What Was Life Like in the Garden of Eden? On Original Justice (Aquinas 101)

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What Was Life Like in the Garden of Eden? Why was it fitting for God to create human beings in a state of original justice, or with an original grace? In this episode of Aquinas 101: Science and Faith, join Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., a Dominican friar from the Province of St. Joseph, as he describes God’s original plan for human beings, the condition we find ourselves in today, and the relation between nature and grace.
This video is an excerpt from Lesson 46: Adam, Eve, and Original Justice (Aquinas 101) by Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P. To explore the complete module, including supplemental readings and lectures, click here: aquinas101.thomisticinstitute...
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This video was made possible through the support of grant #61944 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.
*Scripture quotations are from The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1965, 1966 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

[@xrisc131]

Once again, I am in awe. The complex simplicity of it all.

[@antoniomoyal]

And the deepness

[@annamalott4089]

This magnificent view of who and what we were meant to be, gives me great hope that someday we will return to the Garden of Eden! 🙏

[@sethapex9670]

Those who deny that the state of grace can be lost once it is gained, must necessarily also deny that our first parents fell in the first place. Therefore to assert the error of "once saved always saved" is truly heresy.

[@tinman1955]

Infants are not considered capable of sin because they don't know right from wrong. How can Adam & Eve have sinned without the knowledge of good & evil? Why would God forbid A&E to possess the knowledge of good & evil? Does anyone really believe that God intended the entire human race to exist without it?

[@sethapex9670]

@@tinman1955 sin is not simply doing what is wrong, it is choosing to love a finite good above the infinite good, which is God.

[@hogansheroes2793]

OSAS is the gospel message whether you like it or not. Unlike the world, God does not abort His children. I don't deny that Adam and Eve fell. Saving repentance is realizing that you are a sinner deserving of God's just punishment in Hell and turn (repent) from whatever you trusted in before, if indeed you trusted in anything; to trusting in the person and finished work of Christ alone for salvation.

[@tinman1955]

@@hogansheroes2793 The gospel message is go and sin no more. Jesus did not tell folks to carry on regardless with no fear of consequences because OSAS covers your arse.

[@sethapex9670]

@@hogansheroes2793 even if someone turns towards God, that is no guarantee that they will not turn away. One's orientation toward or away from God is not and cannot be set until death.

[@Pienotto]

There are two theories about original justice: historical and meta-historical. In the first theory, the original justice had actual, "empirical" effects, e.g. a superior agility and immunity to physical pain, that a person present at the moment would have noticed. In the second theory, the original justice wasn't actual but a potentiality, i.e. e.g. God would have make Man immune to pain if he had not sinned, but he wasn't *already* immortal. This is coherent with the theology of the fathers: many says that "Adam" was not immortal nor mortal, because it depended on his choices. According to Maurizio Flick, indeed, even if original justice was just potential, it is still a real gift: e.g. a newborn can't speak, but if his brain in normal he is "programmed" to speak in the future, if he fall and his brain got damage and lose the ability to learn how to speak, he doesn't lose any actual ability, he couldn't speak before and I can't now, he has lost just a potentiality, but it was something very real and concrete. The idea of the fall originated realizing what Man could have been if he hadn't ever sin, conforming his whole history to god's will. Moreover, this is more coherent with Jewish views on Adam, where he is often potraited as created as an angelic being and not a "homo sapiens", meaning that with sin man lost a certein level of divinity (becoming human) but not in historical terms. Probably the meta-historical view is today more common among theologians.

[@maximhollandnederlandthene7640]

Eternal life, in creation. Making children and build and grow

[@jimdomingo6667]

Amen, thank you Fr for the enlightenment. God bless you+

[@yalidoletupua9530]

Loving It.. love and prayers from Fiji!

[@JB-ou6fl]

I just discovered this channel and I like your videos.

[@brunochxca321]

Lord I love you because you make me love you and because you are so beautiful

[@aaronclark2599]

If they had no bodily desire to eat what they knew they shouldn't, how did they find the fruit from the tree of knowledge so temptingly pleasing?

[@GilMichelini]

Aaron, it seems the point Father was making is that they would not have struggled eating or drinking what they should not eat or drink as we do because they had full control over their bodies in a way we do not. This is why we can conclude the temptation to eat that which they were forbidden must have been intense.

[@LostArchivist]

The fruit was figurative not a literal piece of fruit. It is most commonly understood as taking the prerogative exclusively for God Himself, of deciding what is good and what is evil and taking that as a right for ourselves, rather than trusting God. With pride being the chief Deadly Sin this does seem to correspond well to how we experience temptation and sin. Sin ultimately comes down to not trusting God to know and provide what is best for s but choosing something else based on our own will rather than that of God's Divine Will.

[@orfeusdissenting685]

​@@LostArchivist "Prerogative" (as in arrogance, defiance, pride etc? All things that A&E wouldn't have recognized/understood prior to the Fruit, so they had no "motive" save that of curiosity) or just symbolic of the inevitable and necessary Knowledge of Good and Evil? Simple info that God wanted us to have, as Sentient animals that He had already intended to be "above" the rest as well as unique Individuals who would be able to seek and love Him of our own Free Will...as opposed to just spoiling in mythical Eden's state of arrested development? In the story---unlike the usual Promethean "theft from the Gods" scenario---I believe God wanted and needed Humans to take from the Tree. He planted it there not to test and tempt, but to engage and inspire. After they had taken from the Fruit, God told A&E what they were now up against, but He also clothed them. Then, out from The Womb they had to be ejected.

[@otrot1601]

Two questions: why did Adam & Eve sin, if they were completely in control of their wants and needs, and if they already knew God? And why is it said that before the original, they did not know good and evil, if they already knew God? Thank you.

[@JanetteHeffernan]

They didn't sin as they never existed. Admittedly the rest of bible is unnecessary after this but DNA proves it didn't.

[@georgepimentel161]

I haven't had a chance to ask, something I consider rhetorical: Adam stated that Eve was flesh of his flesh, that She came from Him, and not the other way around. So whenever I hear the riddle of: which came first, the chicken or the egg? I say the rooster. Scientifically, that's impossible, but in the case of our first parents, theologically, is it safe to assume?

[@felipemessias9602]

I don't know if clearly understand what you want to say, but here is my answer: We have two assumptions to make: 1- Eva was created by the flesh and bones of Adam, this occur following Divine Power (God's desirability) 2- Chicken, Rooster, and eggs was created and follow natural order (animal evolution) So, first Adam was created before of Eva and this reality differ of enigma "Chicken vs Egg" because we have two different creations in game Side note: Human race also follow the natural order, but the creation (compared with other species) differ a bit

[@dylanreichley9219]

This is great lol. 1) Evolutionarily, the egg obviously came first. 2) Per Aristotlean philosophy, you have to have a form before you have a potency for that form, so the chicken came first. 3) I'm adding the answer rooster as a hot Biblical take.

[@benstarnes2048]

👏 🏆

[@vonMohl]

I always wondered if Adam fell of a tree would he experience pain, or if he stumbled did he have sore feet ?

[@djg585]

And yet, "O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam..."

[@popinjs2]

Interesting, Franciscan theology doesn't necessitate this. Christ would have come regardless if we fell or not - Christ coming was in the mind of God from all eternity.

[@luisdanielpicopaez5518]

So, if dead appears only by the sin of human beings, mosquitoes now experience dead because of the sin of human beings? Mosquitoes were inmortal before? I've always had problems with this concept of inmortality before sin.

[@MrAntby]

Immortality was due to the super natural grace God bestowed on human beings. It is not natural to corporial beings. Death was natural, immortality was super natural. And God gave it to our parents who lost it to the tricks of the enemy. Just like us, who time and time again reject the grace God offers us, and fall prey to the enemy's tricks

[@josephpaul6618]

Mosquitoes were not created in the image of God. Man being in authority over all Creation by his Fall brought bondage to decay and destruction to all Creation and groaning as in pain. That's what we read in Romans 8:18-25. The Fall has surely affected the whole Creation and one day it will be dumped and God will create a New Heaven and a New Earth. (Revelation 21) The present (old) order will all pass away and we will receive a new body, a spiritual body for ever, life with God.

[@josephmillraney1061]

Fr. Dominic, who writes the scripts for these videos?

[@brandonburns5249]

Would Adam and Eve have procreated before the fall, or is that only something that could have happened after?

[@pedromoreira3552]

Marriage was part of God's plan, even if there was no fall. Gen 2:24

[@joolz5747]

Yep I asked a similar question in my comment…and more! 👍

[@ginjordom6065]

Well if we take into account that as the video states their bodies were fully subjected to their souls then I guess they didn't get the "call" to procreate yet. Not until after the fall obviously.

[@brandonburns5249]

@@ginjordom6065 My counter to that would be that they were perfectly aligned with God, so if they were to go through with it, the action would be the perfect union of procreation and the expression of mutual love between spouses. On the other hand, if Eden is the eschatological Paradise, there would be no reason or ability to procreate.

[@ginjordom6065]

@@brandonburns5249 True enough,they had no reason not to,other than not being mature maybe,somehow. They were perfect but not all knowing all understanding. Their enviroment was natural to them just like this enviroment of ours is to us,we cant fathom their state of being though,to be undeniably aware of God and still go against Him. Angels had one chance to obey or disobey and a third of them fell unrepentantly. Imagine their knowledge if they only had one opportunity without coming back.

[@mariofsantana3952]

the enemy caused weeds to grow with the wheat in the garden, the Lord God allowed it, and mentioned the dissenting demons and angels as the cause, during his time away, robbing God's Generous gift to humanity and the cause of great Jealousy as you mentioned "He, the Lord God sent us our savior - O Happy Fault! The Church is the womb, O Mary. Ave Maria, Gratia Plena - Dominus Tecum. Glory to God in the Highest!

[@bang8419]

Yeah like this all happened

[@offtheroutetours2190]

I am a Christian and a little confused on the aspect of the first Adam and immortality, was there death before Adam or was he the cause of all death and decay?

[@offtheroutetours2190]

If he was the cause then how do we fit that in with the idea that we see death and disease long before humans? Please help

[@joolz5747]

So if Adam and Eve lived in perfect union with God…and had no pain etc. how did they procreate? Or did God also-in a nano second-after creating them also create many many other humans… All living in harmony too? Until they sinned…. At what point did A and E choose wrongly? Couldn’t they still have done all they did being the first humans even with others humans around? If they were all completely unified with God, and had no thoughts of nakedness…I still wonder how did they procreate? Plus couldn’t this perfect garden have been around for hundreds or thousands of years, before the fall? We tend to think this was all happening one two three…quickly. There are many many more questions to be answered and even Aquinas does not have all the answers. He was only human too. Brilliant but still a limited human. Thank you. 👍

[@pedromoreira3552]

Procreation is part of human nature, not an effect of the fall What is an effect of the fall is concupiscence, when the passions are not subject to reason

[@paularnold3745]

@@pedromoreira3552 Exactly! God even commanded Adam and Eve to procreate. He said "be fruitful and multiply..." (Gen 1: 28)

[@lgb5661]

@@pedromoreira3552 yet we don’t know of their children until after the fall. I always wondered why

[@josephpaul6618]

We have to presume that no children were born to Adam and Eve before the fall. We read that "there is no one who is good, not even one" and "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God " . Human history starts with rebellion, 'the Fall'. It's intriguing that Adam and Eve didn't procreate when they were in perfect harmony with God and Nature. Someone can give light into this !!!

[@hogansheroes2793]

The Bible clearly says that Adam lived to be 930 years old. No, there wasn't thousands of years spent in the garden of Eden.

[@margaretbrauer5520]

I’ve always believed - and still believe on scientific evidence - in evolution, and that at some stage we the human race emerged : quite when God gave man & woman a soul l don’t know: but l do know, not just believe, that He did - and that their descendants without exception have immortal souls which will go (hopefully) to God’s heaven upon the death of the body. So the theory of evolution does not contradict the ancient stories in Genesis which quaintly explain the truth that we were created by by God: they just explain it in poetic terms rather than scientific .

[@ozunoma]

Is this supposed to be taken as a definitive truth, or is there the possibility that anything in this explanation may be wrong or hypothetical?

[@kharismabaptiswan1754]

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

[@ozunoma]

@@kharismabaptiswan1754 Are you trying to say that there is nothing that can be discussed about what is said in the video, and it just has to be accepted as a true fact?

[@joolz5747]

This is all from brilliant but humanly limited brains. This is but a minutia of the eternal truth and real story. It goes so deep and so high that we have no idea as to that depth or height. We can only really speculate. God’s mind is not even comprehensible. Not even by Aquinas. Sometimes we personally ourselves can even get some truth revelation from our Creator while we are in deep communication with Him. When I meditate on DNA, Fibonacci numbers etc. and when I observe in extreme detail one little wildflower, I can only stand in awe at the perfection and completeness and precision of all living things. Creation tells me more than even Aquinas can. It is just all incredible! ✝️

[@ozunoma]

@@joolz5747 I understand what you say, but I wonder if the author of the video shares your view on the fact that these by Aquinas are only speculations. I suspect he doesn't.

[@LostArchivist]

It is theological informed speculation, the Thomistic Institute is a very good institute, but it does not comprise Church Magisterium. So yes it is fallible and so potentially has flaws, as for hypothetical that seems limited to where Fr.Legge states it is intended to be so. Such as proposals potential examples of explanations and the like, but none of the framework is that.

[@user-bw1kz8eg3l]

If death was not in the original plan, then why was the tree of life in the Garden? Doesn’t it mean that one has to eat a fruit from the tree of life to get an eternal life?

[@antoniomoyal]

It is important to understand that the original sin is not transmitted biologically or genetically, but spiritually. This is so because baptised parents (cleansed form original sin) give birth to children with the original sin imprinted on them. So the mechanism of transmission of that internal disorder that causes the loss of grace, needs to be another diffirent from material transmission.

[@LostArchivist]

That might not be the best way to phrase that, as Baptism is spiritual in nature as well as even the Baptized still suffer the effects of concupiscence and disordered passions. It also can not be that substantially original sin becomes our whole nature as it is a privation and because or else any means of grace would be impossible as there would be nothing at all capable of receiving it and clearly the unbaptized are called by God to conversion even prior to baptism. Therefore, it is as often described a stain or rip in a garment or an injury or illness, rather than a whole-cloth corruption. It is not material simply put because a body alone can not sin because it has no will nor intellect, or even life, it is a lifeless corpse. So it is a spiritual brokenness. Now Scripture tells us the three sources of temptations the Flesh, the World, and the Devil, one of these is outside humanity so it is not relevant, the second is our social interactions and the cascading effects of sin on them us, and the world in general as we interact with it. The third, the Flesh is what is relevant here, this is the disordered passions and comes from the loss of union with God which, we are made as our final end. We are made to be in communion with God, but our first parents breached that covenant and so lost this friendship with God. We as creatures can never restore that on our own, only God can as it extends infinitely beyond our nature as creatures to restore such a thing and as Fr.Legge said, we are not owed such a gift, because indeed it was and is a gift. So we try to fill in the hole that only God can fill. Until Heaven, we are still in exile unable to fulfill our true deepest longing. So the Lord has made it so trusting in Him each of us can choose to cooperate or reject His Divine Mercy and Love. So we must choose wisely, His Will, or our will?

[@johnbrion4565]

What is hard for me to understand is why were there dinosaurs and signs of death and decay prior to human existence? This suggests physical death existed prior to the fall of man. Or would Adam and Eve have died physical deaths even without falling? I understand the death we should fear is spiritual death. But I still just find this a stumbling block that scriptures seems to teach physical death entered through original sin yet the fossil record and evolution seems to suggest otherwise.

[@MrFossil367ab45gfyth]

Death has always existed since life began. But in this sense, "death" could mean spiritual death not physical.

[@johnbrion4565]

@@MrFossil367ab45gfyth yes that is what it must mean. The true death is the spiritual death if the spirit is real. This is suggested in genesis actually as God said they’d die if they are of the fruit but they did not die a physical death right after eating. At the same time if we are to believe man fell and prior to the fall was protected spiritually it seems the geological evidence and fossil record don’t support this. Or was the first man immediately corrupted when he first became self aware?

[@JanetteHeffernan]

They never existed. The bible is a myth and can be proved to be a myth by DNA. No first humans so no sin and no need for Father Dominic!

[@ariellopez1834]

Make spanish version

[@ThomisticInstitute]

We're working on adding Spanish captions! Thank you for watching, and may the Lord bless you!

[@Yuri-bl4ec]

If God created mankind to glorify him, and to glorify him means to follow God's plan, and to follow God's plan means to glorify him, isnt this a circular argument?

[@hogansheroes2793]

Saving repentance is realizing that you are a sinner deserving of God's just punishment in Hell and turn (repent) from whatever you trusted in before, if indeed you trusted in anything; to trusting in the person and finished work of Christ alone for salvation.

[@gateway6827]

Praise be to God. Thank you for preaching Catholic truth, and not Darwinism.

[@micah4242]

Why would an all powerful God create people capable of such sin? Why wouldn’t he make Adam and Eve immune from temptation?

[@CesareVesdani]

Life was pristine in the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve did not need to work because everything was done for them. That was because they both lived in a perfect environment.

[@terrencehall7264]

(dress it and keep it) sounds like work to me.

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

Why didn't God just make Robots to take care of the garden ? Certainly he didn't need to create independent free willed self motivated living beings just to tend a garden... Imagine coming home to your Roomba vaccuum cleaner calling you 'Daddy! Welcome Home! I became self aware today!'

[@leonardobaldini7196]

It's incorrect to define the human soul as a "divine spark" (9:00), the human soul is created and it doesn't have God's same nature.

[@michaelabbott9080]

Can you actually demonstrate that any of this is real and actually happened..???....and if you cannot,its such a wild story,why should anyone believe it..?

[@kostancijadegutyte184]

Why do we try to explain the complicated points in the Bible away by demoting them to being simply “stories, or myths”? Perhaps it is time for the dedicated seekers of Truth to dare combining Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 together. Following the story of Creation to the letter, it puts the creation of Adam and Eve on the third day as described in Genesis 1, shortly after the dry land appeared. The Garden of Eden could have been a domed enclosure where God Created Adam first and then all the specimen of other species by simply manipulating Adam’s DNA slightly. That’s why all living creatures have similar genetic blueprint: corals, plants and all living things, even those that have been long extinct. Now, to create Eve, God could not manipulate Adams DNA the same way he did when creating the lesser beings. God had to take a piece of Adams flesh and make her genetic code the same way as Adam’s. It is intriguing, how man’s genetic code is XY and the woman’s code is XX. The missing biblical Adam’s “RIB” most likely is hidden in the Y, which must have started as an X. It’s a scientific fact that all fetuses have the XX chromosomes and all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female until the sixth week of gestation. It is interesting to realize that the Earth was still void when the Garden of Eden was established. It is from the Garden of Eden that the four rivers carried water to the rest of the world behind the walls. We know that there were walls as the Bible says there was a gate. God spread all the creatures over the earth when the conditions got ripe. On the sixth day, God instructed the Earth to bring forth all the animals and also created the beings, in the image of MAN (Adam and God), called humans that were never spoken of as immortal. When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden to live a harsh life and eventually to die like the rest of the living beings on the wide earth, they brought the curse of the knowledge of good and evil to the rest of the earthly humanity. This explains perfectly why there were many other people on Earth when Adam and Eve had their first children. Cain was running away from the people that were the descendants of the humans created on Earth on the sixth day of Creation. Obviously, they were very much like Adam and Eve as well as their descendants physically. The difference was in the spiritual knowledge of good and evil. Humans on Earth didn’t have it. They were as innocent as all other animals. When the knowledge of good and evil infected the minds of the rest of the humans on Earth, humanity turned extremely vile. The state that humanity finds itself in today, has been played out many times over centuries when God had to intervene to tone it down..

[@alexpanagiotis4706]

This is not what the Holy Fathers said! Life in paradise was completely different. There was no procreation as we know it today. They had also different "body"

[@makikitamorin1322]

Is the Creation story only a story (religious myth) meant to explain human experience and condition of goodness and sin? It is not a historical fact that we can take literally.

[@user-bw1kz8eg3l]

What nonsense are you saying? What you are saying is pure figment of imagination.

[@yvonetubla7682]

congratulations on the most idiotic comment in this thread and possibly the entire internet, well done

[@gabrielteo3636]

Where did nature come from? Who decided how nature would act? Who knew before he created Adam and Eve they would disobey? Who made sure inherited sin is a thing? Who could have annihilated Adam and Eve or at least sent them to hell and started with 2 other people who would not sin? This just leaves so many plot holes and other questions left unanswered. The only answer is God wanted Adam and Eve to sin to create this world, otherwise, it would be just 2 naked people in a garden forever. Guess God got bored with only 2 people.

[@tafazzi-on-discord]

Knowing evil implies being free to commit evil on others. If God sent Adam and Eve directly to hell, he wouldn't have respected their choice.

[@joolz5747]

I commented above and I think there were more people with Adam and Eve but A and E were the first created. There are a gazillion never ending questions and even brilliant human brains will never comprehend them now. 😊👍

[@paularnold3745]

God never intended them to be just two people. He told them to be fruitful and multiply (see Genesis 1 : 28). From the Genesis account it seems that original sin occurred before they had a chance to procreate. An interesting speculation is: If Adam and Eve had procreated before their disobedience, would the pre-original sin offspring who did not participate in the sin remain in perfect harmony with God and nature?

[@gabrielteo3636]

@@tafazzi-on-discord "If God sent Adam and Eve directly to hell, he wouldn't have respected their choice." If God respected them for their choice, why did he punish them? ... and their innocent offspring...incredibly harshly. Would you have done the same? No? I guess you are more loving and forgiving than God? Why does God send people who don't believe Jesus gives salvation, to hell? These people don't want to suffer eternal conscious torment. God could give everyone a wonderful afterlife with a passing thought. That would be ultimate love and forgiveness. Or how about this, God knows who will suffer eternal torment, don't create them, create someone else. You will be doing them a great favor and they won't even know it because they won't exist.

[@gabrielteo3636]

@@joolz5747 " even brilliant human brains will never comprehend them now" It is the same arguments people give for Zeus, Allah, Vishnu, etc. We cannot comprehend these reasons. How is God in time and out of time at the same time? When is something truly a contradiction and when is it something we cannot comprehend? You can justify any belief if you say we cannot comprehend. You see contradictions in Islam, but they will say, we cannot understand. Maybe you are doing the same?

[@tudevoid]

Adam and Eve were created to be laborers in the garden. The Garden of Eden was for all the gods.. not for humans.