Depending on how one defines literal, the answer to this question may vary. I believe, based on the explanation provided in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that I must understand the literal meaning before I will understand the spiritual meaning.
Again, it depends on what “literal” means.
Grannymh asked what moral lesson is found in the story of Adam and Eve,
Perhaps these three, among others.
1. If you are told to stay away from some evil, do what you are told.
2. Temptation can be subtle and seducing. Keep alert.
3. There can be serious consequences for bad behavior.
None of these lessons mean that I have any special fondness for the story of Adam and Eve. I consider it an ancient Hebrew creation myth - most cultures and religions hnad them. They helped ancient people understand their world. But they were/are myths, and to say that they must be believed (as many Catholics and Protestants insist) is quite ridiculous.These are moral lessons. Thank you.
The Catholic teaching is that God created Adam to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. In other words, God created man in His Image and established him in
Catholic teaching is that the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that Adam must respect with trust. Adam is limited in that he can never be equal to God, his Creator.
Catholic teaching is that Adam’s sin was beyond the personal sin of bad behavior. All of humanity is in Adam as one body of one man. By this unity, all are implicated in Adam’s very serious original sin which broke the relationship between him and God. Original Sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense. For us, as direct descendents, Original Sin is “contracted” and not committed as our own personal sin. Original Sin is a state and not an act. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases Original Sin and turns us back toward God.
With or without original sin, let’s not forget the main, top notch lesson that by having us all start from the same parents then all humanity is one, we are all created equal.
I don’t think I’d use the word “mythology”, which infers that its not actually truthful.
Take another look at Granny’s post,CC! Excellent! Peace, Carlan
The question is - what has the Catholic Church continuously believed, taught and understood these passages.
eace Carlan2. The suggestion is sometimes made that God had intended Adam and Eve to live a life in paradise, eternally, happily. But. alas, they sinned. Now, Adam and Eve must have had in them the vulnerability to sin, else they would have not yielded to temptation. It would appear that God made them sin-bent rather than sin-resistant???
3. Now, if God is just and loving, either/or for that matter, would he inflict the consequences of their sin on all their descendants - original sin? Do we, in any court of law, hold the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren liable for the sins committed generations before? We all likely have ancestors who were horse thieves or adulterers or crooks. Would it be fair for their descendants today to be held responsible for their sins?
4. The total Christian drama seems to require the 'fall of man' in order for Christ to come as the Redeemer. It's as though God ordained the fall, so why has Christianity insisted that Adam and Eve acted out of free will? It appears to be a big package, a sequence already in the eterbal plan of salvation. There seems to have been no alternative.
5. Call it a myth or not. I call it a myth. And those early chapters of Genesis are filled with myths - sometimees with a grain of historical truth in them. Take Noah and the Flood. There is evidence of a major flood in the ancent Near East but hardly over the 'whole earth' as Genesis says. And how would Noah have collected two of every species (except fish I presume), coaxed them into the ark, and fed and cleaned up after them for 150 days. Forget the 40 days. The flood waters remained for 150 days! And would a loving, just God drown all the rest of humankind, including children, even babies in the womb? And deliberately drown all those innocent animals, too. A cute story for kids, but contrary to common sense as well as Christian principles.
And - give me a break - God punished those who tried to build the Tower of Babel by creating different languages!!!? And how many times hiigher are our skycrapers today?
Christians of all sorts need to free themselves from these Biblical tales that obviously are neither historically or morally correct. No wonder more and more educated people are leaving the church - as polls show. We need a reasonable faith based on reality and not some ancient, discredited stories that may have some spiritual value and must be seen as such. Keep the first eleven chapters of Genesis, of course, but make it clear to our laity that one doesn't have to take them literally. They are moral fables and should be taught as such. I'm not even sure they're all that moral.Thank you for post 30. It is a good summary. Nonetheless, may I respectfully point out that “Christians of all sorts” from the last paragraph does not necessarily include Catholicism. Furthermore, being a theologian does not always mean that she or he teaches Catholicism.
I was talking about slavishly adhering to a literal intepretation of scripture. Not actual human slavery.
A mythology can be used to express literal truths through stories. In fact many have argued that a proper understanding of myth is not an inference of falsehood, peter kreeft included.
I don’t think it is crazy or stupid. I just think it is wrong.
For Catholics however, as stated in one of my earlier posts, it is important to remember that Adam and Eve (specifically) are not myths. Adam and Eve are real people. The Magesterium of the Church has taught so infalliby.
“Mythology” does not mean “untruthful.”
LemonAndLime, so-called “Mitochondrial Eve” and “Y-chromosome Adam” lived at least 50,000 years apart. They never met, mated, or had children together. Each left progeny by other partners.
Eve and Noah.
But they were not the only human couple alive at the time. Never in the course of *Homo sapiens’ * emergence out of its hominid past did the population fall below 3,000 breeding pairs (that is the low estimate).
Never heard of that couple.