One Humanity and the Problem of Origins

A model of human origins must answer a question that reaches beyond ancestry: how do all human beings belong to the one story of creation, fall, and redemption? For Catholic thought, that unity is essential.

Humani Generis places a serious constraint on proposals commonly called polygenist. Pius XII connects the difficulty to original sin, understood as proceeding from a sin committed by Adam and transmitted to all through generation. A proposal involving multiple human origins cannot simply set that teaching aside.

Biological ancestry and theological responsibility also need to be distinguished. A genetic model concerns the transmission of inherited material through populations. A genealogy concerns descent through family relationships. Neither, on its own, explains the universal condition described by the doctrine of original sin.

This means that a proposed Adamic threshold needs a concrete account of unity. Giving the proposal a name does not solve the problem. It must explain how a real Adam, a shared human family, and the account of the fall belong together while respecting the evidence for bodily history.

The equal dignity of every person remains a fixed requirement throughout. No population can be assigned a lesser humanity to make a theory work. If a model needs that division, the model has failed.

For this book, the population question remains a preliminary difficulty rather than an established foundation. We can consider the possibility of a threshold while refusing to build later historical identifications on the assumption that it has already been demonstrated.