Polygenism/Monogenism

[Julia_Mae]

His orders to believe in monogenism, forbidding a belief if polygenism isn’t required of Catholics?

Can you find a place where it says that? I can’t.

It says in the Catechism that God made our “first parents” in His image, and that He is spirit, neither male nor female. It doesn’t say God originally created two flesh and blood people. It also says the soul cannot be generated from human reproduction but must be created by God in every instance.

In the figurative language of the story, they leave God, and end up here in the flesh. In Scripture it also says Cain went away and married a woman in a distant land. Did she have a soul? Did God choose a moment in earthly history to ensoul the Homo sapiens?

The Church doesn’t make scientific pronouncements, only theological ones.

But I make scientific pronouncements because I can. So, it’s not like we all sprang up in different geographic areas from a lesser form. What is actually the case is that then, as now, there are many different forms of H sap - subspecies you can say, and that those grew, spread, intermingled and became what we have now, still with subtypes and still spreading intermingling and changing over time.

In point of fact: at some time in the past, somebody, some single individual, carrying a mutation, led a tribe that all became the ancestral human type and spread all over. We have to get over the idea, that is morally correct but not scientifically correct, that humans are all pretty much the same. We aren’t and we are rapidly changing and will continue to. And if we hadn’t started travelling all over the world and interbreeding, we’d be well on the way to a radiation of new speciation events.

IOW, we are trying to discuss something that isn’t an either/or question. It’s all just process and we are a long way from arriving.

 

[Julia_Mae]

His orders to believe in monogenism, forbidding a belief if polygenism isn’t required of Catholics?

Also, take a look at these quotes.

 

[grannymh]

Then am I correct in assuming that you have no link to credible information by respected scientists who believe in monogenism?

We need to remember that scientists are restricted to the material/physical world.

Human nature unites both the material/physical world and the spiritual world. In other words, humans are more than a rotting anatomy.

 

[grannymh]

As I just told OP you are obfuscating because you are avoiding the pertinent paragraph that says we are not to hold a view other than that humanity springs from two first parents. Just post the quote. Like you have in every other thread on this topic.

Actually I did give the pertinent paragraph CCC 390 as the first one I cited. Since I have seen some funny interpretations of this paragraph, I thought it best that I give you all the information I could find so that you would have the big picture.

Here is the link scborromeo.org/ccc/para/390.htm

As a courtesy for readers, both CAF members and guests, I posted as much information about the first human Adam as I could find in a short period of time. I have been noticing that the reason Catholics are intimidated by people who don’t want to believe in two human parents is that they have not learned all that is involved at the beginning of human history.

Now I do realize that it will take effort to study what I posted in #26. But that is life in the Catholic Church.

Obviously, some Catholics are intimidated by any mention of natural science theories. This is sad because common sense says that if one believes in God Who calls each person to joy eternal, God would certainly give each person the means to do so – which is the rational spiritual soul. The spiritual soul is in the realm of God. Catholics simply must have the guts to give the spiritual world priority over the material world. Once that is done, one can relax and enjoy what the Catholic Church has to offer.

 

[grannymh]

Also, take a look at these quotes.

Thank You

Pope Benedict XVI always gives a great discourse on our two sole parents. Being the intellectual, loving person that he is, he goes beyond cherry picking.

 

[Petergee]

fnr;10188560:

Quotation directly from the Catechism:

"*How to read the account of the fall

390 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.264 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."

Thanks. Not the quote I’m looking for. I’m looking for wherever the Church says we must believe the entirety of humanity sprang from two single individuals who were a reproducing couple.

So you are saying that you think that “our first parents” could possibly be construed to mean somethuing other than “two single individuals who were a reproducing couple”?

 

[Petergee]

Ok. Then can you point me in the direction of information that says there likely was a LESS recent breeding pair? Anything that would scientifically support this view?

I don’t know of any such scientific studies offhand and I don’t have the time or inclination to look, and I don’t understand why you seem to think that they are necessary or even important.

It is not necessary that every thing that we know as true from the Church’s teaching, be ALSO independently proven true by science.

If in fact there are currently no such studies proving monogenism, you must at least acknowledge the scientific maxim, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The fact that science alone may not be able to prove it (currently or perhaps ever) does not mean that it must not have happened!

 

[grannymh]

Sorry, but this cranky (feminine of snarky) granny flat out refuses to be intimidated by words denying our two first parents or by a million words which place the material world over God Himself the Creator.

 

[Petergee]

I make scientific pronouncements because I can. So, it’s not like we all sprang up in different geographic areas from a lesser form. What is actually the case is that then, as now, there are many different forms of H sap - subspecies you can say, and that those grew, spread, intermingled and became what we have now, still with subtypes and still spreading intermingling and changing over time.

In point of fact: at some time in the past, somebody, some single individual, carrying a mutation, led a tribe that all became the ancestral human type and spread all over. We have to get over the idea, that is morally correct but not scientifically correct, that humans are all pretty much the same. We aren’t and we are rapidly changing and will continue to. And if we hadn’t started travelling all over the world and interbreeding, we’d be well on the way to a radiation of new speciation events.

From someone claiming to make scientific pronouncements, that is scientifically nonsensical. The Australian Aborigines and other races of people have been isolated for up to 40,000 years from other men, yet show no sign of developing into a separate species. Please don’t misuse science to try to rationally justify your racial prejudices.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Here is the link scborromeo.org/ccc/para/390.htm

That’s not the one, you know. Never mind, I’ll find it tomorrow.

Obviously, some Catholics are intimidated by any mention of natural science theories.

I doubt very seriously anyone at all is “intimidated.” They just don’t agree.

 

[Julia_Mae]

From someone claiming to make scientific pronouncements, that is scientifically nonsensical. The Australian Aborigines and other races of people have been isolated for up to 40,000 years from other men, yet show no sign of developing into a separate species. Please don’t misuse science to try to rationally justify your racial prejudices.

See, Peter, this is what always happens. The second someone from science tries to point out something scientific that flies in the face of some cultural taboo, all heck breaks loose in the moral self-righteousness arena.

If you look up what has classically constituted species and subspecies, you will know that there are geographically isolated groups of H.sap that cannot interbreed naturally between both genders. This is a classic definition of a subspecies. If this isolation were to continue, it would lead to full speciation. Not next week, obviously.

I’m going to ignore your very ugly comment to me and request you not speak to me in such a manner again.

 

[rossum]

We’ve learned so much about science in the years following Pope Pius XIII and Humani Generis. It’s pretty well established that humans interbred with Neanderthals and the Denisovans, and scientists believe there was never a human bottleneck of two people (which, had there been a human bottleneck of two people, would indicate we may have descended from one human pair, Adam and Eve.)

1. Doesn’t what we’ve learned from science contradict Human Generis and Genesis? How can we reconcile us being required to believe in monogenism in light of the above?
2. If it’s ever scientifically established that humans did originate from a population of people rather than one couple, is the Church open to changing her views and allowing our belief in polygenism?

First, we need to define terms. To the Church a human being is a human soul in a human body. To science a human being is a member of the species Homo sapiens. Science says nothing at all about souls: souls do not have DNA and souls do not fossilise.

Having said that, we can agree some things. Science requires that all humans are descended from a single couple. Think about Mitochondrial Eve’s parents. Every living human is descended from M-Eve, so we are obviously all descended from her parents. The same is true for Y-Chromosome Adam’s parents. Actually it is also true for many other couples. Finding a couple from whom all living humans are descended is not difficult, see Most Recent Common Ancestor.

What science cannot tell is which of those many possible couples had souls. All God had to do was to pick one of those many couples and to give them souls. Naturally, He would know in advance that they would be common ancestors. Any descendants of that couple would be given souls by God, as we are now.

Science requires a large population of H. sapiens, around 10,000 breeding pairs minimum, but it does not require that all of that population has souls. If we call the unsouled H. sapiens, “huma” (almost human, but not quite there) then a mating between a human and a huma is open to life because the biology and DNA are compatible. God can give the child a soul, so matings between humans and huma produce human offspring.

This gives us a small population of theological humans living among a larger population of biological huma. It avoids the inbreeding/incest problems following Adam and Eve and does not contradict any known science.

The key point is to remember the difference between a biological Homo sapiens and a theological human with a human soul. Science cannot say which remains had a soul when they were alive.

$0.02

rossum

 

[Just_Lurking]

Science requires a large population of H. sapiens, around 10,000 breeding pairs minimum, but it does not require that all of that population has souls. If we call the unsouled H. sapiens, “huma” (almost human, but not quite there) then a mating between a human and a huma is open to life because the biology and DNA are compatible. God can give the child a soul, so matings between humans and huma produce human offspring.

Isn’t this just the theory of polygenism?

 

[rossum]

Isn’t this just the theory of polygenism?

No. Science make no statement about how many of that population had human souls. An organism without a human soul is not theologically human, but something else. The Church has not made a statement on the numbers of non-humans around.

rossum

 

[fnr]

Thanks. Not the quote I’m looking for. I’m looking for wherever the Church says we must believe the entirety of humanity sprang from two single individuals who were a reproducing couple.

You won’t find that quote. It’s an idol.

One truth cannot contradict another truth. It is a true statement with as much certainty as we can make about anything in nature that the earth is 4.8 billion years old and that the oldest fossils span a range from 3.3-3.5 billion years old. The younger of those fossils are stromatolites, which are photosynthesizing bacteria that required numerous evolutionary steps to exist. The older fossil is from sulfur-metabolizing bacteria similar to those found at undersea vents. The cellular machinery of these fossils is identical to that in our cells. In particular, they include ribosomes, the DNA for which is conserved in all life on earth.

Genesis 2 says – figuratively – that God created Adam from the dust and breathed life into him. That’s as true a statement as the parable of the Prodigal Son.

If there are theological reasons that some people feel make it impossible for them to embrace the consensus view of evolutionary biology, geology, astronomy, and physics, I’ll suggest that they are holding to unnecessary elements of faith. If those elements of faith are used to deny science, it seems to me that those beliefs are idols created by people. God does not require us to suspend reason to hold faith. Science is not a way to tempt The Lord. It is a way to discover truth about his creation.

We have souls. How God put souls into us, I cannot say. But a soul cannot be measured. It is therefore outside the scope of scientific investigation. When it comes down to it, all our physical, emotional, and intellectual capacities are best explainable by materialist science. To deny that is to deny God’s reality (thou shalt not covet thy God’s means of creation). Parapalegic people can now control cybernetic limbs with electrodes implanted into their brains. If that’s not a sign of the material nature of our consciousness, I don’t know what is.

 

[grannymh]

:takethat:

First, we need to define terms. To the Church a human being is a human soul in a human body. To science a human being is a member of the species Homo sapiens. Science says nothing at all about souls: souls do not have DNA and souls do not fossilise.[Rossum]

Good to see you Rossum. Happy New Year.

My computer does not have sound which is why I have not been able to “hear” that link you provided many moons ago. Having seen your sense of humor, when I finally travel to where my other computer is…

Off line, there have been some interesting speculations about the presence of two, real
human persons living in the area of hominins. Your comment “What science cannot tell is which of those many possible couples had souls.” is now being used to support the possibility of Adam and Eve. Because anthropology is based on fossils among many other things, science cannot determine the existence of a spiritual soul, even a “soul” as defined by Aristotle. That is proper. Therefore, the possibility exists that a real Adam and Eve and their expanding family could co-exist with hominins. There could actually be two distinct species.

Speaking about the word proper. I am still seeing the urban myth “truth cannot contradict truth.” People who understand both a little of science and a little of Catholic doctrines realize that the real statement about truth and contradiction goes something like this. * Truth occurs when science is conducted properly and Catholic doctrines are properly understood. *

I am now investigating proper science and proper Catholic teachings. This granny is getting sillier as time passes.

I was in London and spent the majority of my time at the Natural History Museum. Apparently, their human origin exhibit was being remodeled. However, what was on exhibit was extremely informative for my needs. Picked up Chris Stringer’s book “The Origin Of Our Species” and received some of his papers by e-mail. I also saw the Bog Man in Dublin.

Yuk! This old computer is telling me nasty things. I will try to post this and then I will have to deal with this computer before I reply to your post.:takethat:

 

[Faith1960]

I don’t know of any such scientific studies offhand and I don’t have the time or inclination to look, and I don’t understand why you seem to think that they are necessary or even important.

It is not necessary that every thing that we know as true from the Church’s teaching, be ALSO independently proven true by science.

If in fact there are currently no such studies proving monogenism, you must at least acknowledge the scientific maxim, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The fact that science alone may not be able to prove it (currently or perhaps ever) does not mean that it must not have happened!

Science doesnt have to prove everything but if it disproves something the Bible says, then that is a problem.

 

[grannymh]

Science doesnt have to prove everything but if it disproves something the Bible says, then that is a problem.

Small comment. The Bible does not say anything about 20,000 - 25,000 human genes which are at the heart of scientific research. Thus, if there is a problem with human genetics, that problem remains in the scientific realm of the material/physical world.

The Catholic Church, because it deals with the spiritual world of eternal joy, not only sees 20,000 - 25,000 working genes, it seems human nature in total.

 

[Faith1960]

Julia Mae;10188605:

So you are saying that you think that “our first parents” could possibly be construed to mean somethuing other than “two single individuals who were a reproducing couple”?

The way Rossum explained it, it makes some sense, but if you believe that at one time the popuation consisted of two people (people in the way science identifies people, not faith) which seems to fly in the face of scientific fact, then that doesn’t make sense to me.

 

[buffalo]

We’ve learned so much about science in the years following Pope Pius XIII and Humani Generis. It’s pretty well established that humans interbred with Neanderthals and the Denisovans, and scientists believe there was never a human bottleneck of two people (which, had there been a human bottleneck of two people, would indicate we may have descended from one human pair, Adam and Eve.)

1. Doesn’t what we’ve learned from science contradict Human Generis and Genesis? How can we reconcile us being required to believe in monogenism in light of the above?
2. If it’s ever scientifically established that humans did originate from a population of people rather than one couple, is the Church open to changing her views and allowing our belief in polygenism?

Neandertals are us.