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Faith1960
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You had that on your post but now it’s gone.
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Faith1960
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So we can believe that, what I wrote in post #4?
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cfauster
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ynotzap
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It is a divine truth that Jesus is called the New Adam, and Mary his mother the new Eve It was Adam and Eve’s sin that affected all humanity and humanity needed to be redeemed from sin’s effects. It’s a matter of Divine Revelation, Faith.
Looking from a practical perspective, why would God create many first parents simultaneously, or even sequencially with the same fallibility as all created things have. surely they too because they are not infallible, and God can not create an infallible creature, would necessarily need a Savior. To do so is to create a creature with Omniscience, which is to create another god, which at it’s roots is a contradiction… If there was never fewer than l0,000 people on earth, then it contradict what we believe to be true, that we came from our first parents. How would science know? It would contradict our Faith, and our Faith is reasonable. I say that reason is on our side, as well as Faith.
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Faith1960
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Another poster from another thread considers that beastiality.
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Faith1960
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I say i believe what I wrote in post # 4.
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cfauster
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I gather this part of post #4 is relevant:
“My priest said that we can’t believe in polygenism but I read something about its not contrary to our faith to believe God created a species of creatures resembling humans through a series of evolutionary actions then chose Adam and Eve into which impart human souls, making them the only humans.”
I think both Kenneth Kemp and Nicanor Austriaco support the same idea as what you describe above from what you read.
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Barricade
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I was asking if it would be considered bestiality, because I find it hard to see how these non-ensouled humans would be made in the image and likeness of God as we are. How could this be? They wouldn’t have souls like we do, they wouldn’t be able to sin and so be damned or be saved as we humans beings can be. The only commonality would be biological.
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Faith1960
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The only problem I have is Austriaco believes in polygenism. He showed me where it was written in a Vatican paper, International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship, ((paragraph 70) and we aren’t supposed to believe in it.
It says “Catholic theology affirms that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention.”
This is from the Vatican so I’m really confused since everything I’ve read and heard from my priest said we can’t believe in polygenism.
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cfauster
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Here’s how Rev. Austriaco puts it:
“Finally, why is this transformation from anatomically modern to behaviorally modern humans so important for our discussion of the historicity of Adam and Eve? It is critically important because, philosophically, this transformation can be understood to be archeological evidence for the appearance of the rational soul in human evolution. Theologically, this transformation would be a sign of the arrival on the stage of world history of the imago Dei, the creature made in the image and likeness of God with intellect and will.”
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cfauster
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An earlier post in this thread suggested something that I think Austriaco also says: the main problem with polygenism was the idea that humans did not share common ancestry. There was a version of polygenism that suggested different races could not have come from the same lineage. It was really a kind of racism. Anyway, both theologically and scientifically, that kind of polygenism has been shown to be false. All human races are of one species, and we share the same first parents, both biologically (the 10,000 or so) and theologically (according to Kemp and Austriaco, two).
Here’s how Austriaco puts it:
"In 1950, when Pope Pius XII published his encyclical Humani generis, scientists thought that the human race had evolved independently from different non-human populations that existed in different regions in the world before the appearance of Homo sapiens… From a theological perspective, according to this multi-regional model of human origins, it is hard to see how every human being who ever lived could have shared a common fallen human nature that would eventually be assumed and redeemed by Christ. For example, if the historic event of the fall had taken place in Africa, how could this event have affected the human natures of the individuals who evolved independently in Australia, by propagation and not by imitation? It is not clear.
Therefore, as we saw in the previous essay, it is not surprising that Pope Pius XII taught that, “it is in no way apparent how [polygenism] can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani generis, no. 37).
By 2014, the science changed dramatically …"
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Faith1960
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Deacon Jeff what do you have to say about posts #52-54? I’d really like your opinion.
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GEddie
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To me, holding that the world went direct from zero human life to over 10,000 human beings requires more faith than A&E.
Just saying. Evolution debates are profoundly uninteresting to me, besides being IMS disallowed.
ICXC NIKA
Just saying. Evolution debates are profoundly uninteresting to me, besides being IMS disallowed.
ICXC NIKA
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cfauster
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The 5-10K biological ancestors:
- did not suddenly come from zero.
- were not behaviorally and theologically human beings in the Kemp/Austriaco scenario.
“That account can begin with a population of about 5,000 hominids, beings which are in many respects like human beings, but which lack the capacity for intellectual thought. Out of this population, God selects two and endows them with intellects by creating for them rational souls, giving them at the same time those preternatural gifts the possession of which constitutes original justice. Only beings with rational souls (with or without the preternatural gifts) are truly human. The first two theologically human beings misuse their free will, however, by choosing to commit a (the original) sin, thereby losing the preternatural gifts, though not the offer of divine friendship by virtue of which they remain theologically (not just philosophically) distinct from their merely biologically human ancestors and cousins. These first true human beings also have descendants, which continue, to some extent, to interbreed with the non-intellectual hominids among whom they live. If God endows each individual that has even a single human ancestor with an intellect of its own, a reasonable rate of reproductive success and a reasonable selective advantage would easily replace a non-intellectual hominid population of 5,000 individuals with a philosophically (and, if the two concepts are extensionally equivalent, theologically) human population within three centuries. Throughout this process, all theologically human beings would be descended from a single original human couple (in the sense of having that human couple among their ancestors) without there ever having been a population bottleneck in the human species.”
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Faith1960
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But wouldn’t that be polygenism?
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cfauster
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Perhaps you mean, wouldn’t that be the polygenism rejected by Pope Pius XII?
Austriaco does not think so.
Personally, I doubt anyone in 1950 was imagining anything like the scenario being proposed by current Catholic priests and scholars such as Austriaco, Feser, and Kemp.
I don’t know what to make of the lack of censure from the Catholic Church towards these priests and scholars and their writings. Maybe eventually they will be suppressed. But in the absence of such suppression, when the Catholic students in my biology classes confide that they are losing their faith, I encourage them not to. One of the ways I encourage them is by pointing them to thoughtful Catholics who take the historicity of Adam and Eve and the Fall very seriously, yet also do not have the luxury of ignoring or dismissing the science. Yes, the scientific consensus will change, but to predict that it will change in a manner that supports a genetic bottleneck of two sole original biological ancestors is, I think, quite rash. My apologies to those uninterested or annoyed by the science and discussions thereof. I am merely responding to genuine and earnest questions, in my daily work and occasionally on CAF.
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Faith1960
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Faith1960
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But Austriaco believes in polygenism. Reread post# 52.
On the other hand, perhaps the Church is acknowledging that polygenism is possible. I mean, it says so in the article I quoted. But my priest sure doesn’t
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CHRISTINE77
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I was thinking the same thing! Just how did these 10,000 people spontaneously arise?
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CHRISTINE77
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Where did the 5,000 hominids come from?
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