Can you convert to the Catholic faith and still believe in creationism?

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To give the full title of the book I read:

Lucy: The Beginning of Humankind by Donald Johansen.
 
brotherhrolf said:
Something happened around 50,000 BC. I can never prove it to my peers nor can I prove it to you. Can I identify Adam and Eve? No. Can I prove the existence of a soul? No. Does religion arise after 50,000 BC? Yes. It does not exist before. I cannot prove it to the satisfaction of my fellow anthropologists. It is me merely reflecting that hey, there were no burials (I’m finally convinced that the Neandertal Shanidar “burials” in Iraq were not burials). .
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brotherhrolf, why do you conclude that the Iraq “burials” were not burials? I’m not familiar with the archaeological literature.

StAnastasia
 
Malia_Belen said:
Wow, you’re right…boy did it derail. I think most people stopped answering the initial question two pages ago and even on the first page someone just tried to persuade me by appealing to my intelligence…so apparently if I don’t believe then my intelligence is somehow at fault. This is God we are talking about. The all powerful. He’s certainly capable of creating the world in six days although it’s also very possible that he created evolution. I don’t care if Christians believe in evolution as long as it begins with God but why are people upset when people believe God created the world in 6 days as Augie said it all began with God?
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Some people are upset because they want evolution to be true. They can’t get over the fact that in Genesis, the phrase, “and the evening and the morning were the X day.” It throws them off. They argue that logically this can’t be true. Or, how can there be light without the sun being created? You’re right, this is God we’re talking about.

Peace,
Ed
 
edwest2 said:
They can’t get over the fact that in Genesis, the phrase, “and the evening and the morning were the X day.” It throws them off. They argue that logically this can’t be true. Or, how can there be light without the sun being created? Peace,Ed
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Cool – that would be neat to be able to have light without a light source. I’ll have to check into the possibility, as it would sure save on my energy bills!
 
See the book of Revelation. It describes a city that will be lit by the presence of God.

Peace,
Ed
 
StAnastasia said:
Cool – that would be neat to be able to have light without a light source. I’ll have to check into the possibility, as it would sure save on my energy bills!
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You should know the light spectrum includes visible and invisible light.

and… are you claiming the big bang gave off no light?
 
buffalo said:
You should know the light spectrum includes visible and invisible light.and… are you claiming the big bang gave off no light?
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(1) Genesis is silent on the matter of invisible light.

(2) I’ll have to read up on the chronology of the Big Bang.
 
StAnastasia said:
Cool – that would be neat to be able to have light without a light source. I’ll have to check into the possibility, as it would sure save on my energy bills!
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buffalo said:
You should know the light spectrum includes visible and invisible light.

and… are you claiming the big bang gave off no light?
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StAnastasia said:
(1) Genesis is silent on the matter of invisible light.

(2) I’ll have to read up on the chronology of the Big Bang.
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Right, Genesis doesn’t speak about invisible light.

And the EM (electromagnetic) spectrum is incredibly wide, with a microscopically small band in it which we sense as visible light.

But, an interesting scientific tidbit. According to cosmologists, the primordial universe was so hot that any EM radiation which started to get emitted was immediately re-absorbed. As the universe gradually cooled, it reached the point where EM radiation would not be re-absorbed, and could actually escape. Now, this is just totally a coincidence of course, but guess what form this first EM radiation to be emitted was? Gamma Rays? X-Rays? Microwaves? Ultraviolet? Infrared? Nope. Drum roll please…

It was in the visible light spectrum. Just like Genesis said. 🙂

But as I said, that’s just a coincidence. We can’t take these “creation myths” seriously, right StA?
 
ricmat said:
Right, Genesis doesn’t speak about invisible light.

And the EM (electromagnetic) spectrum is incredibly wide, with a microscopically small band in it which we sense as visible light.

But, an interesting scientific tidbit. According to cosmologists, the primordial universe was so hot that any EM radiation which started to get emitted was immediately re-absorbed. As the universe gradually cooled, it reached the point where EM radiation would not be re-absorbed, and could actually escape. Now, this is just totally a coincidence of course, but guess what form this first EM radiation to be emitted was? Gamma Rays? X-Rays? Microwaves? Ultraviolet? Infrared? Nope. Drum roll please…

It was in the visible light spectrum. Just like Genesis said. 🙂

But as I said, that’s just a coincidence. We can’t take these “creation myths” seriously, right StA?
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ricmat,

You ruined the fun of her having to learn this herself. 😉

But you are right. Another coincidence. 🙂
 
ricmat said:
But as I said, that’s just a coincidence. We can’t take these “creation myths” seriously, right StA?
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Wrong – I never said that. I taken creation stories (Judeo-Christian and other) seriously from a theological point of view. There’s a big difference between not reading them literally and not taking them seriously.
 
ricmat said:
Right, Genesis doesn’t speak about invisible light.

And the EM (electromagnetic) spectrum is incredibly wide, with a microscopically small band in it which we sense as visible light.

But, an interesting scientific tidbit. According to cosmologists, the primordial universe was so hot that any EM radiation which started to get emitted was immediately re-absorbed. As the universe gradually cooled, it reached the point where EM radiation would not be re-absorbed, and could actually escape. Now, this is just totally a coincidence of course, but guess what form this first EM radiation to be emitted was? Gamma Rays? X-Rays? Microwaves? Ultraviolet? Infrared? Nope. Drum roll please…

It was in the visible light spectrum. Just like Genesis said. 🙂

But as I said, that’s just a coincidence. We can’t take these “creation myths” seriously, right StA?
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I love this. I think the Angelic Doctor (and Dyonysius before him) had a brilliant insight regarding this:

newadvent.org/summa/1067.htm

St. Thomas Aquinas: “I answer, then, with Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv), that the light was the sun’s light, formless as yet, being already the solar substance, and possessing illuminative power in a general way, to which was afterwards added the special and determinative power required to produce determinate effects.”

So he’s saying the original light God created on Day One, was the same “natural” light, the same light waves, that we observe today. And he added:

“In the opinion of some the light here spoken of was a kind of luminous nebula, and that on the making of the sun this returned to the matter of which it had been formed. But this cannot well be maintained, as in the beginning of Genesis Holy Scripture records the institution of that order of nature which henceforth is to endure. We cannot, then, say that what was made at that time afterwards ceased to exist.”

So he’s saying that those original light waves did not “cease to exist”. I think he was right about that. 🙂
 
Luke65 said:
St. Thomas Aquinas: “I answer, then, with Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv), that the light was the sun’s light, formless as yet, being already the solar substance, and possessing illuminative power in a general way, to which was afterwards added the special and determinative power required to produce determinate effects.” So he’s saying the original light God created on Day One, was the same “natural” light, the same light waves, that we observe today.
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Cute, but St. Thomas knew nothing about stellar physics.
 
StAnastasia said:
Wrong – I never said that. I taken creation stories (Judeo-Christian and other) seriously from a theological point of view. There’s a big difference between not reading them literally and not taking them seriously.
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OK - I’m not trying to generalize here, but for just this instance, do you take it seriously that Genesis got it right on the “let there be light” part, or not?

Also, do you literally believe that Isaiah called God “designer?”
 
edwest2 said:
Some people are upset because they want evolution to be true. They can’t get over the fact that in Genesis, the phrase, “and the evening and the morning were the X day.” It throws them off. They argue that logically this can’t be true. Or, how can there be light without the sun being created? You’re right, this is God we’re talking about.

Peace,
Ed
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Not just us, but the Early Church father’s too. This is not something that threw off just us moderns, but such great minds as St. Augustine, who may I remind you, is a doctor of the Church.

Here are some relevant quotes that show that many great saints and even doctors have seen the seven days as being allegorical.

It would seem then that some want to corner the Catholic tradition into a narrow, protestant-like literal interpretation of the bible. Nothing could be further from our Tradition.

St. Justin Martyr

“And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since “a day of the Lord is as a thousand years,” he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin.”
(Against Herasies, 5:23 [AD 189])

St. Cyprian of Carthrage

““As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand of years, as the seven spirits and seven angels which stand and go in and out before the face of God, and the seven-branched lamp in the tabernacle of witness, and the seven golden candlesticks in the Apocalypse, and the seven columns in Solomon upon which Wisdom built her house l so here also the number seven of the brethren, embracing, in the quantity of their number, the seven churches, as likewise in the first book of Kings we read that the barren hath borne seven”
(Treatises 11:11 [A.D. 250])

St. Clement of Alexandria

““That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: “This is the book of the generation: also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth.” For the expression “when they were created” intimates an indefinite and dateless production. But the expression “in the day that God made,” that is, in and by which God made “all things,” and “without which not even one thing was made,” points out the activity exerted by the Son. As David says, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us be glad and rejoice in it; " that is, in consequence of the knowledge imparted by Him, let us celebrate the divine festival; for the Word that throws light on things hidden, and by whom each created thing came into life and being, is called day. “
(Miscellanies 6.16 [208 AD])

St. Augustine

“But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world’s creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!”
(City of God 11:6 [AD 419])

home.entouch.net/dmd/churchfathers.htm
 
ricmat said:
OK - I’m not trying to generalize here, but for just this instance, do you take it seriously that Genesis got it right on the “let there be light” part, or not? Also, do you literally believe that Isaiah called God “designer?”
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(1) I believe Genesis includes the saying “Let there be light.”

(2) I do not believe the authors of Genesis were physicists who made a connection between their cosmogonic declaration and the photon physics of the Big Bang.

(3) I do not believe that Isaiah called God “designer.”
 
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