So with all the trips and events that make my life, you may think that I have ignored the question I started on a few months ago, “Predestination”. I have not. I mull ideas over and then I mull some more. I am always thinking, even when it seems I am just wasting time doing laundry or cleaning the house, which reminds me, I need to do real soon.
I have narrowed the question down and have developed and idea, though very nascent and far from clear even to me. Let me put it this way:
Origen, the great master of scriptures has some ideas about predestination that are not considered to be “kosher” (if I may borrow a term). He also is not a master in the theological understanding as the Catholic Church regards eternity. It is not so much his ideas, but what others have done with his ideas.
Augustine of Hippo has his ideas of predestination as well. His ideas however are a bit twisted as he gets around to this topic towards the end of his life. He is very concerned about his image and his standing as a great leader in the early church and as such defends his orthodox beliefs a bit too far, in a “I am more ‘Catholic’ in my teaching than you are” type of mode. He tends to go overboard in his teaching as a way of showing that he really isn’t a Manichæan Heretic.
Then there is my beloved Aquinas. Here he is trying to master and teach an idea that he has from Augustine, that is flawed, and unable to look at Origen’s ideas because he is “out of favor” at the time. He expounds upon the ideas of Augustine and sets what is an “opinion” of a major early father of the church, who is trying to defend his own “Catholic Credentials from assault, into stone.
This is NOT to say that others have not spoken to the idea since then, but all have referred back to Aquinas and/or Augustine. So what about Origin? For another post there, more research yet to be done before I step out and speak about his ideas. But the conundrum that has me is a simple one if I can get to the root.
The whole problem of Predestination rests on the “Original Sin” of Eve and Adam. The fact that the sin is generative, in that it passes from parent to child and is found in all humans, with the exception of the Virgin Mary, who was conceived without sin (the Immaculate Conception dogma of the late 19th century), is the sticking point. What is the Original Sin? What is “it”? Is it a flaw in the soul, in the creation of humanity? I would say no, because God does not create imperfection. So what is the sin, that a human could have committed, that is passed from mother to child? Is the “sin” a defect in the human soul or body?
If we accept the idea that God is an active participant in creation, meaning that he is not just a great baker who throws ingredients together and lets them mix and bake without another look, but a caring God who participates at points of History, then the idea of original sin takes on an even more different color.
I assume that most of us accept a modified understanding of evolution. Let me explain, I do not believe that this universe is a “by chance” happening. It is too vast to have just happened by accident. There is, and I use this phrase carefully, and intelligent being who is behind it all. (I am not calling for the teaching of Intelligent Design, as that is creationism and I do not believe in that) What I am saying is that their is a God, who has created laws of nature and physics and has allowed those laws to work. I also believe that the God does, at times unknown to us, interacts in those laws, but usually within those laws. I do not believe that a spiritual essence can evolve from a physical essence, thus at some point in the evolution of the human species, God has intervened and infused a spiritual essence into the human creature, which we commonly call a soul.
This blending of the the two essences is to me where we have what many call the original sin. INCOMPATIBILITY. As I would call it, a secondary cause. Without the infusion of a soul, the human animal cannot sin, as any irrational animal cannot sin.
Thus I am here at this point. I need to find a good translation of Origin’s works in English, as I am not able to handle it in any other language!
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