Or maybe we follow His teachings because of His divinity? Why would I dedicate my life to a Jewish man that died 2000 years ago who’s thoughts only occur as hearsay traceable to a single source 40 years after the fact? Of course his teachings are important and much more so than trying to figure out how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.
This issue we are discussing is even important for Jesus 101. If you start dismissing large swathes of traditional doctrine it’s not hard to start finding the gospels flawed and questionable on historical grounds. Not as bad as treating Genesis 1-11 as historical but critical scholarship raises serious objections. If you want to be self consistent and go the full monty, that hearsay, 40 plus years after the fact, all mostly traceable to a single source isn’t exactly overly forceful evidence. I’m not interested in sawing off the branch I sit in. As far as I know Jesus specifically appeared to Paul and chose him as an apostle to the gentiles. I don’t think what he writes is inerrant but he also wrote Romans under divine inspiration. I cannot so easily just dump original sin and a fall (the latter of which seems pretty obvious to me).
The claim that the first language-capable human was a male is not a ‘brute fact’.
He didn’t appeal to either of them:
Finally, though much work remains to uncover the mystery of language evolution,5 distinguished linguist Noam Chomsky has proposed that the capacity for language arose in a single human individual who was living among our ancestral population of anatomically modern humans in East Africa.6 Some genetic modification rewired this individual’s brain such that he was born capable of language. He was the first speaking primate.
That account isn’t about the first human that was language-capable due to having novel genes.
True. But that doesn’t mean he’s not going about it really, really badly.
That’s odd, since Feser adds a lot of non-Aristotelean baggage and comes to a different conclusion.
I’ll note that once again you have likened me to some-one who asks ‘who created God’ even though I haven’t asked any such thing.
The story does not tell that there were other humans, so much depends on the way how we interpret the story. As a young believer, I defended YEC teachings and explained that everyone in the story, including the wife of Cain and those persons who could have killed Cain after he left, were children of A & E or grandchildren etc. After my interpretations changed, I started to see that my previous explanations were just attempts to save the doctrine (YEC) I believed in - the doctrine dictated my answers, the answers did not pop up from the biblical scriptures.
Even if all the humans mentioned or assumed in the story would have been offspring of Adam, much relevant must have been left out from the story. Without large gaps in the early history of the children of A & E, the rate of population growth and the emergence speed of innovations (everything that was done must have been novel) would have been very high. The story and what follows does not tell about large harems (without a large harem a male could not get huge numbers of children), so something seems to be missing from what is told.
Anyhow, the questions about the wife of Cain and those who Cain feared were not about ape-like hominids outside the garden. It is about the possibility that other humans lived during the time when A & E lived in Eden. If there were other humans, then A & E probably would not be the original ancestors of all humans. That is not a problem if A & E were mythical characters in the story but it would be a problem if we think that A & E were truly the first pair of humans.
Of course that claim is not. But if the first language-capable human was a male that would be a brute fact, not sexist garbage. Sexist garbage would be to go from that and claim men are superior to women since a male was the first language capable human. Roy, it doesn’t seem to me like there is much effort on your end to engage in an actual dialogue here. I am not interested in scoring points. I’m just looking for strengths and weaknesses in a potential argument for a Biblical first couple that is consistent with science.
And again, it’s the main position in Christianity today and throughout history that Adam and Eve were real and there was an actual fall and original sin of some kind. The author is trying to discuss something else based on this, not prove to you Adam was a real person. But in the 2016 book I also referenced, he does go through scriptural arguments. Because I posted only three paragraphs of an author from a recent summary work, why would you assume that represents the sum total of his belief? Why does he have to justify every side issue for you? Should he also have first explain how we know the Bible we are reading today is textually accurate? Then justify his translation? You are criticizing the author for not addressing side issues he never sets out to in what I specifically quoted.
I see a lot of irony here since there has been very little charity or grace in your responses thus far.
What do you mean a different conclusion? And of course he will have to change some aspects since Aristotle lived 2400 years ago but the core thrust of it Feser seems to accept. And your reference to 'baggage" seems quite pejorative and ungracious. Feser describes his own views well enough:
Chapter 1 defends what I call the Aristotelian proof of the existence of God. It begins with the fact that there is real change in the world, analyzes change as the actualization of potential, and argues that no potential could be actualized at all unless there is something which can actualize without itself being actualized—a “purely actual actualizer” or Unmoved Mover, as Aristotle characterized God. Aristotle developed an argument of this sort in book 8 of his Physics and book 12 of his Metaphysics. Later Aristotelians such as Maimonides and Aquinas developed their own versions—the first of quinas’ Five Ways being one statement of uch an argument. These earlier writers expressed the argument in terms of archaic scientific notions such as the movement of the heavenly spheres, but as modern Aristotelians have shown, the essential kernel of the argument in no way depends on this outdated husk. Chapter 1 aims to present the core idea of the argument as it might be developed by an Aristotle, Maimonides, or Aquinas were they writing today.
I only did that once.The second reference did not refer to you directly. I can admit I jumped the gun on the first one and apologize for the presumptuous thought.
As a Christian (Christ-ian), I do both because of who Jesus is.
You may have held thst opinion, but what evidence is it based on?
A person who is Christian, gets their evidence for the gospel from the Bible…the gospel includes the how and why we are here and in this state of sin, that there is redemption from it. Given that fundamental of Christianity,
How do you ignore what the apostle Paul states in Acts 17:24-27?
He says in verse 26, “from one man he made every nation of men”
That text also causes great problems for the claim that there are two creations i think because it means hominids, neanderthals, any of our supposedly darwinian ancestors who were claimed by these forums to already have been outside the garden in a separate creation…that these arent gentiles. Paul was preaching the Abrahimic tradition as gospel…the historical Adam amd Eve.
Add to that the apostle Peters statement…
2 Peter 2
I think Adam and Eve were the ancestors of the nations mentioned in the table of nations, that is the people of the Mediterranean. I think the Jews had their own ancestors and their own world in mind when writing the mytho-history of Genesis 1-11 even if the theological concepts found withing encompass the whole of humanity.
I also think that Genesis one to the flood mainly covers events that happened in the Persian Gulf Oasis during the Pleistocene which is where Eden was and the Persian Gulf oasis first came above water 70,000 years ago which is when a huge human bottleneck happened. Thus Adam may be the ancestor of all humanity also and this Catholic priests theory wouldn’t necessarily conflict with mine.
No, it doesn’t, and you’re being foolish by demanding it. Adam and Eve as male and female appearing in that order is what is called a “given” in the argument being made, and you don’t have to justify your givens.
Exactly – and Adam (by definition) was male.
No – they’ve approached it as a philosopher, saying, “Given X and Y, what can science say about it?”
It’s implicit in the article.
You seem to be arguing just to be arguing, essentially saying that the philosophical tradition in which the argument was written isn’t valid because it isn’t science. That’s a basic logic error.
This is an interesting view, one I’ve heard a few brief scholarly arguments in favor of. It rests really on the fact that there were and remain peoples/nations outside the parameters of the Table of Nations, e.g. in China or South America.
To run with what Clovis suggested, is it possible the Garden story (second creation account) in Genesis is more localized than we often think? Is it possible the original author was presumably not a monotheist and believed there were many gods that created. Is it possible the account is just describing how the author’s people came to be? The author could very well think other people and tribes were created by their gods if we disconnect the account from Genesis 1 and realize a monotheist did not author it then this at least is a possibility. This account was then later incorporated with other ancient traditions (e.g Genesis 1, flood accounts etc) leading to a more monotheistic view and we get little inconsistencies like Cain being fearful of other people that are left over from the original understanding.
Maybe this is far fetched but I know I have a tendency to read Genesis 1-11 as a whole and through my monotheist lens. Maybe that needs to be unlearned to make sense of a few parts of it.
An origin story edited to read as a creation story? That’s not an unreasonable idea; the toledoth framework could easily have been added!
If you replace verse 4 with the word “Now” as an introduction to the following, the text actually reads more smoothly and appears as a shift in focus (which is how I’ve viewed it ever since I thought about it in the Hebrew). Then it’s a story that basically says, “God made people in the previous story, but now let’s look at some special ones”.
Thanks for the clarification. I am not a member of RCC, so my understanding about the current doctrine of RCC is far from perfect.
You are correct in that the ‘original sin’ is strongly connected to the question of A & E.
Although I do believe that we are born imperfect and with a tendency to rebell against God, I hesitate to call that ‘original sin’. Having a tendency to rebell, being tempted, being born in an environment where we get bad models - none of those are ‘sin’ that dooms a person in front of God. I support the basic lecture of Hesekiel 18: we are doomed because of what we do, not because of what our parents or distant ancestors did.
As I do not think that what A & E did (if they were real physical persons) has much effect on our salvation today, I have no problems in thinking that they might have been mythological characters in an influential story - the basic lessons in the story are more important than the two characters in the story.
Would that be the type of Christian who follows Jesus’ own example versus the type of Christian who uses Jesus for His own gain.
It is one thing to believe as I do that Jesus is God become man. It is quite another to distort His message and teaching to make it all about accepting Jesus’ divinity. I can only see one reason for the latter frankly, and it is not good.
I think the belief that Jesus is God is what defines Christianity. But this is not the same as saying that this is what Christianity is really about. Frankly when “Xtians” do the latter, it tends to cause people to look elsewhere for the truth.
I dont think Adam and Eve were the original pair that spawned the human race. I think Genesis 1 and 2 were largely written as a polemic against other Near Eastern creation stories. Showing one God, the Creator not a multitude of gods etc. Showing a relationship between humanity and God, theyre not his slaves. The sun and moon are not spiritual entities, but objects with functions. I could go on.
I think if we didnt have Genesis, and God decided to inspire someone today to write about origins, it would look quite different, referring to the Big Bang, evolution etc. It would be a writing of our time and our understanding.
Thankfully today many Christians do not believe G1 & 2 are literal histories. Yet many still continue to believe that when the NT refers to the sun losing its light, or the moon turning to blood and the stars falling from the sky, it’s all literal as described in Revelation. It’s not. As Stewie from Family Guy would say, educate yourself!
There’s no reason to think the population couldn’t have fallen below 10,000 individuals, but not as low as 2 individuals, at least not within roughly the last half million years.
I think it highly unlikely that a single mutation was responsible for language and symbolic thinking.
Thank you for your response but I don’t think this really deals with the underlying issue. Not viewing Genesis 2-3 at literal histories is the easy part. Talking snake, tree of life in a magical-like garden, dry land turned into oasis, an anthropomorphic vision of God, parallels to other creation myths, etc… It’s easy to see Genesis 2-3 as polemic against other Near Eastern creation stories or even as a metaphor for Israel during the Babylonian exile.That is all fine. But logically that does not mean Adam and Eve were not real people or that the fall did not occur. I don’t take the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale as historical but I do believe Jonah was still a real person.
At the end of the day, Paul, who Jesus appeared to and specially appointed–who authored much of our New Testament, clearly links Jesus and his atoning work with Adam and Eve. it is very much a possibility that even though Genesis 1-11 is ancient near eastern creation myth, that there really was a primordial couple that sinned causing a fall/original sin. This has been the dominant view held by the vast majority of Christians throughout the history of the Church. For me, Genesis is low hanging fruit. The real issue lies in how we as Christians deal with the fallen nature of humanity and original sin. And if the stance of theistic evolutionists is that evolution rules out the fall/original sin, good luck convincing Christians to see evolution as “good science.” As strong as scientists see the physical evidence for evolution, many Christians see the spiritual evidence for a fallen humanity just as blatantly.
I think that is generally the Catholic position on original sin as well. Our unrepentant sins are what d a m n (censored?) us, not Adam and Eve’s sin. Their sin caused humanity to fall from the original state of grace. The analogy I gave before is a wealthy king and queen who squanders their wealth. Their children lost what would have been theirs. That is a reality of our world. Our behaviors do have real consequences for those around and after us.
I guess I am curious as why you might think “we are born imperfect and with a tendency to rebell against God” without an Adam and Eve? Imperfect is almost tautological. We are not God so that goes without saying. But is this just a general statement? People grow up in selfish environments and model the behavior they see? A by-product of evolution or something more intrinsic to human nature? For me, the only thread keeping me tethered to a possible first couple is what seems intuitively obvious: the fallen nature of humanity that Jesus is the antidote to. We don’t have to be able to explain why humanity is fallen to truly believe and know that it is, but for Paul and virtually all Christians throughout history, A&E have been the answer. Personally, I think once we reject that, we might as well just admit all our doctrine is made up.
You make a lot of good points and thoughts to ponder. My personal position has evolved to think of “original sin” as our inborn animal natures, which when we developed the capacity to act unselfishly and in harmony with God’s will, yet failed to do so, resulted in sin. That inborn nature is what is described by the Bible as “the flesh.” It recognizes both physical evolution and spiritual evidence for a fallen humanity, as you state. I am sure there are holes in that position, as there are in most all theological positions.
First, research has not found evidence for a common ancestor pair of humanity, at least within the last 100’000 years. Genetic diversity suggests that there have all the time lived a minimum of thousands of humans. There are also quite many known fossils of the genus Homo from a very long period, which supports the conclusions that there have lived quite many individuals of this genus throughout the last 100’000 years.
If A&E were a real physical pair living within the last 100’000 years, it is quite questionable how the pair could have caused the whole humanity to fall. Two out of thousands are not the whole humanity, not even if we want to preserve our current doctrine. A royal couple can represent a nation but what they do does not tell that all humans failed.
Second, the story about A&E includes elements that seem to be mythical - for example, the tree, the talking snake, God walking around and shouting ‘where are you?’. It seems very possible that the story does not tell about the real life of two real persons. That does not exclude the possibility that A&E were two actual humans but the story itself seems to be mythologised.
Third, the fact that persons in the biblical scriptures spoke about the story does not tell that everything happened exactly as written in Genesis. It only shows that the story itself is important and was used in teaching. Even if the persons themselves believed it literarily happened (we do not know that), that does not prove that A&E were real persons.
Fourth, the persons ‘dirt’ and ‘life’ may well represent humanity in a mythologised sense. In that case, the story tells a general story about how we humans rebel against the Creator and that has consequences.
Fifth, the story, A&E and the original sin are not mentioned in the Nicene creed. That tells to me that A&E were not considered to be central to the ecumenical Christian doctrine.
Sixth, I do not support the approach that doctrines of particular churches dictate how we must interpret the biblical scriptures. I support the opposite: what is written in the biblical scriptures should guide our doctrines. There is always the problem of correct interpretation but if increased knowledge shows that current doctrines are not ok, then we should correct the doctrine to correspond with the best possible knowledge about the teachings of the biblical scriptures.
Seventh, your last sentence resembles the sentiment of YEC claims. I do not think that you support YEC interpretation but claiming that ‘all our doctrine is made up’ if A&E were not real persons that made the whole humanity to fall does not describe the Christian faith as documented in the Nicene creed.
Paul saw Adam as the first sinner, not the progenitor of a disease or persistant sinning.
Ada The start, Jesus the finish. Nothing ore, nothing ess. Adam does not even have to be real.
If people read the whole passages instead of taking verses on their own they would understand Paul better.
Original Sin never existed other than as the original sin: AKA the first sin.
Paul even goes ont o explain that the answer was greater than the the start. Jesus forgives all sins, not just Adam’s. So why should Adam’s sin persist?
It is folly! And it is specifically taught against by Jeremiah.
