Well, I thought it was funny.
Of course, it's a cartoon. Adam and Eve were Semitic. How do I know this? Well, because the real Adam and Eve didn't eat the snake...
Looked at objectively, Adam and Eve did the worst thing that anyone in human history has ever done and could ever do. But they are now in Heaven. There's a lesson in that.
And no, it's not some vacuous Pope Francis lesson.
Indeed, it's almost certain Francis doesn't believe Adam and Eve ever really existed. Media bishop Robert Barron doesn't believe they existed. Indeed, most Catholics have been told it's all just a metaphor or some such.
Which of course would make the Doctrine of Original Sin incoherent.
But rejection of a literal Adam and Eve is a heresy. Or at least it is a subset of one. It's called polygenism, and it was rejected in, among other places, Humani Generis,* promulgated by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
You can't be a good Catholic and believe it. Sorry, Catholic wannabe polygenists.
Can you believe Adam and Eve were Chinese? Sure. But then why didn't they eat the snake?
*37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty [to believe it]. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion 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.
Cute post. Your faith is refreshing.
ReplyDeleteFor a long time I didn't think Adam and Eve were real people. Now, nothing else makes sense. Especially when I consider the Passion. Of course Christ was crucified where Adam was buried. And He rescued him from hell on Holy Saturday. Brings a chill up my spine.
I would also point out that Jesus and Mary make no sense as the New Adam and the New Eve; nor does Calvary make sense as the new Tree of Life in the very spot of the Garden of Eden if humanity evolved from apes and our first parents were mere allegories. That turns Jesus Himself into an allegory.
ReplyDeleteBeen reading about Arianism lately. It had to do with whether Jesus co-existed eternally with the Father and the Holy Spirit, or whether he was created in some way, separate from the Eternal God. A created Jesus was much more palatable to the men of that day and their system of Roman gods which proceeded from the father of all gods, Jupiter.
Our discussion today about human origins is similar and similarly crucial. The humanistic ethos of our day depends upon their not being any "God" at the source of all things. It is more palatable to present a Catholic faith in which "humanity" was not created by a First Mover, but rather randomly evolved out of the dim mists of eons of time with no specific origin or beginning, nor with a directed and planned course.
A "godless" history is similar to eternity (billions and billions of years), with chance replacing Providence and random evolution replacing specific history. Our parents are theoretical amoebas, not specific creations made in the likeness of God. It is a Develish recreation of our beginning.
This is no small thing. It is debated and seriously considered and even accepted within our Church because the devil depends upon us rejecting True God as uncreated primary mover of things, just as he persuaded Arius and his followers to reject True God 1,700 years ago as co-eternal Three-In-One.
And all of it appears a re-presentation to humanity to doubt God and worship "man"; the created over the Creator. So yes, Adam and Eve are crucial to our Faith.
..."That turns Jesus into am allegory." Now that's progressive!
DeleteThat's right. And that's pretty much how the trick was turned. Accept one faulty premise, you pretty much have to accept the other. Lose belief in one; lose it for sure in the other.
DeleteThe only thing I don't get is who did the children of Adam and Eve marry. I think the idea of evolution gets more preposterous the more I look at it.
ReplyDeleteWow. That reference to *37 from Humani Generis is powerful to read in light of all the backpedaling in recent years on the creation narrative to accommodate evolution. My latest comment that seems to be applicable a bit too often is that most references to doctrine & teaching are from post Vat2 sources leaving the impression the church really began with Vat2. Personally I am a creationist and make no bones about if the opportunity arises. I have 2 friends that lost their faith over evolution. I had a priest friend who wrote a scholarly paper on Mary for some degree. After a first submission it was returned to him with the advisement to add more more post Vat2 references. He was a good old fashioned priest, God rest his soul. I rarely hear anyone discuss PXII except for the smear merchants blaming him for not stopping the holocaust. There is an article on Unam Sanctam Catholicam under Theology -The Solemn Enthronement of Evolution. I've not read it all the way through because it hurts my brain. It shows the whole advance of that thinking and it's creeping into the church until it is 'enthroned'.
ReplyDeleteThis was a great little article right to the point..thanks. More my speed.
Yes. I think that's all exactly right. Whatever one thinks about what Vatican II said or did, the purpose of a council is not to erase everything that came before but to reaffirm it, or build on it or clarify it.
DeleteAnd you're absolutely right about evolution. For 100+ years the moderate Christian accommodationists have been telling us it's no threat to faith (though of course, the atheists know better). Depending on how you define it, that might be technically true but I think its effect has been devastating. Evolution may be logically compatible with God but in practice it's a substitute for God.
Hahaha! Where in the world did you find that cartoon?
ReplyDeleteSeattle kim
"Conway's 'Anything Goes' Political Community" on Google+. I think it's supposed to be atheist or racist or something. But obviously I don't see it that way.
Deletewhat are the odds of all those genes and cells on five or six different continents mutating and permutating all at the same time and in the same way and in all those different primates and arriving at humans simultaneously? that's hard to believe--not Adam and Eve.
ReplyDeleteAnd why do polygenists ignore the DNA evidence that indicates we are all related to one another through our genetic relation to woman who lived in Sub-Saharan Africa tens of thousands of years ago.
What randomness, mutations, and natural selection is not the way it went down?
ReplyDeleteWhen an evolutionist can tell you how it is two animals can copulate and produce an offspring that has one or more organs neither parent had then ABS will listen
Because kids in school were taught they came from apes, they failed to see themselves as created on the image & likeness of God. And so went the demise of the culture, manners, ethics, clothing, deportment, etc. If we are just apes, it doesn't really matter what we do, how we live.
ReplyDelete