What it does address is the present diversity in our human population. No matter how one looks at human origin, once the first human person Adam came to be, he was subject to the laws of creation including the changes which normally occur in living material anatomies.
Correct. However, the laws of the world do not allow all of the humanity to be descended from a single couple, given the present human diversity.
Upholding the Humani Generis view would require a major divine intervention (or a violation of laws of nature if you will). Such event, however, would leave an obvous, distinct signature, both in the genetic material and in the fossil record. And we have nothing like this.
Cardinal Pell said humans “probably” evolved from Neanderthals but it was impossible to say exactly when there was a first human. “But we have to say if there are humans, there must have been a first one,” he said.
Ouch.
- Neanderthals appeared before modern humans. In fact, Neanderthals posit a major theological problem: there is evidence that they could speak and we have found some of them intentionally buried in a fetal position with amulets, which indicates a belief in afterlife. All that before modern human appeared on Earth.
- There is evidence that modern humans have interbred with Neanderthals, however it seems that the success of this was limited. Although I believe that I had Neanderthal ancestors
- The very concept of the first human was problematic. To illustrate:
Suppose you put in line all of your ancestors all the way back to
Homo erectus. Assume, for the purpose of the argument, that
Homo erectus was not human. The concept of the
first human implies that you can point to one ancestor who already
was human, while his father was not. Problem is, you will have trouble finding one who suddenly appears different; for all we know, the change was slow and gradual.
It even becomes difficult to draw a line between different species of hominids. To wit:
A modern human looks like that:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Indian_family_in_Brazil_posed_in_front_of_hut.jpg
This is his ancestor,
homo rhodesiensis:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rhodesian_Men.jpg
His likely brother, the Neanderthal:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neandertaler-im-Museum.jpg
Homo heidelbergensis, the father of Neanderthal and
homo rhodesesiensis:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Homo_heidelbergensis_(10233446).jpg
He appears to have descended from
homo ergaster:
farm1.static.flickr.com/178/404063706_dc9274fc47.jpg
Whose ancestor
homo erectus, looked like this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File
aka_Homo_erectus.jpg
1.Are humans limited to knowledge from the material/physical world?
2.Does this limited knowledge from the material world necessarily, absolutely exclude all knowledge of the spiritual world?
The only reason we are having this discussion is that the two contradict.
- Are humans free to believe in God?
Yes.
aka_Homo_erectus.jpg
:yup:
