I agree it’s not a dogma as far as I can tell. But I would take it as a pious tradition, since I’m not aware of any early father who didn’t beleive Eve was created from Adam’s side.
Could you explain this further?
I don’t know how to do the quote boxes inside of quote boxes, so I will explain that the above refer to whether it is dogma that Eve was created from Adam, and whether the answer to that question has an impact on the extent of evolution.
First, I admit to being deliberately obscure with my one word responses, for which I apologize.
I don’t have time right now to give a very complete answer, but the simple answer is that I have never seen any dogmatic declaration on the details of creation. I know that the Church accepts the creation stories as myth and allegory, while at the same time allowing belief in their literal truth.
My opinion is that this part of the story, correctly understood, is a beautiful symbol of the partnership of man and woman, and the equality of man and woman. I think it is meant to show that man and woman are of the same matter, and each created by God. (But sometimes the exact same story is used to explain that man is superior to woman and that woman was created for man, like a possession.)
I would point out that earlier in Genesis God is described as creating man and woman at the same time, and I don’t see how both can be literally true. (Although some have suggested there were two different women created, which is a whole nother barrel of fish.)
I agree that the creation myth is a tradition, and I simply don’t know whether any Early Church Fathers did not believe it was literally true. It wouldn’t surprise me if they all did, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some did not. I think its possible that some would say they didn’t know or care if it is literally true because it is not offered for its literal truth.
I don’t think any of this has anything to do with belief in evolution. I don’t know if Eve was a real person. She could have been, but I kind of doubt it. I think that Ahimsa’s posts on this make a lot of good points (although I have not had time to digest and see if I agree with all of them.) Whether Eve was a real person that was the first ensouled human after a long evolution, a “specially created” person created from Adam’s side, a “specially created” person made in some other way, an allegorical way of understanding all early people, or something else altogether, doesn’t matter much to me (other than as intellectual curiousity). To me, in each of those possibilities she was created by God, and the importance is to try to grasp what the story of Adam and Eve can teach me about faith, love and my duties to and relationship with God. The rest is unimportant.