Reflection on December 3, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb48.htm

If the inner man or conscious is what we call ethos, has there ever been a time in the history of man when people have been taught to indulge their ethos than right now. Christ interpretation of ethos and the fact that your thoughts can be enough to cause you to be sinful, was new to the world. Perhaps since Christ came and taught, the world has been trying to understand and live by this new ethos, but in the last 50 plus years all that has been thrown out the window with a new understand of indulging in anything your hearts desires, ignore your conscious. That is why SJPII work on Theology of the Body is so important, because it goes against the tide of the world, the same with Humane Vita, a precursor to Theology of the Body.

In order to understand redemption, we must go back to the beginning. SJPII seems to emphasis this over and over. This may be a struggle for many because of what they believe or don’t believe about the Creation narrative. If you don’t believe in the beginning, that there were no first parents, no fall, no original sin, so Satan, then you cannot begin to grasp SJPII teachings about redemption. He interlocks the two so closely that you have to wrestle with both together. You cannot have one without the other. Without the beginning, it will be hard to believe in that original nature that is in our very foundation, buried underneath our inherited concupiscence.

We can never get back to the beginning because of the fall and the barrier that this created. That wall that stops us led to the 2 philosophies that SJPII discussed. Manichaeism blames the body, Freud blames the spirit. SJPII says that these urges, this concupiscence is not void to cross or a wall to stare at, but an opportunity to grow through temperance and self dominion. Do not cut yourself off entirely, do not indulge in it improperly, but practice restraint, allow it when it is appropriate, and through a proper experience learn what it truly means to be human.

I found this as a source for the above question about the creation story and thought I would share it.

http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/booklets/Catholics%20and%20the%20Bible.doc

The nine things that the Church teaches:

1. The creation of all things out of nothing by God at the beginning of time, including time

2. The special creation of man.

3. The creation of woman from man.

4. All of humanity is descended from an original pair of human beings - i.e. Adam and Eve.

5. Adam and Eve were created in an original state of holiness, justice, and immortality.

6. A divine command was laid upon man to prove his obedience to God [do not eat from the tree…]

7. The transgression of that Divine Command at the instigation of Satan.

8. The loss of the state of holiness, justice, and immortality of our 1st parents [because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve were kicked out of Paradise].

9. The promise of a future Redeemer, a Savior [Genesis 3:15, the protoevangelium, the first “good news”]. Reference: Denzinger: #2123

B. Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII, 1950

~ Adam is the first parent of all mankind (HG #37)

~ Genesis is history in a “true sense” (HG #38)

~ Genesis chapters 1-11 is not a myth. (HG #39)