Adam and Eve and the Caveman QUESTION from Bob Rutzel on December 5, 2002 How does the Catholic Church explain the Caveman, who didn't talk (our understanding) with Adam and Eve who supposedly came first and did talk?
There seems to be something not right here.
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on December 22, 2002 Dear Mr. Rutzel:
We do not know if our first parents came before the cavemen.
What makes a human being is not the body alone, it is the ensoulment into the body of a rational soul made in the image of God.
The official Church teaching on origins states that the origin of the earth and of the species is an endeavor for scientific investigation. Thus evolution can be accepted by a Catholic, as long as evolutionist admit that we did indeed have an original pair of parents, and the the soul is NOT evolved, but individually created by God.
A Catholic can also believe in the literal Genesis story if they want.
But we MUST admit and understand that the Genesis story is NOT history, it is mythic oral history. That means that it can contain truth or fiction it does not matter. It does not matter because the point of the Genesis story is NOT to give the mechanism of creation but to teach the religious truth of WHO the Creator is, who man is, and man's relationship with his Creator and with all creation.
Thus Cavemen may have been pre-human and ancesters to humans perhaps. At some point God choose a being to be ensouled. Then and there a human being was created.
Or Cavemen may not be ancesters to Man, but a separate species and God created Man directly as a species unto ourselves.
It does not matter. God is the Creator in any event.
Back to Index Page