Reconciling Humani Generis with the human genetic data showing that there never were just two first parents

[Allyson]

Dawkins seemed more subtle to me. He was not asserting that language that that individual child would have been talking, although they all had a good laugh about it. It appeared that he qualified that all the precursors for language would have already been present before the potentially beneficial mutation/s. I think then it would have taken a critical mass of people with the same abilities a few generations to really begin the advancement of the communication revolution as proposed. Much like the distance in time between Ada Lovelace and the internet.

 

[Allyson]

If I pretend that Ada Lovelace is my many greats grandmother, she would be be at least 5 generations removed from me, maybe 7. I was born when my Dad’s mother was 74, and my Dad was 36.

Of course, computing would have had a much larger population working on making the revolution a reality, so it happened rather quickly.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

And however you want to define rationality, there never was a point where we weren’t rational and then were.

You can take a broader definition of rationality such that many animals comply with the criteria, but that’s begging the question. There is no bright dividing line for biological species, but there is a bright line dividing human behavior, and that is the point at issue here: what accounts for it? Recursive language fits the account, and a point in our evolution when it was, where before it was not.

If there is no bright line dividing species then you must accept that we gradually became more human. There never was a point when we weren’t and then we were. But you claim that rationality for example did emerge practically overnight.

So there must have been a point when something was to all intents and purposes a human but wasn’t rational. How can you have one gradually evolving but not the other?

If only man posesses rationality then the point at which we gained posession of rationality must become the deciding factor as to whether we were human or not. In which case there was a dividing line…which you reject.

 

[Neithan]

OK, so conceding then for the sake of argument, that the genetic mutation that enabled recursive language as a necessary condition was generations removed from the neurocognitive synthesis that expressed it as a sufficient condition: the fact remains that it was an event at some particular point in time by one (or one related social group in the same generation) of anatomically modern humans, who we can now describe as behaviorally modern humans. [I’ll refer you again to Dr. Vyshedskiy to illustrate that further in one possible hypothesis.]

 

[Neithan]

If only man posesses rationality then the point at which we gained posession of rationality must become the deciding factor as to whether we were human or not. In which case there was a dividing line…which you reject.

Distinguish the biological criteria of anatomically similar animals that can interbreed, from a behavioral criteria of anatomically similar animals who can reason because of a genetic mutation and neurocognitive capacity. All are hominid animals, but the latter are human beings with a rational soul.

 

[Allyson]

Just to pull together a lot of the main points and ideas I have in response to the discussion, I have put together this summary. Thank you again to everyone for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I appreciate the resources you have provided and have them all on deck for reading come this weekend.

With regard to what science can test for. I am not disputing that purely supernatural claims such as that God created spiritual matter, that souls exists, or that the soul of man is immortal can be the subject of scientific inquiry.

However, with regard to claims about the interaction between the natural and supernatural - like the Incarnation of Christ or Eucharistic miracles - or the spiritual and the material - specifically here the teaching of the Church that man is a perfect unity of body and soul (CCC 363-368) and that the soul is the seat of reason: these are the kinds of claims that open the door to scientific inquiry. Science can examine whether these claims can be fully explained by natural causes. The claim has been made that the soul is in fully unity with the body, so it is in unity with matter, which means the spiritual realm is not fully appart from the natural realm. Under those conditions, it becomes subject to scientific inquiry.

If the claim to be made is that either the spiritual and/or the supernatural is not a part of the material realm, and that we cannot prove or disprove any effect on the material world. At best for the theistic possition, we have Diesm.

The scientific inquiry into human rationality both explains the natural origins of this faculty and why and what “imperfections” there are. The ways in which man can be irrational often have an evolutionary explanation in what skills our ancestors needed to survive in an environment full of predators, for example.

I am going to pause here for tonight, but I think that addresses some of the more recent conversation in this thread.

Thank you all!

 

[Gorgias]

I’ll let you take that up with Aquinas.

I don’t have to – the Church has already stated what it asserts as doctrine, and utilized Aquinas accordingly (or not).

Actually: that rationality can “emerge” at all is what is nonsensical.

“Evidence of rationality” can emerge. Extant evidence can be gleaned, in a temporal sense. Rationality, as such, seems to be binary – it either ‘is’ or ‘is not’.

he did seem to see it as potentially affirming his hypothesis that Adam, and his descendents were the first to have language and self-segregated. It was that idea that I found tenuous, since in evolution, change is progressive, and small alterations are not noticable between single generations.

Right. So, might we consider that Adam was the first to have the capacity for human language? Other means of primate communication could have pre-existed him, and subsequent ‘true’ human communication could have followed. Yet, it’s not necessary that fully-formed PIE constructs spewed from the lips of our first truly human ancestor, merely because he was endowed with a soul.

Allyson:

It had the sound of a just-so story to me. An interesting proposition, but not strongly persuasive.

When it’s lampooned, or pooh-poohed, it’s naturally going to take on that tenor.

Much like the distance in time between Ada Lovelace and the internet.

But in reverse: rationality seems to have disappeared, rather than appeared, in that interval…

If there is no bright line dividing species then you must accept that we gradually became more human.

Wow… the presumptions just disappear as such into the mists around here! OK… what do you mean by “human”, when you assert “gradually become more human”? Do you mean “possess rationality”? Or maybe just “give evidence of rationality already possessed”? Or, more to the point of the subject matter of this thread, “have an immortal soul”?

Let’s work from latter to former:

• “immortal soul” is what Catholics assert. This is quite a binary distinction. Either you have one or you don’t. One doesn’t grow a soul, piecemeal. Especially considering that the soul isn’t physical and composite, but spiritual and simple.
• But what about “exhibit evidence of rationality”? That’s a rather implausible standard. If I’m a Stuart, am I any less a Royal if I don’t “exhibit evidence” of my bloodline? Ludicrous! Whether I exhibit it or not – which isn’t a binary condition – I either ‘am’ or ‘not’, no?
• So, maybe it’s just “possess rationality”? Now we’re back in the realm of asserting that composite entities must exhibit simple distinctions? Not realistic.

So… “gradually become more human” – which is the measuring stick you offer to contradict Catholic theology – seems rather unreasonable a guide. No – “human” means “body + soul composite”, as the Church proposes theologically, or it means nothing reasonable from a scientific perspective.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I’ll let you take that up with Aquinas.

I don’t have to – the Church has already stated what it asserts as doctrine, and utilized Aquinas accordingly (or not).

Actually: that rationality can “emerge” at all is what is nonsensical.

“Evidence of rationality” can emerge. Extant evidence can be gleaned, in a temporal sense. Rationality, as such, seems to be binary – it either ‘is’ or ‘is not’.

Allyson:

It had the sound of a just-so story to me. An interesting proposition, but not strongly persuasive.

When it’s lampooned, or pooh-poohed, it’s naturally going to take on that tenor.

Much like the distance in time between Ada Lovelace and the internet.

But in reverse: rationality seems to have disappeared, rather than appeared, in that interval…

If there is no bright line dividing species then you must accept that we gradually became more human.

OK… what do you mean by “human”, when you assert “gradually become more human”? Do you mean “possess rationality”? Or maybe just “give evidence of rationality already possessed”? Or, more to the point of the subject matter of this thread, “have an immortal soul”?

Let’s work from latter to former:

• “immortal soul” is what Catholics assert. This is quite a binary distinction. Either you have one or you don’t. One doesn’t grow a soul, piecemeal. Especially considering that the soul isn’t physical and composite, but spiritual and simple.

Whatever you consider the specific church teaching to be on the matter of souls, Aquinas used the proposal that being a rational animal meant that one had a soul. If you don’t think that the two are connected then that’s good with me because I don’t think they are either.

What I mean by human is, to give an example, us. Animals that have the characteristics that have been proposed for being a member of homo Sapien. And when I talk about ‘gradually becoming more human’ that simply means gradually evolving those characteristics that define us as being human. Unless you believe in a literal Adam and Eve (and I don’t think you do) then it would be more than astonishing if you proposed that we were Homo erectus one day and Homo sapien the following day. Evolution doesn’t switch from one species to the other on a daily basis. So we gradually became more human.

Go back along your line of ancestors and there will never be a point when you can specifically say that one particular ancestor was not human and her child was. I think you know this.

An immortal soul is indeed what Catholicism asserts. And I have no problem with the proposal that God gave the ‘first man’ an immortal soul. I don’t believe it but I will accept that you believe it. But it doesn’t tie in with the concept of being a rational animal. And being a rational animal therefore defines one as having a soul.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

I don’t think “being rational” is good evidence of “having a soul”. To Thomas Aquinas, who had no knowledge of pre-historic humanoids and minimal knowledge of modern non-human primates, the distinction between the rationality of humans and the non-rationality of other animals was clear and unequivocal, but to us, it isn’t. There is almost no aspect of our rationality that isn’t matched, at least qualitatively, by bonobos, dolphins, elephants, ravens, rats, octopuses or almost any other animal you care to study, and the moment one palaeontologist claims that one or other trait distinctive of humanity, such as language, tool-using, control of fire, respect for the dead, art or music, is exclusive to Homo sapiens, evidence is found that other, closely related species, had the same. Evidence of rationality in the evolutionary development of humans, rather like the emerging evidence of rationality in a human baby, is gradual and particulate.

I have listened to Fr Nicanor’s lecture, and do not find his gene theory convincing, either as a scientific proposal or as a theological one. Pope Pius XII would have disagreed absolutely. The theory seems to posit that the “soul” can be equated to a single genetic mutation, which presumably occurred in a single gamete, resulting in a single individual “with a soul” in a family of relatives “without a soul”. This person must then have mated with someone “without a soul” (or fortuitously met someone with the same mutation), in order to pass on the gene, which could have resulted in a number of children “with a soul”. The idea that these people were sufficiently different from others in their peer-group to constitute the exclusive founders of “true men” who did not mate with others is genetically unsound, and the idea that the gene spread throughout the whole population of a couple of thousand by intermarriage between “with souls” and “without souls” is theologically unsound, at least as Pius XII would have understood it.

 

[Neithan]

Evidence of rationality in the evolutionary development of humans, rather like the emerging evidence of rationality in a human baby, is gradual and particulate.

As discussed above, the evolution of recursive language would be a sudden change in behavior, and could well coincide with the cognitive revolution record during the late Paleolithic period in the evolution of behavioral modernity.

The theory seems to posit that the “soul” can be equated to a single genetic mutation, which presumably occurred in a single gamete, resulting in a single individual “with a soul” in a family of relatives “without a soul”.

If the soul is the form of the body, then the genetic mutation that enabled behavioral modernity would be a sign that it is present, but is not equated to it. A soul is immaterial.

This person must then have mated with someone “without a soul” (or fortuitously met someone with the same mutation)

That’s the idea, yes. They would have preferentially mated with each other given that they could uniquely communicate.

The idea that these people were sufficiently different from others in their peer-group to constitute the exclusive founders of “true men” who did not mate with others is genetically unsound

The offspring of “Adam” and “Eve” would have mated with others. There is no speculative dispute there, at least as I understand it.

and the idea that the gene spread throughout the whole population of a couple of thousand by intermarriage between “with souls” and “without souls” is theologically unsound, at least as Pius XII would have understood it.

After the fall, we need not expect “intermarriage” as the sole means of spreading genes. Fornication spreads genes. Back then, bestiality would have spread genes in a way that it cannot today. If Adam’s children propagated their genes, all “true men” — rational human beings — would have their origin from him.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

the evolution of recursive language would be a sudden change in behavior

It would certainly be sudden, evolutionarily speaking, but I don’t go for the idea that after a million years of grunts, a couple of children suddenly started discussing the yellowness of bananas, much to their parents’ confusion. I think it would have been very gradual, and probably taken many generations.

the genetic mutation that enabled behavioral modernity would be a sign that it is present, but is not equated to it. A soul is immaterial.

Yes, indeed. Perhaps God would have waited until the mutation occurred (knowing it was going to, of course), and decided that that was the point at which people would be given their souls.

The offspring of “Adam” and “Eve” would have mated with others. There is no speculative dispute there, at least as I understand it.

I think there is, at least from a Humani Generis perspective. Pius XII would have been horrified.

Back then, bestiality would have spread genes in a way that it cannot today.

Indeed it would. And it may be a way of reconciling the actual words of Humani Generis with evolutionary theory, but there is no way His Holiness would have countenanced any such thing.

All in all, I commend attempts to reconcile the way evolution is understood today with the figurative accounts in Genesis, but I don’t think they are necessary, nor valuable. They tend to occur in isolated pockets rather than as a whole picture. Having sorted out Adam (and Eve? Who she?), how are we then going to distinguish their particular “sin of disobedience” from the behaviour of all their immediate family? Was the tree of knowledge forbidden to them but not the others? What happened if non true humans ate of it? Should we be looking for hyoid bones in fossil snakes?

I do not, of course, expect answers to these questions; I fear they would wander into fantasy. However, exploring soul/gene equivalence demands coherent explanations of them. If one aspect of Genesis must be moulded to evolutionary coherence, then shouldn’t the rest of it too?

 

[Gorgias]

I don’t think “being rational” is good evidence of “having a soul”.

After all, the only thing a person has to do is watch reality TV shows: lots of ensouled humans, little evidence of rationality. By that standard, we’d say “no evidence of rationality? Clearly, they’re just unensouled apes!”

This person must then have mated with someone “without a soul” (or fortuitously met someone with the same mutation), in order to pass on the gene, which could have resulted in a number of children “with a soul”.

Notice the divergence from Catholic teaching in that assertion… I haven’t listened to the lecture, but if you’re representing it accurately, then what was presented has turned the act of the creation of the soul from something that God does, into something that human parents do. The Church teaches that God creates a person’s immortal soul “immediately.” I think it’s reasonable to understand that as answering not only the question “when?”, but also the question “how?”. That is, He creates it without mediation.

the idea that the gene spread throughout the whole population of a couple of thousand by intermarriage between “with souls” and “without souls” is theologically unsound

The theological problem here isn’t the ‘mating’, per se, but the notion of “propagation of souls through physical (i.e., genetic) means.”

 

[Allyson]

I don’t think “being rational” is good evidence of “having a soul”. To Thomas Aquinas, who had no knowledge of pre-historic humanoids and minimal knowledge of modern non-human primates, the distinction between the rationality of humans and the non-rationality of other animals was clear and unequivocal, but to us, it isn’t. There is almost no aspect of our rationality that isn’t matched, at least qualitatively, by bonobos, dolphins, elephants, ravens, rats, octopuses or almost any other animal you care to study, and the moment one palaeontologist claims that one or other trait distinctive of humanity, such as language, tool-using, control of fire, respect for the dead, art or music, is exclusive to Homo sapiens, evidence is found that other, closely related species, had the same. Evidence of rationality in the evolutionary development of humans, rather like the emerging evidence of rationality in a human baby, is gradual and particulate.

The same can be said of the concept of the soul. It is a concept that predates modern science used to explain animation, which we can now explain through physics, chemistry, and biology. The is no reason that a soul needs to exist in order for physical matter to be living breathing thinking matter…

Indeed it would. And it may be a way of reconciling the actual words of Humani Generis with evolutionary theory, but there is no way His Holiness would have countenanced any such thing.

@Neithan Ditto. It is not at all what Pius XII had in mind. I do think he did hold that Adam and Eve are the sole biological parents of us all. Their act of creation of children - i.e. generation - creates the body of the next human. According to Catholic teaching, only God creates souls. So Pius did not intend that generation was at all linked to the creation of souls - just the biological matter.

 

[Dovekin]

If the soul is the form of the body, then the genetic mutation that enabled behavioral modernity would be a sign that it is present, but is not equated to it. A soul is immaterial.

If the soul is the form of the body, then a body with a rational soul is different from one without a rational soul. The theological question is probably the inverse of the way you are asking: is everything of the body determined by genetics? There may be scientists who would answer yes, but most would not. The body is also determined by circumstances, like whether your twin is on your right or your left. Or if you have a twin.

Of course, genes might begin to vary in response to the soul, just as they vary in response to amount of sunlight.

 

[Dovekin]

Their act of creation of children - i.e. generation - creates the body of the next human. According to Catholic teaching, only God creates souls. So Pius did not intend that generation was at all linked to the creation of souls - just the biological matter.

Not just the biological matter, but Pius is arguing that generation is linked to original sin being passed to infants. That is part of the soul that God creates, but comes by generation.

 

[Hugh_Farey]

what was presented has turned the act of the creation of the soul from something that God does , into something that human parents do

Probably my fault, but I think that’s a slight misrepresentation of Fr Nicanor’s viewpoint. The gene, as I see it, is a sort of marker for the soul. So the gene gets passed on biologically, and every conception including the gene gets awarded a soul “immediately” by God.

 

[tafan2]

To add to @Wesrock’s videos, I would also suggest looking at the following website:

http://www.thomisticevolution.org/

In particular, numbers 24-28 under the disputed questions page addresses many of your questions. These guys are pretty good at both science and the theology and philosophy of the Church and provide a good synthesis of how all of this very well could fit together.

 

[Gorgias]

Probably my fault, but I think that’s a slight misrepresentation of Fr Nicanor’s viewpoint. The gene, as I see it, is a sort of marker for the soul. So the gene gets passed on biologically, and every conception including the gene gets awarded a soul “immediately” by God.

So, an undifferentiated marker of a unique soul?

Hmm… that sounds problematic, no?

At the very least, it seems like it would change the discussion of ensoulment in twinning, and the other associated difficult cases…

 

[Allyson]

Their act of creation of children - i.e. generation - creates the body of the next human. According to Catholic teaching, only God creates souls. So Pius did not intend that generation was at all linked to the creation of souls - just the biological matter.

Yes, no argument there. I was referring to how the the parents do not create the soul. So, in the Doctrine of Original Sin, the biological matter is intertwined with the consequences of original sin.

I would also note that, while the Western theology reifies original sin as something literally passed through the generations, the theology of the Eastern churches (Catholic and Orthodox) focus on being subject to death as the effect of original sin.

 

[Willing_Spirit]

I’ve been reading a lot about this topic too and trying to understand. One theory I read about suggested that when Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, their children might have procreated with other species, making us descendents of both Adam and whatever other species we are traced to.

I was reading the Wikipedia articles Evolution of Human Intelligence and Behavioral Modernity and found it interesting that they describe a rapid increase in sophistication, or “Great Leap Forward”, that has yet to be explained. There are many theories, but all of them are criticized of flaws.

I also find it interesting that the sophistication seems to have happened in the middle east where some have suggested the Garden of Eden to have been, and where all of biblical history happens.