Re “...god implanted a soul in a man and/or woman such that there was no perceivable distinction genetically between the offspring and the parents but no one bore a share in god’s divinity and the parents did not: true or false?”

I think the reader is posing a question concerning the relationship of DNA to Man’s spiritual nature.  A belief that DNA determines and defines the essential natures of all creatures has become so commonplace in our culture that it is often taken for granted even by professed Christians.

Personally I believe it’s possible - and consistent with revelation - that the first Humans who sinned, who are the spiritual ancestors of all Mankind, might have been only two among thousands of homo sapiens in the world at that time, but through their sins all of their fellow men became corrupted by sin as well.  At first glance it might seem “unfair” for all of their fellow men simultaneously to become corrupted by Original Sin due to the choices of only two persons, but it’s really no more “unfair” than all Human descendants being born with corrupted natures through the choices of two ancestors.  Furthermore, as Man’s nature is essentially a communal one, it would seem logical that the sins of one would inevitably afflict the lives and thereby the personal natures of all, the only extraordinary exceptions being the Son and His Mother.

Furthermore (vis a vis my above comment), the main signfiicance of the revelation of the Fall of Man, is, as Mark said, “essentially an INTERIOR event”!  (My emphasis supplied.)

And further regarding what Mark said:  The Fall of Man was essentially an INTERIOR, spiritual event transcending time, and ut was secondarily a temporal event.  (The same is true of Christ’s birth and death and resurrection.)

Christ’s incarnation and resurrection were, and are, essentially eternal events.  (Christ’s death, however, was a temporal event, and this is an important and significant difference between Time and Eternity.)  In that light, and by the same reasoning, the revealed spiritual truth of the Fall of Man is principally an eternal event transcending Time, and only secondarily a temporal event.

As Christ’s incarnation and resurrection are essentially eternal events - truly historical, but principally spiritual events - mutatis mutandis so is the Fall of Man, and vice versa.

But, oh dear, maybe now I’m revealing myself to be the great-great-nephew of a Dominican.  ;-) :-)

Scripture does not reveal all the details. Even NT affirms this is impossible: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” Jn. 21:25

So when reading the Scripture, the question always should be: What is God trying to reveal that is necessary for our salvation? Dei Verbum suggest this. For example, the two Creation accounts of Genesis if taken literally (especially in chronological sense)are outright contradictory because in the first God creates the light, firmament, earth and sea, luminaries in the sky first, then man; whereas in the second account God creates man first, then the trees and fruit-bearing trees, then the domestic animals who were named by Adam yet none were fitting as his helper. Studying the the Yahwist and Elohist Traditions or Schools helps us understand how the author or Traditions viewed God, what they wanted to convey with emphasis, and perhaps a glimpse into ancient Hebrew cosmology or cosmologies. But if one reflects on both creation accounts it more deeply, one will see how both are not contradictory but complementary. In the first account, God is portrayed as all powerful and transcendent, quite impersonal: He speaks and so it happens ( He is called Elohim) while in the second account God is immanent, he is LORD God or YVWH, more anthropomorphic, closer to us, talking with man and a some verses down in chapter three, the same Tradition describes YVWH as having human attributes like walking in the garden in the breeze of the day. So are they contradictory or do the authors/Traditions reveal two complementary truths about God: that God is both transcendent and immanent,above and beyond us, all powerful yet so close and one who initiated and seeks relationship with humans.

What else is God revealing that’s necessary for our salvation in both Creation accounts? That: 1)God is the creator of all (The Sun is not god or the stars); 2) There is only one God; 3) God’s creation is orderly (vs. chaos); 4) God’s word is effective (He speaks, it happens); 5) Creation is willed, not an accident;6)God meant Sabbath to be a holy and special day; 7) Humans are meant to be stewards of creation and creation is for them; 8) Marriage is God’s design, he willed it from the very beginning; 9) God is one but not just one person: “Let US” create man in OUR Image; 10) And more. These are very important fundamental truths which cover so much already and I think, more important, than when exactly did Genesis take place. I personally would be more stuck in my faith without these truths rather than dating precisely when creation was. A Vatican Observatory nuclear physicist, a great scientist and theologian, said in a seminar I attended: that we don’t even know if there are galaxies already inside the big bang. But all he knows, he said, is that all theories and formulae that nuclear physics and astrophysics make sense (through knowledge and evidence gathered re: cosmic microwaves)  but then all theories break down from the big bang backwards. What does this mean. Science can only explain the origin of something if comes from some other existing thing or stagof our galaxy BUT ex nihilo, creating from nothing, science can’t

And a text worth pondering upon regarding J Ball’s comment from the Catechism:

Catechism # 404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.

OK, since we’re talking (somewhat) about creation, I have a question that arose when I was reading Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed.  He alludes to the possibility (while admitting he is just speculating) that God may have infused souls into two primates - hence, Adam and Eve.  Since that would reconcile both evolution and theological perspectives, can anyone out there comment on it?  Deep down this seems too simple and easy to be right.  What am I missing?

A good book to read would be the Difference God Makes. ~Cardinal George

It talks about how our faith is not supposed to be subjective, but living in a protestant environment, we seem to think that faith is about “experiencing” God.  In actuallity, faith is more based on reason.  The book explains it much better than I ever could and is very realistic for someone in a crisis of faith. (I would know.)