Adam and Eve in an Evolutionary Creationist (and Catholic) View

Some time ago, I wrote a sentence on my blog. The specific sentence, just for the record, actually read: “Things like geological evidence for the flood, and people like Adam and Eve, simply do not (and did not) exist, and the world is far older than the sum of the durations of the genealogies listed in Scripture.”

This is the position I maintain. A question, then, can be posed: is this position compatible with Catholic teaching (especially since I am, myself, a Catholic)?

At first glance, the answer would seem to be "no":

It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents 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 that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “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” (CCC 390).

The first thing to remark upon here is that a separation has to take place — we have to separate doctrine from other statements and writings. Humani Generis is an excellent document, for its part, but it is not a doctrinal statement; being an encyclical, it reflects the opinion of its author — yes, a Pope — only, rather than an official teaching of the Church. Catholic Answers’ own opinion on the matter, as articulated in the first paragraph, is even further from being authoritative.

It’s the last paragraph that is significant, for (being an excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church it is reflective of actual Church doctrine pertaining to the matter of human origins. Because whereas the Pope takes a firm stance, in his articulated opinion, against polygenism, the Catechism leaves the issue more open; it primarily affirms that at the dawn of man, sin came into the world, and that the history of human sinfulness dates back to “our first parents.”

Granted, the Catechism does earlier (in paragraph 375) somewhat define the term “our first parents,” when it says: “The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”. This grace of original holiness was “to share in. . .divine life”.”

But notice how even here, the doctrine pertaining to the nature of Adam and Eve is prefaced with remarks about the “symbolism” of the “biblical language.” And interestingly, the rest of the section of the Catechism which pertains to man, his creation, and his imaging of God, does not speak of Adam and Eve in particular, or even of Genesis 2 in general; it instead tends, and then pronouncedly, to use the language of Genesis 1, which simply describes the creation of humanity — men and women — after all the rest of the world has been fashioned.

This is significant, especially because there are actually two creation accounts in the Book of Genesis. Genesis 2 was, I believe, written earlier than Genesis 1, and the two distinct source texts were later redacted together. But the point is, Genesis 1 actually presents a different creation story than does Genesis 2. This is significant, so keep it in mind, good reader — we’ll come back to it.

In specific regard to “the Fall,” the Catechism teaches exactly what Catholic Answers states, above. Since they make mention of the doctrine of original sin, I think it might serve well to note what the Catechism states about that, as well (in paragraphs 388 and 389): “With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated. Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story’s ultimate meaning, which is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know Adam as the source of sin. The Spirit-Paraclete, sent by the risen Christ, came to “convict the world concerning sin”, by revealing him who is its Redeemer.

The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the “reverse side” of the Good News that Jesus is the Saviour of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.”

There’s an immense amount of “stuff” said in just two paragraphs here, including one point I will table until later. But let’s begin by noting Christ’s role in the above, and in particular let’s pay attention to the assertion that the “ultimate meaning” of the story of the first sin, and of all stories about human sinfulness, “is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

When you think about it, this is a pretty obvious Christian teaching, and can be correlated to the more general teaching that all Scripture points to Christ. As I believe I said once before, if we crack open the Bible and fail to read “let there be light” without understanding that it is meant to somehow point us toward Christ, we are not reading the Bible correctly. From its first word to its last, all of the Bible points us toward Jesus, toward Bethlehem, toward Golgotha, and toward the empty tomb.

Which means, in turn, that all of the Bible points toward the human reality that made Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection necessary: the reality of sin, death, and condemnation.

And there’s the rub: you don’t need a literal Adam and Eve for sin, death, and condemnation to have entered into the world. You simply need human beings, in any quantity. “All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.” That reality does not change whether Adam and Eve were literal people, or simply histographical legendary figures meant to represent, to us, our matrilineal and patrilineal common ancestors. Wherever you have humans, you have sin — wherever the first humans were, there was sin as well.