EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE 



mission of this sin and its punishment cannot be explained 

 except by descent. 



Such is the teaching of Humani generis,^^ Pius XII states 

 that polygenism is incompatible with the dogma of original 

 sin. The supposition of a collective Adam is untenable because 

 it is out of joint with what the sources of revelation and the 

 acts of the magisterium of the Church proclaim about original 

 sin, which stems from a sin truly committed by an individual 

 person, Adam. This declaration of the Holy Father decides 

 the question and closes discussions, formerly engaged in by 

 some theologians, on the reconciliation of the polygenist 

 hypothesis with faith. 



Hence this document asserts monogenism. It does not, 

 however, affirm that monogenism is directly taught by the 

 sources of revelation, but uses an indirect argument. It appeals 

 to the dogma of original sin considered in all its elements: the 

 universality of the state of sin in which all men existing on 

 earth after Adam are conceived, the transmission of the sin 

 by generation, and its origin from a sin really committed by 

 Adam. Only monogenism is conformable with the data of 

 revelation on original sin as expressed by St. Paul and 

 precisely formulated by the Council of Trent.26 



Thus Pius XII dissociates the questions of evolution and 

 polygenism. The plurality of human origins postulated by 

 some evolutionists is based on purely theoretical grounds; but 

 the faithful have sufficient reasons for maintaining mono- 

 genism, even in an evolutionist perspective. The decision to 

 join for the first time the creation and infusion of the spiritual 

 soul with the emergence of a high degree of zoological perfec- 

 tion arrived at in the ascensional movement of evolution, can 

 come only from God. The interplay of biological laws is 

 radically incapable of determining the advent of the immortal 

 soul, which by its nature transcends the entire mechanism of 

 the universe. Only an evolution divinely directed can account 

 for the accession of an animal cell to human dignity.27 Con- 



25 AAS 42 (1950) 576. 



26 Rom. 5: 12^19; Council of Trent, sess. V, can. 1--4 (Denz.. 788— 



2^ Cf. C. Joumet, La question des origines: la Bible et les sciences, 

 Nova et Vetera 33 (1958) 175. 



116 



