Theistic Evolution: The parents of Adam & Eve

[Pon de Replay]

Some traditional Catholics accept the theory of evolution.  But if evolution is true, then the Biblical account of the dawn of mankind appears far removed from reality.  Instead of being created by God, an Adam & Eve arrived at by evolution would've had parents.  The Bible does not mention these parents, but you would think that would be an important part of their story.  If Adam & Eve were given immortal souls, and their parents did not have immortal souls, then Adam & Eve stood in relation to their parents as humans do to other primates.  Their parents were essentially animals.  And animals, in Catholic theology, are divinely intended as subservient to humans. 

St. Thomas Aquinas said, "dumb animals are devoid of the life of reason," so Adam's father would've lacked both a soul and the ability to reason.  Imagine how strange this would've been for Adam growing up.  This would've been a strange family.  But there is nothing in Genesis to indicate this.  If evolution were true, it seems like the Bible would have passages that went something like: "and Adam was much saddened, seeing himself to be unlike his father and his mother.  And the Lord said unto Adam, 'you are emancipated from your father and your mother; their kind is not your kind; go ye therefore into the land of Eden, where another awaits for you.  Her name is Eve."  But there's nothing like this at all.  If evolution is true, why does the Bible give no explicit indication?  Why does the Word of God appear so contradictory to this theory?  Why did even Catholic bishops and theologians embrace creationism?

These are questions for theistic evolutionists.  This thread assumes, for the sake of argument, that evolution is true.  And if it is, then why did God, who is omnipotent and can see the future, inspire a creation account that causes so much confusion and division in the Body of Christ?

[Gardener]

Solid questions... 

[Basilios]

Excellent!

It's true. Think about the contradiction - beasts are below men, but we have a commandment to respect our parents. So if Adam and Eve were born from some soul-less humanoids they are left with two choices each of which would be to disobey God (respect parents despite being beasts or disrespect parents). To suggest that God allowed such a moral conundrum is blasphemy but probably more so just stupidity and blind arrogance.

But these philosophical and theological questions are below the grand heights of science. Traditional Catholics are anti-science; backward buffoons. We are not ready for science.

[Chestertonian]

what do we do with all the fossils and humanoid skeletons and sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about?

[red solo cup]

We can also just admit there will be things we don't understand. There's nothing wrong with that.

[Pon de Replay]

what do we do with all the fossils and humanoid skeletons and sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about?

That depends.  Is our primary concern with "sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about," or is it with the Bible?  I'm merely trying to show that there's a contradiction between the two.

I don't actually object to looking at Genesis as a myth, but even a myth has to tell a truth.  If Adam & Eve are mythological, then the story is certainly intended to answer an important existential question: where does sin come from?  And why are we so inclined to turn away from God in order to indulge our base passions?  There are two different explanations.  The story in Genesis tells us that we were once in a pure state of grace, and fell from it by disobedience, and now are inclined to sin because we lack that perfect original goodness; we have inherited from our first parents a preference for passion over reason.  Contrariwise, the story of evolution tells us that we come from animal stock, and have inherited animal instincts, and are thus genetically predisposed to follow our passions.  There never was, according to evolution, a prelapsarian state.  According to evolution, we've always been animals, from one generation to the next.  We follow our brute passions because that's what brutes do.  "Theistic evolution" only says that God gave immortal souls & the ability to reason to a certain pair of primates.  "Theistic evolution" has no mythical aspect whatsoever.  It's a cheat; it doesn't really explain anything at all.  It's a lame, desperately-devised attempt at compromise between two conflicting narratives.  That's why it's not even interesting.

There's a myth in Mahayana Buddhism that tells how humans are the descendants of ethereal god-like beings of pure light who fell gradually into the material world by way of desiring material and sensual pleasures, and that at every stage of the fall these angels became uglier and more corporeal.  As Milton would put it: "purest at first, now gross by sinning grown."  But this myth, too, is at variance with evolution.  Mahayana Buddhism, of course, has no absolute doctrine invested in this myth, so (unlike Christianity) the Buddhists can dispense with it.  The Dalai Lama can blithely say, "if science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."  Our religion, however, cannot.  Our creation story is intertwined with our redemption story.

The evolution narrative, by the way, is in some respects a very compelling one.  It's fascinating to contemplate that everything with DNA might be interrelated as part of a great tree of life, and that all existence on this earth has been nothing but an epic operatic struggle of survival and adaptation, "nature red in tooth and claw," and our highly evolved consciousness is but a fluke blip on an otherwise vicious trajectory, for which we should be extremely grateful for the random happenstance of being here, alive and sentient and human, with our frontal lobes of our cerebral cortexes, able to enjoy Beethoven and Shakespeare and sunsets where all other species can't, against the incalculable immeasurable odds.  But that's a very different story from Adam & Eve.

[Chestertonian]

reminds me of the lawrence kraiss quote :

"Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today."

so according to materialists, we are just dust, and to dust we shall return.  no resurrection, no forgiveness, no easter.

[Pon de Replay]

reminds me of the lawrence kraiss quote :

"Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today."

so according to materialists, we are just dust, and to dust we shall return.  no resurrection, no forgiveness, no easter.

Right.  And I think, as believing Christians, we're obligated to reject that narrative, even though it's one of those "sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about."

[Chestertonian]

How do you argue with such sciency people?

[Pon de Replay]

How do you argue with such sciency people?

I'm not sure.  Maybe it's time for Catholics to begin to appreciate that wayward and weird Protestant, Kierkegaard.

[Cesar_Augustus]

what do we do with all the fossils and humanoid skeletons and sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about?

That depends.  Is our primary concern with "sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about," or is it with the Bible?  I'm merely trying to show that there's a contradiction between the two.



There's a myth in Mahayana Buddhism that tells how humans are the descendants of ethereal god-like beings of pure light who fell gradually into the material world by way of desiring material and sensual pleasures, and that at every stage of the fall these angels became uglier and more corporeal.  As Milton would put it: "purest at first, now gross by sinning grown."  But this myth, too, is at variance with evolution.  Mahayana Buddhism, of course, has no absolute doctrine invested in this myth, so (unlike Christianity) the Buddhists can dispense with it.  The Dalai Lama can blithely say, "if science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."  Our religion, however, cannot.  Our creation story is intertwined with our redemption story.

That sounds like the gnostic myths about the Demiurge and the humans trapped in the material world, having divine elements from the Pleroma. They believed man was a god-like being.

[Arun]

what do we do with all the fossils and humanoid skeletons and sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about?

That depends.  Is our primary concern with "sciencythingies that smart sciency people talk about," or is it with the Bible?  I'm merely trying to show that there's a contradiction between the two.



There's a myth in Mahayana Buddhism that tells how humans are the descendants of ethereal god-like beings of pure light who fell gradually into the material world by way of desiring material and sensual pleasures, and that at every stage of the fall these angels became uglier and more corporeal.  As Milton would put it: "purest at first, now gross by sinning grown."  But this myth, too, is at variance with evolution.  Mahayana Buddhism, of course, has no absolute doctrine invested in this myth, so (unlike Christianity) the Buddhists can dispense with it.  The Dalai Lama can blithely say, "if science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change."  Our religion, however, cannot.  Our creation story is intertwined with our redemption story.

That sounds like the gnostic myths about the Demiurge and the humans trapped in the material world, having divine elements from the Pleroma. They believed man was a god-like being.

brings back memories of the little booklet in the "lateralus" cd case

[voxxpopulisuxx]

Im afraid Gloria Patri wont be falling for your obvious trap anytime soon....but I could be wrong.

[Arun]

Im afraid Gloria Patri wont be falling for your obvious trap anytime soon....but I could be wrong.

?

[Daniel]

Think about the contradiction - beasts are below men, but we have a commandment to respect our parents. So if Adam and Eve were born from some soul-less humanoids they are left with two choices each of which would be to disobey God (respect parents despite being beasts or disrespect parents). To suggest that God allowed such a moral conundrum is blasphemy but probably more so just stupidity and blind arrogance.

To play devil's advocate, if Adam's parents were monkeys then Adam would not be morally bound to honour them.  The honouring of parents is based in the natural hierarchy and monkeys are hierarchically lower than man so there's no obligation to honour them according to natural law.  Adam should still be grateful to God for providing him with monkey parents that provided for his material needs when he was a child though.