Catholic view of Creation

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A friend seems to be claiming that the Church has formally defined as a matter of faith that the world’s creation “out of nothing” rules out the modern scientific view of the creation of the universe, i.e. big bang theory etc. Is this correct?
 
It has never rules that the big bang theory is wrong, but it has never said that it was right either.
 
If the Catholic Church defined the Creation of the World as ex nihilo (from nothing) I don’t see how that would contradict the Big Bang. I see two possible scenarios to creation. Either the world (meaning everything that exists except God of course) has always existed or it came into being thru nothing.

Maybe if your friend believes the world has always existed…
 
Mark1970 said:
A friend seems to be claiming that the Church has formally defined as a matter of faith that the world’s creation “out of nothing” rules out the modern scientific view of the creation of the universe, i.e. big bang theory etc. Is this correct?
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Nope. Ask him to produce evidence that the Church has said this.
 
Not true. The Church has a Pontifical Academy of Sciences and has commented on scientific matters when it touches on certain issues. There is also the Vatican Observatory.
 
Mark1970 said:
A friend seems to be claiming that the Church has formally defined as a matter of faith that the world’s creation “out of nothing” rules out the modern scientific view of the creation of the universe, i.e. big bang theory etc. Is this correct?
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No, that isn’t correct.

Creation ex nihilo is certainly Church doctrine.

It doesn’t “rule out” any scientific theories.
 
"The Time Question

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”
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No such declaration or pronouncement has been made by the Catholic Church. The Southern Baptist Convenetion, however, has made many such statements regarding scientific creationism.

The SBC now find’s itself in relation to science where the Catholic Church was in medieval times. Yet, they have not the philosophical tradition which eventually aided the Catholic Church in coming to more reasonable positions on obvious scientific discoveries.

So, I would expect only more entrenchment on the matter from the SBC until that would change, if ever.
 
No. Perhaps you need to get a little more clarity from your friend about what he claims and what he THINKS the Church claims.
 
He seems to believe this viewpoint was formally defined by one of the Lateran Councils.
 
He is very pro 6-day creation. He was trying to get me to look at Catholic websites that claim to propose scientific evidence for the young-earth, 6-day creation belief.
 
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“God…creator of all visible and invisible things of the spiritual and the corporal who by his own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from NOTHING spiritual and corporal namely angelic and mundane and finally the human constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body.” -The Fourth Lateran Council.

The Big Bang is problematic, because it doesn’t match up with the story of creation in Genesis.

Virtually all of the Early Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church taught that Genesis 1-11 was a literal historical account of the story of Creation, and this is reiterated by the quote above, from Latern IV.

All the Church Doctors and Fathers all also taught that there was less than 6000 years separating the creation of the cosmos from the birth of Christ. So there’s down evidence for a young earth.

There’s also several scientists around the world now who are researching young earth creationism, and finding evidence to support it. I can’t go into all the proof that they have, but I could direct you to the Institute for Creation Research, where you could find out more for yourselves.

As well, I would also like to direct everyone to the Kolbe Center, an organization devoted to spreading the Traditional Catholic teachings on Creation.

Pax Domini Sit Semper Vobiscum!
 
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