The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.
Is that true? Was man formed from clay, and God blew into his nostrils? How did Moses and the Jewish priests who wrote Genesis—men the modern world would hardly deem scientists—know about the origin of the species? The Origin of the Species was the title of Charles Darwin’s 1858 book—a book a professor wrote which finds the origin of no species and posits that monkeys turned into men.
Something Out of Nothing?
God formed man out of clay, out of raw material that God had already created. Now, if it was not God who formed man, then who? Someone did. And that “someone” was not man, for clay does not form itself. From this we can conclude: Man is not God.
But tragically, man’s fallen nature, coupled with the theory that everything came into existence out of nothing by accident over billions of years, is the perfect anti-gospel for a world that worships itself instead of its Maker; a world that tells itself it “can be like God.”
What did the great Apostle of Common Sense, G.K. Chesterton, have to say about this? Let me quote him from 1925:
Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It really is far more logical to start by saying, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” even if you only mean “In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.” (EM)
If that unthinkable process took thousands, millions, or billions of years, does that mean the creation account in Genesis is not true? That is the modern argument. But, Chesterton asked, is an event any more intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves?
Scripture states that a day is like a thousand years to God. And for the Hebrews who wrote the Scriptures, a thousand years meant “a very long time” (Ps. 90:4). Chesterton wrote that for a man who does not believe in miracles, a slow miracle is just as unbelievable as a swift one. In the modern world’s faithless treatment of history, he wrote, there is this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on the mere delay of things.
Genesis states that the Lord blew the breath of life into man’s nostrils. That is true, is it not? An unthinkable power created in man a respiratory system that enables him to breathe. Once that system shuts down, the breath of life departs, and man returns to the clay of the ground. That’s just the way it is.
But is that the way it always was?
Our Fallen DNA
Genesis 2:25 states that Adam and Eve were naked but felt no shame. A short seven verses later, Genesis 3:7 states that their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they covered up. What happened between those seven verses is known as the Fall.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. (CCC 390)
Scientists argue that the DNA in every person alive today comes from one mother. So, though most people today regard the story of Adam and Eve as the mere theological musings of ancient Jews, we need to ask again: Is the Genesis account of creation and the Fall true?
Well, how could it not be? Procreation had to start with not one, or three, but two people: a man the Jews called Adam, from the Hebrew meaning “from the earth,” and a woman they named Eve, meaning “the mother of all living things.” This man and woman came together to make one flesh and thus started populating the earth.
But before they started populating the earth, Adam and Eve fell. Before the Fall, they were going to live forever. And why not? They were made in the image of an eternal God. Therefore, their body, soul, intellect, and will existed in perfect integrity and harmony. There was no concupiscence, no inclination to sin. There was no lust or disordered passions. The disordered passions were our creation, not God’s. Those tragedies originated with our first parents and have been passed down ever since. They are “in our DNA,” so to speak.
The New Adam
Bishop Sheen wrote:
The entire history of the world revolves around two persons, Adam and Christ. Adam was given a position to maintain, and he failed. Therefore his loss was humanity’s loss; for he was its head. When a ruler declares war, the citizens declare war also, although they do not make an explicit declaration themselves.
When Adam declared war against God, man declared war too. Now, with Christ, everything was at stake again. There was a repetition of the temptation of Adam. If God had not taken upon Himself a human nature, He could not have been tempted.
Here then was the problem for the devil. Who was this strange and holy man? Had Adam come back in the flesh? He would have to put him to the test.
St. Paul wrote:
Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned…
That was the bad news from St. Paul. Then he gave the good news:
…just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so, through one righteous act, acquittal and life came to all.
What was that one righteous act? It was not preaching or teaching; it was bleeding, and the bleeding continues in a mystical and sacrificial death at Holy Mass. That is why Mass is the most important thing in your life. That is why it is a grave obligation to make yourself present for it; not for the preaching or the teaching, but for the bleeding, for it is His bleeding that saves you.
Redemption
My friends, understand: Man is not God. But in the fullness of time, God became a man because man cannot live on bread alone. And so, at Holy Mass, the word comes forth from a man who is God. At that instant, the unthinkable power who is Jesus Christ turns something into something else. In an unthinkable process, the new Adam turns bread and wine into His Body and Blood. He then feeds us, so that our body, soul, intellect, and will cannot only commune and harmonize with His, but become part of Him.
In the meantime, we need to stop dwelling on the mere delay of things. The new Adam came and conquered hell and death. And the same new Adam will be coming back again to judge the living and the dead. Any delay in this process does not eliminate the mystery. As St. Peter wrote:
The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. (2 Pet. 3:9)
Temptations are part and parcel of living in a fallen world. The temptations are tests. With God’s grace, these temptations can be overcome; the devil can be conquered. Knowing this, we can truly become like God. And then, at our final end, we cannot only be like God, we can live with God, forever. That is the good news.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
