Adam and Eve and Genetics Difficulty

[Gorgias]

Speaking about allegory. Here is precisely what the CCC says. I put in bold the essential message.

**CCC 390 **The account of the fall in *Genesis *3 **uses figurative language, but affirms **a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.
​

Right. At the beginning of human history, the first two humans committed a sin, the effects of which dog us to this day. Fair enough. Your point?​

 

[Richca]

The ‘compelling reason’, I might think, is that it more neatly answers the question of the (seeming) evolution of primates.

Non human primates maybe (if one even accepts the theory you mention), but it doesn’t follow necessarily for human beings especially for a person of faith I believe. As I mentioned in a previous post, the inspired author of Genesis describes the creation of Adam and Eve differently than the plants and the animals by God. The primates are simply a different species of animal like any other specie of animal. Human beings are a different animal altogether made in the image and likeness of God.

Now, God could have

 

[Gorgias]

Human beings are a different animal altogether made in the image and likeness of God.

Outstanding observation!

Tell me… what part of your physical body images God? What organ or bone or flesh do you possess that is ‘like God’? Here’s the thing… we are in the ‘image and likeness’ not in our physical existence (since, after all, God doesn’t have physical existence), but in our immortal soul. Not even our intellect/rationality/mind is ‘like’ God’s (since He doesn’t “think” like we do). Therefore, a creation in the imago Dei isn’t a physical description… which leads us to conclude that any explanation that requires an act of creation that’s parallel to or analogous with that of other animals – even those physically similar to us! – is an explanation that’s barking up the wrong (family) tree!

However, a description that allows for a physical explanation of (shared) primate characteristics (especially at the genetic level), while still demonstrating a ‘special’ creation (that is, of humanity in the ‘image and likeness’) is one whose explanatory value is superior to a description that, it must be admitted, is poetic and allegorical.

Again, I see no ‘compelling reason’ or necessity (in fact there is no absolute necessity whatsoever and this is really what I mean to say by ‘compelling reason’ including Holy Scripture ) that God had to use pre human animal primates in one way or another in the creation of Adam and Eve.

Umm… I guess “it fits the available physical evidence” isn’t a ‘compelling reason’…?

The word of God says that God made Adam from the dust or slime of the earth, not from another animal.

The Word of God says that there are posts holding up the heavens. It says that there’s a dome in the sky, and that sun and moon and stars are affixed to the dome. It says that there is water above the dome and floodgates that permit this water to come to the ground as rain. Do you believe that these are literal truths that are scientifically accurate?

No? Well, then… what’s the “compelling reason”, as you put it, to believe that the passage that describes the creation of humanity is literally and scientifically accurate?

The truth found in this creation account – which fits into the literary genre of ‘epic poem’ – is that God’s creation of humanity was special; that He endowed us (among all His creation) with the characteristics of being made in His “image and likeness”; and that, although we’re made (physically) of the same ‘stuff’ as the rest of creation, we’re nevertheless put in dominion over it.

Again, we could just as easily suppose or assert (which in my view is more in keeping with the word of God) in contrast to Feser’s supposition that God took a handful of dirt from the earth and formed the complete mature body of Adam from it

Certainly, we could. Of course, we could also presume that all that the senses and intellect with which God endowed us are wrong, and there really is a dome in the sky. Do you hold to that ‘truth’, as found in the Word of God, too? If not, then you’ve already admitted that there’s a certain bit of ‘picking & choosing’ going on in the way that you interpret Genesis 1. Now that we know who you are, as the old chestnut about Churchill goes, there’s only the matter of haggling about price: what is it, after all, that makes you hold dear to a literal interpretation of the creation of humanity, if you don’t hold to a literal interpretation of the creation of the cosmos?

It doesn’t seem reasonable or rational to me that irrational animals would conceive, give birth to and raise a human being or human beings. There is something wrong with this picture.

Yes; what’s wrong is that you’re misconstruing it. The characterization is that even one ensouled parent gives rise to an ensouled child. In other words, two beings – of identical species – give birth to a child of the same species (as a physical description); and God – who endows humans with a human soul immediately at conception – endows the child who has at least one parent (who has a soul), with a soul. What’s wrong with that picture? Biologically, it holds. Theologically, it doesn’t contradict anything we know. Metaphysically, it makes sense.

 

[cjforJesus]

Outstanding observation!

Tell me… what part of your physical body images God? What organ or bone or flesh do you possess that is ‘like God’? Here’s the thing… we are in the ‘image and likeness’ not in our physical existence (since, after all, God doesn’t have physical existence), but in our immortal soul. Not even our intellect/rationality/mind is ‘like’ God’s (since He doesn’t “think” like we do). Therefore, a creation in the imago Dei isn’t a physical description… which leads us to conclude that any explanation that requires an act of creation that’s parallel to or analogous with that of other animals – even those physically similar to us! – is an explanation that’s barking up the wrong (family) tree!

However, a description that allows for a physical explanation of (shared) primate characteristics (especially at the genetic level), while still demonstrating a ‘special’ creation (that is, of humanity in the ‘image and likeness’) is one whose explanatory value is superior to a description that, it must be admitted, is poetic and allegorical.

Umm… I guess “it fits the available physical evidence” isn’t a ‘compelling reason’…?

The Word of God says that there are posts holding up the heavens. It says that there’s a dome in the sky, and that sun and moon and stars are affixed to the dome. It says that there is water above the dome and floodgates that permit this water to come to the ground as rain. Do you believe that these are literal truths that are scientifically accurate?

No? Well, then… what’s the “compelling reason”, as you put it, to believe that the passage that describes the creation of humanity is literally and scientifically accurate?

The truth found in this creation account – which fits into the literary genre of ‘epic poem’ – is that God’s creation of humanity was special; that He endowed us (among all His creation) with the characteristics of being made in His “image and likeness”; and that, although we’re made (physically) of the same ‘stuff’ as the rest of creation, we’re nevertheless put in dominion over it.

Certainly, we could. Of course, we could also presume that all that the senses and intellect with which God endowed us are wrong, and there really is a dome in the sky. Do you hold to that ‘truth’, as found in the Word of God, too? If not, then you’ve already admitted that there’s a certain bit of ‘picking & choosing’ going on in the way that you interpret Genesis 1. Now that we know who you are, as the old chestnut about Churchill goes, there’s only the matter of haggling about price: what is it, after all, that makes you hold dear to a literal interpretation of the creation of humanity, if you don’t hold to a literal interpretation of the creation of the cosmos?

Yes; what’s wrong is that you’re misconstruing it. The characterization is that even one ensouled parent gives rise to an ensouled child. In other words, two beings – of identical species – give birth to a child of the same species (as a physical description); and God – who endows humans with a human soul immediately at conception – endows the child who has at least one parent (who has a soul), with a soul. What’s wrong with that picture? Biologically, it holds. Theologically, it doesn’t contradict anything we know. Metaphysically, it makes sense.

You say “one ensouled adult parent”.WHERE did the soul originate if we are ensouled at conception.Did God just one day decide that hey this hominid is smart enough now to have a soul and then gave him one?
It still is totally illogocal and borders on bestiality if even one ensouled human mated with a monkey creature.
It contradicts EVERYTHING that we know metaphysically and from the catechism.

 

[grannymh]

It is time to look at a positive approach to human genetics.

Back in post 99, I mentioned Cartesian Extreme Dualism which is not acceptable by the Catholic Church. In my humble opinion, when we look at the physical body and then look at the thinking mind in relation to Genesis 1: 26-27, I sometimes wonder if we are not slowly slipping into Cartesian Extreme Dualism. I have this silly thought that somehow we are avoiding the Catholic truth that human nature uniquely unites both the spiritual world and material world. This union is not two natures united, but rather the union forms a single nature.

While the spiritual soul is radically different from the decomposing anatomy, the definition of human nature says that every gene is animated by the life giving spiritual principle known as the soul. The Catholic Church teaches that the unity of soul and body is so profound that it is the spiritual soul, immediately and directly created by God, which causes the anatomy made of matter to become a living human body.

Yes, the science of medicine treats the human physical anatomy. Still, that human skin and bones, in the doctor’s hands, exists because all of the human body is animated by the spiritual soul.

Yes, on some levels, we separate the science of birds, bears, and butterflies from the science of human species. We automatically accept the fact that those busy dam building beavers (or chimpanzees) did not design and build Hoover Dam. But Catholicism does not automatically accept the proposal that Adam and Eve were actually lots of developing Adams mating with lots of Eves in a happy indiscriminate large population in the thousands. Catholicism, in spite of internal attacks, maintains that the entire human species descended from two sole real genuine fully-complete human persons.

Thinking about these truly amazing Scripture verses, we can discover the word of God.

Genesis 1: 26-27 usccb.org/bible/genesis/1
26l
Then God said: Let us make* human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.

27
God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them;
male and female* he created them.

First, as I said in the beginning of my reply, "human nature uniquely unites both the spiritual world and material world. This union is not two natures united but rather the union forms a single nature. This dramatic difference in kind between human and animal is seen in the shift from Genesis 1: 25 to Genesis 1: 26.

The real question comes in verse 27 – How is a human whose own nature is both material and spiritual in the “image of God”? Too often, we physical humans first focus on which part of our physical anatomy is like God. I am old enough to remember God being pictured as an old man with a long white beard sitting peacefully on a cloud. Naturally, as a little tyke, I ignored that picture along with some other mysteries.

We know we have a spiritual principle; yet, we do not immediately connect that to God Who is Pure Spirit. Obviously our created spiritual principle is nowhere near the “spirit” of our uncreated Creator. That is precisely why the words image and likeness are used. The Catholic Church points out that this image and this likeness is why and how we can communicate with God. Not only that, we can share in God’s Divine Nature.

 

[GEddie]

Tell me… what part of your physical body images God? What organ or bone or flesh do you possess that is ‘like God’? Here’s the thing… we are in the ‘image and likeness’ not in our physical existence (since, after all, God doesn’t have physical existence),

Well, in Judaism in any case, there is believed to be a bone of the human body, where the human soul resides and which becomes the seed of the spiritual body. At one time, this was thought to reside in the big toes.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Glomung]

No. It is Catholic dogma that all human persons, not just the Hebrews or just certain ethnic groups, are descendants of Adam and Eve: Council of Trent, Decree on Original Sin, 1-3.

That’s all fine and dandy.

Perhaps then you can explain how Cain married a “woman of another tribe”?
What other tribe? There were only 3 live people on the planet according to Genesis.
And Cain found a city. What city? Built by who? Adam? Populated by who?

You just have to accept that Genesis and reality disagree on a few points.

 

[grannymh]

That’s all fine and dandy.

Perhaps then you can explain how Cain married a “woman of another tribe”?
What other tribe? There were only 3 live people on the planet according to Genesis.
And Cain found a city. What city? Built by who? Adam? Populated by who?

You just have to accept that Genesis and reality disagree on a few points.

The reality of Adam and Eve’s descendants migrating across the earth is found in Genesis 1: 28. Please take careful notice of the words “God blessed them” along with “fill the earth.”

28
God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.* Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth.m

 

[grannymh]

Well, in Judaism in any case, there is believed to be a bone of the human body, where the human soul resides and which becomes the seed of the spiritual body. At one time, this was thought to reside in the big toes.

ICXC NIKA

Please refer back to post 105 for the Catholic teachings on soul and body.

 

[grannymh]

The Word of God says that there are posts holding up the heavens. It says that there’s a dome in the sky, and that sun and moon and stars are affixed to the dome. It says that there is water above the dome and floodgates that permit this water to come to the ground as rain. Do you believe that these are literal truths that are scientifically accurate?

I would love to answer your valid question in post 103 – “Do you believe that these are literal truths that are scientifically accurate?” However, I first need to know which religious group has this as one of its duly defined doctrines – “The Word of God says that there are posts holding up the heavens.” Thank you for your answer.

 

[Gorgias]

You say “one ensouled adult parent”.WHERE did the soul originate if we are ensouled at conception.Did God just one day decide that hey this hominid is smart enough now to have a soul and then gave him one?

Who knows? God just one day decided “hey, it’s time to create the universe”!

It still is totally illogocal

Please demonstrate the lack of logic. Thanks!

and borders on bestiality if even one ensouled human mated with a monkey creature.

You just moved the goalposts. No one is suggesting human beings mating “with monkey creatures”. We’re suggesting that they mated with members of the same species as them – which, by the way, means that it’s not ‘bestiality’ – and God ensouled their offspring, just as He had ensouled (at least one of) their parents. Huge difference.

It contradicts EVERYTHING that we know metaphysically and from the catechism.

Not really. If it did, we wouldn’t be able to float the claim. However, perhaps you might care to demonstrate the contradictions? Thanks!

 

[Gorgias]

I would love to answer your valid question in post 103 – “Do you believe that these are literal truths that are scientifically accurate?” However, I first need to know which religious group has this as one of its duly defined doctrines – “The Word of God says that there are posts holding up the heavens.” Thank you for your answer.

Any Christian who takes the creation epic of Genesis 1 literally.

In Gen 1:7, God creates the ‘dome’ – that is, the firmamentum, or the support – which separates the waters above from the waters below, and calls the dome “the sky”.

Now, you could make the claim that the ancients believed that there was a support which had no pillars on which it rested; but that claim would be absurd. Implicitly, there are posts (which the ancients believed were at the ends of the earth). But, if you’re looking for an explicit statement which must be held to by literalists, we have those, too:

There’s a body of water above the sky (v 7) and behind the stars/sun/moon (which are in the dome of the sky, not above it, after all (v 17)).

(This body of water in the sky is the source of rain, of course, which falls to earth when God opens the floodgates of the dome.)

 

[cjforJesus]

Who knows? God just one day decided “hey, it’s time to create the universe”!

Please demonstrate the lack of logic. Thanks!

You just moved the goalposts. No one is suggesting human beings mating “with monkey creatures”. We’re suggesting that they mated with members of the same species as them – which, by the way, means that it’s not ‘bestiality’ – and God ensouled their offspring, just as He had ensouled (at least one of) their parents. Huge difference.

Not really. If it did, we wouldn’t be able to float the claim. However, perhaps you might care to demonstrate the contradictions? Thanks!

They are not members of the same species if one has no soul.It is a beast. Animals do not have rational souls and certainly a son of God would not mate with an unsouled primate(beast).

 

[grannymh]

They are not members of the same species if one has no soul.It is a beast. Animals do not have rational souls and certainly a son of God would not mate with an unsouled primate(beast).

This is absolutely correct. Thank you.

While there are various philosophical versions of rape perpetrated on an innocent female human, those versions cannot physically go back in time to change a non-souled beast into a human being. Bestiality remains.

 

[rossum]

They are not members of the same species if one has no soul.It is a beast.

But they would be members of the same biological species – and hence able to reproduce together – even if they are members of different theological species, one souled and the other unsouled.

rossum

 

[grannymh]

Any Christian who takes the creation epic of Genesis 1 literally.

May I gently point out that post 110 was seeking a religious group and not 7 billion individuals.

Also, when looking at the variety of species extant and extinct, there is still only one human species which is based on the fact that all humans descended from a population of two lovingly known as father Adam and mother Eve. Genesis 3: 20. What makes this human species unique is Genesis 1: 27 – which, by the way, is still being taught by the Catholic Church.

I realize that genetic relationships can be difficult because many, not all, ordinary folk do not see a lot of cladograms. Cladograms look like branches of a tree which originate from a spot or node somewhere on the tree thing. In basic biology, a node (on a cladogram) is a shared ancestor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node For more information en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clade

Non-scientists who are interested in the Catholic Church need to know that each point in a cladogram is a random breeding population most likely in the thousands, but never is there an originating human species population of two founders.

Back in 1950, the brilliant Pope Pius XII, used the word polygenism in paragraph 37, encyclical Humani Generis. w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html

This polygenesis reference includes the fact that species like butterflies and bananas have multiple ancestors with different traits, genetics, which some are passed down and some are not based down to indiscriminate groups of descendants. For the scientist, genetics is not a simple one, two, three step project when it comes to discovering the true nature of the human person. If the rational capabilities of the spiritual soul emerged from the decomposing material body – then the human engineers were not needed for the Hoover Dam. That project would have gone to the minimum wage dam building beavers. Those dam beavers would put in a lower bid.

Returning to Genesi 1:1, God, in His logical wisdom, solved the ancestor genetic problems by beginning the human species as a definitive population of two.

As two extremely intelligent founders, Adam and Eve apparently figured out how to prevent damage to the anatomy from below zero temperatures. Genesis 3: 21. In addition, Adam understood a basic tenet of biology. Genesis 2: 20. And he had a Ph.D. in the science of agriculture. Genesis 2: 15.

Perhaps a lot of “difficulties” come from the apparent fact that some, not all, ordinary folk stop reading the first three chapters of Genesis at Genesis 1:25.

 

[Gorgias]

They are not members of the same species if one has no soul.

A ‘species’ designation is a biological one. Go ask a biologist whether the definition of “homo sapiens sapiens” includes “has a soul”.

Animals do not have rational souls

p.s., humans are animals, too.

and certainly a son of God would not mate with an unsouled primate(beast).

Says you.

 

[Gorgias]

May I gently point out that post 110 was seeking a religious group and not 7 billion individuals.

You may. Please take your pick of the 7 billion, then. It’s a rather small sub-set, I’d wager, who fit my definition.

Also, when looking at the variety of species extant and extinct, there is still only one human species which is based on the fact that all humans descended from a population of two lovingly known as father Adam and mother Eve. Genesis 3: 20. What makes this human species unique is Genesis 1: 27 – which, by the way, is still being taught by the Catholic Church.

Cool… but that doesn’t do anything to prove your point. The notion of ‘species’ is one that doesn’t have anything to do with ‘souls’.

Returning to Genesi 1:1, God, in His logical wisdom, solved the ancestor genetic problems by beginning the human species as a definitive population of two.

Christian theology defines ‘human’ as ensouled; biology defines the human ‘species’ in a different way (that doesn’t include the notion of the ‘soul’). You can’t use one discipline’s definition to prove the other’s assertions. They’re talking about different things.

As two extremely intelligent founders, Adam and Eve apparently figured out how to prevent damage to the anatomy from below zero temperatures. Genesis 3: 21.

“The LORD God made for the man and his wife garments of skin, with which he clothed them.”

Umm… pardon? I’m not seeing “below zero temperatures” there. Nor, as it turns out, am I seeing Adam and Eve “figuring out” anything… here, the hyper-literalist sees God doing the figuring…

In addition, Adam understood a basic tenet of biology. Genesis 2: 20.

“The man gave names to all the tame animals, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a helper suited to the man.”

Umm… what’s that biological ‘tenet’? “When God tells you to name animals, you give them names”…?

Perhaps a lot of “difficulties” come from the apparent fact that some, not all, ordinary folk stop reading the first three chapters of Genesis at Genesis 1:25.

Or, perhaps, that some ordinary folk start reading the first three chapters of Genesis as if they were the CBS Evening News…

 

[grannymh]

Divine Revelation trumps.

 

[Gorgias]

Divine Revelation trumps.

Divine Revelation *properly interpreted * trumps.