When Doctrine and Scripture are Stumbling Blocks -- Ask for Understanding!

Expulsion of Adam and Eve by Benjamin West circa 1800

I've mentioned before that Larry and I are studying Bishop Schneider's Credo, the Compendium of the Faith for Lent. The other evening we came across a teaching that was one of those difficult ones. It was in Part 1, Chapter 6 #224-226:

#224 -- Is the dignity of the human person rooted in his creation in God's image and likeness?

This was true for Adam, but with original sin the human person lost this resemblance and dignity in the eyes of God. He recovers this dignity through baptism, and keeps it as long as he does not sin mortally.

#225 -- Then human dignity is not the same in all persons?

No. The human person loses his dignity in proportion to his free choice of error or evil; e.g., the dignity of Adolph Hitler and St. Francis of Assisi are not the same.

#226 -- Isn't every human person a "son or daughter of the One who wants to be called 'our Father'"? [This quote is taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2212 described in a footnote as a "regrettable affirmation".]

No. One becomes a child of God only through explicit faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word and Son of God, being reborn of God (see Jn 1:12-13) through the sacrament of baptism (see Jn 3-5; and 1 Pt 1-3-23). "It is not the children of flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants." (Rom 9:8)

The section on human dignity goes on, but this is enough to explain the challenge for us. We both received Catholic education through high school. I then attended a Catholic women's college while my husband went to a state university. You would think we learned this doctrine stating that only the baptized in the state of grace are "children of God" made in His "image and likeness." 

What can I say? We didn't get it! We were both taken aback and had somewhat the reaction of the disciples after Jesus gave the bread of life sermon. "This teaching is hard to take." 

But nothing will ever make us walk away or think we are smarter than the magisterium. We both know that when a doctrine or Scripture passage is puzzling or hard to accept, the problem isn't with the doctrine, but with our understanding of it. Hmmm, I opined. If we aren't children of God who are we children of? Mother Nature?

So we moved on agreeing that "we need to think about it." I thought at the time it would be difficult, but my subconscious must have been working on it, because a few days later I woke up and was saying my morning prayers and it made total sense to me.

God made Adam and Eve in His image and likeness. Obviously His image wasn't about their bodies since God is a Spirit. So what made them "in His image"? -- the life of grace within them, of course. But when Adam and Eve rebelled against God, not only did they lose the supernatural grace in their souls, i.e., the image of God, but they couldn't give to their children what they didn't have. So all their descendants, including you and I, lost the image of God. Instead, at our conception, we bore the image of sinful Adam. We received a soul without grace! 

And so, instead of being children of God, we come into the world as children of Adam and Eve and definitely in need of a Savior. Baptism recognizes that we are in the grips of sin, not personal sin, but original sin. Hence in the traditional sacrament there is a strong emphasis on exorcism to free us from the grip of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

One of the things this realization did for me was emphasize the need to evangelize. How many, many souls out there are not children of God? This is the realization that sparks the missionary spirit that sent so many Jesuits and others to martyrdom. They had a zeal to rescue souls for God. This doctrine makes the syncretism of Assisi frightening. It also casts into terrifying relief some of the statements during the Amazon Synod from "missionaries" who don't believe in instructing and baptizing the pagan natives, for example the Yanomamis. What an evil agenda to shrug and say pagans are fine just the way they are.

I'm going to pray and fast more this Lent for the unbaptized. I want everyone to have what the Catholic Church offers -- Life in Christ. And once people are baptized I want to pray for them to persevere and practice penance. Confession is such a blessing. It not only offers forgiveness of sin, but atones for some of the well-deserved punishment for sin for which we haven't fully atoned. Every time we go to Confession we reduce our bench time in Purgatory. Isn't that a great reason to embrace the sacrament in thanksgiving and receive it often?

Have you been to Confession yet this Lent? Christ is waiting for you.