M
MaryJohnZ
Guest
From the article in my last post…
For those who question whether a Catholic can be anti-evolution…
"The great Fathers, East and West, the scholastics like St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas, are unanimous in their literal, not mythical, interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis on the origin of the world and of our first parents, in the sense just stated. For only thus can the uniqueness and dignity of human nature, in the body as well as in the soul, be securely demonstrated. Some say the teaching of these Doctors in this regard has no more value than their teaching on questions scientific: that of an antiquated opinion. Such persons are mistaken. The question of Origins is not a scientific, but a theological question, uniquely so, for it involves a question of what God did freely and what only He could do when there were no witnesses. Hence, the importance of divine testimony in Revelation, attested by the Fathers, on this point.
There is only one reason for dissenting: the possibility that “science” might one day demonstrate an evolutionary theory of human origins to be factual in reference to the bodies (not souls) of Adam and Eve. But of this there is no reasonable expectation. Mr. Keane’s study illustrates scientifically that reasonableness. The same thing, however, can easily be done theologically, in a manner accessible to any well-instructed believer to whom it might seem the Creator could plausibly have formed Adam’s body in any number of ways.
What should convince him that the narrative describing the actual formation of Adam’s body should be taken “literally?” That not only were the souls of Adam and of Eve created, but that the body of Adam from the slime of the earth and the body of Eve from the side of Adam were formed miraculously by the Creator? That they were not the term of a natural, evolutionary process? Why is it that human nature is beyond the effective limits of merely material agents? It is this: The transcendent character of the human body in respect to any other living body, even the most sophisticated! That body, informed as no other by a soul capable of knowing and loving the Creator, is animated spiritually. To be so animated requires a prior formation, something quite beyond the limits of any natural process—read Evolution—to produce.
The transcendent character of the human body, the “image” of God as no other material being, is directly proportionate to its miraculous origin. It is not the term of a natural or evolutionary process, but of a miraculous action from on high, in which the Creator is the principal agent. This is why God formed (not created out of nothing) the body of the first man from the virgin earth (as the Fathers unanimously understand “slime of the earth”), or inorganic matter, and why the Creator formed the body of the first woman miraculously from the body of the first man, so that there might be no misunderstanding of the different causalities entailed in forming a species, above all the human species, and its subsequent operation within its natural limits. No human body can exist except by way of descent (generation, procreation) from the first man through the first woman. Man alone procreates; animals only breed. Human intercourse is not merely “biological.” It is primarily a moral action. That is why fidelity is the essential component of the marriage bond, and why every aspect of marriage is affected by the presence or absence of this virtue.
To this consideration a second of the Fathers of the Church must be added. The miraculous formation of the body of the first Adam from the “virgin earth” is a type of the even more miraculous formation of the body of the second Adam, Christ, from the Virgin Mother, viz., through a virginal conception and virginal birth. In a word: type and anti-type, figure and reality, prophecy and fulfillment are of the same order—historical and miraculous. Denial by many scholars of the historicity of Genesis has ushered in a widespread form of “closed” Origins mindset, which is now largely self-perpetuating among Christians: question the truth of the Genesis account as the accurate description of a miracle, and one will be disposed (despite himself) to question the historicity of the miracle of the Virgin-birth, and with that the truth of the Incarnation as an historical rather than merely symbolic statement.
Similarly, deny the historicity of the Virgin-birth and one will be predisposed (despite himself) to relegate the narrative of Genesis to the status of “myth” about Origins in justification. The tendency of all scientific formulations of evolutionary theory for human origins to affirm some form of polygenism for the sake of “scientific” plausibility confirms this. So, too, in regard to the end of human life, evolutionary theory tends to affirm the mere “naturalness” of human death, thus fudging and indeed erasing the essential, unbridgeable difference between vestige and image of God, between mere animal and human person, between a duration that is mere succession of moments and a duration entailing eternity, between nature and grace and between human nature before and after the Fall.
These confusions and errors, in particular the denial of the numerical individuality of Adam and Eve, entails the denial of the universal need of redemption by a single Redeemer in a single Church, the new Eve, taken from the side of the New Adam in the sleep of death on the Cross. According to Pope Paul VI, a theory of Evolution is only plausible for a believer to the degree it does not contradict what his faith tells him is simply true, without qualification. Since the uniqueness and individuality of the first Adam are among such truths, and since the inner logic of evolutionary theorizing tends to contradict these, it is difficult to see how such speculation can be reconciled with faith.
With this we see that the question of Evolution is not merely, or primarily, of apologetic interest to believers. Evolution, as it is ordinarily taken to indicate a certain kind of scientific hypothesizing about Origins, is a doctrinal error parading in scientific guise. That is why, as Mr. Keane so ably shows, genuine science either tends to falsify theories of macroevolution, or simply declare that such theorizing is not properly the object of science. Does the term “Theistic Evolution” have a legitimate place in Christian discourse, or might it designate some insight of Christian reflection, other than being a generic synonym for change or progress? Perhaps it might, but in that case it will be necessary to define the term carefully and explain why it does not entail the radical revisions of doctrine and revealed history which nigh universal convention about this word entails. It is difficult to see, however, how in practice the devilish Hegelian substitution of becoming for being thereby deifying change and directly contradicting the immutability of God and eternity of truths as taught by James 1:17—can be exorcised without abandoning the use of this phrase.
This means, therefore, that the phrase is misleading, possesses a built-in ambiguity and is “two-faced.” Theistic suggests faith in God, the Creator; Evolution suggests just the opposite. Thus, the phrase is a parte rei, apart from the good intentions of its users, misleading. It points to an understanding of the world in terms of progress, an ever upward, spiral-like unfolding of the inner potentiality of matter until it reaches man, and in the version of Teilhard de Chardin, Christ Himself. "
I am sorry I am having trouble keeping my message and pasting the link because the message keeps disappearing when I go to the other page for the link…so go to previous post for the link.
There are two articles at that link, one by a scientist and the other by a theologian.
God Bless, maryJohnZore
For those who question whether a Catholic can be anti-evolution…
"The great Fathers, East and West, the scholastics like St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas, are unanimous in their literal, not mythical, interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis on the origin of the world and of our first parents, in the sense just stated. For only thus can the uniqueness and dignity of human nature, in the body as well as in the soul, be securely demonstrated. Some say the teaching of these Doctors in this regard has no more value than their teaching on questions scientific: that of an antiquated opinion. Such persons are mistaken. The question of Origins is not a scientific, but a theological question, uniquely so, for it involves a question of what God did freely and what only He could do when there were no witnesses. Hence, the importance of divine testimony in Revelation, attested by the Fathers, on this point.
There is only one reason for dissenting: the possibility that “science” might one day demonstrate an evolutionary theory of human origins to be factual in reference to the bodies (not souls) of Adam and Eve. But of this there is no reasonable expectation. Mr. Keane’s study illustrates scientifically that reasonableness. The same thing, however, can easily be done theologically, in a manner accessible to any well-instructed believer to whom it might seem the Creator could plausibly have formed Adam’s body in any number of ways.
What should convince him that the narrative describing the actual formation of Adam’s body should be taken “literally?” That not only were the souls of Adam and of Eve created, but that the body of Adam from the slime of the earth and the body of Eve from the side of Adam were formed miraculously by the Creator? That they were not the term of a natural, evolutionary process? Why is it that human nature is beyond the effective limits of merely material agents? It is this: The transcendent character of the human body in respect to any other living body, even the most sophisticated! That body, informed as no other by a soul capable of knowing and loving the Creator, is animated spiritually. To be so animated requires a prior formation, something quite beyond the limits of any natural process—read Evolution—to produce.
The transcendent character of the human body, the “image” of God as no other material being, is directly proportionate to its miraculous origin. It is not the term of a natural or evolutionary process, but of a miraculous action from on high, in which the Creator is the principal agent. This is why God formed (not created out of nothing) the body of the first man from the virgin earth (as the Fathers unanimously understand “slime of the earth”), or inorganic matter, and why the Creator formed the body of the first woman miraculously from the body of the first man, so that there might be no misunderstanding of the different causalities entailed in forming a species, above all the human species, and its subsequent operation within its natural limits. No human body can exist except by way of descent (generation, procreation) from the first man through the first woman. Man alone procreates; animals only breed. Human intercourse is not merely “biological.” It is primarily a moral action. That is why fidelity is the essential component of the marriage bond, and why every aspect of marriage is affected by the presence or absence of this virtue.
To this consideration a second of the Fathers of the Church must be added. The miraculous formation of the body of the first Adam from the “virgin earth” is a type of the even more miraculous formation of the body of the second Adam, Christ, from the Virgin Mother, viz., through a virginal conception and virginal birth. In a word: type and anti-type, figure and reality, prophecy and fulfillment are of the same order—historical and miraculous. Denial by many scholars of the historicity of Genesis has ushered in a widespread form of “closed” Origins mindset, which is now largely self-perpetuating among Christians: question the truth of the Genesis account as the accurate description of a miracle, and one will be disposed (despite himself) to question the historicity of the miracle of the Virgin-birth, and with that the truth of the Incarnation as an historical rather than merely symbolic statement.
Similarly, deny the historicity of the Virgin-birth and one will be predisposed (despite himself) to relegate the narrative of Genesis to the status of “myth” about Origins in justification. The tendency of all scientific formulations of evolutionary theory for human origins to affirm some form of polygenism for the sake of “scientific” plausibility confirms this. So, too, in regard to the end of human life, evolutionary theory tends to affirm the mere “naturalness” of human death, thus fudging and indeed erasing the essential, unbridgeable difference between vestige and image of God, between mere animal and human person, between a duration that is mere succession of moments and a duration entailing eternity, between nature and grace and between human nature before and after the Fall.
These confusions and errors, in particular the denial of the numerical individuality of Adam and Eve, entails the denial of the universal need of redemption by a single Redeemer in a single Church, the new Eve, taken from the side of the New Adam in the sleep of death on the Cross. According to Pope Paul VI, a theory of Evolution is only plausible for a believer to the degree it does not contradict what his faith tells him is simply true, without qualification. Since the uniqueness and individuality of the first Adam are among such truths, and since the inner logic of evolutionary theorizing tends to contradict these, it is difficult to see how such speculation can be reconciled with faith.
With this we see that the question of Evolution is not merely, or primarily, of apologetic interest to believers. Evolution, as it is ordinarily taken to indicate a certain kind of scientific hypothesizing about Origins, is a doctrinal error parading in scientific guise. That is why, as Mr. Keane so ably shows, genuine science either tends to falsify theories of macroevolution, or simply declare that such theorizing is not properly the object of science. Does the term “Theistic Evolution” have a legitimate place in Christian discourse, or might it designate some insight of Christian reflection, other than being a generic synonym for change or progress? Perhaps it might, but in that case it will be necessary to define the term carefully and explain why it does not entail the radical revisions of doctrine and revealed history which nigh universal convention about this word entails. It is difficult to see, however, how in practice the devilish Hegelian substitution of becoming for being thereby deifying change and directly contradicting the immutability of God and eternity of truths as taught by James 1:17—can be exorcised without abandoning the use of this phrase.
This means, therefore, that the phrase is misleading, possesses a built-in ambiguity and is “two-faced.” Theistic suggests faith in God, the Creator; Evolution suggests just the opposite. Thus, the phrase is a parte rei, apart from the good intentions of its users, misleading. It points to an understanding of the world in terms of progress, an ever upward, spiral-like unfolding of the inner potentiality of matter until it reaches man, and in the version of Teilhard de Chardin, Christ Himself. "
I am sorry I am having trouble keeping my message and pasting the link because the message keeps disappearing when I go to the other page for the link…so go to previous post for the link.
There are two articles at that link, one by a scientist and the other by a theologian.
God Bless, maryJohnZore
Rest assured, she’s Roman Catholic, hardcore RC. She’s so Catholic that I can’t get away with anything… You should see our house, its Catholic from top to bottom. A friedn of mine recently was over and thought he’d walked into a Catholic store or shrine or something. She’s Catholic. Conservative Roman Catholic for you liberals out there. End of testimony.