Did Christ Die For Neanderthals? | Fr Simon Gaine, OP

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Did Christ Die For Neanderthals? | Fr Simon Gaine, OP
This lecture was given on 30 January 2020 as the annual lecture in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas held at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
Fr. Simon Gaine, OP, teaches a wide range of courses in dogmatic and fundamental theology. He a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford.He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Aquinas Institute.
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[@brookekennel2636]

Thank you so much for this amazing talk! I have been fascinated by Neanderthals for several years, but there is a dearth of Catholic intellectuals talking about them. This is exactly the sort of analysis Ive been looking for!

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Excellent!

[@adventureinallthings]

Me too, I thought it was such a finding about how most of but not all of humanity has their DNA and the implications from a Catholic perspective, I've been astounded there has not been more about it. It is huge 🙂

[@redlinerumble3]

May I ask what is your point of view about Neanderthals and posession of rational immortal soul?

[@b-a-boon]

thank you father professor Gaine for these insights of clarity

[@palermofirenze]

This whole discussion about genes, mitochondria, etc., struck me as surprisingly materialistic-as if the definition of "human" relates to a particular arrangement of proteins. It seems to me that the main thing differentiating humans from animals is whether the organism has a moral sense. We don't say that cats who torture mice are immoral; they do not have a sense of right and wrong. Nor does the allegedly somewhat rational chimpanzee seem to have a sense of right and wrong. Only an organism that has a moral sense can sin. And only an organism that can sin must be saved. And so, if you want to ask whether Neanderthals were saved by Jesus, the first question has to be whether they needed to be saved, which equates to whether they had a moral sense. The precise arrangement of their proteins is immaterial. How you determine whether Neanderthals had a moral sense, I leave to the anthropologists to determine.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

You make a good point, and it sounds very similar to an argument of C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. For his part, Aquinas would say that it is our rational nature or power of reason (from which our capacity for free choice flows) that distinguishes the human from the merely animal -- and that the moral sense you speak of is downstream from this. Fr. Gaine absolutely agrees with that point, but being English and from Oxford, he has a way of being less direct than we Americans usually are. (Perhaps Lewis was an exception?) If you listen carefully, though, I think you'll find that you're on the same page with him!

[@TheGeneralGrievous19]

Well I think discussion about genetics here is relevant as it is in discussion about abortion. Having human DNA is a clear marker that one is human and therefore has human nature and has rational soul which further entalis being a moral animal. If Neanderthals were able to breed and share genes with homo sapiens it suggest we share the same rational nature and therefore are essentially the same type of being and moral animals. The same goes for unborn babies who share the same nature even though corporealy they lack distinctive human characteristics and abilities at this point in their life (similarly to disabled/mentally ill people who also can lack essential human characteristics in actuality). Therefore having human DNA is determining factor that they have rational soul since conception and it is not infused only later when e.g. brain develops or something.

[@adventureinallthings]

that was an amazing talk, I have been wondering about so much of this since I learned I have about 2% neanderthal DNA, thank you Fr Gaine for your work

[@ThomisticInstitute]

Delighted to hear!

[@moshenewsletter4620]

All Caucasians, Chinese, and Japanese have the highest Neanderthals ancestry. Majority of the Neanderthals are the biblical Nephilims that ate humans during the days of Noah, they also went by the Philistine, David killed Goliath who was a Neanderthal Nephilim.. a wicked at that.

[@annalamura7951]

Thank you, Fr. Simon! I was late in listening to this, and as an archaeologist, I do agree with everything you said. When I was a student I asked myself those same questions but, strangely enough, I came to (slightly) different conclusions: to what you said I can add only this: only two signs can give me a proof that a prehistoric man had a rational conscience: the first is language (as you said), but it leaves no material evidence for scientists to rely upon. The second one does leave unmistakable and everlasting signs: it is the ability to deal with fire, to be "master" of it, to use it as a shield, a weapon, for craft, for cooking etc etc. This happened in the history of humankind much before the presence of Homo sapiens or Neanderthal. If this fact should coincide in time with the fossil presence of an anatomical apparatus for language and (why not?) with the contemporary presence of the "mitochondrial Eve", we will be quite close to place (in time, if not jet in space) the context in which St. Adam and St. Eve lived their blessed life.

[@mariao62]

I think this was wonderful. I'm glad that you made some distinctions between apparent art and toolmaking and whether we can attribute immaterial intelligence to these artifacts. Where does this leave us with the current studies in biology that find language in Orcas (as well as planning and learning), and toolmaking in diverse species, including corvids? I'm very interested in where we draw the line on understanding.

[@stthomasmore4811]

Speed up to at least 1.25 for a more normal speech speed.

[@b-a-boon]

no

[@josephcandito]

What about Pope Francis’ statement at the end of one of his recent encyclical, Laudato Si, where we find what is perhaps his most significant theological statement about the created world. For in #243, Francis endorses the idea of the salvation, not just of humanity, but of all creatures. He writes: “Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.”

[@alejandrocediel9156]

A thought provoking presentation! Yet as a Catholic, I have to reject the suggestion proposed forward that Neanderthals have rational souls. This implication would be problematic with Catholic theology and the doctrine of original sin. It is in Adam, as the active power in generation, to transmit Human nature- carrying with it the stain of sin and our rational soul. If therefore a Neanderthal male were to reproduce with a Human female- the offspring would not have Human nature nor original sin nor a subsistent soul. Neither can transmission of Human nature take place materially because woman as the potential power, only providing matter to the offspring. Nonetheless, there is a genus of frog found in sub-Saharan Africa named Xenopus. Within it, two species of the larger X. laevis, and the smaller X. tropicalis. It is in these species that when interbreeding occurs the offspring is only viable if the mother is of the larger X. laevis. I, for this reason hypothesize that in the case of Neanderthal and Human interbreeding it may be the case that the offspring is viable and fertile only if the FATHER is human and the MOTHER is Neanderthal. This preserves Adam's direct linage through male descendants while Neanderthal material (DNA) being contributed through maternal powers. Let us test this claim. A DNA sample on the Y chromosome from a male Neandertal who lived at El Sidrón, Spain, 49,000 years ago has not been passed onto modern humans. The Y chromosome in Neanderthals demonstrating a paternal lineage is unlike that of any other humans, consequently proving a preservation of human male direct descendants without the introduction of paternal Neanderthal kin into the genealogy of man. At 16:36 Fr Simon Gaine, OP. erred in his claim that mitochondria DNA is preserved and transmitted maternally hence claiming there is an unbroken chain of Human mothers until Eve. On the contrary, mitochondrial DNA peculiarly in Humans can be transmitted by a Human father as well, even when the chances are rare. In the case of Neanderthal and Human interbreeding this mitochondrial DNA may have been certain that it is passed down from the father. This would be fitting in tracing the mitochondrial genealogy of Mary back to Eve. In conclusion, Aquinas teaches that it is the male Human who possesses the active power of transmitting Human nature along with original sin and our spiritual souls into the potential power of the female who in turn provides material and 50% DNA in the offspring. Neanderthal Y chromosome is not present in Humans, therefore Neanderthal males either provided unviable or sterile offspring. Leaving Human males interbreeding with female Neanderthals creating offspring with Human nature, rational souls, original sin and accounts for our part Neanderthal DNA. Thank you to The Thomistic Institute for the distribution of this presentation. Responses/criticism welcome!

[@adventureinallthings]

So much to think through 🤔 let me get back to you when I have time

[@ThomisticInstitute]

So, there are lots of resources on the topic that merit consideration. 1. First, you might consider listening to some of these presentations: a. soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/fr-thomas-joseph-white-op-god-after-darwin-are-christianity-and-evolution-compatible b. soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/does-evolution-undermine-christianity-prof-james-madden c. soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/32819-baylor-austriaco-historicity-of-adam 2. Also, there are great resources available at www.thomisticevolution.org 3. Finally, it seems that some of the philosophical principles deployed above are owing to an Aristotelian biology that stands in need of correction as concerns the communication of human nature. I don't know that we want to wed our philosophical speculation to these tenets.

[@marvf1814]

Aquinas' theory of the human body at conception being unable to receive a spiritual soul but only a material vegatative soul. The child in the womb required the physical maturation to receive an intellectual soul. He called it 'delayed hominization'. Seems the theory may be fitting for explaining the emergence of the human intellectual soul from material human bodies. human

[@supahjadi8944]

Its important to acknowledge that neanderthals are adifferent species as much as an australian aboriginal is to a european. They were human beings with phenotypic and behavioral differences. Thats all.

[@hglundahl]

38:38 You have totally missed the kind of communication all sorts of animals are capable of. No beast is made, and therefore no beast is formed physiologically, for forming an infinity of sentences by rearranging a set of speech sounds.

[@hglundahl]

39:07 And Neanderthals, like even Solo men, had Broca's area, helping us to analyse sounds in a way unknown in the animal kingdom outside God's image.

[@hglundahl]

27:57 What about Neanderthals and us being the same KIND, descended from Adam and Eve, and "species" in Linnean sense being more or less a buzz word? In Linnaeus' time, I think we had canis lupus and canis canis registered as two separate species, you only need to read Phantom of Bengali to know they are interfertile ... as modern classification reduces the difference to one of subspecies.

[@hglundahl]

32:38 And the fact that Neanderthals were created to pronounce and understand an infinity of sentences, including "the soil is brown" means that they had immaterial pursuits. The beings that have only material pursuits have no sense of the subject of a verb, no sense of an object apart from an immediate action, often enough simply point at the objects and have very standardised sounds for the actions. A beast can say "let's chill" or "let's eat" or "come here" but there are only a very limited amount of actions to be taken about purely material things, therefore an irrational animal has no need or point in the full human hearing range or in Broca's area (Solo man has Broca's area, but of the speech sounds, he might have had trouble with very high pitched consonants like labial or dental stops and fricatives - same solution as for the case if Neanderthals had been handicapped as to low vowels). The clear non humans pretended to be in our ancestry are Paranthropus and Australopithecus, a hearing range incapable of consonants and a hyoid bone meant to carry air bags of resonance as in apes. And there is no evidence that they actually left us any genes. In other words : Australopithecus, Paranthropus, part of Homo habilis (not rudolfensis ones) are not the image of God. Rudolfensis and Solo man are the image of God physiologically damaged, reduced speech capacities. Neanderthal, Denisovan and Sapiens are the image of God with normal speech capacities. And by the way, since Antecessor in Atapuerca is morphologically Heidelbergian and genetically close to Denisovan, Denisovan = Antecessor = Heidelbergensis. We don't have the Denisovan morphology in the Denisova cave, but we can supplement it from Atapuerca and Heidelberg (with Terra Amata). We don't have the Heidelbergian genetics, no one did so far an palaeogenetic investigation of Heidelberg man, but we can supplement it from Atapuerca and Denisova cave. If Heidelbergians are a bit closer to Solo man and Rudolfensis man than Neanderthals or sapiens are, we can conclude the Nephelim were perhaps not all Denisovans, but within the Denisovan population, and probably Solo man and Homo rudolfensis correspond to Baruch 3:26-28 *There were the giants, those renowned men that were from the beginning, of great stature, expert in war. The Lord chose not them, neither did they find the way of knowledge: therefore did they perish. And because they had not wisdom, they perished through their folly.* Daniel Everett considers the average brain capacity of adult Solo men as that of ten year olds ... they were tribes with big muscle, small brain, and probably used as war machines rather than philosophers.

[@leonardobaldini7196]

Did Christ die for Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo floresiensis, etc.?

[@b-a-boon]

salvation for all

[@OrigenisAdamantios]

...For the Cosmos!!

[@josephcandito]

True

[@hglundahl]

50:31 The appearance of inbreeding can be due to mirage of tens of thousands of years. If two individuals share as many genes as a grandparent and grandchild and are tens of thousands of years apart, they arguably had much inbreeding in between. If they share as many genes as that but lived close to each other in time, they could have been ... grandparent and grandchild.

[@hglundahl]

50:56 If all carriers of Neanderthal genome and of Denisovan genome on the Ark were halfbreeds with the race called sapiens, mystery solved, pure Neanderthals and Denisovans died from the Flood, any who had survived up to it. This also would mean 40 000 BP is the raw carbon date for the actual years 2957 BC.

[@hglundahl]

47:05 Neanderthals, Denisovans, Sapiens in their times prior to _carbon dated_ 40 000 BP had certainly heard the proto-Gospel - Genesis 3:15. Those of them that were saved were so by belief in the woman and her seed who were to crush the serpent's head and in preferring the ways of Abel to those of Cain. Those who weren't were however damned for violent lives or fearful lives or for acts of black magic (Cannibalism in Atapuerca), but not for idolatry of types like Hinduism or Shintoism. How is this possible? Well, _fairly easily_ if their lifetime was during the pre-Flood era, between 5199 and 2957 BC. Not _at all_ if they lived tens of thousands of years after Adam and Eve, or if they did not even belong to their lineage. Hence the interest in rejecting modern dating methods at least as far as when they conflict with the Biblical chronology.

[@hglundahl]

52:26 _"an Adam that is ancestral to a population ancestral to both Homo sapiens and Neanderthals"_ Ah, Fr Simon Gaine starts speaking sense. Yes, indeed. This is the only thing sensible according to Trent Session V on Original Sin. However, this can only be on one of two conditions, excluding each other: * Adam lived hundreds of thousands of years ago * or no Neanderthals or Homo sapiens lived that long ago. The first of these would make the historical transmission of Genesis 3 more than just moot. The latter of these poses no problem to theology, and no real big ones to those who look closely at the dating methods.

[@hglundahl]

26:29 Solution. Eve was a clone of Adam, but with one X chromosome doubled and the Y chromosome taken away. The Y chromosome was then kept and Our Lord is a clone of Our Lady, with one X taken away and that Y chromosome from Adam added instead.

[@djg585]

If one distinguishes between biological humans and theological humans, there is no reason to assume that either the Neanderthals or their contemporary humans were theological humans. Adam, the first theological human, may have been (and likely was) created many many thousands of years later.

[@basemadominique7789]

The Lord God put a mark on (Cain) So maybe Neanderthal Descendent off Cain They have the Mark

[@patricpeters7911]

So wait what was the conclusion? Neanderthals have spiritual souls?

[@ThomisticInstitute]

That's the suggestion, but it may be the case that'd require a common ancestor (homo heidelbergensis) or some other explanatory factor to account for a common genesis and sin.

[@patricpeters7911]

The Thomistic Institute the more I learn about Original Sin, even through a Thomistic lens, the less I understand why it’s so important to have an original couple or even an original “Adam.” If the condition is mainly a lack of sanctifying grace, a privation, then couldn’t we conceive of humanity as just existing in a natural state, anyway? Moreover, Benedict XVI in a few places seemed to soften the edges to make it sound like Original Sin has more to do with being affected by the larger community into which we are born. Does this make sense? In other words, it seems Christ’s redemption can still have room even without a traditional Original Sin, especially when you add in Thomistic notions of the “fittingness” of Christ’s sacrifice as an act of love, etc., that grants us grace.

[@McRingil]

@@patricpeters7911 it is also a corruption of our nature, not only lack of supernatural grace

[@patricpeters7911]

Adam Małysz a corruption due to the privation? If not, it would seem God is positively or arbitrarily punishing Adam/humanity.

[@ThomisticInstitute]

@@patricpeters7911 Excellent question. The best things that I've heard on this recently come from Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, Dr. James Madden, and Dr. Kenneth Kemp. Kemp's article in ACPQ is excellent. Austriaco heads up Thomistic Evolution (www.thomisticevolution.org) which engages these questions with philosophical, theological, and scientific acumen. Hope those resources help!

[@djg585]

Perhaps both Neanderthals and their contemporary biological humans did have the power of reason and a certain moral sense, but with neither reaching to any capability for sin. After all, there is nothing inherent to reason and/or a moral sense that should incline to sin or even make it possible. Perhaps when God breathed into Adam, he received a heightened degree of self-awareness and personal desire that made a choice for sin possible, as well as a heightened ability to practice self-denial out of love for God, who Himself is love. St. Paul in Romans teaches that 'all creation awaits with eager longing the revelation of the sons of God.' That revelation includes many theological humans who have died and will be resurrected for that revelation of themselves as sons of God. Perhaps much of the creation (including Neanderthals and biological humans) that awaits them has also died and will be resurrected for the great revelation. God's love is large enough for this. And the universe is certainly more than big enough to hold them all. Perhaps after the revelation, theological humans will be to biological humans in some sense not unlike as angels now are to theological humans, in service according to God's will.

[@hglundahl]

30:03 If we accept that one couple was theologically human and their offspring married the children of contemporaries biologically human, we are saying that these children of Adam and Eve actually raped a kind of beasts who were not able to consent. You are -also- forgetting that the imago Dei of the human soul is not a "mystery of faith" like the Trinity, but a thing that can be rationally proven, for instance from the fact that language is not a purely practic communication like traffic signs or bird calls. Once you have a being able to say "the soil is brown" - which is true, but serves no practical purpose to say - you have a being that is created in God's image. No beast can say in any way shape or form "the soil is brown". If on the other hand you imagine that theologically non-human biological humans could communicate with language like us, could have social interactions on a voluntary and contractual basis like we, you are demoting the "imago Dei" to the rationally unknowable, you are making it a simple extra serving no actual purpose in everyday life, an "asset" to get some part of us an eternal fate. You are destroying the anthropology of St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as that of Aristotle and Plato. Neanderthals could speak. They had hyoid bones like we, and the hyoid bone from an exemplar of Kebara (forget if it was 1 or 2) showed by an ultrasound scan it had been used much the way we use our hyoid bones. That Neanderthal had used oral communication. Neanderthals and Heidelbergians - to a lesser degree Solo man - had the same hearing range as we. This means they could hear consonants. This means they were created for the same kind of communication as we are. One in which sentences are built up by adding different morphemes (I am not saying words, the morphemes for the subject and even object can be incorporated into the word with a morpheme for the verb action, as in Latin, Hungarian and Greenlandic), and one in which morphemes are built up by adding together phonemes, vowels and consonants. There have been some speculation, since then corrected, that Neanderthals could not pronounce all vowels, they could have pronounced ee or oo, and üh and ur, but not ah, aw, ay, this is no proof to the contrary, it just means, if true, they spoke another language than we, one in which no words contain ah or ay or aw. But this kind of communication for which I have given mathematical coordinates is very different from one in which a sentence is a morpheme is a phoneme or at best an alternation between two phonemes (which could also count as one, consider "ts" is one and not two phonemes in Greek) only makes sense if you need to be able to pronounce an infinity of different sentences. Beasts can pronounce and understand up to 500 different sentences that are usually words that are usually sounds, with or without repetition. That is what you want to a purely pragmatic communication, as that of beasts. The traffic signs in US are purely pragmatic, and there are 500 of them.

[@hglundahl]

30:22 _"If it suffices with only one parent with an immortal soul"_ .... then the _other_ parent is a rape victim. Besides being an ontological anomaly, created anatomically for human communications which are only possible if you have concepts, which are only possible if you have a rational soul (or are an intelligent angel). But even so not having that which biologically it is created for.

[@tomdooley3522]

To me the only question is , are they human , if they are human and they Can interbreed then they have a human soul , , if they have a human soul then they are no different then another race which can be interbred with. All races are understood to be human and therefore of mankind made in GOD image. ( Except maybe some democrats ) At different points on earth different monkeys evolving to the point of Being Human and able to interbreed accounting for different races or species of man I do not believe is acceptable. I DONOT trust Academia as it has in it non Christian elements hostile to Christianity , who would find what would be held against Christian doctrine for the sake of politics Rather then seeking the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. At different times the oldest remains have been found in different places one-time Mongolia another time Europe then today Africa tomorrow maybe someplace else. The book of Genesis is revealed truth and it says one set of parents It cannot be taken down to Simply myth and then reinterpreted as you please to one set of people's evolving into a consciousness of humanity from ape. Science is a great tool but it is only a tool as it will tell you it has no ultimate truth , scripture does , but Scripture like God is mysterious there is a mystery to it. When the blind lead the blind they all fall in a ditch , I read a school book from the early 20 th century around 1917 , it said , no one knows how old the earth is , but it is very old. This I believe over the claims of later scientist , who have lost my respect.

[@moshenewsletter4620]

Christ only came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Matthew @ Yeshua told a Canaanite woman with a demon-possessed daughter that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He doesn't care for the Neanderthals or people that are related to the Caveman. Abraham did not breed Neanderthals. And revelation only speak of the 12 tribes of Israel, meaning Jacob descendants below Revelation @-13 King James Version (KJV) 12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates, twelve angels, and names are written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

[@pj_ytmt-123]

But when the descendants of Abraham rejected the Messiah, per the parable of the wedding banquet salvation and the scepter (dominion over the earth) was taken from them and given to the gentiles - until the age of the gentiles was fulfilled (Book of Revelation).

[@moshenewsletter4620]

Christ died for Abraham seeds, no one else...Not for the Yeti, Neanderthal or Sasquatch

[@theob.v.w6221]

false, he died for both gentail and jew.