Comments on Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) "Aquinas, Original Sin And The Challenge Of Evolution"

By Razie Mah

Daniel W. Houck, at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies, attempts the refresh the theology of Thomas Aquinas, in regards to original sin. His book is published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press.
There is a drawback to Houck's effort. Unbeknownst to him, there are hypotheses on human evolution that the scientific community has not entertained. This is the nature of scientific inquiry. The paradigm concerning evolution, in general, remains unchallenged. The paradigm concerning human evolution is about to change.
To date, evolutionary scientists fail to address three questions. What is the ultimate human niche? Why are the past 8000 years so radically different than the preceding 1.8 million years? What is the nature of langue, the system of differences arbitrarily related to parole, in our current Lebenswelt?
Razie Mah proposes three hypotheses on the nature of human evolution.
The first proposal, elaborated in The Human Niche, states that hominins adapt to traidic relations. Our ultimate niche is not material.
The second proposal is that there is a twist in human evolution, starting 7820 years ago. An Archaeology of the Fall dramatizes. The First Singularity tells of a Fairy Tale Trace. Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
The third proposal considers the meaning, presence and message underlying a spoken word that is crucial to current civilizational discourse. How To Define the Word "Religion" marks the beginning of an inquiry into the nature of langue, in our current Lebenswelt.
The second hypothesis directly impacts Houck's recover of Aquinas.
Indeed, Aquinas treatment of original sin offers great insight into the nature of the first singularity.
The Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for original justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Dec 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781942824930

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

Book preview

Comments on Daniel Houck's Book (2020) Aquinas, Original Sin and the Challenge of Evolution

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2020

Notes on Text

This work comments book by Daniel W. Houck, titled Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution, published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. My goal is to comment on this work using the first singularity, the triadic structure of judgment, the category-based nested form and other relational models within the tradition of Charles Peirce.

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

Prerequisites: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction

Recommended: Comments on James DeFrancisco's Essay Original Sin and Ancestral Sin, An Archaeology of the Fall, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, Comments on Original Sin and Original Death, Romans 5:12-21.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Painting a Picture of Original Justice

Painting a Picture of Human Subjectivity

Original Justice and the Structure of Triadic Judgment

Interlude

Original Justice and Signification

The First Singularity

How Does The First Singularity Impact Original Justice?

What About Infant Baptism?

Scholastic Introjections

Introduction

0001 Daniel W. Houck faces many challenges in his attempt to recover Thomas Aquinas's teachings on original sin.

0002 One, Aquinas does not challenge Augustine's mechanism of original sin. Original sin descends through Adam to all humans through human reproduction. Augustine's speculation is now on the chopping block, because modern biologists observe no large genetic bottleneck, as required by Augustine's proposed scenario. Concupiscence may be undeniable. But, it does not plague humans due to descent from a single ancestral pair.

On one hand, original sin cannot be accounted for as a sexually transmitted disease.

On the other hand, sexually transmitted diseases can, in part, be accounted for by original sin.

0003 Two, original sin is inextricably tied to a difficult conversation about the fate of the souls of infants and fetuses, who tragically die. Where do the souls of aborted fetuses go? To the city dump?

0004 Three, the doctrine of original sin does not appear in Scripture. Instead, original sin comes from interpreting Scripture. It's like the smell of rotting food. If one reads Scripture and follows the unfolding theodrama with care, one cannot help but conclude with Paul, in his notorious Letter to the Romans, that Adam and Christ are linked. The Scriptures stink of original sin. Yet, the fragrance of redemption overcomes the sordid aromas. That is the Good News. Jesus is a breath of fresh air.

0005 Four, despite recent attempts to revive the theology of Thomas Aquinas, his account of original sin remains neglected. There is a reason. Thomas never locks onto a clear and concise reckoning. A hundred years ago, Aquinas's thoughts on the matter are debated. Jean Baptiste Kors publishes an in-depth examination under the title, La Justice primitive et le peche originel d'apres S. Thomas (1922). Now, it is crickets.

0006 Five, Houck consigns even the crickets to silence, because the crickets never considered Neodarwinism and how it puts Augustine's speculation on the chopping block. In light of the shimmering axe of negation poised above the City of God, much less the City of Man, the crickets may snicker at Houck's promise to tie together Aquinas's account of original justice with other areas of the great medieval theologian's thought. Does a synthesis matter? After the blade of scientific expertise comes down on the idea that Adam and Eve are the first humans, will the executioner call out, Next, original justice.?

0006 Already modern theologians slink away from the historicity of the Fall.

Can they do without this non-scientific nonsense?

Houck does not think so. No Christian theologian thinks so.

Houck must juggle these five juggernauts, as if each does not have a life of their own. What is the secret that brings them into obedient motion, where one goes up while another comes down?

It is not to be found in his book.

0007 It is to be found in the hypothesis of the first singularity.

The stories of Adam and Eve, along with all currently known written origin stories of the ancient Near East, point to a recent time-horizon, beyond which civilization cannot see.

They point to the first singularity.

They cannot see beyond this event.

The ancient myths say, Humans are made right before civilization starts.

Now, archaeologists testify to humans before the time horizon of the first singularity.

Humans walk the earth long before the dawn of history.

Painting a Picture of Original Justice

0008 Is Adam the first human, as suggested by Augustine, as well as by the Genesis text?

If Adam is not the first human, then who is Adam?

Adam must be a figure in a fairy tale. The fairy tale may be about an event, or something like an event, hidden in time. We (moderns) do not know much about what came before this event. We know more than nothing. We have excavated artifacts that tell us