1. Introducción

The doctrine of original sin is crucial to the Catholic Church’s teaching on salvation and the anthropological vision that derives from it: all men need salvation, and this is offered to all thanks to Christ. The Church “knows very well, that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.” (CCC 389).

To strengthen faith in this teaching, it is helpful to show that it is consistent with scientific data on human evolution, especially in the following two contexts:

• Biologically, it is impossible to define an individual who was the first Homo sapiens. The concept of “species” is biologically vague: we can only speak of Homo sapiens by comparison with the population at a time when the species is considered “well defined,” as it is today. Studies over the last 10 years prove that the origin of the human species in Africa is fragmented and that it is not possible to biologically establish a single place of origin or birth: all the characteristics that humanity presents today were only well established about 12,000 years ago, that is, in the Neolithic period (cfr. Scerri et al. 2018, Barras, 2025), which is consistent with the cultural environment and level of civilization described in Genesis.

This implies that the creation of man in the image of God occurred within a more or less large population of Homo sapiens creatures: it is this moment that ultimately allows us to establish the beginning of humanity.

• In all animal species, the genome transmits disease, death, and selfish evolutionary mechanisms from generation to generation; this fact of evolution logically applies to the species Homo sapiens as well.

Now, according to CCC 405, the fact that man, made in the image of God, is subject to disease, death, and concupiscence is a consequence of original sin. Therefore, to the extent that man in the image of God is identified with the animal species Homo sapiens, it would consistently have to be concluded that these conditions produced by evolution, and present in other animal species, are due to original sin; and this is equivalent to saying that they occur retroactively, giving rise to a paradox.

On the other hand, quantum physics, especially the theorem of “contextuality” (Kochen and Specker, 1966), focuses on the following principle: physical reality includes two fundamental ingredients, our decisions and the decisions with which “nature” responds to ours (cfr. Suarez 2025). Based on this principle, I propose the thesis that God guides the world by anticipating possible human actions: when God created the world, He did so taking into account all the possible decisions that humans could make in the course of history and respecting our freedom, but He also made decisions that could rectify our possible mistakes.

In this essay, I argue that this perspective of “quantum contextuality” can contribute to resolving the paradox of original sin, formulated in 2), and to reconciling the implication of evolution noted in 1) with the teaching that “the state of original sin proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual, and which, through generation, is passed on to all.”

2. The doctrine of original sin in the teaching of the Catholic Church

On the question of the transmission of original sin, the most explicit text from the Magisterium is Pius XII’s encyclical Humani generis, 37, which, citing the Council of Trent’s Decree on Original Sin, states:

When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

[Cfr. Rom., V, 12-19; Conc. Trid., sess, V, can. 1-4.]

Joseph Ratzinger, as a professor in Münster in 1964, defended the thesis that Humani generis leaves the door open to “biological polygenism,” namely, the theory that humanity descends from several couples, provided that it is maintained that original sin comes from the sin committed by a first individual or a first couple whom God created in his image at the origin of humanity, a position that Ratzinger called “theological monogenism” (Sanz, 2018). Later, as Archbishop of Munich, in his Fastenpredigten of 1981, he challenged the doctrine of the hereditary transmission of “original sin” — a central teaching of Humani generis — and proposed its transmission as “relational damage” (the publication was reissued in 2014 and 2024 with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedicto XVI as the author, and is now distributed by the Pope Benedict XVI Institute under the heading Erbsünde).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church specifies that “original sin” is a sin “contracted,” “not committed,” a state and not an act; the state of original sin is a consequence of the first sin committed by a human being (the first sinner) individually and personally, which “will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice” (cf. CCC 404); because of the first sin, every man comes into the world without being united to God by grace, and subject to sickness, death, and concupiscence (cf. CCC 405).

In line with this, I present below an explanation inspired by Ratzinger’s, but show, by means of “quantum contextuality,” that it seems possible to harmonize scientific data with the idea of Humani generis that the transmission of original sin is linked to a mechanism of hereditary transmission by generation.

3. Homo sapiens and “humankind in the image of God”

One teaching of Humani generis, which despite its importance often receives little attention, is that God “can create intelligent beings without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision” (cf. Humani generis, 26). In line with this statement (and with Ratzinger’s “theological monogenism” mentioned in the previous section), one can assume that God guides creation through evolution, so that intelligent Homo sapiens creatures gradually emerge,

and among these he chooses the first ones to transform into “man in the image of God,” that is, ordained and destined for the beatific vision.

According to CCC 375-377, we admit that these first Homo sapiens whom God created in his image were created in a state of “original holiness and justice,” endowed with special gifts that enabled them to overcome the limitations resulting from evolution (illness, death, and concupiscence). After the first sin, human beings are conceived without these special gifts and are subject to these evolutionary constraints (CCC 405), which in all animal species are transmitted by natural generation by the genome.

It is crucial to admit that after the first sin committed by “a human being in the image of God,” there is a moment when God transforms all Homo sapiens creatures living on earth into “men in the image of God,” albeit deprived of the “state of original holiness and justice,” that is, he creates new human persons from those creatures, just as today he creates new human persons from gametes at each conception: all these persons, created after the first sin, come into existence in the “state of original sin” and are therefore subject to illness, death, and concupiscence.

In other words: Just as it is accepted that a “damaged human nature” is transmitted to all people genetically descended from Adam and created by God from human gametes, it can be accepted that this same “damaged human nature” is transmitted to men made in the image of God (to human persons) and created by God from Homo sapiens creatures, according to the principle that “God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” (cf. Romans 11:32).

It should be noted that this transmission does not occur “laterally,” as a “relational damage” that passes like a “contagious disease” from the first sinner to “other people of his time who are innocent,” since the Homo sapiens creatures contemporary with the first sinner from whom God creates human beings in his image, although they are more or less intelligent beings, are not persons ordered to the beatific vision.

4. The paradox of original sin

In the light of current scientific knowledge of human reproduction, the dogmatic core of Humani generis is as follows: The fact that the genome (DNA) contained in human sperm and egg transmits disease, death, and concupiscence through generation to every human being is a consequence of the first sin.

Certainly, the state of original sin is not reduced to death, disease, and selfish mechanisms, but these deficiencies are encoded in the genome, and thus, at the moment of the embryo’s animation, they induce the state of original sin in the spiritual soul (deprived of original grace). This was not the case in the animation of the first sinner, because his spiritual soul was endowed with the gifts proper to the “state of original justice.”

On the other hand, we are taught by evolution that the genome of every animal species transmits disease, death, and selfish mechanisms (which in humans generate lust) through generation. Undoubtedly, these “deficiencies” derive in part from contingency, and the vulnerability of creation is part of its greatness. But man is part of bodily creation, and if God makes this creation using evolutionary mechanisms that will harm man after the first sin, then these natural evolutionary processes must also be considered as an anticipated effect of the first sin. Everything natural that can harm man (e.g., the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755) should not be interpreted merely as a “physical evil,” but rather, as potential harm, it should be considered an anticipated result of humanity’s first sin.

Therefore, Humani generis also implies the following: the fact that the genome (DNA) of every animal species transmits disease, death, and selfish evolutionary mechanisms is a consequence of the first sin. How can this paradoxical implication be integrated into a coherent explanation? I will attempt to answer this question in the following section.

5. The perspective of “quantum contextuality”

In a typical quantum entanglement experiment, a laser source S emits pairs of photons: one of the photons is guided by a glass fiber to Alice’s laboratory, and the other photon is guided by a glass fiber in the opposite direction to Bob’s laboratory.

In Alice’s laboratory, the photon passes through a device with two buttons, a1 and a2, and two output ports, one monitored by Detector A(1) and the other by Detector A(0). Alice can freely choose between pressing button a1 or button a2, and for each of these choices made by the experimenter, a choice is made by nature: the photon is detected and counted by A(1), and we record the result as “1,” or by A(0), and we record the result as “0.” We call this device ACD (Alice’s Choice Device). Similarly, on Bob’s side we have a BCD, with buttons b1 and b2, and detectors B(1) and B(0), and the corresponding results “1” and “0”.

We set the distance between S and ACD so that it is equal to the distance between S and BCD, with an accuracy of a few micrometers: this way we can be sure that there is no coordination via radio signals between ACD and BCD at the moment when the detectors count the photons and the results are recorded. In other words, it is as if Alice were analyzing her photon on Earth and Bob were simultaneously analyzing his on Mars.

Experiments show that there is a correlation between Alice’s results and Bob’s results that cannot be explained by hidden programs in photons (Einstein’s hypothesis) or by radio signals (cf. Exaudi 6.12.2024).

From the perspective of “quantum contextuality,” this is how things happen: when Alice decides to press button a1, the result she obtains takes into account the button Bob presses in his laboratory. This is equivalent to saying that the joint result (e.g., Alice registers “1” and Bob registers “0”) depends on the experimental context (e.g., a1 and b1), even though this context is chosen by the experimenters shortly before the photons produce their results. And this leads to the following conclusion: the results of all possible experiments constitute a vast catalog contained in an omniscient mind that assigns the result according to the experimental context and the quantum rules of probability distributions, regardless of the spatial or temporal separation (cf. Suarez 2025). Thus, there can be “inseparability in time” or “entanglement across time,” in which the current quantum state takes into account possible future experiments, and therefore possible future decisions by the experimenter (as astonishingly demonstrated by “entanglement swapping” experiments; cf. Peres 2000, Ma et al. 2012).

Similarly, it can be said that God, in creating the world, does so taking into account all the possible decisions that men may make in the course of history and respects our freedom, but also makes decisions that can rectify our possible mistakes. In particular, God foresees the possibility that man will rebel against him, and creates the world in such a way that it is strange and hostile to man after the first sin. He does so because he considers this to be favorable to the conversion of sinners (cf. section 6 below).

What happens in evolution happens taking into account the possibility of humanity’s first sin. God decides to create man free, with the possibility of sinning, and creates the world from its beginning subject to “the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21), in case man sins, although he creates man in the state of original justice, so that he is not harmed by that conditioning, as long as he does not sin.

It is surprising that Ernst Specker (co-author with Simon Kochen of the “quantum contextuality” theorem

published in 1966) was motivated in his research by the famous controversy surrounding Molinism, the theological system that seeks to reconcile divine omniscience and human free will: in a way, the perspective of “quantum contextuality” allows us to unravel this theological paradox, and, as I argue below, it also helps us to unravel the paradox of original sin.

6. “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death”

The perspective of “quantum contextuality” leads us to the following conclusion: the fact that the human genome transmits disease, death, and selfish evolutionary mechanisms (concupiscence) is a retroactive consequence, an anticipation of the first sin: “Because of man, creation is subjected ‘to decay,’ ‘to the bondage of corruption’” (CCC 400). In other words, material creation evolves in such a way that it turns against man after the first sin. Following this event, and in the absence of original grace, the “bondage of corruption” affects human beings and induces “the state of original sin.” Thus, original sin is a consequence of the first sin, although God uses this state to move us to conversion. In all this reflection, it is important not to forget that the state of original sin, in which God leaves us on Earth, is not hell, but an opportunity for salvation. As long as it is a state of condemnation or separation from God, it is caused by the first sin, but it is also a state that allows for conversion and the attainment of the beatific vision, and in this sense it derives from God’s mercy.

In a way, it can be said that the theory of evolution confirms the perspective of St. John Paul II: By creating the world, God “first” decides to prepare a body for his Son and creates man in his image, destined to participate in divine filiation, and only “afterwards” does he decide to create the world. (cf. John Paul II, Audience May 28, 1986, n. 4); we are in the image of God because we share a body like that of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and “the (visible) image of the invisible God”. Creation was subjected to the “bondage of corruption” (to “physical evil”) not spontaneously, but by God, in anticipation of man’s possible sin (“moral evil”), in the hope of being freed from that bondage (cf. Romans 8:20-21). That God uses suffering as a means for our salvation is a great mystery (the “problem of theodicy”) that we will only understand in heaven, when we see all the good that has come of it. However, by dying on the cross, he shows us that the cup of suffering he gives us to drink is “not poisoned.”

Therefore, retroactivity must be understood in the sense of an anticipation of possible human choices by an omniscient mind: when God decides to create man free and capable of sinning, he decides to become incarnate in order to make man a participant in divine life and also to redeem him if he sins, dying for him on the cross and leaving him on earth in a state of original sin to give him the opportunity to repent, convert, and attain eternal life. In the beginning, in the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, God creates the world as if the first sin had already occurred; that is, in such a way that evolution will be hostile and strange to human beings after the first sin (cf. CCC 400). However, he created human beings in his image and likeness (in the Neolithic period, according to the opinion I will present in a second essay) in a state of original justice, as if sin had not occurred.

The responsible person who causes natural generation to transmit a genome that, at the moment of animation, “stains the spiritual soul” and causes the new created person to contract the state of original sin, is the first sinner (and the devil who incites him to sin). Therefore, although this genetic material does not materially originate from the first sinner according to a temporal causal chain, insofar as it is “damaged,” it can be considered theologically as originating from that first sinner. In this sense, we can speak of a theological-biological monogenism:

Every man who comes into existence in a state of original sin receives this state transmitted by generation as if he were a son of the first sinner.

This applies in particular to the “human beings in the image of God” that God creates from Homo sapiens creatures after the first sin: these are persons (whose parents are not human persons, and therefore can be considered “sons of God”) who come into existence after the first sin has been committed, and who receive the constraints that induce the “state of original sin” by “natural generation,” as if they were children of the first sinner. Therefore, the “first sinner” can be considered the “progenitor or first parent” of all men conceived after the first sin: through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death came to all men (cf. Romans 5:12).

The teaching of St. Paul (Romans 5:12-19) and the dogmatic declaration of the Council of Trent, on which Humani generis is based, do not require the genetic descent over time of all men created in the image of God from a single couple, but they do require that the state of original sin comes from a sin actually committed by a single man individually and morally, and is transmitted to all men by biological generation. The state of original sin is transmitted, not because we are all descended from the first sinner, but rather the other way around: the first sinner is our common ancestor, because the state of original sin is transmitted by generation.

7. Conclusion

We have seen how the teaching of Humani generis can be formulated as a theological-biological monogenism in which the first sinner is the progenitor of all human beings created in the image of God after the first sin, and that the state of original sin is transmitted by natural generation to all, without the need to postulate that their genome derives by direct replication over time from the genome of the first sinner. This requires admitting that God, in creating the world, anticipates the possibility that man will sin, and creates it in such a way that creation will affect man after the first sin, inducing the state of original sin at the moment people come into existence. We have also seen how “quantum contextuality” reinforces this explanation by proposing an anticipation of human actions by an omniscient mind: a fitting theological conclusion to the International Year of Quantum Science!