Any young earth creationists out there?

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Also, it seems every time I point out what the Catholic Church says, instead of accepting the general point, a random detail is brought up. Like “what about this!”

@Buffalo, don’t you see that the church does allow for evolution? Even disregarding the literal Eve-from-Adam, can you at least agree with me on that very post that you selectively responded to—-that is, that the Catholic Church says Genesis uses figurative language with regards to creation, and that evolution is allowable? And that 4+ recent popes accept evolution as a possibility—-even “more than a hypothesis”?
 
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From the Catechism.

"105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."69

"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."70

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."71

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living”.73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures.“74”

Eve was literally formed by God. She was not born in the conventional sense. God does perform miracles.

Arcanum Divinae - Pope Leo XIII

“We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep.”
 
“We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep.”

Clearly, this cannot mean we have to believe Eve literally came from Adam’s side, since we know from other Catholic sources that evolution of the human body is possible! (Pius XII’s encyclical) AND that evolution in general is allowable, AND that the Catechism calls the creation and its days “symbollically” stated and using figurative language.

So if we don’t have to literally believe in 6 days or the “slime” of the earth, then this also applies to Eve, too.

Can’t ignore all the other weight of Catholic teaching. And I have no context for the encyclical you quoted.
 
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Ah, the world of difference context makes:
  1. Still, the purpose We have set before Us is not to recount, in detail, benefits of this kind**; Our wish is rather to speak about that family union of which marriage is the beginning and the foundation.** The true origin of marriage, venerable brothers, is well known to all. Though revilers of the Christian faith refuse to acknowledge the never-interrupted doctrine of the Church on this subject, and have long striven to destroy the testimony of all nations and of all times, they have nevertheless failed not only to quench the powerful light of truth, but even to lessen it. We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time. And this union of man and woman, that it might answer more fittingly to the infinite wise counsels of God, even from the beginning manifested chiefly two most excellent properties - deeply sealed, as it were, and signed upon it-namely, unity and perpetuity. From the Gospel we see clearly that this doctrine was declared and openly confirmed by the divine authority of Jesus Christ. He bore witness to the Jews and to His Apostles that marriage, from its institution, should exist between two only, that is, between one man and one woman; that of two they are made, so to say, one flesh; and that the marriage bond is by the will of God so closely and strongly made fast that no man may dissolve it or render it asunder. “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What, therefore, God bath joined together, let no man put asunder.”(2)
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Hardly an infallible statement on the origin of the species. The encyclical is about marriage. The Pope is saying “known to all” in the very sense he goes on to tell: The Genesis creation account is known to all. We can’t ignore the divine and natural origin of marriage.
 
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Hugh_Farey said:
[ from "Techno2000]
meant to say evolution supposedly kills off the unfit.Everything now that I see in the real world that God has created is fit for its environment.
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Hugh_ fary: So it is. But what is the Creationist view of extinct organisms? Why did God make them? If evolution didn’t kill them off, what did?
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Well, as the CCC says, the world was made for the glory of God and to manifest the divine goodness and to communicate that goodness to creatures in various ways. All creatures even the extinct organisms manifest God in some manner and participate in His goodness and being after some manner. God enjoys creating.

Secondly, since we do not have the mind of God, we cannot pretend to know all God’s ways and works and reasons for them as God knows them. As St Paul says:
'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?” (Romans 11:33-34).

Thirdly, animals are not immortal nor possess immortal spiritual souls as humans do nor are they made in the image and likeness of God as humans are. Animals do not have a destiny as humans do whose end is the beatific vision of God and eternal happiness with Him and this destiny also involves the resurrection of our bodies on the Last Day which bodies will take on eternal immortality.

The existence and preservation of the various animal species and the extinct ones depends on their creation by God and preservation in existence. Since animals and animal species are not immortal, that some species might go extinct I suppose could be said to be due to the very mortal nature of animals. Why God created some species that went extinct we can only provide speculative reasonable answers from faith and reason; we will have to wait for our hopeful entrance into heaven for the full answer.

We can speculate on some possible causes of the extinction of organisms from the deep past such as possible environmental changes or the creation of new superior animals by God who maybe used the prior animals for food or pushed them to extinction in their environments.

I don’t believe evolution killed them off except for the possible idea that a created superior animal out-competed as it were a prior created inferior animal in the same environment, not that the superior animal evolved from the inferior one. It is a fundamental philosophical and reasonable principle that creatures naturally tend to preserve themselves in existence along with their natures in existence. We observe this not only in the world of plants and animals now but also in the fossil record which goes by the name of stasis.

However, Darwinism has a contrary and in my opinion irrational principle of nature contrary to observation. According to Darwinian evolutionism, it is a principle of the nature of organisms and plants that they evolve into different natures and essentially exterminate themselves. Essentially organisms evolve to destroy themselves. God created animals to live, exist, and be, not to evolve to destroy themselves.
 
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And we can’t ignore the fact that Eve was made by God from Adam’s side.
 
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catholic1seeks said:
@Buffalo, don’t you see that the church does allow for evolution? Even disregarding the literal Eve-from-Adam, can you at least agree with me on that very post that you selectively responded to—-that is, that the Catholic Church says Genesis uses figurative language with regards to creation, and that evolution is allowable? And that 4+ recent popes accept evolution as a possibility—-even “more than a hypothesis”?
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One thing for sure, the following is what the Church has constantly held, even after the Origen of the Species.

Pope Palagius I -

I confess … that all men from Adam onward who have been born and have died up to the end of the world will then rise again and stand “before the judgment-seat of Christ,” together with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created: one from the earth and the other from the side of the man

Ecumenical Council of Vienne in 1312

[We confess] … that after [Jesus’] spirit was already rendered up, his side suffered perforation by a lance, so that through the ensuing flow of water and blood, the one and only, immaculate, virgin holy Mother Church, the Spouse of Christ, might be formed, just as from the side of the first man, cast into sleep, Eve was formed for him unto marriage. This happened so that the reality manifested in our last Adam, that is, Christ, might correspond to a certain prefiguring of that reality constituted by the first and ancient Adam, who, according to the Apostle, “is a type of the one who was to come”
 
Bible Dictionary by Fr O’Reilly mid 1800’s (approved by 23 Bishops)

EVE, the first woman, made out of a rib of Adam (Gen. ii. 21); induced by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit (iii. 6); persuades Adam to eat thereof (6); her sentence (16); God makes her a garment of skins (21); mother of Cain (iv. 1); of Abel (2); of Seth (25) and of daughters (v. 4)

Vatican Council I

This, our Holy Mother the Church believes and teaches: When God was about to make man according to his image and likeness in order that he might rule over the whole earth, He breathed into the body formed from the slime of the earth the breath of life, that is, a soul produced from nothing… . And blessing the first man and Eve his wife who was formed by divine power from his side, God said: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gen. 1: 28)

Pope Leo XIII Letter to the Bishops

What is the true origin of marriage? That, Venerable Brethren, is a matter of common knowledge. For although the revilers of the Christian faith shrink from acknowledging the Church’s permanent doctrine on this matter, and persist in their long-standing efforts to erase the history of all nations and all ages, they have nonetheless been unable to extinguish, or even to weaken, the strength and light of the truth. We call to mind facts well-known to all and doubtful to no-one: after He formed man from the slime of the earth on the sixth day of creation, and breathed into his face the breath of life, God willed to give him a female companion, whom He drew forth wondrously from the man’s side as he slept. In bringing this about, God, in his supreme Providence, willed that this spousal couple should be the natural origin of all men: in other words, that from this pair the human race should be propagated and preserved in every age by a succession of procreative acts which would never be interrupted. And so that this union of man and woman might correspond more aptly to the most wise counsels of God, it has manifested from that time onward, deeply impressed or engraved, as it were, within itself, two preeminent and most noble properties: unity and perpetuity.
 
Pontifical Biblical Commission’s Responsum of June 30, 1909

Whether, in particular, the literal historical sense (sensus litteralis historicus) may be called in question (vocari in dubium possit), where it is a question of facts narrated in these chapters (ubi agitur de factis in eisdem capitibus enarratis) which involve the foundations of the Christian religion (quae christianae religionis fundamenta attingunt), as are, among others, the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time; the special [or, particular] creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man (formatio primae mulieris ex primo homine); the unity of the human race; the original happiness of our first parents in a state of justice, integrity and immortality; the precept given by God to man in order to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine precept under the persuasion of the devil in the guise of a serpent; the fall of our first parents from the aforesaid primaeval state of innocence; and the promise of a future Saviour?

Response: In the negative (Negative)
 
Pope Pius XII

God formed man and crowned his brow with the diadem of his image and likeness… . Only from man could there come another man who could call him father and parent;and the helpmate given to the first man also comes from him and is flesh of his flesh … . Her name comes from the man, because she was taken from him.

Catechism

God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.” None of the animals can be man’s partner. The woman God “fashions” from the man’s rib and brings to him elicits on the man’s part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Man discovers woman as another “I”, sharing the same humanity.
 
God created everything “in its whole substance” from nothing (ex nihilo) in the beginning. (Lateran IV; Vatican Council I)

Genesis does not contain purified myths. (Pontifical Biblical Commission 1909[1])

Genesis contains real history—it gives an account of things that really happened. (Pius XII, Humani generis)

Adam and Eve were real human beings—the first parents of all mankind. (Pius XII)

Polygenism (many “first parents”) contradicts Scripture and Tradition and is condemned. (Pius XII; 1994 Catechism, 360, footnote 226: Tobit 8:6—the “one ancestor” referred to in this Catechism could only be Adam.)

The “beginning” of the world included the creation of all things, the creation of Adam and Eve and the Fall (Jesus Christ [Mark 10:6]; Pope Innocent III; Blessed Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus).

The body of Eve was specially created from a portion of Adam’s body (Leo XIII).

Various senses are employed in the Bible, but the literal obvious sense must be believed unless reason dictates or necessity requires (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus).

Adam and Eve were created upon an earthly paradise and would not have known death if they had remained obedient (Pius XII).

After their disobedience of God, Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. But the Second Person of the Trinity would subsequently pay the ransom for fallen man (Nicene Creed).

Original Sin is a flawed condition inherited from Adam and Eve (Council of Trent).

The Universe suffers in travail ever since the sin of disobedience by Adam and Eve. (Romans 8, Vatican Council I).
 
catholic1seeks said:
Also, it seems every time I point out what the Catholic Church says, instead of accepting the general point, a random detail is brought up. Like “what about this!”

@Buffalo, don’t you see that the church does allow for evolution? Even disregarding the literal Eve-from-Adam, can you at least agree with me on that very post that you selectively responded to—-that is, that the Catholic Church says Genesis uses figurative language with regards to creation, and that evolution is allowable? And that 4+ recent popes accept evolution as a possibility—-even “more than a hypothesis”?
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The phrase ‘figurative language’ you keep bringing up presumably from the CCC like it is some kind of infallible statement the Church is making against God the Creator of Genesis 1-2, is used in the catechism in the context of the fall of Adam and Eve and Genesis 3, not the creation narratives of Genesis 1-2. CCC#390, ‘The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event…’
 
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If a modern scientist were standing next to Jesus when He called Lazarus from the tomb or raised others from the dead, would that scientist report back: “Yeah, I’ve got the scientific explanation.”? No, of course not.

God has and can perform miracles.
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
You implied that all of my science professors were God-hating atheists, despite not having met any of them.
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Say w…wha…what? Not only have you digressed from the original question (no doubt because you can’t answer it) you have come up with another illogical (and frankly, bizarre) conclusion based on what I said.

Now your homework has doubled:
  • Please provide evidence that I said or implied that all scientists are God-haters.
  • Please demonstrate how I implied that your science professors were God-hating atheists.
 
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There is a description of a fire-breathing dragon in the book of Job. I believe it existed because the Church teaches that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and therefore doesn’t include falsehoods.
Besides that, there is a “fire-breathing” insect, the Bombardier Beetle. (If this creature wasn’t extant but was describd in the Bible, many folks would consider it a silly myth.)
 
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Hugh_Farey said:
The bible includes a lot of words variously translated as dragons, serpents or monsters, but the word for the animal that tempted Eve is clearly and unequivocally a snake.
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I beg to differ. After the serpent deceived Eve, God cursed it and declared that it would henceforth crawl on its belly and eat dust all the days of its life (like a snake). This probably implies that the serpent did not previously crawl on its belly, so it was not previously a snake, but became one as a result of God’s curse.
 
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Richca said:
I think you may have missed his point Hugh. For theistic evolutionists, the world or creatures (second causes) in a way ‘create’ the world and all its variety
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Bizarrely, even though Genesis clearly states that Adam was created from inanimate matter (and will return to that state when he dies), the Church says this can be interpreted as Adam being the offspring of a pre-existing living creature (a human wihout a soul, no less).
 
Nelka said:
Revelation 12:9 The great dragon, the primeval serpent, known as the devil or Satan, who had led all the world astray, was hurled down to the earth and his angels were hurled down with him.
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Good point.
 
“lying”? Are you sure that’s the word you want to go with?

Here’s something I’ve noticed about evolutionists - whether theistic or atheistic: They are very quick to accuse creationists of lying or being dishonest. Fascinatng.
 
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buffalo said:
Without any empirical proof to boot, that is observable, repeatable and predictable.
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I observed that some bacteria develop resistance to drugs. From this “empirical evidence” I concluded that humans evolved from a microbe. This is science, evolution-style, and it’s a beautiful thing.
 
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