Adam and Eve

Original Sin

• The original sin was disobedience to God's command, not sex. Sex, in and of itself, is a gift from God, designed for procreation (Gen 1) and for the intimate union of husband and wife ("the two become one flesh," Gen 2).
• Sex is an essential aspect of the sacrament of marriage. It is from God and is blessed by God when it is used in the marriage relationship.

Consequences of Original Sin

Rom 5:12-14

Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned--for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come.

Rom 8:19-23

For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Battle of the Sexes

CCC #444

The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay". Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will "return to the ground", for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.

Between Pelagianism and Perversion

CCC #406

The Church's teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine's reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God's grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam's fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529) and at the Council of Trent (1546).

Pelagius thought that our human nature was so little affected by sin that we only needed the good example of Jesus' love and mercy to inform us of what we should do. Once we saw Jesus' love, Pelagius held that we could choose to imitate Him by our unassisted powers of intellect and free will.

The Church teaches that our natural powers must be elevated by sanctifying grace in order for us to choose and do good. Without God's grace, we could not escape the bondage of self.

Some Protestants taught that human nature itself is broken by sin. The Church replied that "God does not make junk." We are still "in the image and likeness of God," and our nature is "very good" (Gen 1:26-27,31). We are in a fallen condition from which we cannot rescue ourselves, but the evil is primarily in our circumstances, not in our nature itself. "Man has a wounded nature inclined to evil" (CCC #407).

Questions arising from evolutionary biology

What do you think about the claim that Neanderthal genes were found in the DNA of homo sapiens?

I'm not a geneticist.

We have to follow the facts wherever they lead.

The Church is not wedded to any scientific theory (or observation) about how we developed.

Cf. Humani Generis for the theological commitment of the Church to monogenism: we believe that there was an original First Pair of human beings from whom all of us are descended and from whom we inherit the condition of being alienated from God and from each other (Original Sin).

We don't know how far back in history that event goes.

We don't know the "real" names of the First Pair. The Bible calls them "Adam" and "Eve" (Gen 2-3). "Adam" means "the man" and "Eve" is said to mean "mother of all the living" (Gen 3:20).

John Paul II wrote on evolution in 1996. He says that we must accept the fact of evolution in the sense that one form of life comes from another. We may not accept the atheistic interpretations of that fact.

I know it's a speculative question, but it's somewhat interesting to consider whether neanderthals had rational souls. I have read that archaeological evidence indicates that neanderthals had burial customs for their dead (a form of primitive religion, perhaps?).

G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man has a great passage about how anthropologists tell fairy tales about what "early man" believed from the non-verbal clues left behind.

If there was religion, then, of course, there was rationality. The two go hand-in-hand. The hard part is getting at the content of the minds of the primitive humans where there is no written record (the glorious art in the caves does not count as writing).

Of course, it's not really an issue with any practical import for us today.

Right.

Anyway, have you found that a lot of the theological discussion of evolution involves a sort of covert traducianism? Or, at least, a neglect of the huge metaphysical difference between an animal (however clever) and a being with a rational, immortal soul?

Yes. The materialists necessarily want to treat humans as nothing but animals that have evolved by accident--and as animals that can be bred or engineered to new standards of excellence (C.S.L., Abolition of Man).

Do you think it would be possible to know at some point, or will this event remain forever in the "mists" of prehistory?

We won't be able to answer that question until all the evidence is in. When will the anthropologists excavate the last pre-historic site? When will the biologists finish their genetic studies?

Bonnette

Dennis Bonnette retired in 2003 as Professor of Philosophy at Niagara University in Lewiston, New York, where he was Chairman of the Philosophy Department from 1992 to 2002. He is the author of two books, Aquinas' Proofs for God's Existence (Martinus-Nijhoff, 1972) and Origin of the Human Species (Sapientia Press, 2003; 2nd edition, 2007, with a new Foreword by biochemist Michael J. Behe). His website is DrBonnette.com.