How do we explain Neanderthals?

[jckstraw72]

What do you believe?

i believe the creative act of each day was instantaneous.

 

[jckstraw72]

Christ said in a parable: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. And in another place: Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

In the first place a revelation, a vision. In the second place, a revelation, a vision. But the responsibility and the blessing is greater concerning the handed down commandments and the Gospel, respectively. So if the saints have erred in the commandments and the Gospel (and they have, from time to time, who would deny it?) this error is the greater error. And yet we would not call such errors saint-breaking delusion.


Knowing someone need not be made or broken upon a single instance, but upon the whole movment of a life or a communion. This is the difference between a mitzvah and a virtue, between a sin and a vice. So one sin or error or lack of knowledge need not break communion or prove its absence.


Surely the saints are not guilty until proven innocent! Do we have evidence of the repentance of Justinian for his crimes and supposed aphthartodocetism, for St. Isaac's Nestorianism, for St. Joseph Volotsky's teaching of violence against heretics, for what some see St. Maria of Paris's improper iconographic theology, for St. Cyril's words of hatred against St. John Chrysostom, for Czar Nicholas II's "what a pity so few" etc.? (surely one of these holds for you).

If we're in the business of saying: "Show me evidence of repentance or else no sainthood" we're going to lose some saints.

i can't reply now, but just wanted to say that you've made some good points. thanks for a thought-provoking reply.

 

[truefiction1]

no, it's the teaching of the saints. anyone with any assumptions can read their words. it's just a question of believing them or not.

You are assuming that the saints did not have subconscious assumptions underlying their particular personalities which colored their perceptions. Perhaps we are at times unaware of how our own subconscious assumptions color our conclusions about the nature of sainthood, and whether this determines our willingness to believe that their thoughts on everything must always be accepted without question.

I'd like to know: How many of us feel that all of the greatest saints of the Church were practically unlimited in their capacity to comprehend the totality of God's Truth and of His works, in all of its aspects and all at once? Did the Holy Spirit lead them into a state of being in which the knew "all Truth", wherein nothing that could be known about God's works was not known? Please speak up if you feel this way.

 

[jckstraw72]

no one is claiming they knew everything ... but the problem is that evolution does not simply fill in the gaps, but rather contradicts. somehow Genesis has been a huge blind spot for the saints for 2000 years. and not only is it their blind spot where God is apparently not teaching, but they threw around their own private interpretations with remarkable consistency, regardless of time or place. it's a pretty amazing story!

 

[ArmyMatt]

regardless of time or place.

and education level. St Nikolai of Ziccha had earned three doctorates, St Porphyrios of Kafsokalivia had almost no formal education past a middle school level. both reject evolution.

 

[truefiction1]

no one is claiming they knew everything ... but the problem is that evolution does not simply fill in the gaps, but rather contradicts. somehow Genesis has been a huge blind spot for the saints for 2000 years. and not only is it their blind spot where God is apparently not teaching, but they threw around their own private interpretations with remarkable consistency, regardless of time or place. it's a pretty amazing story!

It's likely that heretics and ordinary sinful members of the Church shared the same interpretations. The beliefs held were par for the culture for the greater part of those 2000 years, and culture plays a major role in providing its constituents with underlying assumptions that shape beliefs.

 

[ArmyMatt]

It's likely that heretics and ordinary sinful members of the Church shared the same interpretations. The beliefs held were par for the culture for the greater part of those 2000 years, and culture plays a major role in providing its constituents with underlying assumptions that shape beliefs.

But I think this does not factor in the work of the Holy Spirit, Who was promised to lead us all into all Truth, which would include our origins and Fall.

 

[Rodan6]

I am reading a book called "Sapiens" and it tells the story of humankind. So far most of it has been about neanderthals and the other species of humans who existed at the same time. Eventually, all but one species went extinct and homo sapiens (us) made it to the top of the food chain.

These species, such as neanderthals and homo erectus, existed two million years ago.

What is the Orthodox explanation of this?

A solid majority of Christians in the world accept the fact of evolution on our planet. Being "Christian" does not mean we have to check our brains in at the door when we attend church.

 

[truefiction1]

But I think this does not factor in the work of the Holy Spirit, Who was promised to lead us all into all Truth, which would include our origins and Fall.

Perhaps. I don't know though, because, now that I think about it, every heretic from Arius through Luther and Calvin to Charles Taze Russell interpreted the first chapters of the Book of Genesis just as our saints did. Might there be forces at work behind this consistency of unconscious assumptions about what is written in there other than the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Is it possible that there is a strong human element responsible for this?

 

[rusmeister]

A solid majority of Christians in the world accept the fact of evolution on our planet. Being "Christian" does not mean we have to check our brains in at the door when we attend church.

Hi, Rodan, and welcome to TAW!
Please bear in mind that this is a congregational forum, and we have our own rules here.

You've walked in on a conversation that has been going on for some time, and haven't seen the extent to which the disagreeing sides have shown that they most certainly are not "checking their brains at the door". It is (no doubt unintentionally) insulting to us who disagree with you. You would have to show that you understand what we have been saying, and your comment here shows that you haven't yet.

 

[rusmeister]

It's likely that heretics and ordinary sinful members of the Church shared the same interpretations. The beliefs held were par for the culture for the greater part of those 2000 years, and culture plays a major role in providing its constituents with underlying assumptions that shape beliefs.

Perhaps. I don't know though, because, now that I think about it, every heretic from Arius through Luther and Calvin to Charles Taze Russell interpreted the first chapters of the Book of Genesis just as our saints did. Might there be forces at work behind this consistency of unconscious assumptions about what is written in there other than the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Is it possible that there is a strong human element responsible for this?

What you are saying comes down to saying that the consensus of both heretics and non-heretics, consistent for two millennia, is now subject to be overturned because you know better, that it has not been the Holy Spirit leading everyone into the teaching of the special creation of Adam as a definite man and of death as not entering the cosmos until he sinned, a denial of the existence of a deathless cosmos in which man had existed.
I've tried to warn you before about the deadly danger of thinking we moderns today can know better than the fathers of the past because we have, as we imagine, certain scientific or technical knowledge. The real heresiarch IS the one who thinks he knows better, and introduces novel teaching into the Church, which is what the evolutionary narrative of Creation is.
Yes, it can be hard to surrender what we think we know, and the desire to synthesize all knowledge is clearly understandable. We're just saying that when you come up against complete contradiction, where you have to begin fabricating explanations more elaborate and incredible than those of the fathers that do actually contradict what they say, then invent complex talk of metaphor and allegory that they never intended, fully understanding the concepts as they did, in order to try to sew these two radically different cloths together, you have to choose, whether to continue to go down this rabbit hole of ever-more complicated and unbelievable explanations in order to aver your faith in science, or to accept that the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.

One of these two ideas is really, really wrong. Yours says the consensus of the Church has been wrong until now, that you know better, that you can lead the Church into all truth. I may think I know better than you about something, but I will not think I know better than that consensus.

It's entirely a sidebar, and not an argument, but my favorites, Lewis and Chesterton, both accepted the idea of human evolution as young and intelligent men (Lewis held onto it even to middle age), but came to reject it as older, wiser men.

 

[truefiction1]

What you are saying comes down to saying that the consensus of both heretics and non-heretics, consistent for two millennia, is now subject to be overturned because you know better, that it has not been the Holy Spirit leading everyone into the teaching of the special creation of Adam as a definite man and of death as not entering the cosmos until he sinned, a denial of the existence of a deathless cosmos in which man had existed.
I've tried to warn you before about the deadly danger of thinking we moderns today can know better than the fathers of the past because we have, as we imagine, certain scientific or technical knowledge. The real heresiarch IS the one who thinks he knows better, and introduces novel teaching into the Church, which is what the evolutionary narrative of Creation is.
Yes, it can be hard to surrender what we think we know, and the desire to synthesize all knowledge is clearly understandable. We're just saying that when you come up against complete contradiction, where you have to begin fabricating explanations more elaborate and incredible than those of the fathers that do actually contradict what they say, then invent complex talk of metaphor and allegory that they never intended, fully understanding the concepts as they did, in order to try to sew these two radically different cloths together, you have to choose, whether to continue to go down this rabbit hole of ever-more complicated and unbelievable explanations in order to aver your faith in science, or to accept that the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God.

One of these two ideas is really, really wrong. Yours says the consensus of the Church has been wrong until now, that you know better, that you can lead the Church into all truth. I may think I know better than you about something, but I will not think I know better than that consensus.

It's entirely a sidebar, and not an argument, but my favorites, Lewis and Chesterton, both accepted the idea of human evolution as young and intelligent men (Lewis held onto it even to middle age), but came to reject it as older, wiser men.

This is not actually what I am saying at all, and thanks for sharing the interesting sidebar. I wasn't aware of this.

Again, there are no contradictions. Only omissions of details not pertinent to Theological understandings. There is no need to fabricate "elaborate and incredible explanations". The simple, yet incredible explanations are provided by the very Scriptural text itself, which shows that the chronology is not laid out so as to give actual timelines, but to answer questions about relationships between things and between beings and between persons. It does just that, and in a way more incredible and miraculous than any "fabrication contrary to the consensus of the Church" that I could possibly invent myself.

 

[Petros2015]

But yet another fine speaker arises and disperses and destroys this theory to give predominance to an idea of his own invention.

Do not let us undertake to follow them for fear of falling into like frivolities; let them refute each other, and, without disquieting ourselves about essence, let us say with Moses “God created the heavens and the earth.” Let us glorify the supreme Artificer for all that was wisely and skillfully made; by the beauty of visible things let us raise ourselves to Him who is above all beauty; by the grandeur of bodies, sensible and limited in their nature, let us conceive of the infinite Being whose immensity and omnipotence surpass all the efforts of the imagination. Because, although we ignore the nature of created things, the objects which on all sides attract our notice are so marvellous, that the most penetrating mind cannot attain to the knowledge of the least of the phenomena of the world, either to give a suitable explanation of it or to render due praise to the Creator, to Whom belong all glory, all honour and all power world without end. Amen

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.viii.ii.html

 

[truefiction1]

Not sure what the Orthodox thought is, but there could have been a lineage of both neanderthals and 'humans' prior to Adam and Eve. Consider if what made those two special was having God breathe the soul into them, not just being the 'first' homosapien'ish thing. Adam and Eve would be Human+, if you like, a step up in spiritual (rather than physical) evolution from whatever else was contemporary. After and outside the Garden there may have been intermingling between the lines of homosapien and Human+, but I would guess that Human+ is dominant. And then there's that Flood story. Suddenly we are back to just 1 lineage again, Noah and family are definitely from the line of Adam. This makes more sense to me.

After Cain murders his brother and is outcast, he is worried that "whoever finds me will kill me."

??

In the Human+ line I think there's only him, Adam and Eve left at the point of the murder. Is he worried about baby brothers coming for vengence that aren't even born yet? I might be wrong. But this makes more sense if there were other lines of humans that weren't created 'in the image of God' or neanderthal hold outs or similar, and he knew about and was afraid of them. He goes on to build a city somehow. Not a tent or a shack. A city.

With who?

He takes a wife. I don't think her name or her lineage are given at all. That's odd...

I don't think the first few chapters of Genesis were quite as lonely as they are sometimes depicted. Adam and Eve may have had plenty of company once they were outside the Garden.

Just some thoughts.

"... and there was no man to cultivate the ground." (Genesis 2:5) = Humanity is tied to the capability to do agriculture?.

Just some thoughts to add to yours.

 

[jckstraw72]

even though you keeping saying there are no contradictions, that doesn't make it so. the example of instantaneous acts of creation is of course a contradiction, and that's why you need your theory of special human assumptions that have been consistent everywhere and at all times in order to explain it away. you know that evolution CONTRADICTS this teaching, that's why you need a reason to sweep it away.

 

[Petros2015]

Humanity is tied to the capability to do agriculture?

Personally I think humanity is tied to this, which (I believe) was given to Adam and Eve specifically and uniquely upon their creation and to all their descendents https://orthodoxwiki.org/Nous

I'm not sure what was running around outside the Garden. I don't see any evidence of a deathless world, so that was either completely wiped away retroactively and thoroughly as though it never was, or someone misinterpreted some passages. I'm prepared to believe either. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Nous to attend to.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Perhaps. I don't know though, because, now that I think about it, every heretic from Arius through Luther and Calvin to Charles Taze Russell interpreted the first chapters of the Book of Genesis just as our saints did. Might there be forces at work behind this consistency of unconscious assumptions about what is written in there other than the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Is it possible that there is a strong human element responsible for this?

It could be a strong human element because that's what really happened. even the heretics get stuff right.

 

[truefiction1]

even though you keeping saying there are no contradictions, that doesn't make it so. the example of instantaneous acts of creation is of course a contradiction, and that's why you need your theory of special human assumptions that have been consistent everywhere and at all times in order to explain it away. you know that evolution CONTRADICTS this teaching, that's why you need a reason to sweep it away.

To God, perhaps everything done is instantaneously, as God exists outside of time which is also a creation of His and waits for nothing -- everything is NOW. Genesis is His story, as He sees it. If what we observe with regard to how long things take to occur in nature on our side of things differs from that, it is not a contradiction, but a different way of experiencing it due to the difference between being human and being God.

 

[rusmeister]

This is not actually what I am saying at all, and thanks for sharing the interesting sidebar. I wasn't aware of this.

Again, there are no contradictions. Only omissions of details not pertinent to Theological understandings. There is no need to fabricate "elaborate and incredible explanations". The simple, yet incredible explanations are provided by the very Scriptural text itself, which shows that the chronology is not laid out so as to give actual timelines, but to answer questions about relationships between things and between beings and between persons. It does just that, and in a way more incredible and miraculous than any "fabrication contrary to the consensus of the Church" that I could possibly invent myself.

I am fully aware that you do not intend to say this. I believe you have the best of intentions.
But you do seem to deny a very clear contradiction I have already pointed out, in which Scripture states clearly that death entered the world due to sin, an action of conscious, thinking man. Insofar as you defend the idea of human evolution (and you hitherto seem to have done exactly that), and the evolutionary narrative in general, you contradict this clear teaching which is unambiguously interpreted in our Tradition as meaning that there was a Created world without death, that a sinless man enjoyed, until he sinned. If you do NOT defend the idea of evolution and a world which never existed without death among living things, then please say so clearly. A refusal to do so can only be interpreted as willful contradiction of the clear teaching of the fathers, which DOES mean that the effect of what you say is that 'today we know better', which is not clarification of existing doctrine, but actual change of doctrine.

 

[rusmeister]

To God, perhaps everything done is instantaneously, as God exists outside of time which is also a creation of His and waits for nothing -- everything is NOW. Genesis is His story, as He sees it. If what we observe with regard to how long things take to occur in nature on our side of things differs from that, it is not a contradiction, but a different way of experiencing it due to the difference between being human and being God.

There is a sense in which this is true.But it is equally true that any communication, including Scripture, has the aim of communicating something, and not speaking an alien language that no one can understand. The contradiction remains. It has been clearly communicated and affirmed many times that death entered the world by sin, into a world that had existed without death and sin, something that you seem to be expressly denying now.