It was previously noted that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 give two separate accounts of creation. Without getting into too deep a discussion of this fact, let's just note that Genesis 1 (which, confusingly, was written more recently) gives a fairly general account in which humanity is simply created “male and female” (no detail is given in regard to how many men or women were made initially). Genesis 2, on the other hand (written at an earlier point in history), actually features a rather inverted order of creation, with man being made first and foremost (before anything else save the Earth proper (and woman being made second-last (if we account for the spontaneous creation of thistles in Genesis 3), after all other plant and animal kinds.
This is significant for two reasons. First, it points us toward a Scriptural basis for asserting that polygenism is actually an acceptable opinion, theologically, for a Catholic to hold, given that the creation account in Genesis 1 leaves open the question of how many men and women were initially created. Second, the existence of two accounts serves as a sort of hermeneutical clue left for us by the Spirit to assist in how we interpret the Genesis accounts (Genesis 2-3 in particular).
Taking the opening of the Book of Genesis as a literal account of history, we face a contradiction very quickly: Genesis 1 asserts an order of creation that is plainly contradicted by the order of creation asserted in Genesis 2. That alone should be enough to give us pause, and I submit that it should further be taken as an indication that the strictly literal interpretation is not the one we are meant to follow.
If we look at Genesis 1-3 as a whole, there is an alternative interpretation that becomes visible, and then one which both fully preserves the divine, theological message of the text while still treating the incidental stories that serve as the vehicle for the message with a very proper respect that affirms their utility and inclusion in the Bible. Genesis 1 very clearly articulates a message of God’s creatorship, which is echoed in Genesis 2 as a preface to an ancient attempt at theodicy (from Dictionary.com: “a vindication of the divine attributes, particularly holiness and justice, in establishing or allowing the existence of physical and moral evil.”)
And in fact, Genesis 2 actually points us in the direction of a teaching which, pace what the Catechism asserts, is revealed only “in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The early Hebrews “tried to understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the fall narrated in Genesis,” but “they could not grasp this story’s ultimate meaning” at the early point in their history at which the oral traditions informing the stories that we have come to know as the Genesis creation accounts were recorded in written form, because Christ was not yet in the world. And yet, from Scripture, we know that even at this early state, Christ’s coming birth, death, and resurrection were being indicated and pointed to.
There is a verse which is sung only once a year, at the Easter Vigil Mass, which (I quote from memory) goes: “O happy fault! O blessed and necessary sin of Adam, which has won for us so great a Saviour!” This verse actually says much more than it appears to, for it illustrates how Christianity is actually, from an apologetic perspective, fundamentally immune to criticism premised on the “problem” of evil, suffering, and/or death.
And this, in turn, is the teaching that Genesis 2 is pointing us toward, even as it attempts for itself to present something which Christianity renders needless: a theodicy, an early explanation for how it could be true both that God is mighty and good, and yet that evil is present in the world and that man is sinful.
And the best part of this is that the “happy fault,” the “blessed and necessary sin” that has won us so great a Saviour, doesn’t require that Adam was a literal person in history (despite Adam’s mention in the sung verse). All that is required, pace Genesis 1, is that humanity came into being, precisely because “all have sinned” and, moreover, because all do sin.
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