A branch grafted on

[twf]

In Romans 11, St. Paul describes Gentile Christians as a branch “grafted on” to the tree / branch / vine that is Israel… in Christ, the baptized Gentiles are able to enjoy the spiritual befits that were promised to Israel. It occurred to me tonight, as a matter of pure speculation, that we could apply this analogy to early hominids incorporated into Adam’s line. Various Catholic thinkers who have examined the implications of biological evolution for the narrative of Adam and Eve speculate that God must have singled our First Parents out from a larger hominid community. Genetically speaking, we know there was no bottleneck…thus Adam and Eve emerged from a larger pre-existing hominid community. Their children also likely mixed with that larger community. It has been speculated that the offspring of a direct descendant of Adam and another hominid line would result in an ensouled, truly human person… thus, could we speak of hominids being “grafted on” to the vine that is the Adamite line?

 

[RandomAlias]

I agree, there is an analogy there, and a plausible view of early human population.

 

[Ghosty1981]

Precisely my take on the matter. I believe 100% in a literal Adam and Eve, and I believe this explanation covers the genetic evidence we can see as well.

 

[pianistclare]

Makes sense to me. I kind of thought theologians were leaning/thinking this way.

Solves that whole "incestuous relationship thing people like to toss about also.

 

[twf]

True. I don’t take credit for the basic idea. What is new (at least to me) is the analogy of being “grafted on”. The Jews were biological descendants of Abraham and thus received the spiritual benefits of the promises made to him…but St Paul says that even those who are not his biological descendants (most of us) can be “grafted on” to that line and receive the spiritual rewards. I’m thinking that what happened with primordial humanity was analogous in that descendants of near human animals were “grafted on” to the ensouled true human line even if their genetic lineage was mixed.

 

[ChunkMonk]

No. No. No. No. No.

The idea of a thinking, feeling, creature that has no soul is absurd and, frankly, disgusting.

Evolution of man is a lie.

 

[twf]

Every Pope since at least Pius XII has disagreed with you. I don’t want this thread to devolve into another fundamentalist “evolution is a conspiracy” thread. With respect, the premise of this thread assumes an acceptance of modern biology, geology, paleoarchaeology, etc.

 

[ChunkMonk]

The thread begs the question?

So God created creatures who could rationally understand and fear death but gave them mortal souls so that when they died their rational soul dies too and though they would have desired eternal life they were incapable by nature of receiving it?

That is, quite honestly, the most horrible and cruel thing I could ever imagine. I see a lot of people on this website saying things like “I refuse to believe in a loving God who would do X” and this is one of the rare times when I have to agree with them.

 

[Ghosty1981]

So God created creatures who could rationally understand and fear death but gave them mortal souls so that when they died their rational soul dies too and though they would have desired eternal life they were incapable by nature of receiving it?

No, and no one here is claiming such an absurd idea. Adam and Eve were rational with immaterial souls, but the other hominids were not. The other hominids were genetically identical to Adam and Eve but lacked a rational soul, so they could have had children with the offspring of Adam and Eve due to genetic similarity, and the children of such pairings would possess rational souls due to the inheritance from Adam and Eve.

 

[twf]

I’m not sure to what degree such creatures would have understood spirituality. They were perhaps sentient in the sense that they could form familial / tribal bonds, craft tools, hunt and cook… but without contemplating eternity or God… until receiving a soul (as Adam and Eve did).

 

[ChunkMonk]

They could create pieces of art, build complex societies, create languages, had the desire to preserve the things they had seen, and bury their dead… But they weren’t rational?

That is equally as absurd as saying God created them with mortal, rational souls. So either option here leads to absurdity.

@twf

So they had the understanding to do all thoae things, but they couldn’t see death as an end to life and desire to avoid that death? If they desired to avoid that death, then they would presumably have been capable of receiving a message concerning everlasting life, at least sentiently receiving it as a logical possibility. What barrier would have existed to prevent sentient creatures from perceiving the difference between life and death and building theories and religions based on the continuation of life?

What possible purpose could these poor creatures have served? To live aware of their mortality and given no hope of salvation? To live aware of themselves but God remains hidden to them by no fault of their own, but by His own making? In what cruel and hellish universe could that be seen as right and just? In what sick world would love create a thing that has only the ability to perceive it’s own eternal loneliness?

 

[Ghosty1981]

They could create pieces of art, build complex societies, create languages, had the desire to preserve the things they had seen, and bury their dead… But they weren’t rational?

There isn’t any evidence that these elements existed prior to Adam and Eve.

 

[twf]

He may be thinking of Neanderthals who did have such accomplishments… but I would assume that Adam and Eve predate the divergence of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals.

 

[pianistclare]

Who said they had no soul?

 

[Ghosty1981]

I haven’t seen any evidence of complex society or language among the neanderthals, and the burial of the dead is debated. Even so, I concur that Adam and Eve likely came before the Neanderthals.

 

[ChunkMonk]

When are you supposing Adam and Eve came into the picture? Were they homosapiens?

I suppose not if they came before the Neanderthal homosapiens split.

@pianistclare

Mortal souls then. If they had immortal souls then what was the difference between them and us? If they didn’t then we are all the product of bestiality. Very dignified.

So what was the Garden then?

 

[Ghosty1981]

When are you supposing Adam and Eve came into the picture? Were they homosapiens?

I suppose not if they came before the Neanderthal homosapiens split.

I don’t know if Adam and Eve were what we classify as Homo Sapiens. That is a material, scientific category that doesn’t really have bearing on our first parents.

 

[ChunkMonk]

So they weren’t even human… Were they home-erectus?

What was the Garden of Eden (paradise)? Where was that? Was it really a place of no death, no corruption? If not, why does the Bible tell us is it was? Was it a metaphor? A metaphor for what though?

Is it really in the dignity of Our Lord Jesus Christ to say that he (and us) are all the result of bestiality?

Did Adam have a sinful nature before he sinned, or did he have a ‘perfect’ nature? If he had the ‘perfect’ nature, then was he more ‘evolved’ than us pre-fall? If he had a sinful nature before he sinned, then why was his sin heinous enough to impute sin upon all his descendents?

 

[twf]

Is it really in keeping with the dignity of Our Lord that he should be descended from lowly, dirty, inanimate mud as a literalist rendering of Genesis suggests?
I always found it fascinating that in the text Adam is not “poofed” into existence by God. God formed man from lowly, base matter… sounds a lot like evolution actually.

We don’t know when Adam and Eve lived nor what species modern anthropologists would classify them as. They were true humans in the theological, ontological sense of the word. If I led an expedition to Mars and started a colony there, my descendants could be a distinct species of Homo after x thousands of years too… it’s not necessarily true that all ensouled humans belong to the modern scientific classification of Homo Sapiens.
For that matter, modern humans are specifically classified as Homo Sapiens Sapiens… other subspecies of Homo sapiens have existed in the past.

 

[De_Maria]

In Romans 11, St. Paul describes Gentile Christians as a branch “grafted on” to the tree / branch / vine that is Israel… in Christ, the baptized Gentiles are able to enjoy the spiritual befits that were promised to Israel. It occurred to me tonight, as a matter of pure speculation, that we could apply this analogy to early hominids incorporated into Adam’s line.

Cain’s line.

Various Catholic thinkers who have examined the implications of biological evolution for the narrative of Adam and Eve speculate that God must have singled our First Parents out from a larger hominid community. Genetically speaking, we know there was no bottleneck…thus Adam and Eve emerged from a larger pre-existing hominid community.

I agree with this, in order to harmonize science and the Bible.

Their children also likely mixed with that larger community.

Only Cain’s and then Adam’s line mixed with Cain’s corrupted line producing the people whom God destroyed in the Flood.

It has been speculated that the offspring of a direct descendant of Adam and another hominid line would result in an ensouled, truly human person… thus, could we speak of hominids being “grafted on” to the vine that is the Adamite line?

No, the corrupted line of half animal/half men were destroyed in the Flood. We are descendants of Adam and Eve through Noah. All non-human apes, so-called “hominids” were destroyed in the Flood.