The gist of the post on the inheritance of original sin was that it is a part of the universal human culture. It is a thought in the human conceptual scheme that on occasion one may choose contrary to the moral law or God’s will. In the human conceptual scheme, there is a fundamental option to put human will over God’s will.

There are several ways to formulate the principle setting human judgment over morality or God. A profound way of expressing this corrupting principle in our universal human thinking is with Protagoras’s “Man is the measure of all things.” If we set human reasoning as the judge of all we assume the right for ourselves to be judges of whether or not we are bound by morality. If we allow ourselves to be judges of whether or not we are bound by morality, we set aside morality. So, because I am using terminology of moral thinking to build my conceptual model for Satan, original sin and later the core conceptions of Christian salvation theory -the Paschal Mystery-, I write of the original sin we have as rejecting morality. I do not want to go on-and-on trying to express maxim of original sin “just right.”

HOW BAD IS ORIGINAL SIN?
Humans willed not to have morality.
Morality is the means God gave humans to reach the good of being as they ought to be.
So humans have rejected the means for the good God has willed for them.
To reject the means is to reject the end.
Hence, humans have rejected the good God has willed for them.
Beings who have a way they ought to be choose not to be by choosing not to be as they ought to be.
(See Moral Harm and Non-Being)
Hence, by rejecting the good God willed for them, humans willed not to be.
By willing not to be, humans willed that they be a biological life form which comes into being and passes away. (We willed to be creatures with no normative end – no way we ought to be as we assume it to be with mosquitoes et al.)

Did God have to let the human condition stay as our fundamental principle for choosing entails?

DID GOD HAVE TO STOP LOVING HUMANS AFTER ORIGINAL SIN?
If God can still love humanity after original sin, then God has to will that humans have the possibility of being as they ought to be after original sin.
If humans have the possibility of being as they ought to be after original sin, then humans have to have morality after original sin.
But after original sin, humans have rejected morality.
So, God cannot love humans after original sin unless God wills that humans have morality after original sin.

Now we have a big issue with two problems: How can God will that humans have morality after humans have rejected morality? There is an easy problem about God’s end in so willing and a hard problem about God’s means in His choice.
Now God can will whatever God chooses within the constraints of logical consistency.
Can God consistently will that humans have morality after rejecting morality?

The easy problem is Can God have a reason for willing that humans have morality after rejecting morality? Willing that humans have morality and hence the great good of having a way they ought to be, is to will a great good. No reason beyond this being a good is needed for God to have a reason to will that humans have morality after rejecting morality. (Similarly, God can will that Satan have his good after Satan’s rebellion.)

The hard problem concerns what God must do to bring it about that humans have morality after rejecting morality.

The barrier, logical barrier, comes from human morality. Humans have rejected it but it is still there with its demands. The demands of human morality have to be satisfied before humans can have it after having rejected it. For God to will the good of humanity God has to will that humans who have rejected morality still have it. The thesis is that humans both accept and reject morality.
The human empirical condition in human history supports a thesis that humans have morality and reject it at all times throughout history.

There is a warfare in humanity between our having morality and rejecting it. The on-going warfare on battlefields is only a manifestation of this more fundamental warfare which rages within each individual and community.

Subsequent posts in this series will confront the had problem of how God can consistently will that humans have morality while rejecting morality?

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality. My book illustrates how humans suffer from having and yet rejecting sexual morality.

My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.

To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214