If you’ve been following the posts about the daily readings from Genesis we have covered the creation story, the rebellion in the Garden of Eden, Cain’s murder of Abel, and the first part of the story of the Great Flood. Along the way I have speculated about our ideas of original sin, rebellion from the authority of God, the biblical account, and their interface with science – specifically with the idea of human evolution, something that Pope Pius XII allowed theologians to consider in his 1950 Papal Encyclical Humani Generis. In that encyclical while many things were discussed, there were two points germain to this ongoing reflection: (a) theologians must always hold to the revealed doctrine that God alone created the human soul and (b) theologians were obliged to offer insight on how evil/sin/rebellion entered the world.

In a previous post I offered: In a faith discussion that accepts evolution one has to wonder if natural selection would have conferred on our evolutionary ancestors tendencies for behaviors that favored passing on of their genes. Competition for resources and breeding opportunities would have led to behaviors that, for moral agents, would be sinful.  When they were first somehow made aware of God and God’s will for them, a call to trust and obey God would have been in tension with their instincts. It seems instincts won and the rebellion spreads.