Having a problem with Adam and Eve

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The current emphasis on the science explanation of humankind over and above the first line in the Creed professed at Sunday Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the understandable root problem for this thread.

The Catholic Church teaches the simple fact that the first real operating human was created in one step, not a series of steps proposed by the preferred science explanation. In other words, God did not have to give humans the ability to walk upright and a large cranium many years before He could give them an immortal soul. The first line in the Sunday Creed is scary to some. Maybe that is one of the many reasons that there are empty pews.

Granted that Genesis 2: 7 can be interpreted as God using pre-existent matter; nonetheless, it was a one step process of the spiritual soul being the form for the true human body. (Genesis 1: 26-27; Genesis 2: 7; CCC 343; CCC 364-366; CCC 355- 357; CCC 1730-32 ; use links at bottom of this post)

In simple English, Adam’s human nature was fully-complete at his first appearance. A fully-complete nature means that in Adam, the decomposing body of the material world and the immortal soul of God’s world is one unique nature different in kind from all living organisms. (CCC 355-357; CCC 365) Catholicism teaches that when Adam freely chose to reject God’s original friendship relationship, his human nature was not totally corrupted. (CCC 405)

Therefore, only descendants of Adam and Eve can claim that they have a true human nature.

Links to the universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition
usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
 
GEddie said:
As long as it is remembered, it can be regained.

ICXC NIKA
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Out of curiosity. How would you describe “the magnificence of the original relationship between God and Adam?” That relationship happens to be one of this thread’s problems with Adam and Eve being the real sole true genuine founders of the human species.

I learned the original relationship between the Creator and Adam His human creature in Catholic grade school around the time we were learning about the seriousness of mortal sins and the need for the Sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation. As I recall, all this came together when we learned about the necessary Divinity of Jesus Christ because of Adam’s real sin.(Interesting sidebar is that the need for the Sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation is occasionally, not always, denied on the internet.)

As additional Catholic doctrines are learned and there is the emphasis on the science explanation of humankind over and above the first line in the Creed professed at Sunday Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – there can be different valid ways describing the original relationship between God and Adam.

My personal observation is that all this junk about Original Sin can be attributed to a lack of complete Catholic knowledge regarding the first human and his spouse as the primary and only ancestors of all humans.
 
Lion_IRC said:
All you’ve said here is that inbreeding brings about ‘flaws’.

Well, LOL, we already knew that. You and I are both the product of inbreeding insofar as being related to common ancestors who were cousins, or cousins of cousins - or even brothers and sisters. And yes the traits we think ‘normal’ about ourselves might be regarded as ‘flaws’ by our respective ancestors and/or descendants.

Having vestigial organs could be regarded as flaws. Having partly reptilian brains could be regarded as a flaw. But here we both are - flaws and all.

Sorry, you’re gonna have to come up with a better refutation of Adam and Eve than special pleading about what 8 ancient humans can and can’t do.
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Not all vestigial organs are a “flaw”. The so-called reptilian brain does a lot of the work in keeping us alive.

Why drop something that works when it can be built on, instead?

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
Not all vestigial organs are a “flaw”. The so-called reptilian brain does a lot of the work in keeping us alive.

Why drop something that works when it can be built on, instead?

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
Indeed. 👍

NM505StKate was arguing that inbreeding leads to so-called ‘flaws’ therefore it’s impossible we descended from 8 humans on Noah’s Ark.

But with or without Noah’s family, all procreation since the beginning of humankind has necessarily involved inbreeding - brothers, sisters, cousins, distant cousins…etc.
 
My view is that we shouldn’t take the story of Adam and Eve too literally… It’s rather an allegory of the nature of man. Abdul-Baha explained the story this way:

*Adam signifies the heavenly spirit of Adam, and Eve His human soul. For in some passages in the Holy Books where women are mentioned, they represent the soul of man. The tree of good and evil signifies the human world; for the spiritual and divine world is purely good and absolutely luminous, but in the human world light and darkness, good and evil, exist as opposite conditions.

The meaning of the serpent is attachment to the human world. This attachment of the spirit to the human world led the soul and spirit of Adam from the world of freedom to the world of bondage and caused Him to turn from the Kingdom of Unity to the human world.
*
(Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 122)
 
arthra said:
My view is that we shouldn’t take the story of Adam and Eve too literally… It’s rather an allegory of the nature of man. Abdul-Baha explained the story this way:

Adam signifies the heavenly spirit of Adam, and Eve His human soul. For in some passages in the Holy Books where women are mentioned, they represent the soul of man. The tree of good and evil signifies the human world; for the spiritual and divine world is purely good and absolutely luminous, but in the human world light and darkness, good and evil, exist as opposite conditions.

The meaning of the serpent is attachment to the human world. This attachment of the spirit to the human world led the soul and spirit of Adam from the world of freedom to the world of bondage and caused Him to turn from the Kingdom of Unity to the human world.
Code: 
(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 122)
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As a child, I lived in Wilmette when the Bahá’í House of Worship was under construction. My Dad took me to an information event which seemed to be in a completed basement or lower level. We are Catholic. But that did not seem to matter. I remember being kindly treated. That person was so patient with my Dad who was asking questions. I wish I could remember what I learned. :o

I know we have different views. Nonetheless, your sentence “The meaning of the serpent is attachment to the human world.” is a truth we all should ponder.
 
different views. Nonetheless, your sentence “The meaning of the serpent is attachment to the human world.” is a truth we all should ponder.
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But we should be attached to the human world, as we cannot live life apart from it.

ICXC NIKA
 
Lion_IRC said:
Indeed. 👍

NM505StKate was arguing that inbreeding leads to so-called ‘flaws’ therefore it’s impossible we descended from 8 humans on Noah’s Ark.

But with or without Noah’s family, all procreation since the beginning of humankind has necessarily involved inbreeding - brothers, sisters, cousins, distant cousins…etc.
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I can agree there has been inbreeding in human history but not two (Adam and Eve) nor eight (Noah’s family) can produce enough genetic differences to account for the many people we have today.
 
NM505StKate said:
I can agree there has been inbreeding in human history but not two (Adam and Eve) nor eight (Noah’s family) can produce enough genetic differences to account for the many people we have today.
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Actually, the “genetic differences” refers to a few ancient DRB1 gene lineages. (Francisco J. Ayala, 1995) These genes are part of the human immune system. Estimates of the total number of human genes can range upwards to 30,000. Those additional genes deal with the human digestive system, muscle mobility of arms and legs, red hair, procreation, and everything else found in the human anatomy. Considering human migration and environmental changes since the dawn of human history, new and diverse pathogens would require gene/allele adaptions in the human immune system. The variety of pathogens, in addition to some occurring mutations, account for an individual immune system’s “genetic difference” which increase as the mobile populations of the world increased.
 
GEddie said:
But we should be attached to the human world, as we cannot live life apart from it.

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
How do we get to heaven if we are attached to the world?
John 15:
18 “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you belonged to the world,[f] the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants[g] are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
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I did some contemplating and digging during Eastertide, so if anyone’s interested I may share what I arrived at:

Firstly, after browsing the thread since the moment of my previous post, I have to (perhaps again) make some points clear.

The issue of Adam and Eve “versus” genetics/evolution has nothing whatsover (well, almost) to do with the Bible. As the great pontiff Pius XII wrote in Humani Generis, the reason why polygenism cannot be accepted is because it is in no way apparent how it could be reconciled with the dogma of original sin. Had it not been already firmly established by the Church that we have original sin which comes from a concrete transgression of Adam, I would have little problem with accepting polygenesis. Although I have to say that my views may be seen as peculiar by some: for example, even as I accept old eras of Earth history, evolution, etc., I really don’t see an issue with accepting a literal view of Eden, ‘talking snake’, Babel, or (local) Flood. These are all singular events, which cannot in any way be disproven by science, so I tend to believe in all of them (and it’s more romantic to view it this way, also).
Back to the point: it makes little sense to say that ‘we should look at the Genesis account more as a metaphor than as a chronicle’ and the like. Again, this has nothing to do with the thing.

Next, it has been suggested (if not here, then somewhere else, I’m doing extensive [although amateur] research currently, so I might mistake what was posted where) that God could have either a) provided surplus genetic diversity after Fall and/or b) suspended the detrimental effects of incest for the time being. Now none of these explanations work. Or at least they work no better than ‘God could have created the Earth 6,000 give or take years ago, which looked extremely old’, etc. In other words, I refuse to believe in the necessity of miracles which are not explicitly stated to have taken place by the Church. Of ad hoc made up solutions. Apart from that, both ‘solutions’ make little sense from the point of view of their purported goal. Firstly, why add additional genetic diversity? What would be the reason for so doing? It’s ahistorical thinking: were there less genetic variety nowadays, we would have no reason to think that ‘there should be more’. And, when it comes to incest, it also doesn’t work: if God had to ‘suspend’ the side effects of incest for the human race to propagate, why did He put it in our genetics in the first place? “To discourage sinful behaviours”. Well, then, fornication and adultery should also somehow magically cause biological side effects.

But I might be debating a straw man, so to the point (again).

After reading a few more articles, I found out that the genetic estimates I wrote about in the first post can be somewhat mistaken. Apparently the newest study suggest that the ‘number of alleles of ancient genetic markers’ that had to ‘pass through a single mating couple’ (I’m quoting the article The Rational Credibility of a Literal Adam and Eve) might not have been that high, and that only very limited interbreeding would thus be necessary to be accounted for.

Therefore, my current understanding is this:
Most probably at the point of homo erectus God gave two hominids rational souls. (Or even gave it to Adam only, perhaps at his conception, and from his side created Eve - again, this cannot be in any way falsified by science, so I tend to believe in literal meaning of Genesis here.) Why homo erectus? Firstly, because there are good reasons to believe these were the first to have some language, use fire and so forth. And secondly, because they are precedessors to both Neanderthals and us (and Neanderthals seem to have been too intelligent to be mere soulless creatures). The evolutional boundaries are very fuzzy, so I may for the sake of argument say that Adam and Eve were the first actual homo erectus among others, ‘those that were almost homo erectus save some minor genetic differences and a rational soul’. Adam and Eve had sons. Now Cain’s story kind of squares with the interbreeding solution. Since he was afraid of other people, they might as well have been those ‘almost human’ humanoids. Then the story goes exactly as it is described in many places (and most importantly by Kenneth Kemp).

Why am I insisting that we should consider homo erectus as real humans? Firstly, because of the above reasons (language, fire). But also because it would (so it seems) invalidate my doubts from the opening post of the thread. In it I said that since in Kemp’s proposal there would have been ‘soulless’ anatomical homo sapiens, we couldn’t 100% reject the possibility that perhaps one single independent line of these creatures could still live nowadays - which could lead to nasty implications as far as mental illnesses etc. are concerned. By placing the milestone earlier, we no longer risk that. For one thing, we are the only species of humans alive today. More than that, we were the only species of humans alive at the time of Jesus. More than that - at the time of first revealed religion (given to Abraham). Even if for any reason we assume only homo sapiens sapiens are real humans (in the sense adopted by Pius XII in Humani Generis), still the last representatives of any other branch of homo were long extinct by the time of Abraham.

So in no way could any such ‘unensouled lineage’ still exist today - for the simple reason that ensoulment occured before evolving into homo sapiens.

That would be it, I think. I don’t know if I’m making too much sense, but for now I feel less doubting about my faith. Such an explanation - granted - does not, still, explain everything.
 
had_matter said:
I did some contemplating and digging during Eastertide, so if anyone’s interested I may share what I arrived at:

Firstly, after browsing the thread since the moment of my previous post, I have to (perhaps again) make some points clear.

The issue of Adam and Eve “versus” genetics/evolution has nothing whatsover (well, almost) to do with the Bible. As the great pontiff Pius XII wrote in Humani Generis, the reason why polygenism cannot be accepted is because it is in no way apparent how it could be reconciled with the dogma of original sin. Had it not been already firmly established by the Church that we have original sin which comes from a concrete transgression of Adam, I would have little problem with accepting polygenesis. Although I have to say that my views may be seen as peculiar by some: for example, even as I accept old eras of Earth history, evolution, etc., I really don’t see an issue with accepting a literal view of Eden, ‘talking snake’, Babel, or (local) Flood. These are all singular events, which cannot in any way be disproven by science, so I tend to believe in all of them (and it’s more romantic to view it this way, also).
Back to the point: it makes little sense to say that ‘we should look at the Genesis account more as a metaphor than as a chronicle’ and the like. Again, this has nothing to do with the thing.

Next, it has been suggested (if not here, then somewhere else, I’m doing extensive [although amateur] research currently, so I might mistake what was posted where) that God could have either a) provided surplus genetic diversity after Fall and/or b) suspended the detrimental effects of incest for the time being. Now none of these explanations work. Or at least they work no better than ‘God could have created the Earth 6,000 give or take years ago, which looked extremely old’, etc. In other words, I refuse to believe in the necessity of miracles which are not explicitly stated to have taken place by the Church. Of ad hoc made up solutions. Apart from that, both ‘solutions’ make little sense from the point of view of their purported goal. Firstly, why add additional genetic diversity? What would be the reason for so doing? It’s ahistorical thinking: were there less genetic variety nowadays, we would have no reason to think that ‘there should be more’. And, when it comes to incest, it also doesn’t work: if God had to ‘suspend’ the side effects of incest for the human race to propagate, why did He put it in our genetics in the first place? “To discourage sinful behaviours”. Well, then, fornication and adultery should also somehow magically cause biological side effects.

But I might be debating a straw man, so to the point (again).

After reading a few more articles, I found out that the genetic estimates I wrote about in the first post can be somewhat mistaken. Apparently the newest study suggest that the ‘number of alleles of ancient genetic markers’ that had to ‘pass through a single mating couple’ (I’m quoting the article The Rational Credibility of a Literal Adam and Eve) might not have been that high, and that only very limited interbreeding would thus be necessary to be accounted for.

Therefore, my current understanding is this:
Most probably at the point of homo erectus God gave two hominids rational souls. (Or even gave it to Adam only, perhaps at his conception, and from his side created Eve - again, this cannot be in any way falsified by science, so I tend to believe in literal meaning of Genesis here.) Why homo erectus? Firstly, because there are good reasons to believe these were the first to have some language, use fire and so forth. And secondly, because they are precedessors to both Neanderthals and us (and Neanderthals seem to have been too intelligent to be mere soulless creatures). The evolutional boundaries are very fuzzy, so I may for the sake of argument say that Adam and Eve were the first actual homo erectus among others, ‘those that were almost homo erectus save some minor genetic differences and a rational soul’. Adam and Eve had sons. Now Cain’s story kind of squares with the interbreeding solution. Since he was afraid of other people, they might as well have been those ‘almost human’ humanoids. Then the story goes exactly as it is described in many places (and most importantly by Kenneth Kemp).

Why am I insisting that we should consider homo erectus as real humans? Firstly, because of the above reasons (language, fire). But also because it would (so it seems) invalidate my doubts from the opening post of the thread. In it I said that since in Kemp’s proposal there would have been ‘soulless’ anatomical homo sapiens, we couldn’t 100% reject the possibility that perhaps one single independent line of these creatures could still live nowadays - which could lead to nasty implications as far as mental illnesses etc. are concerned. By placing the milestone earlier, we no longer risk that. For one thing, we are the only species of humans alive today. More than that, we were the only species of humans alive at the time of Jesus. More than that - at the time of first revealed religion (given to Abraham). Even if for any reason we assume only homo sapiens sapiens are real humans (in the sense adopted by Pius XII in Humani Generis), still the last representatives of any other branch of homo were long extinct by the time of Abraham.

So in no way could any such ‘unensouled lineage’ still exist today - for the simple reason that ensoulment occured before evolving into homo sapiens.

That would be it, I think. I don’t know if I’m making too much sense, but for now I feel less doubting about my faith. Such an explanation - granted - does not, still, explain everything.
Click to expand...
WOW. Okay so because you refuse to believe fact. Okay I am done here. Sad.
 
had_matter said:
That would be it, I think. I don’t know if I’m making too much sense, but for now I feel less doubting about my faith. Such an explanation - granted - does not, still, explain everything.
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You have done quite a bit of homework. Good job!

The only thing I can add is that post 64 points directly to the reality of Adam. Once one accepts the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, then one can work backwards to a real human Adam and a real original relationship between humanity and divinity.
 
40.png
NM505StKate:
WOW. Okay so because you refuse to believe fact. Okay I am done here. Sad.
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I beg your pardon?
 
had_matter said:
… Then the story goes exactly as it is described in many places (and most importantly by Kenneth Kemp).
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I’m glad you mentioned Kemp’s work (the article cited by Dr. Bonnette). Here is Kemp’s summary of his proposal:

“That account can begin with a population of about 5,000 hominids, beings which are in many respects like human beings, but which lack the capacity for intellectual thought. Out of this population, God selects two and endows them with intellects by creating for them rational souls, giving them at the same time those preternatural gifts the possession of which constitutes original justice. Only beings with rational souls (with or without the preternatural gifts) are truly human. The first two theologically human beings misuse their free will, however, by choosing to commit a (the original) sin, thereby losing the preternatural gifts, though not the offer of divine friendship by virtue of which they remain theologically (not just philosophically) distinct from their merely biologically human ancestors and cousins. These first true human beings also have descendants, which continue, to some extent, to interbreed with the non-intellectual hominids among whom they live. If God endows each individual that has even a single human ancestor with an intellect of its own, a reasonable rate of reproductive success and a reasonable selective advantage would easily replace a non-intellectual hominid population of 5,000 individuals with a philosophically (and, if the two concepts are extensionally equivalent, theologically) human population within three centuries. Throughout this process, all theologically human beings would be descended from a single original human couple (in the sense of having that human couple among their ancestors) without there ever having been a population bottleneck in the human species.”
 
I re-read all your posts from this thread and have no idea what you mean, ma’am.
You yourself wrote that incest would have detrimental effects and I agree with this absolutely. And if I were to believe in what I want to believe then I would probably be a Young Earth creationist. But I’m not.

Good day to you too.
 
had_matter said:
I re-read all your posts from this thread and have no idea what you mean, ma’am.
You yourself wrote that incest would have detrimental effects and I agree with this absolutely. And if I were to believe in what I want to believe then I would probably be a Young Earth creationist. But I’m not.

Good day to you too.
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But you hold that there was an Adam and Eve despite evidence that doesn’t show that. The majority of evidence shows humans originated from Africa, and yes I know that the Middle East is part of Africa.
 
Having a problem with Adam and Eve? God did too!

The Recent Out of Africa model helps lock down monogenism. From there, it’s simply a matter of understanding that God must necessarily create human souls directly. He does this with every human. Someone had to be first. He put somehow him with another by Providence (although Humani Generis seems more insistent on Adam’s historicity than Eve’s). Then eventually the non-rational human-like creatures somehow died off, perhaps including some interbreeding. If I recall, Genesis subtly implies some of this. The other details are speculative and largely irrelevant.

This is not as difficult a teaching as it may sometimes seem. And when something does seem too hard, turn the attention to the source of the teaching, consider its authority, and be at peace. Those folks in John 6 failed that test.
 
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