How do we explain Neanderthals?

[rusmeister]

superfluous - this doesn't "prove" anything on the subject since no one has claimed that Adam, first human was subject to death before the fall.

Kristos, you seem to not have gotten the memo: the defenders of evolution here in general have done just that. They deny chronology, and give us a narrative whereby sin was "retroactive" and caused death BEFORE man sinned. It looks like you've stepped in without reading the posts.

And to you I'll add that you evidently see a (low) level of sophistication that is fundamentalist, simplistic and rejects knowledge (since you're weighing in with the evolutionists, I'll include you with them in interpreting that as our position), and then a higher level of sophistication of people of modern education and science, who have a clearer and truer view of the world, thanks to that science. Am I wrong on that count?

But some of us have a view that sees a still higher level of sophistication, that sees the science of this world as not wrong on everything, but on a few things is terribly wrong, directed by the prince of this world, who is delighted that we have come to have such absolute faith in non-divine, fallible human teaching and learning, and that we have placed it on a level with divine revelation. Those few things cannot be observed, ever, only inferred by making assumptions and calculations with evidence, and generally forgetting that all calculations and assumptions can be made wrong by unknown variables when you cannot observe the distant past you are trying to study. This view is backed up by an understanding of what education is, what philosophy and theology are, and the general exclusion of those things from that education, not as separate subjects, but as the very things that govern that education. And thus, worldly wisdom is turned to folly, and the folly of old wives and superstitious faithful turns out to be wisdom, even if many of them do not understand the reasons why they accept what the world sees as foolishness with childlike faith.

 

[YCGP]

I wonder if the Pygmys had died out 2000 years ago and there were only bones left, would we call them sub human.
Tasmanian Aboriginals, totally wiped out, almost Neanderthal in their skull, shoulder, brow ridge and nose.
The Neanderthal was stronger and assuming brain size, much smarter than you and me

Orthodox explanation, they where human, homo sapien sapien, just like you and me
Just a little smarter and stronger
I believe dating methods are all based on false geology, 200 year old false geology

Actually, language is the reason why homo sapiens outlasted neanderthals. Homo sapiens had skills in language that allowed them to communicate, coordinate and cooperate better.

On another note:
Do you know how many parts of the faith I have to simply accept as the truth? It's mysterious and a little bit insane already. So why do we look at life through a scientific lens and go, "This will explain it! This will explain everything!" as if there is not some higher power, or different elements already at play?

In short, I don't really care what science says, though I know that it may give us clues or avenues to learn more about God and how we should live on this planet.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Actually, it's the unphilosophical theology-denying pseudo-education taught in our modern schools that is the real problem.

Even more so, and on many levels.

I was just trying to avoid a derail.

 

[rusmeister]

well, our hymns do pretty clearly refer to Adam in the literal, and death as having entered in when he sinned. they speak nothing of development from single cells into other life forms. and no, I do not believe the Sun rotates around the earth.

I think the problem of having anyone who prays to Adam as a patron saint in a view where Adam is only an allegory to be insurmountable. How many of us pray to allegories, asking for their intercession?

 

[Cappadocious]

when St John Chrysostom says the sun was intentionally by God created after vegetation, that is opposite. when St Nektarios of Aegina says evolution is false, that is opposite. when St Paisios of Mt Athos says it is blasphemy, that is opposite.

How do they experience this?

 

[ArmyMatt]

How do they experience this?

many of them, even those not yet glorified, have experienced creation as Adam did prior to the Fall. the most vivid I can remember is in the life of Elder Joseph the hesychast. St Andrew the Fool-for-Christ has similar experiences as well in his life.

 

[Cappadocious]

many of them, even those not yet glorified, have experienced creation as Adam did prior to the Fall. the most vivid I can remember is in the life of Elder Joseph the hesychast. St Andrew the Fool-for-Christ has similar experiences as well in his life.

Like a vision of how Eden was?

 

[ArmyMatt]

Like a vision of how Eden was?

yes, where he could hear the rocks and trees all praising God, where the sky was so blue it was beyond any blue he could describe, where everything was becoming more glorified the longer he was in that state.

 

[truefiction1]

The Garden and the fall are supernatural and stand outside of time. Can we comprehend he mystery which is God? Can our rational minds contain the mystery which is Heaven, which is none other than God's supernatural dwelling place; a dimension so incomprehensible that no words can exist to describe what the rational human mind cannot contain, so that only the language of metaphor can point to the great mysteries? That is the Garden. The Garden is the blessed state where God and creation are bound together in a union no less mysterious and incomprehensible than God Himself. The Garden is the same blessed place we enter, wherein mere bread and wine become (really) the very Christ Himself that we dine upon in paradise. O what incomprehensible wonder! O paradise beyond the limits of time and space!

The Garden and the fall are supernatural things that are not of this age, and being as they are outside of time in a state of "otherness" that we cannot rationally comprehend, then neither will we succeed in rationally explaining how it is that a man formed of matter (dust of the earth) created in time can come to be swept by God into a dimension that exists outside of it, while yet still connected to it, only to make a free choice by which he fell out of the timeless dimension of heaven into this natural one in time (banned from the Garden). Our rational minds cannot contain this mystery. I know that it is true, that there is both a supernatural realm that we call heaven which is eternal and this natural realm of creation in time, and I also know by faith and by experience that a man can bind the two realms together, so that what is natural moves toward being supernatural. None of us, however, will ever explain with words expressing rational, abstracting cognitions, this awesome mystery that will always transcend our ability to understand this sacramental mystery in this way.

Just because I cannot explain the unfathomable mechanisms by which Adam and Eve lived in and fell from God's supernatural dwelling place that existed beyond the borders of created time (because these are great mysteries) and came to dwell within this natural (as opposed to supernatural) dimension where natural mortality of all living thins had reigned for billions of years prior, even though these existential conditions had the fall that occurred outside of time as the cause of the conditions, does not mean that it is not true.

I cannot understand God, the Holy Trinity, but merely point to the mystery with earthly metaphors.

I cannot understand how I am brought into the Kingdom of Heaven which is outside of created time and space and eat God Himself as food that is transforming me from a natural being into a supernatural one, yet I know it is true.

I cannot understand the supernatural events I have witnessed which have no rational explanation from within nature, because they are of God.

I cannot understand How a man made of natural materials lives in a supernatural realm from which he falls and is ejected into a pre-existing natural order ruled by a cycle of life and death for all living things for which his own sin, committed outside of time, is responsible for, or by what unfathomable mechanism his disease afflicts all of mankind throughout all of time and space.

I cannot fathom the great mystery that is "mankind", created in the image and likeness of the God in three persons, so that we are "man in many persons". Man is a great mystery. personhood is a great mystery. redemption is a great mystery as has been realized within Orthodox Theology.

Many, many great mysteries. I know I cannot know. I will meet Adam and Eve in that supernatural existence. In this I am confident. The great and true mysteries about them that are pointed to in the metaphorical imagery of Genesis will be revealed as undeniable Truth. Of this I am confident. And there were living creatures which lived and died long before
Adam "knew his wife Eve, and she bore a son". Of this I am confident.

 

[YCGP]

The Garden and the fall are supernatural and stand outside of time. Can we comprehend he mystery which is God? Can our rational minds contain the mystery which is Heaven, which is none other than God's supernatural dwelling place; a dimension so incomprehensible that no words can exist to describe what the rational human mind cannot contain, so that only the language of metaphor can point to the great mysteries? That is the Garden. The Garden is the blessed state where God and creation are bound together in a union no less mysterious and incomprehensible than God Himself. The Garden is the same blessed place we enter, wherein mere bread and wine become (really) the very Christ Himself that we dine upon in paradise. O what incomprehensible wonder! O paradise beyond the limits of time and space!

The Garden and the fall are supernatural things that are not of this age, and being as they are outside of time in a state of "otherness" that we cannot rationally comprehend, then neither will we succeed in rationally explaining how it is that a man formed of matter (dust of the earth) created in time can come to be swept by God into a dimension that exists outside of it, while yet still connected to it, only to make a free choice by which he fell out of the timeless dimension of heaven into this natural one in time (banned from the Garden). Our rational minds cannot contain this mystery. I know that it is true, that there is both a supernatural realm that we call heaven which is eternal and this natural realm of creation in time, and I also know by faith and by experience that a man can bind the two realms together, so that what is natural moves toward being supernatural. None of us, however, will ever explain with words expressing rational, abstracting cognitions, this awesome mystery that will always transcend our ability to understand this sacramental mystery in this way.

Just because I cannot explain the unfathomable mechanisms by which Adam and Eve lived in and fell from God's supernatural dwelling place that existed beyond the borders of created time (because these are great mysteries) and came to dwell within this natural (as opposed to supernatural) dimension where natural mortality of all living thins had reigned for billions of years prior, even though these existential conditions had the fall that occurred outside of time as the cause of the conditions, does not mean that it is not true.

I cannot understand God, the Holy Trinity, but merely point to the mystery with earthly metaphors.

I cannot understand how I am brought into the Kingdom of Heaven which is outside of created time and space and eat God Himself as food that is transforming me from a natural being into a supernatural one, yet I know it is true.

I cannot understand the supernatural events I have witnessed which have no rational explanation from within nature, because they are of God.

I cannot understand How a man made of natural materials lives in a supernatural realm from which he falls and is ejected into a pre-existing natural order ruled by a cycle of life and death for all living things for which his own sin, committed outside of time, is responsible for, or by what unfathomable mechanism his disease afflicts all of mankind throughout all of time and space.

I cannot fathom the great mystery that is "mankind", created in the image and likeness of the God in three persons, so that we are "man in many persons". Man is a great mystery. personhood is a great mystery. redemption is a great mystery as has been realized within Orthodox Theology.

Many, many great mysteries. I know I cannot know. I will meet Adam and Eve in that supernatural existence. In this I am confident. The great and true mysteries about them that are pointed to in the metaphorical imagery of Genesis will be revealed as undeniable Truth. Of this I am confident. And there were living creatures which lived and died long before
Adam "knew his wife Eve, and she bore a son". Of this I am confident.

I totally feel you on this one. I'm glad someone put it into words.

 

[Cappadocious]

yes, where he could hear the rocks and trees all praising God, where the sky was so blue it was beyond any blue he could describe, where everything was becoming more glorified the longer he was in that state.

Doesn't seem like that vision contradicts evolution

 

[prodromos]

The Garden and the fall are supernatural and stand outside of time.

Where is this stated by the Church?

 

[ArmyMatt]

Doesn't seem like that vision contradicts evolution

It is a state of perfection and glory with no decay or death. It totally contradicts evolution. Probably one of the reasons Elder Joseph said evolution was a stench he could smell on those who taught it

 

[truefiction1]

Where is this stated by the Church?

I will try to relocate the writings of the early father who wrote about this.

Where is this stated by the Church?

The Church states this in Her Scripture, as well as in her poetic descriptions of paradise, the fall, and what came after it. Poetry is the language we go to whenever we are pointing at things that are real in places where our rational minds are overcome. This place is Heaven, in the presence of God, whose unspeakable light illumines all things to such a degree that the rational mind is utterly overpowered, and we can only cry out in images, such as are depicted by gardens and trees and serpents and winged creatures with non-surmountable flaming swords and such, but the things actually being experienced are far more than that: things unimaginable are there, in that sacred dwelling space where earth mysteriously unites with heaven, where time and space kisses timelessness and infinity, where creatures meld with the un-created glory of God.

 

[randomvim]

with elegance

 

[prodromos]

I will try to relocate the writings of the early father who wrote about this.

The Church states this in Her Scripture, as well as in her poetic descriptions of paradise, the fall, and what came after it. Poetry is the language we go to whenever we are pointing at things that are real in places where our rational minds are overcome. This place is Heaven, in the presence of God, whose unspeakable light illumines all things to such a degree that the rational mind is utterly overpowered, and we can only cry out in images, such as are depicted by gardens and trees and serpents and winged creatures with non-surmountable flaming swords and such, but the things actually being experienced are far more than that: things unimaginable are there, in that sacred dwelling space where earth mysteriously unites with heaven, where time and space kisses timelessness and infinity, where creatures meld with the un-created glory of God.

Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be disappointed with whatever it is you are going to present?

 

[rusmeister]

Actually, language is the reason why homo sapiens outlasted neanderthals. Homo sapiens had skills in language that allowed them to communicate, coordinate and cooperate better.

On another note:
Do you know how many parts of the faith I have to simply accept as the truth? It's mysterious and a little bit insane already. So why do we look at life through a scientific lens and go, "This will explain it! This will explain everything!" as if there is not some higher power, or different elements already at play?

In short, I don't really care what science says, though I know that it may give us clues or avenues to learn more about God and how we should live on this planet.

This is a good example of how the lack of the things I cited in education result in such certain pronouncements, such absolute knowledge that the people you term "Neanderthals" certainly didn't have language. It's like saying that there is no God. A universal negation made on the general basis that one (or ten thousand) hasn't found evidence. It is this dogmatic certainty about a people in the past that can never be proven by visiting the people and actually experiencing that they really have no language. It is made by assumption, could be corrected by any future discovery of an unknown variable, and yet is pronounced witth the certainty with which we say that it is hot at the equator, and the faith with which we say Christ is risen from the dead. It is scientism.

 

[truefiction1]

Why do I get the feeling I'm going to be disappointed with whatever it is you are going to present?

Because you have already determined in your heart that you've no interest in listening to a fool.

 

[rusmeister]

The Garden and the fall are supernatural and stand outside of time. Can we comprehend he mystery which is God? Can our rational minds contain the mystery which is Heaven, which is none other than God's supernatural dwelling place; a dimension so incomprehensible that no words can exist to describe what the rational human mind cannot contain, so that only the language of metaphor can point to the great mysteries? That is the Garden. The Garden is the blessed state where God and creation are bound together in a union no less mysterious and incomprehensible than God Himself. The Garden is the same blessed place we enter, wherein mere bread and wine become (really) the very Christ Himself that we dine upon in paradise. O what incomprehensible wonder! O paradise beyond the limits of time and space!

The Garden and the fall are supernatural things that are not of this age, and being as they are outside of time in a state of "otherness" that we cannot rationally comprehend, then neither will we succeed in rationally explaining how it is that a man formed of matter (dust of the earth) created in time can come to be swept by God into a dimension that exists outside of it, while yet still connected to it, only to make a free choice by which he fell out of the timeless dimension of heaven into this natural one in time (banned from the Garden). Our rational minds cannot contain this mystery. I know that it is true, that there is both a supernatural realm that we call heaven which is eternal and this natural realm of creation in time, and I also know by faith and by experience that a man can bind the two realms together, so that what is natural moves toward being supernatural. None of us, however, will ever explain with words expressing rational, abstracting cognitions, this awesome mystery that will always transcend our ability to understand this sacramental mystery in this way.

Just because I cannot explain the unfathomable mechanisms by which Adam and Eve lived in and fell from God's supernatural dwelling place that existed beyond the borders of created time (because these are great mysteries) and came to dwell within this natural (as opposed to supernatural) dimension where natural mortality of all living thins had reigned for billions of years prior, even though these existential conditions had the fall that occurred outside of time as the cause of the conditions, does not mean that it is not true.

I cannot understand God, the Holy Trinity, but merely point to the mystery with earthly metaphors.

I cannot understand how I am brought into the Kingdom of Heaven which is outside of created time and space and eat God Himself as food that is transforming me from a natural being into a supernatural one, yet I know it is true.

I cannot understand the supernatural events I have witnessed which have no rational explanation from within nature, because they are of God.

I cannot understand How a man made of natural materials lives in a supernatural realm from which he falls and is ejected into a pre-existing natural order ruled by a cycle of life and death for all living things for which his own sin, committed outside of time, is responsible for, or by what unfathomable mechanism his disease afflicts all of mankind throughout all of time and space.

I cannot fathom the great mystery that is "mankind", created in the image and likeness of the God in three persons, so that we are "man in many persons". Man is a great mystery. personhood is a great mystery. redemption is a great mystery as has been realized within Orthodox Theology.

Many, many great mysteries. I know I cannot know. I will meet Adam and Eve in that supernatural existence. In this I am confident. The great and true mysteries about them that are pointed to in the metaphorical imagery of Genesis will be revealed as undeniable Truth. Of this I am confident. And there were living creatures which lived and died long before
Adam "knew his wife Eve, and she bore a son". Of this I am confident.

The trouble with your approach, TF, is that it can be applied to any teaching, and used to say "We cannot understand it".

You are right that there certainly are mysteries beyond our comprehension. And our Faith clearly states that the things that really ARE mysteries are mysteries.

But there ARE things we can understand. There IS such a thing as actual contradiction, of mutually exclusive states that can be known and recognized, there are such things as lies. But anyone can take your attitude to defend any lie. You take definite truths, things that ARE mystery, and apply them to things that are not. The Trinity IS a mystery; you speak rightly there. But man is NOT a mystery to us; we ARE men. That is where you go wrong. We understand what choice and consequence mean to men, there is nothing mysterious about it; it is the basis of how we understand that man could be in a perfect state and yet Fall. It doesn't mean we understand all things about men, what the deep purpose of the sexes is, etc, but we do know what temptation and consequence are. It is contained in the very word "consequence": "sequence", what we call chronology.

But you present us with a narrative that first accepts that idea of choice and consequence, and then denies it and "rewinds the tape" to a point prior to all life, and then "presses play" again. It is nonsense. You are trying to hold two mutually incompatible views in a manner that the fathers certainly did not, and then, because you honestly can't reconcile them, you call it "mystery", though it is only mysterious because you refuse to see the obvious contradiction, the fact that you cannot accept chronology, reject it, and then accept it again. We understand Adam because we are men. If man Fell at all, then man lived with the consequences of the Fall. This is all described in Genesis, not as metaphor, not as allegory, but as historical, chronological fact. It is true that you have two parallel tellings of the story. But in turning them into mere metaphor, you make it impossible for yourself to understand what we understand: that actions have consequences and we have to live with them. You are trying to parse fancy understandings that make simple ideas into complex mysteries for the sake of holding on to the science of our day, a passing thing. But all men know chronology - at least, we know the certainty that we cannot be unborn through our own bad choices; something you literally apply to Adam, even to the point of suggesting that his children were single-celled creatures. (And you spin away from that by saying that "you don't understand" - but the point is that we DO understand that that IS what it means as applied to Creation.)

And this has effects far beyond the story of Creation. As applied to everything else, it means we can't really know anything beyond what we choose to know. Everything could be merely allegorical. Nobody can ultimately be wrong. Any person or event can be designated as not literal in this view, up to and including the Resurrection. That you don't may be a saving grace for you - you can hold a terribly wrong idea in your head, yet still be saved - but remain a damning temptation for anybody else, that can lead anyone into heresy by letting them choose which doctrines they will see as allegory and which is literal. Here the salvific thing is to let the Church tell us, grant that it has the authority to teach and correct us.

 

[truefiction1]

The trouble with your approach, TF, is that it can be applied to any teaching, and used to say "We cannot understand it".

You are right that there certainly are mysteries beyond our comprehension. And our Faith clearly states that the things that really ARE mysteries are mysteries.

But there ARE things we can understand. There IS such a thing as actual contradiction, of mutually exclusive states that can be known and recognized, there are such things as lies. But anyone can take your attitude to defend any lie. You take definite truths, things that ARE mystery, and apply them to things that are not. The Trinity IS a mystery; you speak rightly there. But man is NOT a mystery to us; we ARE men. That is where you go wrong. We understand what choice and consequence mean to men, there is nothing mysterious about it; it is the basis of how we understand that man could be in a perfect state and yet Fall. It doesn't mean we understand all things about men, what the deep purpose of the sexes is, etc, but we do know what temptation and consequence are. It is contained in the very word "consequence": "sequence", what we call chronology.

But you present us with a narrative that first accepts that idea of choice and consequence, and then denies it and "rewinds the tape" to a point prior to all life, and then "presses play" again. It is nonsense. You are trying to hold two mutually incompatible views in a manner that the fathers certainly did not, and then, because you honestly can't reconcile them, you call it "mystery", though it is only mysterious because you refuse to see the obvious contradiction, the fact that you cannot accept chronology, reject it, and then accept it again. We understand Adam because we are men. If man Fell at all, then man lived with the consequences of the Fall. This is all described in Genesis, not as metaphor, not as allegory, but as historical, chronological fact. It is true that you have two parallel tellings of the story. But in turning them into mere metaphor, you make it impossible for yourself to understand what we understand: that actions have consequences and we have to live with them. You are trying to parse fancy understandings that make simple ideas into complex mysteries for the sake of holding on to the science of our day, a passing thing. But all men know chronology - at least, we know the certainty that we cannot be unborn through our own bad choices; something you literally apply to Adam, even to the point of suggesting that his children were single-celled creatures. (And you spin away from that by saying that "you don't understand" - but the point is that we DO understand that that IS what it means as applied to Creation.)

And this has effects far beyond the story of Creation. As applied to everything else, it means we can't really know anything beyond what we choose to know. Everything could be merely allegorical. Nobody can ultimately be wrong. Any person or event can be designated as not literal in this view, up to and including the Resurrection. That you don't may be a saving grace for you - you can hold a terribly wrong idea in your head, yet still be saved - but remain a damning temptation for anybody else, that can lead anyone into heresy by letting them choose which doctrines they will see as allegory and which is literal. Here the salvific thing is to let the Church tell us, grant that it has the authority to teach and correct us.

I Don't agree. I know that this "Paradise" that Adam lived is is among the great mysteries that defies all logic, because it is restored in the Incarnation, wherein Christ Himself is the Garden of Eden restored among men. The Garden symbolizes Him, and is no less incomprehensible than the Incarnation itself. The serpent (satan) appears in this new Garden as well, to tempt this new Adam in the same three ways that Adam was tempted. We who abide in Christ abide in Paradise. Christ is Eternal as is His Heavenly Kingdom, as is that Paradise of old where Adam lived until cast out. It is a place that meets time but transcends time: a great mystery. Logic is for figuring out how things work in our natural world. It is not for cognitively grasping what is clearly beyond the reach of created thought mechanisms. There is also nothing in this way of seeing the Garden and the fall that defies any critical Orthodox Theology. It isn't a belief that would get one excommunicated or cast into hell. I'm going to stick with it for now, until God shows me to believe otherwise.

By the way, man is most definitely a great mystery, as is person-hood. Being unaware of this reality does not make it any less so. But that is a whole other topic.