What do we mean when we say Adam and Eve?

[PJM]

=cfauster;11972911]Fortunately, the bishops, popes, and theologians of the RC Church have repeatedly and clearly stated that a cautious, careful inquiry into how Adam and Eve’s bodies might have come through evolution is allowed, as long as the soul is understood to be a special and direct creation by God, and that original sin starting with Adam and Eve has been passed down to all humans from Adam and Eve.

I appreciate and respect the honest thought expressed by those here who realize that evolution happens in population groups. But I suspect the bishops, popes, and theologians have been well aware of that too, of course.

Asking some of my Catholic coworkers how to understand some of what I’ve read here, they’ve assured me that the Church includes many who feel that the bishops, popes, and theologians allowing even the possibility of an evolutionary origin to the bodies (not the souls) of Adam and Eve are in error.

A day or two ago someone suggested a book by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger entitled In the Beginning…’: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall
I got it from a library yesterday. As most of the reviews on Amazon state, it is an excellent treatise on the theological meaning of the Creation and Fall, written before Cardinal Ratzinger became Benedict XVI. It does not get into the details we have been discussing much; rather, it focuses (appropriately so) on the meaning.

Consistent with what my colleagues have warned me, the “highest rated” critical (negative) review on Amazon - which fortunately was not rated very highly anyway - seems to express a familiar tone (but taken to the extreme).

To anyone reading these threads wondering about whether or not to enter the RC Church, I think if you talk and work and worship with Catholics you will find a wonderful community of grace and truth and love for God. Do not be deterred by those who would remove the freedom in Christ that the bishops, popes, and theologians themselves have sought to preserve for the faithful. At the end of the day, most will agree to disagree and emphasize the common bonds as more important than disputes over how figuratively or literally the first three chapters of Genesis are to be interpreted.

Again, though I am a Lutheran, I do not participate here to cause trouble or to steal sheep or anything like that. I am interested in any venues where the relationship between science and faith can be nurtured in a positive and fruitful way, and believe me, as a whole you Catholics are miles ahead of the majority of Protestants in some parts of the world. Just appreciate what you have, sisters and brothers in Christ. I have seen too many young people leave Christianity altogether because their elders have refused to even consider how Biblical truth and scientific truth might be compatible. Again, those are distinct kinds of knowledge, and science and religion sometimes need to be kept quite separate. It all depends on the questions, contexts, etc.

In Christ,
cfauster

Thank you for a kind and thoughtful post!

God Bless you friend,
Patrick

 

[YanniP]

Not every word from a Pope is infallible teaching. They have confessed their beliefs and they are within Her teachings. The minimum required teachings in this area were well listed by user buffalo:

Not believing in a rib being taken from Adam then Eve being made from it does not excommunicate anyone that would otherwise be in the Church.

Then it is very true that Theology should not be chasing anything as flimsy as the current theories of early human development. They are being contradicted by many new facts and are extremely changeable.

Actually, this is incorrect. We are required to believe that eve was made from a portion of Adam. A pre-1971 statement from the Pontifical Biblical Commission, while still an arm of the Magisterium clearly directed that “the formation of the first woman from the first man” was one of the literal and historical truths from Genesis that may not be called into question- better add that to the list. See-Historical Character of the Earlier Chapters of Genesis, Question III, Pontifical Biblical Commission, June 30, 1909, in Denzinger, no. 2123.

 

[edwest2]

Actually, this is incorrect. We are required to believe that eve was made from a portion of Adam. A pre-1971 statement from the Pontifical Biblical Commission, while still an arm of the Magisterium clearly directed that “the formation of the first woman from the first man” was one of the literal and historical truths from Genesis that may not be called into question- better add that to the list. See-Historical Character of the Earlier Chapters of Genesis, Question III, Pontifical Biblical Commission, June 30, 1909, in Denzinger, no. 2123.

That is correct. The problem here is that we are told the Bible is not a scientific text, but then it is treated like one. The other problem is that God is left out of the picture entirely. God did nothing? God is incapable of performing miracles even today? Science cannot, by its own defined limitations, study the supernatural.

Peace,
Ed