The MOST Theological Collection: The Living God
"III. Creation"
1. Philology The word bara could be used broadly, for making. Cf. use in Numbers 16. 30; Isaiah 4. 5;41. 20. Yet even philologically, from context, it is more likely making out of nothing. Notes on the New Translation of The Torah, ed. Harry M. Orlinsky (Jewish Publication Society, Phila. 1969) p. 51: "The implications of the new translation ["When God began to create"] are clear. The Hebrew text tells us nothing about 'creation out of nothing' ( creatio ex nihilo), or about the beginning of time.... the first thing God did when He created the universe, as ancient man knew it, was to create light.... light ('or) was the first element to receive a name (that is, official existence) from God."
However, the translation given by Orlinsky seems not to have been known earlier than Rashi (Rabbi Shelomoh Ben Yishaq) - 1040-1105 AD. The rendering "when... began" which some claim, are justified thus: The Hebrew of the first words is: Bereshith bara. The question turns about that first word: Is it really two words: be reshith, as the usual translation takes it, or is it just one word in what is called a construct state (indicating that there is felt an English of after it in translation? The first vowel, be, not ba indicates construct, not absolute state. Construct state would not have an article, and hence would have be. Absolute state would take an article, which would give its vowel a to the be making it ba. It is also argued that the ending -th points to construct state. - On the other hand: there are some other words ending in th that are absolute, e. g, esheth, wife. Further, if we want to take bereshith as construct, we would have to amend bara to bero (construct infinitive. But not even Rashi did that. Also, the ancient versions seem to suppose the traditional translation: Targum Onkelos ("In ancient times the Lord created"), and Targum Neofiti ("From the beginning with wisdom the son of the Lord perfected (shaklil) the heavens and the earth").
a) Creation proved by reason alone: (1) When something changes, it rises from potency to act. In this, higher or new being appears. No one gives what he does not have. So where does the extra come from? Perhaps the one who acts has that added being somewhere within himself. But then: where did that part of him get it? So we look for an outside source or cause. We may imagine a long or short chain of such causes, but the problem is not solved as long as we look only at beings that had to get up from potency to act. (3)The problem has no final answer until we reach a mover that does not labor under the problem of getting up from potency to act, because it is simply actuality. That is the Unmoved Mover. If He were compound of potency and act, He would have the problem of getting up from potency to act. (4)Matter too in its very existence, has the same problem of getting up from potential to actual existence. That potency cannot exist alone. So the Mover that caused its existence brought it up from something that did not exist alone to reality. - Aristotle did not see this himself. He tried in vain to prove that the spheres in the sky always existed and were always in movement (Physics 8. 1). But his principles call for creation.
It would be possible for God to have created ab aeterno - since He always has the power to create. We prove that the world did not always exist by Magisterium (below) or from natural science (measurements of decay of radioactivity).
The proof just given for creation is not religious - it does not bring in reverence or worship, it is a purely intellectual exercise. Hence to teach creation in a school, by nature need not be religious - though of course it could be presented in a religious way.
b) Magisterium: Defined by IV Lateran in 1215: DS 800: "God... from the beginning of time, made both kinds of creatures, spiritual and bodily, out of nothing."
c) Documentary Hypothesis: This is the theory that 4 documents are to be found in the Pentateuch: Elohist 1 (E); Elohist 2 (P - name changed to Priestly source); Yahwist (J); Deuteronomist (D).
Richard Simon, a priest (1638-1712) thought some "public secretaries" gradually added to the Pentateuch up to time of Ezra (5th cent). A Protestant. H. B. Witter, in 1711, was the first to suggest that different names for God could point to different documents. J. Astruc, a Catholic, in 1753, was the first to divide Genesis into documents. Karl Ilgen in 1798 divided Elohist into E l and E 2 (latter now is P). Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) refined the theories. Thought Pentateuch and Joshua reached present form after Exile, c. 450 BC. Earlier, he thought Israel had a naturist religion, then the prophets introduced ethical monotheism. (Wellhausen's interpretation of texts and events was based on pagan Arabic parallels. He, like the 19th century in general, did not have good data on the ancient world And he admitted he was influenced by Hegelian concepts).
This theory has been dominant until recently. The Pontifical Biblical Commission, on June 27, 1906 while holding Mosaic authorship of Pentateuch, said perhaps Moses entrusted work to one or several men to write, and finally approved it. It also said that there could have been modifications in the Pentateuch after the death of Moses, by an inspired author, and that the language forms could have been updated. John Paul II in his general audience talks on Genesis, e.g., on Sept 12 & 19, 1979, Jan 2, 1980, spoke favorably, took for granted the theory is true.
But it is now under heavy attack. Yehuda Radday, coordinator of the Technion Institute (Israel) project, fed Genesis into a computer programmed to make a thorough linguistic analysis of words, phrases and passages. His conclusion: It is most probable that the book of Genesis was written by one person. (Newsweek , Sept 28, 1981, p. 59 and Y. T. Radday & H. Shore, Genesis: An Authorship Study in Computer-assisted Statistical Linguistics, in Analecta Biblica 103, 1985). Eugene Maly, in Jerome Biblical Commentary (I, p. 5, § 24, 1968 ed.) wrote: "Moses... is at the heart of the Pentateuch and can, in accord with the common acceptance of the ancient period, correctly be called its author." Joseph Blenkinsopp, in his review of R. N. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch, JSOT Suppl. 5. , Sheffield, 1987, wrote (CBQ Jan, 1989, pp. 138-39): "It is widely known by now that the documentary hypothesis is in serious trouble, with no viable alternative yet in sight.... He [Whybray] has no difficulty in exposing the fragility of many of the arguments advanced in support of the documentary hypothesis in its classical Wellhausenian form. The criteria for distinguishing one source from another called for an unreasonable level of consistency within the sources, leading the documentary critic to postulate a multitude of subsidiary sources... and thus pointing to the collapse of the hypothesis from within. Curiously, too, the same consistency was not required of the redactors, who left untouched the many inconsistencies and repetitions which called forth the hypothesis in the first place." Whybray proposes that the Pentateuch is the work of a single "controlling genius" (p. 235) no earlier than 6th century B.C., who used a wide variety of sources not all of high antiquity. - Problem with that proposal is that it does not seem to take into account the probable long development of the legal tradition of Israel. - Cf. also Isaac M. Kikawada, & Arthur Quinn, Before Abraham Was, Abingdon, Nashville, 1985. (This work tries to find elaborate patterns which would cut across the lines of the supposed sources. The authors think the sin was refusing to fulfill the command, "Increase and Multiply": pp. 68 & 81. n. 9. But such a refusal would spread over a long period, whereas the Genesis account seems to portray a single occasion sin with a specific temptation. To refuse to have sex so as to multiply -- what sort of temptation would it be to make the refusal?). (For an earlier attack, very thorough, see U. Cassuto, Professor of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, The Documentary Hypothesis, tr. from Hebrew by Israel Abrahams, 1961. Jerusalem, Magnes press, Hebrew University. It is distributed in British Commonwealth and Europe by Oxford University Press. Hebrew original was 1941). Cf. also K. A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament, InterVarsity Press, Downer's Grove, Il, 1966, for an answer to the reasons proposed for the existence of several sources, by comparison with other Near Eastern literature.
d) Enuma Elish?: It is often said today that the author of Genesis used Mesopotamian myths. But the similarity is practically nonexistent.
Here are the opening lines of the Enuma Elish:
"When on high the heaven had not yet been named [did not exist], firm ground below had not yet been called by name, naught but primordial Apsu [sweet water] their begetter and Mummu-Tiamat [salt water sea], she who bore them all, their waters commingling as a single body; no reed hut had been matted, no marsh land had appeared, when no gods whatever had been brought into being, uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined: then it was that the gods were formed within them...."
The only similarity is that all starts with something like a chaos - yet not entirely so, for there are two distinct bodies, sweet water and salt water. Really, this was a generalization from the experience of the Mesopotamians, who saw new land appearing at the point where the two kinds of waters met, i.e., at the point where the Tigris and Euphrates entered the Persian Gulf. This is a crude notion, and has nothing in common with Genesis. The really common feature is one found in many Near Eastern cultures: to name is the same as to bring into existence. [So, when the Messiah is said in many Rabbinic documents to have been named before the world began, it is apt to mean he had a preexistence]. - on the Enuma Elish, see, Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, Univ. of Chicago, 1951. Heidel thinks the poem goes back to the First Dynasty of Babylon, which he dates 1894-1595 BC, with strands still older going back to Sumer. He gives complete text in translation, and other Mesopotamian variants, and discussion of similarities to OT. He sees too many similarities (p. 129), which are too general. Enuma Elish does have the same sequence of creation of light, firmament, dry land, luminaries, man. But most of this is on only one of the 7 tablets, on tablet V. Most of the story is quite other. Heidel admits, p. 130: "In fact, the divergences are much more far-reaching and significant than are the resemblances." Even so, he thinks there must be a relation of Genesis and Enuma Elish - but the grounds are insufficient. Further, Heidel did not notice that Enuma Elish is based on observation of the way land formed by the mixing of waters - no such thing in Genesis, no such process.
Heidel also has another work, The Gilgamesh Epic, Univ. of Chicago, 1949. There is one part within it, the story of the flood, which really is remarkably similar to the account of the flood in Genesis.
Generalization from experience shows also in a common Egyptian creation myth: The god Atum (meaning: totality - later, Ra-atum) stood on a mud hillock which arose out of the primordial waters (nun). He named the parts of his body, and so produced the first gods. A different version of the myth says since he had no female mate, he produced seed by masturbation. Then the resulting male and female deities took up the task of generation, produced further things. This myth seems to have been one of the oldest in Egypt. When Memphis became dominant, the question came up: where did Atum come from? They replied: Ptah, the god of Memphis, was the heart and tongue of the gods. Through the thought of the heart and the expression of the tongue, Atum himself and all other gods came into being. (Cf. John A. Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951. esp. pp. 58-60). - The Egyptian myth, like the Mesopotamian, was generalization from Egyptian experience. When the annual flood of the Nile began to recede, the first things to appear were mud hillocks, sticking up through the water. In the heat and moisture, they were very fertile.
2. Angels and Their Fall
a) Existence of angels: Lateran IV. DB 428. DS 800: "God... from the beginning of time, made both kinds of creatures, spiritual and bodily, out of nothing, that is angelic and worldly.... For the devil and other demons were created good by nature by God, but they of themselves became wicked." - Some claim the definition covers only the fact that God created all, only indirectly the existence of angels. Even so, the doctrine is infallible by repetition on Ordinary Magisterium, and by universal belief (cf. LG §12). Vatican I- DB 1783. DS 3002 repeated these words of Lateran IV.
Some exegetes said that an angel may be only a literary device- cf. Judges, chapter 6, where there is a sort of alternation between the angel speaking and God speaking. It is quite possible that at an early period the inspired author did not know of separate beings, and really did intend to use just a literary device. However, later texts of OT and texts all over NT make clear that angels are separate beings. Since we ought to understand Scripture the way the original readers did, there is no doubt they knew of separate beings.
b) Choirs of Angels: St. Paul speaks of angels, and once of an archangel (1 Th 4. 16. ). Ephesians 1. 21 speaks of "every principality, power, virtue and domination". Col 1. 16 speaks of "thrones, dominations, principalities or powers." Between Col and Eph we have 5 kinds (not counting angels and archangels). If we add the Cherubim (e.g. Gen 3. 24) and Seraphim (e.g., Is 6. 2) of the OT we get nine classes. However St. Paul seems to regard these beings as evil spirits: Eph 6. 12; Col 2. 15. In Eph and Col he is fighting against the claims found in those churches that we must worship such spirit powers besides Christ. So he says they are just evil spirits. We are not sure if he is fighting against Gnostic ideas or those of Jewish Apocalyptic. (The imagery of cherubim seems derived from monstrous composite animals with wings found in much Near Eastern art and in Egypt. )
It was Pseudo-Dionysius, in his Celestial Hierarchy who first proposed the nine choirs.
We conclude: there is no Scriptural basis for the nine choirs of angels.
c) Spirituality of angels:
(1) Some Fathers thought they might have bodies. Thus, St. Justin Martyr, alluding it seems to Gen. 6. 1-4, wrote (Apology 2. 5): "The angels transgressed this arrangement [taxin] and, captivated by love of women, begot children who are those that are called demons." (Implies some beings could be evil by nature!). And in Dialogue 37. 2: "It is evident that they are nourished in the heavens, even though they are not nourished by food similar to what humans use - for about the food of manna, which nourished our fathers in the desert, Scripture says thus, that men ate the bread of angels." (Ps. 77. 25 in LXX: "Man ate the bread of angels"). (Justin does not notice the matter of genre).
St. Fulgentius, De Trinitate 9: "Great and learned men assert that they are of two kinds of substance, that is, of incorporeal spirit... and of the body by which at times they appear to men.... So they say that the angels have an ethereal body, that is, of fire, but that the wicked angels... have an airy body." (COMMENT: Does he mean they always have the body, or only take it on to appear?)
St. Augustine, City of God 21. 10: "Unless that demons have certain bodies of their own, as it seems to learned men, of this crass and humid air whose impulse is felt when the wind blows."
St. Bernard, Sermon on Canticles 5. 7: "The Fathers seem to have had diverse views... and I admit I do not know."
Cajetan, On Ephesians 2. 1; "I would believe that the demons are airy spirits.... But by the word air I do not mean the element of air, but a subtle body unknown to our senses." (Elsewhere, commenting on Summa I. q. 50) he seems to think them pure spirits.
(2) Some Fathers rule out a body: Lactantius (R 646); Eusebius of Caesarea (R 667); St. Gregory of Nyssa (R. 1026); St. John Chrysostom (R 1152); Theodoret (R 2156); St. Gregory the Great (R 2307). But the same Gregory also says that compared to us they are spirits, but compared to God they are bodily: R. 2303. St. John Damascene (R 2351) and St. Ambrose (2. 5. 58) seem to say the same as Gregory.
(3) Magisterium: As we saw above. Lateran IV defined that God made spiritual and bodily creatures. Some theologians think the Council meant only to reject a crass body - for they were defining against the Albigensians and the Cathari - and did not rule out a subtle body. Vatican I, DB 1783. DS 3002 quotes Lateran IV.
d) Fall of Angels: It is evident that the angels must all have been given sanctifying grace before their fall, for God intended them to reach the vision of God. Had they had that vision, they would have been incapable of sinning. So they did not have the vision, but since God intended them to reach it, He gave the means, grace. They probably received this grace in the very moment of their creation.
Some of them fell, and became devils. What sin? St. Thomas and most of the Fathers think it was a sin of pride (ST I. 63. 2). A few, who thought angels have bodies, thought it was sexual sin: Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian (thinking of Genesis 6. 1-4. The sense of Gen 6. 1-4 is debated. Jewish extrabiblical tradition of 2-1 centuries BC thought it told of intercourse of angels with human women. [Thus Philo, De gigantibus, 6ss and Josephus, Antiquities 1. 3. 1]. St. Justin Martyr held this: Apology 2. 5. Today some think the lines of Gen 6 1-4 were a myth taken over by the sacred author, understood by him as such, but used to describe the terrible wickedness of humanity before the flood - for the story of the flood follows at once. Targums Pseudo-Jonathan and Onkelos make them magnates or princes, not angels).
Why no second chance for devils? Because their intellect does not have the limits ours has. (Our mind is discursive, theirs is intuitive. Ours is limited by the fact that our spiritual intellect, that of the soul, is tied to the material mind in our brain - no matter how fine a material instrument, it is of small power compared to a spiritual intellect without that limit upon it. If a human sins, he can always go back later, see something more clearly and decide: I see I should not have done that. I wish I had not done that, I do not intend to do it any more. But an angel sees at once with the maximum clarity it will ever have. Hence there is no room for reconsideration leading to repentance. (Cf. ST I. 64. 2).
How many angels fell? St. Thomas thinks more remained good than fell (ST I. 63. 9). He thinks that sin was contrary to their natural inclination, and hence more persevered in good.
e) Guardian Angels: It is certain from the Feast of the Guardian Angels, and from universal teaching of the Church, and universal belief (cf LG §12, that there are guardian angels. Is there one for each human being? That seems to be implied in the Feast and universal teaching and belief. Hence the belief is infallible.
Angels have great powers that are merely natural to them, going beyond human powers. Hence the Guardian Angels, if we cultivate them, can and will help much in many things.
Could one angel be guardian for more than one human?. Yes. We compare the case of the Blessed Mother, Mother of all of us. She has a light of glory in proportion to grace so great that Pius IX said "none greater under God can be thought of, and no one but God can comprehend it." So although humans are numerous, we are not infinite in number, and so not beyond the capacity of so great a soul to attend to and care for. Now an angel's intellect is far below hers of course. Yet it is surely not too much to suppose one angel could care for many.
Why an angelic care if the care of the Bl. Mother is so great? For the same reason for which The Father wants to employ her, even though He Himself loves and cares for us. He loves good order, and as ST I. 19. 5. c. says, He likes to have one thing in place to serve as a title for another, even though the title does not move Him. This also makes all richer for us, and so appeals to His love for us. For more development cf. Our Father's Plan caps. 4-11.
We add this: God permits fallen angels to tempt us - once He gave the gift of free will to them, He will not go back on that. But He can and does compensate and more than compensate, by giving each of us the special powerful help of our Guardian Angel.
St. Augustine speaks of two kinds of knowledge in angels - morning and evening knowledge (De Genesi ad Litteram. 4. 23. 40). Morning knowledge they have in Verbo - in the vision of God. Evening knowledge is what they have of creatures in themselves.
3. Evolution and Polygenism: We can approach these questions in two ways, by theology/Scripture, and by natural science. If we work correctly, the answers will not clash, and finally will be the same.
a) Theological approach: Magisterium: Pius XII, Humani generis, 1950. DB 2327, DS 3896: "The Magisterium of the Church does not prohibit that the doctrine of 'evolution', that is about the origin of the human body from preexistent and living matter - since the Catholic faith orders us to retain that human souls are immediately created by God - be discussed in accord with the present state of human disciplines and sacred theology, by those skilled in both fields." He added some are rash in claiming evolution is proved.
But then, about polygenism, in DS 3897: "But when we consider another conjectural opinion, that is, polygenism as it is called, then the sons of the Church do not at all enjoy the same freedom [as on bodily evolution]. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion -- those who hold it say either that after Adam there were real humans who were not descended from him as first parent, or they say that Adam means a multitude of first parents -- because it is by no means clear how a view of this kind could be in agreement with the things which the sources of revealed truth and the actions of the Magisterium of the Church present about original sin, which comes from a sin really committed by one Adam, and which, being transmitted by generation into all, is in each one as his own."
COMMENT: 1. It is implied that the theory of evolution does not contradict Scripture or Magisterium - else the Pope could not have allowed it to be considered even as a possibility. - The Fathers, in speaking of creation, usually spoke in the allegorical sense. Ecclesiastical preachers in retelling the story in the same or similar words did not thereby give an interpretation. Nor did the Church ever do so.
St. Augustine (De Genesi ad litteram 6. 12. 20. PL 34. 347) wrote: "That God made man with bodily hands from the clay is an excessively childish thought, so that if Scripture had said this, we should rather believe that the one who wrote it used a metaphorical term than to suppose God is bounded by such lines of limbs as we see in our bodies." - Again, in City of God 15. 8, he raises the question: How can Genesis 4. 17 say Cain built a city and named it for his son Enoch, when there were only 3 or 4 men on earth? He replies: Scripture did not try to name all, it wanted to name only enough for its purpose, to show the line of descent of City of God and of the City of this world.
St. John Chrysostom in his Homilies on Genesis, in commenting on Gen 2. 12 (PG 53. 121) takes the formation of Eve from Adam's rib as a case of synkatabasis - condescension, adaptation to human ways: "See the condescension of divine Scripture, what words it uses because of our weakness. 'And He took, it says, one of his ribs. ' Do not take what is said in a human way, but understand that the crassness of the words fits human weakness."
John Paul II, in a General Audience of Nov. 7, 1979 said this rib episode is a way of expressing the unity of humanity: "Man (adam) falls into 'sleep' in order to wake up 'male' and 'female' .... Perhaps therefore, the analogy of sleep indicates here not so much a passing from consciousness to subconsciousness, as a specific return to nonbeing (sleep contains an element of annihilation of man's conscious existence) that is, to the moment preceding the creation, in order that, through God's creative initiative, solitary 'man' may emerge from it again in his double unity as male and female." In his note 4: "It is interesting to note that for the ancient Sumerians, the cuneiform sign to indicate the noun 'rib' coincided with the one used to indicate the word 'life'".
2. Some think that the words of Humani generis on polygenism were framed to leave room for a possibility that sometime it might be discovered how to fit Scripture and Magisterium with polygenism. Others say that such an opening was not left.
Paul VI said, speaking to Theologians and Scientists at Symposium on Original Sin, July 11, 1966, from Osservatore Romano of July 15: "But even the theory of 'evolutionism' will not seem acceptable to you where it is not decidedly in accord with the immediate creation of each and every human soul by God, and where it does not regard as decisively important for the fate of mankind, the disobedience of Adam, universal protoparent."
COMMENT: This does not go beyond Pius XII. From philosophical reason alone we would have to reject atheistic evolution as violating causality - there is need of a source for the added or higher being each time it appears in the process of an evolution, even if that evolution would happen in accord with laws established for the purpose by God Himself. The ultimate source of the higher being would have to be the First Cause, since any cause that had to get up from potency to act would need that power, could not get up by its own power. Cf. our remarks earlier on proving creation by Aristotle's principles.
b) Natural science approach:
1. Science magazine, Research News, Nov. 21, 1980, pp. 883-87 reports that the majority of 160 geologists, paleontologists, ecologists, population geneticists, embryologists and molecular biologists who met at Chicago's Field Museum for a conference on Macroevolution decided Darwin was wrong. On p. 883: "Evolution, according to the Modern Synthesis [Classic Darwinism] moves at a stately pace, with small changes accumulating over periods of many millions of years yielding a long heritage of steadily advancing lineages as revealed in the fossil record. However the problem is that according to most paleontologists the principle [sic] feature of individual species within the fossil record is stasis [stability], not change.... for the most part, the fossils do not document a smooth transition from old morphologies to new ones. 'For millions of years species remain unchanged in the fossil record' said Stephen Jay Gould, of Harvard, 'and they then abruptly disappear to be replaced by something that is substantially different but clearly related.'" On p. 884: "The emerging picture of evolutionary change, therefore, is one of periods during which individual species remain virtually unchanged, punctuated by abrupt events at which a descendant species arises from the original stock.... species do indeed have a capacity to undergo minor modifications [microevolution] in their physical and other characteristics, but this is limited, and with a longer perspective it is reflected in an oscillation about a mean: to a paleontologist looking at the fossil record, this shows up as stasis." On p. 885: "Russell Lande, from the University of Chicago, tried to persuade his audience of the more traditional view, that substantial morphological changes were usually a consequence of many genetic mutations. Stuart Kaufman of the University of Pennsylvania, countered this by saying that in Drosophila [fruit flies] at least, one did not see intermediate changes between major mutants, implying single gene switches.... A fruit fly mutant having no thorax, for instance, looks as if it is the victim of a confined but dramatic misreading of developmental instructions." On p. 887: "Many people suggested that the meeting was a turning point in the history of evolutionary theory, 'I know it sounds a little pompous,' Hallam told Science, 'but I think this conference will eventually be acknowledged as an historic event. '"
2. Newsweek, Nov. 3, 1980, p. 95 summed it up: "In the fossil record, missing links are the rule.... Evidence from fossils now points overwhelmingly away from the classical Darwinism which most Americans learned in high school: that new species evolve out of existing ones by the gradual accumulation of shall changes.... Increasingly, scientists now believe that species change little for millions of years and then evolve quickly in a kind of quantum leap - not necessarily in a direction that represents an obvious improvement in fitness.... the majority of 160 of the world's top paleontologists, anatomists, evolutionary geneticists and developmental biologists supported some form of this theory of 'punctuated equilibria.'"
3. Science News: Sept 8, 1984, pp. 154-55 and 157: "Why is Sex?" On p. 155: "'Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology' wrote Graham Bell, an evolutionary biologist at McGill University in Montreal in 1982. Why such a thing exists at all, he says, is 'the largest and least ignorable and most obdurate' of life's fundamental questions. .... Biologists trying to discover how sex first arose have some daunting problems.... Complicating the question is disagreement among biologists about whether the origin of sex in prokaryotes - cells without nuclei - is at all connected with the origin of sex in eukaryotes - higher organisms.... Sex in these two groups of creatures seems so dissimilar that some biologists wonder if the eukaryotes didn't 'reinvent the wheel' (in Halvorson's words) rather than simply elaborate on the prokaryote system.... It is also unclear why sex has survived in higher organisms.... Norton Zinder, a molecular geneticist at Rockefeller University in New York, explains the problem this way: 'How could an organism that only passed half of its genes to its offspring [through sexual reproduction] ever have competed with [an asexual progenitor] that passed all of them? It seems unlikely that the offspring produced sexually were 'fitter' than their asexually produced relatives. The question is so disturbing to biologist George C. Williams that he wrote his book Sex and Evolution 'from the conviction that the prevalence of sexual reproduction in higher plants and animals is inconsistent with current evolutionary theory. '"
4. Science News, August 13, 1983, p. 101: "'We all go back to one mother living 350, 000 years ago, ' says Allan C. Wilson of the University of California at Berkeley.... Wilson found 110 variations in the mitochondrial DNA of 112 individuals in a worldwide survey.... He constructed a human pedigree by finding the simplest pattern of changes to explain the differences observed."
Wilson's work met little acceptance for some years. But in January 11, 1988, Newsweek (pp. 46-52) reported wide acceptance by then. They calculate the mother lived only 200, 000 years ago."
P. 52 of same article reports; "They're already trying to expand the Eve theory by finding Adam. Researchers in England, France and the United States have begun looking at the Y chromosome, which is passed along only on the male side. Tracing it is difficult because it's part of the DNA in the cell's nucleus, where there are many more genes than in the mitochondrion." Also on p. 52, a quote from Stephen Jay Gould, noted biologist of Harvard: "This idea is tremendously important.... There is a kind of biological brotherhood that's much more profound than we ever realized." Cf. A. Gibbon, "Looking for the Father of us all" in Science 261 (1991) 378-90.
But now we can add to the above. Science News of May 27, 1995, on p. 326 reports that Robert. L. Dorit of Yale University in a new study appearing in May 26 Science says,"The equivalence of the Y chromosome DNA in different people suggests that all human Y chromosomes share a recent ancestor, and that not enough time has elapsed for differences to develop.... [Dorit] and his colleagues looked for variations in part of the ZFY , or zinc finger y, gene in 38 men from around the world. They also compared ZFY in three species: chimpanzee, gorilla, and orangutan .... The scientists calculated that 0. 135 percent of the DNA changes every million years. Humans had to have originated roughly 270, 000 yeears ago to have such similar Y chromosomes. Dorit and his coauthors acknowledge that factors other than a recent common ancestor could explain their findings, but none of these holds up as well, they say."
5. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species , Modern Library Edition, p. 133: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.... Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated...."
6. Chance Calculations. To figure the chances of parts coming together in the right sequence by chance, we work by factorials. For a thing of only 4 parts, the chances would be one over 1 x 2 x 3 x 4. What would be the figure for even the simplest organism? What of the human brain? For scientists now believe the developments were not the result of accumulation of small changes, but of quantum leaps or flukes (Cf. the Research Reports of Science, Nov. 21, 1980, cited above).
Frank B. Salisbury, an evolutionary biologist, in "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution " in American Biology Teacher, Sept. 1971, p. 336: "A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1, 000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1, 000 links could exist in 4 different forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 4 = 10 . Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension." (Cited from Henry Morriss, Scientific Creationism, CLP Publishers, San Diego, 1974, Public School Edition, p. 62. Morriss on p. 60 gives another example. Consider, for example, an organism composed of only 100 integrated parts.... each of these parts must fulfill a unique function in the organism and so there is only one way in which these 100 parts can be combined to function effectively. Since there are 10 different ways in which 100 parts can link up, the probability of a successful chance linkage is only one out of 10 . (Note that 10 is equal to a number written as 'one' followed by 158 'zeros').
f) Was There an Adam & Eve?: We already saw that at a minimum we need to hold that God, if He used an evolutionary process, working by laws He Himself created, would still need to create the souls of the first human pair.
From the Magisterium on original sin we gather that all actual human beings descended from the original pair, whom Scripture calls Adam and Eve. So: Was there an Adam and Eve? Some teachers, trying to seem up to date, say no. They show their ignorance rather than their knowledge. It is clear that there was such a pair - whether or not they called each other by those names is not clear, nor is it essential to our theology.
g) Human beings have one soul, which is rational. Defined by IV Council of Constantinople (General - 869-70 - the original Greek acta are lost. We have a Latin version by Anastasius the Librarian, and a Greek summary. DB 338, DS 657): "Even though the Old and New Testament teach that man has one rational and intellectual soul, and even though all the divinely-speaking Fathers and teachers of the Church defend the same point: yet, some have come to such a degree of impiety, that they imprudently teach he has two souls... and they try to defend their own heresy by certain irrational attempts."
This at least seems to imply there is no separate sensitive soul.
h) One or two parts in man? It has been defined by the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD; DB 148, DS 301) that Christ was "perfect in humanity... consubstantial with the Father in divinity, with us in humanity." Cf. also IV Lateran: DB 428, DS 800.
i) The problem of the meaning of nefesh (sometimes translated as soul):
(1) Unitary concept of man in Modern Scholars:
(a) Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible 4. 428: "In the OT it never means the immortal soul, but is essentially the life principle of the living being, or the self as the subject of appetite and emotion, occasionally of volition. .... there was no question of two separate, independent entities, except for a possible trace of the 'Greek idea' in Job 4: 19: 'those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust [is dust?]."
(b) John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible pp. 837-38: it is the concrete existing self.... Perhaps the Ego of modern psychology comes closer to a parallel with nepesh than any other word, and nepesh is the Hb word which comes nearest to person in the psychological sense, i.e., a conscious subject. In the OT the Gk concept of soul (psyche) appears only in Wisdom (cf 3: 1... ). The immortality of Wisdom is the enduring life of the psyche.... The NT use of the term [psyche] is heavily dependent on the OT use and shows little or no effect of Greek philosophical concepts."
(2) Two-part concept in modern scholars:
(a) Mitchell Dahood, Anchor Bible, Psalms 101-150, Vol 17A: pp. xli-lii cites about 40 Psalm lines, in revised translation with help of Ugaritic in favor of the idea that "a deep and steady belief in resurrection and immortality permeates the Psalter". Dahood's ideas were widely rejected, as he reports in the same pages. He cites with approval Nicholas J. Tromp, Primitive Concept of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament, Rome, 1969. - On p. xlii, n. 33 Dahood points out that the Late Bronze Age Canaanites (c. 1500-1200 BC) knew of immortality - would the Hebrews be inferior to them? - we can add: H. W. F. Saggs, The Greatness that was Babylon (Mentor, 1968, pp. 34, 35. 41. 140) shows that ancient Babylonia, well before 2000 BC shows indications of belief in survival. Hebrew tradition claims they came from Mesopotamia. - John A. Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt (U. of Chicago, 1951) shows the highly developed belief in afterlife among Egyptians, with whom Israelites lived for centuries. - Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (Meridian, 1974, pp. 19-23, 39, 48, 52, 87, 102-04, 135-38) shows beliefs in afterlife widespread among very many primitive peoples.
(b) E. P. Sanders, in introduction to Testament of Abraham which he dates 1-2 century AD, in Charlesworth, Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, I. p. 878): "The idea that the souls separate from the body at the time of death and that it is the soul that goes either to salvation or punishment is relatively widespread."
(c) J. Fitzmyer, Paul and His Theology, Prentice Hall, 1987, p. 82: "A popular, common conception of the human being as made up of two elements is found at times in Paul's writings (2 Cor 5: 3; 7;34; 2 Cor 12. 2-3)."
(d)J. Bonsirven, Palestinian Judaism in the Time of Christ, p. 163: "... at the beginning of the first Christian century, many Jewish circles believed that at the time of death, souls are separated from the bodies and brought to judgment.... [164] a comparative study of the apocryphal books shows that eschatological conceptions are diverse and vague up to the first years of our era. It is probably at this time that the teaching which we find in the rabbinic writings became accepted among the Pharisees.... There was more and more a conviction that man is composed of body and soul, and that the soul, after leaving the body at death, can enjoy a separate existence.... [165] In The Book of Enoch xxii (first or second century B.C. ), there is a concept of transition. The angel Raphael shows Enoch four holes where the souls of the dead are shut up while awaiting the day of judgment." Cf. also Valentino Cottini, La Vita Futura nel Libro Dei Proverbi, Franciscan Press, Jerusalem, 1984.
(3) Confused positions:
(a) R. E. Brown, Virginal Conception & Bodily Resurrection. On p. 87: "... his basic anthropology [Paul's] did not involve a body-soul composite. Yet, if we would do justice to Paul, the concept of bodily resurrection should not be interpreted so vaguely that it loses all corporeal implications.... On the other hand it is clear that Paul does not conceive of the risen 'body' in a merely physical way. His comments make us wonder whether he would be in agreement with Luke (who was not an eyewitness of the risen Jesus) about the properties of the risen body. Certainly, from Paul's description one would never suspect that a risen body could eat, as Luke reports. Moreover, Paul distinguishes between the risen body that can enter heaven and 'flesh and blood' that cannot enter heaven - a distinction that does not agree with the emphasis in Luke 24: 39 on the 'flesh and bones' of the risen Jesus" (emphasis added).
(b) W. D. Davies, Paul & Rabbinic Judaism, 1962 ed., 311: "What we find in 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 5, then, is the juxtaposition of two different views, first, that the Christian waits for the new body till the parousia and, secondly, that immediately at death he acquires the heavenly body.... [317] In his pre-Christian days, Paul, like other Rabbis, would have thought of the Age to Come as awaiting him at death and at the same time he could and did conceive of it as a final consummation of all created being.... We have seen what Paul the Pharisee would see beyond death. Death would be for him the advent of the judgment, and then, as he would have hoped, the entry into Paradise - he would be in the Age to Come. But he would be in the Age to Come only in its first phase, so to speak, he would still be disembodied until the resurrection, although participating in blessedness.... For Paul the Christian, however, things were different. ... Already the resurrection body, the body of the final Age to Come was being formed. Paul had died and risen with Christ and [318] was already being transformed. At death, therefore, despite the decay of his outward body, Paul would already be possessed of another 'body'. The heavenly body was already his.... there is no room in Paul's theology for an intermediate state of the dead. It agrees with this that Paul in the later passages of his Epistles speaks not of the resurrection of Christians but of their revelation. In Rm 8. 19 we read.... Thus the Colossians had already risen with Christ.... [139] If the above interpretation be correct, it will be seen that we need not go outside Rabbinic Judaism to account for Paul's thought in 2 Cor 5. 1f. .... [320] The twofold conception of the 'olam ha-ba'[the age- to-come] both as a future event in time and as an eternally existing reality... has provided us with a reconciling principle.... both Strack-Billerbeck and Bonsirven have showed that already in the first century A.D. Judaism had been largely influenced and modified by Hellenistic conceptions of immortality."[cites Str. B. IV p. 819, and Bonsirven, Le Judaisme... I, p. 317, n. 3]. (emphasis added)
(c) Pierre Benoit, "Resurrection: At the End of Time or Immediately after Death?" in: Concilium, 60, 1970: 107, in 2 Cor 5 "he takes confidence from the belief that even without this body and in a state of 'nakedness' he will already be 'with the Lord.' He does not say very clearly how he understands this life with Christ outside the body.... [108]... A similar outlook can be found in the letter... to the Philippians.... . But he does not yet dare to say that the Christian has already risen, though soon he does dare to do so" [In Ephesians and Col 2. 12].... [109] His eschatology , which at the outset was 'futurist', has become increasingly one that has already been effected.... . [112] The first [element of a solution] is that he certainly is not thinking of an 'immortal soul' in the Platonist sense. For him, as throughout the Bible, the soul, created by God together with the body is mortal as is the body. Actually it dies through sin. If God restores it to life through the forgiveness of redemption, it is not by setting free in it a life that it possessed naturally, but by re-creating that life which it had entirely lost. The agent of the re-creation is the... Spirit. The Holy Spirit... is communicated by him [Christ] to his faithful follower who henceforth lies by him, in him, through him, and for him.... For him [Paul], it is a question neither of a soul immortal by nature... nor of a soul necessarily tied to the body and condemned to 'sleep' so long as the latter is dead. It is a question of a 'spirit' placed in man by the new creation and the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ (2 Cor 5. 5), and a drawing from this source of all the strength of a new supernatural mysterious but real life.... . We can go further still. It seems indeed that the 'heavenly dwelling' that we possess henceforward in the heavens (2 Cor 5. 1) is not an individually resurrected body made ready in advance and which for centuries would await the moment of our 'putting it on'. Rather is it the very body of the risen Christ [113] already established in the glory of heaven, which is waiting to be joined fully and definitely with his chosen ones.... . Can it not be admitted... that the spirit which gives life to the soul... retains after the death of the earthly body a mysterious but vital link with this risen body of Christ, finding in him the source and means of supernatural and blissful activity?" (emphasis added)
COMMENTS: 1)We first distinguish two questions: a) Any survival after death? b) Any retribution after death?
The majority today would deny the Hebrews knew of survival after death, and that they had a two part concept of man as body and soul until second century BC - which they learned then under influence of Greek thought (cf. Wisdom 3. 1ff. ) plus the pressure for reappraisal brought by the terrible death of many under King Antiochus IV. This could have been a providential guidance.
The minority hold that in some way (will explain below) they did know of survival very early, perhaps from the beginning. The authors cited above all deal only with survival, except Dahood, who speaks also of future retribution.
If one holds they knew of survival, in some way, we must notice that it is possible in theology to meet with two conclusions which seem to clash. We should recheck our work, but they may remain in place even after that. Then it is right to hold both conclusions without trimming, hoping that sometime someone may find how to fit them together.
(We must grant that some OT texts seem not to know of survival and retribution: they struggle bravely to say God makes it all right in this life: e.g., the book of Job, and Psalm 73. But this fact can coexist with the vague belief that somehow there was a survival -- these texts may merely not know of retribution , without ruling out survival).
It is entirely clear from many things in the OT that they held for some sort of survival:
Necromancy and divination were prohibited: Lev 19. 31; 20. 6; Dt 8. 11. But these definitely imply some sort of survival. Even if we say the mediums were mostly fakers, yet the fact people consulted them shows clearly a determined belief, which persisted in spite of repeated prohibitions in the OT.
A special case of this appears in 1 Sam. 28. 12-19: Saul has the woman of Endor call up the spirit of Samuel, which she does. She says she saw elohim (apparently something like divine beings) ascending from the earth.
Psalm 17. 15: seems to speak not only of survival but of reward in the future life: "I shall behold your face in righteousness. When I awake I shall be satisfied with beholding your form." "Awake" seems to mean after death.
Psalm 49. 15: "But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me." Two possible interpretations: (1)God will rescue me from death - no evidence of that here; (2)God will receive the writer into His own presence. - This is more likely, considering the use of Hebrew laqah which probably alludes to the case of Enoch (Gen 5. 24 ) or Elijah (2 Kgs 2. 9-10) both of which texts use laqah.
Again, 73. 24: "You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards will receive me to glory [kabod]." Again laqah is used. But kabod could mean merely honor - however, that would hardly fit the context here.
2 Macc 12. 43-46 reports Judas after a battle found amulets on bodies of some of his men. He took up a collection to have sacrifices offered: "Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin." Seems to have had in mind resurrection - did he also believe in retribution in interval between death and resurrection? Seems likely. (Purgatory is also implied in such texts as Mal 3: 2: "Who can stand when He appears? For He is like the refiner's fire." Now 1 Cor 13: 12 says that the soul in heaven sees God face to face. God has no face, but it means it knows Him directly. When I see an ordinary person directly, I do not take him into my head, I take in an image. But no image could represent the infinite God. So it must be this: God joins Himself directly to that soul, so as to be known. but He will not join Himself to a soul that is at all defiled, still less to one that is totally corrupt as Luther insisted.
There are many texts in the New Testament that know both survival and retribution:
Mt 10. 28: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul: rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." COMMENT: Some try to say the two terms merely are to stress the whole person. But note the distinction - can kill one, but not the other.
Lk 16. 23-31: the parable of the rich man and Lazarus shows both surviving death, one in punishment, one in reward.
Mt. 22. 32: Sadducees tried to trap Jesus. He quotes Ex 3. 6: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." Then Jesus added: "He is the God of the living, not of the dead." COMMENT: This proves that objectively the OT did contain or imply survival after death. It does not prove that the Jews at the time when the text of Exodus was written caught the implication.
St. Paul in Acts 23. 6 calls himself a Pharisee, a son of the Pharisees. In Phil 3. 6 he says he used to keep the law perfectly. But we know from Josephus (Jewish War 2. 8. 4) that the Pharisees believed, "Every soul... is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body, while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment." In regard to Sadducees: "As to the persistence of the soul after death, penalties in the underworld, and rewards, they will have none of them. ." - St. Paul in Phil 1. 23: "I am caught between the two: having my desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ - much better; but to remain in the flesh: more necessary for your sake." So he knew he could be with Christ in the interval between death and resurrection. Also 2 Cor 5. 6: "Therefore, always being confident, and knowing that while we are dwelling in the body, we are away from the Lord... we are confident and we decide [we want] instead to be away from the body and to be with the Lord."
COMMENT: Some hold there is a resurrection body at once. Strangely, they seem to ignore the fact that Paul was a Pharisee, and Pharisees did believe in survival between death and resurrection.
3) As to the confused positions:
(a) R. Brown clings to the unitary concept of man. The risen body is not really flesh, says Brown -- though Luke thought it was -- for flesh and blood cannot enter heaven (1 Cor 15: 50). Brown misunderstands Paul and Luke. First he assumes they can contradict each other: impossible, since the Holy Spirit is the author of both. Second he does not see what Paul means in 1 Cor 15 by a spiritual body. It has to be flesh, otherwise Paul would not need to write that chapter. For the Corinthians would not object to a merely spiritual body - they objected to continuing in a body of flesh: they hoped to escape reincarnation or anything like it. When Paul says flesh and blood cannot enter heaven he means flesh and blood without a transformation. When transformed, so as to be spiritual, they can. But "spiritual" means not lacking flesh, but that the flesh is totally dominated by the spirit, and hence operates according to the laws of spirits, while remaining flesh. {Cf the risen body of Jesus passing through a closed door without opening it).
(b) W. D. Davies: Also thinks one part of Scripture can contradict another - 1 Cor says the resurrection will come at the end - while 2 Cor thinks at once at death there is a heavenly body. But in 2 Cor 5: 8 Paul says he will get up his confidence or nerve and wish to be away from the body and to be with the Lord. - this does not fit with a resurrection body. And especially, why the need to get up nerve if he will never be without a body? Also, In Phil 1: 23 Paul says he wishes to be "dissolved" [analysai] to be with Christ. But to have a resurrection body at once is not to "be dissolved."
(c) Pierre Benoit: Takes Paul's remarks of our doing all with Christ in a crude way. There is indeed a syn Christo theme -it means that the Christian is saved and made holy if and to the extent that he is not only a member of Christ but like Him. We are to be like Him sacramentally, by being buried [Rom 6: 3-11] and rising with Him in baptism. But we should also be like Him even now in living our lives with the outlook of Christ, with the same outlook we will have when we really do emerge from the grave, [cf. Col 3: 1-4, and Ephesians 2: 5-6]. Benoit also takes crudely the idea that sin is death. Yes, it is death for the soul in that it loses grace, the divine life. But it is not death in the sense that the soul goes out of existence, so that God would need to create it all over again.
Conclusion: The fact that the sense and usage of nefesh is vague and varied and could imply a unitary concept of man does not prevent us from holding that the Hebrews may have perceived two truths: (1) Man is, and appears to be a unity; (2) yet there is a survival at least (and retribution?). Item #1 was evident at once; item #2 seems to have been at least implicit early - cf. the argument of Jesus from "I am the God of Abraham."
So the inspired writers, under inspiration, expressed both points, and only late in history learned how to fit the two together. (For specific answers to problems from Job, Sirach and Qoholeth see Free From All Error chapters 7 & 8. The chief point to keep in mind is that the afterlife was very different before the death of Christ: it was the drab limbo of the fathers, for not even the just then were admitted to the vision of God.
j) Patristic data on intermediate state
(1) S. Justin, Dialogue 5. 3: "I do not say that any souls perish. That would be luck for the wicked. I say that the souls of the pious wait in a better place, those of the wicked and evil in a worse place, waiting for the time of judgment."
(2) S. Irenaeus. Against Heresies 1. 5. 3l: "Souls will go to an invisible place, set for them by God, and there they will stay until the resurrection."
(3) Tertullian, De Resurrectione carnis 43: "For no one who departs from the body will at once stay with the Lord, except by the prerogative of martyrdom."
(4) Origen, On Leviticus, Hom. 7: "Not even the Apostles have yet received their happiness, but even they are waiting that I may be a partaker of their joy."
(5) Lactantius, Institutes 7. 21: "No one should think that souls are judged right after death. For all are kept in one common custody until the time comes at which the Supreme Judge will examine their merits."
(6) St. Augustine, Enchiridion 109: "The time that is between a man's death and the final resurrection holds souls in hidden receptacles, as each one deserves, in rest or in distress, according to what it obtained when living in the flesh." (Elsewhere, in Retractations 1. 14. 2, is uncertain).
COMMENTS: We see here a common belief that even after the death of Christ, the just would not reach heaven until the end of time, except for martyrs. This is false, as we know from a definition of Pope Benedict XII in DS 1000. The belief was never universal among the Fathers. However, the just who died before the death of Christ did not reach heaven until after His death: DS 780.
4. Immortality of the Soul:
a) It follows from many Scripture texts cited above. It is universal teaching of the Church. We have a definition from the Fifth Lateran Council (18th General Council) in 1513: DS 1440.
b) It can be proved from reason: I have in mind a dog - he is neither long nor short, high nor low, shaggy haired nor smooth, pointed nose, nor pushed in nose, black, white, brown, or spotted, loud barking, soft barking. - I have this mental concept by taking away everything individual from every physical dog I see. The result is a concept of just plain dog. If I hired the greatest artist, gave him his choice of media to work in, told him to make an image of this dog - it would be impossible - since no material could hold such a concept. So that in me which does hold it is not material, is spiritual.
In the present life, my intelligence has two components, the spirit intellect natural to a spiritual soul, and the material brain. Scientific American, special issue on the brain, September, 1979 said the number of neurons is on the order of a hundred billion, and there are about 100 trillion synapses, connections between two neurons. No two neurons are identical in form. A typical neuron may have anywhere from 1000 to 10, 000 synapses. Before birth, the brain gains neurons at the rate of hundreds of thousands a minute. - The fact that my spiritual intellect is tied in this life to a material brain limits the spiritual. But once the connection is severed by death, the natural power of the spirit asserts itself, so the lights go on, not out.
Aristotle thought (Psychology 2. 1) the soul was the form of the body, the body being first matter. There are some Magisterium texts that seem to have this in mind, without asserting it: Council of Ephesus DB 111a, DS 250; Council of Constantinople II, DB 216, DS 424. - But Aristotle's thought must be modified. For each component, sperm and ovum, before union, have a formed matter, not just prime matter without any form.
5. Origin of each soul: It is immediately created by God: Pius XII, Humani generis, AAS 42. 575: "The Catholic faith orders us to hold that souls are immediately created by God."
6. Time of creation of each soul: There is no clear definitive teaching on this point, yet:
DS 670: Stephen V in 885 taught: "If he who destroys by abortion what is conceived in the womb is a murderer, how much more will he who destroys a child one day old will be unable to excuse himself of homicide."
DB 1641, DS 2803: Pius IX, in defining the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, 1854 wrote: "We define that the doctrine that holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary was in the first instant of her conception... preserved immune from all stain of original sin has been revealed by God." - If that immediate creation of soul at the first instant of conception was the case with her, it seems implied it is the case of others.
1917 Code of Canon Law 747: "Care must be taken that all aborted fetuses, which come forth at whatever time, if they are certainly alive, should be baptized without condition; if doubtfully alive, with condition." 1983 Code, 871: "Aborted fetuses, if living, must be baptized so far as this is possible."
Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes §27: "Besides, whatever things are opposed to life, such as murders of any kind, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and voluntary suicide itself... are criminal, ... and most greatly contradict the honor of the Creator."
Ibid. § 51: "Therefore life, starting with conception, is to be protected with the greatest care, and abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes."
Roman Catechism (Lovanii, 1662, p. 36}: As soon as Jesus was conceived, "a rational soul was joined to it.... Nobody can doubt that this was something new and an admirable work of the Holy Spirit, since in the natural order no body can be informed by a human soul except after the prescribed space of time."
(Background of the thought of the Roman Catechism is found in the defective biology of the time, as seen in St. Thomas ST III. 33. 2. ad 3 and I. 118. 2 ad 2.
Modern Medical data: At once with the union of sperm and ovum, each contributing 23 chromosomes, the complete perfectly individualized genetic code of the new individual is present.
7. Man as the Image of God: There are several interpretations. Here are examples:
1) Biblia Comentada, Pentateuco: A. Colunga & M. Cordero. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1967. 3d ed. (on Gen 1. 26)p. 59: "The context seems to insinuate that this 'image and likeness' of man with God lies in the dominion over all created things... man would not be capable of exercising that dominion if he did not possess a rational soul, with two faculties, intelligence and will. In this we see the ultimate root of similarity of man with God." COMMENT: We cannot however suppose the ancient Hebrews knew of the two faculties: it is merely implicit.
2) La Sagrada Escritura, Genesis, F. Asensio, p. 34: "The divine intelligence and will are reflected in the intelligence and will of man." COMMENT: As above.
3) On Genesis, Bruce Vawter, p. 56: "Commentators old and new have sought the source of man's imaging of God in his 'spiritual' nature that separates him from the beasts and approximates him to the divine in the possession of mind and will. We might add emotions too, which the Bible does not hesitate to ascribe to God. This interpretation would be just as wrong as the preceding if it were to ascribe to the biblical author a later analysis of the human person in which he did not share, or if it were to dwell in its own way on one part only of the human composite at the expense of another. We say again, what the text is concerned with is the creation of mankind, not of a spiritual soul. It is on the right track, however, the more it tries to isolate what is distinct [57] about man with respect to the rest of creation by causing him alone to ask what is his relation to it and to his Creator.... Man is not only a creature but a conscious creature, and in the consciousness of his creaturehood he mirrors in some fashion that supreme consciousness with whom he can dialogue." COMMENT: This view is based on the theory of the unitary character of man, which we discussed above. It is not right to say the Bible ascribes emotions to God - such language is only anthropomorphism.
Conclusion: We think it best to say the likeness is in dominion over all creation, given to man by God. It is true this does imply two faculties of mind and will, but even if we do not flatly accept the unitary theory of man - cf. above - we note that this is only an implication.
