Thread by @frmattfish

A real Adam & Eve?

I know some find this boorish (and was recently the object of all too typically tendentious #catholictwitter tit-for-tat) so if you do just pass it by. But as I'm teaching about this part of the CCC in RCIA this week, my mind's been on it. My thoughts:

1) I always start with an epistemological step-back with these things. Many talk about both the text and the science part with a certainty that is unwarranted (esp the science part, tbh!), especially for they *know*. We frequently repeat hypotheses as if they were facts.

But most of what we say we know we just believe, because we read it somewhere or a teacher told us this. Real archeologists tend to be much more conservative with their assertions. This is not math. Primitive history is rather sketch-like (thought not entirely so!).

So too, responsible theology tends to be conservative with what is actually believed dogmatically (de fide credenda) vs what is believed but not dogmatically (de fide tendenda) and what is only adhered to (obsequium religiosum) piously. A bit inside baseball but important.

2) I'll leave the science part aside, only to say, it does not seem we can categorically exclude humanity originating from an original pair, even if it seems probable that the first man then mated with non-souled hominoids (though it's hard to imagine how this would be *proven*).

The nature of that science means that one could not categorically exclude other, less-likely possibilities (e.g. evidence of other hominoid genetic ancestry could be pre-Edenic, not necessarily post-Edenic). Parsimony might say, go with probabilities. But miracles do happen.

3) But my concern is more about theology. And here we are no longer dealing with probabilities, even if *fittingness* is often a concern. For theology, a divine science, begins with what we know with certainty by faith in the revealed Word of God, not with guesses.

And that's the point of Genesis 1-11. Even to say that these chapters are partly mythological is a theological interpretation. The Church allows this: but it is more concerned to clarify what they *do* clearly assert, whether by myth or historical accounting (of some kind).

- God created the original human community
- And created them in a state of innocence and grace
- By the devil, man** was deceived and sinned, and lost grace and his innocence
- Thereby, he** became the source of the state of the disorder of the human race we call "original sin"

That's my reading of what is de fide. That's basically what Trent teaches (below), with explicit force. There are a few other details one could add, but I'm not sure those aren't de fide tendenda, or of religious submission only.

But I don't think that makes things too easy!

IMO, I don't think that allows one to believe that the original man was solitary, and mated with a non-souled Eve. Perhaps after the fall, he mated with other non-souled hominoids? But that seems impious and there is no reason in Scripture to think so.

More decisive to me than the need to account for original sin (I think there may be some more creative ways to account for that than mere biological propagation, though I'm inclined to favor it) is the original community created in grace, innocent. This seems too easily ignored.

IMO, Scripture and Church Teaching seems clear that was a reality known to the first couple: they knew God in an extraordinarily close way, and knew their vocations as priests, prophets, and royal stewards (my words, not theirs!). And they were married -- exclusively, faithfully.

I grant these are facts that archeology, let alone biology, cannot speak on. And they might seem miraculous to the observer (sic) of primitive life. But if we are to admit creation ex nihilo, the hypostatic union, and transubstantiation are facts, what basis have to deny it here?

The importance of the doctrine that God created the original human community in grace and innocence, made a covenant with them, and made them husband & wife, faithfully and exclusively, is non-negotiable, and can't be scrubbed for the sake of avoiding recourse to the miraculous.

Though technically it might be objected we are not dealing with the miraculous here (outside the established order) but the supernatural, and its deprivation, which is not natural, but a surd. Perhaps we are left with monogenism then. It does not seem impossible, if unlikely.

That's enough for now. In the meantime: I benefited from reading Ed Feser (as I usually do) on this, and would recommend his posts (at least to ponder) on the topic.

- edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/12/knowin…
- edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern…
- edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/monkey…
- edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern…

Finally, Frank Sheed's book is quite good. amazon.com/Genesis-Regain…