Original Sin & Evolution

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FatherMerrin

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My apologies if this question has been posed numerous times here already, but it’s something that’s dogged me for weeks, and I haven’t had the chance to address it directly to a priest. I’ll try to posit it as clearly and concisely as possible.

Original sin was supposedly brought about by the actions of Adam and Eve, and Christ’s presence on Earth was meant as a kind of antidote to this intrinsic condition we’re all born into. But the theory of evolution negates Adam and Eve’s existence, not to mention the entire Garden of Eden. If Adam and Eve never existed, how can original sin exist in the first place for Jesus to “cure?” Does one have to be a Bible literalist, or is there an alternative?
 
Mitochondrial DNA studies support that all humans have a common ancestor. The specifics are debatable, but a common ancestor has not been disproved by science. Also, Darwinian evolution is one theory. Theistic evolution is more likely.
 
how does the theory of evolution negate the existence of two original human beings.
 
how does the theory of evolution negate the existence of two original human beings.
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Because it negates the premise that the entire human race originated from those two human beings.
 
FatherMerrin said:
how does the theory of evolution negate the existence of two original human beings.
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So, perhaps I’m ignorant, but it seems to me one non-human would have given birth to the first evolved human. Now, if this non-human gave birth to twins - one male and one female - the inference is that it would be possible for these two first humans to give birth to more humans, and they gave birth to more humans and so on.

Make sense?
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Yes, that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t really answer my question.
 
I think that the contention between modern science and the Old Testament is likely a product of our own mindset. When we read things like the Old Testament we take it that the minds of the authors as well as the oral and written traditions of the times are like our own. They were different. The authors of the Old Testament were not writing history. What they were writing was a religious and cultural tradition that was full of meaning for those people and still very meaningful today, but not intended to be a history book that you could take literally in every case. Fact and fiction were mixed in the writings of the cultures of the region, all of which had creation stories, flood stories and so on and so forth. They were meant to convey a point. So, if we take these writings literally word for word with a twenty first century aperture, then we run into problems, because it gives rise to logical issues such as the assumption that all the suffering you or I or any human ever had is on the count of a talking snake.

All the best
 
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how exactly does it negate that.

also did you know that Catholics are free to see the first 11 books of Genesis as different genres of law, creation, our role as co creators, our role as custodians, sin, moral living, rather then taking everything in a fundamentalist form.

Also the days of the dichotomy of science or religion are fast coming to an end. creation vs evolution. The fact that God created everything, including science and evolution , is not in error with catholicism
 
Here is my take on the question. Humani Generis says:
  1. 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 that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents.
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This talks about “true men”. I see “true men” as a physically human body, as produced by evolution, with a human soul directly produced by God.

Start with a population of almost-humans who are physically like us, but unsouled. Call then ‘huma’ because they are not quite human. God gives two huma souls, so they become human, in both body and soul. If you like, the second human can be created from the first’s rib.

Those two humans, Adam and Eve, have children, to whom God also gives souls.

To solve the problem of human genetic diversity allow Seth and his siblings to marry into the huma population around them. They are biologically compatible, with compatible DNA, so those marriages will be fertile and any children will be descended from both Adam and Eve as grandparents. God can give those children souls.

Hence there is a single human couple who are ancestors of all living humans, while the huma provide the required genetic diversity we see in modern populations. Eventually all huma die out as ensouled humans spread; only one ensouled human is needed in a couple to allow all children of that couple to be themselves ensouled.

To me that scenario seems to satisfy biology: a minimum population of 10,000 breeding pairs, and descent from a single couple. By treating souls separately from DNA and physical bodies the apparent paradox can be resolved.

$0.02

rossum
 
It didn’t directly address my original post, which was about how original sin can exist if Adam and Eve did not. It was more of a scientific hypothesis of how something LIKE Adam and Eve could have walked the Earth, but the issue of original sin was mostly skirted over.
 
have you read the catholic church catechism about original sin, adam and eve and the fall?
 
It’s very clear Church teaching:

“37. 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 that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent 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 with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.[12]”

Humani Generis
 
There is no scientific basis for this, and there is also the question of having souls, which don’t exist in scientific research.
 
catechism is simpler to understand. in my opinion, especially when someone is struggling with the concept and can see the thing in its entire context.

you have orphaned a passage and not explained it.

rossum gave an explanation
 
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Souls do not have a scientific explanation, so there is no reason to believe this.
 
edwest211 said:
Souls do not have a scientific explanation, so there is no reason to believe this.
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everything has a scientific explanation because God created science. Its becoming quite an old and erroneous thing to promote the dichotomy of natural and supernatural so that we cannot think about God being in the natural and in the supernatural for a thing like the science of the soul
 
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Everything does not have a scientific explanation. Aside from being martyred for the faith, a candidate for sainthood needs two miracles attributed to people praying to him to ask his help in petitioning God to perform the miracle. Only God can actually perform the miracle. Science is unable to detect a soul.
 
FatherMerrin said:
It didn’t directly address my original post, which was about how original sin can exist if Adam and Eve did not. It was more of a scientific hypothesis of how something LIKE Adam and Eve could have walked the Earth, but the issue of original sin was mostly skirted over.
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I see. So, yeah, no. My answer was that even if evolution was God’s chosen method of creation, Adam and Eve did exist. That is, the first human male and female did exist, even if they did not call each other by those names, or even if they spoke no language at all.

The inference, then is that they evolved with original sin being part of who they were, as did their offspring.

Make sense?
 
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