxtaposition of these firmly established scientific facts suggests a way to reformulate the doctrine of original sin in evolutionary terms. Original sin has been defined as the need for salvation by Christ that is universal to all human beings and acquired through natural generation. Descent of all humans from a single couple—monogenism—is not essential to the doctrine; the Catholic magisterium has continued to insist on it simply in order to explain why all humans need to be saved. The requirement of natural generation likewise sought only to account for the undeniable fact that the tendency to sin is present in all of us, even prior to our first moral choices. It does not imply, in Augustinian fashion, that sexuality is somehow the root of all evil.
"The geneticist F. J. Ayala has demonstrated (Science, 1995) that the genetic diversity of the present human population (much of which we inherit from pre-human ancestors) could not possibly have been funneled through a single human couple, so monogenism must be rejected on scientific grounds alone. In any case, the requirements of the definition of original sin given above can instead be met within an evolutionary framework by distinguishing and decoupling the source of original sin’s universality from the source of its moral character. These need not stem (as has always been tacitly assumed) from one and the same individual act and moment in time (the 'Fall of Adam'). The overt selfish acts that, in humans, demonstrate the reality of original sin by manifesting it as actual sin do indeed owe their universality among humans to natural descent from a common ancestor. However, this ancestor must be placed not at the origin of the human race but at the origin of life itself. Yet these overt acts did not acquire their sinful character until the evolution of human intelligence allowed them to be performed by morally responsible beings.
"We all sin because we have all inherited—from the very first living things on earth—a powerful tendency to act selfishly, no matter the cost to others. Free will enables us to override this tendency, but only sporadically and with great effort; we more readily opt for self. This tendency in all of us is what our tradition calls 'the stain of original sin.' It is not the result of a 'Fall' in our prehistory, since we were never more selfless than we are now. It is present even in infants, who are undeniably self-centered, though guiltless of actual sin. We incur guilt only when we freely choose to act on this tendency to the detriment of others. Not all self-centered acts are sinful, but all sins are instances of selfishness.
"These are the puzzle pieces that have been missing from the problem of original sin’s origins—a problem in which Schoonenberg and most other recent Catholic theologians have shown no interest. Indeed we do learn to sin from the sinful society into which we are born; and even the very first humans learned to sin from the selfish though sinless pre-human society into which they were born. But even without that legacy of learned behavior, we would still be urged to sin by the genetically programmed selfishness, dating from the dawn of life, that underlies it and gave rise to it.
"This, I think, adequately accounts for moral evil and explains in terms of an evolutionary worldview what the doctrine of Adam’s Fall sought to explain within a static universe. For the solution to the larger problem of so-called physical evil (suffering and death), we must turn to a second, more varied body of scientific evidence."
(Daryl P. Domning, Evolution, Evil and Original Sin, America Magazine)
I think that Domning's theory goes well with Fr. Richard McBrien's interpretation of the Immaculate Conception:
"If Original Sin means being conceived and born with a stain on the soul ... then the dogma of the Immaculate Conception means that Mary alone was born in the state of grace.
"If, on the other hand, one understands Original Sin as the sinful condition in which every human being is born, i.e., the corporate alienation of the whole human race from God, then we have to propose a different explanation for the Immaculate Conception. It is not that Mary alone was conceived and born in grace, but that, in view of her role in the redemption, God exempted her from this condition of alienation and was fully present to her in grace from the beginning ... By reason of Mary's unique call to be the Mother of the incarnate Word, she was from the very beginning of her existence united with God in the most intimate of ways. And this union was, in turn, grounded in the yet-to-be-accomplished redemptive work of the son she was to bear."
(Richard McBrien, Catholicism, pg. 1100)
Now, where does that leave baptism? Is it only a symbol now? If it is, then what is the point of baptizing infants? Is it a practice that should be maintained only for tradition's sake? That's definitely another subject that should be looked at.