Adam and Eve? That's just mythology, says Pell

[buffalo]

Originally Posted by Bubba Switzler

Do you believe that the Catholic Church teaches that the Creation story is historical?

Because whatever your obsession with the terminology, my point was obviously to compare the Creation story to the story of Adam and Eve.

Correct, the constant teaching and understanding of the Church has been Genesis is real history.

What Does The Catholic Church Teach about Origins?
(pdf version)

• God created everything “in its whole substance” from nothing (ex nihilo) in the beginning.
  (Lateran IV; Vatican Council I)
• Genesis does not contain purified myths. (Pontifical Biblical Commission 1909[1])
• Genesis contains real history—it gives an account of things that really happened. (Pius XII)
• Adam and Eve were real human beings—the first parents of all mankind. (Pius XII)
• Polygenism (many “first parents”) contradicts Scripture and Tradition and is condemned. (Pius XII; 1994 Catechism, 360, footnote 226: Tobit 8:6—the “one ancestor” referred to in this Catechism could only be Adam.)
• The “beginning” of the world included the creation of all things, the creation of Adam and Eve and the Fall (Jesus Christ [Mark 10:6]; Pope Innocent III; Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus).
• The body of Eve was specially created from a portion of Adam’s body (Leo XIII). She could not have originated via evolution.
• Various senses are employed in the Bible, but the literal obvious sense must be believed unless reason dictates or necessity requires (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus).
• Adam and Eve were created upon an earthly paradise and would not have known death if they had remained obedient (Pius XII).
• After their disobedience of God, Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. But the Second Person of the Trinity would subsequently pay the ransom for fallen man (Nicene Creed).
• Original Sin is a flawed condition inherited from Adam and Eve (Council of Trent).
• The Universe suffers in travail ever since the sin of disobedience by Adam and Eve. (Romans 8, Vatican Council I).
• We must believe any interpretation of Scripture that the Fathers taught unanimously on a matter of faith or morals (Council of Trent and Vatican Council I).
• All the Fathers who wrote on the subject believed that the Creation days were no longer than 24-hour-days. (Consensus of the Fathers of the Church)
• The work of Creation was finished by the close of Day Six, and nothing completely new has since been created—except for each human rational soul at conception (Vatican Council I)
• St. Peter and Christ Himself in the New Testament confirmed the global Flood of Noah. It covered all the then high mountains and destroyed all land dwelling creatures except eight human beings and all kinds of non-human creatures aboard the Ark (Unam Sanctam, 1302)
• The historical existence of Noah’s Ark is regarded as most important in typology, as central to Redemption. (1566 Catechism of the Council of Trent)
• Evolution must not be taught as fact, but instead the pros and cons of evolution must be taught.
  (Pius XII, Humani Generis)
• Investigation into human “evolution” was allowed in 1950, but Pope Pius XII feared that an acceptance of evolutionism might adversely affect doctrinal beliefs.

[Bubba Switzler]

Originally Posted by buffalo

Correct, the constant teaching and understanding of the Church has been Genesis is real history.

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/creation-and-genesis

[buffalo]

Originally Posted by Bubba Switzler

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/creation-and-genesis

What are you arguing here?

[kama3]

Originally Posted by Bubba Switzler

If the theory of polygenism turns out to be correct, and it is not established science as far as I know, then it will be a problem for all Catholics.

Polygenism already is established science.

In genetic terms, monogenism means that there was a time when there was a population bottleneck with the size of 2, or, that there was a time when the effective population size of humans was 2.

Past effective population size can be calculated from an analysis of genetic diversity of the present population. Basically, there are some statistical laws which govern how genes change (so-called genetic drift) and they allow you to back-calculate what the human population would have to be in the past to get to the present state. Here is (one of many) technical paper which does that: http://genome.cshlp.org/content/17/4/520.long

Here's the important result: there is no evidence of any population bottleneck with the population size of 2. Nothing. Nada. The lowest estimate of a population bottleneck we have is 1200 and it is linked to the Toba catastrophe. Also, this is not a new development either: there are papers from at least 20 years ago discussing that. The evidence simply continues to mount.

Here is a quite understandable treatment of the subject written by a Catholic priest and a biologist: http://www.3op.org/nicanor_austiaco_article.pdf

So yes, the claim made in Humani Generis #37 has been falsified. With all the nasty consequences. Meaning, it appears that we have to throw out everything, starting from papal infallibility, through Orginal Sin and ending with Redemption. Or, as you prefer, the whole religion appears to collapse.

That said, it appears that the writer of Humani Generis #37 did leave us an escape hatch. The hatch is a essentially a technicality, so I'm not quite convinced that he did it on purpose; nevertheless; the hatch is there. Make of this what you will.

The escape hatch works like this. The text in #37 says it is in no way apparent how such an opinion [polygenism] can be reconciled [with faith]. So it doesn't say that polygenism cannot be objectively reconciled with faith; but that the writer of Humani Generis does not see how it can be reconciled. The implication is that if someone can propose a theological reasoning which reconciles Christianity with polygenism then the prohibition in #37 is void. See e.g this: http://vox-nova.com/2011/02/11/movin...th-polygenism/

Of course how to do that technically is no way apparent but there are some papers out there with different ideas, written by theologians wrestling with the problem. The very existence of these papers proves that -- as minimum -- the theologians believe that the problem is not unsolvable.

In my opinion, while Catholicism can indeed escape through that escape hatch, it will end up badly wounded. The problem is that #37 still contains a definitive prohibition: the faithful cannot embrace the notion.... So even if someone finds a theological way to integrate polygenism into Christianity, we are still talking a major doctrinal revision. So one still has to (1) salvage papal infallibility and (2) explain what happened to the poor souls who were condemned to hell for believing in polygenism. Basically, it's the Gallieo blunder all over again.

Fun times

[_Abyssinia]

Originally Posted by Bubba Switzler

This is certainly a problem for Pell. But it is not only Pell's problem.

If the theory of polygenism turns out to be correct, and it is not established science as far as I know, then it will be a problem for all Catholics.

Some theologians believe Pius XII does not explicitly exclude polygenism. The relevant sentence is this:

"Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion (polygenism) 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." (Pius XII, Humani Generis, 37 and footnote refers to Romans 5:12-19; Council of Trent, Session V, Canons 1-4)

Modern theologians do not necessarily see a conflict between polygenism and Catholic teaching on original sin. For example, from The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church (1996 edition), on Humani Generis the authors / editors Fr. Neuner and Dupuis, S.J. state:

"In the context of other errors, Pius XII treats two questions regarding the origin of the human person. Firstly, the human being's origin through evolution from other living beings: while formerly evolution was rejected as irreconcilable with the biblical account of creation (which was interpreted in too literal a sense), and as implying a materialistic conception of the human being, the question is now left open to scholarly investigation, provided that the creation of the soul by God is maintained. Secondly, monogenism or polygenism, i.e. the question whether the human race must be conceived as descending from a single couple or can be considered to originate from several couples: polygenism is rejected because 'it does not appear' [or 'it is not at all apparent'] to be reconcilable with the doctrine of original sin inherited by all from Adam. Recent theology, however, is seeking explanations of original sin under the supposition of polygenism, and so tries to remove the reason for its rejection." (J. Neuner, J. Dupuis, The Christian Faith [1996], page 169)

Further, see also the EWTN article published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, "The Credo of Paul VI: Theology of Original Sin and the Scientific Theory of Evolution" by Roberto Masi:

"....according to the opinions of the above mentioned exegetes and theologians, it results that Revelation and Dogma say nothing directly concerning Monogenism or Polygenism, neither in favour nor against them. Besides, these scientific hypotheses are per se outside the field of Revelation. Within this context, different combinations of the scientific theory of evolution are therefore hypothetically possible or compatible with the doctrine of original sin. One can nevertheless consider biological monogenism together. Humanity has its origin in a single couple; this couple committed the sin against God and as a result of this all their children are born in original sin. This is the classical doctrine. Or it is possible to admit a biological polygenism and a theological monogenism. Evolution brought about not a single couple but many men, who constituted the primitive human population. One of these, who may be considered the leader, rebelled against God. This sin passed on to all men, his contemporaries, not by imitation, but by real propagation (Council of Trent Session V, DS. 1513), that is by a real solidarity already existing in this primordial human population. In them actual sinful humanity has its origin. It is also possible to combine biological and theological polygenism: all the primitive human population rebelled concordantly against God and from them are born the other sinful men. These hypotheses are only suppositions which many think are not contrary to Revelation and the bible. Even if we accept as valid the scientific theory of evolution and polygenism, it can still be in accordance with the dogma of original sin in the various manners indicated." (Roberto Masi, from L'Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Holy See, weekly edition in English, 17 April 1969)

http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p94.htm

But then it says here:

Those who hold that there were multiple sets of first parents go against the teaching of the magisterium on the doctrine of original sin. In fact, there are even logical difficulties in accounting for original sin if that calamitous falling can't be traced to a single man, Adam.

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestio...-and-eve-exist

But in opposition to that Mark Shea believes it may not be impossible for Catholics to believe in polygenism:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshe...olygenism.html

[kama3]

One more thing. There are two uses of the word polygenism, and they get mixed up.

The old use (historic) is a belief that different human races originated from different kinds of apes. This has been since rejected: the current understanding is that all humans are descended from a single population. Interestingly, Darwin favored monogenism: he believed that humans evolved from apes and then split into different races.

The new use (which we are talking about here) is that the humans originated from a population with size over 2, i.e. there was no literal Adam.

Also -- the Adam (or Eve) we talk about when talking about polygenism should not be confused with the so-called most recent common ancestor (MRCA). While we are all descended from a single male and a single female MRCA:

1. The male MRCA lived tens of thousands after its female counterpart

2. Both MRCAs lived among a population numbering at least thousands

3. The offspring of MRCA's contemporaries did not die off; rather, they have interbred with MRCA's descendants in a way that no lineage exists which is not "tainted" by MRCA's genes.

[sedonaman]

Originally Posted by Bubba Switzler

The terms "allegory" is also used to mean a nonhistorical account:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegor...ons_of_Genesis

That's why I feel sorry for all those folks looking for Noah's ark on Mt. Ararat.

[_Abyssinia]

Interesting point about polygenism and monogeism in an interview:

Q: What are Catholics bound in faith to believe about human origins? Was Adam really our first parent, or could there have been an entire race of original human beings endowed with immortal souls -- an accurate rendering of the Hebrew word "adam"?

Father Oakes: In my opinion, the debate about "monogenism" -- the doctrine that says that all humans share the same primal parents -- and "polygenism" -- that the races come from independent lines of evolution -- has been misconceived, for both are true depending on where you stop along mankind's family tree.

All of us, after all, have one set of parents, but four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and so on, all the way back. But eventually, the number of these putative ancestors will grow absurdly large: in each generation, the number of my direct ancestors must grow exponentially: two, four, eight, 16, 32 and so on.

Even more strangely, the number of actual human beings inhabiting the planet will begin to shrink the further back into history we go. This means that, eventually, the further back you go in history, this vast number of ideal "slots" of ancestors will have to be filled by just one person or two; for example, if two of my grandparents were first cousins, I would have only six great-grandparents, not eight.

Fascinating studies have been done, using the genealogical records of the Mormons in Utah, to show how most Caucasians now dwelling in the United States can trace their ancestry back to just one couple living in eighth-century Europe; and no doubt Americans of other racial background could do the same with their native lands.

For a riveting account of this field of "population genetics" for the general reader, see "The Mountain of Names: A History of the Human Family," by Alex Shoumatoff.

So does this process ever reach one couple? According to genetics, yes. In fact, according to the theory of evolution, it could hardly be otherwise, the whole point of the theory being to stress common ancestry.

Of course, if genetics establishes that there is a primal couple, that couple could then trace its ancestry back to a common set of ancestral parents. So according to genetics, both monogenism and polygenism are true, but at several times and at various points along the evolutionary tree. See "The History and Geography of Human Genes," by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza.

More: http://www.zenit.org/article-13696?l=english

[johnnyjones]

Originally Posted by Bubba Switzler

Without necessarily taking a position on this, I think those who insist on a a literal reading of Adam and Eve overlook the possibility that it is a mythological explanation for a more complicated reality, one that, like the reality of creation itself, was beyond the understanding of the Hebrews and, perhaps, still beyond us today, involving as it does not simply evolutionary biology but theology as well.

That is, the teaching on original sin and baptism can be true even if the story of Adam and Eve is a (perhaps gross) simplification of reality.

Jesus refered to Abel (who was murdered) as a real person with Zacharias (who was murdered in Chronicals) Luke 11:51. A line of blood that is fictional? As well the blood of Abel is referenced in connection to the blood of Jesus. Is Jesus' blood better than a "fake' Abel's( Heb. 12:24). Abel was a good part of the creation event.

[kama3]

Originally Posted by _Abyssinia

So does this process ever reach one couple? According to genetics, yes.

Errrr... There are problems with this.

1. Sexual behavior of males and females is different. Males are driven to (1) impregnate as many females as possible and (2) eliminate competitors from the gene pool. For example, there is a clear genetic signature of Jengis-Khan in many Europeans and Asians. It's only there because during the conquest, the royal family was raping women by thousands. That's a general pattern: male ancestry is wider, but female ancestry is deeper.

2. So it follows that the first pair would have to be associated with the female MRCA. However, then you'd have to demonstrate that the female MRCA had only one partner.

3. Ignoring that, the female MRCA and her partner had parents. So a single female MRCA could be found for both. Handwaving the issue (2), you have again a single progenitor pair, except that one is earlier. Since the new progenitor pair also had parents... basically, it leads to an infinite regression. Well, not really infinite, but leading back either to the split of humans from apes (which is completely arbitrary, as the transition was fluid), or back to the primordial slime (abiogenesis).

4. We cannot pinpoint the female MRCA. Sure, we know that she existed, when she existed, and where she existed, but that does not means that she becomes identifiable. Thus associating her with any historic event is dangerous considering...

5. ...that the MRCA actually depends on the population sampled. First, we are not absolutely sure, that the determined female MRCA is the real female MRCA of all the human population; she's only the MRCA of the humans which were sampled for the study. She should be the real MRCA, because the sample should be representative. For example, if there is some unsampled bush tribe which got sepated from the initial population before our MRCA lived, then the real MRCA of all humans (including that lost tribe) would have to be pushed back.

[kama3]

Originally Posted by johnnyjones

Jesus refered to Abel (who was murdered) as a real person with Zacharias (who was murdered in Chronicals) Luke 11:51. A line of blood that is fictional?

Your argument only holds if Jesus was omniscient. If Jesus was not omniscient than he could have mistakenly believed the myth to be literally true.

Another possible take on this: Jesus (and possibly his listeners) knew that this is a myth, but he used it as a literary device to make a point.

Then there is another possibility -- the blood line that goes back, but it does not go all the way back, but ends in the place where the record (or the oral tradition) starts, and that point later becomes mistakenly equated to the origin (when it's not).

[Bubba Switzler]

Originally Posted by buffalo

What are you arguing here?

A. That the Catholic Church does not teach Creationism (although it does, strictly speaking, not teach evolution either).

B. That the story of Adam and Eve immediately follows one of the two creation stories and is intertwined with the other.

C. It is therefore reasonble to consider if we ought to regard the story of Adam and Eve in the same way that we regard the creation story.

[buffalo]

Originally Posted by kama3

Polygenism already is established science.

In genetic terms, monogenism means that there was a time when there was a population bottleneck with the size of 2, or, that there was a time when the effective population size of humans was 2.

Past effective population size can be calculated from an analysis of genetic diversity of the present population. Basically, there are some statistical laws which govern how genes change (so-called genetic drift) and they allow you to back-calculate what the human population would have to be in the past to get to the present state. Here is (one of many) technical paper which does that: http://genome.cshlp.org/content/17/4/520.long

Here's the important result: there is no evidence of any population bottleneck with the population size of 2. Nothing. Nada. The lowest estimate of a population bottleneck we have is 1200 and it is linked to the Toba catastrophe. Also, this is not a new development either: there are papers from at least 20 years ago discussing that. The evidence simply continues to mount.

Here is a quite understandable treatment of the subject written by a Catholic priest and a biologist: http://www.3op.org/nicanor_austiaco_article.pdf

So yes, the claim made in Humani Generis #37 has been falsified. With all the nasty consequences. Meaning, it appears that we have to throw out everything, starting from papal infallibility, through Orginal Sin and ending with Redemption. Or, as you prefer, the whole religion appears to collapse.

That said, it appears that the writer of Humani Generis #37 did leave us an escape hatch. The hatch is a essentially a technicality, so I'm not quite convinced that he did it on purpose; nevertheless; the hatch is there. Make of this what you will.

The escape hatch works like this. The text in #37 says it is in no way apparent how such an opinion [polygenism] can be reconciled [with faith]. So it doesn't say that polygenism cannot be objectively reconciled with faith; but that the writer of Humani Generis does not see how it can be reconciled. The implication is that if someone can propose a theological reasoning which reconciles Christianity with polygenism then the prohibition in #37 is void. See e.g this: http://vox-nova.com/2011/02/11/movin...th-polygenism/

Of course how to do that technically is no way apparent but there are some papers out there with different ideas, written by theologians wrestling with the problem. The very existence of these papers proves that -- as minimum -- the theologians believe that the problem is not unsolvable.

In my opinion, while Catholicism can indeed escape through that escape hatch, it will end up badly wounded. The problem is that #37 still contains a definitive prohibition: the faithful cannot embrace the notion.... So even if someone finds a theological way to integrate polygenism into Christianity, we are still talking a major doctrinal revision. So one still has to (1) salvage papal infallibility and (2) explain what happened to the poor souls who were condemned to hell for believing in polygenism. Basically, it's the Gallieo blunder all over again.

Fun times

Yup - you are on the mark. Either the constant teaching of the Church is affirmed by science or it is not. Most evo's see this while theistic evo's do not. My position is this:

Revelation is true, and therefore we must challenge science to dig deeper to find the truths. Faith and reason cannot be opposed.

Now onto your claims: Consider that the genetic lookback may have a horizon problem in that it cannot see farther back that a few generations form Adam and Eve.

The underlying assumptions are a constant mutation rate and the current genetic diversity cannot be accounted for. Remember, this is a model and not actually proved. The current estimate is 1200 down form a high of 6000 (moving in the right direction) There is well over 50 uses of the word estimate/d in the document. It also assumes a constant generation length across the populations. Adma and Eve both could have started with more heterozygosity than assumed.

Since we now know that DNA effectively fights mutations - how many does a current human have due to mutations only?

On top of that epigenetics may have much to say on this subject.

There is still much to know.

We do not know the actual diversity between Adam and Eve.

[Bubba Switzler]

Originally Posted by kama3

Polygenism already is established science...Here's the important result: there is no evidence of any population bottleneck with the population size of 2. Nothing. Nada....So yes, the claim made in Humani Generis #37 has been falsified.

Wait a minute! Lack of evidence is not falsification. You might say that the best scientific evidence is that monogenism is improbable but that's not falsification either.

The text in #37 says it is in no way apparent how such an opinion [polygenism] can be reconciled [with faith]. So it doesn't say that polygenism cannot be objectively reconciled with faith; but that the writer of Humani Generis does not see how it can be reconciled...In my opinion, while Catholicism can indeed escape through that escape hatch, it will end up badly wounded.

Spare me.

The problem is that #37 still contains a definitive prohibition: the faithful cannot embrace the notion.... So even if someone finds a theological way to integrate polygenism into Christianity, we are still talking a major doctrinal revision. So one still has to (1) salvage papal infallibility and (2) explain what happened to the poor souls who were condemned to hell for believing in polygenism. Basically, it's the Gallieo blunder all over again.

I think that's a bit overdramatic but your point is essentially correct.

[buffalo]

Originally Posted by Bubba Switzler

A. That the Catholic Church does not teach Creationism (although it does, strictly speaking, not teach evolution either).

B. That the story of Adam and Eve immediately follows one of the two creation stories and is intertwined with the other.

C. It is therefore reasonble to consider if we ought to regard the story of Adam and Eve in the same way that we regard the creation story.

This ignores the constant teaching and understanding of Catholics over the ages. We could look at it like that if the Bible just recently was discovered, but we have a strong tradition.

In any case, I would need a clear magisterial admission that shows how we got it wrong for so long and if the Holy Spirit was sleeping. The gradual drift toward scientism doesn't cut it however.

I will continue to challenge science to dig deeper on these issues. (as we all should) One thing to note - many of the papers referenced are researched and written form the "evolution must be true" perspective building on the same basic assumptions.

Remember that old story that goes something like this: In the old story scientists labored for centuries to climb the mountain of truth; and when they reached the summit they found the philosophers and theologians already there, sitting in a circle smoking their pipes and drinking brandy.