fhansen
Oldbie
IDK. But I can't help but think that inside of every human being there's something very special and sacred, made in God's image, the image He wants to transform us fully into as Scripture tells us. And in our fallen, compromised, rebellious, and generally overly-prideful state, we pretty well fail miserly at hitting that mark, of living up to who we "should be". It seems to me that, by trying to be more than who he was, Adam fell to something much less, ironically. And God would've elevated him to an even higher state yet, had Adam obeyed, had He drawn nearer yet to God perhaps. But either way Adam may well have "arrived" by now, having taken the long way home, having put all of humanity on a detour, so to speak, into a world where we may at least learn well of our abject poverty when no longer in union with our Creator. I bet Adam learned that lesson, and had a change of heart at some point, the metanoia we all, like prodigals, have need of.
Anyway, God hates the evil man does, and the depths to which he fell, because He knows what He created us for, and who He created us to be. That's why He was so willing to save us-at such a cost. I appreciate some teachings I'm familiar with:
1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in His own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek Him, to know Him, to love Him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of His family, the church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In His Son and through Him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, His adopted children and thus heirs of His blessed life.
27 The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to Himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:
The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.
356 Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and love his creator". He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake", and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:
"What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good."221
357 Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer Him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.
358 God created everything for man, but man in turn was created to serve and love God and to offer all creation back to Him:
"What is it that is about to be created, that enjoys such honor? It is man that great and wonderful living creature, more precious in the eyes of God than all other creatures! For him the heavens and the earth, the sea and all the rest of creation exist. God attached so much importance to his salvation that he did not spare His own Son for the sake of man. Nor does he ever cease to work, trying every possible means, until he has raised man up to Himself and made Him sit at His right hand."223
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