(07-03-2018, 12:43 PM)ServusDei Wrote: [ -> ]MagisterMusicae Wrote:If there were no Original Sin, men, after a time on earth, would be translated to heaven with the gift ofiImmortality, without dying. Adam, Even and their children, after accomplishing their work vis à vis the next generation, at the time determined by God would simply be "assumed" into heaven, where they would, like the blessed see God Himself in the Beatific Vision.
While this is a valid theory, there is nothing to support this inference.
We can reason backward and certainly exclude many things, but we know that God purpose in creating man was to ultimately glorify Himself and increase through his creatures His extrinsic glory, especially by creating intellectual creatures who could freely love Him. Thus the first questions in the Catechism : "God made us to know Him, to Love Him, to Serve Him, and thus to be happy with Him in Heaven."
Unless man lived an early free existence during which he did not see his ultimate goal clearly, thus his will was not fixed, he could merit and freely Love God.
There are several principles that Fr Garrigou-Lagrange (
The Trinity and God the Creator but also mentioned in
Reality) and St. Thomas (in the various questions on Original Sin throughout the
Prima Pars and
Secunda Secundæ) lay out with regard to Original Justice and Original Sin :
- In the state of Original Justice, Nature could not fail.
- What is Natural cannot be acquired or forfeited by sin.
- Nature must be held to have followed its natural course unless some revelation indicated it was superseded.
- Sanctifying Grace and the Præternatural gifts were free gifts to human nature and not in any way caused by the principles of that nature.
So if we want to know what the state of Original Justice was like, what the consequences of Original Sin were, and if we want to accurately speculate on how things would have proceeded without Original Sin, we must start by applying those principles, eliminating the impossible or unfitting answers, and then looking at the possible or probable options.
While what I propose is not the only option, it is the one which is most clearly supported by St. Thomas and Thomistic theologians.
(07-03-2018, 12:43 PM)ServusDei Wrote: [ -> ]Perhaps God meant for Creation to be like Heaven, and He would visit now and then. Genesis mentions God visiting Adam and Eve in the garden.
Knowing that man's goal is Supernatural Beatitude, it would be unfitting if the Beatific Vision were a reward thanks to infidelity, and that instead by fidelity man would be rewarded with some natural beatitude or would never reach his goal. This is the only logical outcome of this idea that Paradise was like Heaven.
Firstly, it is clear that Paradise and such "visits" did not include the Beatific Vision. Adam and Eve never saw God as he is, face to face. Thus their knowledge and vision of God, even though it came by infused knowledge was imperfect. If their knowledge was imperfect, then also their love, since love follows upon knowledge.
This would mean that if they were meant to live forever in Paradise, they would be deprived of supernatural happiness.
God visiting from time to time could also not be by the Beatific Vision, because to be deprived of this vision from time to time would be a punishment and great evil (it is the primary punishment of Hell), thus God would from time to time because of their fidelity subject Adam and Eve to the pains of Hell, if this scenario were possible.
It also violates Justice. If Adam and Eve were faithful, they would not be rewarded by the Beatific Vision, but live forever in a natural happiness. Instead by their infidelity men were granted, if they repented and were faithful the Beatific Vision and perfect Supernatural Beatitude? That would be absurd.
Further, those visits of God in the garden could not have been by the Beatific Vision because if they had the Beatific Vision before the fall, then they could not have fallen. Thus the earthly paradise was not heaven.
It is necessary therefore to assert that Paradise was a place of natural happiness where man was perfectly ordered and which was a foretaste of heaven, but that eventually without death (since by the gift of immortality man could not die), man would be translated away from Paradise to Heaven and reach his ultimate goal : Supernatural Beatitude.
(07-03-2018, 12:43 PM)ServusDei Wrote: [ -> ]Perhaps God meant for Creation to be the dwelling place of men, but men could visit Him whenever they liked.
As above, even Paradise was not man's ultimate dwelling place, unless somehow by man's sin, he changed the very nature of things, which means by sin he gained a power that even God does not have.
(07-03-2018, 12:43 PM)ServusDei Wrote: [ -> ]Perhaps God meant Creation to be a test, after which, if passing, men would go on to enjoy Heaven.
Which is no different than saying that after a time on earth in Paradise, if faithful, men would be translated to heaven (which is what I suggested above).
(07-03-2018, 12:43 PM)ServusDei Wrote: [ -> ]It is hard to speculate what would have happened should Adam not sin, and many conclusions are possible.
Yes, but we can easily reject, because absurd, certain unreasonable conclusions which arise more from pious imagination than theology. So long as principles are maintained we can come to different conclusions and discuss the support for them, but a lack of certainty in the matter does not mean that countless possibilities exist.
(07-03-2018, 12:43 PM)ServusDei Wrote: [ -> ]Additionally, what reason would God have for keeping humanity on earth for a time? If for the purpose of procreation, He Himself could just spontaneously put into being an infinate amount of human beings. Moreover, if humanity did nothing wrong, why detain them on earth for even a second, unless earth was originally meant to be a test?
Why did God create irrational animals? They serve no purpose except to help intellectual creatures glorify God, but this requires that he see them, and then contemplate God by them. God gave men certain faculties, and if He never gave them the ability to use those faculties even correctly, it would war against God's Wisdom. If God created men in Heaven without a sojourn on Earth, then men would never have the choice to Love God, and never have the opportunity to use those powers to contemplate Him imperfectly in preparation for the perfection of Heaven.
Procreation (which by its very name indicates a sharing in the power of creating) is a power not even given to the angels, in which more men are created by the participation of the spouses, and thus the extrinsic glory of God furthered by more souls loving Him. God could have miracled thousands into being, but He chose to allow men to participate in the diffusion of His Goodness. This alone would then help man to love God more because God was sharing His own powers with a creature.
Man is not owed heaven, so detaining man in the place where, naturally, he has a home and place is not a punishment at all. It is also fitting that those whom you give a reward merit that in some degree. You can buy a house and give it to your newborn son so that when graduates from medical school he has the reward for his hard work, but it's probably better that the reward follow the meriting of it. Same with Heaven. It is fitting that God allow man to love Him on Earth, and thus to afterward reward him for this merit with Heaven.
(07-03-2018, 12:43 PM)ServusDei Wrote: [ -> ]Adam and Eve were created knowing. They did not have to learn to walk, eat, sleep, etc. They were created knowing those concepts. If Adam had not sinned, argueably the next generation (perhaps created by God) would have no need of instruction and Adam and Eve could then proceed to Heaven after passing the test.
Adam had infused knowledge. This is clear since he named the animals (he knew their nature, and have them a name which was not merely arbitrary, but corresponded to that nature), and knew what a father and mother were, even though there were no such concepts yet (Gen 2.24). He needed to know all that men could naturally know in order to be the head of the race.
Eve did not have infused knowledge beyond a very basic amount necessary to interact with Adam, such as language. She was not head of the human race and could easily have learned from Adam all that she needed to know. Clearly she did, since Adam was warned about the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen 2.17) and named the animals (2.19) but Eve was created after this, yet knew what a serpent was (3.13), and knew the command given to Adam and not to her (3.3).
From the principles above (and from St. Thomas
ST I q. 101, a. 1), we know that the children of Adam and Eve, even in the Paradise, had they not sinned, would be
tabula rasa. Children would not have been born with infused knowledge, because this is not the natural way that man acquires knowledge, and by sin nothing natural was forfeited, and we also must hold that nature followed its course, unless we have revelation that it did not, and we do not have such revelation with regard to the children.