Adam and Eve and Genetics Difficulty

[Gorgias]

Wow! Those gems in bold are marching flags in my neighborhood. In my neighborhood, those “misunderstandings” need to go so that “greater wisdom” can catch up to modern living.

Agreed. Some wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ever since the “spirit of Vatican II” reared its ugly head, some have pushed to have Church teachings thrown out – or worse, to have the Church “catch up with modern times” by modifying its teachings (e.g., on birth control, divorce, abortion). That’s not what’s being suggested here.

Moreover, the understanding of some Church teachings has changed over time. For instance, the personal culpability of all Jews for Jesus’ death, the ability for non-Catholics and non-Christians to attain to heaven – over time, the Church’s understanding of these issues has moderated. I’m not suggesting that all Church teachings be re-evaluated to see how well they stack up in 21st century western culture (after all, that would be a case of ‘marching flags’!), but that this particular one – which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth.

With those marching flags, it is goodbye genetic difficulty. Adam and Eve are about to go down the drain …

No; Adam and Eve remain. They must remain, since they’re part of our doctrine. However, our understanding of them might be asked to change a bit.

The actual genetic difficulty is that some, not all, assumptions, used as evidence, do not warrant an universal exclusion of the possibility of a true Adam and Eve. Note the word possibility. That concept is both huge and accurate.

You keep making this claim. No one is “excluding … a true Adam and Eve.” Rather, they are being affirmed as being real! Not in the way you’re thinking of them, of course, but real, living, breathing, walking human beings who are the first two real human beings in history.

 

[Gorgias]

“In a new book, Creation and Evolution, published Wednesday in German, the pope praised progress gained by science, but cautioned that evolution raises philosophical questions science alone cannot answer.”

So, the Church considers this matter unprovable.

No – just unanswerable solely by science. To say ‘unprovable’ is to take the quote and make it say something it is not asserting.

edwest2:

There is no evidence to support this idea. We are not taught that God selected two random, almost humans and dropped souls into them.

Neither are we taught that there was a ‘Big Bang’, but it’s possible (and endorsed at various levels of the Church) to see the Big Bang as a physical explanation of the theological truth described in Genesis 1. All that’s being floated here is the suggestion a similar understanding of the origins of mankind – subject to the theological truth found in that passage – be allowed to tell the truth in a way that doesn’t imply it’s making a scientific claim (which science refutes).

 

[grannymh]

Just look a sentence or two further in CCC 404, granny…

They transmit the effect on human nature. Plural.

Mathematically speaking there is only one Original Sin. At least that is the way the Catholic Church teaches. I cannot speak for this new kind of catholicism which pops up in the science column.

In addition, both Adam and Eve have the same nature. I cannot speak for those who are stuck on some kind of an only genetic (genes are physical material) approach to the current status of human nature. It should be obvious, that a male human and a female human, both having the same nature, according to a realistic interpretation of Genesis, chapter 2, that they would transmit their human nature to their procreated children.

Obviously, this is correct according to current biology.
They transmit the effect on human nature. Plural.

What, pray tell, is the big deal about “Plural”? Is someone implying that it is possible that the one of the ***They ***would transmit a beaver which by the way is intelligent when it comes to dam building?

It should be obvious that Adam and Eve, plural, wounded by the effects plural, of Original Sin, would transmit a human nature deprived (one of the effects) of the state of Original Holiness and Justice. (CCC 404 **and **CCC 405)

All the plural in the world does not have the power to upgrade Divine Revelation as it flows from the first three chapters of Genesis. I speak only for the Catholic Church per se. I do not speak for those trying to reform Catholicism so that it agrees with their personal preferences and favorite interpretations.

On a different note. Thank heavens, they plural can transmit human nature or we plural would not be having this conversation.

 

[GEddie]

The soul is immaterial. In neither exists ‘in’ a body, nor does a body ‘grow around’ it.

Now you are picking nits. Would you deny that a soul accompanies each human embryo as it forms into a body, and that, from then until life fails, wherever that body is, is the soul?

How is that different from the soul being in the body?

 

[grannymh]

Agreed. Some wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ever since the “spirit of Vatican II” reared its ugly head, some have pushed to have Church teachings thrown out – or worse, to have the Church “catch up with modern times” by modifying its teachings (e.g., on birth control, divorce, abortion). That’s not what’s being suggested here.

Moreover, the understanding of some Church teachings has changed over time. For instance, the personal culpability of all Jews for Jesus’ death, the ability for non-Catholics and non-Christians to attain to heaven – over time, the Church’s understanding of these issues has moderated. I’m not suggesting that all Church teachings be re-evaluated to see how well they stack up in 21st century western culture (after all, that would be a case of ‘marching flags’!), but that this particular one – which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth.

No; Adam and Eve remain. They must remain, since they’re part of our doctrine. However, our understanding of them might be asked to change a bit.

You keep making this claim. No one is “excluding … a true Adam and Eve.” Rather, they are being affirmed as being real! Not in the way you’re thinking of them, of course, but real, living, breathing, walking human beings who are the first two real human beings in history.

I have some sincere real “difficulties” with this post’s statement.
" I’m not suggesting that all Church teachings be re-evaluated to see how well they stack up in 21st century western culture (after all, that would be a case of ‘marching flags’!), but that this particular one – which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth."

I am not taking my computer with me when I start traveling for Christmas.

Is there a possibility, while I am gone, that you can actually name the Catholic doctrine(s) you are trying to re-evaluate. I put the mysterious unidentified doctrine(s) in bold so that you can easily address them in their reality.

Frankly, I do not care if you and your group do not name Catholic doctrines. In the real world, ignoring Catholic doctrines will not destroy the Catholic Church from within. When I return, this thread may not be here. The real Catholic Church will be here. No way, will the proposed new and improved catholicism, (lower case intended) be here.

Thanks for the conversation.

 

[Gorgias]

On a different note. Thank heavens, they plural can transmit human nature or we plural would not be having this conversation.

LOL!

Mathematically speaking there is only one Original Sin.

Of course there is. Adam and Eve committed it, and they were the original transmitters of its effects. Not quite sure what about this worries you.

In addition, both Adam and Eve have the same nature. I cannot speak for those who are stuck on some kind of an only genetic (genes are physical material) approach to the current status of human nature. It should be obvious, that a male human and a female human, both having the same nature, according to a realistic interpretation of Genesis, chapter 2, that they would transmit their human nature to their procreated children.

It’s the whole point of the argument you’re trying to make! Original sin must be transmitted from parents to child in order for there to be a ‘reason’ for Jesus and the Salvation He earns for us!

And so, yes – the corrupted nature of the parent is transmitted to the child.

What, pray tell, is the big deal about “Plural”? Is someone implying that it is possible that the one of the ***They ***would transmit a beaver which by the way is intelligent when it comes to dam building?

No; but you seem hung up on the number ‘one’.

All the plural in the world does not have the power to upgrade Divine Revelation as it flows from the first three chapters of Genesis. I speak only for the Catholic Church per se.

With all due respect, you seem to be speaking from your interpretation of what Catholic doctrine allows – as am I.

 

[Gorgias]

Now you are picking nits.

No, really I’m not. The soul is spiritual and completely immaterial; the body is physical. There is a unity of the two in human nature, but that unity cannot be a physical bond, as the soul has no (physical) extension.

Would you deny that a soul accompanies each human embryo as it forms into a body, and that, from then until life fails, wherever that body is, is the soul?

If by ‘accompanies’ you mean physically, then yeah, I’d deny it. But if you mean it in a way that’s real and true but not physical, then I’d agree.

How is that different from the soul being in the body?

Your mother’s love for you accompanies you wherever you go. That doesn’t mean that your mother’s love for you is in your body.

 

[Gorgias]

Is there a possibility, while I am gone, that you can actually name the Catholic doctrine(s) you are trying to re-evaluate. I put the mysterious unidentified doctrine(s) in bold so that you can easily address them in their reality.

That’s the rub – and that’s what makes this whole issue so comical. There is no doctrine that ya’ll claim there is – that is, no magisterially asserted doctrine – that contradicts what’s being floated here. (If there were, I’d wager, you wouldn’t hear any of these possibilities that you’ve read here. At the very least, I wouldn’t be talking about it.)

However, this idea contradicts ya’lls interpretation of Catholic doctrine, and since you presume that it says something that’s not Catholic, we’re having this tempest in a teapot. It’s an interesting dynamic. Yet, there’s no doctrine here that we’re denying – not that God created everything from nothing, not that God created humanity alone in His “image and likeness”, not that there were two first true humans. All of it – without exception! – we all agree on. The disagreement solely comes in the way that it might be interpreted.

Frankly, I do not care if you and your group do not name Catholic doctrines.

Perhaps you can name the doctrine you claim is being broached, then?

No way, will the proposed new and improved catholicism, (lower case intended) be here.

Many have said that (as I mentioned in the examples I gave). Many were wrong. The Church never changes her doctrines – but she does grow in understanding of them.

Merry Christmas!

 

[grannymh]

Briefly. The real Catholic Church does not teach that there is a corrupted nature transmitted to the child. (post 166) This “corrupted” concept is traced to some of the first Protestant Reformers. Catholicism has always taught that following the real Original Sin, as found in the first three chapters of Genesis, human nature is in the state of “deprivation of Original Holiness and Justice.” Human nature has been wounded, not destroyed.

Information source. CCC 404-406. Note that CCC 406 is in small print. For the explanation of small print, please refer to CCC 20-21.

As I am getting ready to travel for Christmas (without my computer) I did notice --as expected-- that naming a Catholic doctrine (to be re-evaluated) per post 165 was expertly ignored. That is great news. Now I have complete freedom to eventually address this mysterious comment originally from post 161.

I put the “significance” regarding this thread’s topic of genetics and our dear first parents lovingly known as Adam and Eve in bold.

" I’m not suggesting that all Church teachings be re-evaluated to see how well they stack up in 21st century western culture (after all, that would be a case of ‘marching flags’!), but that this particular one – which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth."

**May the joy of Christmas **
​

​

remain with us in 2016.
​

 

[Gorgias]

Briefly. The real Catholic Church does not teach that there is a corrupted nature transmitted to the child. (post 166) This “corrupted” concept is traced to some of the first Protestant Reformers. Catholicism has always taught that following the real Original Sin, as found in the first three chapters of Genesis, human nature is in the state of “deprivation of Original Holiness and Justice.” Human nature has been wounded, not destroyed.

I’m cool with that. Call it ‘corrupted’ or call it ‘wounded’. Let’s try my re-worded assertion on for size, then: *The wounded nature is passed from parents to child. * There we go! The point still stands.

As I am getting ready to travel for Christmas (without my computer) I did notice --as expected-- that naming a Catholic doctrine (to be re-evaluated) per post 165 was expertly ignored.

It’s kinda funny… ya’ll are the ones claiming that this proposition runs counter to Catholic doctrine; those who propose it, on the other hand, make precisely the claim that it fits within the context of existing Catholic doctrine. Now, it seems, there’s a claim of victory since I can’t point to a doctrine to change. That’s the whole point, granny – there’s no doctrine being changed here! (You’ll have to try a little harder – claiming victory on a point that no one’s asserting just doesn’t cut it. :nope

Now I have complete freedom to eventually address this mysterious comment originally from post 161.

Bated breath. Waiting.

I put the “significance” regarding this thread’s topic of genetics and our dear first parents lovingly known as Adam and Eve in bold.

" I’m not suggesting that all Church teachings be re-evaluated to see how well they stack up in 21st century western culture (after all, that would be a case of ‘marching flags’!), but that this particular one – which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth."

Aah… is this all you’re getting at? Is this what you’re focusing on? I hope not. If it is, then please allow me to explain:

The doctrine of the Church is that God created everything from nothing; that He created man and woman from pre-existing material; that in man and woman only, He created in His “image and likeness”.

The understanding being put forth by some in this thread is that this must mean – from a scientific perspective – the scientific theories of evolution must be in error, since this understanding believes that God must have physically created the first humans directly.

You’re correct, granny – this understanding is not a doctrine of the Church; but, some here are treating it as if it were. Many have held that understanding, but strictly speaking, it’s not part of the doctrine. And so, what’s being asked for is simple: not that a doctrine of the Church be changed, but merely that the popular understanding of it be re-addressed so as to allow a fuller expression of it in light of current scientific discovery.

In a way, you’re right: there’s no Church doctrine to change. There’s just the understanding of it that seems in need of evaluation. Thanks for helping me make that clear.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . The understanding being put forth by some in this thread is that this must mean – from a scientific perspective – the scientific theories of evolution must be in error, since this understanding believes that God must have physically created the first humans directly. . .

“Theories”, correct? Some will be supported to a greater extent than others. One will contain less error than others. At no point do any of them deal with the spirit of God transforming the matter into a human being. A grievous error, I would say.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean, but God creates me directly as I write; He never created us indirectly. Creation in one Now, all is “planned” or “designed” as far as those concepts can apply to our eternal Father.

 

[Gorgias]

At no point do any of them deal with the spirit of God transforming the matter into a human being. A grievous error, I would say.

Transforming what matter? The dirt of the earth and the rib of a man into fully formed persons – is this what you’re talking about?

Of course these theories don’t address these concepts directly; after all, the implication is that they’re symbolic language – as other verses in these chapters likewise use symbolic language. I just posted a series of quotes from the CCC for thinkandmull in another thread here in Apologetics which affirm the Church’s teaching that there is plenty of “symbolic” and “figurative” language in the first three chapters of Genesis. The fact that there’s symbolic language explicitly means that there are references in there that aren’t literal and don’t require us to address them literally.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean, but God creates me directly as I write; He never created us indirectly.

Your parents shared in your creation by directly acting to cause your conception. God without mediation created your soul. However, God did not ‘directly’ create your physical being (except through the creation of the universe and through the mediation of all of creation’s touchpoints in getting your physical creation accomplished).

Creation in one Now, all is “planned” or “designed” as far as those concepts can apply to our eternal Father.

Planned? Designed? Absolutely. Direct creation of your physical being? Not so much.

 

[Aloysium]

Transforming what matter? The dirt of the earth and the rib of a man into fully formed persons – is this what you’re talking about?

Of course these theories don’t address these concepts directly; after all, the implication is that they’re symbolic language – as other verses in these chapters likewise use symbolic language. . .

Your parents shared in your creation by directly acting to cause your conception. God without mediation created your soul. However, God did not ‘directly’ create your physical being (except through the creation of the universe and through the mediation of all of creation’s touchpoints in getting your physical creation accomplished).

Planned? Designed? Absolutely. Direct creation of your physical being? Not so much.

. . . and science uses symbolic language in its use of mathematics, analogies to what we observe through our senses (particles and waves), images that visually describe structure and processes.

Ultimately the earth He moulded was star dust. It does not matter how, or else it would have been revealed. He could do it any which way He chose, as He did when:

• Jesus arose on the third day and would later ascend into heaven
• He fed the multitude with a few loaves and fish
• He appears, body and blood, in the Eucharist
• I could go on but you get the point, which is that God is God.

I have come to the conclusion that Eve created from Adams rib is as rational, I would actually say more so, an explanation describing my presence here writing this as anything else I have encountered.

The language is symbolic. One’s spirit is undeniable reality. I don’t know if you are suggesting that it is symbolic. The human soul is actually too real, too holy; like a brick through the wisps of smoke, that the material sciences reveal themselves to be, it defies their explanations.

God is the Source of our being. Right here and now, every here and now, emerges from the eternal Font that is His love.
In what is to this moment the past, my timeless soul entered time as a spirit-body unity.
Genetically we can trace our lives back to a beginning when we were very different. There is no evidence that we did not then live ten times longer than we do now, that each new person did not possess a unique genome. It is all faith.
I do know that God eternal creates all time and space, along with everything in it, including ourselves, having free will.
The universe does what it does because it is brought into existence to do just that.

I’m not expressing this as well as I’d like.

 

[Richca]

Nor is it with

the Catholic faith to assert that an understanding of the creation epic as poetic/allegorical must be dropped in favor of the literalistic one.

Whatever it is you precisely mean by poetic/allegorical, much of what is set down literally in the creation account of Genesis the catholic faith holds to be literally true and well as the faith of the Israelite people before the coming of Christ. For example, there is nothing poetic/allegorical in ““In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), the Church holds this to be literally true. Or again “And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also” (Gen. 1: 16), this also is literally true for we literally believe that God made the sun, moon, and the stars. The same holds for the verses of all the six days of creation for the creation of the heavens and the earth, the sky, sun, mooon, and stars, the elements, plants, animals, and finally mankind all of which is literally set down in Genesis as God’s creation and work, we hold as literally the truth. In fact, in the whole first chapter of Genesis, I see nothing that is repugnant to the knowledge we have gained from modern science which we can reasonably hold with a more or less degree of certainty than that the whole work of creation took but six days if we understand by day here a 24 hour day. The inspired author’s description of God’s work of creation in six days and on the seventh day He rested also has a profound meaning as the Catechism of the Catholic Church expounds.

The account of creation in Genesis is a very old text written thousands of years ago and so it has the marks of the ‘scientific knowledge’ of the times, not indeed of quantum mechanics, but of what can be known by simple and common sensible observation of the world and reason with the additional fact that the author of Genesis is inspired by the Holy Spirit with His gifts of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge and he is a master theologian. We can also take into account that the immediate audience of the creation account is to a simple, uneducated and uncultured people to which it is more appropriate I think to convey divine truths such as the creation of the universe by God in a direct and literal way and not couched behind possible symbolic terms of poetry or allegory (which by the way, according to the Church’s understanding of the allegorical sense of Scripture, allegory is probably not the correct term to use here although there may be some elements of allegory here that received a fuller meaning upon the revelation of Jesus Christ such as Genesis 3:15, the proto-evangelium) which the people would probably not understand such as the parables of Jesus which the apostles themselves didn’t always understand their meaning and Jesus had to explain it to them. In a word, the creation account as set down for us in Genesis must be fundamentally understood literally for the foundation of the faith of the Israelite people and the Catholic Church is based fundamentally on a literal reading of the inspired text, namely, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and all of what follows and that exists pertaining to God’s work of the creation of the universe and everything in it.

This is not to say that there may not be some elements of symbolic language in the first 3 chapters of Genesis for the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the term ‘symbolic language’ for some of the truths we believe as coming from the text, not the whole text but certain texts to which the catechism refers too. For example, the CCC#362 says “The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” The symbolic language here refers to principally I think to the text “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” which the Church interprets as the creation and infusion of the immortal spiritual soul by God. That God formed man of dust [or clay] from the ground I think is beyond doubt. For the body of man is made out of matter and at least partly of the earthly element. The science of ancient times did not have all the elements as found on the periodic table that we have today. In those times, elemental bodies were considered simply as earth or water or air. And when humans die, their bodies decompose into earth or soil. Accordingly, in ancient times, the bodies of humans as well as the land animals were quite naturally and simply considered as being made of earth although not exclusively for the ancients would have known that it is made of water too for without water we are not going to survive which is why we drink it. The question of whether God formed the body of Adam directly and immediately from the clay of the earth or from some possible pre-existent and living matter I’m not addressing presently.

Again, CCC#375 says: The Church, interpreting the symbolism of biblical language in an authentic way, in the light of the New Testament and Tradition, teaches that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice”.This grace of original holiness was “to share in. . .divine life”

And again CCC#378: The sign of man’s familiarity with God is that God places him in the garden.There he lives “to till it and keep it”. Work is not yet a burden, but rather the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation.

 

[Richca]

(continued)

 

[edwest2]

From Catholic Answers:

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “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 either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents 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 that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

Ed

 

[jerome_ky]

In regards to a human being mating with a non-human being animal or beast, I agree with the poster who says that this would entail bestiality. It is unnatural and human beings can clearly distinguish between their own kind and the other animals on earth ( Adam named all the various animals that God brought to him, Gen. 2: 19). In my observation of nature, the various animals mate with their own kinds and species and they do this by instinct and nature. Human beings are suppose to be more intelligent than the other animals. Granted that the actions of some human beings can seem to sink below even what brute animals do and to unnatural vices, the idea of a wide scale bestiality in the beginnings and propagation of human beings is reaching for the moon in my opinion and very problematic from many points of view. The very idea that bestiality is against nature and from observation that animals mate with their own kind, should I think raise some eyebrows to scientists who are suppose to study the nature of things. Even if we were to suppose that some early humans mated with a beast, there is no reason to suppose that the offspring would be a human being with an immortal spiritual soul. God could withhold from creating such a soul. Even if we supposed that God did infuse a spiritual soul, we then have the consequence of a non-human beast raising a human being , does this make any reasonable sense? Nor is the matter or body of a non-human animal properly disposed to receive a spiritual immortal soul. God has so disposed the matter of a human body for it to be the proper matter and body for its union with the spiritual soul.

The Genesis narrative goes on to say the Cain took a wife. Cain was a son of Adam and Eve and yet committed murder, so what stopped him from violating a rule against “bestiality” which would be difficult to discern, anyway, if the wife he took looked human enough to him?

I would posit the following. God the Father has nothing resembling a physical body, but we know he a) made man in His image; b) begot a Son with a human mother. If God Who is All Spirit can beget a Son with a human mother, albeit without sin, is it more difficult to believe that fallen children of Adam and Eve could beget children with the members of the evolving human species, seeing they would have the same physical if not spiritual aspects.

Last thought. Adam and Eve were created in a Garden which had 2 known rivers and 2 unknown. In the Garden, which was untouched by sin, death, or even angry animals, there was a Tree of Life, and a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were expelled from this Garden. They fell from grace. They were made to toil on the earth. They were made to live out their animal nature. Their spiritual nature became a struggle for them. We continue to struggle with our animal nature. Only the Church enables us to return to our spiritual home. We do this, of course, through Christ, who is fully divine, and fully human.

To me, this all points to a conscious plan of the Creator to bring man up to His level.

Anyway, interesting discussion!

 

[grannymh]

“I’m not suggesting that all Church teachings be re-evaluated to see how well they stack up in 21st century western culture (after all, that would be a case of ‘marching flags’!), but that this particular one – which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth. ”

In response to the above comment, one needs to recall chapter 14, Gospel of John. This chapter affirms the mission of the Holy Spirit. According to simple Catholic Church history, the Catholic Church has already re-evaluated the Catholic doctrines which flow from the first three chapters of Genesis. This was properly done in major Catholic Ecumenical Church Councils. For the dates of these councils, please refer to the CCC Index of Citations beginning on page 689. Those who have never explored the verses in the first three chapters in Genesis, will discover some amazing Catholic information beginning on page 689.

Link to the Bible
usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm

Since there is no major Catholic Ecumenical Council in session at this time, the re-evaluation suggested in the above quoted comments from post 161 comes from individuals. Obviously, free speech can be expressed by popes and posters.

In my humble opinion of the above quoted comment, “this particular one” refers to a Catholic teaching “which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth.”

The first step to untangle science and theology is to accept the Catholic teaching that God as Creator did make an original human person whose single nature is the unique unification of both the science genetic world and the theology rational world. Information source. The dramatic shift from Genesis 1: 25 to Genesis 1: 26-27, which demonstrates the difference between physical material creatures and the nature of the very first two sole real founders of the human species lovingly known as Adam and Eve.

Before I continue, are there any denials of chapter 14, Gospel of John which speaks about the promised Holy Spirit?

 

[Gorgias]

Since there is no major Catholic Ecumenical Council in session at this time, the re-evaluation suggested in the above quoted comments from post 161 comes from individuals. Obviously

Obviously. Were you thinking I was expressing an opinion that I claimed had the force of magisterial authority? No; this is merely a proposal whose time, one hopes, has come.

, free speech can be expressed by popes and posters.

Pot, meet kettle.

In my humble opinion of the above quoted comment, “this particular one” refers to a Catholic teaching “which entangles understandings of the physical sciences with understandings of theology – should disassociate itself with science, so that the sorts of scientific claims masquerading as theology (as seen here and elsewhere) might not continue to be put forth.”

Since I penned the comment, let me reiterate what I meant – as I just did in a recent post that you may not have seen: “this particular one” refers not to a Catholic teaching so much as to an understanding of Catholic doctrine that forces a scientific interpretation on the theological content of Genesis 1.

The first step to untangle science and theology is to accept the Catholic teaching that God as Creator did make an original human person whose single nature is the unique unification of both the science genetic world and the theology rational world.

We agree on this.

We just disagree on the second step.

Before I continue, are there any denials of chapter 14, Gospel of John which speaks about the promised Holy Spirit?

Of course not. We agree that the Holy Spirit has been sent to teach us. We just disagree that the theological interpretation of Genesis 1 that forces a particular pseudo-scientific yet contrary-to-science stance is Spirit-breathed…

(And, of course, if you want to claim that when Jesus said that the Spirit would teach all things, then since the Spirit hasn’t taught this particular proposition, therefore, it’s a mistaken proposition, let me nip that assertion in the bud: the Holy Spirit also didn’t teach about black holes and quasars… and we know they exist. )

 

[reggieM]

a particular pseudo-scientific yet contrary-to-science stance

When scientific proposals are later proven to be incorrect, were they pseudo-science when first proposed?