Properly considered evolution. That is an interesting thought since I maintain that Catholic doctrines deny the larger than two population principle for human origin.
Fair enough. Just to make sure that we’re discussing the same thing, could you please define ‘human’ for me? In such a way that we distinguish both between human and pre-human ancestors and between ensoulment and physical humanity?
The language of CCC, 399 is interesting.
Are you referring to, “Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives”…?
Interesting – how so? The fact that it mentions an explicit ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’? I’m not following you here…
That is correct because God’s direct creation of the spiritual soul requires a physical anatomy.
Unfortunately, not only is this claim false, it also does not follow from my assertion about cladistics vis-a-vis ensoulment.
First off, it is false, on at least one count: God directly created angels, who are spiritual beings with spiritual souls, but without physical anatomy. Soul does not imply physical body, strictly speaking.
However, humans
are indeed a body-soul composite. Yet, we do not claim – with respect to ensoulment – a particular timing about the creation of the soul (vis-a-vis the creation of the body). As Catholics, we assert that God creates each soul immediately (that is,
without mediation). We do not claim a particular timing for this ensoulment, other than the vaguely worded “at the moment of conception.” Does this imply that the physical matter of a newly-conceived human exists first, and then the soul? Or that the soul exists as the conception takes place? Or that the two occur simultaneously? Both “body-then-soul” and “soul-then-body” lead to difficult consequences (especially when we consider the theology in play with questions of abortion – as an example, twinning presents a particular problem of ensoulment!). “Body-and-soul” might get you out of the woods… but it contradicts your statement about the physical requirement, it seems. So, on both counts, your assertion is problematic.
Second, your assertion does not follow from a discussion of ‘species’ and ‘ensoulment’: yes, in humans, there is a particular anatomy – in this case, a species. Yet, ensoulment does not require a
particular species, does it? That is to say, “Adam and Eve” could have been
homo sapiens or
homo erectus; they could have been Neandertal or Cro-Magnon! There is not a particular species to which we must point and say “this one but not those ones” – strictly speaking, God’s prerogative of creating humanity in the
Imago Dei is His prerogative, not ours, and does not depend on 21st century taxonomies. Scientists can look at tools that various populations created and used, or artwork that they developed, or burial customs that they practiced, and from these physical bits of evidence make claims about rational capacity. Yet, these physical signs do not handcuff God into a choice of which population He first ensouled. Therefore, whatever cladistics might have to say about genetic commonalities between our ancestors, it cannot make a claim about ensoulment. Therefore, it does not follow that biological claims of polygenesis directly contradict Christian theological claims of the monogenesis of ensoulment.
Well your cousin, and all of us, for that matter, shouldn’t believe everything we hear or read. No matter who you’re listening to, take his/her words with a grain of salt.