A Question about Polygenism and Original Sin
It’s my understanding that Catholics, while not bound to take the mythical stories of Genesis literally, are required to believe in the existence of Adam as a specific person from whom the stain of original sin proceeds through the generations. Pope Pius XII stated in the encyclical Humani Generis:
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.
In other words, the Church makes a scientific and historical assumption about the figure of Adam based on its theological teaching about original sin. From what I hear, though, scientific study in the field of genetics has taught us about human origins, and that its discoveries reveal it to be highly unlikely if not physically impossible that the human race descended from one individual.
Pope Pius XII didn’t entirely rule out the possibility of polygenism; he just said it was in no way apparent how polygenism and the Church’s understanding of original sin could be reconciled. It’s certainly interesting that the children of the Church enjoy no liberty to hold a view in favor of polygenism because a reconciliation of ideas is in no way apparent, as if something not being apparent is enough to place limits on the liberty of thought. I expect, though, that if science does entirely rule out the idea that we all descended from Adam, the Church will change its teachings on human origins and original sin. Perhaps slowly and with much kicking and screaming, but a change based on the revelations of science nonetheless.
My question for any readers with backgrounds in theology: if science proves some kind of polygenism, how will the Church change or develop its understandings of original sin and doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception?
(Image: Creation of Adam-Hands by Genece Cupp)
Kyle,
A great question and one that I don’t know the answer to. I only wanted to throw out a small comment that I thought (and my understanding of this topic is very limited, I admit) that some scientific study actually tends to confirm the possibility of the entire human race coming from one individual (see mitochondrial DNA Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam).
But regardless, that doesn’t answer your question of what happens to Church teaching on original sin if science confirms the opposite.
I am not sure exactly what Pius XII meant by polygenism, but as I understand the way it is currently used, it means that there are a number of human races that have their own origins. So, for example, setting aside cases where intermarriage has occurred, there can be, say, a black person and a white person alive today who could trace their ancestry all the way back to the beginning and find they had no common human ancestors. Darwin didn’t believe this, and basically I don’t think any respectable scientist today believes it. It is agreed that all those we call humans today have a common origin, but of course what scientists do not believe is that having a common origin means originating from a single set of parents.
This may be underestimating Pius XII, but I wonder if by polygenism he either meant what modern science believes (humans originated from an original population, not an original set of parents) or if he assumed that polygenism meant separate races each had their own Adam and Eve.
But you are correct, it seems, that the doctrine of Original Sin is so important to the Church that it has a strong influence on how modern scientific theories of human origins are viewed. If what science tells us doesn’t seem to be compatible with Original Sin, then the science is suspect, not the doctrine or its interpretation.
Kyle,
I think you have parsed this quite well. Though I haven’t worked on the question myself, what I have heard in theological circles is that the “in no way apparent,” is the clincher.
While something is “in no way apparent” the faithful do not have the liberty to believe it, but something’s being “in no way apparent” isn’t necessarily a permanent condition.
Theologians have been looking into how such a thing could become apparent and faced no resistance from Rome. People are working on this quite seriously in the expectation of exactly the scientific confirmation you expect. Rome knows about this possibility and is proceeding accordingly.
The real trouble, in my view, isn’t going to be from Rome, but from that demographic of the faithful that refuses to acknowledge that Papal Encyclicals are at least as historically conditioned as Scripture.
You may be right about the real trouble, Brett.
[S]ome scientific study actually tends to confirm the possibility of the entire human race coming from one individual (see mitochondrial DNA Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam).
Thales,
First, I have to confess that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the various common ancestor theories, so unlike virtually everything else I say, I may not understand these perfectly. However, I will limit myself to what I think I know pretty well.
First, Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam were not contemporaries and never had sex with each other. They lived tens of thousands of years apart. Also, the are not people from whom the human race originated. They are most recent common ancestors (MRCA). So every woman alive today has Mitochondrial Eve as her most recent common ancestor. That does not put Mitochondrial Eve in a privileged place concerning human origins. There were other women before her, and other women alive at the same time. So even if Mitochondrial Eve committed some kind of “original sin,” there would have been other humans before her that were untainted, other humans at the time that were untainted, and others who followed her who were untainted but died, leaving Mitochondrial Eve’s female ancestors to carry on the race.
David,
Mitoch.Eve and Y-chromo.Adam are merely theories, based on some scientific evidence. Whether they even existed, much less who/when/where/how or their relation to prior human or humanlike beings, has not been determined scientifically. I’m not resting any kind of argument on their existence or non-existence.
Kyle had said scientific “discoveries reveal it to be highly unlikely if not physically impossible that the human race descended from one individual.” I brought Mitoch.Eve and Y-chromo.Adam up as indication that some scientific discoveries support the opposite conclusion: that it was likely that the human race descended from one individual.
I think it’s fair to say that science doesn’t have a answer yet re:polygenesis or monogenesis. But Kyle’s question is still an interesting one to think about.
Thales,
No, I think it’s fair to say that science has indeed settled the question of whether the human race descended from a single man and a single woman. Science says no. New species don’t arise from two individuals. The arise out of populations, and they arise gradually. It does not even make sense to talk about a first man and a first woman.
David,
You’ll see my question to you in the comments below, as I don’t understand your position that science supports the monogenesis theory, but doesn’t support the idea of descending from 2 individuals.
Kyle,
I am theologically in deep water here, but a few comments:
First, you wrote “from what I hear, scientific study has taught us…” and then seem to uncritically accept polygenism as a more authoritative position than monogenism. What did you hear? Who told you? Am I misreading your post as questioning not so much the issue of polygenism vs. monogenism, but the Church’s authority to teach what Catholic are and are not free to believe?
Second, my admittedly limited understanding of the Church’s teaching does not rule out that God may have used some method of evolutionary process to create human beings, but that the whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”. By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Which is why original sin is “sin” only by analogy: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” – a state and not an act.(CCC #404)
But that leads me to wonder, if there was no Adam and therefore no first parent to commit original sin, then why did Jesus, the second Adam, have to die? Couldn’t Jesus have simply shown us how to love God and neighbor, turn away from sin, repent and reconcile us to the Father?
It seems the atoning suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus and His effect on the whole human race is bound up with Adam and his effect on the whole human race.
Maybe I’m way off, but ihe answer to the question you pose seems to challenge the very core of the gospel itself.
…then seem to uncritically accept polygenism as a more authoritative position than monogenism. What did you hear? Who told you? Am I misreading your post as questioning not so much the issue of polygenism vs. monogenism, but the Church’s authority to teach what Catholic are and are not free to believe?
I don’t have a firm enough grasp of the science involved to uncritically hold either theory as authoritative. I read about the theory on somewhere on the Internet, but I don’t remember where. It seemed plausible, but again I’m no expert.
Hi Kyle,
A good question.
The quote from Humani Generis is elucidative. Read it, taking into account your first sentence. If we are talking about a person then it is not enough to discuss this issue on a mere physical level – a metaphysical level comes into play. If science finds evidence that polygenism is true (and, by the way, a large group of scientist are not convinced that this hypothesis is true) then perhaps there is no conflict between this discovery and the teaching. For we can say that there is physical continuity between the body of the original group and our own, but a metaphysical discontinuity. And we, human persons, are incarnated souls.
Moreover, through figurative language Genesis talks about a couple that is not “merely human” but perhaps “truly human”, i.e., capable of believing in God, conscious of their freedom and also (or therefore) able to recognize their complementary and their place in Creation.
The metaphysical level may be where the Church goes if the idea that we all descended from Adam is rejected and the Church needs another explanation for the passage of original sin.
Whatever the scientific basis of polygenism, this was a major socio-political issue in the development of the “New Right” in the 19th century. The New Right needed a basis to stand against Socialism, Left Liberalism, Republicanism, Jewish Emancipation and universalism. They abandoned the “Old Right’s” romance with the Ancien Régime and Legitimatism.
Instead, they developed “Blood and Soil Conservativism” with nationalism and militarism as the unifying factors.
Rejecting both Socialist and Christian universalism, they adopted polygenism as a basis for their nationalist views. From this, we saw the emergence of more dangerous right-wing ideologies including Action Francaise, Nazism, Dolfussism, etc. and the milder versions here today in the Tea Party call for repeal of the 14th Amendment.
Whatever the uses of polygenism, I mean here by the term what Pope Pius XII defined it as: “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.”
Germain Grisez in the first volume of “Way of the Lord Jesus” notes that polygenism is a possible and Grisez is far to the conservative side of the spectrum of Catholic theologians having been the most prominent in the US to argue that birth control was settled as infallible in the universal ordinary magisterium even though HV was twice introduced at its press conference as non infallible in 1968.
Ergo….he is a very conservative voice and one seeing polygenism as a possible means its quite open by the 1990′s when he wrote.. I would think the Church need only to alter the idea of fatherhood as not physical but chronological with the very first male (even if breaking into being seconds before the second male does so in a distant place) being the father of all chronologically/spiritually and because of that chronology.
The Church could point to the genealogies of Christ in Matthew and Luke which trace Christ through Joseph (chronological/ spiritual father) backward to David and Adam and not through Mary (physical).
My first thought after reading thus far in the comments is “Bruce in Kansas – Good Answer!”
Second, on the Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam, I do not think the possibilty of evolutionary anscestors existing befroe the one Adam, or those who line died out coexisting with him is necessarily a problem to church teaching. The point of the teaching is that at some point there was a man who brought original sin into the world and we are all his decendants. It does not matter who lived before him or coexisted with him.
But the Catechism says: “. . . .primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man . . . the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.”
This is impossible to reconcile with ” . . . at some point there was a man who brought original sin into the world and we are all his decendants. It does not matter who lived before him or coexisted with him.” If there were people who lived before him, they are part of human history. We would have to conclude that there were human beings before “the Fall” who did not participate in it.
David,
However, if one were to “save the appearences” of the Biblical account, it would only require the “Adam and Eve” be the first humans in a metaphysical sense — human having both a human body and an immortal soul endowed with a knowledge of God and free will — which is something which might or might not have any clear relation to a discernable biological threshold.
“But that leads me to wonder, if there was no Adam and therefore no first parent to commit original sin, then why did Jesus, the second Adam, have to die? Couldn’t Jesus have simply shown us how to love God and neighbor, turn away from sin, repent and reconcile us to the Father?”
The problem with this line of thinking is that it tries to read too much into the way God works. It’s looking at things from our point of view and suggesting that we know how God would work it out. We are like characters in a simulated world trying to discern the programmer who wrote our source code. As if the method of source code writing could tell us what our programmer likes in his non-professional life or not.
Adam’s sin is the sin of mankind. Mankind emerged on earth via the process of evolution giving each individual an equal opportunity to seek God or reject God – man appears to appear by chance and not some specific design – i.e. God did not design some men to reject Him while others to accept Him, they all emerge by chance by the process of micro and macro-evolution. Yet man’s condition is imperfect. Man is inherently an egoist and is imperfect. We have to choose whether we let our default state prevail or whether we choose to follow God and do our best for God.
This line of thinking is also too literal. We try to discern God through various genomics studies, or particle accelerators or mathematical equations.
I don’t think God’s realm is accessible to us.
Even so our scientific knowledge is incomplete. The original sin as explained in Genesis may not even be allegorical but may a representation of reality, but as to how that translates into the emergence of the Homo sapiens species is beyond our non-Godly intelligence.
Jesus DID show us how to love God. We did not accept Him and we killed Him. Jesus’ most faithful followers doubted, left Him and rejected Him. And even now we find more important things to do that truly accept Christ.
Basically, the understanding of modern science is that all humans evolved from a single source (monogenism), and consequently all humans are related, but there were not two individuals (Adam and Eve, or any other “first parents of the human race”).
If you believe modern science, this sentence from the Catechism cannot be true (unless carefully explicated to mean, in some way, that “first parents” does not refer to a man and a woman, the first two human beings, from whom all subsequent humans are directly descended):
I don’t see any way around it. This is a case where “a certainty of faith” is in serious conflict with the prevailing scientific view, which is about as “certain” on this matter (that is, that the human race descended from two and only two people) as modern science gets.
“Basically, the understanding of modern science is that all humans evolved from a single source (monogenism), and consequently all humans are related, but there were not two individuals (Adam and Eve, or any other “first parents of the human race”).”
David, can you explain a little more your view here? I don’t quite understand how all humans are related and come from a single source, but can’t have come from 2 individuals.
Thales,
New species arise when genetic mutations occur in individuals, those individuals breed with other similar individuals, the new mutations spread through a population, and that population survives and is differentiated enough from other populations to become a new species. This is a very gradual process in terms of an individual’s lifetime. Modern genetics stresses that natural selection works on populations, not on individuals. From the viewpoint of evolution, there was no first man or first woman. If you traced your ancestors back far enough, there would be a span of generations that would transition from fully human (going backwards) to probably human to possibly human to possibly not human to probably not human to not human.
So we all descended from a group of individuals, but successive generations of that whole group transitioned from not human to human. We can know we didn’t descend from just two individuals, because if we did, those two individuals would have to have had between them all the genes for blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes, violet eyes, etc., plus the genes for hemophilia, diabetes, Tay–Sachs disease, and all other heritable genetic disorders, plus the genes for all possible hair colors, and so on. Two human beings just can’t possibly have enough genes so that their descendants would be as diverse as the human population is today.
So then what does the science supporting the theories of Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam point to? I thought these theories pointed to one common ancestor.
Oh, I see that you say below that you think that these theories point to a common population group, not a common ancestor.
I’m not an expert on this topic by any means, but the wikipedia articles seem to generally talk about these theories as pointing back to a common ancestor, not a large population group.
Even if there was an Adam to commit an original sin, why did Jesus need to die? Couldn’t he STILL “have simply shown us how to love God and neighbor, turn away from sin, repent and reconcile us to the Father?”
I think that the death of Jesus was to show suffering Man that his Creator is willing to expose Himself to that same creation and also to suffer in order that Man might be shown, first-hand, the Way and the Truth and the Life, which transcend this creation. If that’s Gnosticism, so be it.
The reason why there appears to be a conflict between catholic theology and evolutionary biology is that they choose different starting points to identify the origin of humanity. The secular evolutionist claims that the first Homo sapiens appeared millions of years ago through a gradual process driven by natural selection. Christians believe that the first human being came into existence when God breathed into Adam an immortal soul. (Gen. 2:7)
Could there have been other creatures on earth biologically similar to Adam from whom we have all descended? Of course. Is it also possible that every human being alive today is a descendant of Adam? That is also quite possible. The truth of either one of these assertions does not require that the other be false.
The difficulty arises when the secularist denies the existence of the soul and claims that Christian beliefs are unscientific and therefore wrong. The Christian can reply that materialism is based on a reductionist metaphysics that fails to do justice to the existence of human intelligence, morality, and freedom. Simply put, we have a knowledge of our selves that cannot be proven through scientific experiments.
In the end who should you believe, the atheist who thinks of himself as a biological machine, or the Christian who believes that we were created in the image of God? I think the choice is clear.
This is a better statement of the point I was trying to make.
Could there have been other creatures on earth biologically similar to Adam from whom we have all descended?
It seems to me the answer can be yes only if Adam and Eve (or their descendants) intermarried with with such creatures, which (as we have discussed before) would have been something akin to bestiality. The problem with the “first parents” theory is that there is too much genetic diversity for the human race to have descended from two individuals.
Is it also possible that every human being alive today is a descendant of Adam?
The question isn’t whether there was an “Adam.” The question is whether there were first parents.
Of course, if you want to make stuff up, there are many possibilities. There could have been an Adam and Eve whose children intermarried, and God could have miraculously added new genes into the mix for generation after generation until we got all the genes we have today. But that is kind of like denying evolution by saying that when God created the earth about six thousand years ago, he created it complete with fossils to test our faith.
They have different starting points, yes, but the understanding of the passage of original sin expressed by Pope Pius XII presupposes specific scientific realities, realities that have been called into question.
It seems there may be some scriptural precedent for polygenism: Remember Cain’s response after he was cast out – “All who find me will slay me”?
If there were no other humans, who is the “all” that he is referring to?
Dan,
One answer to your question is that Adam/Eve had many other sons/daughters that are not mentioned in the Bible.
plus he married.
Is it possible that Original Sin, or, better, the possibility of it, is precisely what makes us human? The capacity to recognize God’s existence and the imperatives that has for us as creatures (including the possibility of rejecting those imperatives) might be a (perhaps partial) theological definition of a human person. Somewhere Ratzinger says something to the effect of humans start to exist as humans once they conceive of God.
If this is satisfactory, one need not be biologically descended from Adam and Eve in order to be humanly descended from them. When Chesterton said that Original Sin was the one doctrine for which there is concrete evidence in the world, he wasn’t talking about biology.
When some ape-like creature recognizes that he or she can choose the good you’ve got the beginning of our race. (The capacity to choose the good seems consonant with the infusion of a soul.) And when they don’t do the good, you’ve got the beginning of our mess.
I agree. I was also thinking about the Pope’s words when I wrote the comments above.
Furthermore, the fact that two ape-like creatures might do such a thing in collusion, seems to be a healthy reminder that sin is a social reality that has to do with relationships.
As John tells us, anyone who claims to love God whom he cannot see, but does not love his brothers and sisters whom he can see, is a liar.
Plus, we wear clothes.
Interesting concept. I’ve long speculated (very loosely) that original sin is essentially the moment of transition between instinct and free will.
If Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of good and evil, can we rightly say they were “good”, or were their instincts simply in line with the will of God?
“Is it possible that Original Sin, or, better, the possibility of it, is precisely what makes us human?” I think that this may be true. I have no trouble believing in Original Sin in this sense. What I have a problem believing in is original innocence; that is that at some point we existed free of sin and the propensity for evil. Even the Genesis account alludes to this; as soon as we realized we were capable of good and evil it wasn’t long (like a heartbeat) before we chose evil. This wasn’t the purity of heart of the Virgin Mary, it was more like the innocence of children before they have attained the use of reason. The fatal flaw seems to have been there from the beginning; part of the heritage of our long battle for survival.
I had always thought that as Catholics we weren’t bound to a literal reading of Genesis; as long as we accepted the religious truths contained therein. Chief among these was God as the author of creation who didn’t abandon us.
Well said. That’s what I was thinking when I said we wear clothes. As soon as we betrayed God, we realized we could betray each other and were no longer “naked without shame”, so we coverd up. Chimps don’t do that.
I’m more inclined to view original sin as Eastern Christians do, as in we sin because we all die vs. we die because we all sin, (that how I’ve had the distinctions explained to me). I find this view compatible with evolution in that homo sapiens are most likely to be the first species aware of our mortality so early in life, and this realization leads humans to cope in sinful ways….through lust, greed,sloth, etc. So I view the Genesis story as Adam and Eve becoming aware of that reality, and Christ coming down to ameliorate that fear by his death and resurrection, which then allowed us to survive or own death.
This is rather long, and I am only going to reproduce part of it. Use the link if you want to see it all. This was posted on dotCommonweal awhile back in a thread titled Catholicism and Evolution by Father Komonchak regarding some views of Pope Benedict on Original Sin:
It is quite fascinating, but it is also easy to see why more literal-minded Catholics would consider it heretical. Original Sin is a “certainly misleading and imprecise term”? One major question would be what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception could possibly mean if this is how we are to understand Original Sin.
I think David is right to highlight the connection between this conception of Original Sin, which I find highly satisfying, and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
To me, what is central to the Immaculate Conception, seen in this light, is the miraculous preservation of Mary’s freedom so that when her opportunity for a Yes to God that would heal creation arose, she could make that Yes from the same freedom as those who made the No that ruptured creation.
In other words, not only, or even primarily, does Mary not sin personally, she is somehow (miraculously) preserved from having her interaction with the sinful world (which starts in the womb, as any FAS kid can tell you) impair her freedom or relationship with God.
I’m not going to hijack the conversation, so I’m only going to mention this as food for thought: I find the concept “miraculous preservation of Mary’s freedom” to be somewhat paradoxical. Miraculous intervention and preservation in this context are mutually exclusive. That is, of course, unless you assume that all conceptions are fundamentally “immaculate” and original sin is simply a function. But is that heretical?
Seems to me that it would be much more consistent with our knowledge of free will to assume that original sin is much like an evolutionary trait; our ownership of that trait is a function of probability. An “immaculate conception” is a stochastically unlikely event, but which has perhaps happened multiple times throughout history; only without the same result.
I would like to remind people of my attempt to go through some of these issues here: http://vox-nova.com/2010/11/16/wisdom%E2%80%99s-fire-radiant-and-unfading-part-vii-2-the-fall-of-adam/
More certainly could be said, but I think it gives the framework of my response, which ultimately, allows for whatever science ultimately discovers.
A great post on an important topic. I agree with Brett (no surprise there ;)–we often seem to be on the same page) that “in no way apparent” is the crucial clause here. One of the things that is “in no way apparent” is how polygenism is compatible with an understanding of Original Sin as being passed “through generation.”
Luckily, there has been much interesting work–including that of Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger–on developing a conception of the transmission of Original Sin that is not dependent on *simply* biological generation. If the transmission of Original Sin *were* dependent on biological generation, then it’s hard to see–indeed, it’s in “no way apparent”–that these two truths (assuming, just for the sake of the argument, that polygenism is true) are compatible.
However, both James Allison and Ratzinger have developed accounts of Original Sin in which such sin is transmitted socially, such that Adam, in sinning, would have immediately ruptured not only his relationship with God, but his relationship with all other existing humans. This social transmission of Original Sin is compatible with not but reducible to biological transmission strictly construed. This allows for Adam to have “transmitted” his sin to his contemporaries without having to do so *via* generation; and they, in turn, would have passed on their own brokenness to their progeny, and so on.
As Allison argues in The Joy of Being Wrong, this conception of Original Sin is perfectly compatible with the decrees of Trent, which used the language of “generation” in order to assert, contra the Pelagians, that there is no *moment* of an individual’s life in which she is neutrally positioned between sin and grace. She is always already informed by the Sin which has preceded her, and so requires the grace of baptism in order to free her from the inherited stain. A social, as opposed to a reductively biological, account of the transmission of Original Sin is perfectly compatible with the concerns of Trent, so far as I can see.
See also Ratzinger’s excellent discussion of Original Sin in “In the Beginning…: A Catholic Understanding of Creation and Redemption.”
It’s one thing to disagree with Pope Pius XII, but one mustn’t disagree with Brett.
oh dear . . .
I’m not sure this was the reputation I was going for.
WJ,
This is helpful to me. Thanks.
Let me again stress that monogenism doesn’t mean (necessarily) that the human race descended from two individuals, and polygenism doesn’t mean (necessarily) that the human race descended from multiple sets of parents. Monogenism means that all humans today are related and come from a single source. This is the prevailing theory, only the source was a population, not two individuals. Polygenism is the belief that there are different groups of humans (say the Jets and the Sharks) who evolved (or were created) separately and are not related to each other. The consequence of polygenism would be that there would be human beings today (or at least sometime in the past) who were not related to each other even distantly. What we think of as the human race would be several different races, each with its own origin. If Adam and Eve had been Jets, all the pure-blooded Sharks living today would not be descended from them and hence could not have inherited Original Sin from them.
David,
In relation to certain (destructive and untrue) turn of the century racial theories which went by the same name, this is correct. However, the monogenism and polygenism and Pius XII and Kyle are talking about is, in fact, a question of whether humans are descended from a single couple or from multiple couples (whether disparate or within a population.)
As you point out, the turn of the (18/19th) century racial theories of polygenism have absolutely no scientific basis these days. At most, we have evidence that a core pool of ancestors we all share interbred to a very minor extent with various populations around the world of archaic human species/subspecies. However, the polygenism which Pius XII was concerned with seems pretty clearly to be the idea that we are descended from more than one couple of “original” ancestors. And this, I think, is fairly obviously the case, barring some sort of near miraculous (and thus undetectable) situation.
Or at least, that we are only descended from one couple. That we are all descendants of one particular couple at some point in time, but that their children also interbred with a wider population which was around at the same time is certainly possible. (And actually not inconsistent with some of the seriously odd stuff mentioned in passing in Genesis. But I don’t really think we need to have a strong opinion one way or the other on that.)
Yes.
Darwin,
Thanks for clarifying that. I had actually failed to notice that Pius XII in effect states his own definition. I looked more carefully, and while he does use the word polygenism for what he says cannot be accepted, he never uses the term monogenism. So we have to remember when consulting “secular” sources on human origins that polygenism means something other than what Pius XII used it to mean, and also that just because monogenism is currently accepted by modern science and polygenism repudiated, the views of Pius XII are not in accord with the position of modern science.
I think in the end this is a very evangelical pursuit to keep insisting that scripture represents anything else than a vague collection of mystical stories. For this catholic the same divine spirit informed both scripture AND science. Perhaps scripture conveys a poetic/moral/emotional truth while Science clearly today appears to be the far superior methodology to settle all questions related to the physical world.So big deal that Science shifted the origins of life millions (arguably billions) of years back – of course there was no “Adam” this perhaps does not take away from the beauty of this creation lore. Clearly these sort of scripture passages reside solidly in the poetic/aesthetic domain – plenty of room left for religion and philosophy to ponder the meaning of life.
I trust our creator enjoys it very much to see us little cell bundles toiling this tiny corner of the Universe.
grega,
The problem, of course, is that a great edifice has been built (by Christians, but not Jews) on the story of Adam and Eve, so when it is reinterpreted, many other things must be reinterpreted as well.
So the Immaculate Conception is a dogma which absolutely must “be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful,” and yet without the story of Adam and Eve the concept of Original Sin — which we all understood perfectly well in Catholic grade school in the 1950s — we now don’t know what it actually means.
It strikes me that I learned early in my theological education that a purely biological reading of Original Sin was condemned quite early in the development of the doctrine. I’m going to have to double-check this and come back with a reference.
In any case, I think that a shift from a biological to a theological reading of Original Sin makes the Immaculate Conception more meaningful, rather than less, even if it is more difficult to imagine (and I use that word very deliberately) exactly what is miraculous about it.
In some ways one has to appreciate the low key nature of most biblical miracles.
Immaculate conception one of the particular stark examples – for the creator of the universe it certainly would have been so easy to dazzle by for example having the son of god born not 9 month but i.e. 9 days within immaculate conception.
Of course in many ways if one believes in God – as we all tend to do around here – divine conception does not require any scientific explaination.
Everything is a distinct possibility.
It seems to me there is a very big difference between saying that parts of Genesis are stories which belong to the genre of mythology and thus express a true philosophical and moral point through an a-historical story and asserting that the bible is a “vague collection of mystical stories”.
Of course, perhaps part of the problem here is that many modern Americans are unable to imagine that mythology can be understood by both author and audience to be true, and yet at the same time not to be a historical or scientific account. We’re a rather narratively impoverished lot, we moderns.
To comment on this anything like fully would take something far longer than a comment, but to touch briefly on the topic as I can’t help doing (given my chosen moniker):
- I think it’s important to keep in mind that what modern science has come to a clear understanding of is that species do not have a crisp start, and indeed are, at their origins, more or less arbitrary and undefinable. We can distinguish our species from other species past and present now because a great gap of time lies between us and them. But biologically speaking, there is never a speciation event which occurs in a single generation. There never were at any time, from a scientific point of view, any “first humans” that were clearly distinguishable from those that came directly before them. Thus, any species is the descendant of a population — nor is a bottleneck such that all subesequent members of any species are descended from one pair at all likely.
- When we talk about Adam and Eve, in the moral and theological sense, we’re not talking about the origin of the human species in the sense which science can determine, but rather the origin of human beings as moral, reasoning ceatures with a free will and the ability to choose for or against God. It is naturally impossible for science to say much of anything about this topic.
- Having said both of the above, I tend to think that the story of Adam and Eve is one of these cases in which God has provided us with a narrative which tells us something metaphysically true via a story which we simply don’t know how to correllate to biological reality as we have come to understand it. I’m not sure that we necessarily need to worry much about this. What we learn from Genesis is something about who we are as creatures with human nature, and what human nature is, and how we as humans relate to God. It’s not a question of history, but of relationship and nature. So while I tend to think that the Adam and Eve story is told in language which is very much set by the fact it was given to an ancient people who knew nothing of biological history, I don’t think we really need to worry much about that “invalidating” the moral and theological insights it provides. I have always tended to assume that even at the moral/theological level some form of polygenism is true — that there was a population of humans at the time we became humans in the theological sense (if it was even just one moment) and that the story of Adam and Eve somehow tells us what we (tens if not hundreds of thousands of years later) need to know about how their relationship with God developed.
Darwin,
I tend to think that the story of Adam and Eve is one of these cases in which God has provided us with a narrative which tells us something metaphysically true via a story which we simply don’t know how to correllate to biological reality as we have come to understand it. I’m not sure that we necessarily need to worry much about this.
You may be right about this, but the Church has historically made a biological correlation, however vague, and I suspect a move away from this correlation will result in new ways the Church understands sin, its passage, and even the event of Christ–if you will forgive the expression. ;-)
It seems to me that the doctrinally significant thing which the Church has traditionally drawn from this is that we have, as human beings, a broken nature. We tend toward sin. This we call original sin. And it is, except in the case of the Virgin Mary, who was miraculously preserved from being born with this broken nature, a trait which is passed down via generation.
However, I don’t think that that necessarily means that we must all necessarily be direct descendants from a single couple who were the ones who first were tested and committed this sin. If we take it that the story of Adam and Eve tells us a very basic truth about how humanity responded to God’s self-revelation to us, at the time when we became rational and moral beings, then the fact that all of us who are born into the rebellious tribe of humanity share this broken nature is equally true whether we are descended from one couple or a population.
They key thing, it seems to me, is that all humans have always had original sin, since we were originally tested and rebelled against God. As long as we accept membership in humanity as the thing which passes original sin on, it doesn’t really matter whether it was incurred literally by one couple from whom we are all descended, or whether that story provides us with the story in a comprehensible way without correllating to a historical/biological occurrance.
At least, thus sayeth that strange creature of the traditionalist/Darwinist.
However, I don’t think that that necessarily means that we must all necessarily be direct descendants from a single couple who were the ones who first were tested and committed this sin. If we take it that the story of Adam and Eve tells us a very basic truth about how humanity responded to God’s self-revelation to us, at the time when we became rational and moral beings, then the fact that all of us who are born into the rebellious tribe of humanity share this broken nature is equally true whether we are descended from one couple or a population.
That’s about where I am, Darwin.
Darwin,
I like your interpretation, but it seems to me to conflict with what the Church teaches. According to the Church, Adam and Eve had two options, and they knowingly and freely made the wrong choice, which affected all their descendants (the entire human race). We have, as humans, a “broken nature” because our first parents made the wrong choice. It seems to me that you are saying the point of the story is that humans have a “broken nature.” If you disregard the explanation of how our nature became broken, it means that human nature didn’t change (because of some primordial event), but that human nature as created by God is simply flawed. That means humankind needed a redeemer because of the way God created humans.
If there is to be a concept of “the Fall,” there has to have been somewhere to fall from.
I would be happy to say that we look at ourselves and realize we are in some way flawed — that we don’t live up even to our own standards. that something seems to be wrong or not as it was intended to be. And I would say that the story of Adam and Eve is an expression of this perception. But the Church doesn’t say human nature is flawed. The Church says God created human beings without flaws and human beings did damage to themselves when they could have done otherwise.
Well, I’m assuming that there was in fact some sort of event (a “fall”) which caused our broken nature at some indeterminate point in the past, and that this event was such that it was best described to the Ancient Israelites through the story of Adan and Eve. What it was, I’m not in a position to know, and I’m not sure it’s particularly important to know, but I’m assuming that because God chose to discuss this fact with humanity through this particular story that it is somehow well described by the story even if the story is not in a historical sense accurate.
I’m taking the message of the story to be true while accepting ignorance as to what “in fact” happened.
Before Adam and Eve sinned, they had no knowledge of good and evil, so they had no choices to make: it was all good. Therefore, they were not moral beings. What follows from this is that they were not human, as human is now defined, i.e. as intelligent creatures possessed of free will. They were, in fact, little more than beautiful pets.
It is clear that they were deliberately tempted; it was a foregone conclusion that they would disobey.
If God saw that His creation was all good, must not this have included the Serpent? Was the Serpent uncreated? No. God put the Serpent in the Garden. In exactly what that the Serpent told Eve did the Serpent lie?
Has the sacrifice of Christ restored the Creation to its Edenic state? No. We are told that this is yet to come. So Adam is not yet redeemed. All men are still sinners. And it is not the death and resurrection of Christ by which Adam will have been redeemed. The crucifixion was a partaking by the Creator of the suffering inherent to all beings in the created world. It was an expression of empathetic love on the part of the Creator for His creatures. It was a sign of good faith; a promise vouchsafed by a show of understanding: your God knows that you suffer; He knows what suffering is; see, He suffers with you.
We must have faith that it will all be (re)made right, in God’s good time.
It’s not true that Adam And Eve weren’t moral beings when they lived in God’s presence. It’s also not true they didn’t have free will. They were much more than beautiful pets – they were what we will be like in Heaven.
Zach,
When you speak of Adam and Eve, do you speak of two people who actually existed and did basically what is said in Genesis? Or are you using “Adam and Eve” as some kind of shorthand expression referring to two ancestors? Or a group of ancestors? And given the very scant description of Adam and Eve’s life in Eden, what is your source of knowledge of what they were like?
No, this objection is quite easily solved. Quite.
Monogenism does NOT imply a two-person BOTTLENECK.
It means that all humans properly so called have had at least one common couple from which they all descend (and, in this case, from which they take human nature).
That doesn’t mean they don’t ALSO descend from other couples in other lines. It means that of their ancestors, there is one couple from which they take their humanity and (thus) original sin.
Just as I have 4 sets of great-grandparents, but take my last name only from the pair in the direct paternal line. All “Mylastnames” descend from that pair (who made up their unique name at Ellis Island, let’s say)…but that doesn’t mean we ONLY descend from them as from a bottleneck. Other lines bred in, they just aren’t the lines from whom we inherit our last name.
Come on. An 8th grader would understand the distinction!
In this case, we perhaps should assume that humanity (ie, having a spiritual soul) is an absolutely dominant trait such that, as long as one parent had it, the children would all have it. Such a trait would very quickly disseminate to the entire population.
Our First Parents’ fallen children undoubtedly bred with other hominids. Some would even see this suggested in the Genesis story about the “sons of heaven” breeding with the “sons of the earth” and creating giants. Rather than being a story about devils breeding with humans, it can be taken in this modern view as about ensouled humans breeding with non-ensouled hominids. The “Noah’s Flood” story then serves to guarantee that no unensouled line of hominids survived. There may have been a few generations where humans and humanlike animals walked side-by-side (and bred) but very early in history only the ensouled humans remained.
Science disproves the existence of there ever being a two-person bottleneck (genetic diversity suggests that the smallest population bottle neck we ever passed through was a few hundred to a few thousand). But human beings are known to have many common ancestors (in fact, at this point in history, the Most Recent Common Ancestor may be as recently as 1000 AD!!) and all monogenism teaches is that ONE pair of those common ancestors are the origin of humans being endowed with a spiritual soul (and, by extension, original sin).
Your objection isn’t an objection at all. As with all these easily dismissable suggestions, it looks like just a way to try to find a crack in Catholic teaching to demonstrate that other things maybe can change too (usually involving sexual morality). But in this case, there is no crack at all.
I’m not objecting. I’m asking about the consequences for thought.
I think you were making insinuations quite clearly:
“I expect, though, that if science does entirely rule out the idea that we all descended from Adam, the Church will change its teachings on human origins and original sin. Perhaps slowly and with much kicking and screaming, but a change based on the revelations of science nonetheless.”
Your very “question” just ASSUMES the Church would have to “change” somehow if polygenism were proved true. And your statement, “From what I hear, though, scientific study in the field of genetics has taught us about human origins, and that its discoveries reveal it to be highly unlikely if not physically impossible that the human race descended from one individual,” shows that you mistakenly believe scientific knowledge suggests polygenism, when really all it suggests is that there never was a population bottleneck as small as one couple (which is not polygenism; just check wikipedia!)
The fact is, the Church wouldn’t change if polygenism in the strict sense were true, it would entirely collapse. As would any notion of one family of man.
If strict polygenism (which does not merely mean a non-bottleneck) holds, then each race is actually a different species, with no common ancestors, and at that point…there is no “humanity” except as a verbal construct. Goodbye any sort of humanism, let alone Christianity!
As it is, science doesn’t suggest this at all. Even if different races have their own common founding populations at a later point in history, then it is easy enough to simply say, “Then the overall Adam and Eve must have been even EARLIER than that.” Because obviously, at SOME point, hominids have a common ancestor.
Or even if science came to believe in a “cross-pollinization” theory, whereby the races originated separately (and their only common ancestors was some monkey so early in evolutionary history no one would be willing to call human) and that they all converged into one species only through cross-breeding at a later date…then we’d simply have to posit that one of those races was the originally “human” race, and that the others became ensouled through cross-pollinization with it. This model still leads to a more recent common ancestor for the various races after the crossing was “completed” (though might also lead to a sort of racism, depending on which one you believe became ensouled first…) and is thus not strict polygenism either.
As it stands, it’s pretty clear at this point in scientific development that polygenism in a sense that would threaten church teaching is not at all scientifically feasible. Human beings never had a one-couple bottleneck, but all humans in history strictly so called have common ancestors (many, in fact) and its easy enough to imagine one pair of those many was the couple from which spiritual souls (and thus original sin) were inherited.
“It’s certainly interesting that the children of the Church enjoy no liberty to hold a view in favor of polygenism because a reconciliation of ideas is in no way apparent, as if something not being apparent is enough to place limits on the liberty of thought.”
This makes perfect sense, though, because while not exactly a syllogism, the notion of strict polygenism seems so utterly contradictory to the Truth as we know it, that trying to square that circle leads to dangerous places (like your insinuation that teachings on original sin would need to change) and given that it is completely unnecessary to do this, that, as scientific knowledge stands, this would be just a vain exercise playing with a hypothetical (that, if true, would destroy the system completely)…it is a rather impious thing to try to explore. It’s like trying to work out a consistent philosophy and construct a meaning for life for “If there were no God,” just for fun, just as an academic exercise. It’s intellectually dangerous. Such “contingency plans” philosophically…show a total lack of faith.
I tread those intellectually dangerous paths with fear and trembling, but I do tread them.
As I mentioned above, I’m using the term polygenism in the sense used by Pope Pius, a sense that is perhaps more theological then scientific.
I must admit, I am surprised not to have heard this idea (Adam and Eve are only one pair of our descendants, but the determinative pair in terms of our humanity) before. But I rather like it. It does make much of Genesis (E.g., Cain’s potential killers, the “giants” weirdness) more coherent.
Brett,
It is a deeply flawed theory that is a good example of how far biblical literalists must go to maintain their position. Pius XII said:
It assumes that before and after Adam, there were pseudo-humans, who would have had to be biologically close enough to real humans to intermarry with them but who did not have human, immortal souls. Whatever characteristics we ascribe to human beings by virtue of them having human souls, these pseudo-humans would have lacked. The closer to true humans these pseudo-humans are assumed to be, the less a human soul accounts for what it means to be human. If these pseudo-humans were indistinguishable from true humans, then it means true humans are basically very intelligent animals with souls tacked on.
According to this theory, humans had to intermarry with nonhumans! There are those who insist that a same-sex couple can’t marry because it wouldn’t really be marriage. Well, what about the union of a human with a soul and a pseudo-human without a soul? Would that be a marriage? If yes, how? If not, what about the proscription of sex outside of marriage? The theory apparently posits that the offspring of a human and a pseudo-human is a human. Families would have been made up of a human and a pseudo-human spouse who had human children. These children would have been raised by a pseudo-human mother or father.
Assuming that all pseudo-humans were killed off during the flood (which of course most of us would consider to be historical to about the same degree as the story of Adam and Eve — that is, not at all), the problem of the “bottleneck” is not avoided, but rather compounded. It would require that all human beings alive today are descended from only the eight humans on the ark (not nearly enough to account for the genetic diversity of the human race), but it would require that all animals alive today were descended from 7 male-female pairs (for clean animals) and a single couple for all unclean animals.
A much simpler theory (which I invented and I think mentioned above) is just to assume there was an Adam and Eve from whom we all descended, and that God introduced enough new genes into the human genome since the time of Adam to account for the diversity we see today. The Creator of the Universe would certainly have control over the rate of mutation and the kinds of mutations in the human genome. If you are going to make stuff up to harmonize the story of Adam and Eve with modern genetics, why not make up something less problematic than having humans and proto-humans intermarry and then killing off all the proto-humans in a great flood?
Or we can assume that all animals have immortal souls, including those proto-humans. Adam and Eve were a special class with a unique relationship with God; where original sin manifested itself and is inherited through subsequent generations.
This would solve a lot of problems.
David,
You seem to have put a lot of thought and energy into trying to find problems where none exist. It is easy to call everyone who disagrees with you a ‘biblical literalist’ but no one who has commented here has denied the reality of evolution; so why say something that is obviously untrue?
I would take your theory more seriously, but even you do not believe it true, so why should anyone take it seriously?
AS for the flood, you are the only one who has mentioned it and for good reason because it is not relevant to the OP.
Finally, if you are as unsure as to the nature of the soul as you seem to be, you might try reading Aquinas (ST. 1 qq. 75-83) or the Catechism (CCC. 355-367) before making any further comments.
AS for the flood, you are the only one who has mentioned it and for good reason because it is not relevant to the OP.
Lamont,
I was responding in part to the message of January 6, 2011 at 9:32 pm written by “A Sinner” in which he said:
“A Sinner” is trying to show that science does not rule out the human race descending from a single man and a single woman, and part of what he requires for his theory is a literal reading of the story of Noah and the Ark. He is not denying evolution, but he is attempting to harmonize a literal reading of the story of Adam and Eve (and Noah and the Flood) with the theory of evolution.
I do not call everyone who disagrees with me a biblical literalist, but I do believe “A Sinner” is taking both of these stories to be literally true, although perhaps not so true in every detail as those (fundamentalist Protestants) who believe the Bible is literally true, inerrant, there is no discrepancy that can’t be explained away. But if “A Sinner” does not want to be described as a biblical literalist, then I apologize. My criticism was of the theory, not of him personally.
Regarding the soul, perhaps you could comment on whether it is in keeping with the Catholic concept of souls to assume Adam, Eve, and their direct descendants could intermarry with creatures that were not “true men.” Pius XII says Catholics may not believe there existed “true men” before Adam or “true men” after Adam that were not directly descended from him. “A Sinner” believes there were creatures who were not “true men” who lived both before and after Adam and intermarried with “true men.” As you understand the concept of the soul, do you think there could be a marriage between a true man (let us say a son of Adam and Eve) and the most highly evolved, near-human-but -soulless woman? Would such a highly evolved but not yet ensouled creature be a suitable wife for a true man? Such a creature would be a female animal, but not a human woman. Would God have begun the human race by having humans and nonhumans mate?
David,
I find that your logic has an internal consistency that is hard to deny, but the whole thrust of the argumentation doesn’t grasp me because I don’t share your view of the relationship between spirit and matter. It seems that you are trying to treat spirit as if it were just another kind of undetectable matter, but I’m pretty sure the tradition means something quite different than that.
Have you ever read Walter Wink’s trilogy? (Full disclosure: It is still on my to-read list.) I think you might find there something more satisfying than the current conception which seems to me, at least, to lead to pseudo-problems.
I am sorry for not engaging you more fully on the matter, but I’m not quite sure how when it is clear we share some very different presuppositions. I note similar concerns emerging in the Demons thread and wonder if Professor Muldoon might have something helpful for us in this impasse.
Also, I’m with Lamont about Aquinas on the soul. Though that almost goes without saying.
Brett,
Just one question. You are saying you find it plausible that there could have been a male and a female couple who were “true humans,” and they and their offspring could have intermarried with not-true-humans, and the offspring would have been true humans? In other words not only was Original Sin passed down from two “first humans,” but also souls were as well?
A yes or no will do. Yes, true humans bred with “non-true-humans,” or No, only true humans can breed with true humans.
Regarding the soul, I will happily read the Catechism and Aquinas (and anything else), but I can say in advance that I am not going to find all the answers. The soul has been discussed at length on Vox Nova before, and nobody has pinned it down! If I were to stop writing until I was anywhere near sure of the nature of the soul, this would be my last message!
Following the more plausible writings about the human soul I have read, it would make no sense to say that the soul leaves the body at death, spends time in purgatory (suffering), waits in heaven (reunited happily with others who have gone before) until the end of the world, and is reunited with a (glorified) body. This is very standard Christian belief, but it would seem to me you can’t have a soul existing apart from a body. It would also seem to me God couldn’t create the human race by choosing two highly evolved hominids from a group and ensouling them.
I don’t have any problem with True Humans breeding with other proto-humans.
Bestiality strikes me as a biological, not a theological, category. If you can interbreed then, by definition, you don’t have bestiality.
Let’s think of something more spiritual than DNA, say, language. Could True Humans (i.e., those with a soul) have passed on spiritual qualities to other proto-humans? Things like language or burial practices? I don’t see why not. Could this have been accompanied by a blending of family lines? I don’t see why not, though it doesn’t strike me as necessary either.
In other words, I think the doctrine of Original Sin requires that we have spiritual ancestors. That they overlap without remainder with our biological ancestors strikes me as rather unimportant.
In any case, the spiritual patrimony has spread to include everyone currently alive that is biologically of the same species, i.e., can interbreed. It may well have included others, no longer alive, like neanderthals. It seems likely to me.
Let’s not forget too that Gen 1-3 is not the *only* creation story found in the Old Testament. We can get hung up on thinking that Gen 1-3 is *the* definitive account of creation, the Fall, etc., but there are other treatments of creation scattered throughout the OT, and these must be synthesized, and not reduced to so many glosses on the first one we happen to read.
“It’s not true that Adam And Eve weren’t moral beings when they lived in God’s presence. It’s also not true they didn’t have free will. They were much more than beautiful pets – they were what we will be like in Heaven.”
So you say. What textual evidence can you provide to back up your assertions?
To address just your last point: evidently Adam and Eve were not what we will be like in heaven, for Jesus said that in heaven we will be like the angels (i.e. spiritual beings) and will not marry. Yet we know from Genesis 1:28 that–before the Fall–God commanded Adam and Eve to increase and multiply.
Now, Zachary, would you like to address this point. Or to answer any of the other questions I raised in the comment to which you responded?
I have pointed out in many discussions what I believe to be a rather startling fact, although only rarely does anyone agree with me. The serpent in the story (which I would say is clearly a serpent, not Satan — but that’s another topic) clearly is not lying:
And later, we have this:
Adam and Eve do not die when they eat from the tree, and God confirms what the serpent says about knowing good and bad (see boldfaced quote above) almost word for word.
Also, the precise reason that Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden is not to punish them for their disobedience. It is to prevent them from eating from the tree of life and living forever. If you take the story literally, the clear implication is that it is not within God’s power to determine if Adam and Eve become immortal or not. If they eat the from the tree of life, they will be immortal whether God wants them to be or not. Consequently, they must be kept away from the tree of life.
One might argue (implausibly, it seems to me) that God tells Adam he is doomed to die if he eats from the first tree because it is God’s intention at some point to let Adam eat from the tree of life. But clearly Adam and Eve are mortal from the moment of their creation up through their expulsion from the garden, otherwise they would not have to be kept away from the tree of life, which would give them immortality.
I think I might agree with you, but I’m not clear what point you’re making….?
My point is that it is usually assumed that the serpent is Satan, the Prince of Lies, and that he deceives to get her to eat the forbidden fruit. I would say that in the story, the serpent is quite clearly a serpent (since all future serpents suffer for his deeds the way all future humans suffer for Adam and Eve’s deeds), and although he clearly tempts and manipulates Eve, he is telling her the literal truth. And, at least in some plausible interpretations of the story, God himself did not tell the truth when he told Adam he would die if he ate the forbidden fruit. God, at least in some plausible interpretations, was treating Adam and Eve like children, frightening them with the threat of certain death if they at the fruit, but in fact it did not kill them. It did exactly what the serpent said it would — opened their eyes to good and evil. And finally, as I said, Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden to keep them from eating from the tree of life. They did not become mortal at the moment they ate the fruit. They were already mortal, and in the story, it is not by an omnipotent act that God prevents them from becoming immortal. They have already become like him in knowing good and evil. Now they must be prevented from being like him — immortal — by keeping them away from the tree of life. He seems to be less than omnipotent in the story, since the trees contain power that he doesn’t seem to have control over.
This isn’t exactly a new and startling observation. I seem to recall several Church Fathers writing about the passage at considerable length — though as it was 12+ years ago I was plowing through Great Books reading in college, I’d have to go root around for references.
Suffice it to say, this is hardly news, but no Christian or Jewish scholars, to my knowledge, have ever taken this passage literally. Recall, we’re dealing with the genre of mythology here, not modern newspaper reporting. And more specifically, we’re dealing with an inspired Jewish re-working of Sumerian myths.
Darwin,
I don’t claim to have made a new and startling observation. I am merely pointing out what even the most naive reader can see. The serpent doesn’t lie to Eve. God forbad Adam and Eve from eating fruit from the tree of knowledge because they would become like him (by knowing good and evil). The serpent tells Eve this. She and Adam eat the fruit, and they become like God, knowing good and evil.
Suffice it to say, this is hardly news, but no Christian or Jewish scholars, to my knowledge, have ever taken this passage literally.
I am not making any point but that in the story itself, taken at face value, the serpent does’t lie. It makes no difference whether the story is mythology or an eyewitness account. In the story, God’s words confirm what the serpent told Eve.
Now, a little more controversial is the question of whether God himself was truthful in what he said to Adam (Genesis 2:17). The translation of the verse from the Jewish Publication Society is, “But as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.” The NAB says, “From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.” The RSV says, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” The NAB leaves a little wiggle room, but the JPS and the RSV don’t. The serpent tells Eve they will not die if they eat the fruit. They eat it, and they don’t die.
The most common meaning that is taken from this is that if Adam and Eve “eat of the tree” the grace of God will die within them and they will become sinful creatures — which is exactly what happens. (This is the gloss that Ratzinger takes, as I recall, in In The Beginning, the book several people have mentioned — I thought you were the first one, actually.)
When you say that the serpent was telling the truth (and implicitly that God was lying) whether one takes the story mythologically or not, you’re assuming that the phrases being used are being used to convey a meaning which you take to be the only one — but that’s not necessarily the way that language works.
One can point to basic examples such as, “His eyes rose to meet her” does not mean that the person’s eyeballs literally moved through space, but rather that his gaze rose.
An biblical example on which the Fathers spent much time is an Exodus where the narrative says, “But God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Does that mean that God literally forced Pharaoh to deny the Israelites permission to leave, or is this simply a narrative device for saying “Pharaoh remain stubborn”.
Now, you’re got two things you’re working with: Adam and Eve do not fall down dead the moment they eat the fruit — but that is not clearly indicated as something that will happen by what’s originally said. “Shall die” or “shall be doomed to die” does not necessarily mean immediacy, even if the “death” here is assumed to be literal.
Also, we have this passage about eating of the tree of eternal life — which is not discussed elsewhere at all. Would Adam and Eve have been mortal if they had not eaten of the tree of good and evil and had also not eaten of the tree of eternal life? We don’t know, because we aren’t told. (Personally, I’d take the fact that the tree of eternal life crops up in the Sumerian version as well to mean it’s just an accretion and doesn’t carry any particular meaning.)
But you can’t really get to the “God lied and the serpent told the truth” claim unless you make a lot of assumptions about the authors of the narrative meaning the same thing by these phrases that you take them to mean — and there’s not any particular basis for doing that other than happening to find that mildly interesting.
Now, one point that one could draw from this is that it’s difficult to take clear meaning from parts of the scriptures without the guidance of Tradition and the Holy Spirit — but in that case it would be an argument for listening to how the Church tends to read these passages, not simply assuming that it carrying little of meaning.
you’re assuming that the phrases being used are being used to convey a meaning which you take to be the only one — but that’s not necessarily the way that language works . . .
Darwin,
We have these three passages:
If you are seriously suggesting that there are two (or three) different meanings here, and that when the serpent says, “You will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad,” and God says, “The man has become like one of us, knowing what is good and what is bad!” then there is no possible way of getting any meaning out of the text. There is absolutely nothing in the text to warrant any suggestion of God and the serpent meaning something different. Some may want or require them to means something different in order to hold to an interpretation of the story, but there is absolutely nothing in the text that suggests anything other than that the serpent was telling the truth and that God confirms that almost word for word.
Interesting facts: The name Eve appears only four times in the entire Bible (I am using the RSV), twice in the Old Testament, and twice in the New Testament.
After the fifth chapter of Genesis, the name Adam appears only once in the Old Testament (1 Chronicles 1), once in the Gospels, and six times in the Epistles.
Jesus never mentions Adam and/or Eve, although he does refer to a passage in Genesis (2:24) when discussing divorce.
Suggestion: Try reading the first few chapters of Genesis while putting everything you have ever learned about creation and Adam and Eve out of your mind (not easy, I know). I would not deny that important things have been said about the story, or that this will give you the “true” meaning, but it is an interesting exercise. One interesting question: What is the evidence that the serpent was Satan?
All good points, David. This is the kind of insight that paying attention to what the text actually says will provide.
Btw, we know that the Serpent is not Satan, because the fate of the Serpent is entirely different from that of Satan.
It is also interesting to note, w/r/t Satan, that the author of the Book of Job obvious knew nothing about the tradition of Satan as the rebel angel cast into Hell for defying God.
David,
Since recent research indicates that some humans carry Neanderthal DNA, I would accept as a historical fact that some humans produced children with other individuals that were not fully human. This may not have been God’s original plan, but after the fall things got messy and people did what they had to do to survive.
Lamont,
According to Wikipedia, Neanderthals were no longer around 30,000 years ago. Are you saying the Fall took place more than 30,000 years ago? The oldest written records are about 6,000 years old. Are you saying the fate of the human race was decided by two pre-literate, prehistoric homo sapiens? Also, why would you say Neanderthals were not fully human?
Actually we don’t know that Neanderthals were not fully human. There are fossil records of them burying their dead with flowers; which seems to point to a spiritual consciousness. The earliest identifiable remains of homo sapiens are about 160,000 years old. And there have been homo sapiens-type teeth discovered in Israel which were carbon dated to 400,000 years ago. It is thought that the two lines diverged about 700,000 years ago. If we are not Young Earth Creationists (which I didn’t think Catholics were) does the time-line even matter except as a paleontological question?
Given that the ancestors of the Australian Aborigines diverged from Europeans at least 40,000 years ago, if one accepts all modern humans as having shared a first ensouled ancestor (or ancestral population) together one has to put that date further back than that.
And, if I may, what exactly is so shocking about the idea of pre-literate, pre-historic people have decided “the fate of the human race” as you put it? I’m not clear why we should see people as less human or lacking in human dignity because they didn’t read or lived before recorded history. (It’s not as if most people who do read or do live within recorded history are so great either.)
Peoples is peoples…
Though perhaps some of the issue is: It seems to me that in what is perhaps an effort to see the fall as something which can’t be reasonable, you’re taking it rather differently than is traditionally seen by the Church. What exactly did Adam and Eve do that “deprived” us of so much? Act exactly the same way as we do all the time in choosing their own will over God’s. It’s not as if we’re in a position to demand a recount.
Though I would agree that it’s impossible to know whether Neanderthals were “fully human” in the moral and philosophical sense we mean the term. They may well have been, for all I know.
Indeed, if pressed, I would probably put the fall (as in, the point where humans became a group of creatures who possessed a moral sense and moral culpability but had a tendency to take their will over God’s) a very long time back indeed. I would be fine with hundreds of thousands of years. (Which is why it would be totally understandable for the account in Genesis to by mythological — true in substance but not a historical/factual narrative of “the way it happened”.)
I don’t have any problem with True Humans breeding with other proto-humans.
Bestiality strikes me as a biological, not a theological, category. If you can interbreed then, by definition, you don’t have bestiality.
Brett,
You may want to consider your definition of bestiality when you find out that the humanzee (a human-chimpanzee hybrid) has not been definitively ruled out as impossible.
Also true humans breeding with proto-humans is different from true humans marrying proto-humans. The story of Adam and Eve seems not only to be about human origins, but about marriage.
It seems clear to me that marriage must be between humans. Do you really want to declare that a human man could marry a proto-human woman (or vice versa), but same-sex humans cannot marry? You would be putting the cart before the horse, since most critics of same-sex marriage claim that if same-sex humans are permitted to marriage, that puts us on the slippery slope to human-animal marriages. But if human-animal marriages were part of God’s plan, that makes everything different! :)
We all know that the Christian view of marriage makes the man the head of the household. (In fact, this was pretty much the view in every society until recently.) In cases where a proto-human man married a proto-human woman, did the human woman have to obey the proto-human man?
It is not clear to me how similar you believe a true human and a proto-human could be. What discernible characteristics do we have by virtue of being true men that proto-humans could not have? You mentioned language, but you didn’t say whether you believe proto-humans could have language. Are humans and proto-humans so similar that if in an absolutely parallel world, God had not chosen to infuse souls into two proto-humans, that would would be similar to our own world, with philosophy, religion, music, novels, poetry, love, and so on? Or are there things proto-humans, no matter how highly evolved, are simply incapable of?
I’m not sure what to do with much of this. It strikes me as odd more than anything.
The reason some people say same-sex marriage could lead to bestiality is precisely because it removes the procreative aspect. A human-chimp hybrid is an interesting idea, but “not definitively ruled out as impossible” doesn’t overwhelm me. From what I know of biology, if things can breed they are of the same species. If not, then not. I suppose we’d need to have a look at the offspring. Are they fertile? Could they continue to breed with members of either population and with other hybrid offspring? Would this hybrid happen naturally, or only in a lab? Would it happen with regularity, or only once in a blue mooon? As has been pointed out above, speciation is a gradual process only discernible from the future.
In any case, I’m not sure what same-sex marriage has to do with this at all. If marriage depends for its definition on procreation then same-sex marriage is impossible. If marriage is based on something other than procreation for its definition, then it may be possible, depending. Neither am I sure what head-of-the-household has to do with anything.
Frankly, I’m a little surprised at your insistence on such a literal reading. The Genesis stories are mythological. Of course a culture is going to use its mythology to talk about marriage and the relationship between the sexes. I don’t see any reason why a Christian who thinks that the Genesis accounts function as mythology rather than history would find a need to get bent out of shape about who our actual historical ancestors procreated with.
In fact, though I could be wrong here, I suspect you do not read Genesis nearly so literally as your argumentation presumes. In which case, I really have no idea where this is supposed to be going.
Sorry David.
As for proto-humans and true humans, again we are dealing with a gradual process from a biological point of view. It seems to me that from the theological point of view a true human can choose right from wrong, and is guilty if he or she does not so choose (all else being equal, we don’t need to debate culpability here).
Frankly, I’m a little surprised at your insistence on such a literal reading. The Genesis stories are mythological.
Brett,
I am not insisting on a literal reading of Genesis. “A Sinner” insisted on a literal reading of Genesis, proffered a theory of true humans and not-true humans intermarrying to salvage the possibility of having two “first parents,” and you said you had no problem with it.
I’m not sure what to do with much of this. It strikes me as odd more than anything.
Of course it’s odd, since I am speculating about the ramifications of a bizarre theory that is a mix of evolutionary biology and theology invented solely to accommodate the idea of the “two parents” theory of human origins. I have never seen such a theory anywhere other than on Vox Nova.
From what I know of biology, if things can breed they are of the same species.
Not true. There are many species that can and do breed and even have fertile offspring (dogs and wolves, for example).
In fact, though I could be wrong here, I suspect you do not read Genesis nearly so literally as your argumentation presumes. In which case, I really have no idea where this is supposed to be going.
No, of course I don’t read Genesis as literal. Kyle raised the question of the a conflict between modern science and Humani Generis. I personally believe that trying to come up with “scientific” explanations that would maintain the literal truth of Humani Generis (no “true men” before Adam, no “true men” not his direct descendants after Adam) is the Catholic equivalent of fundamentalism. I rarely venture to speak for Pius XII, but I can only imagine he would be appalled at the idea of true humans intermarrying with “proto-humans.”
It seems to me that from the theological point of view a true human can choose right from wrong
And I am saying the idea of marriage between a true human, who can choose right from wrong, and a “proto-human” who can’t is bizarre. Assuming “that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents,” it seems to me human beings had to be at the stage of development where there was enough human knowledge and culture for marriage to exist, not just breeding. And it seems to me the idea of marriages between “true” humans and “not true” humans is bizarre in much the same way Robert George thinks marriage between same-sex couples is bizarre (and impossible). It’s not a matter of whether the two could breed. It is a matter of whether a union between a “true man” and a proto-human female animal, who does not have the moral capacity to choose between right and wrong, would constitute a marriage. I was basically being facetious in making remarks about same-sex couples, and though I am not in agreement with Robert George’s definition of marriage, we agree at least on the part that there cannot be a marriage between a human and a non-human.
Perhaps the difficulty here is trying to argue when we largely agree? That can be awkward. ;)
In any case, though I don’t have a problem with interbreeding early in our history, I do not fully support A Sinner’s program. For instance, I noted above that though interbreeding may have been possible, it does not strike me as necessary to preserve a Catholic understanding of Original Sin. (see January 4, 11:45 am)
In other words, I am in substantial agreement with Darwin in terms of dates et al. And for the same reasons he proposes.
Melody,
You may be right, but Neanderthals were hunter-gatherers who lived according to that same basic pattern for hundreds of thousands of years and never progressed any further.
Early Homo sapiens were similar except that sometime at least 14,000 years ago, agriculture, metal working, and complex societies suddenly appeared that are the evidence for a new and higher level of intelligence and a rational soul. Our first parents may not have had a written language, but they were just as intelligent as you or I.
David,
If the Neanderthals were long gone, they were interacting with our Homo sapien ancestors. They in turn would have passed the Neanderthal DNA to true humans.
Darwin Catholic,
I agree completely.
The doctrine of Original Sin is, in essence, a classic–THE classic!–example of blaming the victim. Why would a perfect God create an imperfect creature and place him in an imperfect world? Hmm. Must be the CREATURE’S fault! Yeah, that’s it!
Rodak,
Well, that’s an interesting perspective…
How would you propose solving the problem? Would you suggest that perhaps the world is actually perfect? Or that humans are actually perfect? Or that God is imperfect?
“How would you propose solving the problem?”
I would suggest that man is perfectable, and that part of the mission of Jesus Christ was to teach men how to strive for that perfection. The crucifixion and resurrection is proof positive (a practical demonstation) that His teachings revealed the Truth.
Would you suggest that perhaps the world is actually perfect? Or that humans are actually perfect? Or that God is imperfect?
Darwin,
It does seem a little strange to me that — according to Catholic belief — God creates beings that turn against him even before they are flawed. How can it be explained that angels — directly experiencing infinite love, beauty, goodness, and so on — would turn away? How can it be explained that the original human beings, the pinnacle of God’s creation, who dealt with God directly, would disobey him? What does it say about the very first humans that they are disobedient? Rodak has a point. An omniscient, omnipotent God fashions two creatures, and although we can’t really construct a chronology, it seems like they prove inadequate almost immediately. In terms of human nature, they don’t seem to be any different before the Fall than after it.
Interesting,
Why would God create beings which could reject Him? A mystery for sure, but isn’t being able to reject God bound up with being able to freely choose to love Him? And isn’t freely choosing to love someone infinitely better than involuntarily “loving” someone?
As for angels, maybe I’m wrong, but I thought the scandal of the Incarnation, God’s becoming a creature in order to redeem mankind (also tied to the Fall) was the reason the angels rebelled.
As for it happening almost immediately, Adam apparently had time to name all the animals and live together with Eve in the garden naked without shame before the Fall. Sems like it could have been many years.
And if Adam hadn’t committed original sin, someone else would have pretty soon. I’m pretty sure I would have. It says that even before the Fall we are pretty humble critters compared to God.
Adam from the Hebrew “adama” meaning earth; earth in Latin is “humus” from whence we get humility. Makes sense to me.
Bruce,
How would it be coercion to create beings that have the intellect and will to recognizing and love infinite good and Love Himself? Also, what about the idea that once you die, you have made an irrevocable choice for or against God? Does this mean if you make it to heaven, your free will is taken away?
And if Adam hadn’t committed original sin, someone else would have pretty soon.
This implies that human nature is inherently flawed. If it is inevitable that sooner or later human beings would sin, then God made creatures some of whom would inevitably reject him. We try to explain our flawed nature because of the sin of Adam and Eve. But how do we explain their sin, when they were created without a flawed nature?
“How do we explain their (Adam and Eve’s) sin, when they were created without a flawed nature?”
As I understand it, we have free will. Having a will to choose freely, sooner or later (and, again, we don’t know how long it took for our first parents to fall), someone will choose to disobey.
“Does that mean if you make it to heaven your free will is taken away?”
I may be wrong, but I understand making it to heaven means we have conformed our will to God’s will. Our free will is not taken away, but freely given over to Him.
Let’s pray we both make it and can spend some of our eternity sharing the experience.
The answer to all these enigmas (imo) is that the myth of Eden is not really about sin at all. The myth is about the awakening of self-consciousness that separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom.
If you put two bowls containing two different kinds of food on the floor, your dog will eventually choose one of them. This does not mean that your dog possesses free will. The choice was made not by reason, but by appetite. It is made quite clear in Genesis that Eve chose to pick the fruit based on appetite (it looked good to eat.) Only after she was subsequently awakened to the difference between good and evil, did she possess the moral sense that might have seen appetite overcome by obedience.
Another distinction to be made between men and beasts is that men know that they will die. This knowledge and the anxiety that it produces is a heavy price to be paid in exchange for self-consciousness, and the Eden myth reflects this as well.
One tendency that I’ve noticed throughout this discussion is for people to say that, of course, it is understood that the story of Adam and Eve isn’t history–isn’t literal truth–but then to go right ahead and make an argument as though it were historical and literally true.
Well, no–it’s not literally true. This means that each and every element of the story is there to direct our intellect toward the contemplation of truths, rather than to the collection and classification of facts. There are no empirical data in the Myth of Eden–it is poetry, it is fiction, it is folk wisdom, if you like; but it is not history.
We need to be talking not about what Adam, Eve, God, and the Serpent “did,” but rather about what they each “mean” in the cotext of the myth and in relation to each other–and more importantly–to us.
Bottom line: they can be no such thing as “Original Sin” as a result of the sin of Adam. If man is inherently sinful, there is some other explanation for that, which may, or may not, be analogized in the myth of Eden. I happen to think that the myth is about things other than “sin” per se, as I have tried to explain above. But Adam is no more “historical” than Prometheus, or Pandora, or than any of the many other “first men” in the mythological systems of other cultures.
You might be right, Rodak, but the way you say it comes across as “if ‘science’ can’t prove it, then we can’t believe it, so it’s not true.” I hope that’s not the way you intended to come across.
As a burnt marshwiggle once said, “‘One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things — trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Supose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”
I don’t see why we could not BOTH talk about what Adam and Eve and the Serpent “did” AS WELL AS talk about what they “mean” in the context of the moral life, Christ, and our eternal destination.
Must it be either/or?
Bruce–I don’t believe that I’ve said one word about what science can or can’t prove. My entire argument has been based on a critical analysis of the text of Genesis.
We can only talk about what they “did” in the sense that we can talk about what Capt. Ahab or Holden Caulfied “did.” We can’t talk about what Adam and Eve did in the same sense that we can talk about what Jesus or Pilate or Franklin D. Roosevelt did.
Okay, but when you cite a lack of a collection of facts and empirical data, those words mean it is something science cannot prove. When you wrote Adam and Eve are not literally true, than is a conclusion based on the previous thought – lack of empirical (scientific) evidence. When you further wrote there can be no original sin as a result of the sin of Adam, that is a statement progressing from the conclusion you made.
Anyway, that’s how it came across to me. If those words came across to me differently from the way you intended, then I am relieved. We seem to agree that the truths God gives us in the Adam and Eve account seem to be born out through history.