What are Catholic sources for the literal Adam?

[buffalo]

Abraham testifies he is “but dust and ashes”.

David said: " He remembers that we are dust"

Sirach asks: “How can he who is dust and ashes be proud” “The Lord created man out of earth and turned him back to it again”

“And God shaped man” Gn 2:7

“Your hands created me and shaped me” Jb 10:8

"Just like an embryo is planted in the mother’s womb and develops from the material which has surrounded it from the beginning, so also God wanted to take the material for the human body from the earth. Thus, clay became flesh and blood, and skin, and nerves and veins, and arteries, and the brain, and bone marrow and supporting bones, and so on. Ancient Christian Commentary on Sacred Scripture, OT pp 52-53

Theodoret of Cyr, St Basil, St John Chrysostom, St Iranaeus, St Cyril of Jerusalem, St Gregory of Nyssa, St Cyril of Alexandria, St John Damascene, St Ephrem, Tertulian, St Ambrose, St Jerome and St Augustine all expressed belief that Adam was created from the earth.

St THomas devotes four articles to the production of the body of the first man.

“and man became a living being” Gn 2:7

The creation of Eve from Adam - flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones.

There is so much more - it is clear the Catholic Church continuously taught and believed that Adam and Eve were real persons and our first parents. There can be no doubt.

 

[hellopeople]

Whoever denies Adam, denies original sin, Baptism, the Immaculate Conception, and the need for salvation by Christ.

I disagree with this. If Adam existed, the earth and everything it in would have to be 6,000 years old. The scientific evidence shows this to be untrue.

I personally don’t believe in original sin, but I do believe that humans are destined to sin at times, but this propensity for sinning does not stem back to Adam.

 

[hellopeople]

Abraham testifies he is “but dust and ashes”.

David said: " He remembers that we are dust"

Sirach asks: “How can he who is dust and ashes be proud” “The Lord created man out of earth and turned him back to it again”

“And God shaped man” Gn 2:7

“Your hands created me and shaped me” Jb 10:8

"Just like an embryo is planted in the mother’s womb and develops from the material which has surrounded it from the beginning, so also God wanted to take the material for the human body from the earth. Thus, clay became flesh and blood, and skin, and nerves and veins, and arteries, and the brain, and bone marrow and supporting bones, and so on. Ancient Christian Commentary on Sacred Scripture, OT pp 52-53

Theodoret of Cyr, St Basil, St John Chrysostom, St Iranaeus, St Cyril of Jerusalem, St Gregory of Nyssa, St Cyril of Alexandria, St John Damascene, St Ephrem, Tertulian, St Ambrose, St Jerome and St Augustine all expressed belief that Adam was created from the earth.

St THomas devotes four articles to the production of the body of the first man.

“and man became a living being” Gn 2:7

The creation of Eve from Adam - flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones.

There is so much more - it is clear the Catholic Church continuously taught and believed that Adam and Eve were real persons and our first parents. There can be no doubt.

So do you believe that the world is 6,000 years old? And if you do, is your only evidence your faith that the Bible is literally true.

 

[buffalo]

So do you believe that the world is 6,000 years old? And if you do, is your only evidence your faith that the Bible is literally true.

We have a historical recording and scientific ideas. The Genealogies show Adam around 10,000BC. So the world has to be this old at minimum.

We cannot discount real history.

 

[hellopeople]

We have a historical recording and scientific ideas. The Genealogies show Adam around 10,000BC. So the world has to be this old at minimum.

We cannot discount real history.

So what are you saying here? The world is at least 10,000 years old, but do you think that it is 5 billion years old?

 

[buffalo]

So what are you saying here? The world is at least 10,000 years old, but do you think that it is 5 billion years old?

I am more concerned with the origins of man.

If it is true that the earth is old I that is OK. I am interested in the intersection between faith and reason and harmonizing both. Here is a possibility.

Genesis 1 seems to be written from God’s perspective. Imagine a tape measure rolled up. God sees all the graduations on the tape at once, perhaps 7 layers. Since we are on the graduations we look back and have to transverse the graduations, cycles. It is also possible that early on some of the parameters may have been different giving the perception of long ages. I do not believe this to be proven either way. I am content to wait for more information to come in. But I am seeing a shift that is important. Geologists are acknowledging catastrophism.

 

[peary]

I was always intrigued by a book written by geneticist Brian Sykes titled “The Seven Daughters of Eve.” I highly recommend it because they have been able to trace our genetics to seven female sources in the world. This would mean that there are probably was a real Adam and Eve.

 

[hellopeople]

I was always intrigued by a book written by geneticist Brian Sykes titled “The Seven Daughters of Eve.” I highly recommend it because they have been able to trace our genetics to seven female sources in the world. This would mean that there are probably was a real Adam and Eve.

Quite a stretch there.

 

[grannymh]

I was always intrigued by a book written by geneticist Brian Sykes titled “The Seven Daughters of Eve.” I highly recommend it because they have been able to trace our genetics to seven female sources in the world. This would mean that there are probably was a real Adam and Eve.

No probability at all regarding Adam and Eve. They are the real sole parents of the human species. The fact that we have the same nature, rational/corporeal, soul/body that describes them demonstrates the line of procreation.

Blessings,
granny

Human life is sacred.

 

[diggerdomer]

That leaves monogenism – two real sole parents of the human species. There was a serious sin committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all… according to Humani Generis, #37. Add to this the strong Catechism statements regarding the real person known as Adam. Then read St. Paul’s references to Adam.

All this points to the fact that Catholics are required to believe that Adam and Eve are real, historical, literal, flesh and blood, human beings no matter what their names really were. In other words, the names can be figurative, but the actual people existed.

Blessings,
granny

All human beings are worthy of profound respect.

Humani Generis 37 is, I believe, I bit more nuanced than that. What you say is entirely coherent with, but not identical to, what is taught there.

 

[Rsiewell]

You are wrong.

From Humani Generis:

1. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which through generation is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

Having read the entire article, the reason that this was stated was because the church could not find a situation in which both the conditions of polygenism and the historical adam and eve could both fit. It also stated that if there were such a possibility that as a catholic believer, one could believe in polygenism. Now in my crazed little mind I have one that works (at least in my head). Believing in theistic evolution Adam and Eve were the first two humans and they were in that sense the first two evolved to modern man from neanderthals. They really did screw the rest of humanity for the next couple thousand years or so. However Evolution is a slow process. It isn’t like in the fifth grade class room where monkey, monkey, poof human. It is slow like just thumbs for 5 years then stnading upright and so on the rest of the neanderthals that Adam and Eve descended from were still there they didn’t dissappear. More humans slowly evolved from the neanderthals. This explains where all those random people show up in the old testament like Adam and Eve’s Childerens’ Wives.

Wow my fingers hurt.

 

[kepha1]

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.

Art Sippo M.D.

 

[grannymh]

Humani Generis 37 is, I believe, I bit more nuanced than that. What you say is entirely coherent with, but not identical to, what is taught there.

CAF was the first time I heard of polygenism and Humani Generis. It has been a struggle because it is more than a half century since my only class in biology which was in high school. Thanks to the coaching of a non-theist scientist on CAF, I have caught up with the natural science approach to the origin of the human species.

Regardless, Divine Revelation trumps.

Thus, I have continued to learn about the real Adam, not the symbolic Adam which some Catholics like to mention. It is a true delight to wake up to posts on Humani Generis.* *

I shall work through these valuable posts. I know my faith was shaken at the idea that Adam and Eve did not exist. From what I have been reading, I am not the only one. But being a direct descendent of Thomas the Apostle, I know Who to go to.

To begin.
As a former writer/assistant editor in various fields of communication, I would like additional explanation regarding your comment “What you say is entirely coherent with, but not identical to, what is taught there[Humani Generis 37]”

Blessings,
granny

The quest for knowledge is worthy of the adventures of the journey.

 

[Cristian_B]

Why don’t you people just read the Bible? It is clearly written in it and easy to understand:From one man [Adam]* He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.* ~Acts 17:26-27 NIV
If you believe the Bible is true, then Adam is literal, because it is written in the Old Testament and clearly stated in the New Testament.

 

[Rsiewell]

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.

Art Sippo M.D.

Well said… but if God allowed for incest for a period time then why not allow it now? And as you said Human has been around for about 2 million years and homo sapien for 130,000. That is where I believe polygenism fits. If the first two homosapiens arrived more would have continued to evolve and soon there would be more than just those bred from just homo sapiens. I like your point about theoligical human vs. Biological human.

 

[buffalo]

Well said… but if God allowed for incest for a period time then why not allow it now? And as you said Human has been around for about 2 million years and homo sapien for 130,000. That is where I believe polygenism fits. If the first two homosapiens arrived more would have continued to evolve and soon there would be more than just those bred from just homo sapiens. I like your point about theoligical human vs. Biological human.

Because of the generational damage to our genes.

 

[grannymh]

Having read the entire article, the reason that this was stated was because the church could not find a situation in which both the conditions of polygenism and the historical adam and eve could both fit. It also stated that if there were such a possibility that as a catholic believer, one could believe in polygenism. Now in my crazed little mind I have one that works (at least in my head). Believing in theistic evolution Adam and Eve were the first two humans and they were in that sense the first two evolved to modern man from neanderthals. They really did screw the rest of humanity for the next couple thousand years or so. However Evolution is a slow process. It isn’t like in the fifth grade class room where monkey, monkey, poof human. It is slow like just thumbs for 5 years then stnading upright and so on the rest of the neanderthals that Adam and Eve descended from were still there they didn’t dissappear. More humans slowly evolved from the neanderthals. This explains where all those random people show up in the old testament like Adam and Eve’s Childerens’ Wives.

Wow my fingers hurt.

May I interject that current “evidence” demonstrates that modern man did not evolve from the Neanderthals. Without debating Darwinism, may I point out that there are quite a few “scientific” theories regarding how the human species came to be. Please note that science, by definition, is limited to the material and physical world. In other words, “science” cannot explain the complete human nature; it can only attempt to explain human’s biological anatomy.

Blessings
granny

Human life is sacred.

 

[grannymh]

Having read the entire article, the reason that this was stated was because the church could not find a situation in which both the conditions of polygenism and the historical adam and eve could both fit. It also stated that if there were such a possibility that as a catholic believer, one could believe in polygenism. Now in my crazed little mind I have one that works (at least in my head). Believing in theistic evolution Adam and Eve were the first two humans and they were in that sense the first two evolved to modern man from neanderthals. They really did screw the rest of humanity for the next couple thousand years or so. However Evolution is a slow process. It isn’t like in the fifth grade class room where monkey, monkey, poof human. It is slow like just thumbs for 5 years then stnading upright and so on the rest of the neanderthals that Adam and Eve descended from were still there they didn’t dissappear. More humans slowly evolved from the neanderthals. This explains where all those random people show up in the old testament like Adam and Eve’s Childerens’ Wives.

Wow my fingers hurt.

From what you quoted in post 31, Humani Generis 37, first sentence, clearly prohibits polygenism. Would you kindly point me to the section on polygenism which counters this.

It is my understanding, that there is more to Adam and Eve being historical which is why I am interested in Catholic teaching regarding them. In my humble opinion, the beginning chapters of Genesis are not a script for a soap opera. That is why, there is no need to mention other characters. As for “random” people mentioned in post 31, there may have been some random hominids living, but they would not be considered people with the same human nature as you have.

Blessings,
granny

Human beings are totally different from all others.

These two websites contain TV ads about Catholicism. The first is from one of the Dioceses which is using them. The second is general information.

 

[Rsiewell]

May I interject that current “evidence” demonstrates that modern man did not evolve from the Neanderthals. Without debating Darwinism, may I point out that there are quite a few “scientific” theories regarding how the human species came to be. Please note that science, by definition, is limited to the material and physical world. In other words, “science” cannot explain the complete human nature; it can only attempt to explain human’s biological anatomy.

Blessings
granny

Human life is sacred.

True Science deals with the natural world as described. If you are going to give other scientific theories about where humans came from you have to bring up darwinism. And we are not trying to explain human nature. We are trying to simply explain how god created our physical maniffestations our bodies. Whether theistic evolution or instaneous creation. And what evidence do you have that modern man did not evolve from Neanderthals.

Blessings to Granny

 

[grannymh]

True Science deals with the natural world as described. If you are going to give other scientific theories about where humans came from you have to bring up darwinism. And we are not trying to explain human nature. We are trying to simply explain how god created our physical maniffestations our bodies. Whether theistic evolution or instaneous creation. And what evidence do you have that modern man did not evolve from Neanderthals.

Blessings to Granny

You are right about Darwinism as a theory to contend with. However, I will leave that alone, since my priority is the Catholic position on a real live Adam.

As to explaining how God created our bodies, we are pretty much on our own. At the moment
I am so into human nature being a unique, intimate unification of spirit/matter, that it is personally hard for me to separate the physical for examination. But I will certainly listen to what others have to say.

Blessings,
granny

The quest for knowledge is worthy of the adventures of the journey.