Scripture presents all humanity descended from the Primordial Couple, Adam and Eve, technically called monogenism — until recently a discredited theory in the eyes of evolutionists, who generally favoured of a Darwinian evolution of man based on polygenism — multiple sources.
Subsequent understanding now actually favours the monogenist argument, and as we know, scientists say they can trace humanity back to a single African woman.
Science however, can make no sure statement at this moment in time.
The Catholic Church follows this debate with interest, and has made no dogmatic pronouncement with regard to a monogenist or polygenist origin of humanity, and careful reading of recent documents refers not to 'Adam and Eve' but 'our parents' — Catholic theology currently favours phylitic monogenism — that we are descended from a single and close-knit social unit.
The speculation suggests that, at a given point in the evolution of the species, God infused those qualities into the soul that render the creature 'human' as distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom — in line with Hebraic teaching that uses the same term for human or animal souls — nefesh — which might be rendered 'life'.
This does throw up new issues for debate. It is axiomatic that original sin, or The Fall, is not and was not an 'inevitability' in the evolutionary process, nor was it accidental ... 'sin' requires the free act of the will to choose what it knows to be morally wrong ... the pagan and gnostic practice of equating sin with knowledge, and avoiding the moral dimension altogether, is an erroneous interpretation of Scripture, and misses the point entirely.
It is equally axiomatic therefore that a wilful and knowing action brought about the downfall of humanity.
My own personal speculation, of this moment, is that prior to the Fall humanity was collectively as well as individually conscious, and that no individual acted independent of the collective body — we were as one — a degree of unity that we can only dream about, but that all spiritual traditions talk of — a transcendental union.
Remember in Scripture, Adam and Eve fell, not one and then the other, so in this way I can read a collective sin, but that does not mean that the individual can shirk responsibility for it, as humanity is wont to do.
Likewise after the Fall they saw themselves as distinct and distinctly different creatures ... they saw themselves externally ... they lost sight of that collective interiority.
If such were indeed the case, it would actually reinforce the Catholic idea of Original Sin, as opposed to the Orthodox view ... but that is a technical argument among friends ...
The genius of the Hebrew Scribe was in presenting a moment in the evolutionary history of a species as a story about two people.
Thomas
Subsequent understanding now actually favours the monogenist argument, and as we know, scientists say they can trace humanity back to a single African woman.
Science however, can make no sure statement at this moment in time.
The Catholic Church follows this debate with interest, and has made no dogmatic pronouncement with regard to a monogenist or polygenist origin of humanity, and careful reading of recent documents refers not to 'Adam and Eve' but 'our parents' — Catholic theology currently favours phylitic monogenism — that we are descended from a single and close-knit social unit.
The speculation suggests that, at a given point in the evolution of the species, God infused those qualities into the soul that render the creature 'human' as distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom — in line with Hebraic teaching that uses the same term for human or animal souls — nefesh — which might be rendered 'life'.
This does throw up new issues for debate. It is axiomatic that original sin, or The Fall, is not and was not an 'inevitability' in the evolutionary process, nor was it accidental ... 'sin' requires the free act of the will to choose what it knows to be morally wrong ... the pagan and gnostic practice of equating sin with knowledge, and avoiding the moral dimension altogether, is an erroneous interpretation of Scripture, and misses the point entirely.
It is equally axiomatic therefore that a wilful and knowing action brought about the downfall of humanity.
My own personal speculation, of this moment, is that prior to the Fall humanity was collectively as well as individually conscious, and that no individual acted independent of the collective body — we were as one — a degree of unity that we can only dream about, but that all spiritual traditions talk of — a transcendental union.
Remember in Scripture, Adam and Eve fell, not one and then the other, so in this way I can read a collective sin, but that does not mean that the individual can shirk responsibility for it, as humanity is wont to do.
Likewise after the Fall they saw themselves as distinct and distinctly different creatures ... they saw themselves externally ... they lost sight of that collective interiority.
If such were indeed the case, it would actually reinforce the Catholic idea of Original Sin, as opposed to the Orthodox view ... but that is a technical argument among friends ...
The genius of the Hebrew Scribe was in presenting a moment in the evolutionary history of a species as a story about two people.
Thomas
, path_of_one, of all will appreciate it as much as
