Genesis v Evolution

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What is born of the flesh is flesh. What is born of the spirit is spirit.

No purely mechanistic understanding of man is the whole answer. The Bible clearly identifies the first man; he is Adam.

Evolutionary theory based on purely natural causes takes away the essential identity of man. It devalues him.

God bless,
Ed
 
wildleafblower said:
Petrus, as a Roman Catholic Theologian, you should be aware that only pseudo-scientists will agree with your statement. There aren’t any Theologians on the Vatican Advisory Committe or scientists on the Vatican Scientific Advisory Committee or Alec MacAndrew (hecd2) that will support your comment,
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Wildleafblower, I don’t understand your confusing post – can you please clarify it for me? My point is that if we claim that all humans and only humans are allowed to have rational souls, and we know scientifically that all-and-only humans beings have human DNA, the possibility of having a rational soul is intrinsically a genetic matter. What scientist would disagree with the claim that all humans and only humans have human DNA?

Petrus
 
edwest2 said:
Evolutionary theory based on purely natural causes takes away the essential identity of man. It devalues him. God bless,Ed
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No, Ed – the contrary is true: evolution ennobles all creation!

Petrus
 
drpmjhess said:
Wildleafblower, I don’t understand your confusing post – can you please clarify it for me? My point is that if we claim that all humans and only humans are allowed to have rational souls, and we know scientifically that all-and-only humans beings have human DNA, the possibility of having a rational soul is intrinsically a genetic matter. What scientist would disagree with the claim that all humans and only humans have human DNA?

Petrus
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Let’s just say I had ten scientists read my last post to you and they understood it!
 
wildleafblower said:
Let’s just say I had ten scientists read my last post to you and they understood it!
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That’s great, Wildleafblower. If you won’t explain your post, can you please refer me to one of your “ten scientists” who will explain it? Unless, of course, these “ten scientists” are imaginary… I am curious, though, what you have against genetics – it’s not a satanic science.

Prayerfully yours,
Petrus
 
Tell me something: why is it that many people here who are Catholic and speak quite eloquently on this isue can’t answer a simple question such as:

Did Adam and Eve come after the first homo spaiens

OR

Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens

OR

Adam and Eve came before the first homo sapiens?

Isn’t that the Real issue?

Either Adam and Eve came from Souless hominids or they didn’t.

If they did then it would be no problem for Adam and Eve to come before the first homo sapiens.

If they didn’t and came later after the first homo sapiens then you have the problem of Adam and Eve being specially created with a bunch of souless homo sapiens running around! Did God ever give those souless homo sapiens a soul?

but if Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens then EITHER

they were born of another species of souless hominids as a Mutation and since they were a new species are in fact the parents of us all

OR

God specially created them and they didn’t come from any other hominids and are the parents of us all.

Either way it seems to me that Adam and Eve being the first homo sapiens makes the most sense.

Of course you could believe in evolution with no special creation as a Catholic and figure God just popped in a soul of any random hominid at one point or another

Or you could believe in a literal Garden of Eden that existed about 6,000 years ago.

Either view in my opinion is silly!

so one last time let me ask all the amateur speculative thelogians out there:

Were Adam and Eve the first homo sapiens or not?

And why do I ask that question? To get at the heart of the matter–to cut to the chase!

The Monogenism isn’t Catholic dogma fudgers don’t really believe Genesis or the Catholic Church.

The young earth creationists are sticking their heads in the sand because they can’t bear the real world.

I’ve proposed that Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens–specially created from God–are the parents of us all–are actual historical figures–and that Some of Genesis is literally true but not all of Genesis is literally true and that monogenism Is taught as dogma by the Catholic Church!

If someone has a better idea I’d like to hear it instead of mindless creationists and faithless evolutionists talking past one another without going directly to the point

the creation of the first human soul!

Put an approximate date on it!
 
Jerry << Did Adam and Eve come after the first homo sapiens OR Adam and Eve were the first homo sapiens OR Adam and Eve came before the first homo sapiens? Isn’t that the Real issue? >>

It is important only as to p(name removed by moderator)ointing “when” – Glenn Morton argues Adam/Eve must have lived several million years ago (homo sapiens are only 150,000 to 200,000 years old), others argue that earlier hominids (such as Neanderthals) could have been human because “human-ness” requires –
  1. Man has self-awareness.
  2. Man has language.
  3. Man has religion.
These could have existed pre-homo sapiens depending on your interpretation of the various archeological, paleontological, cultural evidence. That evolution works in populations is the other problem with monogenism. The population of homo sapiens (or any pre-hominid) was never just two people.

1000 Replies here we come! 👍

Phil P
 
PhilVaz said:
That evolution works in populations is the other problem with monogenism. The population of homo sapiens (or any pre-hominid) was never just two people.Phil P
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Phil, this is an important point you make – that the first Homo sapiens must have been a population of sufficient genetic diversity to ensure survival beyond a genetic bottleneck. But this population also required extension through time, as the transition from pre-human to human did not happen in one generation, but probably over centuries or even thousands of years. So we are talking of a population of “Adams and Eves,” not “Adam and Eve.”

Petrus
 
Jerry-Jet said:
Either way it seems to me that Adam and Eve being the first homo sapiens makes the most sense.
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It makes sense to me and I’m open to it.

My appoximate date would be anywhere from 40,000 to 70,000 years ago, based on both Scriptures and science. This is totally speculative on my part, but that’s my best guess.

I’m also wondering too if Adam and Eve’s children didn’t go out from their own “original two” and marry with humans who already existed but who did not have immortal souls.

In this case, if true, it would mean that their marriage with these ‘other humans’ would breath an immortal soul into their offspring and then spread out further from there.

In this sense, the genetic diversity is already present on a biological level. Plus, if true, it would simultaneously allow for the transmission of original sin in addition to the creation of an immortal soul from the primal parents of modern humanity-- Adam and Eve.

Perhaps Adam’s progency transfiguring the essence of an immortal soul through conception from one generation to another generation is a parallel to Christ’s resurrection which allows us to be born again in the New Creation in Christ.

It would certainly add an extra dimension to these words…
2 Corinthians 5:17:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
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Perhaps, long ago, if anyone was in Adam, he was a new creation; the old had gone, the new had come.
 
drpmjhess said:
So it is, after all, genetics that distinguishes soul-bearing from non-soul-bearing biological organisms.
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No. Genetics distinguishes between those that have immortal souls and those that have mortal souls. All creatures have souls, only humans have immortal souls.
And, in the long history of human evolution, it is not possible to determine in any given generation which beings in a population genetically qualify as more human and which as less human. It is not possible to determine definitively which are soul-bearers and which are not.
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No kidding. Gee, I wonder what I have been saying on these forums for the last 3 years or so.

None are more human or less human. Human is human.

So, Petrus, is it possible for non-human animals to have an immortal soul? And if possible, could you please give me a Church resource to back your answer?

Peace

Tim
 
Mr.Ex_Nihilo said:
I’m also wondering too if Adam and Eve’s children didn’t go out from their own “original two” and marry with humans who already existed but who did not have immortal souls.
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Mr. Ex Nihilo, this would put you in direct conflict with Orogeny, who claims that all humans have immortal souls.

Petrus
 
edwest2 said:
How does evolution enoble man?God bless, Ed
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Evolution ennobles humanity because in the Incarnation God takes in in the person of Jesus Christ the very matter of the created and evolving order. All of creation is ennobled! In the words of the Cappadocian Fathers, “what is not assumed is not redeemed.”

Petrus
 
drpmjhess said:
Evolution ennobles humanity because in the Incarnation God takes in in the person of Jesus Christ the very matter of the created and evolving order. All of creation is ennobled! In the words of the Cappadocian Fathers, “what is not assumed is not redeemed.”

Petrus
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Which has precisely what to do with evolution ennobling humanity?

If anything, its the other way around.

Chuck
 
drpmjhess said:
Evolution ennobles humanity because in the Incarnation God takes in in the person of Jesus Christ the very matter of the created and evolving order. All of creation is ennobled! In the words of the Cappadocian Fathers, “what is not assumed is not redeemed.”

Petrus
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What? Gobbledigook.

God bless,
Ed
 
clmowry said:
If anything, its the other way around.
Chuck
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Chuck, thanks for noting that – I hadn’t proofread that note! Yes, it is evolution that ennobles creation (Fr. John Zahm said in 1896 in Evolution and Dogma that “evolution ennobles the ape”) because God took on all of creation in assuming humanity in the person of Jesus.

Petrus
 
An unguided evolutionary process has no intrinsic ennobling aspects.

God bless,
Ed
 
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