Cont'd from the 7QT's about The Big Bang, Evolution, Science, Genesis, heaven and earth and the Bible

Question: But according to science birds are a later development than animals. According to science birds descend from dinosaurs. Yet day 4 has creatures in the seas and birds on the land, "And God said, "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven....Genesis 1:20." and day 5 has animals on land.

Answer: Pterosaurs were the birds of the ancient world. Science has of yet no explanation for their existence. No transitional fossils have been found to account for the existence of pterosaurs.

Question: But Pterosaurs aren't birds.

Answer: That is true, and whales aren't fish but many people consider them fish even today, simply because they inhabit the oceans. In the same way, Pterosaurs can be considered birds.

Question: There are still problems, Day 6, God created man but as yet "..And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.... Genesis 2:5" How does this jive with day 3, 4 and 5.

Answer: Genesis Chapter 2 is a shift in the narrative. It doesn't focus on the creation of the universe and the earth as much as on the creation of man and the infusion of the Holy Spirit.. It is more Spiritual and theological in nature. Suffice to say for now, that Genesis 1 is completely consistent with science in its portrayal of the creation of the earth. In Genesis 1, man is created after the creatures and after the grasses, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.....Genesis 1:26"

HUMAN EVOLUTION VS BIBICAL CREATION OF MAN

Question: Doesn't human evolution contradict the Biblical account of the the creation of man by God?

Answer: No. CCC 366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents....

Pope John Paul II in his Message to Pontifical Academy of Sciences October 22, 1996 said,

Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter the spiritual soul is immediately created by God ("animal enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere inhet"; Encyclical Humani generic, AAS 42 [1950], p. 575).
Catholic Information Network (http://www.cin.org/jp2evolu.html)

Therefore, Adam and Eve's soul was created directly by God. The body evolved by processes put into effect by God.

Question: But science says that man descended from apes, while the Bible says that man was formed out of dust, Genesis 2:7 "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul....."

Answer: Science also says that originally all life came fom some primordial mud. In comparison to God, we are all bits of mud and dirt. The Biblical Narrator may have been referring to some apes as a bit of clay and portrayed God as taking a bit of genetic material from this ape to make Adam.

Note also, that all animals were created out of the ground, Genesis 2:19 "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof....."

Question: So, did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?

Answer: I don't know. To keep the following answers in perspective we must remember that the human soul was (and continues to be) made directly by God and put into Adam and Eve. The human body may have evolved by processes put in place by God or it may have been made directly by God. I can envision the following possibilities:

1. Adam and Eve were both miraculously created by God as fully formed adults. No belly buttons were necessary.

2. Adam was miraculously engendered in the animal from which the genetic material was taken. Belly button necessary. Eve was miraculously engendered from Adam's Rib, cloned so to speak, no belly button necessary.

3. The Rib taken from Adam may symbolize something else, perhaps the genetic material or process that was used to engender Adam. That is, Eve may have been engendered in the same animal or type of animal as Adam. In which case, Eve may be more accurately described as Adam's sister, not his clone. Belly buttons would be necessary for both.

If the body evolved from an animal, this explains our concupiscence, which we will talk about later.

Question: Concupiscence?

Answer: Yes. Man's propensity to sin.

Question: How does any of that work exactly?

Answer: No one knows that answer. But we can speculate for instance, that an ape existed which had evolved to a certain level of intelligence. God took a little dust, a male infant (or an adult), breathed into it and made it into the first man. Then God took a female from the same species and made the first woman in the same way. He then put them in the Garden of Eden.

Question: What is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and why can't Adam and Eve eat of it?

Answer: In my opinion, it isn't a green tree. It is a family tree.

God has forbidden Adam and Eve from participating in an animal society which already existed and from which he is keeping them separate. I am speaking specifically of the animal society from which Adam's genetic material may have been taken.

It is a common theme in the Bible that God was setting His People apart from the heathen world. To be set apart is to be holy. Abraham and Moses and the other Prophets were supposed to keep the Hebrew people holy, set apart from the existing pagan societies which would teach them to sin.

Deuteronomy 7

1When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; 2And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: 3Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

Question: Where is the sin in Adam and Eve wanting to participate in a pre-existing society?

Answer: First, the sin is in disobeying God's command. Next, the sin is in desiring to participate in a life which is not intimately united to God in the way and with the dignity in which Adam and Eve were created. It is the same as rejecting the love of God.

Question: Where does the snake come into all this?

Answer: I prefer to call him the dragon (See Revelations 12). The Dragon, his name is Lucifer, was once the most beautiful of angels, he became jealous of men when he saw that God had clothed himself in flesh and created beings in His image and likeness. He knew that these beings were inferior to him and that he would be called upon to minister to them as all angels are. Therefore he cried, "I will not serve!" He was thrown from heaven to earth and took 1/3 of the angels with him. Then he decided to trick the humans as well. He showed them their family tree and told them they could be like Gods amongst them.

Question: Like Gods? Then Adam and Eve were already prideful!

Answer: No. Notice that Satan worked on the Woman first. He used her good, maternal feelings to make her believe that they could, with their higher intellligence and strength, take care of these poor creatures. Adam and Eve had never known anything but a loving nurturing God and that is what they wanted to be, loving and nurturing towards these creatures which resembled them so much.

Question: Don't most people say that the Original Sin was a sin of the flesh?

Answer: Yes. But I personally don't subscribe to that answer. The entire Bible characterizes the relationship between God and His people as a marriage covenant. Anytime they sin, it is considered that they have been unfaithful. Sin is characterized as adultery.

In this sense, the sin of Eve was an act of adultery. If we go back to the serpent reference we can readily see that the metaphor fits. Satan is depicted as a serpent that has entered the garden. This is the same garden that Adam must till and protect Genesis 2:15 "And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it....." This garden is a metaphor for the Woman.

Question: Where does the nakedness come in?

Answer:

1. Adam and Eve had seen these creatures from afar and had come in for a closer observation. They hadn't realized that, although they were the same color and overall shape, they were different. They were naked, they had no fur. Their eyes were opened and they were ashamed. They realized that these creatures were not human after all. They realized they had sinned in disobeying.

2. Adam and Eve realized they were naked after they had disobeyed God's command. That is, they realized that they no longer had God's protection and like wild animals searched for a place to hide. They had never known fear before, until then.

Question: Who did Cain marry?

Answer: It is important to note first of all that Cain's line did not survive. It was destroyed during the flood.

Note that Cain's age was not specified as to when he married. This suggests that Cain married immediately after he was exiled from his family. If you notice, Cain never repented from his sin and when he left he had not reconciled with God. His soul was dead and he was essentially no better than the animals that surrounded him. Cain united himself to an ape. His children inherited no soul and their behavior illustrates that they fell further and further away from God. Genesis 4, "23And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. 24If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold."

Seth, on the other hand, married within the family. The Spiritual Soul given man by God remained in tact and was passed on by the Sons of God (Seth's line). That is why they are called the sons of God. Genesis 4:26 "And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD."

At that time, the sons of God (Seth's line) began to mix with the daughters of man (Cain's line) and the result was that fewer and fewer men were born with a Spiritual Soul until God had to lament, "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years....Genesis 6:3"

And the only ones who remained blameless in that age were Noah and his sons, who were from Seth's line. Then came the flood and all of Cain's line was destroyed. A new beginning.

Question: So which is it? According to the 1st Creation Story man was the last creature created, but according to the 2nd Creation Story, man was the first creature created. Compare Genesis 1:26, 27 to Genesis 2:1-23.

Answer: Not really. Man was not complete without woman and woman was created last. Also, the 2nd Creation Story has to be understood in an allegorical sense. Even so, it still fits into the scientific theories we have been addressing.

First of all, when God created man from dust before the first bush sprouted, we must understand that God knew from the beginning that He would create man and Creation itself was ordered in that direction. When God put man in the Garden we understand that all plants were created for man. When God created all creatures and Adam named them, we understand that all creatures were made for man (see Genesis 1:28-31). And then God created Woman thereby completing man.

Question: Nope, that is unacceptable. It is a serious flaw in your ideas.

Answer: Genesis 2:8-9 "And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Note in Genesis 2:8-9, that the Garden existed before man and it can be understood that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was already in this garden.

Question: But the scriptures say that God gave all creatures plants to eat, not flesh. How does this relate to Science?

Answer: In an allegorical sense, plants do feed all animals. Flesh eating animals eat plant eating animals and without plants all life as we know it would disappear from this planet.

Question: But death didn't enter the world when Adam sinned. Animals were killing others before man came into being, according to science.

Answer: God is Life. Sin is the separation of man from God. Death is the separation of man from Life.

So it was the introduction of sin in the world which introduced the death of the soul to the world. Since there were no other souls in the world except Adam's and Eve's and they had both separated themselves from God by their sin, then death (of the soul) did enter the world for the first time.

Question: What did God mean "he must not be allowed to eat from the fruit of the tree of life and live forever. paraphrase of Genesis 3:22"?

Answer: He meant, "nothing impure will enter heaven." Revelations 21:27 "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

To "eat from the fruit of the tree of life" means to participate in the life of God. One can not participate in the life of God if one chooses to separate himself from God. That is, if one chooses to commit sin, one separates himself from God.

Notice that Adam and Eve did not immediately repent of their sin. Instead they blamed each other and the serpent. They essentially justified their sin. Therefore they were banished from the presence of God, from paradise.

Question: Who wanted to kill Cain?

Answer: Cain was afraid of the members of the pre-existent family tree. It is scientifically proven that ape societies, gorillas and chimps, even today, attack and kill strangers. Not to mention human societies.

In a sense, Cain was already dead. There is no indication in Scripture that Cain ever regained his soul. Note that Eve is overjoyed to have a 3rd son, Seth, to replace Abel whom Cain killed. Not only had Cain killed Abel but he had effectively killed himself. He was banished fom the ground that had received his brother's blood and could never return. There is tension in the Scriptures between the line of Seth and the line of Cain.

Note that Cain's offspring Lamech bragged that he had killed a young boy and said, "if Cain is avenged sevenfold, I am avenged seventy seven fold." Effectively, Lamech had declared himself God, since God is the one who would avenge Cain, but Lamech avenged himself. Cain's line had descended into hell.

But to Seth a child was born whom he named Enoch and at this time men began to call God by name. Seth's line had ascended towards heaven.

Question: But what is the sin that Adam and Eve committed?

Answer: We can assume that Adam and Eve wanted to do good, because they were good. God said so. They had complete mastery over themselves. Somehow the Serpent (Dragon) tricked them into wanting to be like God. But in what way? All they knew was a loving and nurturing God who had made them in His own image. I assume, they wanted to love and nurture the apes of their family tree and make them into people like themselves,much like we want to love and nurture puppies when we are young.

Question: Surely an excess of love could not be a sin?

Answer: No. But an excess of pride is. Suddenly, where they wanted to love and nurture, pride entered in by way of Satan. Instead of obeying God, they tried to do something independently of God. The Dragon made them forget that without God we can do nothing. They succeeded only in cutting themselves off from God.

Question: So what exactly is the Original Sin and why do we all participate in it?

Answer: You are asking two questions.

1st, what did Adam and Eve actually do to commit Original Sin?

2nd, what are we guilty of? That is, what sin did we inherit from them?

1st, what Adam and Eve did was not an actual physical sin. It was an act of will. They willed something which was not in accord with God's will. By doing so, they separated themselves from God. This is what is known as the original sin.

2nd, what we are guilty of and what we inherited from them is simply the state of being separated from God. We were born in a state of separation from God.

Question: So, what does the apple represent and what does biting the apple represent?

Answer: Its not literally an apple but a fruit. What is the fruit of a family tree but its young. Eve, the Mother of all mankind, saw the young of the pre-existent society and wanted to love and nurture it. The Dragon told her she would be like God amongst these animals. She showed Adam and he felt the same. They believed the Dragon's lie and willed to disobey God. They did not see how they could possibly die amongst these creatures.

Question: So, since we are born in Original Sin, are our souls imperfect?

Answer: No. The CCC 366 states that every "soul is created immediately by God." Therefore our "spiritual" souls must be perfect. The Scriptures say that before we were knit in the womb, God knew us. Jesus says, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.... John 6:63" And Paul says, "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.... (Romans 8:6)"

Here, we are using the words spirit and soul interchangeably. Therefore, we can deduce that sin is not originally in the soul or spirit, but in the flesh.

CCC 365 also says that the union of soul (spirit) and body in man forms a single nature.

At some point, probably conception, the soul is united to the flesh and the sin of the flesh spreads to the soul. Effectively, this cuts us off from God because the soul, before its union with the flesh, is in union with God. Therefore, it is the flesh which causes the spiritual soul to fall and thus we inherit a fallen nature.

Question: But how did sin enter our flesh and stay there?

Answer: The answer is in CCC 377. It says that Adam and Eve had mastery over themselves. In other words, they were created with complete control. But that insinuates that they had something to control. What would that be? Concupiscence and the other faults of the flesh which were already present there but were supernaturally held at bay by the grace of God. This is called "sanctifying grace." However, our parents (Adam and Eve), in deciding to ignore God's command, decided that they didn't want sanctifying grace and lost if for themselves and for us, until Jesus gave it back to us.

Question: But how could sin already be in the flesh if everything that God made is good?

Answer: Consider the animals, they are good, but they are not in union with God to the extent that humans are in union with God. The reason is because animals can't have sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is one of the ways in which Adam and Eve resembled God. Sanctifying grace is what we acquire after Baptism and which washes away our sins. But in animals concupiscence and other weaknesses of the flesh aren't sins, they are simply instincts, because they do not have Sanctifying grace. Animals do not have the spiritual souls to tell them of God's existence and to guide them in His ways. Nor do they have God's laws written in their hearts, nor are they created in God's image, nor do they have free will. It is a sin for us to act like animals, without regard to God who created us because we have all of these.

Question: What is the difference between Eve and Mary?

Answer: The short answer is sin. But more than that, Eve was made from pre-existent matter. The concupiscence was held at bay by God's justification but it was not removed, it was still in the flesh but only contained. Mary's flesh on the other hand was purified by the Blood of Christ before it was joined to the soul and knit in the womb.

Question: Didn't Mary inherit human flesh from her parents?

Answer: Yes, but that human flesh was purified before she was concieved in the womb. It never stained her soul.

Question: Are you implying that Adam and Eve's souls were stained in the womb? Isn't that the same as Original Sin?

Answer: No. Their souls were maintained in a state of justice by the presence of God in whose union they were created. When they abandoned God by disobeying Him, their souls were immediately stained by the flesh which contained the animal instincts which do not recognize God's existence (i.e. concupiscence, our tendency to act as animals, without regard for God.)