Chapter XLIII. The origin of man
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HESE final three chapters treat of man’s origin, man’s elevation to the supernatural order, and man’s fall." The present chapter considers the question of man’s origin.
First ARTICLE
THE CREATION OF OUR FIRST PARENTS
State of the question. The materialists and positivists try to explain the origin of man, with regard to body and soul, by the natural laws of evolution without any intervention from God the first cause. This theory proposed by Huxley and Darwin, called absolute transformism, is, as we have shown earlier in considering the production of the corporeal creature, in open contradiction to both faith and reason. According to it more is produced by less, and the more perfect comes from the less perfect in opposition to the principle of causality. Besides this, the order of the world and the finality of beings demands that there be a first intelligent cause and that this cause should intervene in the production of matter, of vegetative life, of sensitive life, and of intellective life. Mitigated transformism admits all this, but many of its supporters do not admit God’s special intervention in the formation of man’s body to make it fit for supersensitive life, as if natural evolution were sufficient to account for the formation of man’s body.?
The Catholic teaching. The direct creation of the soul from nothing is a dogma of faith according to the universal teaching of the12
Church; * and according to the common teaching of the Fathers and theologians the body of the first man was formed by a special action of God directly from the slime of the earth without any transformation of species. On June 30, 1909, the Biblical Commission declared that the literal sense of the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis cannot be called into doubt with regard “to the peculiar creation of man and the formation of the first woman from the first man.” *
Sacred Scripture tells us: “And God created man to His own image: to the image of God He created him: male and female He created them”; 5 “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life”; © “He took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman” (Gen. 2:21 f.). The Hebrew text conveys the same sense. The obvious meaning is that Adam’s body was formed directly from the slime of the earth, not through succeeding periods by the transformation of species, and that the body of Eve was formed from Adam’s rib. Moreover, the words “breathed into his face the breath of life” refer to direct action by God, without the interposition of the progressive evolution of plants and animals. Hence Leroy, Bonomelli, and Zahn, who defend the opposite opinion as probable, are not on firm ground.
The Fathers and theologians, with the exception of Origen, Cajetan, and a few others, are almost unanimous in their interpretation of the teaching of the Bible on the formation of the bodies of our first parents.’
Confirmation of reason. Between man and the animals close to him, such as the ape, we find essential differences not only with respect to the soul but also with respect to the body. Beings that are essentially so diverse cannot come from the same parent.* Physically, the apes are equipped with four hands (quadrumanual), whereas man has only two, and because of this men and apes do not walk in the same way. We also find a great difference in the facial angle of men and apes; similarly the brain is differently evolved in man and
7 Ibid., 2:21 f. Cf. Rouet de Journel, op. cit., index theol. nos. 225 f. for texts from St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Aphraates, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Augustine.
® Cf. De Quatrefages, L'espèce humaine (1878); Dict. apol., art. “Transformisme.”
ape. Man enjoys the faculty of speech for the clear and distinct expression not only of sensations and emotions but also of ideas and judgments; the ape lacks this faculty. Above all things, man alone of all animals possesses reason, he knows necessary and universal principles, the ideas of being, truth, goodness, justice, moral beauty, religion, and holiness, which are manifestly above the senses. Animals know only the individual and they are incapable of intellectual, moral, and religious life.
For these reasons many transformists today admit that man did not come from the ape, but that both descended from some remote common parent. Such a common parent, however, left no trace in the geological strata.
It does not seem absolutely repugnant that God should infuse into an animal organism the power by which it might gradually be changed into the human organism. But that is a purely gratuitous hypothesis, destitute of any basis in fact, and contrary to the literal sense of the biblical narrative.®
St. Thomas shows that the human body was produced directly by God and admirably equipped to serve the rational soul and its operations, that is, the human body is excellently equipped for sensitive life, which in turn serves the intellectual life.*° Although man lacks horns, claws, and the furry covering of the animal, he has in their stead reason and hands. So also man’s posture is erect with face uplifted to consider all things; the animal is inclined to the earth as if its only concern were the quest for food.
St. Thomas also points out why man is said “to be made to the image of God.” ** Man is the true image of God by reason of his intellectual nature. He was made by God Himself in the image of God’s intellectual life and thus he is able to know and love God as God knows and loves Himself. This image is, of course, imperfect; only the Son of God is the perfect image of the eternal Father. Properly speaking, irrational creatures are not made to the image of God, for although they resemble God in their being or in living, they are not like God in intellection. More perfectly than man, the angels are images of
God.
God’s image can be seen in man in three ways: 1. inasmuch as
® Cf. Dict. de la Bible, Supplement, art. “Adam et la Bible.” 10 Summa theol., Ia, q.91, a. 1, 2, 3- 11 Jbid., q.93; Gen. 1:26.
man possesses the ability to know God; 2. inasmuch as man knows and loves God supernaturally by faith and charity; 3. inasmuch as man perfectly knows and loves God in the light of glory and in the charity of heaven.
When some of the Fathers say that the image of God is destroyed is man by sin, they are referring to the image that was produced in the re-creation of grace.
Lastly, man is an image of God even with regard to the Trinity of persons, inasmuch as man in understanding himself produces a word and by loving himself produces love, and this image is enhanced in man when by knowing God he produces a word and by loving this word produces love.*?
THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE
State of the question. In opposition to the Scriptures and tradition, the Preadamites, led by Isaac de la Peyrere (1655), denied the unity of the human race and taught that some men existed before Adam, and that Adam was the father of the Jews but not of the Gentiles.” The Coadamites held that many human families existed contemporaneously with Adam.
The revealed doctrine. According to Holy Scripture the entire human race had its origin in the one protoparent, Adam. This truth is an article of faith.
We are speaking here of our earth and of the human race that is on this earth. If some indulge in the hypothesis that there are rational creatures on the stars or planets, or that other men existed on our earth before Adam and were extinct before his creation, many theologians hold that such gratuitous assumptions do not affect the teach- ing of faith. According to Genesis no men existed when Adam was created: “And there was not a man to till the earth. . . . But for Adam there was not found a helper like himself.” ** Eve is called the mother of all the living; ** and Adam is called the father of the human race.’®
St. Paul says: “And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth”; "7 “Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.” +° That is: all men are born with the stain of original sin because all derive the same nature infected with sin from the same head.
This is the common teaching of the Fathers, especially of Lactantius, St. Ephrem, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine.”
Confirmation by reason. We find various signs of specific identity in all men of whatever race or color. As Quatrefages points out,”° we find the same anatomical structure, the same physiological functions, the same laws of generation, unlimited fecundity in the marriages contracted between various races of men, the same faculty of speech, the same power of reasoning, and the same moral and religious sense. Differences in color, brain capacity, facial angles, or idiom, are not substantial but only accidental, as ethnographers admit.”?
From paleontology and geology we now know that man is much older than was thought formerly, but there is still a great difference of opinion about the precise epoch when man appeared on earth. On this point the Scriptures are silent, and the Church has made no declaration.
THE PRODUCTION OF THE HUMAN SOUL
State of the question. With regard to the body the human race is propagated by generation. But what is the origin of the intellective soul of the infant? Some say that the soul emanates from God; others like the Origenists and Priscillianists, teach the pre-existence of human souls, or that the human soul is a spirit per se and that God created all souls in the beginning. According to the traducianists, the human soul is produced from the substance of the parents; according to some from the corporeal semen, according to others directly from the souls of the parents. This latter theory is called generationism,
20 Quatrefages, op. cit.
21 Dict. apol., art. “Homme”; Goury, L’origine et l'évolution de Phomme.
taught by Tertullian. At one time St. Augustine inclined to this theory. In our day Frohschammer held that the soul is created by the parents by a special power given them by God; Rosmini held that the sensitive soul is created by the parents and that this soul by the illumination of being later becomes intellective.
The Catholic doctrine, called creationism, is that human souls are created by God when they are infused in the body. Peter Lombard said: “The Catholic Church teaches that souls are infused in the bodies and are created in the infusing.” ° St. Thomas, in presenting three opinions: generationism, pre-existentianism, and creationism, said: “The first two were condemned by the judgment of the Church and the third was approved.” ?* Other Scholastics use similar language.
Sacred Scripture supplies the basis for this teaching: “And the dust return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit return to God, who gave it.” *4
The Fathers in general hold the doctrine of creationism.” Their teaching is that the soul does not exist prior to the body, that it is not educed by generation, but that it is created by God.
The Church condemned as heretical the teaching that the soul is produced by the parents from the seed,”* as well as the doctrine that “the human soul of the son is propagated from the soul of his father.” °? Origen’s teaching of the pre-existence of the soul was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (553): “If anyone shall assert the fabulous pre-existence of souls, let him be anathema.” %8 Finally Frohschammer’s opinion was condemned by Pope Pius IX on December 11, 1862, and Rosmini’s teaching was condemned by Pope Leo XIII.”
Taking these declarations together we see that the human soul is not derived from the substance of God, is not generated by the parents, does not evolve from a sensitive soul to an intellective one, but is cre-
25 Cf, Rouet de Journel, op. cit., index theol., nos. 222 ff. for texts from Lactantius, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. ilary, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Cyril of Alexandria.
ated by God from nothing, not prior to the formation of the body but when it is infused into the body. The Church has also declared that the human soul is a substance,° that it is not one in all individuals,* but one in each individual,” and that it is not naturally good or evil
Proof from reason.** 1 The soul is not a part of the divine substance. Some have advanced the theory that God is a certain corporeal light and that a part of that light is the soul bound to the body. This is impossible because God is pure act and purely spiritual, having no diversity in Himself, and therefore there is nothing in Him from which the soul could be produced as from a material cause. God cannot be a material cause to be perfected, nor an informing and participated formal cause; He is only an extrinsic cause, that is, an efficient and final cause.*°
The soul cannot come from the human seed. “It is impossible that the active power that is in matter can extend its activity to produce an immaterial effect. It is obvious that the intellective principle in man is a principle that transcends matter, for it has an operation in which the body does not communicate.” *° In other words, the human soul is intrinsically independent of the organism in its specific operation, and therefore in its being, and also in its own production.
The soul of the infant cannot come from the souls of the parents by emanation because the soul is a simple substance, without parts, from which nothing can be taken. Nor can the soul come from the parents by creation because the creative power belongs to God alone.**
The soul of the infant therefore is directly created by God from nothing, that is, from no presupposed being, at the time it is infused. The parents are not even the instrumental cause of this special creation; they only dispose the matter of the embryo to receive the spiritual soul. The ultimate disposition is produced in the instant when the soul is created and infused, and this ultimate disposition is
from God. But the parents are rightly said to generate a human being because from their own substance they produce the body of the infant disposed in such a way (the penultimate disposition) that by virtue of a law of nature the creation and infusion of the soul necessarily follow. The parents are said to generate a human being because in this way by generation they transmit human nature.
Nor can it be admitted that intellective souls were created at the beginning of the world and that the soul is accidentally united to the body as a punishment for some fault. As St. Thomas says: “From this it would follow that man constituted by such a union would be a being per accidens, or that the soul is the man, which is false.’ That the human soul is not the same in nature as the angels is seen from the fact that they have different modes of intellection.” * The human soul has the lowest kind of intellection, corresponding to the lowest kind of intelligible being, namely, that which is in the shadow of sensible things.
Footnotes
Chapter 44 of 46