First of all, Monogenesis is enjoined on us because there is no clear way in the minds of the Popes to reconcile Polygenesis with the doctrine of the Sin of our first parents and the Fall. If there were a way to do so, then it could be allowed. Several scholars have proposed solutions but none have been accepted.
Secondly, if God truly made a first pair of humans by a special act of creation, it is possible that he “reset” their genetics to make it “safe” to practice incest at least for the first several generations. God could even have given them “low probability” genetic combinations at first to prevent problems.
In one of his Lazarus Long novels Robert Heinlein describes a brother and sister of the same parents who share NO genes in common. They each received half of their parents genes but none from the same half. Now there are a virtually infinite number of combinations you can make like that from just two parents. And then you can get variants where only 0.1% genes are held in common and any fraction in between that and 100%.
That may be how God did it in the beginning. This would take several generations of miracles, but it would royally screw up all the attendant probabilities. None of the scientists takes this possibility into account.
And then we need to be frank. We know very little about human origins. It appears that BIOLOGICAL humans of some kind have been around for about 2 million years give or take). BIOLOGICAL Homo sapiens has been around for ~130,000 years. But there is something very strange that happened between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago. Homo sapiens became an artist, a linguist, a complex tool maker, a religious believer, a member of a society with family structures and pair-bonds, and several other things that distinguish him from the BIOLOGICAL humans that came before. Was this new kind of H. sapiens not only BIOLOGICALY human but newly made as THEOLOGICALLY human? Was this the historical point of ensoulment?
And after that happened, the other species of man all died out and were replaced by the New Man. So if THEOLOGICAL humans arose not from pre-humans but WITHIN a BIOLOGICALLY human community in which they kept to themselves, the issue of Polygenism becomes moot.
These are just some of the possibilities.
Another note on Dr. Collin’s book. He warns that a Fundamentalist literal reading of Genesis is dangerous because when a naive believer discovers the overwhelming scientific case for evolution, it can endanger his faith. Well, here we are! What he predicted has happened.
The problem is neither in science or religion but rather in a type of religion that does not respect the important distinctions between science and theology.
Humility is the point to be taken. We are not asked by God to understand all things but rather to believe in some things. Sometimes belief is easy. Sometimes it is hard. That is why one must have a prayer life and devotions to keep one properly in touch with God and His providence.
by Art Sippo, M.D.
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