Catechism of the Catholic Church · Part One › Section Two › Chapter One › Article 1 · Paragraph 7 (§§385–421)
Paragraphs · 37
The Catechism's text is under copyright, so each paragraph is quoted briefly here with a link to the full text at vatican.va.
Paragraph 7. THE FALL
- §385 — God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil.vatican.va
I. Where Sin Abounded, Grace Abounded All the More
- §386 — Sin is present in human history; any attempt to ignore it or to give this dark reality other names would be futile. To try to understand what sin is, one must first recognize the profound relation of man to God, for only in this relationship…vatican.va
- §387 — Only the light of divine Revelation clarifies the reality of sin and particularly of the sin committed at mankind's origins. Without the knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological…vatican.va
- §388 — With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated. Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in…vatican.va
- §389 — The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the "reverse side" of the Good News that Jesus is the Saviour of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ.vatican.va
- §390 — The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.vatican.va
Ii. the Fall of the Angels
- §391 — Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church's Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called "Satan" or the "devil".vatican.va
- §392 — Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This "fall" consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign.vatican.va
- §393 — It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."vatican.va
- §394 — Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls "a murderer from the beginning", who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father.vatican.va
- §395 — The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature.vatican.va
Iii. Original Sin
- §396 — God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God.vatican.va
- §397 — Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of.vatican.va
- §398 — In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good.vatican.va
- §399 — Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.vatican.va
- §400 — The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.vatican.va
- §401 — After that first sin, the world is virtually inundated by sin There is Cain's murder of his brother Abel and the universal corruption which follows in the wake of sin.vatican.va
- §402 — All men are implicated in Adam's sin, as St. Paul affirms: "By one man's disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned."vatican.va
- §403 — Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam's sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which…vatican.va
- §404 — How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? the whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".vatican.va
- §405 — Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the…vatican.va
- §406 — The Church's teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation.vatican.va
- §407 — The doctrine of original sin, closely connected with that of redemption by Christ, provides lucid discernment of man's situation and activity in the world. By our first parents' sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free.vatican.va
- §408 — The consequences of original sin and of all men's personal sins put the world as a whole in the sinful condition aptly described in St.vatican.va
- §409 — This dramatic situation of "the whole world [which] is in the power of the evil one" makes man's life a battle:vatican.va
Iv. "You Did Not Abandon Him to the Power of Death"
- §410 — After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall.vatican.va
- Catechism — CCC 411 — The Catechism's statement that the Fathers saw the woman of the Protoevangelium as Mary, the new Eve, and that she was preserved from sin by the grace of Christ.vatican.va
- §412 — But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away."vatican.va
In Brief
- §413 — "God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. . It was through the devil's envy that death entered the world" (Wis 1:13; 2:24).vatican.va
- §414 — Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive.vatican.va
- §415 — "Although set by God in a state of rectitude man, enticed by the evil one, abused his freedom at the very start of history. He lifted himself up against God, and sought to attain his goal apart from him" (GS 13 # 1).vatican.va
- §416 — By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.vatican.va
- §417 — Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called "original sin".vatican.va
- §418 — As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called "concupiscence").vatican.va
- §419 — "We therefore hold, with the Council of Trent, that original sin is transmitted with human nature, "by propagation, not by imitation" and that it is.vatican.va
- §420 — The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5:20).vatican.va
- §421 — Christians believe that "the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator's love; has fallen into slavery to sin but has been set free by Christ, crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one.vatican.va
Scripture cited · 93 verses
Genesis 2:17 · Genesis 3:1 · Genesis 3:2 · Genesis 3:3 · Genesis 3:4 · Genesis 3:5 · Genesis 3:6 · Genesis 3:7 · Genesis 3:8 · Genesis 3:9 · Genesis 3:10 · Genesis 3:11 · Genesis 3:12 · Genesis 3:13 · Genesis 3:14 · Genesis 3:15 · Genesis 3:16 · Genesis 3:17 · Genesis 3:19 · Genesis 4:3 · Genesis 4:4 · Genesis 4:5 · Genesis 4:6 · Genesis 4:7 · Genesis 4:8 · Genesis 4:9 · Genesis 4:10 · Genesis 4:11 · Genesis 4:12 · Genesis 4:13 · Genesis 4:14 · Genesis 4:15 · Genesis 6:5 · Genesis 6:12 · Wisdom 2:24 · Matthew 4:1 · Matthew 4:2 · Matthew 4:3 · Matthew 4:4 · Matthew 4:5 · Matthew 4:6 · Matthew 4:7 · Matthew 4:8 · Matthew 4:9 · Matthew 4:10 · Matthew 4:11 · Luke 11:21 · Luke 11:22 · John 1:29 · John 8:44 · John 16:8 · John 16:11 · Romans 1:18 · Romans 1:19 · Romans 1:20 · Romans 1:21 · Romans 1:22 · Romans 1:23 · Romans 1:24 · Romans 1:25 · Romans 1:26 · Romans 1:27 · Romans 1:28 · Romans 1:29 · Romans 1:30 · Romans 1:31 · Romans 1:32 · Romans 3:23 · Romans 5:12 · Romans 5:13 · Romans 5:14 · Romans 5:15 · Romans 5:16 · Romans 5:17 · Romans 5:18 · Romans 5:19 · Romans 5:20 · Romans 5:21 · Romans 8:21 · Romans 8:28 · 1 Corinthians 2:16 · 1 Corinthians 15:21 · 1 Corinthians 15:22 · 1 Corinthians 15:45 · Philippians 2:8 · 2 Thessalonians 2:7 · 1 Timothy 3:16 · Hebrews 2:14 · 1 Peter 5:8 · 2 Peter 2:4 · 1 John 3:8 · 1 John 5:19 · Revelation 12:9