Polygenism CAF Tract

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Hope1960

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I have communicated with Ed Feser who is a philosopher. He says that in the beginning humans interbred with human-like beings who didn’t have souls and God gave their offspring souls, thus starting the human population. He’s certain Catholics are allowed to believe this. My former Bible Study teacher, a theologian who taught at the Seminary agrees that it’s ok.
You can read about this by Googling an article Monkey in Your Soul, I think. He has several articles.

Is the part of the link in the Catholic Answers tract I posted above, where it says “It [the Church] has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that mans BODY developed from previous biological forms, under Gods guidance but insists on the special creation of his soul,” basically saying the same thing, or allowing for the same thing?
 
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This is allotted under what was said, so long as the souls were specially created.
 
So you mean it’s ok for Catholics to believe that?
 
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Yes, I do believe it is permissible.

Of course, one doesn’t have to believe it, but one may if they wish and be Catholic.
 
I suppose we’re allowed to believe this, but I see no reason to. It seems too much like bestiality to me. Adam & Eve must have had tons of children, so there would have been plenty of people to marry without having to mate with man-like creatures.
 
There’s never been a bottleneck of fewer than 10,000 people so A&Es kids mating with each other makes no sense.
Also In Ed Feser’s theory, these human-like beings were pretty much like humans from evolution, except they didn’t have souls.
 
Incest may be less disturbing than quasi-bestiality… but it’s still troubling.
 
Are we Catholics allowed to believe Fesers theory, though? He is certain that we are.
 
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The Church hasn’t spoken against it. It seems to be the only way to reconcile current scientific understanding with the faith. So I would say yes.
 
RedDuke said:
It seems too much like bestiality to me. Adam & Eve must have had tons of children, so there would have been plenty of people to marry without having to mate with man-like creatures.
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Do you consider Neanderthals “beasts” and “man-like creatures”?
 
I don’t. I believe they had souls based on evidence that they had spirituality / religion of some sort.
 
In the last paragraph of my OP, isn’t the tract I linked to saying basically the same thing as Ed Feser?
 
I don’t think the tract gets into specifics like that… but you could definitely make the argument that evolution of the physical body strongly implies a scenario in which Adam and Eve emerged from a larger hominid community.
 
Catholics are forbidden to believe in polygenism, but if this hominid community A&Es offspring mated with didn’t have souls then they weren’t human. Are you specifically talking about un ensouled hominids?

Also what is meant in the tract “previous biological forms”?
 
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We aren’t permitted to believe that multiple individuals spontaneously developed or received souls. One way or another every living human descends from Adam and Eve… but that doesn’t necessarily mean that their children didn’t also mate with other existing lines… as long as we all can trace ourselves back to Adam and Eve. No those other hominids would not have had eternal souls…but their offspring would by virtue of being descendants of Adam and Eve. I see it as analogous to the Gentiles (most of us) whom St. Paul describes as a branch grafted onto the vine that was Abraham’s line.
Previous biological forms means a process of biological evolution from simpler, more primitive hominids to modern humans.
 
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