Pell vs Dawkins: La pregunta sobre Adan y Eva y el pecado original

Last night’s episode of Q&A began and I was all set for the showdown between Richard Dawkins and Cardinal Pell. With tweets in tow I was ready for the banter, arguments and respectful discussion and while there were some excellent points made I was somewhat confused until I had time to reflect on it more. I feel what with Dawkins’ jet lag and Cardinal Pell being put on the spot (I would hate to have been in either of their shoes) that the discussion bordered at times on the confusing. With the relatively minimal exposure to complex Theology that I have had I have nonetheless some appreciation  of what Cardinal Pell was alluding to in his representation of Church teaching on scriptural interpretation, revelation and origins. However I fear that the nuance may have been lost on the audience as seen by the report which appeared today in the Australian newspaper[1].

I intend to explore last night’s episode of Q&A further but for now I wish to reflect on the questions of Adam and Eve and Evolution - which naturally came up in a debate between a world renowned atheist making the study of Evolution his life’s work, struggling to come to grips with Church teaching and the words of the head of the Catholic Church in Australia. 

Adam and Eve. Just Myth?

Adam and Eve? That’s just mythology says Pell. That was the Australian paper’s headline.  And it is easy to see why Pell’s words would have appeared to indicate that when he stated that the story of Adam and Eve is a “very sophisticated mythology to try to explain the evil and the suffering in the world," which is easily misunderstood as indicating a belief that the Genesis account is merely a beautiful "story".

Of course, as every teacher of Religious Education knows the word “mythological” when applied to scriptural texts refers to the particular style used in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which albeit based on true historical events contain figurative language, or “mythological language” in order to convey certain truths and the deeper significance of historical events. Paragraph 390 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which is official Church teaching) clearly states with reference to Genesis 3 for instance that:

390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

It is clear that the official Church teaching, in this one paragraph of the Catechism makes unchangeable the Church’s position on the dynamic between history and “myth” in the theological sense.

Of course Cardinal Pell knows this and that is why he then stated that the Creation story does not reveal a scientific truth but a religious one “told for religious purposes." It also explains what Pell means by science and religion being different realities. As I wrote in a recent blog there are different rays of truth that testify to the Creator; scientific and religious truths are but two of them. (Cardinal Pell referred to this nicely when he commented on the type of evidence that would satisfy Dawkins). When one tweet scrolled at the bottom of the screen asking Cardinal Pell which aspects of his religion then were not mythological I knew that the mainstream public had not understood.

Original Sin? Did it exist then?

I am not surprised that the obvious question came up by Dawkins. “Where did original Sin come from if Adam and Eve never even existed?” The existence of Adam and Eve, who as Pell rightly articulated have symbolic names, and of the transmission of Original Sin, are in fact accepted by the Catholic Church as historical realities regardless of the perception that Cardinal Pell’s limited words produced.

This is obvious in the following paragraphs of the Catechism.

359 "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear."

St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ. . . The first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life... The second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and the name of the first Adam, in order that he might not lose what he had made in his own image. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. The last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: "I am the first and the last."

402 All men are implicated in Adam's sin, as St. Paul affirms: "By one man's disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned." The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men."

416 By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.

417 Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called "original sin".

The Catholic Church and Evolution

Finally, notwithstanding the confusion that currently exists in the Catholic world as well regarding official Church teaching on Evolution (complicated by interpretations of the words of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI) the following magisterial statement makes it very clear where the Church officially stands on the implications of accepting it as an atheistic evolutionary biologist would. 

1. Pope Pius XII made it glaringly clear in Humani Generis which is a magisterial statement.

... 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 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. (cf. Rom 5:12-19; Council of Trent,

Session V, canon 1-4)” (HG 37)

2. In short, an earlier magisterial statement from 1909 (which is of course by virtue of its authority still valid) listed the following 9 required beliefs.[2]

· We are required to believe the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time.

· We are required to believe the special creation of man.

· We are required to believe the formation of the first woman from man.

· We are required to believe the unity of the human race.  [Common parents]

· We are required to believe the original happiness of our first parents.

· We are required to believe the divine command placed upon man to prove his obedience.

· We are required to believe his transgression of that command at the instigation of the

· devil by the serpent [the serpent of course being Satan].

· We are required to believe the fall of our first parents from the state of innocence.

· We are required to believe the promise of a future redeemer.

3. As the Catholic Answers website tract explains, “Concerning human evolution, the Church ... allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul ... it did not evolve... [Under] no circumstances [does the Church permit] belief in atheistic evolution”.[3]

Why this is an issue

Why am I making such an issue of this question? Because I have seen the fruits produced by an unquestioned attitude towards the theory of Evolution when promoted by the dominant atheistic establishment of which Dawkins is a key champion.  Once again we have seen the media taking Cardinal Pell’s comments out of their proper context and this has not helped.

Of course other comments were made on the program that also need explanation which I intend to discuss in later blogs.

Programa completo