When did Adam/Eve Live?

[Ghosty]

hecd2: Again it goes back to our disagreement about what the Magisterium is actually saying. When the Church comes out and says that no other genes could have mixed with Adam and Eve’s, then I will submit to that and look for how such a thing is possible in light of our scientific knowledge. At this time, however, no such absolute statement has been made. The “polygenism” that we must not accept is not the same polygenism you describe, or at least it isn’t necessarily so given the language of the time. I fully admit that your interpretation of the Church’s teaching is a valid one, but the Magisterium simply so far lacks the definitive language necessary to make it the only one as I see it. I have no problem accepting Dogma over scientific analysis, I just haven’t seen the need to do so yet.

As for “Darwinian” style evolution, I’ve always had problems with it. Not because of a lack of transitionals, which I think is a false argument, but rather because genetics doesn’t seem to support a system of pure, or even heavy, natural selection. The kinds of changes we see in the environment, such as Ice Ages, seem to far out-pace the projected genetic drift that natural selection would suggest. I don’t support “intelligent design” arguments simply because they have no place in science (which is not to say that I don’t believe in an Intelligent Designer, just that such theories fall outside of useful scientific method and into philosophy), but neither do I accept the dominant theory regarding the alteration of species; it does not seem to meet the standards necessary to hold up as a theory, and remains merely a partially grounded hypothesis. I do fully expect that we will someday have a fully scientific model of evolution, espescially with advancements in genetics, but I simply don’t see that currently. My personal inkling is that we’ll find that genes are quite a bit “smarter” than we’ve traditionally given them credit for, and that they are closely tied to environmental factors experienced by the body, but that’s just my wacko idea as someone with no authority in genetics.

 

[Exporter]

Phil,
You asked," And how do you explain humanity (our species homo sapiens) existing before Adam/Eve? "

You obviously have spent a few minutes thinking about this question. You infer that “our” species existed Before Adam and Eve. Why must Homo sapiens sapiens exist before Adam and Eve. Oh, maybe they lived in the Land of Nod…for where did the wives come from, huh?

I have read that genetically the offspring of Adam and Eve were perfect, this allowed Adam’s sons to marry their sisters and produce viable offspring. . Adam and Eve lived for many years and had many children so it’s said.

Questions like this probably have no definitive answer and are best suited for after diner talk. But I am glad you posted the question. Thanks.:clapping:

 

[Ken]

If all humans descended from Adam and Eve, and from no others, who did Adam’s sons mate with? The only possibilities are Adam’s daughters and Eve. Likewise, the only options for Adam’s daughters were Adam’s sons and Adam.

Now, when was natural law enacted? Did the Adams family have a special dispensation? If we are all descended from various incestuous relations, and if the human race was founded on incest, that seems like a clear approval of incest.

So, when did the current version of natural law take force? Those who hold that incest violates natural law and that Adam’s kids mated with each other must concede that natural law changes. Or was the foundation of the human race a violation of natural law?

 

[marciadietrich]

Ken:

If all humans descended from Adam and Eve, and from no others, who did Adam’s sons mate with? The only possibilities are Adam’s daughters and Eve. Likewise, the only options for Adam’s daughters were Adam’s sons and Adam.

Now, when was natural law enacted? Did the Adams family have a special dispensation? If we are all descended from various incestuous relations, and if the human race was founded on incest, that seems like a clear approval of incest. …

There is a good bit of incest going on in Genesis, just for the cases where they make it explicit let alone where they might be silent on the point. The most prominent case being Abraham and Sarah being his half sister (Gen 20:12). Rebekah and Isaac both directly descend from Abraham’s father (Terah-Abraham-Isaac/Terah-Nahor-Betheul-Rebekah). Rebekah’s brother Laban (also direct descendent of Abraham’s father) has the daughters who Jacob married (so first cousins). There is a lot of close relations marrying based on the patriarchal lineage in a short span of time - that would be some fairly serious inbreeding going on there over a few generations.

The idea of kinsmen redeemer is marrying a relative is in Ruth too (Ruth chapters 3-4 she asks for him to spread his cloak over her, he says she has a “closer relative” Ruth 3:12- who could make a claim on Ruth and the land). I believe it is in Kings somewhere first cousins marrying. Not as close as sister/brother, but still considered incestuous by today’s standards - at least in Western culture, some cultures marry first cousins. In the past, it seems, it was preferred to marry relatives rather than outsiders.

I think some would try to say natural law says polygamy is not legit, but some patriarchs seem to have -for whatever reason- engaged in that as well. The case of Abraham having Ishmael with the handmaid based on Sarah’s request and again happens with Jacob and Rachel when she thinks she is barren Jacob has children via the handmaid of Rachel then Rachel later and was also married to her sister - maybe even had kids via leah’s handmaid.

Obviously from a science point of view, the incest of a single pair as the start of the human race seems totally out of the question … unless there was some way the genes were manipulated by God in a direct intervention to prevent inbreeding depression and make it appear that there were many, perhaps even thousands, of early relatives at the least.

Marcia

 

[PhilVaz]

Transport << You obviously have spent a few minutes thinking about this question. You infer that “our” species existed Before Adam and Eve. Why must Homo sapiens sapiens exist before Adam and Eve. >>

The standard paleoanthropological literature says homo sapiens sapiens (our species) goes back at least 100,000 - 150,000 years.

Walking with Cavemen and chronology
PBS on Human Evolution
Becoming Human

Cro-Magnon man (also homo sapiens sapiens) goes back at least 30,000 to 40,000 years.

TalkOrigins on Cro-Magnon
More Cro-Magnon skulls
And we learn this stuff in 6th grade

A very literal-historical understanding of Genesis 4 is that Adam/Eve’s immediate descendents (their sons Cain, Abel, and others) lived after the Stone Ages ( > 10000 BC), during the Bronze Ages ( < 5000 BC), from the references to bronze tools, metal working, livestock raising, agriculture and farming, and complex musical instruments (Genesis 4:2, 21, 22). This puts the first human beings Adam/Eve of Genesis chapters 1-3 in the 4000-5000 BC range if we take these early Genesis references to metal, farming, and music as “literal” and “historical.” Apparently the author of Genesis (let’s assume it was Moses) did not know about the Cro-Magnons, nor about human society and cultures that date well before 5000 BC or so. Don’t want to open another can of worms, but these are things I think about in my spare time.

That’s my problem with taking the early Genesis chapters as literal and historical. It conflicts with known facts of science. There are other theological problems, such as the “bodily immortality” of Adam/Eve issue which seems irreconciliable with human evolution. A more symbolical / figurative / allegorical view of the early Genesis chapters might solve some of these. I respect science too much to either throw it out or ignore it.

Anyway, a few excellent messages here (and in other threads) offered some solutions. Looks like Glenn Morton’s book Adam, Apes, and Anthropology appears to be the most complete and thorough study of this question (I’m reading it now). Everyone should get that book. Looking for something similar from the Catholic side.

Phil P

 

[marciadietrich]

hecd2:

The invocation of a miracle is always possible of course. In this case, the miracle will have not just to breathe the eternal soul into Adam (a concept that science can say nothing about) but it would have had to manipulate the genomes of humans to make it appear incontrovertibly as though the human population bottleneck is 10,000. That sort of miracle is not one that I hope anyone here thinks God would perform (it is standard apologetics from Young Earth Creationists who refute strong scientific evidence with the unanswerable but specious argument that God created it to appear that way - eg the creation of light in transit - an argument that implicitly accepts the concept of a deceitful God).

Alec,

Been thinking on this last sentence… if God would be deceitful for that. I’m not sure that light in transit would be deceitful as the science of today is something we’ve had to come to a point technologically to seek out and look and make assumptions what happens now always happened. I’m not sure the idea of seeing God in creation is in the microanalysis and trying to figure out origins for ourselves, as much as it is in the awe of what is there as it and more an aesthetic feeling.

Where, in contrast, in scripture we have direct statements which many if not close to being the truth of how things occurred seems more deceitful, IMO, than God creating light in transit that we had to seek out that knowledge and it isn’t attached to other beliefs. We have Christ and apostles saying ‘in the beginning’ Adam and Eve, Noah, etc. and treating those events as very real and directly relating those things to our salvation and need for a redeemer. The idea we just couldn’t understand or accept more thus needed “illustrative stories,” IMO, is false. I think we could have gotten something in terms of the those times and level of understanding that more closely conforms to the truth if we did evolve from many different people rather than a single couple. Just as you can explain things truthfully to children on their own level rather than basically making up stories and presenting it as truth.

I know illustrative stories are useful. But there can be a clear dilineation between that and a direct statement of fact or other types of teaching.

Anyhow, guess we’re all in it together trying to sort it out until we get some clarification from the top.

Marcia

 

[Veronica_Anne]

Long, LONG time ago!!

Sorry if I sound trite, but why would it even matter?

The entire first 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures used a type of literary form called “myth.”

As a literary form, myth is NOT fable.

And fable, for example, is all too often the literary form used by self-proclaimed journalists when they are actually inserting language of an editorial into a supposed piece of news. (I hate when that happens! especially when they do that to us Catholics in “news” that makes the parts of the newspaper that are supposed to be “just the facts, ma’am” while all the while the journalist hasn’t done his/her research to find out the facts because the story could be just sizzling with innuendo, instead, and therefore sell the paper to people who seem to believe that if something makes the newspaper that of course it MUST be 100% true - )

Myth is an ancient and valid literary form that is used to describe things that are true that are indescribable to the human mind. The Hebrews used it then when they wrote – with the Holy Spirit being the Author like He is for ALL the canonized Scriptures – the story of Creation.

Those things that are true that are not yet understood by man are also termed as “mysteries.”

And no, I’m not talking about that joke “What do women want?”

Guys, I’ll give you a hint. It’s a word that starts with “every” and ends with the word “thing.”

I think, perhaps, maybe, that you’re actually asking the wrong question.

It’s THAT God created mankind. And THAT He created mankind as ONE man and ONE woman. At ONE point in time. Discrete and separate from any other creation of His.

Even more, it’s that God created mankind as “made in Our image.”

Now, THAT’s the mystery to consider. This going back and forth about what point in history God did it actually is not at all important to me.

I’m still working on what it is about me that is still in His image… hopefully that I haven’t yet messed it up yet (my being in His image, I mean) by my proclivity to sin.

:twocents:
**God at work. Person in progress.**

 

[PilgrimJWT]

The general consensus of scientists studying the origins of our species “Homo Sapiens” is that we originated in eastern or southern Africa about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. The origin of the human species is a question that properly belongs to science, and is not in the realm of revelation. If Adam and Eve are real persons as described in Scripture, they could have lived then or at some indeterminate point after that, I suppose. I doubt that the story of Adam and Eve depicted in the Bible was factual. But that is not what is important. What is important is that man is born sinful and is in need of a redeemer–that is so clear as to be labled “self-evident” or “axiomatic”.

 

[PhilVaz]

Two views presented in this thread (and others on the creation-evolution issue)

(1) Adam/Eve existed as real literal historical people. Recent Example:

Veronica << It’s THAT God created mankind. And THAT He created mankind as ONE man and ONE woman. At ONE point in time. Discrete and separate from any other creation of His. >>

(2) Adam/Eve did not exist as real literal historical people. Recent Example:

Pilgrim << I doubt that the story of Adam and Eve depicted in the Bible was factual. But that is not what is important. >>

That’s my question, which is right? Maybe both. But if (1) then When, since the Bible places them in the 4000-5000 BC range which clearly can’t be. And if (2) how far can we take this as “myth” or “non-literal” or figurative / symbolical / allegorical?

Anyway, interesting replies all of you. I promise not to bring up or participate in another creation-evolution thread for at least a week.

Phil P

 

[BayCityRickL]

I like any discussion of Bible questions and discussions about Genesis in particular.

I’d like to throw Gary Greenburg’s book “101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History” into the discussion, although it violates the domain of the original question, to restrict to Catholic sources. According to Greenburg, you can’t restrict to Catholic sources, because the two creation accounts in Genesis come from earlier Egyptian myths.

Greenburg has to flip and twist those myths to get them into the form of Genesis, but he precisely says that’s what the early writers did. And, the earlier stories being myths, detach the Genesis account from historical time.

I have only browsed through parts of Greenburg’s book, but it is an eye-opener on other issues.

For example, the whole subject of the “tree of life” in Genesis is interesting. Why did the angel with the flaming sword block the access to the tree of life? Well, the idea there is that if Adam and Eve ate of the tree of life, they would live forever! Eating from that tree would continually prolong their life. Wouldn’t you like to put that into a bottle and sell it? Well, Genesis doesn’t really say that much about the tree of life, but there is an Egyptian (heliopolitan) myth behind it that clarifies the whole matter. It is as if the writer of Genesis thought the reader would understand the allusion. And, it’s actually a lot spicier than this.

But, it seems that Adam and Eve didn’t understand that myth, because they were drawn to the wrong tree. They must have not heard the Heliopolitan myths, either.

When you throw the topic of inspiration into the hopper with these questions, then you cross the line. Whereas the Heliopolitan myths were just that, when Genesis was written, the transformed myths become divinely operative and it becomes truth, a matter of faith.

I think I’ve only used up a couple of Greenburg’s 101 myths. By the way, these 101 myths only cover a couple books of the Bible, not the gamut of 73 books. LOL

 

[Ahimsa]

Has belief in the literal reality of the one human couple Adam and Eve, become a dogma or doctrine of the Church?

I don’t see how the existence or non-existence of a lilteral Adam and Eve is a part of ‘faith and morals’.

Ahimsa

 

[hecd2]

Ghosty:

The “polygenism” that we must not accept is not the same polygenism you describe, or at least it isn’t necessarily so given the language of the time. I fully admit that your interpretation of the Church’s teaching is a valid one, but the Magisterium simply so far lacks the definitive language necessary to make it the only one as I see it. I have no problem accepting Dogma over scientific analysis, I just haven’t seen the need to do so yet.

Fair enough, I guess we have each laid out out positions on this and will have to agree to disagree on the limit of the church’s teaching here. I just make the point that what I am referring to is not some 19th century doctrine, but the teaching of the Church as promulgated by PiusXII in 1950 and JPII in his address to the Pontifical Aademy of Sciences in 1996.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Ghosty:

As for “Darwinian” style evolution, I’ve always had problems with it…because genetics doesn’t seem to support a system of pure, or even heavy, natural selection. The kinds of changes we see in the environment, such as Ice Ages, seem to far out-pace the projected genetic drift that natural selection would suggest. I don’t support “intelligent design” arguments… but neither do I accept the dominant theory regarding the alteration of species; it does not seem to meet the standards necessary to hold up as a theory, and remains merely a partially grounded hypothesis. I do fully expect that we will someday have a fully scientific model of evolution, espescially with advancements in genetics, but I simply don’t see that currently. My personal inkling is that we’ll find that genes are quite a bit “smarter” than we’ve traditionally given them credit for, and that they are closely tied to environmental factors experienced by the body, but that’s just my wacko idea as someone with no authority in genetics.

Well although I don’t fully grasp what your reservations are here, I feel that you are reaching out for something that is proving to be quite true, which is the epigenetic program of evolution.

First of all, it’s important to realise that Darwin proposed two mechanisms for guiding evolution, Natural Selection and Sexual Selection - the latter had been much ignored until a few years ago. Darwin knew nothing about genetics (he had no idea about the source of the variation that Natural Selection acted on) and certainly nothing about molecular biology and genomics.

So perhaps you are talking about the neo-Darwinian Modern Sythesis that brought Darwinian Natural selection and genetics together in the 1930s; the neo-Darwinian paradigm is variation caused by random mutation on which natural selection acts.

Of course, it’s much more complex than that as acquaintance with a serious textbook of evolutionary theory reveals (eg Mark Ridley’s ‘Evolution’ or Douglas Futuyama’s ‘Evolutionary Biology’). Kimura’s Theory of Neutral drift and various founder effects around allopatric speciation already add complications to the divergence of species and more recently major chromosomal rearrangements form a basis for sympatric speciation.

The fact is that the pure random mutation followed by selection is already seen as simplistic as a result of the action of various powerful epigenetic factors. Coincidentally, four days ago, True, Berlin and Lindquist, ‘Epigenetic regulation of translation reveals hidden genetic variation to produce complex traits’, Nature 431, 184 - 187, report some fascinating work with the epigegetic influence of a prion (an unusually folded protein) on the RNA translation across the genome of yeast (allowing what’s called read through the stop codon). This allows particular traits, previously hidden, to be expressed at times of stress and to become fixed in progeny. A similar effect from Hsp50, a thing called a heat shock protein, was reported last year in plants. In both cases, the effect allows variations in the genome to be stored up but not expressed as variations in the phenotype, until they are needed - a kind of savings bank of genomic variation.

And of course it is totally accepted now that the expression of genes is affected by the environment and by other epigenetic factors. A very good book on this is Matt Ridley’s Nature via Nurture.

I am not sure if this is quite relevant to your reservations about evolutionary theory and would be quite interested to understand a little more about what you mean by saying genes are ‘smarter’ or that the Ice ages outpace genetic drift.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

twf:

I don’t have time at the moment to get into a big discussion, nor to go into detail, but Alec, as faithful Catholics we should realize that the Church is infallible in matters of faith and morals, while scientists are not. Regardless of how strong the evidence appears to be for this or that, it could be disproven or discarded at some future date…science changes a LOT faster than the Church. The universe DOES have a beginning. To say otherwise, I’m afraid to tell you, is heresy, and that will never ever change…otherwise our faith is in vein.

I understand why you might believe that the Church teaches the truth in matters of theology and morals. But I must say that a claim to infallibility with regard to natural phenomena is extremely unwise. I am afraid that I do not accept the authority of any individual or institution (which includes the Church) on matters that are amenable to scientific investigation. Science does not recognise any limitation to its findings other than the limitations imposed by nature herself. The scientific method which places scientific findings above faith and revelation in matters of physical or natural truth is a significant human step forward first emerging in the Enlightenment, and not one that I am prepared to see reversed. According to some very good hypotheses (based on chaotic inflation), the universe need not have a beginning - I am happy to entertain that possibility. If that’s heresy, so be it. I suppose I shan’t be burned for it. We’d still be living in a geocentric cosmology if it wasn’t for this attitude.

If the Church is wrong on any one matter of faith and morals, than she is not infallible. If she is not infallible, then how can we trust anything she teaches? And if we can not trust what she teaches, then how do we know what Christ has revealed to us? The same goes for Adam and Eve. All scientists have biases, so perhaps there is another way to interpret the data you are referring to?

I’m afraid I don’t know of one - it’s quite plain - there is no interpretation other than that the modern humans descend from an ancestral population that never falls below 10,000 individuals.

It is not necessary to be infallible to teach truths, so your fear about the Church being either infallible or entirely untrustworthy is a false dichotomy. I am extremely sceptical of any putative body of teaching that bases its position on infallibility - ‘believe whatever I tell you because I can never be wrong’ is not a very compelling argument in my view (especially where the evidence plainly shows that the claim to infallibility in scientific matters is empty)

I would advise you to wait and see, as time unfolds. (If the Church is infallible, then would it not follow that we should look at the universe from the premises she lays out for us?

That is, I am afraid a very big ‘if’. I prefer to do science using the tools of evidence and reason rather than religious dogma .
Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

marciadietrich:

Alec,

Been thinking on this last sentence… if God would be deceitful for that. I’m not sure that light in transit would be deceitful as the science of today is something we’ve had to come to a point technologically to seek out and look and make assumptions what happens now always happened. I’m not sure the idea of seeing God in creation is in the microanalysis and trying to figure out origins for ourselves, as much as it is in the awe of what is there as it and more an aesthetic feeling.

Where, in contrast, in scripture we have direct statements which many if not close to being the truth of how things occurred seems more deceitful, IMO, than God creating light in transit that we had to seek out that knowledge and it isn’t attached to other beliefs. We have Christ and apostles saying ‘in the beginning’ Adam and Eve, Noah, etc. and treating those events as very real and directly relating those things to our salvation and need for a redeemer. The idea we just couldn’t understand or accept more thus needed “illustrative stories,” IMO, is false. I think we could have gotten something in terms of the those times and level of understanding that more closely conforms to the truth if we did evolve from many different people rather than a single couple. Just as you can explain things truthfully to children on their own level rather than basically making up stories and presenting it as truth.

I know illustrative stories are useful. But there can be a clear dilineation between that and a direct statement of fact or other types of teaching.

Anyhow, guess we’re all in it together trying to sort it out until we get some clarification from the top.

Marcia

Marcia,

Thank you for your response. I don’t know whether you are fully conversant with the many detailed lines of astronomical evidence of the age of the observable universe that refute the possibility of a universe 6,000 to 10,000 years old by a factor of a million or more.

The evidence includes the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background from the early Sachs-Wolfe effect, evidence from carbon monoxide absorption in intergalactic gas that the CMB temperature was higher in the past, the main sequence turnoff of globular clusters, the late Sachs-Wolfe and the Sunyaev-Zel’dovic effects, standard candles such as type I supernovae, radio galaxies, quasars and high-z galaxies, the Lyman-alpha forest, youngest white dwarfs, and much, much more. To suggest that all this is explainable by the creation of light in transit is to claim that God created an enormously detailed, complex, and interlocking set of evidence to make us think that the universe is 13.7 billion years old when it is in fact 6,000 years old. That’s deceit. I’m sure you don’t buy this.

Similarly, the idea thatr God inserted Adam and Eve and made it *appear *that the minimum bottleneck was 10,000 individuals by multiple lines of evidence seems to me to be equally inadmissible divine deceit.

Finally, Marcia, I’m sorry, but I did find it quite difficult to follow the complete argument in your post - if I have missed the point put it down to my incompetence.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[PhilVaz]

BTW, Catholic Answers recognizes the importance of this question. Some of This Rock is now available online, for example this article

Confronting Creation’s Complexity: Why Darwinism Isn’t Fit to Survive by Robin Bernhoft (This Rock, Sept 2003)

The author writes:

“For one very big reason, the same reason implied by John Paul II in his somewhat ambiguous 1996 address: Darwinism denies that God played a role in the creation of human beings.”

“This is a serious problem, because without God’s creation of the first two humans, there is no Fall, and, if no Fall, no original sin and therefore no need for a Redeemer. If no Redeemer, then no redemption and hence no sacraments, no faith, no Church.”

And then he discusses theistic evolution which may be compatible. But unfortunately we also have the typical creationist “whoppers” clobbered by TalkOrigins, such as “no transitional forms” in this article.

A Jan 2004 article is more sympathetic with evolution by Jimmy Akin

Evolution and the Magisterium (This Rock, Jan 2004)

Akin’s conclusion: “Until such time as the magisterium would either reverse its twentieth-century finding that human evolution is not precluded by the deposit of faith or would make a new finding that it is required by the deposit, human evolution as a matter that is free with respect to the sources. It is a matter that must stand or fall on its own scientific merits; it is not a matter of Catholic teaching.”

Phil P

 

[dts]

I don’t won’t to get bogged down into this debate, but I looked at the transitionals link provided above and have viewed similar materials in the past.

I am unconvinced. Frankly, I am not even sure what a transitional is? What traits must it possess or is it just some type of ancient monkey? How do we know that it falls into the human ancestry? Can we declare that a transitional exists simply because we have a piece of a jaw bone or even a whole skull?

It seems to me that much of the so-called “science” in the origins debate uses a whole lot of speculative thinking that rests on unacknowledged philosophical presuppositions and questionable inferences.

 

[marciadietrich]

hecd2:

Thank you for your response. I don’t know whether you are fully conversant with the many detailed lines of astronomical evidence of the age of the observable universe that refute the possibility of a universe 6,000 to 10,000 years old by a factor of a million or more. …

Hi Alec,

I am not a literal 6 day creationist. Though I am currently reading a book by a gentleman who is, and I have come to be sympathetic to their feeling that way. It is a perfectly valid viewpoint for Catholics to hold and fits the theology hand in glove.

As a teen I watched - without fail - every episode of Carl Sagan’s *Cosmos *when it first aired on PBS. So, though far from a scientist or expert, I know the basics on why science favors billions of years for the age of the universe and earth.

Let me try this again. For the sake of the discussion I am presuming that the Church teaches a literal 6000 year old universe and that a 6000 year old universe is actually true … BUT that issue is not set in stone by the Church and a literal 6 day creation has never been my personal viewpoint.

So, God/Bible/Church says 6000 years —> it really is 6000 years old our time —> science doesn’t see that because it presumes things have always occured in a fashion we can measure by today’s standards = not direct deception as God divinely revealed that it was only 6000 literal years old in the first place. Scientists feel it is deceptive because they expect what they observe to be the truth on origins and God (tends atheistic or pantheistic). That would seem to be a case of a rejection of the revealed truth by those who adhere to the science over faith, rather than an outright deception by God. God told us the truth, we preferred to go by our own observations.

-versus-

God/Bible/Church says Adam and Eve literal first parents —>
but that is false and they were never first and only parents (monogenism false) —> science is correct on matter (polygenism occured instead) = God directly deceived us in that teaching OR the Church and Scripture are not infallible (so only partial truth trickles down to us - and if the Church is not infallable that destroys the basis of Catholicism) OR Christianity is a false religion OR God simply doesn’t exist. God told us a falsehood (impossible by God’s nature), the truth had to be found out by observation, something is terribly wrong.

Don’t know if that is clearer. I am probably mixing you up because of my own discord on the whole issue.

God bless you
Marcia

 

[BayCityRickL]

There are some folks in this thread who feel a lot of technical complexity sheds light on this subject, but it’s been a few years since I was close enough to the science to recall what all those impressive terms mean. If they have anything relevent to say, it ought to be simple enough to translate them into terms that a more general audience can understand.

Anyway, it’s not science that sheds light on this faith-subject. As the contemporary biblical experts say, the Bible, Genesis in particular, was never meant to be a science text. So, lots of luck trying to map string theory and evolution into it.

As far as the six-day-creation concept goes, science says that the length of day is not exactly 24 hours, to begin with. And, the length of day has changed in geologic time, being longer now than before.

There’s a 1996 series with Jeff Cavins and Scott Hahn airing on EWTN at 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, called Our Father’s Plan (as I recall). It’s available on VHS from EWTN. Last Saturday, the episode covered Genesis 1, in particular. Both guys gave quite interesting insights into the meaning of the account of creation.

They seemed to suggest that other people existed when Adam and Eve were created. Gen 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers…” Genesis particularly spells out the lineage of Eve’s offspring ( or “seed” in some translations) throughout the book.

That’s about all I can say, until I see the next episode.

 

[buffalo]

Ken:

Well, let’s say that Adam was the first true man. Were there others who were just men? These guys would be men, but not true men.

What would the difference have been between a true man and a man?

How do we know which we are?

Circumcision?