72. What was the original condition of the human person according to the plan of God?

72. What was the original condition of the human person according to the plan of God?

(Comp 72) In creating man and woman God had given them a special participation in his own divine life in holiness and justice. In the plan of God they would not have had to suffer or die. Furthermore, a perfect harmony held sway within the human person, a harmony between creature and Creator, between man and woman, as well as between the first human couple and all of creation.

“In Brief”

(CCC 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.

To deepen and explain

(CCC 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. (CCC 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" (Cf. Council of Trent (1546): DS 1511). This grace of original holiness was "to share in… divine life" (Cf. LG 2). (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 (Cf. Gen 2:17; 3:16, 19). The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman (Cf. Gen 2:25), and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called "original justice".

On reflection

(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 (Cf. I Jn 2:16) 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 (Cf. Gen 2:8). There he lives "to till it and keep it". Work is not yet a burden (Gen 2:15; cf. 3:17-19), but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation.

(Next question: How should we understand the reality of sin?)