Adam, Eve and Evolution

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Pulling my quotes out of context and then responding to a context you put there is not the same as responding to my post. I am afraid you have missed my point entirely, based on my reading of your response. I’m not fond of being misrepresented as a luddite, either, so since I probably would have difficulty continuing in a charitable fashion, I’ll sign off here.

SteveG said what I wanted to say more eloquently and far more charitably than I did, I think. So I’ll leave it at that.

I wish you the best in your search for Truth.

peace

mike

postscript: I’ll leave you with a last thought cause maybe it’ll help: Man is more than the sum of his material parts. Adam was the first to be created in God’s image. I just don’t see a conflict with this and these scientific theories. Adam’s soul was not encoded on his genes.
 
A Catholic can never believe that true science can contridict Doctrine, as the two both come from God. Scientific fact, and the facility of reason, is a God-given gift to humanity, as is Doctrine, and they will never contradict.

In fact, there is a built-in safeguard to this: Infallibility rests only in matters of faith and morality, two things which true science specifically never addresses. Any Doctrine that appears to contridict scientific fact must be looked at solely in terms of faith and morality, automatically placing it outside of any contridiction. This is why the seperation between “spiritual” geneology and genetic geneology is critical to understand Church teachings on the subject. The Church, quite simply, is unable to speak infallibly on matters of science, and this has been understood, at least by the greatest theologians, since the earliest days of the Church. So long as science and faith stay within their own spheres, there will never be conflict; those who say that science dismantles faith are poor scientists, and those who say that faith trumps science are poor theologians.
 
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SteveG:
This is a really tough thing to explain to someone who lives with the paradigm you do and not have it sound foolish.
Dear Steve, nothing that you have written sounds foolish to me, and all of it is clearly heartfelt and carefully thought through and I can only thank you for taking our conversation seriously enough to go to the trouble of explaining your position in such detail.
Sometimes I think that the divide between folks who hold science as paramount vs. those who hold faith as such is so wide that it’s difficult to understand one another across it and still make any sense.
Indeed, it is sometimes difficult, but you and I have been making a decent fist of it, helped perhaps by the fact that I was born and educated as a Catholic
The theological problem it presents is that no actual fall seems to lead to no actual original sin (a very important Catholic doctrine)
You have engaged in some genetic speculation, so you’ll forgive me if I engage in some theological speculation. I understand the importance of the fall and original sin and the other consequences of these that you list, but why is it necessary to see the fall as something that happens to a literal pair of people.? We can equally hold that the fall is something experienced by a human population emerging into a full understanding of the consequences of their action - this in no way undermines the doctrine (and the observation!) of mankind’s fallen nature. If the Church is happy to accept now that the six day creation is a symbolic description of reality, I can’t see why adopting the same approach here is so difficult.
My questions are not how did man evolve and take form, but rather what is man, and what is his purpose here? More specifically, who am I, and what am I suppossed to do?
Indeed these are theoogical questions and not questions that science is competent to attempt to answer.
In the words of Herb Ratner, God wrote two books. The book of scripture and the book of nature, and they can not contradict each other. I hope this has made some sense.
And when facts emerge that contradict a literal reading of the Scripture, as has happened many times, the Church has adapted the details of her doctrine and teaching so that the underlying truth is not compromised. The longer she resists doing that in this case (and worse, forbids me to hold as an opinion something that I can plainly see is a fact) and insists on a literal monogeny, the more she is driving away those who see that it cannot be so. A tender respect for her teaching should be anxious to see such discrepancies resolved.

Thank you again,
Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
I understand the importance of the fall and original sin and the other consequences of these that you list, but why is it necessary to see the fall as something that happens to a literal pair of people.? We can equally hold that the fall is something experienced by a human population emerging into a full understanding of the consequences of their action - this in no way undermines the doctrine (and the observation!) of mankind’s fallen nature. If the Church is happy to accept now that the six day creation is a symbolic description of reality, I can’t see why adopting the same approach here is so difficult.
It’s not necessary to view the Fall this way. It is viewed that way because that’s the Truth. As I posted in the “Who’s to blame?” thread, Doctrine does not define reality, but rather recognizes it. The Church can’t simply put forth a new Doctrine without basis in God’s Truth. The reality of Adam and Eve is recognized by the Church Doctrinally, and this can never be changed. In fact, no Doctrines can be changed, only our understanding of them as we grow and develop. The Church never stated Doctrinally that the Genesis account of Six Days was literal, though popular opinion at various times held it to be so. The Doctrines of Original Sin and the Fall are established (though the nature of Original Sin is a matter for theological debate), and therefore they can’t simply be changed to better fit with a modern perception of reality that directly conflicts with the fundamental terms of the Doctrines.
The longer she resists doing that in this case (and worse, forbids me to hold as an opinion something that I can plainly see is a fact) and insists on a literal monogeny, the more she is driving away those who see that it cannot be so. A tender respect for her teaching should be anxious to see such discrepancies resolved.
The Church doesn’t insist on a literal monogeny, at least not biologically, so this is a bit of a straw man. Biological monogeny is not Doctrine, only the inheritance of Original Sin (whatever form it’s defined as) through a literal descent from Adam and Eve, who absolutely did commit a sin that implicated all human souls. Spiritual polygeny, which seems to be what you’re proposing, is both outside of the realm of science, and goes against the truth of faith, at least insofar as the Church is concerned. It’s a purely spiritual matter, in which the Church has sole jurisdiction according to the faith. To argue that science has any say in this is, as I stated in the other thread, poor science.
 
First allow me to thank you for starting this interesting discussion.
The point which seems to be missing, unless it was addressed much earlier, is that when Adam and Eve were created, they had numerous characteristics and attributes not found in man today. Dom Eugene Boylan, in the beginning of his book, This Trememdous Lover, describes this more clearly than I have seen elsewhere. They had the gift of integrity, which included freedom from the pain of death, a superior intellect beyond anything we can imagine today, and several other qualities. Then they sinned, they fell from grace, and lost many of these attributes, including separation from God.
It was not until after they had fallen that they had children, so we have inherited their nature from after their fall, not something which evolved over time from a primitive state. We enter the world separated from God, and must seek Him and enter a state of grace.
If Adam and Eve had not fallen, there would be no need for the us to experience the mercy of God. Jesus told Sr. Faustina to get to know God by meditating on His attributes, since we will never understand the Trinity, and that the greatest attribute of God is His mercy. If Adam and Eve had not fallen, we would never experience the greatest attribute of God.
 
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MichaelTDoyle:
Pulling my quotes out of context and then responding to a context you put there is not the same as responding to my post. I am afraid you have missed my point entirely, based on my reading of your response. I’m not fond of being misrepresented as a luddite, either, so since I probably would have difficulty continuing in a charitable fashion, I’ll sign off here.
I apologise if you think I was deliberately taking you out of context - my intention was to respond to the key points in your post without making someting that was too long to post, not in any way to distort your position (which is a method of discussion that I too find dishonest and disreputable). I also apologise for the barbed comments, but on my side I am not fond of being accused of hubris or having my profession blamed for seemingly all the evil in the world.

There - no hard feelings?
SteveG said what I wanted to say more eloquently and far more charitably than I did, I think. So I’ll leave it at that.

I wish you the best in your search for Truth.

peace

mike

postscript: I’ll leave you with a last thought cause maybe it’ll help: Man is more than the sum of his material parts. Adam was the first to be created in God’s image. I just don’t see a conflict with this and these scientific theories. Adam’s soul was not encoded on his genes.
But, nevertheless the soul and original sin is supposed to be passed down to us in direct descent, so although, and I can agree here, the soul is not encoded in the genes, the possession of a soul still goes with the pedigree. The conflict is that there is no Adam who is the **sole **biologicalfather of us all, and further that PiusXII states unequivocally that there is. Others have tried to resolve this issue by postulating a narrow spiritual and a broad biological ancestry, but that approach leads necessrily to the, to me, troubling conclusion that humans with and without souls lived together in the same families.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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Ghosty:
It’s not necessary to view the Fall this way. It is viewed that way because that’s the Truth. As I posted in the “Who’s to blame?” thread, Doctrine does not define reality, but rather recognizes it. The Church can’t simply put forth a new Doctrine without basis in God’s Truth. The reality of Adam and Eve is recognized by the Church Doctrinally, and this can never be changed. In fact, no Doctrines can be changed, only our understanding of them as we grow and develop. The Church never stated Doctrinally that the Genesis account of Six Days was literal, though popular opinion at various times held it to be so. The Doctrines of Original Sin and the Fall are established (though the nature of Original Sin is a matter for theological debate), and therefore they can’t simply be changed to better fit with a modern perception of reality that directly conflicts with the fundamental terms of the Doctrines.
Well, have we not come full circle? You state that ‘The reality of Adam and Eve is recognized by the Church Doctrinally, and this can never be changed. In fact, no Doctrines can be changed, only our understanding of them as we grow and develop’. I have shown how the concept of a literal Adam and Eve who are the sole parents of us all cannot be. So will the Church maintain this doctrine in the face of the contrary facts? That way lies fundamentalism. I know that you have proposed a solution to this conundrum, but it is one that requires humans with and without souls to co-exist in the same families.

But actually, this isn’t my beef at all, because that is not what I am confronted by when I read the words of PiusXII on this matter. Those words forbid me to believe in something that I can see is a fact, which is biological polygeny.
The Church doesn’t insist on a literal monogeny, at least not biologically, so this is a bit of a straw man. Biological monogeny is not Doctrine, only the inheritance of Original Sin (whatever form it’s defined as) through a literal descent from Adam and Eve, who absolutely did commit a sin that implicated all human souls.
On the contrary, the doctrine as promulgated by Pius XII seems to me to demand literal biological monogeny. Monogeny means descent solely from two individuals. You are saying that it is adequate to believe that just two out of tens of thousands of common human ancestors were given souls and that soulfulnesss then spread by descent until we all had it - if that is the doctrine then I am satisfied, but I am far from sure that is what the Church intends us to believe.
Spiritual polygeny, which seems to be what you’re proposing, is both outside of the realm of science, and goes against the truth of faith, at least insofar as the Church is concerned. It’s a purely spiritual matter, in which the Church has sole jurisdiction according to the faith. To argue that science has any say in this is, as I stated in the other thread, poor science.
How can it be a purely spiritual matter when it speaks of literal descent and literal pedigree? In any case, I was suggesting a graceful way out of a dilemma that the Church is in and in which she cannot prevail unless she adopts the fundamentalist tactic of denying plain facts. My suggestion was not a scientific but a theological proposition, which I was careful to state and which you can see if you read what I wrote carefully.

I am by no means convinced that the idea that humans with and without souls coexisting as man and wife is more accepted by the Church than my proposition.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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jdobbins:
First allow me to thank you for starting this interesting discussion.
The point which seems to be missing, unless it was addressed much earlier, is that when Adam and Eve were created, they had numerous characteristics and attributes not found in man today. Dom Eugene Boylan, in the beginning of his book, This Trememdous Lover, describes this more clearly than I have seen elsewhere. They had the gift of integrity, which included freedom from the pain of death, a superior intellect beyond anything we can imagine today, and several other qualities. Then they sinned, they fell from grace, and lost many of these attributes, including separation from God.
This thread is about the fact that there are no two people who are the sole ancestors of us all, so to assert that these non-existent people had magical qualities (such as physical immortality and huge intellect) is to take several steps beyond the bounds of reason. Since you claim a PhD I won’t patronise you. So why don’t you tell us how you or the good Dom know this that you assert so confidently?
It was not until after they had fallen that they had children, so we have inherited their nature from after their fall, not something which evolved over time from a primitive state.
Really!? And your evidence that human nature is not a consequence of our evolutionary history is??

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
Bump. It is a good thread.

Is it not possible that God created Adam and Eve and then after the exile they were out among a human-like biological population? They interbred and thus the soul was promulgated? Over the years the remaining unsouled population became extinct.

On a weird side note:
Where would the Nephilim fall into this?

I also do not necessarily subscribe to genetic polygeny. I feel there are too many variables in theories that fall so far back into the dawn of time. I don’t deny polygeny unless it denies Adam. There we part ways. I am unconvinced that they remain opposed to each other.

peace
 
I have shown how the concept of a literal Adam and Eve who are the sole parents of us all cannot be.
But that isn’t the Doctrine in question. You’ve only demonstrated that they can’t be the sole biological source for modern humanity, and in this you don’t disagree with Doctrine. You’ve refuted a straw man, at least insofar as actual Church Doctrine is concerned.
I know that you have proposed a solution to this conundrum, but it is one that requires humans with and without souls to co-exist in the same families.
And aside from your personal distate for this idea, it’s perfectly acceptable to both science AND Doctrine. We shouldn’t let our personal distaste stand in the way of accepting reality (not to say that I definately have reality pinned down, I’m not that arrogant).
How can it be a purely spiritual matter when it speaks of literal descent and literal pedigree?
It’s purely spiritual because it doesn’t deal with material reality, in that it doesn’t speak in material terms or material measurements. Spiritual doesn’t mean non-literal, it means non-physical.
I am by no means convinced that the idea that humans with and without souls coexisting as man and wife is more accepted by the Church than my proposition.
Unfortunately I don’t think it’s been weighed in on officially, so all I can do is offer my understanding and solution as an orthodox Catholic who appreciates science and genetic reality 🙂
 
Is it not possible that God created Adam and Eve and then after the exile they were out among a human-like biological population? They interbred and thus the soul was promulgated? Over the years the remaining unsouled population became extinct.
That’s exactly my theory, and I’ve not found it to conflict with Catholic Doctrine. It seems to more be a matter of taste that people reject it. Glad to hear someone else support this idea, even if they don’t necessarily subscribe to it.
Where would the Nephilim fall into this?
Wooboy, that’s a whole other discussion! Likely extinct from the flood.
 
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hecd2:
There is a tract about this subject on this site, here:
catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

The tract basically positions what Catholics can and cannot believe with regard to Adam and Eeve in an authoritarian way. It meddles in natural science. And it’s wrong. It’s basically setting up the Catholic faith for another embarassing fall.
One would have thought the Church would have learned from history in announcing this or that teaching that bears on the natural world and is subsequently shown by scientists to be wrong. The tract is riddled with such language:

‘the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing’

‘The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age’

'It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2-3) as a fiction. The human race really did descend from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) rather than a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

It is this last absurd statement that I would like to focus on, because it is one where the Church (yet again) is setting itself up for a prat-fall. In fact all the molecular and fossil evidence indicates that the human species is not descended from an original pair of of two human beings. The evidence overwhelmingly points to a pool of early humans. There is no evidence for a population bottleneck of a single couple within the time that humans can be called fully human. The tightest population bottlenecks occur between 75,000 and 60,000 years ago when the early human population might have been as small as a few thousand. It is also the case that Y-chromosome Adam (the Most Recent Common ancestor in the strictly male line of descent) dates to about 75,000 years ago. Mitochondrial Eve, the Most Recent Common Ancestor in the strictly female line dates to 175,000 years ago.

Alec

Hi hecd2,

If your premise is that the teaching of the Church contradicts the findings of science, and we know that truth cannot contradict truth, then it would not logically imply that the position of science is valid by using its findings to refute that of the Church, for both positions could indeed be logically flawed, and it would be of no service to science to rest its power on implicit truthfulness relative to religion.

For if we take it as granted that science is superior to religion in discovering and knowing truth, that discovery did not come from science itself but by the humans that used logic to understand the material evidence that was extracted by scientific thinking and then using logic to compare it to the dogmatic assumptions of the Church.

The following two paragraphs being my personal premise, I would countinue in asserting that if a scientist and a thelogigan both observed a red rose, it would take no credentials in either field for both to come to a common agreement that the observation is shared by both with differing perspectives on the same universal truth, becuase the tools we use we have in common, but our explanations may differ due more to our own pridefullness than the literal difference in our spacetime coordinates.

And so Evil works on both parties and attacks both the dishonest theolgian and dishonest scientist in the same manner, by using pride to thwart their intial love of Truth which inspired them to choose their rightful profession in the first place by perverting that love into more an emotinal need to be right, than actually knowing the truth.

Myself or anyone living in the walls of a Cathedral or Caltech is not immune from attacks of the evil one. It is only by our faith in the Truth are we resistant. That Truth being universal, only one Truth is possible.
 
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SocaliCatholic:
Hi hecd2,

If your premise is that the teaching of the Church contradicts the findings of science, and we know that truth cannot contradict truth, then it would not logically imply that the position of science is valid by using its findings to refute that of the Church, for both positions could indeed be logically flawed, and it would be of no service to science to rest its power on implicit truthfulness relative to religion.
Science stands on its own evidence and does not rely on religous ideas. Where science powerfully contradicts the religious paradigm within the realm of its magisterium, I’ll go with the science. This approach is supported both by historical and philosophical considerations.
For if we take it as granted that science is superior to religion in discovering and knowing truth, that discovery did not come from science itself but by the humans that used logic to understand the material evidence that was extracted by scientific thinking and then using logic to compare it to the dogmatic assumptions of the Church.
Science is superior to other means of revealing truth only with regard to natural phenomena. Science has no authority outside this arena but is paramount within this arena. Where the Church has clashed with science on purely natural phnomena, she has always come off second best. Also the fact is that science has revealed the natural truth which is inaccessible and unimagined by the Church.
Myself or anyone living in the walls of a Cathedral or Caltech is not immune from attacks of the evil one. It is only by our faith in the Truth are we resistant. That Truth being universal, only one Truth is possible.
Well that might be so, but with all these references to pride and the Devil, just what is the point you are making?

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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hecd2:
Science stands on its own evidence and does not rely on religous ideas. Where science powerfully contradicts the religious paradigm within the realm of its magisterium, I’ll go with the science. This approach is supported both by historical and philosophical considerations.

Science is superior to other means of revealing truth only with regard to natural phenomena. Science has no authority outside this arena but is paramount within this arena. Where the Church has clashed with science on purely natural phnomena, she has always come off second best. Also the fact is that science has revealed the natural truth which is inaccessible and unimagined by the Church.

Well that might be so, but with all these references to pride and the Devil, just what is the point you are making?

Alec
evolutionpages.com
Why is Science vs. Religion a necessary paradigm? Is it not ineffecient in reaching truth, and born of unnecessary argument?

Do you agree people usually do not change personal views based on assuming the validity of the opposition’s evidence? The heart of argument. Foreign viewpoints are usually met with skepticism, as is evident from the ongoing debates on creationism vs. evolutionism. The burden of proof is always to be felt to be proved from the opposing position, even if competent to do so.

Would you agree it is far more efficient in problem resolution to humble oneself to assume the validity of the opposing veiws position and test the validity of that view from the inside using rigorous logic, than it is to introduce more complexity to the argument by injecting it with a plethora of foreign ideas and scholarly vocabulary from ones education? Why not build on a common foundation of agreement?

My search for understanding originated in science, but evolved to religion becuase I realized I was not science to understand science, but logic and reason.
 
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SocaliCatholic:
Why is Science vs. Religion a necessary paradigm? Is it not ineffecient in reaching truth, and born of unnecessary argument?

Do you agree people usually do not change personal views based on assuming the validity of the opposition’s evidence? The heart of argument. Foreign viewpoints are usually met with skepticism, as is evident from the ongoing debates on creationism vs. evolutionism. The burden of proof is always to be felt to be proved from the opposing position, even if competent to do so.

Would you agree it is far more efficient in problem resolution to humble oneself to assume the validity of the opposing veiws position and test the validity of that view from the inside using rigorous logic, than it is to introduce more complexity to the argument by injecting it with a plethora of foreign ideas and scholarly vocabulary from ones education? Why not build on a common foundation of agreement?

My search for understanding originated in science, but evolved to religion becuase I realized I was not science to understand science, but logic and reason.
I agree that science versus religion is not a necessary paradigm so long as each sticks to its domain of authority.

Science is not competent to deal with matters of spirituality, theology and religious truth.

Religion is not competent to pronounce on matters of natural truth. Neither revelation nor Church teaching is a good guide to how the natural universe works.

So there need be no conflict, except where the Church pronounces on matters that are in the scientific domain, or scientists seek to draw religious consclusions from their work; and this question of the monogeny or polygeny of the human species is ultimately a scientific question. To the extent that the Church is teaching genetic monogeny, she is making a statement about the natural world and she is wrong. Others have suggested that the doctrine of monogeny on which the concept of original sin is based can be rescued by proposing that the human race is genetically polygenic and spiritually monogenic. Although I have severe ethical and philosophical reservations about this idea, it is a logically correct solution.

Nevertheless, to the extent that the Church is telling me that I am not permitted to be believe in genetic polygeny (which is how I interpret the PiusXII teaching), she is telling me that I am not permitted to believe in something that I see to be a plain fact. The reason for the conflict is that the Church’s teaching has encroached into the domain of science and therefore the Church has set herself up for embarassment.

As far as changing position goes, the Church has moved from a stance of rejecting heliocentrism to accepting it, and from rejecting evolution to tolerating it and so the idea that dialoguies of this nature never change minds is wrong. The reason minds were changed were that the scientific evidence is overwhelming and to contuinue to oppose these ideas would have been perverse in the extreme. The same situation pertains to polygenism.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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hecd2:
I agree that science versus religion is not a necessary paradigm so long as each sticks to its domain of authority.

Science is not competent to deal with matters of spirituality, theology and religious truth.

Religion is not competent to pronounce on matters of natural truth. Neither revelation nor Church teaching is a good guide to how the natural universe works.
hecd2,

Inititally I wanted to agree with these statements however upon further inspection, I found them too neat and compartmentalized to deal these two plausible exceptions:
  1. An initially aethestic scientist converted later in his life to Catholocism and taking up theological studies and recieveing diplomas in a renowned university.
  2. An initially cradle Catholic properly cathecitized in the Catholic faith not convicted of the views on scienctific findings held by the magesterium of the Chruch, his scientific curiosity leading to scienfific studies and diplomas in science.
These two exceptions were ficticiously created by me but these two scenarios are likely plausble to have actually occured in life so as to serve as the basis as an example of credibility to comment simulanteously on both the respective fields of science and religion with authority.

I am sure you would agree that every legitimate scholar in his respective field can attempt to bastardize the popularized integrity of their scientific/theological findings by overstepping their authority to critique their findings without the proper experience/education to do so, but I created these two ficticious examples such that their is no actual authoritiative overstepping, but only allows room for logical misinterpretation.

That room being enough to show that there could be a lone scientist/theologican vs. 10,000 “wrong” ones. My point being that the truth is not prejudiced except against lies. Truth is not dependent on majority or experience or education as I am sure you agree, but it is more likely to be arrived at by those who practice fidelity to humility and honesty, not pride as though a particular discipline has answers to everything, which I agree like a pendulum swings both ways in your favor and mine.

But before any scientist feels too good about what I just said, let me say lastly that I believe that just as a scientist has complete authoirty to observe and experiment (that power of science being universal to all humans) but has no authority to claim that its findings are final and binding such as evolution, for to do so would be against the interest of the scientist himself, discovery usually being his motive, and static conclusions his enemy.

Therfore in the fields of science and theology, both the feel good liberals and the pragmatic conservatives can have a new paradigm where science and religion can be best of friends as long as all revelations in scientific findings and religion are moving to discover or preserve the Truth, which is both your friend and mine.
 
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SocaliCatholic:
hecd2,

Inititally I wanted to agree with these statements however upon further inspection, I found them too neat and compartmentalized to deal these two plausible exceptions:
  1. An initially aethestic scientist converted later in his life to Catholocism and taking up theological studies and recieveing diplomas in a renowned university.
  2. An initially cradle Catholic properly cathecitized in the Catholic faith not convicted of the views on scienctific findings held by the magesterium of the Chruch, his scientific curiosity leading to scienfific studies and diplomas in science.
It is the methods and processes of science and religion that fall into separate Magisteria, not individual people. An individual can embrace both magisteria and use each in its own domain - science for explaining the natural universe; catholic theology for explaining God and His relationship with His people.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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hecd2:
It is the methods and processes of science and religion that fall into separate Magisteria, not individual people. An individual can embrace both magisteria and use each in its own domain - science for explaining the natural universe; catholic theology for explaining God and His relationship with His people.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
People can exist without science or thelogy but science or thelogy cannot exist without people.

If I were to agree with what you replied, that would imply that “science” is something literal as a rock or tree and not invented by the definition of man. That would also imply that science existed before man did. This could only be true of course in so far as what actually always existed in the natural universe, such as a black hole, but not our study of the black hole which would be dependent on man.

If I were to disagree with what you replied then that gives me the freedom to make the claim that both science and theology are dependent on reason, reason dependent on man, and man’s understanding dependent on understanding the reasoning of other men to further his own reasoning just as being exposed to your reasoning has helped me with mine.
 
I’m no scientist though why couldn’t those with souls have just simply killed those without souls?
 
iam catholic an i do believe in god creation of man and woman. adam and eve. but sometimes you wonder where the existence of prehistoric live fall. do this came before or after. there is no mention of dinossaurs or prehistoric live in the bible? i guess maybe someday when iam in heaven i can ask god this question. bless you all, and merry chrismas.🙂
 
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