Adam and Eve? That's just mythology, says Pell

[grannymh]

Yes, speculating, but let’s be precise: we are not speculating about evolution, we are speculating about why God would choose to create through evolution.

This is why Catholics should learn Catholic doctrine regarding Adam. Speculation on a mythical human parent’s creation from this or that may be good dinner conversation, but…

I do realize that it is near impossible to convince some, not all, Catholics that Catholic doctrines are more than those cutesy children’s books with enough leaves to cover the elephant in the room.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I do realize that it is near impossible to convince some, not all, Catholics that Catholic doctrines are more than those cutesy children’s books with enough leaves to cover the elephant in the room.

Nobody is disputing that. I think it is safe to say that nobody in this thread has uttered the least challenge to the doctrine of original sin or any other truth that the Church teaches from the story of Adam and Eve.

The debate is simply whether the characters of Adam and Eve are historical figures.

 

[tm30]

Right, but:

1. The story of Adam and Eve (if regarded literally) is not merely a story about human nature, it is a claim about human history.
2. The fact that some may misuse contemporary research to attack the spiritual soul is not reason to assume that treating any use of contemporary research to evaluate human history and, therefore, the story of Adam and Eve is an attack on the spiritual soul.

That people are created in the image of God does not hinge on Adam being a real historical person or evolution being false. It may be that the story of Adam and Eve captures several truths, in spite of being myth, including that we are created in the image of God.

The problem with this perspective, is that it also puts a flaming spear into the notion that people are created in the image of God. Where’s the scientific evidence for that?

If we imagine that God was explaining human prehistory to Abraham or Moses we would not expect a lecture on evolution because it would be incomprehensible to them and irrelevant to God’s purpose. If the Hebrew priests selected from among creation myths when they assembled the books of the Bible we would expect them to choose the story that most closely reflects their understanding of God.

I wouldn’t expect a lecture on the art of baking bread, either, but that doesn’t mean the Israelites were really just eating dinner rolls when Scripture tells us of “bread from Heaven”.

Luke 16 29, 31

[29] But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' [31] He said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’"

 

[grannymh]

This is true. And so we have the classic conflict between what we can see with our eyes and what we read in Genesis.

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Another good example of why Catholics should learn Catholic doctrines. Thank you.
There is more to Catholic doctrines than reading the first three chapters of Genesis as a page-turner.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The problem with this perspective, is that it also puts a flaming spear into the notion that people are created in the image of God. Where’s the scientific evidence for that?

I disagree and there is none.

I disagree that treating the story of Adam and Eve as myth spears the notion that we are created in God’s image. That would only be true if the truth of the claim rested on the historiocity of Adam and Eve. It doesn’t.

And science is inadequate to many questions among which is much of theology. But that doesn’t mean that theology and science never come into conflict. They are not, as some would have us believe, orthogonal pursuits.

I wouldn’t expect a lecture on the art of baking bread, either, but that doesn’t mean the Israelites were really just eating dinner rolls when Scripture tells us of “bread from Heaven”.

Right, but remember the issue here is that a literal reading of Adam and Eve makes scientific claims that are open to confirmation or discomfirmation by ordinary (scientific) observation.

Compare with the archeological experience in modern Israel. Archeologists have confirmed many things in the Old Testament. They dig up coins that say “King David” or find steels that record battles between Egypt and Isreal.

 

[tm30]

This is true. And so we have the classic conflict between what we can see with our eyes and what we read in Genesis.

Now theolgians will debate what it means for God to act directly or indirectly. For example, some would assert that every instant of creation is so because of God’s ever present hand. But I am assuming here that you regard evolution as an indirect creation.

Yes, because it concludes that man came from a mediating source, not God directly. God created everything at its highest potential, since He could not create anything with a flaw. Therefore, if we say that Man evolved from apes (or anything else), we are saying the ape was not perfect in its own species, which is impossible with God as the Creator. For evolution relies on a lower being becoming a more perfect, “higher” being. The ape has no reason to “evolve” unless God created the ape beneath its potential as a species.

If man came from an ape, then he was not made in the image of God, because we know that animals are not holy beings. Thus, no original sin – in fact, no sin at all.

 

[grannymh]

Right, but remember the issue here is that a literal reading of Adam and Eve makes scientific claims that are open to confirmation or discomfirmation by ordinary (scientific) observation.

.

The underlying issue here pertains to the comments attributed to Cardinal Pell.

Am I understanding you correctly, that reducing Adam to mythology per Cardinal Pell means that the possibility of two sole parents of the human species has been totally, absolutely, universally ruled out despite the fact that not all possibilities have been accurately, with hard data and proper methods, explored over the past millions of years?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Yes, because it concludes that man came from a mediating source, not God directly. God created everything at its highest potential, since He could not create anything with a flaw. Therefore, if we say that Man evolved from apes (or anything else), we are saying the ape was not perfect in its own species, which is impossible with God as the Creator. For evolution relies on a lower being becoming a more perfect, “higher” being. The ape has no reason to “evolve” unless God created the ape beneath its potential as a species.

This is false both from a scientific and from a theological perspective.

Science certainly does not take the view that the animals were flawed and that later species were a more perfected from of earlier flawed creatures.

And there is nothing in theology to suggest that either. The animals were created for a purpose, they are not flawed human beings. In fact, in the second Genesis creation story the animals were created for Adam.

If man came from an ape, then he was not made in the image of God, because we know that animals are not holy beings. Thus, no original sin – in fact, no sin at all.

This is a non-sequitor.

If I take a lump of clay and mold it into a statue of Mary I have created an image of Mary even though I began with a lump of clay.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The underlying issue here pertains to the comments attributed to Cardinal Pell. Am I understanding you correctly, that reducing Adam to mythology per Cardinal Pell means that the possibility of two sole parents of the human species has been totally, absolutely, universally ruled out despite the fact that not all possibilities have been accurately, with hard data and proper methods, been explored over the past millions of years?

I have nowhere ruled out monogenism. I have simply noted that it is not the favored view and it becoming increasingly tenuous to defend scienfically and that, therefore, we should not be surprised to hear theologians hedging their bets. Someone had to go first and I guess it was Cardinal Pell. (Perhaps others have said the same before, I don’t know.) Some Catholic sources I have found go so far as to say that polygenism is already established science but I think that’s going too far.

But I have also given other reasons having nothing to do with the mono/polygenism debate to question the literal story of Adam and Eve. They are the reason that I regard the story as mythological.

 

[tm30]

I disagree and there is none.

I disagree that treating the story of Adam and Eve as myth spears the notion that we are created in God’s image. That would only be true if the truth of the claim rested on the historiocity of Adam and Eve. It doesn’t.

So? There’s PLENTY of “evidence” out there that the Bible was a fabrication. Why shouldn’t we believe those who contend that it’s all made up? And what does the truth of the claim that we are made in God’s image rest on anyway? And how does that differ from believing what infallible Tradition has taught us for 2000 years? If science developed a logical theory that “made in God’s image” refers to extraterrestrial intelligence, would you embrace that, too?

And science is inadequate to many questions among which is much of theology. But that doesn’t mean that theology and science never come into conflict. They are not, as some would have us believe, orthogonal pursuits.

But the rule of faith is, where science and the Church conflict, the Church wins.

Right, but remember the issue here is that a literal reading of Adam and Eve makes scientific claims that are open to confirmation or discomfirmation by ordinary (scientific) observation.

Au contraire, a literal reading of Adam and Eve makes supernatural claims that are not open to confirmation or disconfirmation by ordinary (scientific) observation. This is the crux of the matter. If the Creation of man came by a natural process, then that puts the Incarnation and virgin birth (i.e., the overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit) into question, too.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

So? There’s PLENTY of “evidence” out there that the Bible was a fabrication. Why shouldn’t we believe those who contend that it’s all made up?

Oh, good grief. I’m enjoying this debate but I’ve spent more than enough time arguing with athesits to know how vapid that claim is.

And what does the truth of the claim that we are made in God’s image rest on anyway? And how does that differ from believing what infallible Tradition has taught us for 2000 years? If science developed a logical theory that “made in God’s image” refers to extraterrestrial intelligence, would you embrace that, too?

These are all very good questions. I would love to discuss them further. But I get the impression you are taking an all-or-nothing stand here. I simply don’t agree with that approach.

But the rule of faith is, where science and the Church conflict, the Church wins.

Where did you get that?!

Certainly the Church rightfully pushes back against scientisim, the misuse of science to attack theology, but that is not the same as ignoring scientific evidence that even Catholics can recognize as true.

Au contraire, a literal reading of Adam and Eve makes supernatural claims that are not open to confirmation or disconfirmation by ordinary (scientific) observation. This is the crux of the matter. If the Creation of man came by a natural process, then that puts the Incarnation into question, too. And thus, the existence of God altogether.

Yes, the story of Adam and Eve makes supernatural claims. But if it is read literally it also make natural claims. It is these natural claims that are it issue.

 

[Ridgerunner]

OK. I accept the horses and dogs and the like.
Now, Adam and Eve are not real.
Your reasoning is fine BUT you missed one step.
The human body came from evolution, OK? There is no doubt about it.
But the human soul or spirit is created by God when the spermatozoa enters the ovula.
I do not accept that the soul or spirit or the “thing” that makes a person be a person came from evolution.
What distiguinshes an ape from a person is the soul, created by God.
What is the soul or spirit?
It is me when I say “!” or “me”.
You are the spirit who is talking to me, the spirit thorugh the Internet.
Both of “us” were created by God.
But our bodies, God wanted it them to come through evolution.
No harm.
Except if God decided to incarnate the soul in a rat or in an elephant…Well, then, even so, God would know best…

I’m not sure we disagree particularly. I, too, allow for the possibility that humans evolved in body from some prehuman apelike ancestor. And I’m not troubled by the possibility or the thought. But I also allow for the possibility that it wasn’t that way at all. I wasn’t there when the first true humans (body and soul) were created. Neither were you. A God that can create “strings” and “big bangs” is not limited by what I think or by what you think, and can most certainly create a man from dust without regard to what ape DNA or physiognomy looks like. One cannot get so wrapped up in the theories of his time that he holds God to them.

 

[ChesterBeach]

Yes, because it concludes that man came from a mediating source, not God directly. God created everything at its highest potential, since He could not create anything with a flaw. Therefore, if we say that Man evolved from apes (or anything else), we are saying the ape was not perfect in its own species, which is impossible with God as the Creator. For evolution relies on a lower being becoming a more perfect, “higher” being. The ape has no reason to “evolve” unless God created the ape beneath its potential as a species.

If man came from an ape, then he was not made in the image of God, because we know that animals are not holy beings. Thus, no original sin – in fact, no sin at all.

That isn’t how evolution works. The individuals best suited to that particular environment prosper. As the environmental conditions other factors are better suited and those prosper. In that way a species changes over time. All species are evolving even today.

 

[Quarles47]

Pell? That’s just mythology, Says Quarles47.

 

[ChesterBeach]

But the rule of faith is, where science and the Church conflict, the Church wins.

With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures.

Saint Augustine (5thC theologian), “The Literal Meaning of Genesis,” in J. H. Taylor, trans., Ancient Christian Writers, Newman Press, 1982, vol. 1, pg. 42-43.

 

[buffalo]

That isn’t how evolution works. The individuals best suited to that particular environment prosper. As the environmental conditions other factors are better suited and those prosper. In that way a species changes over time. All species are evolving even today.

aka adaptation.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The theological efforts to explain Catholic theology in terms of polygenism stem from a long battle against the doctrines of Original Sin. One of these battles surfaced in the fifth century with the heresy of Pelagianism which reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example…What is interesting about Nicolas Perpitch’s choice of Cardinal Pell’s comments is that one of them also reduces the theological seriousness of original sin by a reduction of Adam’s fault to a sophisticated mythology to try to explain the evil and the suffering in the world.

I’ve been doing a little more digging around an this subject and came across a John F. Haught, a Roman Catholic theologian and Senior Research Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Haught

Professor Haught seems to be widely recognized as the leading Catholic theologian on evolution. He is the author of several books including Deeper Than Darwin: The Prospect for Religion in the Age of Evolution, God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution, and Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution. One reviewer of his book God After Darwin noted that although he denies it, his views are essentially that of intelligent design (the claim that God’s hand in evolution is scientifically detectable).

He spends a lot of his time debating atheist evolutionists, not always successfully.

He seems to write a lot for America:

americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12596

More:

americamagazine.org/content/searchresults.cfm?search=John%20F.%20Haught&startrow=1&searchby=2

americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=1205

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

In one critical area, however, they remain stalled on the very brink of a crucial breakthrough: the explanation of evil and, with it, a satisfactory reformulation of the doctrine of original sin. No problem has proven more intractable in the past, but I am convinced that all the elements of the solution are now in hand.

The doctrine of original sin is the theory developed by Western Christianity, from Paul through Augustine and beyond, to cope with the problem of evil. This tradition looks to the Book of Genesis, Chapters 1 to 3, for an explanation of creation, seeing there a story of how God’s good work was corrupted by human sin. This explanation sufficed for over 1,000 years. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, however, it was undermined by geology’s discovery of deep time, followed by the Darwinian revolution in biology. Simultaneously, the work of biblical scholars confirmed that Genesis had been misread in too literal a fashion, and most educated Christians today accept the fact of evolution. Yet no substitute has been agreed upon for the classic notion of original sin and its mysterious inheritance by all descendants of Adam.

Substitutes have of course been offered. Perhaps most widely accepted among Catholic theologians today is the idea of Piet Schoonenberg, S.J., and others that “original sin” imposes itself on each human being as the evil influence of the sinful social situations into which we all are born. Though true, this hardly satisfies those who are scandalized by the pervasive suffering in nature; nor does it really go beyond invoking simple free will in explaining why humans sinned in the first place. How and why did human society originally become sinful? And what sinful society were the first humans (however defined) born into, when by definition no human society preceded them? The Schoonenberg school does not consider these historical questions relevant, but instead addresses itself to the more practically important problems we face in living our lives in the present.

Nonetheless, the historical origin of our present situation remains a valid and unanswered question, especially in the larger context of theodicy, suffering in nature and evil in the largest sense. Though we once thought we had the answer (in Genesis 2-3), biblical scholars have shown this to be not a history of the past but a myth explaining the present. A more satisfactory, modern answer to this historical question has not been forthcoming, from the Schoonenberg school or anywhere else. As a result, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had to admit in 1985 that “[t]he inability to understand ‘original sin’ and to make it understandable is really one of the most difficult problems of present-day theology and pastoral ministry” (The Ratzinger Report, p. 79). So for lack of a better idea, Adam and Eve remain in the Catholic catechism to this day—a theological scandal to one and all, as Joan Acker, H.M., recently pointed out (America, 12/16/00).

(Emphasis mine.)

americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=1205

 

[Gabriel_Serafin]

One must understand what the words Adam and Eve are derived from. In Hebrew, the word for earth adama, is the basis for man’s name; “Adam”. The word “Eve” simply means the “mother of all the living”. Scripture explains that *God made man from the slime of the earth *. Thus, to go from slime to rational human being suggests an evolution of sorts. Catholicism teaches that at some point God breathed a Spiritual (Rational) Soul into man.

One must realize that the Book of Genesis is not a treatise in genetic science, but rather a truth which is explained through understandable concepts. Likewise, I could tell you that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west, which is a true statement from our perspective looking at horizons; yet scientifically speaking, the sun is neither setting or rising, but rather the earth is rotating on its own axis in the nothingness of space as the light of the Sun shines upon the earth’s spherical shape. Both statements are true, though one is not from a scientific perspective.

With the dawn of DNA research, science has proven that all living human beings on earth today have once common mother, scientifically known as “Mitochondrial Eve”.

We humans have languages which allow us to communicate and comprehend one another as well as to reason the world around us. The language we use to understand the universe in scientific terms is Mathematics. The Language Jesus used to communicate truths about God and God’s “Kingdom” was through parables which 1st century men could relate to and understand. i.e. planting seeds, separating sheep from goats, finding treasures in fields, and speaking of Himself as living bread which came down from heaven to explain that He Himself would become our food, etc. Likewise, He instituted sacraments (visible signs) so that we know we receive sanctifying grace when we receive them.

Obviously there had to be a first man with a rational soul; and that man we call Adam. Catholicism teaches that sin came into the world through the *first *Adam. But the *New *Adam (Jesus Christ) redeemed humanity and becomes the savior of individual human beings by incorporating them as members of His Body which is the Church.

Thus the story of Adam and Eve is a truth presented in an understandable way which we take on faith, much the same way we take on faith what we receive through the visible signs we call sacraments.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

It would be useful for a new U.S. adult catechism to reveal that the creation account of Adam and Eve in Genesis does not relate actual historical facts. Its wisdom goes deeper and may be considered an Old Testament parable from an earlier tradition, full of fresh and creative symbols. What did the biblical writers intend to express? Adam is Man, Eve is Woman, God is the potter who formed them from earth’s clay. Yahweh is close to them, walking with them, calling them in a special way to participate in the divine life, giving them a singular likeness to divinity in their free will and intelligence.

The Roman catechism teaches (No. 374-415) that an actual first couple, Adam and Eve, were born into a paradise-world without ignorance, pain, disease or death. Those whose Catholic grammar and high school days span the first half of the 20th century remember being taught that our first parents possessed those qualities as “preternatural gifts.” In fact, the Council of Trent condemned anyone who denied this doctrine. The Roman catechism teaches further that the historical Adam and Eve were tested and fell, and by this disobedience changed the nature of the world itself from a paradise without ignorance, suffering or death to its present state as a “vale of tears” in need of redemption. “This entire harmony of original justice, foreseen for man in God’s plan, was lost by the sin of our first parents” (No. 379 and elsewhere).

The Vatican catechism further implies that if Adam and Eve had not sinned, there would have been no need for the Word to become flesh and redeem us. “The New Adam makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience of Adam… Thus the Exultet sings, ‘O happy fault, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!’” (Nos. 411 and 412). Since Augustine’s interpretation of the fall in the fifth century, the magisterium has passed on the doctrine that the human race, as one body of one man, is implicated in Adam’s sin. To date, this is the traditional Catholic doctrine on original sin, based upon a literal, historical approach to Genesis.

The Curial concept of original sin needs a contemporary updating. Theologians today characterize this doctrine as rationalized myth about the mystery and reality of evil in the world. Our human efforts to overcome the physical and moral effects of evil cannot be completely fulfilled in this life. God, the creator, knew this and determined from the beginning to send Christ to earth in the fullness of time. Significantly, in 1993 the Pope beatified an early Franciscan theologian, John Duns Scotus, a contemporary of Aquinas, whose thought is just now coming into its own. Duns Scotus saw Christ as the head of creation, the model God had in mind when the human race was formed. Christ’s coming to earth was not an afterthought, a plan B, the consequence of our first parents’ “happy fault.” Duns Scotus echoed Paul’s words to the Colossians (1:15-17): “Christ is firstborn in all creation. Before anything came to be, Christ was.” Already in the 14th century, Duns Scotus had anticipated modern Christology. Our world, in its process of becoming, was programmed from the beginning by the creator to witness a Christogenesis, even if a mythical first couple had never sinned.

(Emphasis mine.)

americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=2404