Early Man and Adam and Eve

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Gorgias said:
Does the Church require us to believe that is a literal, historical fact? (I’ll answer it for you: no, she doesn’t.)
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Yes, she does. Many Popes have made pronouncements and has been constant Catholic teaching since the beginning.

Back to you - Produce a magisterial document that says it is not true.
  • Genesis does not contain purified myths. (Pontifical Biblical Commission 1909[1])
  • Genesis contains real history—it gives an account of things that really happened. (Pius XII)
  • Adam and Eve were real human beings—the first parents of all mankind. (Pius XII)
  • Polygenism (many “first parents”) contradicts Scripture and Tradition and is condemned. (Pius XII; 1994 Catechism, 360, footnote 226: Tobit 8:6—the “one ancestor” referred to in this Catechism could only be Adam.)
  • The “beginning” of the world included the creation of all things, the creation of Adam and Eve and the Fall (Jesus Christ [ Mark 10:6]; Pope Innocent III; Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus ).
  • The body of Eve was specially created from a portion of Adam’s body (Leo XIII). She could not have originated via evolution.
  • Various senses are employed in the Bible, but the literal obvious sense must be believed unless reason dictates or necessity requires (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus ).
  • Adam and Eve were created upon an earthly paradise and would not have known death if they had remained obedient (Pius XII).
 
buffalo said:
Yes, she does. Many Popes have made pronouncements and has been constant Catholic teaching since the beginning.
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None of these really assert what you say they do. The closest you come is Leo’s reference to Adam and Eve in Arcanum divinae, but even there, it’s just a passing reference in service to his assertion that marriage between a man and woman was God’s plan from the beginning.

So… nice list, but it doesn’t prove your point.
 
Yes, the idea that he was a literal mound of dirt is so much more dignified.
 
Gorgias said:
So… nice list, but it doesn’t prove your point.
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I have several more… need them? I have posted them in the past. Will it really make a difference to your thinking?

You are still denying this was constant Catholic teaching since the beginning?
 
buffalo said:
  • Polygenism (many “first parents”) contradicts Scripture and Tradition and is condemned. (Pius XII; 1994 Catechism, 360, footnote 226:
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This is a condensing and rephrasing that loses the nuances of HG.
 
Scripture tells us God formed Adam. He fashioned Eve from flesh taken from Adam’s side. The fruit that Adam and Eve ate is not identified, only “that it was good for food.” Anyway, eating the fruit, the one Commandment they had to follow, created Original Sin and meant that Jesus Christ had to be born.

Science is telling us, here, that souls are part of the equation. Even if they don’t exist according to science.
 
Not true. From Arcanum, Pope Leo XIII:

“Though revilers of the Christian faith refuse to acknowledge the never-interrupted doctrine of the Church on this subject, and have long striven to destroy the testimony of all nations and of all times, they have nevertheless failed not only to quench the powerful light of truth, but even to lessen it. We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep.”
 
edwest211 said:
Not true. From Arcanum, Pope Leo XIII
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Ask yourself: what’s the point that Leo is making here?

(I’ll give you a hint: it’s the part that you elected not to quote – it’s the very next sentence! “God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race.” The point is human marriage. But hey… nice attempt at getting away with selective quoting, there! 🤣 )
 
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Nice dodge. It’s the usual dodge: don’t notice this, notice that. The fact is that Pope Leo is stating that Eve was formed from Adam’s side by God. It actually happened.
 
edwest211 said:
Nice dodge. It’s the usual dodge: don’t notice this, notice that. The fact is that Pope Leo is stating that Eve was formed from Adam’s side by God. It actually happened.
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It’s the same “dodge” that the Church admits in its approach to papal documents: not every word is meant as doctrine. So, we search for the meaning that’s being asserted, and recognize that the way that it’s expressed isn’t the point of the document, nor that it’s all doctrine. After all, we would all agree – whether we hold to literal six-day creation or not – that it’s doctrinally true that God intended marriage between a man and a woman from the very beginning. (After all, Jesus affirmed it explicitly in his own words.)

But hey – if you want to take one sentence out of context, and attempt to hold that it’s an effort to state a doctrine – well, have fun with that. 😉
 
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Two things are being said: God literally did something. And yes, this is how God wanted marriage to be like: the two are now one flesh. Somehow, God is not part of the picture in this sort of discussion. And contradictory statements are made about souls, i.e. science: “Soul? What’s that? We can’t see one or study one, although we’ve tried.”
 
There is a much wider genetic gulf between human and neanderthals than between any two modern human populations including “pygmies”. Interfertility seems to have been a fact, but rather limited considering the small fraction of our genome is neanderthal.
 
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