If dogmas are infallible, how is the Church's teaching on original sin reconciled with the symbolic nature of Adam and Eve when it was most likely not

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I really started liking you. However, after reading the answers to others posts in Catholic Answers from you and others who try to help sometimes even in a forceful way I honestly have to reconsider my thinking.

I’ve read a lot of indirect comments towards me or the ideas already expressed here. At least,I thought that the people who would try to help other Christians were to be the humblest, in theory.

You don’t ALWAYS have say something.

I also like to assist others. So I’m learning WHAT TO DO and NOT TO DO by watching the most active members here.
 
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Dr. William Lane Craig has written a book on this subject which is yet to be published, his reconciliation of original sin and evolution is admirable in the following video lectures which break down his position part by part:






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sMXspJSfdc

I largely subscribe to Dr. Craig’s position and as per my understanding his position is largely compatible with Catholic teaching and should seriously be considered.
 
In person, you would find no such offense. Sorry for any I have caused - but certainly none was intended. If you peruse the various threads here, there seem to be more misunderstandings than understandings. Typed words on a screen are one dimensional and I don’t think that mankind was intended to communicate like that.

We live in an age of nonsense. I try to cut through the nonsense with the clarity of Church teaching. That takes a knife on occasion.
 
porthos11 said:
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TheLittleLady:
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pedrorosario:
how is the Church’s teaching on original sin reconciled with the symbolic nature of Adam and Eve
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It is dogma that we have our original parents.
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It’s actually at the level of sententia certa . It’s fairly accepted as clearly deduced, but without final approval or definition. For religious studies and catechesis, it’s the best and safest approach to teaching, but it does not preclude development, including in the light of scientific findings.
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OK, so now let me ask — in that the existence of a literal Adam and Eve, from whom all men are descended, is at the level of sententia certa, as opposed to solemnly defined doctrina or even unchangeable, infallibly defined dogma — is there any possibility whatsoever that it could be wrong?

I have mused over the idea that while Adam and Eve were indeed our true first parents, their children, grandchildren, and descendants on down from there, perhaps mated with bipedal primates who were almost human, basically human, pretty much “all the way there”, visually you might not even be able tell the difference, but they didn’t have immortal souls. Their children, however, did have immortal souls, and we are all descended from them. In other words, Adamic descendants “intermarried” with non-Adamic “99.5% human” primates, and their children, of course, were descended from Adam and Eve as well. Has the Church ever excluded this possibility? I don’t think it’s excluded in Humani generis.
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No, it’s not excluded. It is a very reasonable possibility. There is evidence, for example, the Neanderthals and modern humans interbred, and yet there is strong support for the idea that Neanderthals were a distinct species of creature.

See what is really asked here is, were the historic Adam and Eve the first modern human (homo sapiens) couple given immortal human souls? This is something science will never be able to answer because souls are not observable. But this idea reconciles very nicely the ideas spiritual/soul monogenism for the purposes of original sin, with genetic/biological polygenism. And we can draw our own theories: why did H. sapiens experience a sudden explosion in art (including abstract art), ceremony, language and thought c. 60,000 years ago? Is it possible that at some point around 60,000 years ago, the first rational souls were created for a select H. sapiens couple? Despite the fact that H. neanderthalensis would still coexist (and interbreed) with them for another 20,000 years?

I really don’t think biological polygenism is going to throw a wrench into our teachings on salvation history.
 
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porthos11 said:
See what is really asked here is, were the historic Adam and Eve the first modern human (homo sapiens) couple given immortal human souls? This is something science will never be able to answer because souls are not observable. But this idea reconciles very nicely the ideas spiritual/soul monogenism for the purposes of original sin, with genetic/biological polygenism. And we can draw our own theories: why did H. sapiens experience a sudden explosion in art (including abstract art), ceremony, language and thought c. 60,000 years ago? Is it possible that at some point around 60,000 years ago, the first rational souls were created for a select H. sapiens couple? Despite the fact that H. neanderthalensis would still coexist (and interbreed) with them for another 20,000 years?
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I would not go so far as to propose this for belief, but I have my suspicions that this is exactly what happened. It does throw a monkey-wrench into the 6000-year chronology of Genesis, though. So I just don’t know (who does?) And it doesn’t answer the question “did Adam and Eve have navels?”. I’m not the first person to have that question.

I really want to think that Neanderthals have souls. They had apparent burial rituals as well as tools and primitive artwork. Animals don’t do that — though elephants mourn their dead and primates use found articles as primitive tools of sorts. Hard to say. Fascinating subject.
 
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This is somewhat a misunderstanding of the term mithocondrial Eve. The genetic evidence doesn’t say that she is was the ONLY female ancestor from her generation, she is just the maternal-only ancestor. For example, you grandmother on your mother’s side is your maternal-only ancestor (your descent from her can be tracked through only females), while your grandmother on your father’s side sure is a female ancestor but not a maternal-only, since you are descended from her through a male (your father). The real Eve could have lived long before the current mitochondrial Eve.
 
If a human with an immortal soul would mate with a bipedal primate without an immortal soul, that would not be inside a marriage, since only two humans can get married.
 
tuffsmurf said:
If a human with an immortal soul would mate with a bipedal primate without an immortal soul, that would not be inside a marriage, since only two humans can get married.
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I was using “intermarried” as a euphemism.

I’m not sure that, at the time, it would have been regarded as morally degenerate to bring forth children with a partner who was “not quite as smart as you are” — to this day, there are many people who don’t let that stop them! — and I have to question whether the first humans had a clearly articulated idea of who had immortal souls and who didn’t. The human race was new. That knowledge would have probably come over time.

I don’t imagine for an instant that they had shoes and rice, groomsmen and bridesmaids, registry at Bed Bath and Beyond, honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta… 😄 😄 😄
 
As a related question, what level of belief must we have in the proposition that all humans living today, are descended from Noah and the other seven people on the Ark, only those eight people and nobody else? Sententia certa? Less than that? More than that?

Put another way, is it heterodox to hold the opinion that the whole world, from pole to pole, was not totally flooded, and that other human beings, outside of the flood area, survived and “intermarried” both with the “Noachian Eight” and with each other? That the Flood was a localized phenomenon, perhaps the whole Middle East, but not the furthest reaches of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas?

The idea that the Ark rested on Mount Ararat — which is a very high mountain — if true, is something to consider as well.
 
It is not a question about intelligence but about human nature. Marriage is a part of the human nature, God created marriage at the same time he created them man and woman. Only two humans (with immortal souls) can get married, and if a human has intercourse outside of marriage that is fornication, which is intrinsically immoral. The children of the first two humans must have married each other, because God would not create us in a way that would require fornication in order to perpetuate to perpetuate the human race.
 
tuffsmurf said:
It is not a question about intelligence but about human nature. Marriage is a part of the human nature, God created marriage at the same time he created them man and woman. Only two humans (with immortal souls) can get married, and if a human has intercourse outside of marriage that is fornication, which is intrinsically immoral. The children of the first two humans must have married each other, because God would not create us in a way that would require fornication in order to perpetuate to perpetuate the human race.
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Perhaps we were not created in a way that requires fornication — the human direct descendants of Adam and Eve could have always married each other and brought forth children — but that is not to say that it didn’t, and doesn’t, take place. Sin has been around since the Fall — Eve sinned, Adam sinned, Cain sinned, and on and on. Children conceived in fornication (and even adultery) is so commonplace, as to be the rule rather than the exception in some contemporary subcultures. And keep in mind, too, that all invalid “marriage” is fornication, adultery, or both. Many children are conceived in such relationships.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
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tuffsmurf:
It is not a question about intelligence but about human nature. Marriage is a part of the human nature, God created marriage at the same time he created them man and woman. Only two humans (with immortal souls) can get married, and if a human has intercourse outside of marriage that is fornication, which is intrinsically immoral. The children of the first two humans must have married each other, because God would not create us in a way that would require fornication in order to perpetuate to perpetuate the human race.
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Perhaps we were not created in a way that requires fornication — the human direct descendants of Adam and Eve could have always married each other and brought forth children — but that is not to say that it didn’t, and doesn’t, take place. Sin has been around since the Fall — Eve sinned, Adam sinned, Cain sinned, and on and on. Children conceived in fornication (and even adultery) is so commonplace, as to be the rule rather than the exception in some contemporary subcultures. And keep in mind, too, that all invalid “marriage” is fornication, adultery, or both. Many children are conceived in such relationships.
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It’s also probably not the right approach to backport Jewish-Christian morality to most ancient humans. Like everything else, an understanding of marriage developed over millenia, and God has always tolerated man’s behaviour according to his understanding.

The most ancient humans may have had only a primitive concept of marriage: reproduction and a family unit, for the prime purpose of survival. If H. sapiens was biologically compatible with H. neanderthalensis, for example, and H. neanderthalensis had a degree of intelligence compatible with H. sapiens, then it would not be contrary to nature to mate with them. If this H. sapiens had an immortal soul, then the offspring would have as well, even if the H. neanderthalensis did not.

Or it doesn’t even have to be an H. neanderthalensis. It could also be the first H. sapiens infused with an immortal soul (and this could manifest as an advanced intellect and higher capability for abstract thinking). This new H. sapiens would be biologically indistiguishable from the other H. sapiens, and would have no issue mating with them.

And further, I seriously, seriously doubt that the most ancient humans were monogamous. In order to survive and establish a strong gene pool (they would not know this scientifically of course, but would know this instinctively), men most likely mated with multiple women, and vice versa.
 
porthos11 said:
It’s also probably not the right approach to backport Jewish-Christian morality to most ancient humans. Like everything else, an understanding of marriage developed over millenia, and God has always tolerated man’s behaviour according to his understanding.
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Quite right, for one thing, Jewish and Christian morality hadn’t been revealed yet. There were no Ten Commandments. Granted, there was natural law, but not everybody grasps natural law in the same way even today, why would we think the earliest humans did?
porthos11 said:
If this H. sapiens had an immortal soul, then the offspring would have as well, even if the H. neanderthalensis did not.
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One assumption we’re making here, and I’m not sure it is a correct assumption to make, is that any offspring of an ensouled Homo sapiens and a being without an immortal soul, is by necessity going to have an immortal soul as well. Please pardon me for the horrible image this creates, but if a human mated with some kind of animal, and the chromosomes were conducive to bringing forth new life — they’re not, but just for the sake of argument, if they were — would that hybrid have an immortal soul because its human parent did?

It could also have been a case of “some did, some didn’t” become infused with immortal souls.

These are things we will never know in this life, and will only know in the hereafter if Our Blessed Lord chooses to reveal it to us. We may spend eternity giving glory to Almighty God in the company of Neanderthals and the children of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, Denisovans, or what have you, or we may not. Time (and eternity) will tell.
 
Further, I am not convinced monogamous marriage is part of natural law. Heterosexual relationships are (as opposed to homosexual relationships) as is the right to life and property. Natural law on its own would likely not have prevented polygamous/polyandrous relationships; if anything, if left to itself, natural law would probably have encouraged such behaviour, especially when survival called for it. Monogamous marriage is imposed on us by divine revelation. Prior to Second Temple Judaism, it was perfectly acceptable, culturally, for men to have multiple wives and concubines, and such arrangements were not considered sinful.

Again, God deals with man gradually, as his understanding develops.
 
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There is no Church teaching about wether H. neanderthalensis had immortal souls, so I guess it is possible that they actually had.

The first humans were hunter-gatherers, and hunter-gatherer societies are in general monogamous rather than polygamous. Furthermore, polyandry is almost non-existent among humans, it is always polygyny (like in the Old testament).

Neither marriage nor the morality of fornication has anything to do with Jewish-Christian morality. Hindus and confucianists condemn fornication as well. Even the most primitive cultures has the institution of marriage, the understanding of marriage indeed seem to be as old as the human race. Marriage is a part of natural law.
 
According to st. Thomas, polygyny is not contrary to natural law, but it is contrary to christian charity. Fornication and polydandry is against natural law.
 
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tuffsmurf said:
According to st. Thomas, polygyny is not contrary to natural law, but it is contrary to christian charity. Fornication and polydandry is against natural law.
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I have to think he says this because one man can safely impregnate many women (polygyny), and in each case you know who the father is (assuming the women have not been with any other men), but if a woman has relations with many men (polyandry) and gets pregnant, historically there has been no sure way of knowing who the father is, until recently with the advances in DNA mapping.

There is a certain stripe of man who wants to have many lovers at the same time, and there is also a certain stripe of woman who delights in the attention of several men at once. I have known of both, and sadly, the “stripe” doesn’t always end with marriage. With the women, much of it is psychological satisfaction from receiving attention from men, whereas with the men, the sexual component is what drives things.
 
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