CollegeCatholic:
How do you tell between a chimpanzee and a human?
There are a quite a few ways but what does that have to do with anything?
CollegeCatholic:
I’m not sure what sort of question this is… I am not in the position to make clear distinction between animals with human features and actual humans, those physical, created entities that God gave souls.
I must admit that the distinction between full humans and almost but not quite humans does have some unfortunate Gnostic connotations but I’m just trying to reconcile what we know with what we believe.
We know that individuals don’t evolve, populations do. So the original ensouled pair had to be genetically compatible with their contemporaries.
CollegeCatholic:
What I CAN say is that the conjugal act is inseperable from life giving love and a creature without a soul is incapable of loving. God did not establish humanity through animalistic “mating” but through the conjugal act that symbolizes/points to the Trinity.
Yes I know that and it is wonderful imagery. But …. Since we are evolved from things that didn’t have an eternal soul, there was mating without love for millions of years.
some would even opine that development of love is a contimum rather than an on/off thng.
I’m not sure if that holds with the soul…there is no way to test that
CollegeCatholic:
Considering Eve was formed from the rib in Adam’s side, they are pretty much as genetically related as can be and thus, are inherently “insestual.” Your reasoning falls on its face immediately with the nature of Adam and Eve’s creation and nature.
Once again that is wonderful imagery but there is no evidence for that.
CollegeCatholic:
As stated above, God’s design for conjugal love, for sex, and not simply for instinctual mating, is unique to humanity and you are failing to see this. Humanity is not a race of “half souls” and we did not inheret “half original sin.” That without a soul is both incapable of love and incapable of sin and as such, does not find itself in God’s design for humanity and conjugal love.
You can’t have half a soul. All Adam & Eve’s descendants have souls and original sin.
My point is that the Bible says nothing about where the spouses came from. God clearly would have a mechanism for his creation to survive. We had evolved for millions of years reproducing without love before we received souls. All I’m saying is that a transitional one off is a step toward reconciling what we know and what we believe.
CollegeCatholic:
Unfortunately for your obvious “problem” with “inbreeding” God chose this unique approach. God could have also “saved” the world without sending the Son to die for the most unworthy “us” and yet that is what He willed. It doesn’t make logical sense to do so, but we go with it. Sometimes Love is not “logical.”
Love may not be logical but biochemistry often is. I’m not sure why you needed to put the words problem and inbreeding in quotes. (or logic for that matter since I didn’t use that word)
CollegeCatholic:
I also believe in Evolution. There is no contradiction in reason on my part. The only contradiction in reason is your belief that we are descendents of humans and nonhumans
Well if you accept evolution then you accept that we are the descendants of non-humans.
At some point we got souls
The details of that transition are unknown
That’s all I’m saying
CollegeCatholic said:
…… Your view of sex seems to be inline with modern views that seek to seperate love from sex and you may find a more open ear with them.
I said nothing of my views on sex or love so your assumptions about them seem a little high handed. Regardless of the relationship between sex and love; there is no doubt that sex is not separate from reproduction.