II. THE ORIGIN OF MAN
This problem may be treated from the standpoints of Holy Scripture, theology, or philosophy.
A. The Sacred Writings are entirely concerned with the relations of man to
God, and of
God's dealings with man, before and after the Fall. Two accounts of his origin are given in the Old Testament. On the sixth and last day of the creation "
God created man to his own image: to the image of
God he created him" (Gen., i, 27); and "the
Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gem, ii, 7; so Ecclus., xvii, 1: "
God created man of the earth, and made him after his own image"). By these texts the special creation of man is established, his high dignity and his spiritual nature. As to his material part, the Scripture declares that it is formed by
God from the "slime of the earth". This becomes a "living soul" and fashioned to the "image of
God" by the inspiration of the "breath of life", which makes man man and differentiates him from the brute.
B. This doctrine is obviously to be looked for in all Catholic theology. The origin of man by creation (as opposed to emanative and evolutionistic Pantheism) is asserted in the Church's dogmas and definitions. In the earliest symbols (see the Alexandrian:
di ou ta panta egeneto, ta en ouranois kai epi ges, horata te kai aorata, and the Nicene), in the councils (see especially IV Lateran, 1215; "Creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who by this omnipotent power . . . brought forth out of nothing the spiritual and corporeal creation, that, is the
angelic world and the universe, and afterwards man, forming as it were one composite out of spirit and body"), in the writings of the Fathers and theologians the same account is given. The early controversies and apologetics of St. Clement of Alexandria and Origen defend the theory of creation against Stoics and neo-Platonists. St. Augustine strenuously combats the pagan schools on this point as on that of the nature and immortality of man's soul. A masterly synthetic exposition of the theological and philosophical doctrine as to man is given in the "Summa Theologica" of St. Thomas Aquinas, I, QQ. lxxv-ci. So again the "Contra Gentiles", II (on creatures), especially from xlvi onwards, deals with the subject from a philosophical standpoint the distinction between the theological and the philosophical treatment having been carefully drawn in chap. iv. Note especially chap. lxxxvii, which establishes Creationism.
C. Scholastic philosophy reaches a conclusion as to the origin of man similar to the teaching of revelation and theology. Man is a creature of
God in a created universe. All things that are, except Himself, exist in virtue of a unique creative act. As to the mode of creation, there would seem to be two possible alternatives. Either the individual composite was created ex nihilo, or a created soul became the informing principle of matter already pre-existing in another determination. Either mode would be philosophically tenable, but the Thomistic principle of the successive and graded evolution of forms in matter is in favour of the latter view. If, as is the case with the embryo (St. Thomas, I, Q. cxviii, a. 2, ad 2um), a succession of preparatory forms preceded information by the rational soul, it nevertheless follows necessarily from the established principles of Scholasticism that this, not only in the case of the first man, but of all men, must be produced in being by a special creative act. The matter that is destined to become what we call man's "body" is naturally prepared, by successive transformations, for the reception of the newly created soul as its determinant principle. The commonly held opinion is that this determination takes place when the organization of the brain of the foetus is sufficiently complete to allow of imaginative life; i.e. the possibility of the presence of phantasmata. But note also the opinion that the creation of, and information by, the soul takes place at the moment of conception.
