![\"AdamandEve5\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2011\/09\/AdamandEve5.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nAdam and Eve Are Driven out of Eden<\/em> (1866), by Gustave\u00a0Dor\u00e9 (1832-1883)<\/span> [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (9-25-11; rev. 1-6-22)<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n<\/div>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n The encyclical I cited (Humani Generis<\/i>) allows the possibility of evolution, but it states that one must believe in a literal first human pair (rejection of polygenism) and that God creates a human soul at each conception. So this doesn\u2019t follow from evolution per se. It is two different, distinct issues.<\/span><\/p>\n All one has to do to harmonize Catholicism with (theistic) evolution is state that God gave Adam and Eve a soul, making them essentially different from the animals, and made in God\u2019s image. They were the first human beings, however they came about physically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We can try to reach audiences by speaking in terms they can understand, but we must not do so in a way that compromises Catholic dogma. We can\u2019t play this particular \u201cgame\u201d of holding that Adam and Eve weren\u2019t literal, because it destroys original sin and because of that, also has consequences for soteriology (the theology of salvation).\u00a0<\/span>I think there is liberal influence here somewhere along the line.<\/p>\n I disagree that we could speak of Adam as some sort of \u201csymbol\u201d or \u201cfigure\u201d only, because of original sin. He fell, and we were in him when he did: the whole human race fell. That requires a real person. <\/span><\/p>\n There are elements in early Genesis that we need not take absolutely literally (the trees, the fruit, etc.), but Adam and Eve are not included in those. The New Testament casually assumes that they were real human beings, and the parents of humanity.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that we have to take everything<\/i> in Genesis literally, but we have to take Adam and Eve literally, and the fall literally. It\u2019s Catholic dogma and very plain in Holy Scripture.<\/span><\/p>\n There is a spectrum between wooden fundamentalism and six-day creation (and now, neo-geocentrism), etc., on the one hand, and out-and-out modernism, which would hold Genesis to be complete ahistorical myth. Catholicism provides the \u201cgolden mean\u201d and truth of the matter. <\/span><\/p>\n Many Catholic theologians today lean too much towards the modernistic interpretation, by questioning the historical Adam of Genesis. This inevitably lands one in all kinds of difficulties with New Testament exegesis, since the New Testament<\/span> does not<\/i> take that view.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My friend, Fr. Daniel G. Dozier recommended the following related papers, from the excellent Living Tradition<\/i> website: Evolution and the Truth About Man<\/a> (John F. McCarthy)\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Did the Human Body Evolve Naturally? A Forgotten Papal Declaration<\/a> (Brian W. Harrison)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Is the Genesis Account of Creation Literally True?<\/a> <\/span>(John F. McCarthy)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Did Woman Evolve from the Beasts?\u00a0 A Defence of Traditional Catholic Doctrine<\/a> <\/span>(+ Part Two<\/a>) (Brian W. Harrison)\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re very behind in your apologetics on this matter.. The magisterium has moved well beyond the hesitations expressed by Pope Pius XII 61 years ago. The Church no longer insists on monogenism, she has said not an iota on this subject over the past 61 years, and to the extent any Pope or curial department has commented on the subject, the silence on the question is palpable. There is simply <\/span>no<\/i> scientist worth his salt \u2014 Catholic or not, conservative or leftist \u2014 who subscribes to monogenism, and the Church does not insist that Catholic scientists assume monogenism in their research. <\/span> And by the way, just because something might be \u201cliberal\u201d in its origin does not make it wrong ipso facto; we are, after all, Catholic Christians and not Fundamentalists: we\u2019re supposed to see seeds of the Logos in all things. It\u2019s not the case that Catholics will always (even institutionally) excel non-Catholics in all things and in every respect. It should not surprise us that theological or philosophical liberals would have trailblazed critical reflection on certain received wisdoms sooner than Catholics would, and their findings should be scrutinized on their own merits.<\/span><\/span>The Church fathers, like the NT authors, assume<\/i> the literal historicities of Adam and Eve; they did not have access to the resources (comparative mythology, along with developments in the natural sciences) we do today, and so quite frankly were not competent to address this issue to the extent we moderns are.<\/p>\n We need to be careful, as Catholics, about fundamentalist proof-texting and acting as if the Fathers were delphic oracles conveying divine dictations of revealed truth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I see. So your position is that Jesus, Who was God, and omniscient, was wrong about Abel being historical and having his blood shed (Matt 23:35)? We know more than He did, because we are moderns? St. Paul was wrong, too, despite having been inspired by the Holy Spirit? Best wishes defending that<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/i> (CCC) 417<\/b> Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called \u201coriginal sin\u201d.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n How could they have descendants if they weren\u2019t actual historical persons? Sorry, it is serious error to deny that Adam and Eve were real persons, and the mother and father of the human race: contrary to Catholic teaching. This is separate from the evolution question. Anyone who denies it immediately has very serious problems with New Testament exegesis and with the doctrine (dogma) of original sin.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Pope Benedict XVI (as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in 1986): In the Genesis story . . . Sin is not spoken of in general as an abstract possibility but as a deed, as the sin of a particular person, Adam, who stands at the origin of humankind and with whom the history of sin begins. The account tells us that sin begets sin, and that therefore all the sins of history are interlinked. <\/span>(\u201cIn the Beginning\u2026\u201d A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall<\/i><\/a>, translated by Boniface Ramsey, O.P., Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 89)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Not bad for a fictional non-historical character, to initiate the \u201chistory of sin\u201d and original sin. I guess the Holy Father is a raving fundamentalist as well, huh Eric? Liberals say that the Adam of Genesis isn\u2019t real and isn\u2019t the guy Pope Pius XII was talking about. The pope says he is<\/i>. Whose opinion do you think I\u2019d be more inclined to follow, since they clash?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Obviously<\/i> there had to be first human beings, first sinners, who set into motion the entire system of brokenness we inherit as human beings. Saying so does not mean that the Genesis accounts are not creation myths. To assert they are, you have to assume a rather unBiblical understanding of what inspiration is (divine dictation or infused knowledge of historical events).<\/p>\n There are also problems assuming that every assumption every Biblical writer brings with them to a text is infallible and inerrant. The way that the Biblical authors all presuppose a factually incorrect cosmology is well-documented, and undisputed by serious scholars of all religious and ideological persuasions.<\/p>\n Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma<\/i><\/a>: The First Man was Created by God. (De fide.<\/i>)<\/b> (p. 94)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n [Ott presents this dogma independently of the creation\/evolution question, reiterating that the Church allows either view as possibilities. He casually assumes that this first man is the Adam of the Genesis account] The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.<\/i>)<\/b> (p. 96)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n . . . the Church teaches that the first human beings, Adam and Eve, are the progenitors of the whole human race (monogenism). The teaching of the unity of the human race is not, indeed, a dogma, but it is a necessary pre-supposition of the dogma of Original Sin and Redemption. According to a decision of the Bible Commission, the unity of the human race is to be reckoned among those facts which affect the foundations of the Christian religion, and which, on this account, are to be understood in their literal, historical sense (D 2123). The Encyclical \u2018Humani Generis\u2019 of Pius XII (1950) rejects polygenism on account of its incompatibility with the revealed doctrine of original sin (D 3028).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In English: Catholics are not at liberty to deny this belief. If they do, the dogmas of original sin and redemption go down along with the denial of the historical persons Adam and Eve. That <\/i>is why this is supremely important to believe, and why I think it is equally important to correct a person who is teaching publicly, contrary to the Church\u2019s doctrines.<\/span><\/p>\n Now we have people in this thread denying the doctrine; all the more reason for me to present and defend it as a required teaching of the Church. That\u2019s what catechists and apologists do. I had already cited the Bible (including Jesus Himself) and the Catechism, but apparently that was insufficient. I guess nothing is sufficient as an authority if a person is intent on rejecting some tenet of the Catholic Church. This is why we have a huge problem of heterodoxy and dissidents and cafeteria Catholics in the Church today, and the consequent loss of faith of millions: for to reject one dogma of the Catholic Church is to lose the supernatural virtue of faith, per St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John Henry Cardinal Newman. And that is a very frightening place to be. If I didn\u2019t warn people to flee from such a state pronto, I wouldn\u2019t be worth my salt as an apologist.<\/p>\n The biblical text<\/i> is infallible (another Catholic dogma), not every assumption<\/i> each writer brings.<\/p>\n Eric, you want to quibble about my citing the pope before he was pope? Very well, then, I\u2019ll cite him as pope: In today\u2019s Catechesis we shall reflect on the relations between Adam and Christ, defined by St Paul in the well-known passage of the Letter to the Romans (5: 12-21) in which he gives the Church the essential outline of the doctrine on original sin. Indeed, Paul had already introduced the comparison between our first progenitor and Christ while addressing faith in the Resurrection in the First Letter to the Corinthians: \u201cFor as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive\u2026. \u201cThe first man Adam became a living being\u2019; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit\u201d (1 Cor 15: 22, 45). With Romans 5: 12-21, the comparison between Christ and Adam becomes more articulate and illuminating: Paul traces the history of salvation from Adam to the Law and from the latter to Christ. At the centre of the scene it is not so much Adam, with the consequences of his sin for humanity, who is found as much as it is Jesus Christ and the grace which was poured out on humanity in abundance through him. The repetition of the \u201call the more\u201d with regard to Christ stresses that the gift received in him far surpasses Adam\u2019s sin and its consequent effects on humanity, so that Paul could reach his conclusion: \u201cbut where sin increased, grace abounded all the more\u201d (Rm 5: 20). The comparison that Paul draws between Adam and Christ therefore sheds light on the inferiority of the first man compared to the prevalence of the second. <\/span>(General Audience, 3 December 2008<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Once again, he (with Paul) assumes the historicity of the Adam in Genesis, and his centrality with regard to original sin. <\/span>The Holy Father again: Going out into the desert alone to remain there at length meant exposing himself willingly to the assaults of the enemy, the tempter who brought about Adam\u2019s fall and whose envy caused death to enter the world (cf. Wis 2: 24). <\/span>(Homily on Ash Wednesday, 17 February 2010<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And again, just six weeks ago: The biblical passage of the Book of Revelation, which we read in the liturgy of this Solemnity, speaks of a struggle between the woman and the dragon, between good and evil. St John seems to be presenting to us anew the very first pages of the Book of Genesis that recount the dark and tragic event of the sin of Adam and Eve. Our first parents were defeated by the Evil One; in the fullness of time, Jesus, the new Adam, and Mary, the new Eve, were to triumph over the enemy once and for all, and this is the joy of this day! With Jesus\u2019 victory over evil, inner and physical death are also defeated.\u00a0 <\/span>(Angelus, 15 August 2011<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again: <\/span><\/p>\n Because of Adam\u2019s sin we too are born \u201cblind\u201d but in the baptismal font we are illumined by the grace of Christ.\u00a0<\/span>(Angelus, 3 April 2011<\/a>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pope St. John Paul II taught the same: Sacred Scripture teaches that at the dawn of history Adam and Eve rebelled against God, and Abel was killed by Cain, his brother (cf. Gen 3-4). These were the first wrong choices, which were succeeded by countless others down the centuries. <\/span>(Message for the World day of Peace<\/a>, 2005)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is extremely significant that already the same book of Genesis, in the long description of the creation of man, obliges man\u2014the first man created (Adam)\u2014to make a similar analysis.\u00a0<\/span>(General Audience, 6 December 1978<\/a>)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The fullness of grace is constituted by Christ himself. Mary of Nazareth receives Christ, and together with Christ and through Christ she receives the fullest participation in the eternal Mystery, in the interior life of God: of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This participation is the fullest of the whole of creation, it surpasses everything that separates man from God. It even excludes original sin: the inheritance of Adam.\u00a0<\/span>(Angelus, 8 December 1978<\/a>) <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Council of Trent solemnly expressed the Church\u2019s faith concerning original sin. In the previous catechesis we considered that Council\u2019s teaching in regard to the personal sin of our first parents. Now we wish to reflect on what the Council said about the consequences of that sin for humanity.\u00a0In this regard the Tridentine decree states first of all:<\/p>\n Adam\u2019s sin has passed to all his descendants, that is, to all men and women as descendants of our first parents, and their heirs, in human nature already deprived of God\u2019s friendship.<\/p>\n The Tridentine decree (cf. DS 1512) explicitly states that Adam\u2019s sin tainted not only himself but also all his descendants. Adam forfeited original justice and holiness not only for himself, but also \u201cfor us\u201d (nobis etiam<\/i>).<\/p>\n Therefore he transmitted to the whole human race not only bodily death and other penalties (consequences of sin), but also sin itself as the death of the soul (peccatum quod mors est animae<\/i>).<\/p>\n Here the Council of Trent uses an observation of St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans. The Synod of Carthage had already referred to it, repeating a teaching already widespread in the Church.<\/p>\n 1. Adam\u2019s Sin Transmitted by Generation<\/p>\n In a modern translation the Pauline text reads as follows: \u201cTherefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all men sinned\u201d (Rom 5:12). In the original Greek we read: eph o pantes emarton<\/i>, an expression which was translated in the old Latin Vulgate as: in quo omnes peccaverunt<\/i>, \u201cin whom (a single man) all sinned.\u201d But what the Vulgate translates as \u201cin whom,\u201d from the very beginning the Greeks clearly understood in the sense of \u201cbecause\u201d or \u201cinasmuch.\u201d This sense is now generally accepted by modern translations. However, this diversity of interpretations of the expression eph o <\/i>does not change the basic truth in St. Paul\u2019s text, namely, that Adam\u2019s sin (the sin of our first parents) had consequences for all humanity. Moreover, in the same chapter of the Letter to the Romans the Apostle wrote: \u201cBy one man\u2019s disobedience all became sinners\u201d (Rom 5:19), and in the preceding verse: \u201cOne man\u2019s trespass led to condemnation for all men\u201d (Rom 5:18). St. Paul connects the sinful situation of all humanity with the fault of Adam.<\/p>\n The Church\u2019s Magisterium refers to these statements of St. Paul just quoted, which enlighten our faith on the consequences of Adam\u2019s sin for all humanity. Catholic exegetes and theologians will always be guided by this teaching in evaluating, with the wisdom of faith, the explanations offered by science about the origins of the human race.<\/p>\n In particular, the words of Pope Paul VI to a symposium of theologians and scientists are valid and a stimulus for further research in this regard: \u201cIt is evident that the explanations of original sin given by some modern authors will appear to you as irreconcilable with genuine Catholic teaching. Such authors, starting from the unproved premise of polygenism, deny more or less clearly that the sin from which such a mass of evils has derived in humanity, was, above all, the disobedience of Adam \u2018the first man,\u2019 figure of that future one, which occurred at the beginning of history\u201d [1<\/a>].<\/p>\n The Tridentine decree contains another statement: Adam\u2019s sin is transmitted to all his descendants by generation and not merely by way of bad example. The decree states: \u201cThis sin of Adam, which by origin is unique and transmitted by generation and not by way of imitation, is present in all as proper to each\u201d (DS 1513).<\/p>\n Therefore original sin is transmitted by way of natural generation. This conviction of the Church is indicated also by the practice of infant baptism, to which the conciliar decree refers. Newborn infants are incapable of committing personal sin, yet in accordance with the Church\u2019s centuries-old tradition, they are baptized shortly after birth for the remission of sin. The decree states: \u201cThey are truly baptized for the remission of sin, so that what they contracted in generation may be cleansed by regeneration\u201d (DS 1514).<\/p>\n 2. Reference to the Mystery of Redemption<\/p>\n In this context it is evident that original sin in Adam\u2019s descendants does not have the character of personal guilt. It is the privation of sanctifying grace in a nature which has been diverted from its supernatural end through the fault of the first parents. It is a \u201csin of nature,\u201d only analogically comparable to \u201cpersonal sin.\u201d In the state of original justice, before sin, sanctifying grace was like a supernatural \u201cendowment\u201d of human nature. The loss of grace is contained in the inner \u201clogic\u201d of sin, which is a rejection of the will of God, who bestows this gift. Sanctifying grace has ceased to constitute the supernatural enrichment of that nature which the first parents passed on to all their descendants in the state in which it existed when human generation began. Therefore man is conceived and born without sanctifying grace. It is precisely this \u201cinitial state\u201d of man, linked to his origin, that constitutes the essence of original sin as a legacy (peccatum originale originatum<\/i>, as it is usually called).<\/p>\n We cannot conclude this catechesis without emphasizing again what we said at the beginning of the present cycle, namely, that original sin must constantly be considered in reference to the mystery of the redemption carried out by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who \u201cfor us men and for our salvation became man.\u201d This article of the creed on the salvific purpose of the Incarnation refers principally and fundamentally to original sin. Also the decree of the Council of Trent is entirely composed in reference to this finality, and is thus inserted into the teaching of the whole of Tradition. It has its point of departure in Sacred Scripture, and first of all in the so-called \u201cproto-evangelium,\u201d namely, in the promise of a future conqueror of Satan and liberator of man. This already appeared in the Book of Genesis (3:15) and later in so many other texts, until the fuller expression of this truth given to us by St. Paul in the Letter to the Romans. According to the Apostle, Adam is \u201ca type of the one who was to come\u201d (Rom 5:14). \u201cFor if many died through one man\u2019s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many\u201d (Rom 5:15).<\/p>\n \u201cFor as by one man\u2019s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man\u2019s obedience many will be made righteous\u201d (Rom 5:19). \u201cThen as one man\u2019s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man\u2019s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men\u201d (Rom 5:18).<\/p>\n The Council of Trent refers especially to the Pauline text of the Letter to the Romans (5:12) as the cornerstone of its teaching, seeing in it the affirmation of the universality of sin, but also the universality of redemption. The Council has recourse also to the practice of infant baptism, and does so because of the close connection of original sin \u2014 the universal legacy received with nature from the first parents \u2014 with the truth of the universal redemption in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n (General Audience, 1 October 1986, \u201cConsequences of Original Sin for All Humanity\u201d<\/a> \u2014 complete)\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n 1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n 2. If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:\u2013whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 3. If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,\u2013which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, \u2013is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ve already cited for you several approved theologians, a document of the International Theological Commission, along with a summation by the late John Paul II of normative bare-bones doctrinal essentials of a Catholic approach to this question (which glaringly omits monogenism), to show that the contemporary magisterium no longer considers polygenism to be heretical or even theologically suspect. In today\u2019s Church this is a non-issue, and only pop-apologists who treat papal encyclicals as non-contextualized Delphic oracles fail to see this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing \u201cliberal\u201d (in the sense of leftist, or Modernist) in the assertion that the first 11 chapters of Genesis constitute Israel\u2019s creation myths; nor is it \u201cliberal\u201d to assert that myth does not mean \u201cfalsehood\u201d; we know today, in a way the early Christian Fathers and even their rabbinical predecessors couldn\u2019t, that mythology is a distinct literary genre whereby a pre-scientific people explains and transmits their foundational values through the telling of pre-history, and are doing so without the tools or even the expectations of modern historiography.<\/span><\/p>\n No scientist today worth his salt \u2014 Catholic or non-Catholic, conservative or leftist \u2014 subscribes to monogenism. This is fact, not opinion. If polygenism were the disastrous heresy you and other pop-apologists claim it is, the failure of the magisterium post-Paul VI to raise even an iota of an objection to it is a damnable offense of the worst order. The contemporary magisterium doesn\u2019t consider this an issue; neither should you.<\/span><\/p>\n Suffice it to say that the existence of original sin is a dogma of the faith, as is the Fall; but the Church does not compel any Catholic to subscribe to a hyper-literal reading of the Genesis creation myths. She refers to \u201cAdam and Eve\u201d for the same reason you and I might refer to Dido and Anaeus: these are mythic characters who are indelibly imprinted on our historical consciousness. I don\u2019t need to refer to them with a disclaimer every time I bring their names up. Whatever\/whomever \u201cAdam\u201d and \u201cEve\u201d signify, they are our first parents, and we have inherited a broken world from them. And of course they were created by God; let\u2019s just not confuse primary with secondary causation.<\/span><\/p>\n I repeat: liberal hogwash. You think you know more than Jesus or Paul, who clearly regarded Adam and Abel as historical persons. You casually disregard what popes say over and over. You know better. And in your disdain, you have to make out that Catholic tradition is \u201cfundamentalism\u201d and \u201chyper-literal\u201d and do the tired dichotomy of \u201cpop apologists\u201d vs. the scholars. I\u2019m on the side of the Holy Father and the Church on this one, and am proud to be so, and if that entails being classified as some Neanderthal, then so be it.<\/span><\/p>\n Your view goes far beyond the issue of polygenism (or the question of evolution, which I have not made part of this: nor did Pope Pius XII). We are primarily discussing whether the Adam of Genesis was an actual person who fell and brought on original sin. The Catholic Church says that he was. You say no. I follow the Church. And I hope and pray that my readers will do the same, and not be led astray by every fashionable whim and fancy and postmodernist intellectual fad that comes along.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve already documented for you the fact that the magisterium today no longer considers the factual historicity of Adam and Eve to be an issue: Catholic theologians, scientists, and the lay faithful may adopt whatever thesis of human origins they find most congenial to their knowledge of the historical and scientific facts, and believe accordingly. I repost the documentation here:<\/span> [Link One<\/a>] [Link Two<\/a>] [Link Three<\/a>]<\/span> As for citations, you gave us a Wikipedia article (very impressive) and a citation of Jimmy Akin (a pop apologist himself: which class you have just condescendingly disdained) that doesn\u2019t refute anything I have contended for: both from a thread in a largely radical Catholic reactionary\u00a0discussion forum. Then you cited one Jesuit writer.<\/span><\/p>\n I cited (including my previous paper) the Catechism, the Bible, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., the Council of Trent, Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, Venerable Pope Pius XII, and Ludwig Ott (an expert on Catholic dogma), who in turn cites Denzinger: the standard source on Catholic dogma.<\/p>\n I did not cite a Wikipedia article qua Wikipedia. I gave you a number of approved theologians who openly and even in quasi-official publications (e.g., LOR) teach that polygenism is not contrary to the Faith, and who do so without an iota of censure. You also did <\/span>not<\/i> cite Pope Benedict XVI or John Paul II \u2014 I <\/span>did<\/i> cite the latter, and even the former via a document published by the ITC under his watch, and you\u2019ve ignored them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I cited them eight times, discussing that the Adam of Genesis was a real person who fell. Scroll up.<\/span> Now our Lord Jesus was merely condescending and engaging in anthropomorphism or anthropopathism when he referred to the blood of Abel as in a historical line with the blood of Zechariah. He starts with a mythical figure and ends with an historical one (or do you deny the historicity of Zechariah too?)<\/p>\n Where else was Jesus doing this sort of tactic, according to you, in all your modern wisdom that is so superior to that of the Bible writers?<\/p>\n Perhaps Sodom and its fall was mythical as well, so that Jesus referred to those and said that a myth \u201cwould have remained until this day\u201d if its mythical inhabitants had repented (Matt 11:23-24)?<\/p>\n I suppose you think that the early persons mentioned in Hebrews 11 (the heroes of the faith) were mythical (Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses), and on the same list with those who were actual historical persons (David, Samuel and the prophets)? Makes a lot of sense. This is only the beginning of the exegetical absurdities you will encounter.<\/p>\n But since you don\u2019t seem to hold to biblical inspiration in the first place, it should matter little to you, as you pick and choose what you like and don\u2019t like from Holy Scripture, just as you do with traditional Catholic doctrines and teachings. This is the modernist mentality.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n By the nature of inspiration. God makes sure that error is not recorded. It\u2019s neither historiographical nor scientific writing as we know it today, yet it is preserved from error.<\/span><\/p>\n It is not straight history; it is a blended genre of imagery (the trees, fruit, etc.) and actual history (the literal creation by God, Adam and Eve, the fall). One doesn\u2019t have to take a fundamentalist, six-day creation reading and take everything \u201chyper-literally\u201d (your favorite word) in order to maintain that there is real history in the account, including the existence of Adam and Eve. The choice is not wooden Protestant fundamentalism vs. modernist skepticism where everything is relegated to non-historical myth. I don\u2019t have to make that choice. You caricaturing my view does not make it my actual view. And the Church doesn\u2019t make that dumb choice, and I follow her teaching, since she, too, is guided and protected by the Holy Spirit (infallibility). <\/span><\/p>\n Moreover, while similarities to other creation accounts (Epic of Gilgamesh et al) are always stressed by secular, nominalistic, and liberal writers, there is also a great uniqueness in the Genesis account that is commensurate with its inspiration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You also did not answer my question.<\/span><\/p>\n I just answered your question. You have ignored most of mine, including most (if not all) about biblical exegesis. <\/span>I don\u2019t believe in the dictation theory. I wish you would cease and desist with the vapid rhetoric about what I supposedly believe and don\u2019t believe. This has nothing to do with dictation . . . <\/span>\u201cAny thinking man with two brain cells and a synapse\u201d could tell the difference between what I am saying (Catholic orthodoxy) and Protestant fundamentalism. But you can\u2019t, so I conclude that you are simply not thinking through this and rationally reacting, since I assume in charity that you do indeed have brain cells and a synapse.<\/span><\/p>\n Once again you distort my views (this gets wearisome). I didn\u2019t deny that there were any \u201cmythological elements.\u201d I wrote a few entries above:<\/span><\/p>\n It is not straight history; it is a blended genre of imagery (the trees, fruit, etc.) and actual history (the literal creation by God, Adam and Eve, the fall). One doesn\u2019t have to take a fundamentalist, six-day creation reading and take everything \u201chyper-literally\u201d (your favorite word) in order to maintain that there is real history in the account, including the existence of Adam and Eve.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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That the orthodox ecclesastical climate in the Church <\/span>today<\/i> does not consider polygenism heretical, see the following documentation:<\/span> [Link One<\/a>] [Link Two<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nLiberal hogwash, Eric. Pope Benedict clearly stated that Adam (the one in Genesis!) was historical, and the one from whom sin derives. That can\u2019t be denied without it profoundly affecting New Testament exegesis and original sin, and with that, the soteriology of redemption itself, precisely as Ott just described, in the excerpt I posted a few minutes ago. You are on very dangerous ground to deny these things. <\/span><\/div>\n
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\n<\/span>Original sin is a de fide<\/i> dogma (Ott, p. 108; Denzinger 789-791) and was declared at the Council of Trent<\/a>, tying it with the historical Adam and Eve:<\/span>
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\n<\/span>Your approach to the Scriptures, and to magisterial pronouncements, is (in this particular instance) fundamentalistic, because you give no regard whatsoever to context. I have no problem claiming to know more than St Paul about the historical context of Genesis, or the Book of Jonah, or cosmology and human origins generally: after 2000 years of scientific development, we should hope to know more! We certainly cannot claim to know more than Jesus Christ, but His historic words in this regard are perfectly explainable as just another way that He accommodation Himself to human limitations, including limitations of what His hearers knew about natural science and history. Correcting factual errors in these regards was not on the salvific radar, and we do the Scriptures a dishonor when we pretend that they were divinely dictated a la the Koran.<\/span><\/p>\n
Citing the Council of Trent is<\/i> so much fundamentalism, as it ignores historical and theological context: polygenism vs monogenism was not on the theological radar when the Tridentine fathers promulgated the canons they did; the same is true when Paul wrote his Epistles. You seem to subscribe to a divine-dictation\/divine-ra<\/span>pe theory of inspiration \u2014 and seem to think that Popes are delphic oracles \u2013; this is the very definition of fundamentalism, and it is utterly unCatholic (when Catholics are at their best and not shunning critical reflection on the deposit of faith).<\/span><\/span>
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\n<\/span>Okay, thanks for the honesty. You know more than St. Paul, who wrote in infallible words inspired by God that Adam was a real person who fell, and who was the analogous figure to Christ, the second Adam. <\/span><\/p>\n