No, I am saying that, genetically, you are scarcely different from other primates, and only slightly more varied than other mammals. Catholic belief does not allow for two souls, but it does differentiate between body and soul, and you, like all other humans, have a body which is the product of millions of years of evolution. You are an animal in body.
There are two ways of viewing this, both of them mentioned by Aquinas at one time or another. One is that the knowledge of good and evil means to take upon oneself the role of *determining *good and evil, Adam & Eve being a law unto themselves IOW, which is God’s province,alone.
I don’t think Science has ever found the missing link between ape and man, or between any two species for that matter. That means each species is unique. No matter how much genetic matter we share, we are humans with human souls and minds. No matter how much apes may resemble some humans, they have an ape souls and minds.
The “missing link” is a myth made up by people with poor understanding of evolution. There is no such thing as a missing link. Humans evolved from their last common ancestor with apes with a series of genetic mutations over millions of years. One generation may be more human than the last, but there is no discrete number of species between humans and the last common ancestor with apes. It doesn’t go Ape-Half Ape-Human. There is a wide range of species for which we have fossil records which display hybrid characteristics, as the theory predicts. Additionally, apes have undergone simultaneous evolution. You could trace their lineage back to a common ancestor with humans, but they don’t appear in our direct genealogy.
I guess what I’m asking what is it that makes “evil” evil and “good” good? And, why did God care about this knowledge? I sense that this knowledge resulted in the contamination of the soul, but how? I also sense that God knew this type of knowledge would eventually lead to something undesirable, but what?
Find a good Spiritual Director.
Since the term “animal soul” was used by the OP in the context of the Jewish Tanya, I understand this to mean, according to Jewish belief, that the human soul goes through a series of transformations to attain its most refined essence. Thus when the Tanya speaks of the animal soul, it is not really likening the human soul to that of an animal, but rather speaking in metaphorical terms of the most primitive form of the human soul.
My genome may help explain my physical and psychological makeup but it does not explain my immortal soul, which is also not explained by evolution. Please note the ban on evolution in philosophy forum.
And I have not claimed that it does it explain your soul, and made that very clear in my argument.
What do you mean but what? It’s very well spelled out in Genesis! Man defied God. God gave Man everything good. God does not like to be defied. Man was cast out of Eden, just as Satan was cast out of Heaven. Don’t mess with God. He is all powerful and knows what is best for man. If you choose not to follow God then you will follow Satan. It’s **that **clear.
Your response seemed to be a denial of the unique position the human beings occupy among the living beings. We have no peers.
That’s a drastic oversimplification. For one, you first have to provide arguments to prove that disobeying God is tantamount to evil, see Aquinas an objectivity, and then you must understand the alegoric meaning behind why eating that fruit was something to which God was opposed, and why it existed in creation in the first place. The answer - morality is objective, endemic in the universe, and can be as such perceived by the mind of a human. It is when Adam and Eve eat this fruit and make it something of themselves that they attempt to make good and evil relative, instead of being directed by the objective good, that the order of the garden is undone.
Although I know why you say this, wording it like this, can bring with it dangerous misconceptions.
Evil is classically defined as the absence or negation of good. It’s the lessening of or detracting from the goodness of anything. A broken arm is evil relative to a normal arm as the damaged arm’s purpose and function is impaired; it’s perfection has been compromised; it can no longer perfectly serve in its role as an arm. So evil is defined as the opposition or obstacle to achieving some perceived good. Evil has no reality of its own-apart from good, as everything in creation is good to begin with; nothing evil was created by God. Augustine put it this way, “The only possible source of evil, is good”.
Yes, what you say is informative.
I’m not going to try to soften the message for atheists! It’s pretty obvious that disobeying God is what got people into trouble throughout the Old Testament. As it says in the Lord’s Prayer “thy will be done”. God is very merciful to those who repent and turn away from the evil one, but those who willfully turn away from God and abuse his name have it coming to them in the end.
So there is no link between humans and apes just as I said.
To get a decent answer, please visit the CCC, as this explains all about The Fall, Original Sin and will further explain about the knowledge of good and evil. It also explains how lucifer separated Himself from our Creator for eternity after being given a choice to love and trust our Creator or turn away from our Creator, and it explains how, as satan, the then fallen angel went on to tempt Adam and Eve into being disobedient when in the Garden of Eden. All beings, even satan, were and are, given a choice to love our Creator, or not.
Yes, I’d be interested in that if you find it. “Very good” could still mean less than perfect-and so…? I’d like to see where that leads. Anyway, thank you.
I tend to think that their banishment from the garden was their exile from an environment or state where only good was know-where only good had been the status quo up until their sin. From then on evil would be known as well- in one way or another and to one degree or another by them and all their descendants. That knowledge itself signaled the corruption that had already occurred. Their shame and need to hide also demonstrated that they now “knew”.