Monogenism as Humanity’s Origin

There is not a logical or scientific way to exclude monogenism. God is the creator of human nature, and it is entirely within his power to create man directly and completely without a preliminary process of evolution or to transform a highly evolved primate into a man in the fullness of age with all the gifts of original justice. In either case, the origin of the first Adam is miraculous (as is the virginal conception of the Second Adam!).

Logic and science cannot rule out miracles, they can only describe the before and after. Indeed, the sounder, ancient concept of science explicitly included beings that are purely spiritual and their causal connection with the observable, material world. Even so, as it stands now, we are told that it is scientifically certain that every human alive today is descended from a single woman, “Lucy” in Africa, on account of the analysis of mitochondrial DNA.

So even if Lucy is not Eve, this shows that universal descent from one couple is a reality, since everyone would also be descended from the man with whom she conceived. Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis is the last explicit magisterial statement on monogenism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its treatment of original sin, also assumes monogenism.