I have a question about how Catholics rationalize the existence of Adam and Eve to go away to
the back of original sin and us inheriting original sin when we didn't really do anything
to begin with, kind of like a guilty of association thing.
And also, how with evolution, how do how do we believe in Adam and Eve?
Did God just kind of plant this soul arbitrarily at a certain point of the development of species?
And I'm not really sure how Catholics view that and how someone who does believe in evolution
can rationalize original sin and Adam and Eve and things like that.
So it sounds like you have there are two objections to the doctrine that human beings descended
from an initial pair, Adam and Eve.
One would be an ethical objection dealing with original sin.
- how - why is it fair for God to punish us for somehow being involved with a sin that
took place thousands of years before we were ever born?
And the other is not an ethical objection; it's more of a scientific objection.
How could it be the case that all human beings descended from a single pair given fossil
evidence and genetic evidence showing human evolution over time?
So those are essentially the two objections that -you're- you're wondering about?
Basically, Yeah.
And, and it's also like why God would sort of just decide to put a soul into, you know,
a pair like that.
And then at that point in history and why not say when, you know, it was a different
form of species?
Hmm.
All righty.
Well, I'll take the ethical objection first.
Original sin is not a sin of action.
So we are not punished for original sin does not mean that we are punished for doing something.
We did not.
We were not involved in -Adam's- Adam and Eve sinned against God.
Instead, original sin is a deprivation.
It is a deprivation of the holiness and grace that we need in order to have friendship with
God.
So Adam and Eve had these preternatural gifts.
This gift of friendship with God that also protected them from things like death.
And so, this was given to them, and they could have passed these spiritual gifts along to
their children.
But, because they disobeyed God, those gifts were revoked and lost.
And so, they could not pass them on to their children.
So their children suffer, but they are not punished in the same way that somebody who
wins a lottery might be rich.
And, suppose they try to cheat and win more money from the lottery.
If they are caught, they might have to forfeit all of the money back.
And so their descendants will be poor now; the descendants are punished indirectly.
They're not punished legally, but they suffer as a consequence of what their ancestors have
done.
And that's similar with human beings when it comes to original sin.
So that would be the answer to the ethical objection.
The other is a genetic question, you know, "how could it be -you know- coming from human
beings?
Your specific questions seem to be, "why would God choose to give ...
- Let's - because some people will answer the question by denying the traditional account
of human evolution.
That would be one way to go about responding to the objection and just say, "no, all humans
came from Adam and Eve who were created from the dust of the earth."
If you do believe in human evolution, though, that there were hominids, Australopithecus,
Homo habilis, Homo erectus.
Why would God pick one point?
And he would give - Let's say he picked two individuals and gave them immortal souls so
that their offspring would continue to have an immortal soul given to them.
Why would you pick it at one time versus another?
Well, God might not have a specific reason, except that at that point in human evolution,
the human body had a large enough brain and sophisticated enough brain to engage in rational
thought, to come to a knowledge of God, to have things like language, religious expression.
And so, humans now had the ability to relate with God that - you know - a jellyfish could
not.
They had these rational abilities now that were raised to supernatural life with these
preternatural gifts that God gave, but were then subsequently lost.