About Adam and Eve...

[Kent]

Referring back to the previous thread, we observe from Genesis and by implication that the world created for Adam and Eve was likely a very large place, vastly greater than we we usually consider to be a "garden". Indeed, although the sacred human authors of Genesis could hardly have conceived of it, it may have been inter-galactic in scope - as we see our universe today. And, comparing the 9-space suggested before with the 4 space we observe now, it is conceivably much more than vastly larger.

And, in their original innocence, Adam and Eve were given dominion over all of it.

Now if God were just exaggerating when He did this, then He would in effect be lying, which we know is not possible. Therefore they must have had the faculties necessary to exercise this dominion. Considering this necessity of this we must conclude that they were not at all like those really nice neighbors next door, only without clothes. They must have possessed powers, mental and physical, much greater than even the sum of those postulated for comic book characters.

And I suspect, for reasons to be stated later, that they were also of significantly greater stature than the humans we are today.

[inthegobi]

Adam and Eve were given dominion over all of [the Universe].

Not according to Genesis, which only says (in ch. 2) that God put them in the garden to 'cultivate and keep it'. Perhaps one of the Church fathers asserts this?

[T]hey were not at all like those really nice neighbors next door, only without clothes. They must have possessed powers, mental and physical, much greater than even the sum of those postulated for comic book characters.

Not necessarily physical powers, but it is traditional to speculate that they excelled in all the virtues, in a way we can't imagine; also, that God gave them and their early descendants long lives so they had the time to become so virtuous. (Josephus (AD 37-100), Jewish Antiquities I.3 & 1.7)

In Genesis 6 there is the claim that the half-human children of men with the 'sons of God' and/or the Nephilim were 'mighty, men of reknown', but you'll have to lay out a little more why that means they were *taller* than us, rather than just doers of great deeds.

C Kirk

[Kent]

Actually, it was the "Nephalim" to which I was referring. On the other hand, "stature" does not refer exclusively to physical tallness. The idea came to me from watching the somewhat silly animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens with regard to what happened to Susan Murphy (aka Ginormica); i.e., touching that meteorite restored a small part of Adam's original power. Not only gigantic, she had even more than proportionate strength.

I do want to note that Gen 1: 26,28 explicitly said more than "cultivate and keep". Although only explicitly mentioning living creatures it is quite reasonable to assume that would include the creatures' environments. Even modern civilization's power in that respect is extremely limited, and assuming that God just overstated that dominion is to assume again that God was lying. Furthermore, if as I posited Scripture was not excluding what we might conveniently describe as "extra-terrestrial" creatures, then it becomes very difficult to place an upper limit on their abilities.

Except, of course, they were not immune to sin.

I'm leading up to that Sin, but I'm not quite there yet.

[inthegobi]

I do want to note that Gen 1: 26,28 explicitly said more than "cultivate and keep". Although only explicitly mentioning living creatures it is quite reasonable to assume that would include the creatures' environments.

I forgot to add that Genesis only speaks of the garden, and no mention is made of dominion even over that. He only *put* them in the garden. Indeed, Adam and Eve sound much like servants, for they cultivate and keep the garden i.e. hold on to it for Him. Or like stewards: a role Jesus makes much of.

Do you have a Scriptural, or Church Father statement, or a theological argument, that God in the beginning gave Adam rule over the earth, or even the garden? (I *do* seem to remember a verse about our dominion over the earth, but I cannot think of where it is, and it's not in the account of before the Fall.)

C Kirk

[seamas o dalaigh]

Chris,

See Gen 1:28.

The AV has: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

The Douay-Rheims has: "And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth."

[Kent]

Thank you, James.

No, the "expansiveness" of which I write is nowhere explicitly mentioned in Scripture, but I think it is implied. Remember, neither the size of the Garden was mentioned (I propose that it may have actually been universal) nor was their stewardship limited only to the Garden. So, again, unless you want to claim that God was exaggerating (a lie) their responsibility, then their faculties to do so must have been vast.

[lasaxman]

Chris,

See Gen 1:28.

The AV has: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

The Douay-Rheims has: "And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth."

Was this after the fall? It would seem that before the fall there would be no need to multiply and replenish, nor to subdue anything. Why subdue what is perfect and peaceful?

[inthegobi]

Sorry about the confusion, my only excuse is I find examining a text online versus in a 'real' book a (surprisingly) different experience. And maybe I can excuse myself for getting ill - i was laid out the next day. Or something.

Dave, I don't think 'subdue' deed mean like putting down an enemy, or an unruly room of kids.

C Kirk

[seamas o dalaigh]

David,

Was this after the fall?

No. The Fall is two chapters later.

[lasaxman]

David,

Was this after the fall?

No. The Fall is two chapters later.

As we all know, there are two creation narratives in Genesis, each having a different chronology. The first one, starting in chapter 1, mentions "increase and multiply" and dominion over the Earth and its creatures. But this narrative makes no mention of the fall. The second narrative starts in chapter 2, and talks about the Garden and the Tree of Life, the Tree on Knowledge, the creation of man (out of slime, and after the seventh day) and woman, and the story of the fall. This second narrative does not mention "increase and multiply" nor dominion over the earth.

I don't think you can conclude that something mentioned in the first creation account happened before (or after) something only mentioned in the second.

[lasaxman]

Dave, I don't think 'subdue' deed mean like putting down an enemy, or an unruly room of kids.

What does it mean then?

[inthegobi]

David,

[Note: I have no competence in Greek or Hebrew]

'Subdue' is a maybe misleading Anglicization of the Latin Vulgate. The verb subjicere is literally and originally 'to throw under' (sub-jacere) but usually meant merely 'to put under' with both literal and metaphorical senses as in English; thence, to 'make a subject of' something or someone, as a citizen is a subject of his king. It's only in modern English that 'subdue' has the strong sense of bringing the unwilling to heel.

Biblegateway.com has a nice feature where you can look up a specific verse and then get all the English versions of it - at least all the ones the site has stored. Here's their list for Genesis 1:28.

Most use 'subdue'. The rest use one of these phrases, some pretty clunky:
'master it'
'bring it under your control'
'take control of it'
'be its master'
'be responsible'
'rule over it' (Collapses 'subjicite' wh. focuses on the ruled, with the next word, Latin 'dominamini' wh. focuses on the ruler.)
'govern' (versus 'reign' for the next ruling-verb)
'care for'
'make ye it subject' (The Wycliff, an early pre-King James translation)

I think 'subdue' itself does properly suggest that the world beyond the garden was not yet under the mastery of our ancestors, and would require effort. But unlike Kent I don't see this needing to be superhuman. It needn't even have been quick. One can just as well imagine that human advance happened roughly as it did - agriculture, technology, science etc. - but was wielded by a virtuous and unfallen race.

C. S. Lewis makes an attempt to imagine an unfallen race that has advanced technology in the Sorns of Mars in his Out of the Silent Planet. The Nox of Stargate SG-1 comes to mind. Both have great mastery over the physical world, but do not exploit or abuse it.

C Kirk

[Kent]

One can read Genesis in a restricted way with possible contradictions, or in an expansive way. I am choosing the latter because it seems to open up the possibility of resolving some seeming contradictions, and some other ideas as well.

[Kent]

I would like to here suggest a few of the faculties that Adam and Eve may have had in their unfallen state.

As suggested here they may have been able to transport themselves instantly to any place in Creation to which they desired to go. This seems plausible as a way of having agility (the ability to move instantly from one place to another) or subtility (the ability to pass through locked doors.

They may have had what we now would call telekinesis, and in both large and microscopic scales. This is strongly suggested by what our Lord said in Matt 17:20

It has been said that the angelic beings were created with the ability to comprehend a topic completely by turning their attention to it. I suggest that Adam and Eve also had something of this ability.

[Kent]

It is also clear that they did not have the Beatific Vision, else they would not, could not have sinned. Their conversations with God seem to be more like those experienced by the later Old Testament prophets.

[lasaxman]

It is also clear that they did not have the Beatific Vision, else they would not, could not have sinned. Their conversations with God seem to be more like those experienced by the later Old Testament prophets.

Is the same true of the angels?

[Kent]

It's difficult to say. The angelic beings appear to have a very different kind of existence and intellect that ours, and I suspect that it is because they are pure spirit while we are composite beings. I have this nagging, poorly defined impression that the Beatific Vision means something very different for us than it does for the angels because of this - something along the lines of God always being somehow "external" to the angelic beings, but with divinization He becomes "internalized" for the saints - somehow a much more intimate relationship, and therefore vastly stronger.

[Carmelite]

Is the same true of the angels?

I read that the angels communicate through the intellect only without any words said. If an angel wills to communicate to another, the intellect of that angel communicates to the other angels intellect directly. God also impressed knowledge directly on the angels intellect. I heard it called "illumination" which is something similar to the mystical intellectual locutions, that the saints experience.

[Kent]

(I have recently been wondering if the popularity of "super - hero/villain" movies may be due in part to a vague, lingering, racial memory of what Adam and Eve once possessed.)

[inthegobi]

One can read Genesis in a restricted way with possible contradictions

Please name one direct contradiction in Scripture that arises when one does not imagine Adam and Eve to have superpowers (which is a slightly cheeky but useful word here).

Also, I agree with David's objection to your suggestion that A&E could not have had the Beatific Vision. Angels obviously have something like it, if not indeed as a mode far superior to what mortal men shall have; yet even the being superior to them all, Lucifer, turned away from it. How is not important; the fact he did is proof enough Adam and Eve might as well have had the Beatific Vision, yet fallen. That seems QED to me.

There is only one superpower A&E had, so to speak; they 'excelled in all the virtues', and walked with God. Actively, too: 'the cool of the evening' in the hot Middle East is the time to wake up from your siesta and get lively. They might well have been Australopithecines and yet holy.

(I'm told the Australian-pithecines were especially so - heh.)

What do we get *specifically* out of imagining the First Parents could - what, fly? see through walls? Leap tall buildings in a single bound? The point of the Genesis story of the First Parents is that they had it all, and who knows how much more was to come, but they threw it all away, and in a peculiarly shabby way. 'It was Eve, she asked me to do it.' 'It was a snake, who knew a strange reptile had an agenda?' What the 'all' was is *not* the point, and *doesn't matter. Peter Parker was just as petty and selfish after as before he got the powers of a spider. It was a moral crisis that made him Spider-man, not the powers.

The first *X-men* movie has Charles Xavier say something very striking in movies: 'You can use your powers for good, or evil, or for personal gain. (The other end of that is 'or for noble purposes'. Very thought-provoking in a 'cartoonish' movie.) I think that's not a message for superheroes, but us. And likewise for A&E: no imagining of super-powers for them adds to the *real* tragedy - or hope.

C Kirk

[Kent]

Dear Inthegobi:

Your objections are pretty much repetitive to the ones you raised and I answered last September in this string, and I am not going to rehash them.

[inthegobi]

Your objections are pretty much repetitive to the ones you raised and I answered last September in this string, and I am not going to rehash them.

Five specific Objections that you have not answered:

(O1) You never detailed the contradictions you claimed appear with a non-superpower view (meant seriously despite the comic-book origin of the phrase) of the First Parents. I'm asking for one example we can all agree on.

(O2) Your links send us to more of your speculations - not to evidence. Raising yet another possibility that some spiritual advisor has not yet ruled out, is not evidence.

(O3) Your reference to Matthew 17:20 only links to another possibility you raise. The verse however has no clear tie to the pre-lapsarian condition of Adam and Eve. Your speculation that it does is not a proof.

(O4) The point of the Fall story gains nothing by adding superpowers to the tale. You have yet to show how they do.

(O5) Your speculations seem not just superfluous, but actually hinder understanding. Steve Martin boasted in a routine that now he's got money, he's going to buy things like a gasoline-powered turtleneck sweater. A sweater not only is not improved by a gasoline engine, it's function is hampered. I felt strongly that way when you tried to turn theology into mathematics a while back.

Look, you were unhappy people weren't responding. You e-mailed me specifically. Well, here I am.

My general beef so far is that you have been much too speculative; only raising possibilities without turning them into probabilities; and at the expense of real theological understanding. Something has to get tied down, so to speak; you have to commit yourself to a position and at the least argue how your position is more probable than its rivals. *Maybe* particular animals are in Heaven - but we already knew that possibility, and you have not made it more probable. *Maybe* mathematics helps us better understand Genesis - but you have yet to show how spiritual 'dimensions' are anything really like a mathematical magnitude. *Maybe* Adam and Eve were like Cyclops and Phoenix - but so far, you haven't shown us how it adds to the story of the Fall, at all.

Seriously Kent, and at the risk of offense: there is such a sin as curiositas. Aquinas as usual is the easiest online source for more. People don't seem to worry much about 'curiositas' anymore.

C Kirk

[Kent]

01) It makes more sense to me (including the related posts about the Original Sin) than simply accepting that the "magic" plucking and eating a fruit caused such a catastrophic result throughout a huge universe, or somehow "made God" do that damage because of this physically small act of disobedience, as stated in Genesis. I have always said that none, absolutely none of this is necessary for individual salvation. For me it makes great sense and it does not contradict Scripture if read as a metaphor. It does seem obvious to me that taking more or less literally that the act of disobedience of plucking and eating the "fruit" would have and in itself cause such massive damage, implicitly says that this act of disobedience itself was itself a "superpower", used in a selfish and evil purpose. Either that, or it's saying that God did the damage as punishment. Then, if you say that you are implying that God is some sort of a reactionary, retribution-seeking God. I would rather believe that a sin contains its own punishment in that it veers away from God's own optimal Will, thus causing a less than optimal result.

02) Some of these references are meant to emphasize that the posts are related, the later ones building on the "blocks" posited in the previous ones. If these earlier premises are beyond what you can accept then you obviously cannot accept what later builds upon them.

03) The reference to Matt 17:20 clearly has a bad link (I missed changing the copied URL from the previous link) and for that I apologize. You might have checked the stated verse yourself, though, and understood what I meant to evidence, specifically that what our Lord said sounds very much like telekinesis, of very great magnitude; and that it did not exist for that audience (presumably including us), but for it even to be held out as a possibility it probably did exist in a different circumstance, the best possibility of which was the state of Original Innocence.

04) We clearly disagree, except that I think what faculties were inherent in the state of Original Innocence are insufficiently described by our modern term.

05) That is your neighsaying opinion and and you are certainly entitled to it. I do not believe you are entitled to veto it as a speculative possibility - that would simply be a kind of bullying and I would not want to have that opinion of anyone in this forum. The Steve Martin reference does amount to a straw man argument. So were some of your other allusions.

Probabilities? No. Not at this point. Possibilities? Yes. I mean to try to establish just that. "Adjustments" are possible as I progress in these postings. (I'm working out such an adjustment to the wending diagrams - which I'm confident you will not like.) And quite to the contrary, it (the postings taken as a whole), if you can just accept them even for the moment as a point of discussion, seem to add enormously to our discussion of the Fall. (Has anyone, anyone at all, even conjectured that Adam and Even might have caused the Big Bang?)

Then there is your allusion to the "sin" of curiositas, Now you could have easily linked to here, saving me the time and trouble. If you had, and read it yourself you would see that the discussion is very nuanced, and that curiosity is not intrinsically sinful (like abortion) but it can be if used for selfish and evil purposes. My use is strictly directed to appreciating of the glory of God, and the greater praise of Him thereof.

[inthegobi]

01) It makes more sense to me (including the related posts about the Original Sin) than simply accepting that the "magic" plucking and eating a fruit caused such a catastrophic result throughout a huge universe . . .

If you put it that way. But nobody here has made that claim. You have given us a false choice.
Let's note: the story of Garden and the Fall has little to say about the world except as it is related to human beings. *To us* the ground will yield thistles; to us life will be laborious. As far as Genesis is concerned, the rest of the Universe may well be just as it was originally created. I know it's common to describe the world as fallen with Man, but that is not necessary so far as I know. As for "magic", that's a suprisingly uncharitable way to put it. Disobeying real natural law has consequences, most of which we might have no idea of.

For me it makes great sense and it does not contradict Scripture if read as a metaphor.

Okay, so now the superpowers you want to speculate on are *metaphorical* powers??

It does seem obvious to me that . . . this act of disobedience itself was itself a "superpower", used in a selfish and evil purpose.

That has nothing to do with what everybody thinks of when they talk of superpowers.

Either that, or it's saying that God did the damage as punishment. Then, if you say that you are implying that God is some sort of a reactionary, retribution-seeking God.

No, I am not implying any such thing. Nor are the legion of orthodox theologians throughout history. This is more false choice.

If these earlier premises are beyond what you can accept then you obviously cannot accept what later builds upon them.

A house built on sand. I keep hoping you'll *establish*, *something*. What if the world vanishes when we aren't looking at it. What follows from it? That's literally juvenile speculation.

Look, speculation is important in philosophy. I read a blog where for a while we were discussing Butchvarov, who claims *nothing exists*. It sounds outrageous, but there are important arguments to be had in it. However, the arguments proceed with *very close* examination of the concepts and argument. Speculation is not wool-gathering - even for the Lord.

03)You might have checked the stated verse yourself, though, and understood what I meant to evidence, specifically that what our Lord said sounds very much like telekinesis

First, you just said we are to take this as a metaphor. Now we're supposed to take superpowers literally.
Second. Whenever someone asks me 'how did you know that? - usually in a sneer - I have learned to look them straight in the eye and with no humor say 'I did the reading'. Kent, I did the reading. My point stands - you have not established that in the passage in Matthew, Jesus had pre-lapsarian Man in mind. Your passage has only your say-so. I need more.

05) That is your neighsaying opinion and and you are certainly entitled to it. I do not believe you are entitled to veto it as a speculative possibility

That is *exactly* my problem. This is just speculation, and with nothing to make it even a little probable.

bullying . . . straw man argument.

It seems to me you only want positive responses. Philosophers, especially Anglo-american ones, are famously toothy. Man up. I think on the other hand all my criticisms are to the point. Unless this is just a pleasant fiction - which it would be if I am to take the 'metaphor' language seriously. But then you talk as if Adam really had telekinesis. What does it *add* to the Fall? What, *exactly*?

just accept them even for the moment as a point of discussion

Except - nobody is discussing it, except me. And you don't like my contribution. So where does that leave us?

(Has anyone, anyone at all, even conjectured that Adam and Even might have caused the Big Bang?)

Actually, I've heard that somewhere, but never seen it worked out.

[quote]Then there is your allusion to the "sin" of curiositas, Now you could have easily linked . . . saving me the time and trouble.[.quote]
Googling does *not* count as 'trouble'. I wasn't alluding. I was directly asking you.
On curiosity: in scholastic language it is not a 'sin', it's a sin. Like 'scrupulositas' isn't just generally 'attention to rules' it's specifically a sinful way of doing it. I suggest it only as a possibility, after all.

Well, I've done about as much damage as I can. Keep plugging.

C Kirk

[Kent]

Chris,

You continually demand "proof", when of course there is no "proof" of these conjectures which I write. So let us just agree on one thing: that you and I are going in two different and apparently irreconcilable directions and let it go at that.

[inthegobi]

Kent,

There is one place where you really should give some evidence: when you claimed the traditional view makes for 'contradictions'. You have yet to name one.

I've been thinking about this. IMHO, since what you're writing is fiction - in the strict sense that you're making up something, rather than proving or philosophizing - it might be you're writing in the wrong *style*. Again, IMHO, this would all go down better if you wrote it as actual fiction, as a story. Wending? That sounds like a good idea for a story. Loops? another story idea. Adam and Eve as superheroes going bad? What a great idea for a story. I'm serious. A lot of good ideas work better as a story, a real narrative, than as quasi-philosophy or semi-theology. Because one thing you have yet to do in your quasi-philosophizing is to show us where this all might end up. A classic narrative would force that upon you: how will all these ideas *end*? What's the consequences?

You might find John C Wright's website interesting. His wife is also a writer, and she and other Christian writers have begun to talk of something they call 'superversive' literature, as an antidote to the subversive stories beloved of the so-called social justice warriors in science fiction and fantasy.

Here's the main website: http://superversivesf.com/
Wright's wife, under the pen-name JG Lamplighter: http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/
A website of one of the superversive writers, on writing: http://talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com/

Wright himself is a crack writer with big, big ideas. He gets really hot under collar about politics and social issues, which isn't my cup of tea for online reading. But his stories are amazing, and Christian, and Catholic: http://www.scifiwright.com/

C Kirk

[Kent]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but it isn't mine. I write about ... possibilities. In the underlying (religious) cosmology with its hypothetical set of dimensions/dimension analogs ("dimenalogs"), there is unlimited room for unlimited possibilities. Consider, perhaps, the quaternion (imaginary) dimenalogs associated with the F, S and G dimenalogs. Who can be absolutely certain that "God's imagination" is only fiction, and that the prodigal son never really existed? And we, who are created in God's image, cannot actually create some at least infinitesimal reality in the imaginary u and v dimenalogs? And these things cannot have some degree of accessibility to some saints in Paradise.

Consider the possibility that your beliefs may compromise your ability in Paradise to actually meet people, go to places, see things which seem to be completely fictional in this life. Or that really have existed, but you (and others) conclude do not survive mortal life.

[inthegobi]

Kent, thanks for sticking with this.

First, I still think you should give evidence for one extraordinary claim, that the conventional interpretation of the First Parents and the Fall has contradictions.

I write about ... possibilities.

That's a pretty good definition of fiction. Mind you, I'm not criticizing you for being fictive. I'm criticizing the arguments for your ideas. I think you'd be much better off dropping any pretense of arguing for them, and just write a convincing story.

You realize though, that if your stuff here by definition cannot be criticized, by definition it is not Lion's Den material. And if it's in the Lion's Den, it is presumptively fair game for criticism.

In the underlying (religious) cosmology with its hypothetical set of dimensions/dimension analogs ("dimenalogs") . . . who can be absolutely certain that "God's imagination" is only fiction, and that the prodigal son never really existed?

See, this is very strange to me. I get creating a world. Suddenly though up crop a series of extraordinary claims: (1) God has an imagination; (2) somebody (who?) has claimed His imagination is only fiction; (3) that there was important doubts about the existence of characters in parables. Then comes the really odd suggestion this is tied to making up *another* world of possibilities.

I'll only deal with the last one. Of course the prodigal son is real, as real as Gandalf. For they *need* not be fictive. But even if they are, both are made out of things that we know are real. In the case of the characters in parables they are pretty just like people you've known for real: ungrateful spendthrift sons, lazy ladies, clever servants trying to save their skins, etc. In a way Jesus was not being creative at all to present us with such characters.

Therefore, your point leading up to (3) doesn't pan out. A multi-dimensional system such as you describe doesn't make the parable of the prodigal son any deeper, and certainly not more real. Jesus might as well have related an utterly true tale that he heard from eyewitnesses - maybe even he went to the feast the week before.

And we, who are created in God's image, cannot actually create some at least infinitesimal reality in the imaginary u and v dimenalogs?

You would enjoy Tolkien's essay 'On Fairy Story', and his short tales 'Leaf by Niggle' and 'Smith of Wootton Major.'

Consider the possibility that your beliefs may compromise your ability in Paradise to actually meet people, go to places, see things which seem to be completely fictional in this life. Or that really have existed, but you (and others) conclude do not survive mortal life.

[/quote]

Consider the certainty that the state of my soul in Paradise will be blissful, no matter the Old Adam in me in this vale of tears; consider also the certainty that its precise contours are none of your beeswax. I have argued against your flabby metaphysics - you have gone after me personally, if very slyly.

Please reply to the first objection I raised: how does the conventional interpretation of the First Parents and the Fall raise contradictions?

C Kirk

[Kent]

Please reply to the first objection I raised: how does the conventional interpretation of the First Parents and the Fall raise contradictions?

I already answered that here. But you are apparently unwilling or unable to accept that answer, which implicitly assumes that (meta)physical laws are the same in all parts of the observable universe.

So perhaps we will just have to leave it at that.

[inthegobi]

Please reply to the first objection I raised: how does the conventional interpretation of the First Parents and the Fall raise contradictions?

I already answered that here.

Your reference is to this:

It makes more sense to me . . . than simply accepting that the "magic" plucking and eating a fruit caused such a catastrophic result throughout a huge universe, or somehow "made God" do that damage because of this physically small act of disobedience, as stated in Genesis.

Help me. How is 'makes less sense to me' a contradiction?

that answer . . . implicitly assumes that (meta)physical laws are the same in all parts of the observable universe.

The Catholic tradition of the Fall makes *no* such strong metaphysical assumption. So, there's no such assumption to work against! The Fall is about a very narrow - but vastly important - event. What went on around Betelgeuse or the quasars at the edge of the Universe is not discussed one way or the other.

So perhaps we will just have to leave it at that.

In this thread so far:
Catholic tradition on the Fall of Man has been dismissed.
There are claims of 'contradictions' without any *clear* example of one.
Among the fictions (which again I approve of in principle), quite extraordinary philosophical claims are made, such as the one above, that cry out for refutation.

Pardon my sharpness, but this *is* the Lion's Den. By all means tell us a new tale of Adam and Eve that illuminates Paradise, the Fall, and redemption. Just don't be surprised if claims with real answers get addressed.

C Kirk

[Kent]

Catholic tradition on the Fall of Man has been dismissed.

If by "dismissed" you mean accepting the simple, literal acceptance of reaching out an plucking a physical, botanical fruit as the entirety of what Adam and Eve physically did then I suppose you are correct. However, if you will forgive me for thinking this to be a little to "simple-minded" (yes, I know what our Lord said about becoming as a little child, but little children always ask for more details), I explained my objections in The Original Sin. You have not expressed any objections in that thread.

The Catholic tradition of the Fall makes *no* such strong metaphysical assumption. So, there's no such assumption to work against! The Fall is about a very narrow - but vastly important - event. What went on around Betelgeuse or the quasars at the edge of the Universe is not discussed one way or the other.

You would expect the ancient Biblical author(s) of Genesis to consult their own Hubble observations, perhaps? This sort of information is only very recent, and in no way suggests that the physical laws of the universe vary from place to distant place. And if there happens to be life existing on a planet in a distant galaxy whose star becomes a supernova, is that not a physical evil? Yet our existence depends on those distant past supernovas - in this observable universe.

As for writing "fiction" = well, I can see no real plot development here (unless you count the "wending diagrams"), and I hardly know the first few letters of the alphabet when it comes to character development. The only real conflict here is the ongoing one between God and the demons, with its myriad sideshows, and we know how that ends. So as "fiction" I believe these postings are abject failures, but as explorations of real possibilities I sincerely hope they are far from that.

Yes, I accept that in this part of the forum I would get objections, but I do not have to accept that they must all have merit. This was simply the most appropriate part of the forum, as far as I can tell, to post them.