No, there’s not a conflict. There’s a presumption that scientific statements and theological statements are working in the same domain. They aren’t.
That’s inaccurate, too. Science gives witness to the glory of God’s creation. (It just does so by speaking of natural – and not supernatural – realities.)
Trust science to speak about nature, and theology to speak about the supernatural. Then all will be well.
That’s it. You nailed it. Trying to shoehorn science into Church theology. Paleontology tells us something but it can’t tell us everything. And nothing about God. Neither does the Biology textbook. All the average person can reasonably conclude is that we became men “somehow” as if by accident. God works infallibly, but again, science cannot know that or determine that, so what is its recourse? Fortuitous accidents. I am not against science per se, but mixing it with faith statements? Science only points to physics and chemistry as sufficient causes and that is the whole story? A critical part is missing.Hey, man… you’re the one who wanted to affirm that one might take a scientific statement and shoehorn it into Church statements on theology…
Absolutely!
We seem to be in agreement: no conflict with science and faith. But, that means that we can’t take scientific statements and presume – a priori – that they are speaking the same truths that theology speaks…
I’m afraid not. I can’t tell you how many threads I’ve read here that all start the same way and end the same. One can quote Stephen Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria”:No, there’s not a conflict. There’s a presumption that scientific statements and theological statements are working in the same domain. They aren’t.
That’s inaccurate, too. Science gives witness to the glory of God’s creation. (It just does so by speaking of natural – and not supernatural – realities.)
Trust science to speak about nature, and theology to speak about the supernatural. Then all will be well.
I don’t understand. What scientific statement did I shoehorn into a Church statement? Could you please expand on that.Hey, man… you’re the one who wanted to affirm that one might take a scientific statement and shoehorn it into Church statements on theology…
You are reading too much atheist propaganda.
And I never claimed it had biblical or scientific evidence. It was merely a thought experiment that tries to reconcile a seeming disparity between what faith teaches us and what science does. There has to be an answer, even if we can’t definitively know what it is.
I would like to point out as well, that my solution does allow for Adam and Eve to have mated with all the other Homo sapiens at the time as well as with each other, thus allowing all humans to be descended from the two.
Certainly.
Here, KidCatholic was asking whether we can believe that “we … inherited original sin” from mitochondrial Eve and y-chromosome Adam – that is, “not our first parents”, but “our first common parents” – in such a way that the scientific notions of these two can be viewed as the ‘Adam & Eve’ of our Catholic belief.KidCatholic1:
Yes, it is acceptable.
What the Catholic Church directly opposes is the theory of an originating human population of thousands as diagramed (cladistics) in the current Science of Human Evolution. Catholics need to realize that what was referred to polygenism in Humani Generis, paragraphs 35, 36, 37 is now considered a population.
When Adam and Eve mated, there were no other humans. Some of us like to say that Eve did not have to worry about Adam falling in love with a younger woman.
May I respectfully point out that the Catholic Church is very concerned about the interpretations of what paleoanthropologists assume happened millions of years going backwards. What is assumed is that archaic originating populations (fossils) are responsible for creating humankind. The “continuous line” if you will, is now a series of population points on a cladogram. There is no point which has a population of two.
What the Catholic Church directly opposes is the theory of an originating human population of thousands as diagramed (cladistics) in the current Science of Human Evolution. Catholics need to realize that what was referred to as polygenism in Humani Generis, paragraphs 35, 36, 37 is now considered a population.
As I stated before, you run into all sorts of problems if you start applying the “scientific method” and logic to religion and faith.
I would NOT recommend that you get your information from Dr Dennis Bonnette.
So would the idea that there were something like twenty-six humans (which seems to be the absolute minimum number for the amount of genetic diversity humans have) NOT be in contradiction with Catholic teaching? I was under the impression that it was indeed.
I fail to see how my term opposes Catholic teaching all it is is an observation that we inherit original sin from Adam and Eve. I don’t mean that in procreating, humans create the soul as well as the body. I could use a better term for it; I chose that one to parallel the concept of genetic polygenism (though I suppose that’s a bit redundant).
Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to read it without buying it, so I can’t really respond to that. If you’ve read it, could you give me a summary of his arguments? I’d love to see them.
That Crisis article links to a paper by a man named Kenneth Kemp, which is what I based my entire argument on. If you haven’t read it, I highly advise it.
It should be obvious, that the Science of Human Evolution is not taught in a philosophy class. On the other hand, the “philosophy” of science has been an intellectual topic for many years or centuries when one goes back to the era of Sir Francis Bacon and like-minded individuals who observed that the deductive method of reasoning did not fit scientific investigations. Nonetheless, in our day, we need to note that there are many philosophical approaches and not all are the same as Thomism.
On the other hand, if a reader is interested in the credibility of the Catholic doctrine on human origin, one should freely consider checking out what Dr. Bonnette has to offer.
:doh2:
Actually, they don’t. In fact, you might be surprised that I agree with you – an overly literalistic reading of Genesis 1 seems (to me) to be inappropriate. Here’s the thing, though – the scientific definition of a “most recent common ancestor” doesn’t square with a reading of Genesis 1 & 2 as metaphor… unless you want to define ‘metaphor’ as something akin to ‘story that means anything whatsoever’.
I disagree. Barron’s take on Scripture is in line with the Church’s – but it doesn’t square with the assertion you’re making (and which I’ve never seen elsewhere): that ‘mitochondrial Eve’ is the Eve of the Bible and ‘y-chromosome Adam’ is the Adam of the Bible. So, help me out – can you point to a theologian who makes this specific case?
I would have thought that 1500 years after Augustine’s teaching, we would have got over the presumption that Genesis might be read as a scientific text. Apparently not – you seem to presume that I’m making this claim… when, in fact, I’m not.
I am completely comfortable with this idea. However, that’s not the idea that KidCatholic’s asking us to consider. Are you under the misconception that this is what he’s asking?
Me either. That, however, doesn’t give us the opportunity to presume that Adam and Eve are simply a particular era’s “most common recent ancestor.” If this is what you’re asserting, then – with all due respect – you misunderstand what ‘Adam and Eve’ represent (even metaphorically).
