Why didn't God save Neanderthals?

[afthomercy]

Well, now we are mixing up things a bit and saying that genetics positively defines the spiritual human. We have found nothing in genetics that specifically addresses the human capacity for relationship with the divine.

When the Church insists that only those lineally descended from Adam bear the stain of Original Sin, doesn’t that by itself establish a solid linkage between genetics and spirituality?

There is absolutely nothing in the CCC that claims that human spirituality is a phenomenon transferred genetically. Indeed, why would the Church rule out a spiritual means by which the entirety of genetic humans inherited the spiritual capacity given to Adam and Eve by God? If such a spiritual means took place, the genetics is entirely insignificant; in that case there could have been genetic humans walking around, contemporary with A&E, who did not possess the same gift. They were genetic humans, but not true humans.

You mean that the second category of humans (i.e. genetically human but not “true human”) could have gotten away with murder? I.e., though possessing all the human faculties, they would not have been held liable for their actions just because they were not “true humans”? I think when God gives the rational faculties, He intends to hold the recipient accountable, otherwise why would He give it? In my view, we can’t have contemporaries of A&E who though similar to them in all genetic respects, nonetheless did not possess spiritual souls. As I have state in my preceding post, HG para 37 implies that such individuals/their progeny, even if they did exist, were allowed to die out if they did not belong to the Adamic lineage.

 

[Irish_Cabbie]

God did save the Neanderthals. There are plenty of them in the Congress.

 

[Aloysium]

Fascinating indeed. However, it does not begin to answer whether Neanderthal is human.

Whether one finds the article fascinating or not, there’s actually not anything new in it that hasn’t been explicitly or implicitly already been stated or addressed thus far in this thread.

The article presents a brief story of man within the context of a theoretical system that dictates what data is relevant, how the world basically works, and when it is all put together, how it all is to be interpreted. That is how all theories work - you see what you are looking for, what you expect. When it no longer works, you scratch your head and try to find a better explanatory lens through which to see and understand the world.

I don’t want to bore you with explanations previously posted; suffice to say that we are considering the creation of man (that means you, who is reading this, and I who is attempting to engage in a dialogue - very, very awesome mysteries) by God who is omnipotent and all loving. In arriving at an explanation of how things were, scence must make some assumptions as to the rules of nature that govern how things behave, not to mention what things are in actuality. Having no reason but what is revealed in scripture to think otherwise, we must consider that what happened then is just like what exists now, that the rules now, are the same as those which applied then to us at our beginning. However, just as things were different in the universe at the beginning of time, it was different for us at our beginning as human beings - a new creation. You do not clearly have to believe this, although I believe the data fits my theoretical concept that sees two original parents, who were real people rather than a mythological antithesis for the later glorious reality of Jesus and Mary.

I suppose that the bottom line is that we, in ourselves, as ourselves exist. We are real; we feel pain, if nothing else feels real. We are each unique and irreplaceable. We have individually infinite worth and dignity. Now you can appeal to randomness as the explanation that covers this unfathomable mystery; the other is God. He reveals Himself in scripture. Who we are and how we are related to Him is clarified from the beginning in Genesis.

 

[grannymh]

My interpretation of para 37 above is that the Church admits the possibility -in an evolutionary scenario- that there were other “true men” who lived alongside Adam, but nonetheless asserts that after Adam (i.e. after his lifetime), all lineages (if any) that did not flow through him were extinguished. How can this be achieved otherwise than through a severe and selective bottleneck?

Further, here spirituality and genetics intersect. Original Sin, though being in the realm of spirituality, is now linked to genetic lineage for the purpose of transmission down to us.

Link to Humani Generis

w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html

To begin.
It is a fact of Catholic Church documents that not everything essential is contained in one paragraph. Therefore, in interpreting one paragraph, it is absolutely necessary to check the surrounding paragraphs and sometimes to check previous and following pages.

That is why it is necessary to examine all three paragraphs 35, 36, and 37.
Humani Generis, paragraph 37.
“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 that either 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.”

From post 378
“My interpretation of para 37 above is that the Church admits the possibility -in an evolutionary scenario- …”

Here I have to ask: What are the two natural science evolutionary scenarios that are described in Humani Generis?
Obviously, there is more than one considering the opening sentence of # 37.
"When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, … "

Realistically, in today’s society, there is a somewhat separate discipline referred to as the Science of Human Evolution. The other, everything else, ants, plants, bacteria, and bears, are in another category of non-human living organisms. Pope Pius XII, amazingly brilliant man, knew all this in the 1940’s. Today, this is extremely important for us when it comes to knowing what the Catholic Church really admits.

The Catholic position, regarding natural science, is that there is the real material world and the real spiritual world. We learn in CCC 355.

**355 **“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is “in the image of God”; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created “male and female”; (IV) God established him in his friendship."

Further explanation of our material/spiritual nature is found in *CCC *362-366; CCC 380-382; CCC 1730-1732.

Paragraph 36 has the necessary information about the evolutionary scenario needed to answer my above question “What are the two natural science evolutionary scenarios that are described in *Humani Generis?” *Paragraph 36 divides today’s evolutionary scenarios into the two worlds spiritual and material.

From paragraph 36. Please note that the word “doctrine” is used in the sense of being a basic tenet in natural science. This word “doctrine” is absolutely not a Catholic doctrine.

"with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter … "

We understand that our decomposing anatomy belongs in the material/physical world of scientists. God bless them!
The spiritual world is described in paragraph 36
“-for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.”

From post 378
“My interpretation of para 37 above is that the Church admits the possibility -in an evolutionary scenario- that there were other “true men” who lived alongside Adam, but nonetheless asserts that after Adam (i.e. after his lifetime), all lineages (if any) that did not flow through him were extinguished. How can this be achieved otherwise than through a severe and selective bottleneck?”

As mentioned above, we must consider the fact that there are two separate science scenarios: 1. the scenario for human beings. 2. the scenario for non-human beings. It is only fair to the Catholic Church not to lump these two separate scenarios into only one large bag.

The key to understanding paragraph 37 is this opening sentence of paragraph 35.

It remains for Us now to speak about those questions which, although they pertain to the positive sciences, are nevertheless more or less connected with the truths of the Christian faith.

 

[Richca]

My interpretation of para 37 above is that the Church admits the possibility -in an evolutionary scenario- that there were other “true men” who lived alongside Adam, but nonetheless asserts that after Adam (i.e. after his lifetime), all lineages (if any) that did not flow through him were extinguished. How can this be achieved otherwise than through a severe and selective bottleneck?

Further, here spirituality and genetics intersect. Original Sin, though being in the realm of spirituality, is now linked to genetic lineage for the purpose of transmission down to us.

The faith and teaching of the Catholic Church since apostolic times, and even before the time of Jesus in the Jewish faith, is that from one couple, namely, Adam and Eve, is derived the entire human race. This is clear in both the Old and New Testaments, Holy Scripture, which is the word of God. In Genesis, one can follow the lineage of the different peoples that inhabit the earth from Adam and Eve down to Abraham and beyond. In the New Testament, St Paul says “He made from one the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth” (Acts 17:26) and from one person (Adam), “sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned” (Romans 5:12). And again in Hebrews 2:11 “He who consecrates and those who are being consecrated all have one origin. Therefore, he is not ashamed to call them “brothers”. Or again in Tobit 8:6 “You made Adam, and you made his wife Eve
to be his helper and support; and from these two the human race has come.” In Wisdom 10:1, “She [Wisdom] preserved the first-formed father of the world when he alone had been created.” Adam called his wife Eve “because she was the mother of all the living.” (Genesis 3:20)

The same teaching can be found in the CCC (cf. the creation of Adam and Eve, the first couple, the fall, original sin.). The entire human race is one family (CCC#361). “All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth…” (CCC#842).

Though the Church allows the opinion that the body of the first man Adam could have evolved from some organic material prior to Adam’s creation and the infusion of his soul by God, I personally believe this was not the case. Genesis 2:7 says “then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” According to the immediate, literal sense, God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, inorganic material; and he became a living being when God blew into his nostrils the breath of life, infusion of the soul. And so, according to the inspired scripture, this is what I hold and which all the fathers of the Church hold too.

 

[grannymh]

My interpretation of para 37 above is that the Church admits the possibility -in an evolutionary scenario- that there were other “true men” who lived alongside Adam, but nonetheless asserts that after Adam (i.e. after his lifetime), all lineages (if any) that did not flow through him were extinguished. How can this be achieved otherwise than through a severe and selective bottleneck?

.

In reply to the comment in bold, the following is a general scientific description of the bottleneck event as applied to species. A suggestion is to do one’s own search of Google.

From nature.com/scitable/definition/population-bottleneck-300
"A population bottleneck is an event that drastically reduces the size of a population. The bottleneck may be caused by various events, such as an environmental disaster, the hunting of a species to the point of extinction, or habitat destruction that results in the deaths of organisms. The population bottleneck produces a decrease in the gene pool of the population because many alleles, or gene variants, that were present in the original population are lost. Due to the event, the remaining population has a very low level of genetic diversity, which means that the population as a whole has few genetic characteristics.

Following a population bottleneck, the remaining population faces a higher level of genetic drift, which describes random fluctuations in the presence of alleles in a population. In small populations, infrequently occurring alleles face a greater chance of being lost, which can further decrease the gene pool. Due to the loss of genetic variation, the new population can become genetically distinct from the original population, which has led to the hypothesis that population bottlenecks can lead to the evolution of new species."

The bottleneck event appears within a particular species. There are many examples of this, especially on the endangered species list. When a bottleneck leads to a new hypothesis regarding a new separate species, that is often known as the Founder Effect. One suggested link is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect

The basic science approach is that within the ancient history of humankind, there never was a point when two sole humans interrupted the natural population growth of the human species. This puts Adam and Eve at some improbable point within the established history of humankind. Catholicism challenges that opinion. Catholicism states that Adam and Eve are the exact beginning of human history. Therefore, there are no true, real, fully-complete humans before them.

Regarding Adam and Eve as a Founder Effect. The difficulty is that the Founder Effect presupposes an originating [genetic] population leading to Adam and Eve, the first parents of humanity. Even when one considers the Flood as a bottleneck, the current human population proceeding from the reduced population has the same nature as Adam. Thus, there is a true continuation, unity, from Adam to the present. Apparently, humankind survived all kinds of disasters which affected the gene pool. Keep in mind, that genetic mutations do not always act in an orderly fashion.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Keep in mind, that genetic mutations do not always act in an orderly fashion.

If I may add that they do so, when ordered by God.

Random creation? Hardly!
Those sorts of ideas are but a regression to the type of ignorance that sees vermin emerging spontaneously from refuse.

Current science is like the Ptolemaic system of the universe,
presupposing that matter, the way that it is understood
in this fallen world, modern or post-modern, as we may like to think,
is the centre of all that is, has been and will be.

As the heliocentric model opened up new horizons of thought,
so will the realization that it is God who sits at the Centre,
As the Source of light and life, He is intimately involved with each of us.

Around Him spins all creation,
in accordance with His will,
which granted us the freedom
to choose our own fate as eternal beings.

 

[Thorolfr]

Though the Church allows the opinion that the body of the first man Adam could have evolved from some organic material prior to Adam’s creation and the infusion of his soul by God, I personally believe this was not the case. Genesis 2:7 says “then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” According to the immediate, literal sense, God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, inorganic material; and he became a living being when God blew into his nostrils the breath of life, infusion of the soul. And so, according to the inspired scripture, this is what I hold and which all the fathers of the Church hold too.

Another problem with Genesis is that it states (2:10-14) that the river that flowed through Eden divided into four branches which included the Tigris and Euphrates. This would mean that Eden was some place in the Middle East around modern day Iraq:

10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

But modern genetic and anthropological studies strongly support the theory that humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) originated in Africa, not in the Middle East.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans

 

[grannymh]

But modern genetic and anthropological studies strongly support the theory that humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) originated in Africa, not in the Middle East.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans

May I gently point out the significance of this sentence in the beginning of the link.
“The concept was speculative before it was corroborated in the 1980s by a study of present-day mitochondrial DNA, combined with evidence based on physical anthropology of archaic specimens.”

The citation for the study in the 1980’s is Cann, R. L., Stoneking, M., & Wilson, A. C. Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature 325, 31–36 (1987).

From link nature.com/nature/journal/v325/n6099/abs/325031a0.html

“Mitochondrial DNAs from 147 people, drawn from five geographic populations have been analysed by restriction mapping. All these mitochondrial DMAs stem from one woman who is postulated to have lived about 200,000 years ago, probably in Africa.”

​

Considering that this one woman was a member of a large population, the Out of Africa theory directly challenges the Catholic doctrine that two real fully-complete human parents are the sole founders of the human species.

Because the geographical location of the Garden of Eden is not a Catholic doctrine, I do not lose sleep over it.

On the other hand, I do not accept as gospel, the speculation that very real humans came from a large originating population of indiscriminate, random-breeding, humanizing over time, “polygenism” beings. Sometimes a large common ancestor group, such as the Homo/Pan population, replaces Genesis 1: 27-28.

The basic tenet of today’s evolution model is that species evolve as large populations not as individuals. We are told that we must skip Adam and Eve.

Scroll down to “Common Misconceptions” in this link.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

 

[simpleas]

Apparently it all comes down to a bone

It all comes down to a little bone called the hyoid. Located in the neck near the thyroid, the hyoid supports your tongue and helps you talk. Apes, our closest living relatives, don’t have this bone. But Neanderthals did. Archaeologists discovered it in 1989, and last year, thanks to a 3-D computer model, demonstrated how the bone might have served the Neanderthals. While it doesn’t look exactly like the hyoid in your own jaw, it could have served a similar function, allowing Neanderthals to form a language. "Many would argue that our capacity for speech and language is among the most fundamental of characteristics that make us human,” Stephen Wroe, a faculty member at the University of New England in Australia, told the BBC. “If Neanderthals also had language then they were truly human, too.”

mentalfloss.com/article/56589/6-recently-discovered-facts-about-neanderthals

 

[Thorolfr]

Apparently it all comes down to a bone

It all comes down to a little bone called the hyoid. Located in the neck near the thyroid, the hyoid supports your tongue and helps you talk. Apes, our closest living relatives, don’t have this bone. But Neanderthals did. Archaeologists discovered it in 1989, and last year, thanks to a 3-D computer model, demonstrated how the bone might have served the Neanderthals. While it doesn’t look exactly like the hyoid in your own jaw, it could have served a similar function, allowing Neanderthals to form a language. "Many would argue that our capacity for speech and language is among the most fundamental of characteristics that make us human,” Stephen Wroe, a faculty member at the University of New England in Australia, told the BBC. “If Neanderthals also had language then they were truly human, too.”

mentalfloss.com/article/56589/6-recently-discovered-facts-about-neanderthals

 

[Tomdstone]

“If Neanderthals also had language then they were truly human, too.”

So it is language and not the immortal soul that makes one human? Birds and bees have their own languages, but I would not consider them to be human?

 

[Richca]

Another problem with Genesis is that it states (2:10-14) that the river that flowed through Eden divided into four branches which included the Tigris and Euphrates. This would mean that Eden was some place in the Middle East around modern day Iraq:

But modern genetic and anthropological studies strongly support the theory that humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) originated in Africa, not in the Middle East.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans

As you mention, the out-of-Africa model is a theory. I think it is possible that we will probably never know with certainty beyond a doubt from science that such was the case. Maybe there are fossils of human remains in the Middle East buried somewhere that haven’t been found or may never be found that are older than any other found fossils; or supposing that the Garden of Eden is actually in the Middle East which would be consistent with the biblical narrative, maybe the first humans did not leave any remains, their skeletons or whatever having been completely decomposed.
The findings of modern science concerning the the oldest known apparently human beings can be quite interesting and fascinating and there is nothing wrong with continuing this work. In the end, we may be just left with theories and conjecture from science. If the Bible says one thing such that it appears the Garden of Eden was somewhere in the Middle East, and scientific theory such as the out-of-Africa theory concerning the origins of the first humans, which presently to my knowledge is not a certain fact, and the Catholic Church doesn’t tell me otherwise, then I’m simply going to stick with the inspired word of God.

As Grannymh has said, the Catholic Church has not pronounced as an article of faith that catholics must believe that the geographic location of the Garden of Eden was actually in the Middle East in the area of the Tigris and Euphrates and that is where Adam and Eve were placed by God. However, this would appear to be the literal interpretation of the biblical text and since at present, there are no certain facts to tell me otherwise, I hold to the literal interpretation of the inspired text. In my view, this is the safe road to take instead of doubting without sufficient, evident, or certain proof the inspired text.

As far as the entire human race stemming from Adam and Eve, our first parents, this is the teaching of the Catholic Church as well as Holy Scripture and according to the encyclical , Humani Generis, catholics are not at liberty to embrace opinions opposed to this.

 

[grannymh]

So it is language and not the immortal soul that makes one human? Birds and bees have their own languages, but I would not consider them to be human?

It is the rational use of language which is unique to humankind. We need to keep Genesis 1: 27-28 at the top of our mental list of true human characteristics. In addition, we need to be reminded of *CCC *1730-1732.

 

[afthomercy]

Link to Humani Generis

w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html

Paragraph 36 divides today’s evolutionary scenarios into the two worlds spiritual and material…We understand that our decomposing anatomy belongs in the material/physical world of scientists…The spiritual world is described in paragraph 36 “-for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.”

As mentioned above, we must consider the fact that there are two separate science scenarios: 1. the scenario for human beings. 2. the scenario for non-human beings. It is only fair to the Catholic Church not to lump these two separate scenarios into only one large bag.

The key to understanding paragraph 37 is this opening sentence of paragraph 35 (36?).

In my reading of HG para 36, I see the Church leaving the door open for scientific discussion only as to the origins of the genetic material that makes up the human body. She does not want to insist that the very first human body was immediately created by God. Let that discussion go on and do not rashly jump to any conclusions, is what she says.

Under the leeway given in para 36, she puts the stipulation that irrespective of how the first human body came into being (whether through immediate creation or through evolution), the whole human race is genetically/biologically descended from a real individual called Adam who walked this earth some time in history. This can be inferred from the sentence in para 37 “For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him…”

From this I infer the Church to be saying that "If the theory of bodily evolution is true, then it is also necessary that there should have been a severe and selective bottleneck whereby all lineages that did not pass through Adam were extinguished.

But you say in post 384 that “The basic science approach is that within the ancient history of humankind, there never was a point when two sole humans interrupted the natural population growth of the human species. This puts Adam and Eve at some improbable point within the established history of humankind. Catholicism challenges that opinion.” This makes it appear to me that what the Church is giving in para 36, she is blithely taking away in para 37!

BTW, I do not see the basis for your categorically saying, in post 384 again, that “Catholicism states that Adam and Eve are the exact beginning of human history. Therefore, there are no true, real, fully-complete humans before them.” This is because I see in the words “after Adam” in HG para 37, an openness to the possibility that there existed true human contemporaries of Adam and Eve.

 

[StrawberryJam]

In my reading of HG para 36, I see the Church leaving the door open for scientific discussion only on the origins of the genetic material that makes up the human body. She does not want to insist that the very first human body was immediately created by God. Let that discussion go on and do not rashly jump to any conclusions, is what she says.

Under the leeway given in para 36, she puts the stipulation that irrespective of how the first human body came into being (whether through immediate creation or through evolution), the whole human race is genetically/biologically descended from a real individual called Adam who walked this earth some time in history. This can be inferred from the sentence in para 37 “For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him…”

From this I infer the Church to be saying that "If the theory of evolution (of the body) is true, then it is also necessary that there should have been a severe and selective bottleneck whereby all lineages that did not pass through Adam were extinguished.

But you say in post 384 that “The basic science approach is that within the ancient history of humankind, there never was a point when two sole humans interrupted the natural population growth of the human species. This puts Adam and Eve at some improbable point within the established history of humankind. Catholicism challenges that opinion.” This make it seem to me that what the Church has given in para 36, she has blithely taken away in para 37!

BTW, I do not see the basis for your categorically saying, in post 384 again, that “Catholicism states that Adam and Eve are the exact beginning of human history. Therefore, there are no true, real, fully-complete humans before them.” This is because I see in the words “after Adam” in HG para 37, an openness to the possibility that there existed true human contemporaries of Adam and Eve.

Or it could be your ignoring the fact that a Catholic must believe in a literal Adam and Eve.
Either way, you know you are evading the question.
And the Catholic Church is okay with a creationist viewpoint.
You will as many others do, sit back and allow that to be okay.

 

[afthomercy]

In order not to give any offense, I’d like to replace the word “blithely” used towards the bottom of my post 393 with “simultaneously”.
I used the term first and looked up the meaning later. Sincere apologies.

 

[Tomdstone]

Or it could be your ignoring the fact that a Catholic must believe in a literal Adam and Eve.

Is it written down somewhere that this is an infallible dogma of the Catholic Church?

 

[OneSheep]

When the Church insists that only those lineally descended from Adam bear the stain of Original Sin, doesn’t that by itself establish a solid linkage between genetics and spirituality?

Good Morning, afthomercy,

Answer: Not necessarily. Just a bit of speculation, FWIW (which is nothing), once a Spiritual connection to God was added to A & E, (free will, etc), that “trait” could have been spread to everyone. Is the Church saying that there are people not descended from A&E that do not bear the stain of o.s.?

You mean that the second category of humans (i.e. genetically human but not “true human”) could have gotten away with murder? I.e., though possessing all the human faculties, they would not have been held liable for their actions just because they were not “true humans”? I think when God gives the rational faculties, He intends to hold the recipient accountable, otherwise why would He give it? In my view, we can’t have contemporaries of A&E who though similar to them in all genetic respects, nonetheless did not possess spiritual souls. As I have state in my preceding post, HG para 37 implies that such individuals/their progeny, even if they did exist, were allowed to die out if they did not belong to the Adamic lineage.

The contemporaries of A&E could have “inherited” spiritual souls by other means. With God, all things are possible, right? It could have been a supernatural inheritance. Do you see? Science cannot change the important points of the creation story. How the inheritance happened simply does not matter! If such a minor point shakes a person’s faith, then there was not much faith there to begin with. The details should not be hurdles, at all, right? Faith is based on relationship, not a pile of facts and assertions.

On the murder question, it depends on what you mean by “accountability”, I guess. Are chimpanzees held accountable for murder? This goes a bit too far off topic though.

Thanks for the response.

 

[grannymh]

Is it written down somewhere that this is an infallible dogma of the Catholic Church?

Pardon me. Would it be possible for you to post what exactly, in precise language, you are referring to as a possible dogma of the Catholic Church?

By the way, infallible is not a necessary adjective for Catholic dogma. In the Catholic Church, Divine Revelation is always infallible.