Adam & Eve: real people or symbols?

[surfinpure]

Ahimsa:

Well, if you want to equate the serpent with Satan, that’s fine. In that case, Satan simply seduced Eve and Adam. That change wouldn’t affect my larger point, though.

IF I want to equate the serpent with Satan??!! You mean you don’t? And if, in all seriousness, you don’t, how can you explain that the serpent talked to Eve? Did serpents, with their tiny lizard brains, have voice boxes and advanced capacity for language back then??

This is getting ridiculous.

 

[surfinpure]

Ahimsa:

Would you say that organisms are generally “selfish” in the sense of looking out either for themselves or for those who are closely related genetically? I’m not using “selfish” in an “evil” sense, but in a morally neutral sense. Thus, by being “selfish”, organisms are not committing any sort of sin, original sin or otherwise. It’s when humans, who are moral agents, adopt a selfish standpoint, that original sin begins to appear.

Let’s make sure we’re all talking about theistic evolution. If God used the process of evolution to create man, and that process, as you say, created a selfish tendency in man that was not a moral flaw until man became a moral being, then God would have been guilty of putting the “selfishness” in man. This doesn’t fly.

I can’t see, for the life of me, how competition for sustenance in the animal kingdom has anything to do with Satan’s tempting the first human beings to “be like God” and said beings’ choosing to disobey God’s direct command. The one has nothing to do with the other.

 

[Ghosty]

Regarding tendency to sin, I can see how Adam and Eve didn’t originally have the tendency to sin, but surely they had the potential to choose sin, before they actually did so?

Potential to sin is nothing more than moral agency, but that’s not what you’re describing at all. If “selfishness” was a pre-selected evolutionary trait, then Adam and Eve inherited a tendency to sin, and that doesn’t fly. The CCC explicitely states that the selfish inclination is a direct result of Original Sin, not something that predated it, so Adam and Eve could not have inherited any evolutionary trait that encouraged sinful behavior.

The potential to sin comes from the capacity for personal moral action, and the Catholic Church teaches that that’s an aspect of the soul, and also teaches that the soul is most definately NOT a product of evolution.

No matter HOW you cut it, sin (actual, tendency, or potential) can in no way be a product of evolution according to the Catholic Church. Any theory that posits that sin (actual, tendency, or potential) is in any way derived from evolution is heretical.

 

[JimO]

Ahimsa:

Would you say that organisms are generally “selfish” in the sense of looking out either for themselves or for those who are closely related genetically? I’m not using “selfish” in an “evil” sense, but in a morally neutral sense. Thus, by being “selfish”, organisms are not committing any sort of sin, original sin or otherwise. It’s when humans, who are moral agents, adopt a selfish standpoint, that original sin begins to appear.

I guess that I am struggling with this distinction. I understand and am with you on the evolutionary survival instinct as being selfish and I agree that this is morally neutral. However, if I understand you correctly, you are then saying that this evolved morally-neutral selfishness sets the stage for original sin when a moral agent (man) gives in to this evolved instinct. Am I characterizing your statements accurately? If not, please let me know.

This, I think, is where we disagree. The essence of man’s fall, although it can be characterized as selfish in that man wanted to “be like God”, was not the same as the selfish instinct to survive. As opposed to having its root in a survival instinct (which pre-fall mankind did not need), it has its roots in ambition and rebellion. Also, original sin was a turning point in salvation history, thus it could not “begin to appear” as though it was an acquired behavior that took time to become established. Disobedience, the essence of man’s fall, is an event and not a process. Thus, getting back to the original question at hand, the Fall of man had to be individual rebellion, not the collective rebellion of a group.

I appreciate the discussion and am genuinely interested in your thoughts on this.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

IF I want to equate the serpent with Satan??!! You mean you don’t? And if, in all seriousness, you don’t, how can you explain that the serpent talked to Eve? Did serpents, with their tiny lizard brains, have voice boxes and advanced capacity for language back then??

This is getting ridiculous.

The whole idea of Adam and Eve talking at all is ridiculous. Here are a few questions I’d say we could raise…

What language, do you suppose, was their native language? How did the serpent convey these abstract concepts to Eve without a language to do it? Are languages with abstraction capabilities of human origin? Who taught Adam to speak?

Without abstraction capability, how would the serpent indicate to Eve that the apple would be desirable for her? Did the spots on its back turn into beautiful pictures of apples or what?

Of course, this was all before the Tower of Babel, so maybe Eve and the serpent were connected on a psychic level? Vulcan mind meld, perhaps?

Anyone may think of Adam and Eve as they wish. As a point of information, my children are being taught in a conservative Catholic high school that Genesis may (or must, I can’t remember which) be interpreted figuratively. If that’s not right, maybe our new bishop will fix it and retrain the priests and teachers.

Now, did I say that I am condemning the Adam and Eve story just because it sounds ridiculous? Never would I judge or condemn another’s faithfully held point of view. I might challenge it but I won’t judge it. Why am I such a chicken about such things? Because the foolishness of God is greater than anything my human mind knows. God’s mind is foolish to man’s, as well. After all, if I can believe in man rose from the dead after three days, how much of a stretch to believe Genesis literally?

With this technique I “forgive” my detractors in advance for disagreeing with me, to train myself to not become offended when they become offensive or defensive about the view. Eventually when I learn not to be offended by other people’s (sometimes nefarious) ideas, then I will not cause my brother to sin by being offended by his ignorance. I do not resist my brother’s view, neither am I obligated to endorse it – unless that’s written somewhere in the fine print.

Alan

 

[Ahimsa]

JimO:

I guess that I am struggling with this distinction. I understand and am with you on the evolutionary survival instinct as being selfish and I agree that this is morally neutral. However, if I understand you correctly, you are then saying that this evolved morally-neutral selfishness sets the stage for original sin when a moral agent (man) gives in to this evolved instinct. Am I characterizing your statements accurately? If not, please let me know.

Yes, that’s a correct characterization.

This, I think, is where we disagree. The essence of man’s fall, although it can be characterized as selfish in that man wanted to “be like God”, was not the same as the selfish instinct to survive. As opposed to having its root in a survival instinct (which pre-fall mankind did not need), it has its roots in ambition and rebellion. Also, original sin was a turning point in salvation history, thus it could not “begin to appear” as though it was an acquired behavior that took time to become established. Disobedience, the essence of man’s fall, is an event and not a process. Thus, getting back to the original question at hand, the Fall of man had to be individual rebellion, not the collective rebellion of a group.

My phrase “begin to appear” can be replaced – without significant changes to my larger point – to simply “appear”. That is, I think the idea of individual rebellion at a single point in time, by a single couple, can certainly fit into the larger idea of a morally neutral, yet ‘selfish’ evolutionary process.

On the question of survival instinct and ambiton/rebellion, I think one could suppose that eating of the apple could be seen as both survival instinct and ambition/rebellion. Perhaps Eve and Adam witnessed that the animals around them were born and then died (and since animals are not moral agents, the death of animals would have occurred independently of the sin brought into the world by Adam and Eve, as part of the natural, evolutionary process). Eve might have then wanted a way to assure her (and her mate’s) survival beyond death – thus she took up the serpent’s offer to “be like God”. Eve simply wanted to survive, but to survive (as the serpent indicated) implied the ambition of becoming like God.

 

[Ahimsa]

Ghosty:

Potential to sin is nothing more than moral agency, but that’s not what you’re describing at all. If “selfishness” was a pre-selected evolutionary trait, then Adam and Eve inherited a tendency to sin, and that doesn’t fly. The CCC explicitely states that the selfish inclination is a direct result of Original Sin, not something that predated it, so Adam and Eve could not have inherited any evolutionary trait that encouraged sinful behavior.

The potential to sin comes from the capacity for personal moral action, and the Catholic Church teaches that that’s an aspect of the soul, and also teaches that the soul is most definately NOT a product of evolution.

No matter HOW you cut it, sin (actual, tendency, or potential) can in no way be a product of evolution according to the Catholic Church. Any theory that posits that sin (actual, tendency, or potential) is in any way derived from evolution is heretical.

I think I see your point: our capacity for moral choice did not evolve.

How about if I rephrase my point thus: the soul, or the capacity for moral choice, once created in Man, found itself within a world of morally neutral and evolutionary selfishness. Thus, the possibility for sin would be made real because of the evolutionary environmental context in which Eve and Adam found themselves. If God had created Adam and Eve in world where evolutionary selfishness did not exist, then sin would not have entered the world. Thus, I would not be saying that sin is derived from evolution, but it’s appearance was contingent upon an evolutionary environment.

 

[buffalo]

Ahimsa:

I think I see your point: our capacity for moral choice did not evolve.

How about if I rephrase my point thus: the soul, or the capacity for moral choice, once created in Man, found itself within a world of morally neutral and evolutionary selfishness. Thus, the possibility for sin would be made real because of the evolutionary environmental context in which Eve and Adam found themselves. If God had created Adam and Eve in world where evolutionary selfishness did not exist, then sin would not have entered the world. Thus, I would not be saying that sin is derived from evolution, but it’s appearance was contingent upon an evolutionary environment.

Except God didn’t create man to be selfish - He created Him to know God, Love God and Serve God, so that we would be together with Him in heaven. And Adam and Eve knew God in the garden, hardly an evolutionary selfish place.

 

[Ahimsa]

buffalo:

Except God didn’t create man to be selfish - He created Him to know God, Love God and Serve God, so that we would be together with Him in heaven. And Adam and Eve knew God in the garden, hardly an evolutionary selfish place.

Is there an official Catholic teaching on how to interpret biblical statements regarding “the Garden”?

 

[Ghosty]

Ahimsa: As others have pointed out, the Garden was not a place that put any kind of environmental pressure on Adam and Eve. Regardless, the entire formulation of evolution as selfish is ill-defined. Selfishness as a moral quality is quite different from “biological selfishness”, and, in fact, “biological selfishness” (the biological urge to preserve one’s life and/or genetic code) more often lends itself to selfLESSness, and cooperative behavior. Selfishness as a moral quality is an inherently disordered and defective inclination to better oneself at the expense of those around you.

For an example of the peculiar qualities of “biological selfishness”, let’s just take wolves as they are socially very similar to humans. In a wolf pack, ONLY the alphas breed, they are monogomous, and they are given top priority by the pack. Being a non-alpha, to say nothing of being the lowly omega, means you will eat less, will not get to procreate, and you’ll get smacked around by those above you in the hierarchy if you annoy them. At first glance this looks like classic “survival and betterment of the fittest”, except for one glaring oddity: every single wolf is descended from a pair of alphas, who were descended from a pair of alphas, and so on back as far as we can recognize the species. The species pre-selects that only the strongest will breed, and therefore only the strongest pups are born, yet not all those pups will be alphas. The biology is “selfish” in that it preserves the survival of the species by preserving the smartest and strongest, but functionally this means that the non-alpha members of the pack must behave in a selfLESS manner, cowering to their betters, giving up the better portions of food, despite the fact they they can only have been biologically descended from strong, intelligent, powerful alphas. The selfish biology of the alpha genetic traits are the selfless behaviors of the omega wolf.

Selfishness in the context of sin is a wholly different thing, as it represents a destructive force. Selfishness as sin is a self-interest that damages the social bonds, and is rarely biologically favored in social animals (such as wolves and humans). The omega wolf who does not cower before her betters is killed by the pack, or at the very best ostracized from the pack and forced to live a solitary existance; she does not generally become the alpha. Similar results can be seen in all social animals, including humans (we kill, or at best incarcerate, those who profoundly violate our social structures). One might argue that this defective selfishness is manifested in the alphas, who cower to nobody and demand the best portions of food, and hold exclusive, monogomous breeding rights, but then you must remember that every single wolf, from omega to alpha, comes from the same alpha breeding stock going back thousands of generations. If destructive selfishness was a positive trait for alphas, then it would have been past down to all levels of wolf a long time ago, shaping the entire species by now, and it has not.

To sum all this up, the “evolved selfishness” would not cause, or even necessarily allow for, destructive selfishness, as they are completely different traits without any real relation. When destructive selfishness pops up in evolution, at least in social animals, it’s a negative trait that hampers survivability, and therefore is not a quality of “evolved selfishness”, which is a survival benefit and actually enforces selfless behavior in social animals. So, even asuming your revised statement, Adam and Eve would not have been placed in an environment that favored the kind of destructive selfishness that is sin in a moral context. Rather, they introduced destructive selfishness by virtue of their moral agency, and with the prompting of Satan.

Given the Catholic belief that the Original Sin affected all of Creation, it’s quite likely that the disorder of destructive selfishness occaisionally popping up among otherwise selfless animals such as wolves was a result of the actions of Adam and Eve as well, and thus “decay” entered the world through sin.

 

[Ghosty]

Is there an official Catholic teaching on how to interpret biblical statements regarding “the Garden”?

In a general sense, yes. We are permitted to believe that the Genesis accounts in question pertain to very real things and events, but that symbolic and poetic language is being used to describe these things and events. For example Adam and Eve were real, and lived in some kind of Paradise that they were later excluded from, and God was with them and in contact with them directly, but God didn’t necessarily make Adam out of clay and physically blow into his nostrils to bring him to life. We are, however, certainly permitted to believe that God did in fact physically blow into the nostrils of a clay statue; such a detail is not immediately relevant to salvation or the spiritual revelation that God had a direct hand in creating Adam and Eve, and therefore can be taken any way that doesn’t invite heresies of its own. The salient points are not to be disputed or turned into symbols.

 

[Malachi4U]

Food for thought. A Baptist coworker of mine told me that his preacher taught that it was Adam & LILITH first! Then came Eve who forced Lilith out of the picture!:yup:

Hum??? I just love talking with my Baptist coworkers. I learn so much about the Bible from them - at least what they invent or interpret from it anyway.

 

[surfinpure]

AlanFromWichita:

The whole idea of Adam and Eve talking at all is ridiculous. Here are a few questions I’d say we could raise…

What language, do you suppose, was their native language? How did the serpent convey these abstract concepts to Eve without a language to do it? Are languages with abstraction capabilities of human origin? Who taught Adam to speak?

Without abstraction capability, how would the serpent indicate to Eve that the apple would be desirable for her? Did the spots on its back turn into beautiful pictures of apples or what?

Of course, this was all before the Tower of Babel, so maybe Eve and the serpent were connected on a psychic level? Vulcan mind meld, perhaps?

If you subscribe to atheistic evolution, then yes, the idea of Adam and Eve talking and sharing a common language (much less walking and talking with God, as we are told they did) is absurd. If not, it isn’t a stretch at all.

Anyone may think of Adam and Eve as they wish. As a point of information, my children are being taught in a conservative Catholic high school that Genesis may (or must, I can’t remember which) be interpreted figuratively. If that’s not right, maybe our new bishop will fix it and retrain the priests and teachers.

That is partly correct. The Magisterium tells us that parts of Genesis may be interpreted symbolically. We do not, however, have a choice about a literal Adam or Original Sin. (See earlier references to the CCC in this thread.)

Now, did I say that I am condemning the Adam and Eve story just because it sounds ridiculous? Never would I judge or condemn another’s faithfully held point of view. I might challenge it but I won’t judge it. Why am I such a chicken about such things? Because the foolishness of God is greater than anything my human mind knows. God’s mind is foolish to man’s, as well. After all, if I can believe in man rose from the dead after three days, how much of a stretch to believe Genesis literally?

Indeed.

With this technique I “forgive” my detractors in advance for disagreeing with me, to train myself to not become offended when they become offensive or defensive about the view. Eventually when I learn not to be offended by other people’s (sometimes nefarious) ideas, then I will not cause my brother to sin by being offended by his ignorance. I do not resist my brother’s view, neither am I obligated to endorse it – unless that’s written somewhere in the fine print.

No comment.

 

[buffalo]

Ahimsa:

Is there an official Catholic teaching on how to interpret biblical statements regarding “the Garden”?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

 

[Ahimsa]

Ghosty:

Ahimsa: As others have pointed out, the Garden was not a place that put any kind of environmental pressure on Adam and Eve.

I would think, though, that one could view the serpent’s temptation as a form of environmental pressure put upon Eve and Adam.

Regardless, the entire formulation of evolution as selfish is ill-defined. Selfishness as a moral quality is quite different from “biological selfishness”, and, in fact, “biological selfishness” (the biological urge to preserve one’s life and/or genetic code) more often lends itself to selfLESSness, and cooperative behavior. Selfishness as a moral quality is an inherently disordered and defective inclination to better oneself at the expense of those around you.

I agree that biological selfishness includes cooperative behavior. However, how far does this cooperative behavior extend? In the wolf case, the cooperation only includes other members of the same wolf pack, or (at most) other wolves in general. By ‘biological selfishness’ I mean not simply looking out for numero uno, but also looking out exclusively for numero uno’s genetic relatives. To go beyond biological selfishness would be to consider even those not biological related as members of one’s own family. For a wolf to demonstrate biological unselfisness might mean sacrificing his/her life so that a baby bear, or an elderly caribou, might live. The story of the good Samaritan, for instance, would then reflect the basic theme of biological unselfisness; even though the Jew and Samaritan are genetically related, the implication of the story is meant to expand one’s idea of who is related to whom.

 

[Ghosty]

I would think, though, that one could view the serpent’s temptation as a form of environmental pressure put upon Eve and Adam.

You’d have to explain why the serpent in particular was given a curse by God, then. You’d also have to explain how such pressures lead to destructive selfishness as I outlined above.

I agree that biological selfishness includes cooperative behavior. However, how far does this cooperative behavior extend? In the wolf case, the cooperation only includes other members of the same wolf pack, or (at most) other wolves in general. By ‘biological selfishness’ I mean not simply looking out for numero uno, but also looking out exclusively for numero uno’s genetic relatives.

That’s a completely different issue, and one that does not stray into sinful behavior at all anyway. We are obligated under Catholic moral law to hold human life above the life of other animals, so any looking after of one’s genetic relatives would be virtuous, not destructively selfish. Since the act is described as a personal sin, it must fit into the notion of destructive behavior.