Noah's Ark?Adam and Eve?

[Warrenton]

Having said that and going back to the OP, I feel that if this whole issue of Creation were all that important, perhaps Christ would have said something about it. But this was not recorded and the Bible doesn’t say to believe every translation of the Bible so where do we go from here? We can only report the degree of uncertainty with each theory, in my opinion. But will it matter in the end?

An interesting question. The issue takes on a different hue in our time and place because it it symbolic, or as RD said “a shorthand” for the larger question of how we reconcile scriptural dictates that seem out of step with the main currents of contemporary thought.

There are different ways of reconciling. One can look for an absolute truth within a possibly allegorical, or fictionalized story. One can can try to harmonize the accounts scientifically, like Clarence Darrow in “Inherit the Wind.” Or, one can adopt a skeptical approach to contemporary thought, and use scripture to reveal its shortcomings. Which approach selects bears upon the spriritual life. The third course is better for me, because if I weren’t skeptical, I would be carried along by any fashionable idea. For others, the first or second method may provide more comfort.

Does it matter in the end? I should not think that is heaven closed to all who believe the ark to be an allegory. But certainly it is harder to acheive salvation if one does not believe that scripture is true.

 

[edwest2]

If I accept this as faith, I don’t need or look for an explanation.

So what’s the point of thread after thread that does? Noah? You have got to be nuts to believe water covered the whole earth. You see, according to science…

The Ark? Oh man! Can’t you people figure it out? There just wasn’t enough room!

Adam, Eve? Why don’t you just accept science? Now for this one, I clearly see an ideology at work and not science.

But that will not stop the “fear literalism” crowd from reposting variant threads like this for the foreseeable future.

Literalism is the secular devil.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

From the Catholic Answers library of articles:

"Real History

The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

Adam and Eve: Real People

It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390)."

Peace,
Ed

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

So what’s the point of thread after thread that does? Noah? You have got to be nuts to believe water covered the whole earth. You see, according to science…

The Ark? Oh man! Can’t you people figure it out? There just wasn’t enough room!

Adam, Eve? Why don’t you just accept science? Now for this one, I clearly see an ideology at work and not science.

But that will not stop the “fear literalism” crowd from reposting variant threads like this for the foreseeable future.

Literalism is the secular devil.

Peace,
Ed

I can’t figure out what point you’re trying to make. No offense, but you aren’t clear.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

From the Catholic Answers library of articles:…d

As far as I can tell, no one is disagreeing with this.

 

[edwest2]

If no one is disagreeing then why the repetition? This type of thread is brought up a lot. And it often includes the same elements.

Were Adam and Eve real people? Did they actually exist? Are they the first parents of all of us?

This is usually followed by sheer speculation like: The Bible is not actual history. Usually followed by, the actual meaning is not literal or there were no literal two people, or my favorite (which has no Biblical basis whatsoever): Well, ya see, God spotted two almost-about-to-be-human pre-humans and dropped souls into them, and they ended up getting called Adam and Eve in the Bible because they were the first true humans with souls. And there’s no science to back up the humans with souls idea either.

So people are left confused or left with a vague idea that there were human-like beings before Adam and Eve, which is not consistent with Church teaching which tells us there weren’t. But, obviously, Church teaching needs to take a back seat to science which has a purely natural explanation.

Interpreting the Bible in a literal fashion is forbidden by some since that is wrong, according to them. And while some give a passing nod to the “God could have done it that way” (6 literal days), others also say “It offends me. It offends my mind. So I will prefer to mix God with some theory about human origins.”

Peace,
Ed

 

[Rascalking]

If no one is disagreeing then why the repetition? This type of thread is brought up a lot. And it often includes the same elements.

Were Adam and Eve real people? Did they actually exist? Are they the first parents of all of us?

This is usually followed by sheer speculation like: The Bible is not actual history. Usually followed by, the actual meaning is not literal or there were no literal two people, or my favorite (which has no Biblical basis whatsoever): Well, ya see, God spotted two almost-about-to-be-human pre-humans and dropped souls into them, and they ended up getting called Adam and Eve in the Bible because they were the first true humans with souls. And there’s no science to back up the humans with souls idea either.

So people are left confused or left with a vague idea that there were human-like beings before Adam and Eve, which is not consistent with Church teaching which tells us there weren’t. But, obviously, Church teaching needs to take a back seat to science which has a purely natural explanation.

Interpreting the Bible in a literal fashion is forbidden by some since that is wrong, according to them. And while some give a passing nod to the “God could have done it that way” (6 literal days), others also say “It offends me. It offends my mind. So I will prefer to mix God with some theory about human origins.”

Peace,
Ed

Ed, maybe it’s brought up because various people want to bring it up. I endorse that. Should we not talk about the same thing more than once? Can we not get different view on it?

You aren’t clear sometimes either. Sometimes it is best to keep it brief!

 

[Adeodatus]

I think the biblical author of Genesis meant what he said, he said “day” and he meant “day”. Assigning entirely arbitrary meanings to “day” is not sublime, its ad hoc reasoning, without any factual basis and is usually advanced as an unconvincing argument to counter modern science.

Ad hoc reasoning? That’s an entirely empty charge. Genesis is a text. Bonaventura (through my faint paraphrase) is giving his interpretation of the text in light of other considerations. Not only is that not fallacious, it is essentially what everyone does with every single datum ever.

It seems as if you’re trying to load the argument (I’m not saying consciously) by saying that “day” must be said univocally, and then from that you’re supposing to demonstrate that therefore it cannot be said analogically or poetically. Your basic premise is unsound, so your conclusion doesn’t follow. That was in fact the whole point of outlining difference between univocal, analogical and figurative speech. If the response to the distinctions is “I don’t agree with your distinctions because I don’t make distinctions” then we’re not going to get anywhere. Especially not with Genesis.

 

[rockymountain]

I started this whole thread. Our priest says we aren’t required to believe that Adam and Eve were real people, only that God created everything. I’m was trying to get a feeling for how other Catholics felt about this issue. I have only been officially Catholic for about 8 months, so I’m no expert. I’m just unclear how you decide certain God-inspired writngs are just stories.

 

[rockymountain]

If I accept this as faith, I don’t need or look for an explanation.

My whole issue with this thread is that Catechumins were being told that Adam and Eve weren’t real people, that it was only a story…same thing with Noah. I believe they are real, but was disheartened to hear that there are Christians who have eliminated these things as stories.

 

[buffalo]

I started this whole thread. Our priest says we aren’t required to believe that Adam and Eve were real people, only that God created everything. I’m was trying to get a feeling for how other Catholics felt about this issue. I have only been officially Catholic for about 8 months, so I’m no expert. I’m just unclear how you decide certain God-inspired writngs are just stories.

Show your priest this:

1. 
   *]The Doctrine of Revelation Regarding Man or "Christian Anthropology"
   *] The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
   *] The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)
   *] Man consists of two essential parts–a material body and a spiritual soul. (De fide.)
   *] The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body. (De fide.)
   *] Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De fide.)
   *] Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. (Sent. Certa.)
   *] A creature has the capacity to receive supernatural gifts. (Sent. communis.)
   *] The Supernatural presupposes Nature. (Sent communis.)
   *] God has conferred on man a supernatural Destiny. (De fide.)
   *] Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace. (De fide.)
   *] The donum rectitudinis or integritatis in the narrower sense, i.e., the freedom from irregular desire. (Sent. fidei proxima.)
   *] The donum immortalitatis, i.e.,bodily immortality. (De fide.)
   *] The donum impassibilitatis, i.e., the freedom from suffering. (Sent. communis.)
   *] The donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.)
   *] Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity. (Sent. certa.)
   *] Our first parents in paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment. (De fide.)
   *] Through the sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God. (De fide.)
   *] Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil. (De fide.) D788.
   *] Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent. (De fide.)
   *] Original Sin consists in the deprivation of grace caused by the free act of sin committed by the head of the race. (Sent. communis.)
   *] Original sin is transmitted by natural generation. (De fide.)
   *] In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity. (De fide in regard to Sanctifying Grace and the Donum Immortalitatus. D788 et seq.)
   *] Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)

 

[buffalo]

and this:

**What Does The Catholic Church **Teach about Origins?

God created everything “in its whole substance” from nothing (ex nihilo) in the beginning.
(Lateran IV; Vatican Council I)
· Genesis does not contain purified myths. (Pontifical Biblical Commission 19091)
· 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).
· After their disobedience of God, Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. But the Second
Person of the Trinity would subsequently pay the ransom for fallen man (Nicene Creed).
· Original Sin is a flawed condition inherited from Adam and Eve (Council of Trent).
· The Universe suffers in travail ever since the sin of disobedience by Adam and Eve. (Romans 8, Vatican
Council I).
· We must believe any interpretation of Scripture that the Fathers taught unanimously on a matter of faith or
morals (Council of Trent and Vatican Council I).
· All the Fathers who wrote on the subject believed that the Creation days were no longer than 24-hour-days.
(Consensus of the Fathers of the Church)
· The work of Creation was finished by the close of Day Six, and nothing completely new has since been
created—except for each human rational soul at conception (Vatican Council I)
· St. Peter and Christ Himself in the New Testament confirmed the global Flood of Noah. It covered all the
then high mountains and destroyed all land dwelling creatures except eight human beings and all kinds
of non-human creatures aboard the Ark (Unam Sanctam, 1302)
· The historical existence of Noah’s Ark is regarded as most important in typology, as central to
Redemption. (1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent)
· Evolution must not be taught as fact, but instead the pros and cons of evolution must be taught.
(Pius XII, Humani Generis)
· Investigation into human “evolution” was allowed in 1950, but Pope Pius XII feared that an acceptance of
evolutionism might adversely affect doctrinal beliefs.