Did Adam/Eve Exist?

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Jennifer J

Father Echert blew it on that one.

God is not the author of death - death is a consequence of sin. Plants and animals were created before Adam and Eve existed, and plants and animals were not subject to death because plants and animals can’t commit sin.

Adam and Eve’s sin subjected the whole of creation to futility – i.e. their original sin brought the Fall of creation.
 
Matt16_18 said:
Jennifer J

Father Echert blew it on that one.

God is not the author of death - death is a consequence of sin. Plants and animals were created before Adam and Eve existed, and plants and animals were not subject to death because plants and animals can’t commit sin.

Adam and Eve’s sin subjected the whole of creation to futility – i.e. their original sin brought the Fall of creation.
Click to expand...

That is not what the Church teaches. So it leaves the possibility for plants and animals to have their own destiny.
I would have to say that physical death is not bad but natural in nature according to the laws of God. However, man was special and uniquely mad in God’s image so his physical nature along with his spiritual was not meant to die.
 
Matt1618 << Adam and Eve’s sin subjected the whole of creation to futility – i.e. their original sin brought the Fall of creation. >>

So your position, if I remember right, is that the “Garden of Eden” (paradise) where Adam/Eve were before the Fall was not on this earth, but was in a different part of the universe where death did not reign, or in a “parallel” universe where death had no place. I’ll have to look into the Romans 8 passage again, Glenn Morton and others have dealt with it and they don’t interpret it the same way.

Feel free to restate your parallel universe idea, since some folks haven’t read all of the other creation-evolution threads. In my opinion, your idea seems to put the whole Adam/Eve story in the realm of “science fiction” – it must be taken completely on faith and no reconciliation with modern science or evolution is possible.

Matt1618 << I have already shown you how it is that I reconcile all these points. I am still waiting for you to tackle the questions that you are raising. It seems to me, that your position is irreconcilable with the de fide doctrines of the Catholic Church concerning original sin. >>

It seems so, my position is one of “agnosticism” on how to resolve this. I don’t know how to resolve it (yet). I’m still Catholic. 😛 I appreciate the notes of Marcia, she seems to have studied this problem more deeply than I have.

BTW, Case for a Creator by Strobel was mentioned in the other creation-evolution threads. Basically an anti-evolution book, with many of the same misconceptions that are thoroughly answered at TalkOrigins. Search there for Cambrian Explosion.

Best chapters were by William Lane Craig on the Big Bang, cosmology, fine-tuning (anthropic principle) arguments, and Mike Behe responding to his critics (Ken Miller on irreducible complexity, McDonald on the mouse trap). I speed-read the whole book at Barnes/Noble, I’ll wait for the paperback. Its okay, but Strobel makes some big blunders (e.g. “no transitional forms” again). It’s almost as bad (but not quite) as Hank Hanegraaff’s “Face / Farce” book on evolution. This stuff has all been answered at TalkOrigins.

Phil P
 
I believe Adam and Eve existed. The New Testament writers obviously believed that too. Yet what makes us human is not our bodies, but our souls. Being created in the image of God. We are God’s crown of creation.

I believe animals with “human bodies” existed before adam and eve, yet God finaly took one man (Adam) and one woman (Eve) and breathed into them thus giving them a soul, therefore becoming our first human parents with a soul. And we decended from them. It gets pretty complex but I have a very interesting book by a scientist named Gerald…Oh I forgot his name (don’t have the book at this moment) but it’s called “The Science of God” He explains a great deal of this. He also shows how Jewish writers have commentaries dating back 12 to 1800 (I think) years ago that believed in pre-adams and sub-humans, though not because of fossils, but because of the original Biblical language. Note: He was once an unbeliever.

Praise the Lord!
 
PhilVaz

So your position, if I remember right, is that the “Garden of Eden” (paradise) where Adam/Eve were before the Fall was not on this earth, but was in a different part of the universe where death did not reign, or in a “parallel” universe where death had no place.

As hackneyed as the phrase “parallel” universe is, it was the best phrase I could come up with to express what I meant. Purgatory, Abraham’s bosom, the lake of fire, Heaven, and the Terrestrial Paradise are all in “parallel universes” to this universe. The Terrestrial Paradise is not in this universe at all, because this entire universe is subject to Death. Plants, animals, men and women, stars – everything in this universe dies - death world is not the universe that is described being created in the first two chapters of Genesis. Adam and Eve were expelled from the universe that contained the Terrestrial Paradise, and Genesis states that the Terrestrial Paradise still exists. Adam and Eve, because of their disobedience, were expelled to death-world, the Kingdom where Satan rules as the Prince of Darkness. It is from death-world that we need to be purchased from slavery to Satan. The whole of creation in this universe groans in its death agony while waiting for the Second Coming.

In my opinion, your idea seems to put the whole Adam/Eve story in the realm of “science fiction” – it must be taken completely on faith and no reconciliation with modern science or evolution is possible.

The existence of purgatory, Abraham’s bosom, the lake of fire, and Heaven are also believed by faith, not science. The existence of these other “parallel universes” are only known to man because they have been divinely revealed by God to man. Knowledge of these things is completely outside what science can study. To be a Catholic, one must accept more than what science can properly study.

It seems so, my position is one of “agnosticism” on how to resolve this. I don’t know how to resolve it (yet). I’m still Catholic.

I don’t see the difficulty that you are having. Is heaven, the Trinity, and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist also to be consigned to the realm of science fiction? At least you are honest enough to admit that your acceptance of evolution does require that you work out some theological difficulties with de fide Catholic Doctrine.

more …
 
  • BTW, Case for a Creator by Strobel was mentioned in the other creation-evolution threads.*
I don’t know why you bring this up – I have never read this book nor cited it. I don’t bother with the junk science of the Creation-“Scientists”, nor do I have any particular problem with the theory that the DNA in our bodies came about through a process of evolution. I do, however, have a big problem with the junk theology that is embedded in the writings of the worst of the materialist-evolutionists. Material evolutionists are making unsupported statements that have no basis in science when they claim that chemical and nuclear interactions can give rise to consciousness in the universe.

If you are interested in a real scientific discussion of the problem of consciousness and physics, I would highly suggest take a look at this article by J. A. Wheeler and C.M. Patton: Is Physics Legislated by Cosmogony? First published in Quantuum Gravity, edited by C.J. Isham, R. Penrose and D.W. Sciama, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975.
 
Yet what makes us human is not our bodies, but our souls.

Angels are pure spirits. What makes us human beings, and not angels, is the fact that we have both bodies and souls.
 
Jennifer J

That CCC quote (#1008) is talking about MAN not plants and animals. It has to be read in context. I’m not sure about the biblical quote, I’ll need to read and study it a bit more.

Here is what the CCC says about Romans 8:21

Catechism of the Catholic Church

** 399** 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.

400 The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. **Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”.[284] **

Footnote 284: Rom 8:21.
 
Thanks for the notes Matt1618. No, I don’t put heaven, hell, purgatory, the soul, our sinful nature (original sin), miracles like the Virgin Birth or virginal conception, the sacraments, etc in the same boat with Adam/Eve simply because the former can’t be tested or falsified by science.

However, it seems to me (correct me if I am thinking wrong, you folks who are more knowledgeable in science and Catholic theology), that such statements as the following can be tested by science:

(1) there was an original single pair of human beings which we homo sapiens trace back to (i.e. Genesis 1-3), and those two couldn’t die for a time (i.e. they were immortal before the Fall)

(2) there was a worldwide flood about 5,000 years ago (i.e. Genesis 6-8) and two of all the animals on earth were put on the boat Noah made, and the present fossils as well as the geologic formations we see are a result of the flood waters, etc

These are the kinds of statements I suggest can be tested by science, or at least should be congruent with science if literally true. I threw in the Noachian Flood since that is mentioned in the same book of Genesis of course. Many modern theologians / biblical scholars treat Genesis chapters 1-11 as allegorical or figurative or “myth.”

Okay, I’ve had a couple folks suggest that Adam/Eve must be taken on faith only and others say we should reject at least the evolution of humanity (i.e. reject all the scientific evidence from the fossil hominids, DNA studies, etc) since there are indeed conflicts with de fide dogmas unless we do otherwise. I’m still working on this…

Phil P
 
Phil Vaz
  • I guess by “reconciled” I meant
(1) Catholicism says Adam/Eve were bodily immortal at some point

(2) Evolution says homo sapiens were never bodily immortal at any point

Can those be reconciled? I.e. Shown to be not in contradiction?*

No problema. Adam and Eve lived in the Terrestrial Paradise as immortal beings. Time was different in the Terrestrial Paradise than it is in death-world. Time and death are inseparable in the universe that we dwell in, but that is only a temporary reality that is passing away.

For all we know, Adam and Eve could have lived for hundreds of billions of years as immortal beings in the Terrestrial Paradise – if we reckon time in the Terrestrial Paradise in the same manner as we measure time in death-world.

Evolution only says that homo sapiens were never bodily immortal in death-world. Which is correct, and does not contradict Genesis.

marciadietrich

*… no matter how or when we got there; Adam and Eve are not only the first two real people in the image of God, but most important they are the only two people from which every person from that moment onward descended from. The humanoid creatures Adam and Eve came from would have to die out without intermarrying Adam and Eve’s descendents. Every person on earth must descend directly from Adam and Eve according to the teachings of the church.

That is simply not compatible with evolution, but it is an essential part of the doctrine on original sin.*

Also a part of the Catholic Church’s doctrine on original sin is that there was no death at all in the Terrestrial Paradise. No death for plants, animals, or humans. All Creation-“Science” theories assume that death was in the world before Adam and Eve came into existence. That assumption is incompatible with the Catholic doctrines concerning Original Sin.

Death is NOT a natural part of creation. Death is the consequence of sin. Death is the vandalizing of creation.
 
One more statement I’ll mention that I think can be tested or falsified by science is this made by Matt1618 earlier:

Matt1618 << There was no death in either the animal or plant kingdom in the terrestrial paradise. >>

This can be tested or falsified if the terrestrial paradise was on this earth. This is a fact of the fossil record: that plants and animals lived millions of years before us. So there must have been death based on that scientific fact. The dinosaurs went exinct approx 65 million years ago based on the lack of their fossils after the "K-T boundary" (the Cretaceous-Tertiary period). We (homo sapiens) begin showing up around 1 million years ago. Conclusion: there was plenty of death before us.

The way out of that is to suggest this paradise (e.g. the Garden of Eden) was somewhere else (not in this universe), that all the plants, the animals, and the Adam/Eve that God created were not on this earth, but in some parallel universe such as heaven, hell, or purgatory. If I get it, that is Matt1618’s understanding of the Genesis 1-3 “paradise” before the Fall.

But I’m wondering if you get any backing of that interpretation from the Church? I’ve read the statements in the Catechism and other sources on Adam/Eve, and no where is it suggested that Adam/Eve were anywhere but on this earth. :confused: Since we literally trace our humanity back to them, they would have to be on earth both before and after the Fall. They were cast out of paradise yes, but were they cast out from one universe to another? :confused: This is what happens if you take this too literally, you get into problems with modern science.

Another point Glenn Morton makes (I still need to get his full book on this) is that God said His creation was “good” in Genesis, God never said it was “perfect.” An article by Morton demonstrating death was indeed part of God’s plan from the beginning discusses the fact of cellular death, that without it life (and birth) on earth wouldn’t be possible. Death was built right into His creation. Morton’s statement:

“So, what does this have to do with Eden? Well if God created the cellular biochemistry, then He also created the instructions for cellular death and God himself used death to create us!”

See the article by Morton on cellular death

Phil P
 
Matt1618 << All Creation-“Science” theories assume that death was in the world before Adam and Eve came into existence. >>

Not sure what creation-science you mean, but classic creation-science (the young-earth variety) state there was no death of anything before Adam/Eve sinned, and that they lived in paradise on earth. So they resolve the theological Adam/Eve conflicts I raised by asserting

(1) Adam/Eve were created directly by God (from dust, Eve literally from the side of Adam) and lived with all the plants and animals which were also separately, specially and directly created (called special or direct creation)

(2) there was no death for plants or animals or Adam/Eve before the Fall (the meat-eaters were all plant-eaters before Adam/Eve sinned)

(3) God created all of this directly a very short time ago (less than 10,000 years) in 6 literal days

That is classic young-earth creationism. That would certainly seem to resolve all the theological difficulties I have, but this contradicts all known geology, biology, astronomy, and just about every other branch of science. Modern science gets tossed in the trash.

Phil P
 
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis chapter 1:1)

I read “earth”

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters…

I read “earth”

God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth…

I read “earth”

And God said, Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky…

I read “earth”

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

Again “earth”

Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

Again “earth”

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. (Genesis chapter 2:1)

Once again “earth”

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens –
5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground,
6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground –
7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground–trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Again, earth, earth, earth, earth.

Now to be anywhere near a literal interpretation, we’d have to say this is talking about the earth (our same planet Earth). I am not sophisticated with Hebrew, but the idea that the “terrestrial paradise was in some parallel universe” or at least not on this earth is quite a figurative or allegorical reading of the text. At least reading it in English. Maybe that’s the key to interpreting this. The article on Terrestrial Paradise in the online Catholic Encyclopedia also provides some clues how to understand this.

Phil P
 
Phil Vaz

That is classic young-earth creationism. That would certainly seem to resolve all the theological difficulties I have, but this contradicts all known geology, biology, astronomy, and just about every other branch of science. Modern science gets tossed in the trash.

I agree that to be a Young Earther one must basically reject science.

The best way to refute the literal six-day creation theory of the Young Earthers is to use Genesis. Here is the arguement:

God separates light and darkness on the first “day” of creation:

And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
Gen. 1:3-4

The sun is not created until the fourth day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
Gen. 1:14-19

Ask the Young Earther what the meaning of “evening and morning” on the first day of creation, the day that existed* before the sun was created.* This question always gives them fits.

Obviously God is measuring a “day” by some standard other than sunrise to sunrise.
 
Phil Vaz

*The way out of that is to suggest this paradise (e.g. the Garden of Eden) was somewhere else (not in this universe), that all the plants, the animals, and the Adam/Eve that God created were not on this earth, but in some parallel universe such as heaven, hell, or purgatory. If I get it, that is Matt1618’s understanding of the Genesis 1-3 “paradise” before the Fall.

But I’m wondering if you get any backing of that interpretation from the Church? I’ve read the statements in the Catechism and other sources on Adam/Eve, and no where is it suggested that Adam/Eve were anywhere but on this earth.*

The Catholic Church accepts the Genesis account as being inspired by God - a historical account expressed in a figurative manner. Genesis says that Adam and Eve were driven out of the Terrestrial Paradise - it does not say that the Terrestrial Paradise was destroyed. The Catholic Church has never taught that Adam and Eve were spirit beings before they had mortal bodies.

He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Gen. 3:24

I don’t think that we need to start looking for a cherubim with a flaming sword now that we are in Iraq.

They were cast out of paradise yes, but were they cast out from one universe to another?

That is the way I read Genesis, and I am hardly the first Catholic to understand Genesis in this way. Perhaps I should have avoided the phrase “parallel universe”. The belief that the Terrestrial Paradise still exists outside of this universe is not that uncommon among the Saints or the Fathers of the Church.
  • Another point Glenn Morton makes (I still need to get his full book on this) is that God said His creation was “good” in Genesis, God never said it was “perfect.” *
A bad theological error on Morton’s account. God can’t do anything less than a perfect act. Why spend any theological effort on seeing God as the author of death? Catholics have never believed that God is the author of death.
 
So Phil, how do you reconcile the Catholic Church’s teachings on the state of Adam and Eve in original justice and evolution?
 
Matt1618 << So Phil, how do you reconcile the Catholic Church’s teachings on the state of Adam and Eve in original justice and evolution? >>

I don’t know (agnostic position on how to reconcile this), that’s why I started this thread. 😛

Also, I read earth, earth, earth, earth in Genesis 1-3 describing the location of the Garden of Eden (paradise), not a parallel universe like heaven, hell, or purgatory. Your interpretation is highly figurative or allegorical, and it might be a key how to interpret it. I’ll take it under advisement. 👍

We know there probably wasn’t a talking snake (serpent), the sin probably wasn’t literally eating a fruit from a Tree in the middle of the garden, and the earth and universe wasn’t created in literally 144 hours (6 days). So there is allegorical language here, I have that much figured out. :o

Most creationists are not that sophisticated and when it says “earth” they think “earth.” Maybe my thinking has been too much influenced by their literature as well.

Phil P
 
Matt16_18 said:
Yet what makes us human is not our bodies, but our souls.

Angels are pure spirits. What makes us human beings, and not angels, is the fact that we have both bodies and souls.
Click to expand...

Yes I realize that Matt16_18, and I understand that. Yet what I was trying to say was that without the soul, we are mere animals. Our intellegence comes from our sophisticated brains and not our “souls.” Monkies are VERY simular to us in attitude scientists have discovered. They have even found monkies looking in mirrors and making themselves look “apropriate.” Also, does it ever say angels are created in the image of God? Mankind is and that is something I will never fully understand. It’s mind-boggling to me, yet human beings are very special to God. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Praise the Lord!
 
Hey Matt16_18, are you Catholic? I am just curious where or why you believe “Eden” was in another universe or Parallel universe? Is there web sites on that, possibly by Catholics? Are you saying Adam and Eve were created somewhere’s else but this world has been going on unders Satan’s possesion for billions of years?
 
Stop fooling around with the Judaism theory or story of how Human Being were formed or created…Stop worrying about the Original Sin (so it said was caused by the eating of the unlightment forbidden fruit by our supposed first parent A&E as stated in the Old Testament i.e. Torah)…Christian must look at the the Originality of Humanity outside of the “Torah Box”… The God I believed through Christ is a God of Love & Compassion…Not the God who is full of insecurity (testing Human all the time) & cruelty (killing, drowning, burning & destroying so many of “his beloved children” simply because they annoyed, sinned & disobeyed Him; or just because these people were the enemy of the Jews…) Too bad we Christian were too attached and influenced by the Old Testament part of the Holy Bible…i.e. the Torah…and not the teaching of Christ through some part of the New Testament…If Jesus told us to call God, “Our Father”, I would consider God my spiritual parent vs my own fleshy parent, who were so loving and caring to their children that I believe they would sacrifice the utmost for the well being of me, just as I would to my own children…But I regard God million time more sacrificing, loving and caring then the fleshy parent that we inherited or being as…I believe Christianity needs to be re-defined from the influence of the Jewish history, traditions “and stories” to make sence…
 
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