a hard question

[SimonArizona]

According to the fall of man, man sinned and therefore was condemned to die.

Yet was man not dieing during his evolutionary process long before Adam and Eve sinned?

Who can answer?

 

[NPC]

What about those who don’t assume that the The Theory of Evolution is anything more than…a theory??

 

[SimonArizona]

What about those who don’t assume that the The Theory of Evolution is anything more than…a theory??

The Church grants you that freedom, but I’m afraid the scientific community does not.

Most people who really study evolution -including popes JP2 and Ratzinger- agree that it is more than just a theory. It is well supported with facts and evidence. It is quite remarkable.

 

[Thing]

The Church grants you that freedom, but I’m afraid the scientific community does not.

Most people who really study evolution -including popes JP2 and Ratzinger- agree that it is more than just a theory. It is well supported with facts and evidence. It is quite remarkable.

We have the fossil evidence of a community of apes turning into humans?

 

[VociMike]

We have the fossil evidence of a community of apes turning into humans?

Well we certainly have evidence of life eons before humans showed up.

To the OP, the best answer I know is that God created a Fallen universe before the Fall, knowing that we would Fall.

Another possibility is that, while death existed in the world, that doesn’t mean that humans would have died, had it not been for the Fall.

 

[redhen]

We have the fossil evidence of a community of apes turning into humans?

Surprisingly, this is a common misperception. Evolution does not teach humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor.

Humans and other primates split off from this common lineage over time, some species surviving, others going extinct. This applies to the other common mistake “if humans descended from moneys, why are there still monkeys?”.

And yes, there are numerous fossils for all hominid and non-hominid primates.

The answer to your question, as I’ve seen posted here before, is that what is meant by “death” is spiritual death, not a physical one.

 

[juhothenero]

The answer to your question, as I’ve seen posted here before, is that what is meant by “death” is spiritual death, not a physical one.

Yes, actually if you read the first book of moses you can see that physical death was there in paradise also, let me quote: And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” from 3.22-23 from genesis.

The passage means they where in fact dying before they ate the fruit and after fruit they saw good and evil and where God had the ability to condemn them from what they had done after that. Since no one cannot be condemned fairly if it they don’t know what is bad but after they know they can. And so human is inclined to sin… In Genesis it doesn’t say that they where there living forever, it just said that they where going to die if they eat the fruit, and death is the spiritual death as we have heard. Physical death they already had…

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Yet was man not dieing during his evolutionary process long before Adam and Eve sinned?

Who can answer?

I can answer.

Man – man – did not die before Adam and Eve. No amount of biological evolution can account for man, since a spiritual soul cannot evolve from a material process.

Whatever humanoid creatures died and evolved before the fall (if any) were not “men”.

VC

 

[juhothenero]

tried to edit my post but accidentally posted another one… sorry…

In the end i should say they had physical but not spiritual death and that is important to understand…

 

[CentralFLJames]

I have a wild idea that may be able to account for this delimma.

I believe that there may have been two species of “humans”. That is, we have both an evolutionary precursor to man formed from the creative processes of nature as well as a directly created man (from Adam’s lineage) that is made in paradise. The prior does not originally have an immortal soul - rather an animal-humanoid mortal soul. But the latter always possessed an immortal soul but by falling morally declines ever rapidly toward its animal-humanoid precursor.

The idea is that along with the dinosaurs and such were “cro-magnon” man (or some earlier evolutionary prototype) - a fleshy animal-humanoid devoid of an immortal soul (not God breathed - just God ordained by natural creative process). I conjecture that this was the species that the banished Cain (for murdering Abel) intermarried with and thereby cross-bred Adam’s human-spiritual prototype into grossly inferior and debased animal-humanoid creatures. Thus Cain accelerates the perversion of the natural order but also elevates this humanoid hybrid “man like” species with offspring that have a birth right to receive an immortal soul through his Adam lineage. This essentially creates a new inferior human lineage that is seperate from the higher order nature that was present in Adam’s pure lineage (who’s other children do not initially inter-breed beneath their nature).

If this theory is true then two lineages (Adams, and Cain-native-man) are largely all now mostly interbred or else it accounts for why there are such large dichotomies in some people and why some people just seem “alien” to us and of a completely different predisposition (resisting the urge to crack a liberal joke).

I have not thought through all the implications, and I admit its a wild thought, but it does seem to be plausible and bridges creation accounts with archaeological evidence and scientific theory. The only real problem I see are the moral discomfort with racial or species-racial overtones. That is, there are implications here that there are barbarically inclined “inferior” races that perhaps are naturally predisposed to be enemies of God’s people (through a competing vision for what the human race should be); but they are redeemable.

This idea has amazing similarity to Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” Orc creatures (formed from fallen and tortured elves who are broken and perversely interbred for evil) to become the instruments that animate the tension in the showdown struggle between good and evil. This is not unlike fallen angels becoming demons to possess human beings beneath their original nature as an act of contempt and rebellion.

Anyway - thought I would just toss this out for thought.

James

 

[Thing]

Interesting.
But lets say everything that was created was created good. So man evolved but was a good animal, and he filled a continent. God then creates ‘Adam’ from the dust directly because He wants to breate an immortal soul into the nostrels of this man. Much like He himself was partly directly formed in the womb, having only one parent.

So, Adams destiny is to give rise to a world full of both good and immortal men.
But horror of horrors Adam is dragged into sin and before he can become immortal and pass on his immortality to the evolved man by marrying into them! he is put out of paradise and so never eats of the tree of life.

His soul is immortal and stays immortal but he did not fulfil his destiny of also eating of the tree of life and so gaining and passing on physical immortality to the evolved human race. And so both he and everyone has to die. And wait for the new tree of life [The Eucharist] from which everyone can eat and fulfil their destiny of both physical and spiritual immortality.
Simple really, thanks James.

 

[Rogerteder]

According to the fall of man, man sinned and therefore was condemned to die.

Yet was man not dieing during his evolutionary process long before Adam and Eve sinned?

Who can answer?

Pius XII in Huamni Generis taught that Adam and Eve were the actual first humans. He also taught that the fall was an actual historical event.

 

[Nickkname]

According to the fall of man, man sinned and therefore was condemned to die.

Yet was man not dieing during his evolutionary process long before Adam and Eve sinned?

Who can answer?

Noooo, man evolved from animals. And which evolutionary stage of man are you referring to: Crone matians, homo sapiens, ?

 

[tobinatorstark]

Really, if Adam did see any animals to be a mate would God have created woman for man??? The world was created in six days. We can’t really describe what happened in the sky at that point. Only God knows. It was 6 day process and I doubt that time periods for days, hours, months and years are too different from what we have now. God rested on the 7th day. It is just simple as this. Evolution is bogus and God is right.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Really, if Adam did see any animals to be a mate would God have created woman for man??? The world was created in six days. We can’t really describe what happened in the sky at that point. Only God knows. It was 6 day process and I doubt that time periods for days, hours, months and years are too different from what we have now. God rested on the 7th day. It is just simple as this. Evolution is bogus and God is right.

It’s not clear to me that Adam & Eve ever ventured outside of Eden so they may not have ever known what was happening on the planet at large and there could have been other humanoid species not of the same original nature as Adam & Eve. I guess I am positing that Adam lived in a microcosm of paradise until they fell. So, it may be that God had preordained in His omnipotence that natural creation would follow an evolutionary process model. When Adam was banned from Eden he was simply made to compete and live by the sweat of his brow in that less than paradisaical environment and deal with all the creatures and suffrages therein.

James

 

[tobinatorstark]

It’s not clear to me that Adam & Eve ever ventured outside of Eden so they may not have ever known what was happening on the planet at large and there could have been other humanoid species not of the same original nature as Adam & Eve. I guess I am positing that Adam lived in a microcosm of paradise until they fell. So, it may be that God had preordained in His omnipotence that natural creation would follow an evolutionary process model. When Adam was banned from Eden he was simply made to compete and live by the sweat of his brow in that less than paradisaical environment and deal with all the creatures and suffrages therein.

James

Have you ever even read the Bible??? It wasn’t long after man was created that man sinned. The exact time period is unknown. Cain and Abel were conceived after man’s fall. They were both conceived less than a year in time after the fall. So when they were banned from the garden of Eden, wouldn’t they have seen these “humanoids”??? The Bible is more than proof that evolution doesn’t exist. As for what happened before the God created the earth is a mystery. A mystery we may or may not get to know about when we enter the eternal banquet

 

[CentralFLJames]

Have you ever even read the Bible??? It wasn’t long after man was created that man sinned. The exact time period is unknown. Cain and Abel were conceived after man’s fall. They were both conceived less than a year in time after the fall. So when they were banned from the garden of Eden, wouldn’t they have seen these “humanoids”??? The Bible is more than proof that evolution doesn’t exist. As for what happened before the God created the earth is a mystery. A mystery we may or may not get to know about when we enter the eternal banquet

And I suppose you imagine that Genesis was written from first hand accounts soon after the fall? Come on guy the bible does not in any way in and of itself prove creation in a literal sense. Evolution is not unbiblical. In fact, if you want to accept the bible as 100% literal (which is only 1 of the 4 known senses of scripture - ref: Summa Theological of Aquinas) then you have to admit that a 7 day cycle of creation IS an EVOLUTIONARY process. In other words it was not all created at once but in staged phases of development - and in fact the universe is still expanding and is still being created. Explain that.

Also are you suggesting that Cain & Abel were twins to be conceived less than a year after the fall or that the reproductive cycle of women has also being subject to an evolutionary (or de-evolutionary) process?

James

 

[tobinatorstark]

And I suppose you imagine that Genesis was written from first hand accounts soon after the fall? Come on guy the bible does not in any way in and of itself prove creation in a literal sense. Evolution is not unbiblical. In fact, if you want to accept the bible as 100% literal (which is only 1 of the 4 known senses of scripture - ref: Summa Theological of Aquinas) then you have to admit that a 7 day cycle of creation IS an EVOLUTIONARY process. In other words it was not all created at once but in staged phases of development - and in fact the universe is still expanding and is still being created. Explain that.

Also are you suggesting that Cain & Abel were twins to be conceived less than a year after the fall or that the reproductive cycle of women has also being subject to an evolutionary (or de-evolutionary) process?

James

Adam and Eve can and cannot be proven to write, but God does give instruction to write and that what he did to possibly Moses. It is still unknown as many things on earth will be unknown. The Bible stands for itself because it’s God’s word. Genesis does disprove evolution because it was a 7 day process. Six days to create the universe and 1 day to rest. That is one 24 hour period for each day. Yes the universe is still expanding because God told man to be fruitful and multiply as stated in Genesis. By no means am I saying that Cain and Abel were twins. I am suggesting that after the fall of man both Cain and Abel were conceived. After how long after Cain that Abel was conceived, we do not know. It isn’t stated in the Holy Bible(Protestant or Catholic). If man shared a common ancestral member with an animal, Genesis would be totally false and the Bible would have been wrong as would be the original manuscripts. Think about it. Evolution is a bunch of hogwash and so was Charles Darwin. I choose to believe something that was professed for pretty much of all eternity as opposed to man’s faulty nature theory of only 250 years. Sorry. Charles Darwin himself was Agnostic as of 1851.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Adam and Eve can and cannot be proven to write, but God does give instruction to write and that what he did to possibly Moses. It is still unknown as many things on earth will be unknown. The Bible stands for itself because it’s God’s word. Genesis does disprove evolution because it was a 7 day process. Six days to create the universe and 1 day to rest. That is one 24 hour period for each day. Yes the universe is still expanding because God told man to be fruitful and multiply as stated in Genesis. By no means am I saying that Cain and Abel were twins. I am suggesting that after the fall of man both Cain and Abel were conceived. After how long after Cain that Abel was conceived, we do not know. It isn’t stated in the Holy Bible(Protestant or Catholic). If man shared a common ancestral member with an animal, Genesis would be totally false and the Bible would have been wrong as would be the original manuscripts. Think about it. Evolution is a bunch of hogwash and so was Charles Darwin. I choose to believe something that was professed for pretty much of all eternity as opposed to man’s faulty nature theory of only 250 years. Sorry. Charles Darwin himself was Agnostic as of 1851.

I believe that God created everything but I don’t really have a problem with God ordaining natural law as the instrument of the creative process over 7 periods. I do not really think it is necessary that those 7 periods be 24 hour days though. The periods could just as well be millenium by our reckoning - but a mere day in God’s reckoning.

There is a lot of metaphor in the bible and I do not care either way but tend toward the belief that God used a single Word of will to initiate the universe (big bang or whatever - it does not matter to me the precise mechanism). But its clear that God has most often operated through natural phenomena in the OT (the plagues, manna, etc.) so I tend toward the metaphorical over a literal interpretation for most of the creative accounts.

James

 

[SimonArizona]

The answer is: mankind was created by God with special grace that enabled him to never die. Man was in perfect harmony with the world around him.

“Man is the only creature that God wanted for Himself.” -JP2

Animals and plants are purposed to die as man eats them.
It is because of man’s wickedness and loss of grace that death for man now enters the world.

Man was given the gift of immortality*