Expert: Marco - 7/24/2006

Question
Hi Marco,

Thank you very much for the site; it looks as though there is a wealth of great information I must spend some time reading about.'

About Genesis; of course, I agree with what you say about the Scripture's purpose not being that of a science textbook.

But the Catechism does say that Genesis, while using symbolic or figurative language, reports an event that really did occur.  

When I speak with unbelievers or non-Catholics about Scripture, I never have an answer to these questions about monogenism and the book of Genesis.  They won't accept an answer to any question other than how this reconciles itself with science.  They do not believe the Bible is God's inspired Word, and they believe that modern science shows it to be in error regarding questions such as the age of man, etc.

It seems, too, that the Church, from Venerable Pius XII's Humani Generis, does teach that Adam and Eve were the first 2 parents from whence came all other human life.  Is this scientifically possible?  

Regarding timelines and the Bible; as you said, it probably isn't terribly important whether or not something occurred 6,000, 10,000, or 15 billion years ago.  But this is another criticism of anti-Catholics which I do not know how to reply to; the Bible only gives 6,000-10,000 years of human history, saying that Adam and Eve came into being perhaps 6,000 years ago.

Science, while it cannot prove the existence of a human soul, does offer some conclusions about when humanoid species or modern homo sapiens first began appearing.  So, science seems to say that there were a number of humanoid like species around which evolved and reproduced starting perhaps 40,000 years ago, so that today we have 6 billion homo sapien sapiens, whereas Venerable Pius XII and the Scriptures indicate that there were only 2 original people (not many), that from these 2 we have all human life originating (rather than a large group of original parents), that these two came about only 6,000 years ago (not 40,000), and that, even more recently, all human life on the Earth was wiped out in a monstrous flood.  This would seem to suggest that all those original humanoid populations that were NOT infused with a human soul by God (everyone except Adam and Eve) simply died out.  

If asked to pick between the two scenarios, I'm obviously going to choose the Catholic Faith over the conclusions of an archaeologist, but I would like to find if there are any resolutions to the above problem.  One source says one thing, another says something different, but it would seem that there must be some way to reconcile them.

Thanks and God bless,

Mike.

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Followup To

Question -
Hello,

My question regards the Church's teaching on monogenism and related issues with modern science.

I am far from an expert in biology, nor am I an enthusiast for the neo-Darwinian frenzy which has sought to canonize everything that came forth from the mouth of Charles Darwin, but it seems to me that a significant problem arises in trying to reconcile Catholic teaching on our first parents with the revelations of modern science.

Just a few questions arising from this:

1. Is there a "genetic bottleneck" that indicates that all current human beings came from just 2 first parents?  I was told of the existence of a Y-chromosome Adam and a mitochondrial Eve, but was also told that these 2 existed thousands of years apart, which would not fit the Genesis timeline.

2. Genesis gives, even by the most liberal estimates, a timeline of about 10,000 years from Adam to the birth of Christ.  Is this to say that only 10,000 years elapsed since God infused a humanoid species with a soul?

Was not the first man, if we can even determine his birth, brought into existence many thousands of years ago?

3. In the event that theories such as the "Terrestrial Paradise" (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14519a.htm) are correct, wouldn't the scientific record show that the two exiled human beings are the parents of all living creatures?

Surely, Adam and Eve did not mate with non-human gorillas?

4. Regarding death before the Fall; I was told that God, being unable to create a defective world, created all life, including plants and animals, to be free from death until Adam's sin ushered death into the world.

But the fossils of deceased animals would seem to indicate that plants and animals (and Cro-Magnon humanoids, etc.) were dying long before.

Is biological monogenism supported by science?

I appreciate the help.  My question is not designed to take pokes at de fide statements, obviously, but to have an answer prepared when a skeptic raises the same question.  Right now, I don't know how to bring all of this together into one coherent explanation.

Answer -  

Answer
Dear Mike,

you ask:

"It seems, too, that the Church, from Venerable Pius XII's Humani Generis, does teach that Adam and Eve were the first 2 parents from whence came all other human life.  Is this scientifically possible? "

Yes, this is certainly scientifically possible. I report below a paragraph from an article by the antropologist Fiorenzo Facchini:

"As regards the appearance of human beings, the theory of evolution is supported by a large number of documents giving evidence to a long path characterized by more and more complex life forms which unfortunately became extinct. Along this path, the remains of living beings that have been found displaying features that are more and more similar to humans. They could thus be associated to the ancestors of humankind. Paleontology aims at detecting the evolutionary line that led to the earliest human life forms and, through different phases, to the present human beings. Although this line, which should be further investigated, shows a sort of multilinear, network-like trend, it is likely to have developed from a single African stock (monophyletism), notably after the appearance of the earliest human life form. Moreover, paleontology investigates the mechanisms and modes underlying evolution, with particular attention to the changes in the environment. "

The whole article is given in the following site:

http://www.disf.org/en/Voci/121.asp

You can find other articles about faith and science on the link:

http://www.disf.org/en/default.asp

Then you write:

"Regarding timelines and the Bible; as you said, it probably isn't terribly important whether or not something occurred 6,000, 10,000, or 15 billion years ago.  But this is another criticism of anti-Catholics which I do not know how to reply to; the Bible only gives 6,000-10,000 years of human history, saying that Adam and Eve came into being perhaps 6,000 years ago."

As I have said, my answer is that the Bible was written to give us spiritual and moral teathings and NOT to teach us history or science.

I hope this may help,

Your brother in Christ

Marco