This assertion by Fr Robert Barron

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Miguelita

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I am a BIG admirer of Fr Barron and find him very inspirational. However, I found this video of his reccently and now I’m concerned

youtube.com/watch?v=UVsbVAVSssc&feature=player_embedded

Primarily his later assertion on Adam.I’m not sure if I’m mishearing, or misunderstanding. I know that the book of Genesis contains both real truths and poetry to describe truths, but I also know that the church teaches Adam is a true person, even if the account of creation is told through poetry.

I’m guessing what he did when he mentioned Adam is distinguish the ACTUAL first being from the poetic account, considering he mentions Adam only to focus on Adam naming all the animals on earth.

Thoughts? Is Fr teaching heresy?
 
Isn’t this thread an exact repeat of a thread we had a couple months ago? I think the OP is almost word-for-word.

No, it’s not heresy. Or anything close to it. He just understand a lot more than you do. Or I do. Or pretty much anyone around here.
 
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to beat a head horse. I just found this site a couple days ago through WoF, and guess I haven’t read around enough yet 😃 forgive me
 
Miguelita,

I may have seen that piece a while back. I am not sure. I don’t want to put anything into Fr Barron’s mouth that he did not say.
Correct me if I am wrong about your inquiry. I would just like to say that Adam(and Eve) were real people and are our first parents. Besides it being in scripture, the infallible word of God, we also have the Church’s teaching on the sacrament of Baptism. We know that we all are in need of baptism when we enter this world to be cleansed from original sin, be made children of God and heirs to Heaven.
If Adam was not a true man and the father of the human race, his sin(the Original Sin in the Garden of Eden) could not be passed down to his offspring, the human race. Of course, Our Lady is the exception.
I hope this helps a little. If I misunderstood what you are saying, or Fr Barron is saying, do correct me. However, what I just wrote of concerning Adam and Original Sin is what the Church teaches. God bless you.
CB
 
Miguelita said:
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to beat a head horse. I just found this site a couple days ago through WoF, and guess I haven’t read around enough yet 😃 forgive me
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Don’t worry about it. It was an innocent mistake. Welcome to CAF 🙂

At some point, there had to be a set of first parents. It’s only logical. 🙂
 
Well the main reason I asked isn’t necessarily for the doctrine, but because I honestly didn’t understand what Fr was saying there. When he mentioned Adam, he said something along the lines as, don’t take this literally, as a literal figure, but as theological poetry, then went on to describe how Adam naming and catelogueing all the animals on earth was symbolic of humanities desire for knowledge, for order, or something like that. Therefore, i was confused if he was refering to, Don’t take it literlaly that he met and gave a name to a million different animals at once, or literally, as in a literal adam, or literally as in an actual adam doing this literal catelogueing…i’m confusing myself.
 
Miguelita said:
Well the main reason I asked isn’t necessarily for the doctrine, but because I honestly didn’t understand what Fr was saying there. When he mentioned Adam, he said something along the lines as, don’t take this literally, as a literal figure, but as theological poetry, then went on to describe how Adam naming and catelogueing all the animals on earth was symbolic of humanities desire for knowledge, for order, or something like that. Therefore, i was confused if he was refering to, Don’t take it literlaly that he met and gave a name to a million different animals at once, or literally, as in a literal adam, or literally as in an actual adam doing this literal catelogueing…i’m confusing myself.
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But if you take the total population of humans who have ever lived and keep dividing by 2, eventually you reach 2, no?

(I realize that this is a tad simplistic, as the number of total men is probably not equal to the number of total women and obviously not all of them had children, or had children with only 1 spouse, but you get the idea 😉 )
 
…that doesn’t have anything to do with what i asked. I’m not asking about what the church teaches. I’m asking about what Fr Barron HIMSELF said.
 

  1. *] The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
    *] The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)
    *] Man consists of two essential parts–a material body and a spiritual soul. (De fide.)
    *] The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body. (De fide.)
    *] Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De fide.)
    *] Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. (Sent. Certa.)
    *] A creature has the capacity to receive supernatural gifts. (Sent. communis.)
    *] The Supernatural presupposes Nature. (Sent communis.)
    *] God has conferred on man a supernatural Destiny. (De fide.)
    *] Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace. (De fide.)
    *] The donum rectitudinis or integritatis in the narrower sense, i.e., the freedom from irregular desire. (Sent. fidei proxima.)
    *] The donum immortalitatis, i.e.,bodily immortality. (De fide.)
    *] The donum impassibilitatis, i.e., the freedom from suffering. (Sent. communis.)
    *] The donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.)
    *] Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity. (Sent. certa.)
    *] Our first parents in paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment. (De fide.)
    *] Through the sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God. (De fide.)
    *] Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil. (De fide.) D788.
    *] Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent. (De fide.)
    *] Original Sin consists in the deprivation of grace caused by the free act of sin committed by the head of the race. (Sent. communis.)
    *] Original sin is transmitted by natural generation. (De fide.)
    *] In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity. (De fide in regard to Sanctifying Grace and the Donum Immortalitatus. D788 et seq.)
    *] Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)
 
…I don’t want to know what the church teaches, please! I want to know what Fr Barron meant, and wether or not what he said is in LINE with what the church teaches. The first response, thus far, is the only one that actually answers my question.
 
Miguelita,

I understand why you are asking. I did not view the clip before my original posting. My fault. I have just viewed it. I must say, I am a little bit perplexed along with you. Is he saying Adam was the Father of man or not? He speaks, like you said, of poetry, not saying necessarily that Genesis is such, but not speaking plainly. That warrants a direct question to be asked of what he says/believes. I took a peak at the website recommended, but when you have a specific question, it is not necessarily in the articles posted.
Email the wordonfire.org website and ask the direct question. It is not wrong to do so and may help clear things up for others. Not having seen that whole episode, it is conceivable that he is clearer in another piece, but he sure is not in the one posted.

CB
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
But if you take the total population of humans who have ever lived and keep dividing by 2, eventually you reach 2, no?

(I realize that this is a tad simplistic, as the number of total men is probably not equal to the number of total women and obviously not all of them had children, or had children with only 1 spouse, but you get the idea 😉 )
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That’s not how it works. Populations are derived from ancestral populations, not usually from a single ancestral pair. If there is an extremely small number of individuals from which all the members of a population are exclusively descended, that’s called a genetic bottleneck. Such a bottleneck sharply reduces genetic diversity, which is usually very unhealthy for the population and in any case is obvious to anyone studying the genetics of the population. We know, for instance, that cheetahs underwent a rather severe bottleneck relatively recently in their history.

Studies of human genetics do not reveal a bottleneck in our own history of anything like the magnitude a single human pair from which we are all exclusively descended would constitute. There are a number of ways this evidence can be reconciled with the idea of a historical Adam and Eve, but the idea of incestuous marriage between the children and grandchildren of Adam and Eve producing the rest of the human race through natural biological reproduction should be ruled out. And good riddance to it- it was morally repulsive in the first place.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
That’s not how it works. Populations are derived from ancestral populations, not usually from a single ancestral pair. If there is an extremely small number of individuals from which all the members of a population are exclusively descended, that’s called a genetic bottleneck. Such a bottleneck sharply reduces genetic diversity, which is usually very unhealthy for the population and in any case is obvious to anyone studying the genetics of the population. We know, for instance, that cheetahs underwent a rather severe bottleneck relatively recently in their history.

Studies of human genetics do not reveal a bottleneck in our own history of anything like the magnitude a single human pair from which we are all exclusively descended would constitute. There are a number of ways this evidence can be reconciled with the idea of a historical Adam and Eve, but the idea of incestuous marriage between the children and grandchildren of Adam and Eve producing the rest of the human race through natural biological reproduction should be ruled out. And good riddance to it- it was morally repulsive in the first place.
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The lookback horizon is limited and rank with starting point assumptions.

There is no problem with God allowing the first brothers and sisters to marry.
 
Aelred Minor,
What seems impossible to man is not impossible with God. The early generations, by God’s planning, would not have the “breakdown” that would occur today. As I mentioned in my first posting, the sacrament of Baptism was instituted, at least partly, to wash away Original Sin passed along to all men through the father of all men, Adam. No Adam as head of all of us, then not everyone(save Our Lady) would have original sin. There is no way around that. God bless.

CB
 
Cowboy2012 said:
Aelred Minor,
What seems impossible to man is not impossible with God. The early generations, by God’s planning, would not have the “breakdown” that would occur today. As I mentioned in my first posting, the sacrament of Baptism was instituted, at least partly, to wash away Original Sin passed along to all men through the father of all men, Adam. No Adam as head of all of us, then not everyone(save Our Lady) would have original sin. There is no way around that. God bless.

CB
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RIght - Adam and Eve had pristine genetics so it would not be an issue.
 
Cowboy2012 said:
Aelred Minor,
What seems impossible to man is not impossible with God. The early generations, by God’s planning, would not have the “breakdown” that would occur today. As I mentioned in my first posting, the sacrament of Baptism was instituted, at least partly, to wash away Original Sin passed along to all men through the father of all men, Adam. No Adam as head of all of us, then not everyone(save Our Lady) would have original sin. There is no way around that. God bless.

CB
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Nicely done! 👍
 
Luigi_Daniele said:
Don’t worry about it. It was an innocent mistake. Welcome to CAF 🙂

At some point, there had to be a set of first parents. It’s only logical. 🙂
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Not to pile on, but I seem to remember hearing research that every set of mitochondrial DNA yet studied seems to point back to a common ancestry through one woman in Africa about 10,000 or so years ago…
 
Pat_Payne said:
Not to pile on, but I seem to remember hearing research that every set of mitochondrial DNA yet studied seems to point back to a common ancestry through one woman in Africa about 10,000 or so years ago…
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Yup. I, too, read this.🙂
 
Cowboy2012 said:
Miguelita,

I understand why you are asking. I did not view the clip before my original posting. My fault. I have just viewed it. I must say, I am a little bit perplexed along with you. Is he saying Adam was the Father of man or not? He speaks, like you said, of poetry, not saying necessarily that Genesis is such, but not speaking plainly. That warrants a direct question to be asked of what he says/believes. I took a peak at the website recommended, but when you have a specific question, it is not necessarily in the articles posted.
Email the wordonfire.org website and ask the direct question. It is not wrong to do so and may help clear things up for others. Not having seen that whole episode, it is conceivable that he is clearer in another piece, but he sure is not in the one posted.

CB
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I think I might do that, maybe. I’m not too terribly concerned, but curious. Father Barron is a VERY well respected priest, and I find it hard to imagine he’d hold, clearly, a beliefe contrary to the teachings of the church. He’s very orthodox in all other aspects, so I’m guessing that it’s merely a bad wording. I appreciate all other (name removed by moderator)ut, though.
 
buffalo said:
RIght - Adam and Eve had pristine genetics so it would not be an issue.
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This would not explain the diversity of modern human genetics, but a supernatural diversification of genetics in the first generations of man is one of the possible ways to reconcile faith with the genetic evidence that I mentioned.
 
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