Reddit mentions of In the Beginning…': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (Ressourcement: Retrieval and Renewal in Catholic Thought (RRRCT))

Catholicism has a long tradition of philosophers and theologians interpreting the beginning chapters of Genesis as true in the sense that great works of literature are true. St. Augustine, widely recognized as one of the greatest theologians, argued that the first day could not coherently be understood as literal since "day" and "night" require the existence of the sun, which according to Genesis was created days later.


Catholic doctrine, as currently developed, would allow from someone to believe that species originate from evolution. It would, however, make the exception that the human soul was directly created by God and cannot be reducible to material causes.


If you're interested in learning more about a Catholic perspective, you could turn to these sources:

Austriaco, Thomistic Evolution https://www.amazon.com/Thomistic-Evolution-Catholic-Approach-Understanding-ebook/dp/B0744LRNNP/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=evolution+catholic&qid=1557974519&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Ratzinger [Pope Benedict], In the Beginning https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Catholic-Understanding-Ressourcement-Retrieval/dp/0802841066/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=ratzinger+creation&qid=1557974569&s=gateway&sr=8-1

This thread has been around for a few hours so I'm afraid this comment might get buried, but since nobody who has commented so far on this thread is actually Catholic, I'll bite.

There are a few fundamentals that need to be cleared up before I can progress to considering the four questions you posed.

Firstly, I am not sure as to whether or not Catholics are actually required to believe in the existence of a literal Adam and Eve. Though in Humani Generis Pius XII wrote that the faithful were to affirm the historicity of "a sin truly committed by one Adam," John Paul II made no mention of a historical Adam and Eve in his "Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution" (typically when a pontiff disagree with previous pontiffs, they do not call them out directly, but rather omit that with which they disagree from their own teaching).

The story of Adam and Eve is meant to implicate all humanity: before the fall they do not even have proper names but are rather referred to in the Biblical text simply as "man" and "woman" (seriously, go take a look). It is, then, entirely correct to affirm that these two literary characters, this primordial couple who disobeyed the will of God represents all humanity. Whether or not we can therefore claim that the story is completely allegorical and that Adam and Eve as such did not exist is beyond my competence, but for my part I do not think that the belief that they exist is technically required.

Secondly, original sin is a descriptive term for the fact that human beings are born with something deficient in their wills. This fact is obvious: human nature includes a desire to seize, possess, to advance the interests of the self over the interests of others, to elevate the ego (as Augustine observes in his Confessions). This, I think, is indisputable, and this deficiency, this willingness to prioritize the self over other people and over the good, is precisely what the term "original sin" means. The word "sin" in the term "original sin" does not mean that people are born with personal sin, that people enter the world already guilty of wrongdoing; rather, the word "sin" refers to a condition in which not everything is as it should be, in which something is lacking.

1. Evolution might have happened randomly, but at some point beings existed that had rational capacity and thus also the capacity for moral action (morality being a function of reason). Rational capacity, though perhaps a product of biological processes, presupposes the ability to act against instinctual urges for the sake of what one knows cognitively to be right. Thus evolution cannot be thought of as abjuring choice: if we have evolved to be rational creatures in a non-deterministic universe (as the Church believes we are), then the rational capacities we evolved necessarily entail our freedom in making our own choices.
   
   Perhaps the greatest revelation that Christianity brought into the world, the greatest "religious innovation," so to speak, is this notion that God is love. God wishes us to be united with him in love and does not wish to punish. Yet love to be real must be freely chosen; a love that is forced is by its very nature not love. If God allows us to participate in his being by loving, he is required to give us the choice of not loving.
   
   Thus I think the "sin" component of "Original Sin" is entirely coherent. The difficulty lies instead with the "original" aspect—how exactly is it that previous sin entails that the rest of us also enter this world in a state in which something is lacking in our wills? I am not entirely sure (and the Catechism itself says that "the transmission of original sin is a mystery"), but my personal theory is that any sin, by its very nature as a turning-away from God, effects a separation between the physical and the divine realms such that when sin entered into the physical world, the physical world became imperfect. If this realm of existence has become tainted, we who come after the tainting enter a world of imperfection, of lackingness and thus are conceived in lackingness. Something—some element of salvific grace proper to the divine realm—is missing.
   
   
2. Even if early humans "had less thinking capacity," their status as rational animals made them moral agents. According to Thomas Aquinas, conscience itself is an act of the intellect by which a human being can judge the morality of an action, and thus morality depends upon intellect, upon knowing.
   
   Perhaps the point at which human beings became capable of obeying or disobeying God was the point at which one of our ancestors was capable of giving him- or herself fully away, of surrendering himself not for his own good (and not for the survival of his genes either; as Dawkins brilliantly observed before he dabbled into fields beyond his competence, it is the gene that is truly selfish and thus we can observe seemingly "altruistic" behavior in animals like bees, who sacrifice themselves to protect their kin and thus perpetuate their genes even though they die) but rather for the good. The point at which a human being was able to surrender him- or herself for a good cause simply and exclusively because it was the right thing to do seems to be the point at which true love becomes possible, and thus relationship with God as well.
   
   Says Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI:
   
   > The clay became man at the moment in which a being for the first time was capable of forming, however dimly, the thought of "God". The first Thou that—however stammeringly—was said by human lips to God marks the moment in which the spirit arose in the world. Here the Rubicon of anthropogenesis was crossed. For it is not the use of weapons or fire, not new methods of cruelty or of useful activity, that constitute man, but rather his ability to be immediately in relation to God. This holds fast to the doctrine of the special creation of man ... herein ... lies the reason why the moment of anthropogenesis cannot possibly be determined by paleontology: anthropogenesis is the rise of the spirit, which cannot be excavated with a shovel. The theory of evolution does not invalidate the faith, nor does it corroborate it. But it does challenge the faith to understand itself more profoundly and thus to help man to understand himself and to become increasingly what he is: the being who is supposed to say Thou to God in eternity.
   
   -Ratzinger, In the Beginning...
   
   
3. For this question I have no concrete answers, but I can offer some thoughts.
   
   Firstly, God is timeless. Therefore the span of time between the creation of the universe and the appearance of the first rational/moral agent is of no consequence.
   
   Secondly, it appears that this universe is unusually conducive to life. Now, I'm a theologian, not a physicist, and so I may be talking out of my ass here, but as Martin Rees writes in Just Six Numbers there are six fundamental constants that "constitute the 'recipe' for a universe," such that if any one of them were even slightly different, this universe would be utterly incapable of producing the advanced forms of life capable of rational inquiry and moral reflection that are relevant to our discussion. For example, the value of the fundamental constant ε is 0.007, and "if ε were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist." Thus I don't think we can say that this is the case of a "laissez-faire" creator; rather, it would seem that this creator ensured that rational beings would eventually come to exist in the universe that he created and that we were thus intended.
   
   Thirdly, God does not disappear from the scene at the point at which beings are capable of acknowledging him. He makes his presence known and is active in history (and with the incarnation he even enters history).

I suppose it will surprise you to know that the largest church in the world accepts evolution.

A lot of responses I've seen aren't being particularly sensitive about this.

I think the best answer was by /u/Panta-rhei. (permalink)

But I'll just add a couple of good resources I think you should check out. Because if the Bible is true and the author of Genesis meant to relate a scientifically testable account of the origins of the material universe, we would have to be very, very cautious about accepting "evidence" that contradicted it.

But I really don't think that was the author's intent. The account of creation given in Genesis is the inspired word of God. It is therefore true. But it isn't meant to give us the kinds of answers to questions about how or when the world was created. That isn't its intent.

So what is it's intent.

Here are the resources:

"The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate" by John Walton

"The Survivor's Guide to Theology"
by M. James Sawyer

(This book gives an excellent account of the origins of Creation Science in the 20th Century with Henry Morris and all the rest -- the book is expensive but it's well worth the money.)

Finally, after you've become comfortable with the understanding of Genesis proposed by John Walton, I might recommend Peter Enns' blog.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/

These are all Protestant/Evangelical sources. If you're up for learning something about what the Church believes about Origins I could point you Joseph Ratzinger's (Pope Benedict XVI) book, "In the Beginning…': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall" by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

I hope all this helps. God bless.

Really? There are like five other posts on the front page discussing this. I don't want to be mean but we discuss this almost every single day, multiple times a day.

From now on I will just link to this:
http://www.amazon.com/In-Beginning-Understanding-Ressourcement-Retrieval/dp/0802841066

Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning.... It says it's a 'Catholic' understanding of creation and the fall, but really it's just good theology for everybody. Super accessible too.

Check this out at Amazon.com
In the Beginning...': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall by Pope Benedict XVI
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802841066/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_mC7HDbE4NYXZ7

Benedikt podrzava evoluciju, on je sam napisao jos osamdesetih da teorija evolucija je znastveno objasnjenje nastanka covika i da knjiga postanka nije znastveno niti povjesno djelo. Covik je napisa cilu knjigu o tome.

https://www.amazon.com/In-Beginning-Understanding-Ressourcement-Retrieval/dp/0802841066/?tag=ththve-20

U toj istoj knjizi napada kreacionizam koje podvalju uglavnom americki protestanti kao budalistinu.

I onda sad on meni dolazi tu i govori kako to nisu nikakva naklapanja, ma daj.

As a resource, try Joseph Ratzinger's 'In the Beginning...': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall.

These are some of the books that I've enjoyed for spiritual reading (but it's hard to separate the books I've enjoyed as theology from spiritual readings some times!):

• Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, and Bread in the Wilderness
  
• Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary
  
• Pope Benedict XVI, The Infancy Narratives, In the Beginning, and Church Fathers
  
• Augustine, Confessions

Two things missing from your description of the issue are trust and hope. From a Christian perspective, the battle has already been won at the resurrection (while we also look ahead for Jesus to come again in glory). Ultimately there is no way of proving to anyone that the life of the world as it is being lived out is "enough" for God, believing that we are loved takes faith. One non-blog source that's direct is if you are able to get your hands on a copy of This book by the Pope about Genesis and flip through to the part where he's addressing Hegel (the whole thing is good). Wikipedia or stanford encyclopedia of philosophy search Hegel to get a gist, in all likelihood you'll have come into contact with somebody who thinks along the lines that he does. Basically what the Pope says is that the movers and shakers of western thought for the last one hundred and fifty years or so have been enthralled with a way of thinking that makes it cool to take things for granted, and to not trust anything.

The way that people talk about it, trusting always leads to complacency and not having all of one's bases covered. The smartest people, it is said, don't trust anything and question all of the time. This is the way that "curiosity" is popularly conceived. Hundreds of years ago, "curiosity" in terms of a zeal for understanding would have been characterized as simply a love for studying this or that subject, growing out of the way that that subject is embodied in the world (i.e. someone's motivation for studying astronomy comes from the beauty of the night sky etc). Curiositas on the other hand, was about having a body of knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep; to use learning to avoid thinking about one's own life. In the time when this was vocabulary that people used to talk about scholarship, the smartest people weren't the least secure, checking over again all of the time, and constantly pointing out others mistakes, flipping out and thinking everybody thinks I'm stupid when I make a mistake.

I'm not dumping on academics, I think that the best professors and such nowadays approach learning the same way, but at the same time, I think there has been a slight shift in the way that learning is understood popularly, and I think that it involves being less secure than is necessary. This is the sort of thing that Benedict was talking about. You've got to trust that the way one's life proceeds normally, doing one's best to throw one's self into doing what makes sense for one's self and one's community is enough for God. Now, I mean that in a specific sense, what we offer to God doesn't have the faintest merest hope of off-setting what He does for us. On the other hand, as we see in the new testament with the tax collector and the pharisee in the temple, if we offer what we can to God, saying "only say the word and I shall be healed," we are doing what is right. I guess that is the meaning of existence to me.

Edit: have you ever met any Mennonites? I'm not Mennonite, but I think they're great, and I think if you ever spend time in Pennsylvania, USA or Alberta, Canada, you might be able to gain some confidence that when this stuff is lived out that it works.

Here’s the best treatment I know of from the theological side.

In the Beginning...': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall

It discusses that the point of the Creation narrative is to tell us something about God and man, that we are to see it Christocentrically, and that the Bible itself sees it as a developing narrative not a literal account.

I’m still finishing it but I think he argues the first 11 chapters of Genesis are and were understood to tell us something about God rather than being literal history in the strict sense.

It's not a Catholic book, but if you want to go the 'not pushy' route, I would suggest something like C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce—something that gives a little bit of a taste of broader Christian theology, but that isn't itself overwhelmingly doctrinal (since I know that many non-believers tend to react quite forcefully against that kind of thing).

If you want to be more explicitly doctrinal but still just want to give a kind of inviting teaser into greater mysteries, I would recommend picking up a short topical work in theology. Something, perhaps, like Ratzinger's 'In the Beginning…': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall.

Otherwise there's always Bishop Barron's Catholicism.

>Though, FWIW, if you were previously aware of certain minority scholarly opinions on the matter, this does seem somewhat at odds with your earlier claim to be totally unfamiliar of any such opinions

You can find a mention of all sorts of theories on Catholic doctrine--particularly when it comes to Pius XII. To use programming vernacular: that's a feature, not a bug. In my own concentration I have found a few hundred bizarre opinions on Pius XII, but if they're held by a scant handful of relatively non-influential people I generally discard them.

>I actually have no real allegiance to one argument or another. Apparently I had forgot to send this reply, but at some point I had written

I don't remember seeing this before and I appreciate your sentiments. My goal was to be specific with word choice, as infallibility is a tricky yet specific circumstance for Catholic doctrine. Also, I'm not a theologian--I have a history degree, but no skill in Latin and no expertise in Canon law whatsoever. What I have is a grasp on Pius XII's papacy and a pretty decent understanding of how the historiography of the various acts in his papacy has evolved (if a bit of humor will be excused) over time. While I disagree with your interpretation of Humani Generis, yours is a fairly commonly held reading--my objection was over the usage of "infallibility."

>actually to seek a more precise definition of "infallibility" itself.

The aforementioned comments by Ratzinger might be as close as you'll get on the subject as far as a definitive statement from the Vatican. As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time, even Ratzinger doesn't spell out a definition in a paragraph. This goes back to the nature of infallibility, as well as the feature/bug discussion. An infallible teaching is a very big deal, as it does "silence dissent." That's a feature, not a bug. To use Pius XII's words, it's a monument.

So, let's consider that this is a good thing (there are plenty who disagree, both inside Catholicism and outside it). We can now point to a thing that all Catholics have to agree on. But in Ratzinger's article there isn't a complete list. Why? I mean, he was the head of the CDF for a couple decades, he led the creation of the latest Catechism of the Catholic Church, and he's one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the second half of the 20th century. Surely he could whip up a list in ten minutes, right? Well, the other side of the coin is that when such an infallible statement is defined there is a risk of alienating Catholics who aren't in full agreement with it. So there's a tension between definition and accommodation (to use a poor word, but I can't think of a better one). The question of what exactly is absolutely required as an article of faith is not fully defined--some articles are, and then there are varying degrees of just how much is required. Only a scant few--Ratzinger's paragraph is as long a list as you'll find and there's no mention of evolution--are required absolutely.

To introduce a complication that may possibly confuse the issue further, Ratzinger wrote a book on Genesis. I haven't read the whole thing, but I've read excerpts of his comments. His analysis doesn't flat-out reject Humani Generis, but it doesn't fully agree with it either. Ratzinger obviously felt he had enough wiggle room to voice his opinions on the subject despite the existance of Humani Generis section 37 (and the rest of the document). I would argue that Ratzinger saw wiggle room that you do not.

For an official definition of infallible statements I don't think you'll find anything more explicit than Ratzinger due to the Vatican's caution on this subject. For defined infallible statements you'll find the two Marian definitions and Ratzinger's list. The Catechism (particularly 888-892 for infallibility) is normally where you'd go for current official Vatican definitions, but that has Ratzinger's fingerprints all over it and it avoids a strict definition also.

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Evolution and religion (including the concept of infallibility) are often issues that can be veritable powder kegs, even with active moderation like this sub thankfully features. I am glad we have been able to have a civil discussion on these topics, and I hope we have not placed undue stress on the moderators in the process.

I haven't read it myself, but maybe In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and The Fall by Benedict XVI would be helpful for your questions?