I actually don’t know if I’ve discussed Adam and Eve in this way before
It never fails to amaze me how I can write a lengthy article and then have people object to a sentence fragment therein. Not that I’m upset about PT’s doing so, in response to this article…it’s just a pattern I’ve noticed and thought it fitting to briefly remark on at the outset of my response.
So…what has PT to say?
You wrote: “…people like Adam and Eve, simply do not (and did not) exist…”
I wrote quite a bit more than that, but yes, I did write that. The specific sentence, just for the record, actually read: “Things like geological evidence for the flood, and people like Adam and Eve, simply do not (and did not) exist, and the world is far older than the sum of the durations of the genealogies listed in Scripture.”
This is the position I maintain. A question, then: is this position compatible with Catholic teaching (especially since I am, myself, a Catholic).
PT helpfully provides the following, which I have re-printed here with minor formatting changes (no textual changes) to improve readability:
From Catholic Answers: It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).
In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “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 either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents 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 that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).
The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).
The first thing to remark upon here is that a separation has to take place — we have to separate doctrine from other statements and writings. Humani Generis is an excellent document, for its part, but it is not a doctrinal statement; being an encyclical, it reflects the opinion of its author — yes, a Pope — only, rather than an official teaching of the Church. Catholic Answers’ own opinion on the matter, as articulated in the first paragraph, is even further from being authoritative.
It’s the last paragraph that is significant, for (being an excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church it is reflective of actual Church doctrine pertaining to the matter of human origins. Because whereas the Pope takes a firm stance, in his articulated opinion, against polygenism, the Catechism leaves the issue more open; it primarily affirms that at the dawn of man, sin came into the world, and that the history of human sinfulness dates back to “our first parents.”
Granted, the Catechism does earlier (in paragraph 375) somewhat define the term “our first parents,” when it says: “The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”. This grace of original holiness was “to share in. . .divine life”.”
But notice how even here, the doctrine pertaining to the nature of Adam and Eve is prefaced with remarks about the “symbolism” of the “biblical language.” And interestingly, the rest of the section of the Catechism which pertains to man, his creation, and his imaging of God, does not speak of Adam and Eve in particular, or even of Genesis 2 in general; it instead tends, and then pronouncedly, to use the language of Genesis 1, which simply describes the creation of humanity — men and women — after all the rest of the world has been fashioned.
This is significant, especially because there are actually two creation accounts in the Book of Genesis. Genesis 2 was, I believe, written earlier than Genesis 1, and the two distinct source texts were later redacted together. But the point is, Genesis 1 actually presents a different creation story than does Genesis 2. This is significant, so keep it in mind, good reader — we’ll come back to it.
In specific regard to “the Fall,” the Catechism teaches exactly what Catholic Answers states, above. Since they make mention of the doctrine of original sin, I think it might serve well to note what the Catechism states about that, as well (in paragraphs 388 and 389): “With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated. Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story’s ultimate meaning, which is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin. The Spirit-Paraclete, sent by the risen Christ, came to “convict the world concerning sin”, by revealing him who is its Redeemer.
The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the “reverse side” of the Good News that Jesus is the Saviour of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.”
There’s an immense amount of “stuff” said in just two paragraphs here, including one point I will table until later. But let’s begin by noting Christ’s role in the above, and in particular let’s pay attention to the assertion that the “ultimate meaning” of the story of the first sin, and of all stories about human sinfulness, “is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
When you think about it, this is a pretty obvious Christian teaching, and can be correlated to the more general teaching that all Scripture points to Christ. As I believe I said once before, if we crack open the Bible and fail to read “let there be light” without understanding that it is meant to somehow point us toward Christ, we are not reading the Bible correctly. From its first word to its last, all of the Bible points us toward Jesus, toward Bethlehem, toward Golgotha, and toward the empty tomb.
Which means, in turn, that all of the Bible points toward the human reality that made Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection necessary: the reality of sin, death, and condemnation.
And there’s the rub: you don’t need a literal Adam and Eve for sin, death, and condemnation to have entered into the world. You simply need human beings, in any quantity. “All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.” That reality does not change whether Adam and Eve were literal people, or simply histographical legendary figures meant to represent, to us, our matrilineal and patrilineal common ancestors. Wherever you have humans, you have sin — wherever the first humans were, there was sin as well.
PT ends with a question, of sorts:
Please help me out. Quite possibly you have addressed this elsewhere – if so, please point me in the right direction. Thanks.
And as I remark in the title of this article, I can’t recall whether I’ve discussed this issue before. It’s possible that I have. It’s possible that I have not.
But I’m happy to discuss it now.
Now, let’s come back to the points previously tabled.
First, it was noted that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 give two separate accounts of creation. Genesis 1 (which, confusingly, was written more recently) gives a fairly general account in which humanity is simply created “male and female” (no detail is given in regard to how many men or women were made initially). Genesis 2 (written at an earlier point in history) actually features a rather inverted order of creation, with man being made first and foremost (before anything else save the Earth proper( and woman being made second-last (if we account for the spontaneous creation of thistles in Genesis 3), after all other plant and animal kinds.
This is significant for two reasons. First, it points us toward a Scriptural basis for asserting that polygenism is actually an acceptable opinion, theologically, for a Catholic to hold, given that the creation account in Genesis 1 leaves open the question of how many men and women were initially created. Second, the existence of two accounts serves as a sort of hermeneutical clue left for us by the Spirit to assist in how we interpret the Genesis accounts (Genesis 2-3 in particular).
Taking the opening of the Book of Genesis as a literal account of history, we face a contradiction very quickly: Genesis 1 asserts an order of creation that is plainly contradicted by the order of creation asserted in Genesis 2. That alone should be enough to give us pause, and I submit that it should further be taken as an indication that the strictly literal interpretation is not the one we are meant to follow.
If we look at Genesis 1-3 as a whole, there is an alternative interpretation that becomes visible, and then one which both fully preserves the divine, theological message of the text while still treating the incidental stories that serve as the vehicle for the message with a very proper respect that affirms their utility and inclusion in the Bible. Genesis 1 very clearly articulates a message of God’s creatorship, which is echoed in Genesis 2 as a preface to an ancient attempt at theodicy (from Dictionary.com: “a vindication of the divine attributes, particularly holiness and justice, in establishing or allowing the existence of physical and moral evil.”)
And in fact, Genesis 2 actually points us in the direction of a teaching which, pace what the Catechism asserts, is revealed only “in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The early Hebrews “tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis,” but “they could not grasp this story’s ultimate meaning” at the early point in their history at which the oral traditions informing the stories that we have come to know as the Genesis creation accounts were recorded in written form, because Christ was not yet in the world. And yet, from Scripture, we know that even at this early state, Christ’s coming birth, death, and resurrection were being indicated and pointed to.
There is a verse which is sung only once a year, at the Easter Vigil Mass, which (I quote from memory) goes: “O happy fault! O blessed and necessary sin of Adam, which has won for us so great a Saviour!” This verse actually says much more than it appears to, for it illustrates how Christianity is actually, from an apologetic perspective, fundamentally immune to criticism premised on the “problem” of evil, suffering, and/or death.
And this, in turn, is the teaching that Genesis 2 is pointing us toward, even as it attempts for itself to present something which Christianity renders needless: a theodicy, an early explanation for how it could be true both that God is mighty and good, and yet that evil is present in the world and that man is sinful.
And the best part of this is that the “happy fault,” the “blessed and necessary sin” that has won us so great a Saviour, doesn’t require that Adam was a literal person in history (despite Adam’s mention in the sung verse). All that is required, pace Genesis 1, is that humanity came into being, precisely because “all have sinned” and, moreover, because all do sin.
Anyhow, that was a very lengthy clarification of a fragment of text from a previous article. I do hope that both the good reader, and PT in particular, found it helpful.
Powered by ScribeFire.
PT here. I much appreciate your reply! As I was reading your article (and found myself nodding most of the way – I share your distaste for those who insist that we believe things that the Church doesn’t require us to believe), that sentence just popped out when I read it – didn’t mean to reduce your article to a fragment. The reason being, that you seemed to be saying, “there was no Adam and Eve.” Looking back at the sentence, and putting aside the flood, I see that it can actually be read several ways, such as:
1) “Things like geological evidence for people like Adam and Eve simply do not exist.”
2) “People like Adam and Eve simply did not exist.”
… and perhaps several others. I see two points in the sentence and it’s a bit difficult to parse. What was your exact point about Adam and Eve?
And the reason that concerns me, of course, is that a number of seemingly reliable sources – Catholic Answers, Frank Sheed in “Theology for Beginners,” and the 1909 Pontifical Biblical Commission (quoted in a discussion at What’s Wrong With the World that you referred to in an older post: http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2009/02/aquinas_v_intelligent_design.html#comment-48088 – and I’m deferring here to the Commisson rather than the individual quoting it) are the first few that come to mind – appear to state quite clearly that there was an Adam and Eve and all men are descended from them.
In your posts of the past two days, you argue persuasively why this is not necessarily true. My main concern is not the merits of your arguments (save that for another discussion, perhaps) but quite practically, what does the Church expect me to believe and affirm? Some might argue that to affirm the polygenism is compatible with Church doctrine is heretical, and I don’t wish to stray into heresy. There’s also the problem of discussing the matter with non-Catholics (it’s quite easy for me to affirm the perpetual virginity of Mary, or that contraception is immoral, although describing the reasons can be difficult – but in the case of human origins, I’m not sure what to affirm in the first place). Perhaps these questions would be better addressed to a pastor than yourself, but for what it’s worth, those are my main concerns.
Your point is taken that an encyclical is not doctrinal, and the opinions of Catholic Answers even less so. But to me, it seems that monogenism is “normatively” taught by the Church, although technically it is not taught doctrinally. Let me use an analogy – and I am by no means making a moral comparison, just a practical one: it might be possible, technically, to argue that the Church does not teach torture is immoral (I do not argue this), but if we look at the “normative” teaching of the Church (encyclicals, etc.) it seems quite clear that the Church *does* teach torture is immoral and that we should affirm this to be on the safe side. Mark Shea has made this point multiple times. In the same way, I am inclined to default to affirming that monogenism is true (although with considerably more difficulty, knowing what science has uncovered), to be on the safe side. Certainly, I see no reason to affirm that monogenism is *untrue* (I don’t believe you affirm this – only that monogenism is not *necessarily* true – right?) That’s a poor analogy, perhaps, but the best I can think of.
Again, I much appreciate your reply to my original question. It’s always a pleasure reading your blog.
First, there’s one thing to add:
My own opinions would, in keeping with this, be thrice removed from being doctrinal. Bear that in mind, PT, especially when you ask:
As far as I understand things (although you’re right: this is a question better suited to a knowledgeable pastor), the Church expects you to believe and affirm the following:
Drawing on your penultimate paragraph, then, I think the point that could be made here is that while the Church in part structures her articulation of doctrine around the idea of explicit, named “first parents” (e.g. Adam and Eve), she also keeps the vast majority of her doctrine more general, and prefers to discuss humanity in the sense in which Genesis 1 does. And when she refers to Adam and Eve by name, the Church typically seems also to refer to the symbolism of the Biblical language.
This might suggest that the Church would prefer that we take a monogenistic view, but would also suggest that the Church has not absolutely slammed the door on the polygenistic view, as long as that view conforms to the above-listed guidelines.
That, I think, is the important point I need to stress here: the view of human origins must conform to the teaching of the Church with regard to God’s creatorship and man’s sinfulness. Expanding that principle to be more general, the Church first and foremost requires that when we form any scientifically-informed understanding, we do so in a way that conforms our understanding of the science and its facts to the moral and spiritual teaching of the Church.
The beauty in all of this is, again, that the Church doesn’t concretely define any one origins position as being “the True Christian position,” nor does the Church base her view of salvation of her faithful on their stance on human origins. This, in turn, frees Catholics to accept the origins position with which they are most comfortable, with only the single caveat that said position must conform to the guidelines given above.