The more that humanity discovers ways to communicate with animals,
discovering the
self-consciousness, awareness, thoughts, and emotional lives of animals,
the more
doubtful I become that "the insertion of a soul" is the defining
distinction
between humans and animals.
Jon Warren wrote:
> As I understand it, you believe that Eve was created miraculously
> from one of Adam's ribs? Why do you go half-way in accepting that
> up until Adam evolution could happen 'naturally", but then at that
> point have God step in and act miraculously, firstly to resuscitate
> Adam and then to create Eve. What is to stop me from assuming that
> mankind evolved in the same way that all other creatures did, without
> divine intervention?
>
> Secondly, how does the Fall fit in to your scenario? As I see it,
> if we evolved from animals then surely it is reasonable to expect us
> to behave like them too? This doesn't mean that the law of the jungle
> prevails - Frans de Waal has written an excellent book about the origins
> of morality among apes. Why do we have to propose a Fall to explain the
> behaviour of the human race?
I would argue that the "Fall" was the distinction of the human psyche
into
separate conscious and unconscious halves, or, as the early Christian
Gnostics
believed, when the "soul" and "spirit" first divided apart.
Many many early Creation myths introduce the idea that such a Primordial
Division occurred, and that death and human life proper, both began at
that point in time.
The Biblical tale of Adam and Eve does not say that Adam's RIB was
removed from him, but rather that one of his SIDES, a full HALF of his
being, was removed from him.
Check the Hebrew. This dovetails well with the idea that humanity began
when conscious and unconscious, soul and spirit, subjective and
objective, first separated enough to achieve distinctness within the
human psyche.
- Peter Novak