Catholics Can Believe in More Than Two Original Parents

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

Simple. Most (if not all) believed it literally, with the exception of St. Augustine, and he subscribed to everything created in an instant, less than a day.

In any case, your idea that Genesis 2 truly contradicts Genesis 1 is Modernist dribble, in my honest opinion. It smacks of the Documentary Theory, the J, E, P nonsense.

Also, there are Catholic creationists, too. Stop thinking that Protestants are the only ones with creationists.

Argumentum ad hominem.

Ad hominem? It isn't so. I've seen this Documentary Theory and it posits what you've stated: Genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other, and so come from different sources. And this is Modernist dribble, according to St. Pius X.

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

It's very simple, Genesis 2 is simply a more detailed account.

No, Genesis 1 is more detailed and things happen in a different order in the two stories.  Read both chapters for yourself and you'll see they are different.  In Genesis 1,  God created man, "male and female he created them," no messing about with Adam's rib.  Genesis 2 has been used to justify treating women as inferior to men, women being made of a spare rib, as it were.

There is no naming of either a man or a woman in Genesis 1. The name Adam doesn't occur until late in Genesis 2 and Eve is only named after they're kicked out of the garden in Genesis 3.  

Also, Genesis 1 makes no specification that only one man and one woman were created.  "Man" can imply "mankind," it's not necessarily singular.

After all, if Adam and Eve were the only people on earth, where did their sons get their wives?
 

Genesis 2 is more detailed in creation of man and woman. And does it always matter that Moses didn't write the history in order? Apparently, you are ignorant of how they wrote their histories. As I stated previously, the Fathers of the Church didn't see any problems, problems which only Modernist scholars brought up, and now infecting other people.

In any case, you can't deny that Adam and Eve were the first parents of the human race.
 

[PilgrimageofGrace]

Profession of Faith of His Holiness Pope Pelagius I
 

I confess that all men from Adam, even to the consummation of the world, having been born and having died with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created, the one from the earth, the other [al.: altera], however, from the rib of man.

   - Henry Denzinger - Enchiridion Symbolorum - The Sources of Catholic Dogma (228a)
 
His Holiness Pope Leo XIII
 

We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of Creation, having made man from the slime of the Earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated, and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time.

   - Arcane Divinae Sapientiae

[StevusMagnus]

Profession of Faith of His Holiness Pope Pelagius I
 

I confess that all men from Adam, even to the consummation of the world, having been born and having died with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created, the one from the earth, the other [al.: altera], however, from the rib of man.

   - Henry Denzinger - Enchiridion Symbolorum - The Sources of Catholic Dogma (228a)
 
His Holiness Pope Leo XIII
 

We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of Creation, having made man from the slime of the Earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated, and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time.

   - Arcane Divinae Sapientiae

1.) Catholics are free to disagree with Denzinger.

2.) Arcane Divinae Saientiae was not a treatise on evolution or Genesis. It was an encyclical on Christian marriage. The Pope simply restates the Genesis story in your quote, he does not decree an official dogma regarding how it is to be understood by all Catholics.

[ggreg]

As I see it, the problem with belief in more than two Original parents is that nobody believes in 3 parents.  What Adam and Eve deniers believe is at least a small tribe of a few dozen biological parents or thousands of slowly evolving hominids who reached some evolutionary stage of self-awareness where they became human.

This makes a mockery of the notion of an "ORIGINAL" sin which stains the offspring of those who committed it equally.  One person can commit a sin (but mammals need a male and female) so that necessitates two.  Two can commit a sin in collusion and share the guilt.  You can easily envision a court case where a husband and wife collude to commit a fraud, or murder their children and hide the bodies.  The husband and wife are tried in court together, since their crime was shared.  You never have a court case where 100 people are tried together and get much the same sentence/punishment (unless it is a kangaroo court in some third-world hell hole).

A tribe cannot be guilty of a sin and share the guilt.  For one thing, some of those in the tribe would be children, babes in arms, others mentally retarded, others near death's door, others pressured by the more powerful members of that tribe to commit the sin under duress.  Even if a tribe committed an Original sin it would not be just of God to punish them all equally and pass the sin onto their children equally unless they equally colluded in the sin.  Thus you would have offspring that were less and more tainted with that sin than others and some possibly not at all.

Two is the only number where Original Sin can be committed and passed on with any justice and meaning.  Without a meaningful Original Sin there is no need for meaningful Christ to redeem one from it.  Thus Jesus to the modern mind just becomes a nice man, a teacher or a spiritual guide because there is nothing, in most people's minds, for Him to have "redeemed" us from.

Mess with Original Sin and the conditions that could have practically brought it about and you undermine the Faith.

[PilgrimageofGrace]

Posted by StevusMagnus
1.) Catholics are free to disagree with Denzinger.

2.) Arcane Divinae Saientiae was not a treatise on evolution or Genesis. It was an encyclical on Christian marriage. The Pope simply restates the Genesis story in your quote, he does not decree an official dogma regarding how it is to be understood by all Catholics.

It is not Denzinger who you are disagreeing with. You are denying a Profession of Faith of Peter. Do you understand what that means?

Your second point has some truth to it. His Holiness is not decreeing an official dogma. Peter is repeating a dogma already well established.
 
It is pointless attempting to argue it. It is there in black and white. Kyrie Eleison.

[Clare]

Also - taking Adam and Eve LITERALLY leaves you with the problem of incest at the root of humanity...

I quoted this on another thread earlier:

From Genesis 4:
 
17 And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and brought forth Henoch: and he built a city, and called the name thereof by the name of his son Henoch. 18 And Henoch begot Irad, and Irad begot Maviael, and Maviael begot Mathusael, and Mathusael begot Lamech: 19 Who took two wives: the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Sella. 20 And Ada brought forth Jabel: who was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of herdsmen.

17 "His wife"... She was a daughter of Adam, and Cain's own sister; God dispensing with such marriages in the beginning of the world, as mankind could not otherwise be propagated. He built a city, viz. In process of time, when his race was multiplied, so as to be numerous enough to people it. For in the many hundred years he lived, his race might be multiplied even to millions.

Really, people - let´s not fall into this protestant trap of literalism!

There's nothing Protestant about believing what Catholics always believed until a century ago.

The bible isn´t MEANT to be a science-textbook,

True. But when a biography describes the grass as green, or the sky as blue, it's stating the truth, even though a biography isn't meant to be a science book! A science book will tell you all about chlorophyll making the grass green. But a non-science book can accurately describe grass as green! And Genesis can perfectly well state the minimum facts without having to be a science textbook about it all!

... and it´s truth is of a different kind, than "The evolution of species"... I DO believe the story in Genesis is true - only, on a different level than the literal.

Any symbolism in Genesis presupposes the historicity of the events recorded therein.

I mean - does anyone here LITERALLY believe, that Adam was created from dust, and Eve from a rib?? If not-where DO you draw the line, if you take it literally?

If you don't believe those things, where do you draw the line? At the feeding of the 5000? I mean to say, a few loaves and fishes, and all those people! Turning water into wine? What about the virgin birth? The resurrection? 

[QuisUtDeus]

I mean - does anyone here LITERALLY believe, that Adam was created from dust, and Eve from a rib??

Absolutely.  And in this case, science approximates knowledge of it, too.  We're carbon-based (i.e., dirt and dust) life forms. 

Why not a rib?  There is a scientific argument for this as well in that Eve would today be considered a "clone" of Adam in that she shared his DNA, albeit altered.  She obtained her DNA from him - not a frog, not a hippo, but from the first human.  God would have gotten her DNA from somewhere on Adam, and a rib is as good a place as any.

I don't see that science and a literal interpretation of Creation are opposed except in that there are many current scientific theories (like evolution) that are inherently flawed.  In fact, the only reason they are widely accepted with little evidence is they're useful tools to deny the veracity of the Bible to the delight of secular humanists.

[StevusMagnus]

Profession of Faith of His Holiness Pope Pelagius I
 

I confess that all men from Adam, even to the consummation of the world, having been born and having died with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created, the one from the earth, the other [al.: altera], however, from the rib of man.

   - Henry Denzinger - Enchiridion Symbolorum - The Sources of Catholic Dogma (228a)
 

Sorry, I did not see that the first quote was from a Pope. Care to cite the full writing where that quote came from? A quote out of context can't really tell us anything.

Even on the basis of the quote alone, one can still say that the soul of Adam and Eve were not born of other parents. And "created from the earth" could mean man evolving from primordial slime over millions of years.

[SemperFidelis]

Sorry, I did not see that the first quote was from a Pope. Care to cite the full writing where that quote came from? A quote out of context can't really tell us anything.

Even on the basis of the quote alone, one can still say that the soul of Adam and Eve were not born of other parents. And "created from the earth" could mean man evolving from primordial slime over millions of years.

From Denzinger:

228a For I confess that all men from Adam, even to the consummation of the world, having been born and having died with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created, the one from the earth, the other [al.: altera], however, from the rib of the man [cf. Gen. 2:7, 22], Will then rise again and stand before the Judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he has done, whether it be good or bad[ Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10]; and indeed by the very bountiful grace of God he will present the just, as vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for glory[Rom. 9:23], with the rewards of eternal life; namely, they will live without end in the society of the angels without any fear now of their own fall; the wicked, however, remaining by choice of their own withvessels of wrath fit for destruction[ Rom. 9:22], who either did not know the way of the Lord, or knowing it left it when seized by various transgressions, He will give over by a very just judgment to the punishment of eternal and inextinguishable fire, that they may burn without end. This, then, is my faith and hope, which is in me by the gift of the mercy of God, in defense of which blessed PETER taught [cf.1 Pet 3:15] that we ought to be especially ready to answer everyone who asks us for an accounting.

- Pope Pelagius I