66. It was not God’s plan that man was to suffer and die.

It was not God’s plan that man was to suffer and die.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 66

Ave Maria series

66.  Was it part of God’s plan for men to suffer and die?

God does not want men to suffer and die.  God’s original idea for man was paradise: life forever and peace between God and man and their environment, between man and woman.  [374-379, 384, 400]

Grief can be caused by the loss of one's home and possessions, as occurs with refugees. .....66

Often we sense how life ought to be, how we ought to be, but in fact we do not live in peace with ourselves, act out of fear and uncontrolled emotions, and have lost the harmony that man had with the world and ultimately with God.  In Sacred Scripture the experience of this alienation is expressed in the story of the Fall.  Because sin crept in, Adam and Eve had to leave paradise, in which they were in harmony with each other and with God.  The toil of work, suffering, mortality, and the temptation to sin are signs of this loss of paradise.

“We have lost paradise but have received heaven, and therefore the gain is greater than the loss.”  St. John Chrysostom (349/350-407, Doctor of the Church)

“O God, to turn away from you is to fall.  To turn to you is to stand up.  To remain in you is to have a sure support.”  St. Augustine (354-430)

[374-379, 384, 400]

IV. MAN IN PARADISE

374 The first man was not only created good, but was also established in friendship with his Creator and in harmony with himself and with the creation around him, in a state that would be surpassed only by the glory of the new creation in Christ. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

375 The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original "state of holiness and justice".( Compare Council of Trent (1546): Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1511.)²⁵⁰ This grace of original holiness was "to share in. . .divine

 life".( Compare Lumen Gentium 2.)²⁵¹ –CCC

376 By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man's life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die.( Compare Genesis 2:17; Gen 3:16,19.)²⁵² The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman,( Compare Genesis 2:25.)²⁵³ and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called "original justice". –CCC

377 The "mastery" over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man himself: mastery of self. The first man was unimpaired and ordered in his whole being because he was free from the triple concupiscence(Compare 1 John 2:16.)²⁵⁴ that subjugates him to the pleasures of the senses, covetousness for earthly goods, and self-assertion, contrary to the dictates of reason. –CCC

378 The sign of man's familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden.( Compare Genesis 2:8.)²⁵⁵ There he lives "to till it and keep it". Work is not yet a burden,( Genesis 2:15; compare Gen 3:17-19)²⁵⁶ but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation. –CCC

379 This entire harmony of original justice, foreseen for man in God's plan, will be lost by the sin of our first parents. –CCC

IN BRIEF

384 Revelation makes known to us the state of original holiness and justice of man and woman before sin: from their friendship with God flowed the happiness of their existence in paradise. –CCC

ORIGINAL SIN

Man's first sin

400 The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.( Compare Genesis 3:7-16.)²⁸² Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man.( Compare Genesis 3:17,19.)²⁸³ Because of man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay".(Romans 8:21)²⁸⁴ Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will "return to the ground",(Genesis 3:19; compare Gen 2:17.)²⁸⁵ for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.( Compare Romans 5:12.)²⁸⁶ --CCC