EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE 



transgression; he makes us feel its pain, but merely hints at 

 what preceded it. The sharpest contrast is between nakedness 

 unembarrassed and nakedness ashamed. The account suggests 

 other differences, but does not clearly define them. It intimates 

 that work was not slavery, but makes no explicit statement. 

 One detail indicates that the original creation inaugurated a 

 cultural development to follow later; technical and artistic 

 inventions do not appear until subsequent generations at 

 several removes from Adam and Eve (Gen. 4; 20-22). 



In this brief sketch we are provided with very little material 

 for compiling a description of the primitive condition of the 

 first human beings. Yet it enables us to perceive the Creator's 

 providence and love, to which, on man's part, an untroubled 

 and fearless access to God corresponds. The account of 

 Paradise is a highly serious history, set forth in artistic 

 fashion, in a simple and figurative style. Paradise symbolizes, 

 in an ingenuous way, the well-being of the state of grace as 

 the normal condition of man in relation to God, and the only 

 one that truly measures up to the Creator's designs. 



Medieval scholastics unquestionably overstated the perfect 

 tion of Adam's knowledge. According to the inspired text, 

 Adam assigned names to the animals, which implies intelligence, 

 and both he and his wife understood God's command. But the 

 development of arts and crafts was left to future ages, and we 

 have no reason to suspect that later men merely rediscovered 

 what the first pair had possessed from the beginning. The 

 religious and moral perfection of Paradise was high, because 

 it was supernatural; but the cultural level of life in the Garden 

 could have been very elementary. 



In grappling with this problem, we may not overlook the 

 change which original sin wrought in man himself and in his 

 conditions of life. Researches made into prehistory, when they 

 bring us a knowledge of fossil remains of Adam's descendants 

 or of their primitive tools, have to do with men fallen from 

 their first estate. The earthly Paradise was forsaken for the 

 valley of tears. Mankind, cast out of Eden and no longer 

 enjoying special privileges, had to face the formidable task of 

 dominating hostile nature, even for the bare necessities required 

 for survival. Small wonder if mankind had to go through a 

 period of hesitation and groping, and if its march forward was 



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