Adam & Logic, 2nd Edition

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Continued from post 813.
Not exactly. The Church’s issue is not so much with the origination of the species as it is with preserving the teaching of original sin a) being a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and b) which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
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The origin of the individual Adam has to be part of a population consisting of one male and one female spouse. More than one Adam would mean that there would be numerous original sins. Numerous originals would violate the principle of non-contradiction. Thus, human origin of two, Adam and Eve, is an essential part of the doctrines in connection with Original Sin.
The real sticking point, as stated in Humani Generis, is, …“it is in no way apparent how such an opinion (polygenism) can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin.”

However, in the intervening 65 years the two, scientific theory and theology, have moved closer in that the former has offered plausible possibilities that are not in direct refutation of the latter and even suspects to have physical evidence of common ancestral lineages. So,what was once “in no way apparent” now has at least a glimmer of possibility. I don’t think (Alas, woe! The arrogance of me!) the Church really cares about the origin of the species as long as the scientific explanation is consistent with revealed truth.
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What is not readily apparent is that the basic tenet of human evolution is that human nature, over time, descended from a common ancestor Homo (human)/Pan (chimpanzee) of thousands, not from a population of two. See Misconceptions About Humans" in this link evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/evo_07

It is the humanizing population of thousands which the Catholic Church strongly opposes. There is a huge difference between the Catholic doctrine (revealed truth) that all humankind descended from two real fully-human, body and soul, parents and the science position that a large breeding population (polygenism) produced an evolving population resulting in the current human species.

Articles which address science aspects of human origin.
crisismagazine.com/2014/did-adam-and-eve-really-exist

hprweb.com/2014/07/time-to-abandon-the-genesis-story/

Book which addresses human origin.
amazon.com/Origin-Human-Species-Third-Edition/dp/1932589686/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1412467670&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Origin+of+the+human+species++Bonnette

Informative website.
drbonnette.com/
 
Beircheart said:
. . . I performed an admittedly cursory Google search and did not find the research you are referring to. The reason for my lack of enthusiasm is that I am very familiar with the Flynn Effect, and other research that refutes your statement. I have never encountered peer reviewed research claiming to show a general decline in IQ. When I have more time I will try to give due diligence to researching your claim.
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It’s probably cause I’m older, but a quick search using Google turns up:

lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/were-the-victorians-smarter-than-us.pdf
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000470?np=y
drjamesthompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/original-paper-high-quality-replication.html
news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/researchers-western-iqs-dropped-14-points-over-last-180634194.html
upi.com/Health_News/2013/05/23/Last-century-Western-nations-lost-an-average-14-IQ-points/77081369362633/
northerntruthseeker.blogspot.ca/2013/05/important-health-news-this-is-alarming.html
metro.co.uk/2014/08/21/dawn-of-the-dumb-scientists-say-iqs-are-beginning-to-fall-in-the-uk-4841114/
dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-STUPID-Britons-people-IQ-decline.html
uhaweb.hartford.edu/BRBAKER/
fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/
charltonteaching.blogspot.ca/2013/05/reaction-times-in-perfectly-matched.html
et al
 
grannymh said:
Articles which address science aspects of human origin.
crisismagazine.com/2014/did-adam-and-eve-really-exist

hprweb.com/2014/07/time-to-abandon-the-genesis-story/

Book which addresses human origin.
amazon.com/Origin-Human-Species-Third-Edition/dp/1932589686/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1412467670&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Origin+of+the+human+species++Bonnette

Informative website.
drbonnette.com/
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For what it’s worth, I share Ed Feser’s view:
“So, it seems to me that neither Prof. Bonnette nor anyone else has raised any serious difficulty for the Flynn-Kemp proposal. However, Prof. Bonnette is right to hold that many Catholics need to show greater caution when commenting on matters pertaining to evolution.”
strangenotions.com/monogenism-or-polygenism-the-question-of-human-origins/
 
Aloysium said:
It’s probably cause I’m older, but a quick search using Google turns up:

lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/were-the-victorians-smarter-than-us.pdf
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000470?np=y
drjamesthompson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/original-paper-high-quality-replication.html
news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/researchers-western-iqs-dropped-14-points-over-last-180634194.html
upi.com/Health_News/2013/05/23/Last-century-Western-nations-lost-an-average-14-IQ-points/77081369362633/
northerntruthseeker.blogspot.ca/2013/05/important-health-news-this-is-alarming.html
metro.co.uk/2014/08/21/dawn-of-the-dumb-scientists-say-iqs-are-beginning-to-fall-in-the-uk-4841114/
dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2730791/Are-STUPID-Britons-people-IQ-decline.html
uhaweb.hartford.edu/BRBAKER/
fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/
charltonteaching.blogspot.ca/2013/05/reaction-times-in-perfectly-matched.html
et al
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Thanks for the links! Interesting point in that, when I changed “Is IQ increasing” to “Is IQ decreasing” I got vastly different results. Anecdotal to be sure, but suggests just how unstable both perspectives are. Naturally, each has its go at the the other. That leaves the truth of the matter: something is going on but no one is really sure what yet. People, being people, will simply pick a mast, pin their colors, and move along.

This perfectly dovetails into the Adam and Eve and Evolution discussion. Let’s be honest, in accomplishing our everyday tasks generally increasing or decreasing IQs or whether or not humans were spontaneously created or created via evolution has little impact (unless, of course, either of those ARE your life’s work). What is at issue is our endurance threshold for cognitive dissonance (the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values). To alleviate that discomfort, people are going to naturally gravitate to the path of least distress or, if their tolerance is high, attempt to reconcile the differences in such a way that reduces dissonance to a bearable minimum.

For what is worth, regarding IQ trends, I lean toward social/environmental factors having far more immediate impact, measured in decades or centuries, over any long term evolutionary trend measured in thousands of years. People don’t go around thinking the garbage disposal will chew up a chicken bone but not fingers. Not at all - we don’t think those things because we don’t think at all! Too much of the time we go through life somehow assuming that we don’t need to think - someone or something else will do it for us. The inevitable result is not only ignorance (correctable) but stupidity. *We are losing not the ability but the expectation to reason. * (Not a scientific article but since I paraphrased from it, I’d better link it just to stay on the up-and-up! wilderness.hubpages.com/hub/Intelligence-increasing-or-decreasing)
 
Put my vote down for:
social/environmental factors
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At least within the USA my two cents is that the people of WW2 and the 29 depression were more resilient due to better connections to family and community. The move to the isolated nuclear family, divorce rates, single parent explosion, and highly leveraged debt positions has left our population very vulnerable to financial ruin/homelessness, depression, drug use, child care exasperation etc. It’s amazing that such a large number of vulnerable people keep their IQ as high as it is under these greater stress conditions.

Please excuse my mix of cause and effect. I’m not saying that these are as clearly intentional “moves” and results of these “moves” as the above paragraph might seem to be saying, but they have all been growing together as measured by percentage of the population and would be a detriment to IQ test scores and reaction time measures.
 
To the above, I would add that wisdom, knowledge, understanding and counsel are gifts of the Holy Spirit. I think they are related to IQ and if we don’t use them, we lose them. I don’t believe at all that we are devolving, although it would be a very real probability according to the view that sees genetic change as being random. Mankind is so far above any other creature we know of, that if this intellectual superiority were based on chance events, there’d be nowhere to go but down.
 
Aloysium said:
To the above, I would add that wisdom, knowledge, understanding and counsel are gifts of the Holy Spirit. I think they are related to IQ and if we don’t use them, we lose them. I don’t believe at all that we are devolving, although it would be a very real probability according to the view that sees genetic change as being random. Mankind is so far above any other creature we know of, that if this intellectual superiority were based on chance events, there’d be nowhere to go but down.
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It is Adam and Eve’s natural intellectual superiority which is the logical reason for all humankind to be their descendants. Wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and counsel were theirs at the beginning of human history.

:clapping::clapping:
 
grannymh said:
It is Adam and Eve’s natural intellectual superiority which is the logical reason for all humankind to be their descendants. Wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and counsel were theirs at the beginning of human history.

:clapping::clapping:
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And it’s a shame they didn’t put all those gifts to use…

(sorry, couldn’t resist) 😃
 
In the previous thread “Adam & Logic”, the following was posted.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=785994
“Both Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15: 21-22 compare Adam with Jesus Christ. In contrast to Adam whose Original Sin lost the gift of immortality, Jesus Christ conquered the subsequent bodily death with His Resurrection. “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”. … “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1Corinthians 15: 50-55)”

​
In my humble opinion, it is time to review the connection between the first human individual and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. John 3: 16-17. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son …” does explain why and how the broken relationship between humanity and Divinity aka Original Sin would eventually be repaired.

As we know, Jesus Christ is one Person with two natures. The Divine Person Jesus assumed, not absorbed, human nature per se as originally evinced in the person of Adam. It was not necessary for Jesus to assume human sin of any kind because Jesus is Divine. He could take the place of the human Adam and, at the same time, be on the same Divine level as Adam’s Creator.

Jesus repaired humanity’s relationship with Divinity by His obedience. Jesus’ single act of obedience on His freely chosen cross relates to the single Original Sin of disobedience by the original human being. Obviously, logically, there could only be one original Adam.
 
davidv said:
Adam and Eve are God’s creation. It is logically impossible for a creature of God to be God.
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Thanks. Yes humans are God’s creation, I am thinking that humans are made with a spiritual connection to the one God, this does not make them God, but gods, just as Jesus said.
If they had all the “tools” they needed they were pretty equipped and so there was no need to want to be like God, well that’s how I would think as a person living in this part of human history, On the other hand, if they were on a level close to God ( divine) yet not quite there, I can see how they would want to be like God, all powerful etc.

God had to assume human nature in order to bring us back to the light, if they were not of divine nature to begin with, why would God need to send his son as a human to repair the relationship? Jesus was without sin, A&E were also without sin to begin with. I know Jesus obeyed, as he was sent by the father to do so. A&E disobeyed and so lost the relationship, Jesus being man and God restores the relationship, but if A&E were not divine at the beginning, how could the relationship be broken in such a way that we became spiritually and physically dead, if we are only creatures?

Would appreciate thoughts on this.

Thanks
 
simpleas said:
Thanks. Yes humans are God’s creation, I am thinking that humans are made with a spiritual connection to the one God, this does not make them God, but gods, just as Jesus said.
If they had all the “tools” they needed they were pretty equipped and so there was no need to want to be like God, well that’s how I would think as a person living in this part of human history, On the other hand, if they were on a level close to God ( divine) yet not quite there, I can see how they would want to be like God, all powerful etc.

God had to assume human nature in order to bring us back to the light, if they were not of divine nature to begin with, why would God need to send his son as a human to repair the relationship? Jesus was without sin, A&E were also without sin to begin with. I know Jesus obeyed, as he was sent by the father to do so. A&E disobeyed and so lost the relationship, Jesus being man and God restores the relationship, but if A&E were not divine at the beginning, how could the relationship be broken in such a way that we became spiritually and physically dead, if we are only creatures?

Would appreciate thoughts on this.

Thanks
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My thoughts.

I have already done my best to present Catholic teachings which obviously would correct the erroneous suggestions and implications in the above.
 
grannymh said:
My thoughts.

I have already done my best to present Catholic teachings which obviously would correct the erroneous suggestions and implications in the above.
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Perhaps I shouldn’t have read post 822 then.

👍
 
simpleas said:
Thanks. Yes humans are God’s creation, I am thinking that humans are made with a spiritual connection to the one God, this does not make them God, but gods, just as Jesus said.
If they had all the “tools” they needed they were pretty equipped and so there was no need to want to be like God, well that’s how I would think as a person living in this part of human history, On the other hand, if they were on a level close to God ( divine) yet not quite there, I can see how they would want to be like God, all powerful etc.

God had to assume human nature in order to bring us back to the light, if they were not of divine nature to begin with, why would God need to send his son as a human to repair the relationship? Jesus was without sin, A&E were also without sin to begin with. I know Jesus obeyed, as he was sent by the father to do so. A&E disobeyed and so lost the relationship, Jesus being man and God restores the relationship, but if A&E were not divine at the beginning, how could the relationship be broken in such a way that we became spiritually and physically dead, if we are only creatures?

Would appreciate thoughts on this.

Thanks
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Well, they were obviously “only creatures”, with the understanding that God, alone, is uncreated. But the catechism teaches that, although created in the image of God, they were intended yet to be “divinized” by Him; that was optional, depending on their choices. They were created good, and complete as to their human nature, but mans perfection is attained to the degree that chooses to remain in communion with God, not apart from Him. Man’s divinization is only possible to that extent. And that’s the real crux of the matter: communion between creature and creator, as opposed to autonomy from the creator. And so communion, or re-communion, is what the New Covenant is all about. It’s always been about man’s will.
 
Please note that in Catholic theology
“divinized” “divinization” does not mean that a human becomes a clone of God.
It does not mean that a human becomes another god equal to the One God.
It does not mean that a human becomes a lesser divine god.
It does not replace human nature per se.

“Divinized” is used to describe our participation in the life of God.**CCC 460 **
The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:“For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

Do not, repeat not, jump to unfounded conclusions. One absolutely cannot cherry pick in the* Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.*

The words in quotation marks **CCC 460 refer to the descriptive language of 2 Peter 1: 4; St. Irenaeus; St, Athanasius; St. Thomas Aquinas.**CCC 1265
**Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,” member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Scripture sources in footnotes. 2 Cor 5:17; 2 Peter 1:4; Cf. Gal 4: 5-7; Cf. 1 Cor 6: 15; 12:27; Rom 8:17; Cf. 1 Cor 6:19.

***RE: ***additional paragraphs in CCC 1988 and CCC 1391
For explanation of the additional (smaller print) paragraphs, please refer to CCC 20-21.CCC 1988
Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:
[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. . . . For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.
CCC 1391
Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.” On the feasts of the Lord, when the faithful receive the Body of the Son, they proclaim to one another the Good News that the first fruits of life have been given, as when the angel said to Mary Magdalene, “Christ is risen!” Now too are life and resurrection conferred on whoever receives Christ.​
 
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