 | Father Richard James Cleary was born and reared in Wichita. After graduation from Cathedral High School in 1947, he attended the seminary operated by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey in Northwestern Missouri. There he came to appreciate the life of the monks and, having obtained the permission of Bishop Mark Carroll of Wichita, he became a monk of that monastery. After being ordained a priest in 1955, his superiors sent him to get his master’s degree at the University of Ottawa, Canada, then to study in Athens, Greece, and then in Rome, Italy, where he obtained his doctor’s degree in Theology. Finally, he spent a year of study at Harvard University. Later, Fr. Cleary was assigned to teach for many years in Rome. In 1998, he returned to Wichita, where he served in parish ministry at St. Mary’s Cathedral and at Blessed Sacrament parishes. In 2001, his abbot (superior) transferred him to Arkansas, where he served as chaplain of the Benedictine Sisters of Holy Angels Convent in Jonesboro, and helped in the parishes of northeast Arkansas. In March 2010, he was re-assigned to his monastery, Conception Abbey, Conception, in Missouri 64433. He can be contacted there at, 660-944-2877, or by email: rjcleary@juno.com. |
Religion
2003-01-01 11:06:00
Did all of mankind descend from just two people?
Question: The Bible says God made Adam by breathing life into a handful of clay; then He made Eve by taking a rib from Adam's side. Are these the only two people He made in this fashion? If so, did all mankind evolve from sons and daughters of Adam and Eve?
ANSWER: Apart from the Bible, we don't know. The question refers to the first chapters of the first book of the Bible, which describes the creation of this world and culminates in the creation of the first man and woman. The other books of the Bible take-for-granted as true what Moses had written in those first chapters of Genesis. Today most Bible scholars consider chapters one through eleven of the book of Genesis as religious philosophy rather than scientific history. Thus in those chapters are taught that there is only one God, Who created everything that exists, and that all God's creation is good. Humans differ from brute creation by God making Adam in his own image and infusing into him a soul with intelligence and free-will. [Gen.2:7 "TheLord God took some dirt from the earth and formed a man out of it; he breathed into it a life-giving soul."] God makes man the lord and head of all his creation, and so Adam gives names to all the animals and plants. To describe the role and dignity of woman, we read that God took a rib from Adam's side and fashioned it into woman (Eve). That action signifies that in God's design for human society: man is the head and woman is the heart of the social body, which is the family. Evil enters this good creation through the devil tempting Adam and Eve to abuse the gift of free-will to disobey God. From such disobedience follows all the evils and sorrows and hardships of human life on this earth, and also death itself. This basic philosophy is described in the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. We don't know whether this is strict history or legend told to enshrine basic truths in the human memory. We do know that actual human history commences with the call of Abraham in chapter twelve of Genesis. Accordingly, it seems probable that God commenced our human race with a single couple, from whose children all humans are descended. In writing about the universality of sin, in his epistle to the Romans (5:12), St. Paul states that "sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a result, death has spread to the whole human race, because everyone has sinned." Thus we have original sin, which is the natural inclination to evil, with which all human beings are infected. [Jesus and his mother Mary were exempted by God from any sin.]Those who do not accept this biblical teaching, or reject the Church's teaching about original sin, have the burden of trying to prove their opinions as factual. They cannot produce a fully rational person, who is absolutely innocent and who is not inclined to do something naughty. (Even an otherwise innocent baby can be strong-willed and disobey.) Nor can those who reject divine revelation produce solid evidence of humans descended from parents other than Adam & Eve. Maybe they are descended from monkeys, but most of us are not.In light of the above, it appears that the human race commenced through incest. The Bible does not address this idea as such; but, immediately after informing us about the contrast and conflict between the first two sons of Adam and Eve, the Book of Genesis (4:17) relates that "Cain and his wife had a son and named him Enoch." Where would Cain have obtained a wife, except from among his sisters? It is evident that, in the beginning, the divine law prohibiting incest had not yet been promulgated. Likewise, the divine prohibition against bigamy had not been decreed in the time of Abraham (cf. Genesis 16). Only gradually did the Creator reveal his will and purposes in this world, as the Apostle says at the beginning of the epistle to the Hebrews: "In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets."
