Last Friday the first reading, from Genesis, recounted the story of “original sin.” It is an event known by various monikers, among which are: “the fall of man,” “the fall from grace,” “paradise lost,” and “eating of the forbidden fruit.” In a post from that day I offered an alternative to our traditional monikers. I suggested that Adam and Eve’s action was not merely a moral failing but an act of defiance against God’s command. They consciously chose to disobey God’s explicit instruction not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was no sinful mistake but an act of rebellion in which their desire to define good and evil for themselves was a rejection of God’s authority.
A new moniker among others…and the point is…? Like father/mother, like daughter/son. Where did we learn rebellion? Or a more pertinent question for today’s reading is where did their son Cain learn to rebel so egregiously against God’s authority? What are we to make of God’s warning to Cain before he murdered his brother: “sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master.”
After the murder, as Cain is being banished to wander the earth, he is worried about others; “‘anyone may kill me at sight.’ “Not so!’ the LORD said to him. ‘If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold.’ So the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight.” What are we to make of this? Where did the “others” come from?
In the 1950 Papal Encyclical Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII opened the doors for theologians to discuss the scientific theory of evolution so long as they held steadfast to the teaching that God alone created the human soul and infused it into man. It was a step to respect both Scripture and science as means in which God reveals God’s self to us.
Current genetic studies indicate that the human species did not originate from a single ancestral pair, a concept known as monogenism. Instead, evidence suggests that humans emerged from a population of at least several thousand individuals. This conclusion is drawn from the extensive genetic diversity observed in present-day humans, which implies a large ancestral population size. This leaves Biblical literalists, who hold to Adam and Eve’s historicity as a couple 6,000 to 10,000 thousand years ago, to argue that God created the world with a set of evidence in order to have us choose either to believe science or the Word of God – but not both. It should be pointed out that genomic science does not have the ability to establish (or rule out, for that matter) the historicity of any particular individual in the ancient past.
After all, Genesis has long been noted to imply that Adam and Eve’s family is part of a larger unrelated population. As mentioned above Cain worries about being killed by others resulting from the consequences of his sin. Later in Genesis Cain leaves to build a city elsewhere, and takes a wife in the process. The fact that Genesis presents these facets of the story without comment or clarification also shows us that the narrative is concerned with more than telling the story of our genetic origins.
From the very beginning of Scripture, we are called to begin to think about questions of the nature of sin and the corresponding original righteousness. Were Adam and Eve perfect? Or simply possessing a quite limited righteousness from which they could “evolve” into a greater righteousness as they continued to know God who walked with them in the cool of the afternoon.
In a faith discussion that accepts evolution one has to wonder if natural selection would have conferred on them tendencies for behaviors that favored passing on of their genes. Competition for resources and breeding opportunities would have led to behaviors that, for moral agents, would be sinful. When they were first somehow made aware of God and God’s will for them, a call to trust and obey God would have been in tension with their instincts.
It seems instincts won and the rebellion spreads.
Image credit: detail of Cain and Abel | Titan, 1544 | Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, Venice | PD-US