Quote:
Originally Posted by Saya
If you're a Christian looking for something in the Old Testament looking for that point, but there's no mention of it, no hell, and no afterlife in the Old Testament, the Sadducees you might remember mocked Jesus because they believed there is no afterlife at all. Originally not all Hebrews believed in the Fall anyway, this is why Genesis has two creation stories, the first has no mention of a fall and the second one does. Even Cain wasn't inherently evil, God tells him to look inside himself and find the goodness in himself. "Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you furious? And why are you downcast? If you do right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it."" In Judaism, we have the capacity to do good or or go astray. This is in contradiction with the doctrine of original sin, good deeds don't matter without grace, and Cain could not have had grace.
From what I understand Jewish interpretation is that the Fall wasn't even necessarily bad, its just why we are mortal and we have to work hard and God doesn't give everything to us on a silver platter. This is very different from early Catholic interpretations. Augustine believed we have no capacity to do good without grace.
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It came from the Augustine idea that God preordinates who will receive grace (who will be vessels of mercy or vessels of wrath.) Its a really dismal view that it really doesn't matter what we do, because God already decided before we were born, and its only going to be a minority of us. Which they contradicted early on with the Tertullian idea of merit, but I digress.
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These days I only look through religious texts for entertainment purposes. My favorite was one I think Ashley pointed out, where God's armies had to retreat because holy shit those other guys had iron chariots, or something like that. It was great.
It is an absolutely dismal view. It's thankfully out of scope for your medieval study, but if you really want to have something to shake your head sadly over give Christian Reconstructionists a glance over.
No capacity to do good? That's adorable. Reminds me of the "Total Depravity" idea. As broken evil humans, everything about our nature is supposedly fucked, even stuff we think is good is completely worthless to God. The slightest sin is an absolute affront and worthy of total damnation. God, out of sheer mercy, may decide to not throw some number of humans to the fate they perfectly deserve. Whatevs :-)
If we assume an all knowing and all-powerful deity, then doesn't it follow that all actions and results are known to it and either allowed or caused by it? Preordination seems like an inevitable result of said God's attributes. Is there any difference between action and inaction when discussing an omnipresent all knowing all powerful entity?