We learned in the previous lesson how God created the universe and man, and how God "saw ... that it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). But how is it that there is evil in the world? Where did it come from? Some thinkers said that aside from God, there is an evil principle, just as powerful, who caused evil in the world.
We have said in the previous lesson that an initial answer to the question of why there is evil is the fact that the things that God made were good, yet God wanted man to participate in the work of perfecting creation. In this lesson we will try to complete the answer to the question of why there is evil in the world.
But first, let us first examine what God had given man apart from the natural gifts that he endowed him with. The reason for this is that it was the loss of these other gifts that opened the door to real evil in the world.
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCCC), no 72 (cf CCC 374-375), teaches us:
In creating man and woman God had given them a special participation in his own divine life in holiness and justice. In the plan of God they would not have had to suffer or die. Furthermore, a perfect harmony held sway within the human person, a harmony between creature and Creator, between man and woman, as well as between the first human couple and all of creation.
Aside from the NATURAL gifts that God gave Adam and Eve--a spiritual soul, intellect, free will, mastery over all material creation, participation in God's creation through marriage--God also gave them what are called "supernatural" and "preternatural" privileges.
How do we know that there were such privileges in the beginning?
The book of Genesis does not enumerate the supernatural and preternatural gifts as our first parents received them, but we know them indirectly through the consequences of original sin. Original sin deprived us of those supernatural and preternatural gifts that our first parents had initially received from God. When Adam and Eve refused to obey God, they also rejected the supernatural and preternatural privileges that they had initially received. Moreover, their natural gifts were weakened. The key verses of Sacred Scripture that touch on our topic are the following: Genesis 2:15-17, Genesis 3:1-24 (the whole chapter), and Romans 5:12-19. Let us copy them out here for reference.
1.1 Original holiness: the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace
The most important gift that God could ever give our first parents was to share in His innermost life. In other words, man's life was not only human, but divine. This sharing in God's life is called SANCTIFYING GRACE. Sanctifying grace made our first parents live in a state of original holiness. ("Original" refers to our first parents, our origins.) The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), no 2000, gives us the definition of sanctifying grace as follows:
Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace [is] the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call.
Sanctifying grace makes us pleasing to God. It makes us into God's children and gives us the right to inherit heaven.
The same point of the CCC also explains to us that aside from sanctifying grace, there is also another kind of grace called ACTUAL GRACE.
... Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God's call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God's interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.
The next point of the CCC (no 2001) also explains the work of actual grace in our soul:
The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"[St Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio, 17: PL 44, 901]
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.[St Augustine, De natura et gratia, 31: PL 44, 264]
Even before a man receives sanctifying grace, God gives him many actual graces to help him respond to God's call. Even before a man converts, God is already aiding him, giving him light, guiding his steps, while always respecting his freedom. God is truly good and merciful! He is truly a like a father who helps his tiny toddler take its first steps.
[Click here for Fr John Hardon's discussion on the loss of sanctifying grace.]
1.2 Original justice: preternatural gifts
Aside from the privilege of sharing in the innermost life of the three Divine Persons, our first parents were also given extra gifts. Points 376 and 377 of the CCC explain to us what these preternatural gifts are, which constitute what is called the "state of original justice". The preternatural gifts are as follows:
[Click here for a more thorough discussion by Fr John Hardon of preternatural gifts.]
2.1 Fall of the angels
Eve was tempted by the serpent (cf Gen 3:1-2). The Bible uses symbolic language (garden, tree, serpent) in order to show an important truth: that man, tempted by the devil, disobeyed God's command. Where did the serpent come from? The CCCC (no 74; see also CCC 391-395, 414) teaches us that the expression "fall of the angels":
... indicates that Satan and the other demons, about which Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church speak, were angels, created good by God. They were, however, transformed into evil because with a free and irrevocable choice they rejected God and his Kingdom, thus giving rise to the existence of hell. They try to associate human beings with their revolt against God. However, God has wrought in Christ a sure victory over the Evil One.
We are not told explicitly what trial they were subjected to, but we know that the result of it was the rejection of God by some angels.
2.2 The sin of our first parents
It is not possible to deny the existence of evil because we experience it in our own lives. But we would not be able to know why evil exists had it not been revealed to us what happened in the beginning of human history (cf CCC 386-387).
Before we proceed, however, let us first distinguish the three kinds of evil [click here to see the Catholic Encyclopedia article for a more detailed discussion]:
Read again the account of chapter 3 of Genesis above. It speaks about original sin, which is an essential truth of faith (CCC 388, 389). The CCCC (no 75; cf CCC 396-403; 415-417) summarises what happened with the sin of our first parents:
... In their disobedience they wished to become “like God” but without God and not in accordance with God (Genesis 3:5). Thus, Adam and Eve immediately lost for themselves and for all their descendants the original grace of holiness and justice.
Just what is original sin?
Point 76 of the CCCC (cf CCC 404, 419) tells us:
Original sin, in which all human beings are born, is the state of deprivation of original holiness and justice. It is a sin "contracted" by us [descendants of Adam and Eve] not "committed"; it is a state of birth and not a personal act. Because of the original unity of all human beings, it is transmitted to the descendants of Adam "not by imitation, but by propagation". This transmission remains a mystery which we cannot fully understand.
Aside from being deprived of original holiness and justice, did our first parents suffer other consequences?
They did suffer other consequences, not only losing the supernatural and preternatural gifts, but also damaging human nature as a consequence. Point 77 of the CCCC (cf CCC 405-409,418) teaches us:
In consequence of original sin human nature, without being totally corrupted, is wounded in its natural powers. It is subject to ignorance, to suffering, and to the dominion of death and is inclined toward sin. This inclination is called concupiscence.
See the table below for a summary.
2.3 Consequences for Adam and Eve
Father John Hardon (see Fr Hardon Archives) explains:
Two sets of gifts were lost by Adam and Eve, the preternatural through the loss of integrity (Genesis 3:7,10,21) as seen in the previous thesis; of immortality (Genesis 3:19), "for dust you are and unto dust you shall return"; of impassibility for Eve (Genesis 3:16), “I will make great your distress in childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth your children," and for Adam (Genesis 3:17-19), “Cursed be the ground because of you; in toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread." The other gifts were lost through ejection from Paradise.
Although Genesis does not directly treat of the loss of sanctifying grace, this becomes evident from the New Testament. Adam is repeatedly said to have lost what Christ restored; and since Christ restored sanctifying grace, this is what Adam lost by his sin. Moreover if the posterity of Adam is deprived of grace because of Adam's fall, a fortiori Adam himself.
The consequences of the fall can be summarised in the following table:
2.4 Consequences for the Human Race
After our first parents lost these privileges, there was no way their descendants could have them either. In this way, original sin is "transmitted" to us, much in the same way as indebtedness is transmitted from parent to child (cf CCC 404). Adam and Eve passed on to generations a wounded--not corrupted, as Martin Luther would have it--human nature. Wounded nature can still be healed, corrupted nature cannot.
As the letter of Saint Paul to the Romans says (Romans 5:12, 19):
By one man's disobedience many were made sinners. ... Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.
Evil can thus be traced to the decision of our first parents to become "like God".
The greatest loss is the loss of sanctifying grace, because it deprived our first parents and their descendants of their right to inherit heaven, to enjoy the happiness which their hearts yearn for. Through the merits of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, it would be possible to win back this right again, we would be able to buy back heaven once more.
2.5 Fighting to win the battle
The fact of original sin explains why man's whole life is a battle, a constant waging war against the evil inclinations we have contracted with the first sin. It is not only against the devil or the world or the flesh that we have to fight. Our enemy is within. Saint Paul says in chapter 9 of his first letter to the Corinthians:
24* Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25* Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; 27 but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
We should not forget, moreover, that we need the help of God. This is why we should always seek His help through the following ways:
Notwithstanding man's fickle-mindedness and pride, God never ceased to care and have pity on him. God's love is a stubborn love. It is a steadfast love. So right after our first parents sinned, He already had a rescue plan.
In Genesis 3, God told the serpent:
15 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.
This passage is called the Protoevangelium. As the CCC (no 410) explains:
This passage in Genesis is called the "Protoevangelium" ("first gospel"): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers.
The CCCC, no 78 (cf CCC 410-412, 420) tells us:
After the first sin the world was inundated with sin but God did not abandon man to the power of death. Rather, he foretold in a mysterious way in the “Protoevangelium” (Genesis 3:15) that evil would be conquered and that man would be lifted up from his fall. This was the first proclamation of the Messiah and Redeemer. Therefore, the fall would be called in the future a “happy fault” because it “gained for us so great a Redeemer” (Liturgy of the Easter Vigil).
Why did God not prevent man from sinning? The CCC, no 412 tells us:
St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away."[St. Leo the Great, Sermo 73, 4: PL 54, 396] And St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,. . . which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'"[St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III q1 a3 ad 3; cf. Rom 5:20]