"Early Hominids" and Catholic Teaching?

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I have no idea if I am posting this in the correct category, so I apologize in advance if this should have been submitted elsewhere!

I have always had a fascination with anthropology - bioarchaelogy, in particular. For a while in college, I even considered pursuing the field, and I ended up taking a number of classes pertaining to the subject. Unsurprisingly, most of the classes were taught from a scientific, atheistic perspective, which of course, I do not believe in, myself. But I have been curious ever since, how some of the evidence of “early humans” fits in with the narrative of the Bible and what we believe as Catholics.

For example, Ardipithecus ramidus is a species of australopithecene that supposedly lived over 4 million years ago in what is now modern Ethiopia. Archaeologists discovered almost a complete skeleton, which they nicknamed Ardi; she had both ape-like and human-like features. Thousands of other specimens from other species sharing similar features have also been uncovered over the years. And I am now curious what the official Catholic view is on this?

There is obviously irrefutable evidence in their skeletons which shows that these creatures shared similar characteristics with us, such as bipedal locomotion. And over time, their skeletons reflected even more changes that resembled humans.

So I am curious what the Catholic Church’s view is on this subject. How does the discovery of these hominids fit in with the narrative of Adam and Eve, for example? I am really interested in this topic and I am curious to see what everyone else thinks, or if there is even an official teaching on this. Thanks 🙂
 
The only things about the origin of mankind we are required to believe are that Adam and Eve are real, ensouled humans and that they committed the original sin. Everything else, including evolution of homonids, is not defined in dogma.

Please correct me if I’m wrong.
 
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So could it be the case that two parents that were not ensouled gave birth to Adam and Eve, in that case what sort of relationship would they have had with them? were they able to communicate, learn from them etc?
 
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None of this is covered by the Church. It’s all personal belief at that point.
 
If you follow the fossil record, the hominids appear then disappear. They could have all been extinct by the time ensouled humans were created.
 
This is actually untrue. Many human species were contemporary with early Homo Sapiens, like Neanderthals and Densovians (I think I spelled that right).
 
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I too am fascinated by prehistoric man, and I’m reading yet another book on them now.

I’ve looked it up in the past, but I’m not ambitious enough to give a link (Dorothy has given a good link above). I think there are only two things the Church requires Catholics to believe: 1) Adam (I believe the Hebrew means “man”) and Eve were two individuals, not a group and 2) at some point God gave Adam and Eve a soul.

This should present no problems for Catholics. Some–but not all–experts believe Homo Sapiens began as a group. Others point out that, logically, a new species would have to begin with a single person who has a dominant mutation he/she could pass on to his/her descendants. But just because a new species evolves doesn’t mean they would be “modern” man or have a soul. And obviously there is no physical evidence of a “soul.” But Homo Sapiens existed for well over 100,000 years with no real changes.

However, most (?) experts think that there was a bottleneck in our species around 70,000 BC, and perhaps the number of humans shrank to as few as 10,000. At that point it would be easy enough for another dominant inheritable mutation to take place and in the course of a few thousand years–maybe less—all people would have that mutation.

Now to me the fascinating things is that after millions of years, all of a sudden in a relatively short period 60-30,000 BC, you have modern man leaving Africa and spreading throughout the world. You have completely new types of stone tools. You have bone tools like needles. You have spear throwers. You have bows and arrows. You have evidence of burial and some sort of reverence for the dead. You have symbols and art, both on objects and cave walls. You have (some believe it’s this early) domestication of dogs. And the list goes on.

So whether you believe in God or not, something happened during that relatively short time period of a few tens of thousands of years (only 400 generations = 10,000 years at 25 years/generation). If you are religious, you could say that “something” was the addition of a soul.
 
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That is an interesting problem for both theology and biology. At some point, there was the capability for fully human imagination, reasoning and language, that must have existed in some individual or individuals with the requisite bra(name removed by moderator)ower; they must have seemed strange to their parents.
 
Erikaspirit16 said:
a new species would have to begin with a single person who has a dominant mutation he/she could pass on to his/her descendants.
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No, a new species might evolve as a result of numerous mutations. In fact, that’s how it happens. And there can be a lot of ‘interbreeding’ as the various advantageous mutations become more common.
 
FiveLinden said:
No, a new species might evolve as a result of numerous mutations
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If there is such a thing as a new species, then if you could look over the aeons of paleobiology, you must be able to point at an individual organic specimen and say that’s a new species compared with some older specimen. How did that new species become a new species compared with another species? Mutations. When was the earliest mutation and when was the latest that made that species a new species? Etc.
 
The linking of human persons (Adam and Eve and their descendants) to non-human “parents” is spiritually a very dangerous pastime, whether done “professionally” for money and academic glory, or for imaginative enjoyment. God created us for a supernatural, eternal, gloriously beautiful destiny of communion with Him and one another.

To look back to animals as our “origin” seems a fiction worthy of the hatred of man by the evil one. It is literally one of several ways of dehumanizing humanity, which is a foundation of the works of evil inspired by the evil one into men here and now. Men sin against one another by defining the other as “enemy”, not really human like “us”, having a life unworthy of life, thus enemy to be eliminated or abused by any way necessary.
 
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We have different ways of knowing. One of these is natural science and reasoning. The other is sacred science and faith. Truth cannot contradict truth. We know from biology that life developed from single celled organisms into the amazing diversity we now see. We know from theology that God made everything ex nihilo and believe he breathed an immortal soul into us in the beginning of human existence. There is really no necessity to insist that God specifically made the physical bodies of Adam and Eve ex nihilo and to insist on that only sets our natural reasoning against our faith, which is to the detriment of both.
 
fide said:
The linking of human persons (Adam and Eve and their descendants) to non-human “parents” is spiritually a very dangerous pastime, whether done “professionally” for money and academic glory, or for imaginative enjoyment. God created us for a supernatural, eternal, gloriously beautiful destiny of communion with Him and one another.

To look back to animals as our “origin” seems a fiction worthy of the hatred of man by the evil one. It is literally one of several ways of dehumanizing humanity , which is a foundation of the works of evil inspired by the evil one into men here and now. Men sin against one another by defining the other as “enemy”, not really human like “us”, having a life unworthy of life, thus enemy to be eliminated or abused by any way necessary.
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And your explanation for the fact that we share DNA (which is passed on by descent) with every other living thing is…?
 
Neithan said:
There is really no necessity to insist that God specifically made the physical bodies of Adam and Eve ex nihilo and to insist on that only sets our natural reasoning against our faith, which is to the detriment of both.
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Modern man is being led, by his “natural reasoning” to places no man has dared to go before (apologies to Star Trek). For example, the serious belief (contrary even to science!) that a man can become, by surgical and chemical interventions, a woman. Beyond even this “transgender” ideology, natural reasoning is leading men to serious explorations toward what is called trans-humanism:
Transhumanism feeds into the mad plan to accelerate evolution by pushing back the limits of the human being and by creating new forms of life. It encourages genetic research that, in the near future, is supposed to make possible the birth of a hybrid man-machine. Scientists who promote transhumanism attempt to achieve what is, with no doubt whatsoever, the oldest dream of humanity, maliciously instilled in Adam and Eve by Satan. In the Bible, the serpent in fact reassures the woman in these terms: “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:4-5).

The project to augment the human being is therefore not a new one. Because it confronts him with the unknown, because it destroys his very being, the Grim Reaper has always frightened man. Transhumanism intends to remedy death by postponing the age of the great journey toward eternity and by abolishing it. Now the heralds of transhumanism are proclaiming the death of death. Man will no longer die of death. He will be eternal.

Sarah, Robert Cardinal. The Day Is Now Far Spent . Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.
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And your explanation for the fact that we share DNA (which is passed on by descent) with every other living thing is…?
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Man is linked spiritually by design to all creation, given to be steward of it, in intimate communion with it. We eat from it, drink from it, breathe from it. Of course we are designed to be compatible with it.
 
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fide said:
Modern man is being led, by his “natural reasoning” to places no man has dared to go before
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That doesn’t mean that evidence for evolution is false. In other words, to describe a natural process (more by experience than by natural reason) is different than to apply such process.

The Theories of evolution just describe something that seems to be true. There is only epistemology involved.

Eugenics, thanshumanism, etc. use that description. As they use, now is moral and ethics involved.

It’s like saying that knowing about nuclear fission and making an atomic bomb carries the same moral value.
 
“Evidence” - observations, measurements, mathematics - are not false if accurate. Conclusions from the data can be true or false, or partially true and partially false, and/or incomplete.
 
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