Catholics and evolution

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Those who are saying that Sola Scriptura leads to anti-science, young earth creationism etc. are basically saying that you don’t even believe in the primacy of scripture if you take your argument to it’s logical conclusion.

You would have to say that you don’t believe in scripture to even make your point valid. Otherwise you should kick that argument to the curb. It makes you llok like you don’t give a **** what the Bible says.

Mel
 
BradW << Has someone on TalkOrigins given plausible sequences of evolutionary mutations, each beneficial in itself, that lead to the current state of affairs for the 5 biochemical systems Behe covers? >>

That was Behe’s point in his book, there is no plausible explanation yet for many of these even in the scholarly scientific literature. Though Ken Miller gives examples what he thinks are “irreducibly complex” systems that have been explained. Behe’s counter response is these examples are not in fact “irreducibly complex.” Here are some Behe says in his book haven’t been explained:

The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Clotting by Ken Miller

A Model for the Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum by Matzke

TalkOrigins on Behe and Intelligent Design

And there is a list here at good old TalkOrigins, which claims Behe’s statement is “ludicrous”

Publish or Perish: Works on Biochemical Evolution

But what difference does this make? You don’t believe the earth is old, you don’t believe in macroevolution. Behe does. In an earlier debate with Ken Miller (described in Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God), Behe was shown the 99% DNA similarities of human beings with the chimp, and Behe told Miller he was convinced by this evidence. Mankind evolved from the great apes. Behe doesn’t doubt that. And the young-earthers in the crowd loudly “gasped” 😛 And no, Behe will not change his mind on this. :rolleyes:

I’ve quoted this paragraph, one time in here, and several times on Steve Ray’s board. Okay here is the full context:

“Evolution is a controversial topic, so it is necessary to address a few basic questions at the beginning of the book. Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves belief in an earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an interpretation of the Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. I greatly respect the work of my colleagues who study the development and behavior of organisms within an evolutionary framework, and I think that evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin’s mechanism – natural selection working on variation – might explain many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life.” (Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, page 5)

So Behe is on my side, not yours. He accepts “common descent” or macroevolution, but has problems with natural selection (Darwin’s mechaniam) at the molecular level. Okay fine, some of these biochemical systems may have been created, but the rest evolved. 😃 Saying God created the first cell, or even some of the systems after that, and the rest (plants, animals, and man) evolved is an evolutionist in my book, with a few “creationist” tendencies. 👍 I don’t speak biochemistry, so I’m hardly qualified to critique Behe. :cool:

But for a young-earther to argue, “Hey look, Behe agrees with me” is like some Fundamentalist Protestant quoting St. Thomas Aquinas on the Immaculate Conception and declaring, “Hey look, Aquinas agrees with me.” 😃

And here is why Jonathan Wells got his second Ph.D. in his own words

Phil P
 
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Melchior:
Those who are saying that Sola Scriptura leads to anti-science, young earth creationism etc. are basically saying that you don’t even believe in the primacy of scripture if you take your argument to it’s logical conclusion.

You would have to say that you don’t believe in scripture to even make your point valid. Otherwise you should kick that argument to the curb. It makes you look like you don’t give a **** what the Bible says.
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One more point here. What you are doing is pitting the Bible against the Magisterium. I am certain of you think about it you don’t want to do that. “I don’t give a flip what the Bible says since the church says I don’t have to believe…”. But the church is not saying you shouldn’t believe something either. It is just giving you the freedom to be wrong or right without fear of being kicked out on this issue.

Mel
 
Benjamin << The other thing that amazes me is how evolutionists change their story. Now I now for sure that when I was taught evolution in school it was taught that man descended from apes. >>

Archaeopteryx and “Nebraska Man” were addressed in the other thread. TalkOrigins has plenty of info on these. Also “carbon dating” has nothing to do with the age of the earth, its radiometric dating with elements with large half-lives. Carbon-14 can only measure objects up to around 40,000 to 50,000 years old, not millions or billions. The 4.5 billion figure is well established by radiometric dating (not carbon dating).

Mankind did not descend directly from the modern ape, the proper way to say this is “mankind and the apes had a common ancestor several million years ago.”

There is plenty of evidence for the evolution of mankind, look it up.

Also get Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (1999). A great book by a biologist and Catholic. He doesn’t address Genesis except in passing, but he does in detail address the scientific evidence (which is most important), and replies to the young-earthers (ICR, Morris, Gish, etc), P. Johnson (lawyer from Berkeley, and old earth creationist), and M. Behe (biochemist from Lehigh, who I would call basically an “evolutionist” who accepts intelligent design).

Phil P
 
PhilVaz

*<< Catholics should avoid like the plague all attempts to read into Genesis an interpretation that asserts that God created Adam and Eve in a world where death was already reigning. >>

Then logically, you are forced into the young-earth creationist position. You must believe therefore the earth is around 10,000 years old, and that God created all the separate “kinds” (including man) all at once, with no death possible at creation.*

No, I don’t have to believe that silliness at all. The world in which we, the children of the Fall, dwell is a universe where death touches everything, and where Satan reigns as the Prince of Darkness. The universe that contains the garden of Eden is not in this universe. The universe where the garden exists in a parallel universe to the one that we are dwelling in. (Sorry about the use of the term “parallel universe”, but it is the best phrase that I can think of to defend what I am trying to say).
  • If there was no animal death before sin, you have to believe God created all “friendly” animals, they became meat-eaters only after the Fall.*
Yes, that is correct. Creation will be restored, and the lion will once again lie down with the lamb.
  • All the carnivores were herbivores, huh … Now just a second, wouldn’t you also have to argue there was no plant death before the Fall? Nothing can die.*
Now you are getting it. In the universe that contains the garden of Eden, nothing can die because death does not exist in that universe. Adam and Eve were cast out of that universe, and they and their progeny had to live in Satan’s Kingdom, the dark kingdom of disease, decay, and death.

Why is it that Catholics have such a hard time imagining that the garden of Eden still exists, and yet they can accept the existence of purgatory, Hell, Abraham’s bosom, and Heaven?
  • As for the “death before sin” objection, I’ve provided the links before. A couple answers are found below. It is a spiritual death, Adam and Eve did not die physically the moment they sinned.*
The “spiritual death” explanation cannot be reconciled with the Catholic Faith. Adam and Eve had real bodies, and they lived in a physical world where they possessed the preternatural gift of physical immortality. God told Adam and Eve that they would suffer death if they were disobedient - and they did suffer death, the first death, the death of the body. Nowhere did God say that they would immediately suffer physical death if they were obedient, he only said that they would die if they were disobedient.
  • BTW, the theology of “original sin” is based on faith, not science.*
No kidding. Original sin and the garden are things that we know about only because we have been given that knowledge through divine revelation.
 
This, indeed, has been a popular topic lately. Macroevolution and literal Biblical interpretation can be completely compatible.

Here is my response from another thread:

I highly recommend that you read The Science of God, by Gerald Schroeder. He is a scientist who is also a Christian. He provides a very interesting and compelling argument that the universe is 16 billion years old AND the 6 days of creation in Genesis is literally true.

I mentioned this book in another thread on this site and will repeat my summary of the book:

You’re probably aware that time slows down as you approach the speed of light and supposedly at the speed of light, time stops. You may not be aware that the passage of time is also affected by gravitational force—it slows down with increased gravity. I don’t recall the numbers, but given a specific period of time on earth, for example, time lags by six minutes on the sun.

Utilizing the data from the “echo” of the big bang, scientists can calculate the mass of the universe. The mass is the same now as in that instant – just much more spread apart. Taking into account the enormous gravitational force of the super compact and dense universe, it can also be calculated how slowly time would pass relative to our earth-time. Scientists have estimated that the universe is about 16-18 billion years old (earth-time) Converting this to universe-time (the passage of time for a super compact universe), guess how old our universe it? 6 days!

Throughout this book, he explains how the scientific record harmonizes perfectly with the six days of creation. And he explains a evolutionary mechanism that is MUCH different than Darwin’s version. It has the hand of God in it all the way. Through supernatural special creation, God placed all the DNA material that would be eventually expressed in today’s species in the first living cells. Evolution was not a random, million-tries process, but rather environmental factors triggered the expession of traits very quickly in just a few generations. This is why we don’t see any transitional species in the fossil record. This is why we see very similar organs in very unrelated species, like the squid’s and mammal’s eyes. The information was there from the very beginning, dormant until the enviroment triggered its expression.

God was preparing a creature that would love and worship him. When such a creature finally offered that potential, He created Adam. He placed a human spirit in a hominid, and animal became human. Eve was formed from Adam, and they were the first human couple.

Interestingly, the word “created” is only used 3 times in the creation story. This word implies that He created something from nothing. God created the heavens and the earth (big bang). He created life (single celled organisms). And He created man by giving Adam something animals did not have: a human spirit in which God can dwell and commune with us.

Whether you agree or not, it is a fascinating read, and provides a God-glorifying and plausible explanation for many of the natural wonders of our world.
 
BradW
  • I elided the “old earth Creationism” because I can see how that denies the Church’s teaching on original sin, but I’m curious how you see YEC as denying original sin? YEC does hold (at least everywhere I’ve seen it) to a literal Adam and Eve who were created to not die, with death entering the world as a result of their sin.*
The universe that contains the garden of Eden is a universe where death, disease, and decay do not exist. The physical laws of our world are governed by decay. The second law of thermodynamics is a law that reflects the rule of death and decay over this universe.

Why bother with the YEC silliness at all? The universe that God originally created was not ruled by the physical laws of our universe. The physical laws of our universe are not absolutes, they are temporary laws that are in effect until this world passes away.

The YEC theory is obsessed with fabricating evidence that our earth is only a few thousand years old? Why is that? The Genesis creation accounts are the description of a universe where death, disease, and decay did not exist. In our universe decay and death touches everything. Animals die, plants die, even stars die – the entire universe is decaying away in its death agony.

… creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God …
Romans 8:19-21
 
Matt1618 << The universe that contains the garden of Eden is not in this universe. The universe where the garden exists in a parallel universe to the one that we are dwelling in. >>

All right, I apologize since I missed that part of your original post. So you are saying the original Garden of Eden was not on earth. I was under the impression that to interpret Genesis literally one would have to believe it was on the earth, rivers are mentioned such as the Tigris and Euphrates (which do exist on earth).

Your AnswersInGenesis crowd not only believe the Genesis garden was on earth, but its been found, its located in eastern Turkey.

See this article – an excerpt

Eden is described in Genesis 2:10–14:

‘A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.’

Phil P
 
To those who state that a Young Earth view has to be correct due to the fact that death and decay is stated to enter the world through sin. One point, Adam and Eve were not subject to death and decay before sin due to the fact that they were given immortal souls, and that without sin they would live forever in the grace of God. However, animals, plants, stars, etc. not having immortal souls, are not in the same category and could die/decay etc. as opposed to our first parents.
 
PhilVaz
  • So you are saying the original Garden of Eden was not on earth. I was under the impression that to interpret Genesis literally one would have to believe it was on the earth, rivers are mentioned such as the Tigris and Euphrates (which do exist on earth).*
The Genesis creation account is talking about actual historical events, but it is a history account written with figurative language, not literal language.

CCC 390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.
  • Your AnswersInGenesis crowd not only believe the Genesis garden was on earth, but its been found, its located in eastern Turkey.*
I am aware of that kind of silliness being taught as fact. But that is a Protestant phenomenon, and Catholics don’t need to buy into it. In fact, that kind of junk science from the Magisterium would make Catholics look foolish, and we should avoid it like the plague.

There is a challenge that faces Catholics though. We do teach that Adam and Eve are our literal parents, and that their disobedience caused sin, sickness, disease, decay, and death to enter into creation. Catholics need to rise to the challenge that is facing them and come up with rational arguments that affirm all the theological teaching of the faith, and at the same time, avoid the bad science of fundamentalist “Creationism”.
 
michael << One point, Adam and Eve were not subject to death and decay before sin due to the fact that they were given immortal souls, and that without sin they would live forever in the grace of God. >>

Good point, I guess the question is whether the Church and magisterium teach as dogma that Adam/Eve were immortal bodily before the Fall (not just immortal souls, but immortal bodies). Evolution would seem to contradict that, death would be a natural part of life, in the theistic evolution viewpoint. There would be no original bodily immortality possible, if mankind descended from the great apes (or man and apes had a common ancestor). We do have to believe there was an original pair (e.g. Adam/Eve), and there was an original sin (whatever it was) and a Fall, and we inherit that original sin (cleansed at Baptism).

I have seen some traditionalist articles that argue against theistic evolution based on this theological objection: that the Church teaches dogmatically that Adam/Eve had bodily immortality before the Fall, and they must have been specially created (both body and soul) out of nothing (or from dust as Genesis says).

Article from Living Tradition which includes discussion on original bodily immortality

These are good theological objections, but all the scientific objections I’ve seen so far are utterly demolished by TalkOrigins, yes my favorite creation-evolution site. 😃

Phil P
 
Matt1618 << In fact, that kind of junk science from the Magisterium would make Catholics look foolish, and we should avoid it like the plague. >>

We are totally in agreement on that. Your interpretations on Genesis are interesting, thanks for the posts. I need to get Stanley Jaki’s book on Genesis, I keep hearing him mentioned, even by Protestants as an authority on the issue.

A Reformed Protestant Review of Jaki

Phil P
 
Richard Lamb:
Evolution is a theory and thus ahs not been proven…
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Yes, evolution is an incomplete theory, as is most of science. However, so is gravity–a fact that may surprise you. While the effects of gravity are very real and painfully obvious to all, the underlying cause is not well understood and you’d win the Nobel Prize for figuring that out.

Please don’t discount something just because it is a theory. Newtonian mechanics is an approximation to the ‘truth’, and yet most people would say, “Good enough for me!”
 
De Maria:
Hello Redeemerslove,

You said,

I missed the part where I said that we (Catholics) believe in the Bible alone.

Sincerely,

De Maria
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I never did say, that you said, that Catholics believe in Bible Alone - but I did point to Catholic principles. Whether you were Catholic or not, did not matter to me in the least.
 
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petra:
You’re probably aware that time slows down as you approach the speed of light and supposedly at the speed of light, time stops.
Click to expand...
This is a common misnomer. The speed of light is constant in all reference frames, for all observers. The laws of physics for someone traveling at 1% of the speed of light, and 99% of the speed of light are the same. If you observed a meter stick in your reference frame, it would measure the same as if you were traveling at the speed of light. However, an observer in another reference frame would see and ‘measure’ your meter stick as much shorter, an effect called length contraction.

Special relativity also affects time in a similar way–it only looks different to an observer outside your reference frame.If you fell into a black hole, your watch would still be ticking away like normal. It’s your partner who is watching the whole thing (from another reference frame) who sees your watch ‘stop’.

I’d have to read the book you’re describing to discern whether or not his arguments are scientifically plausible. I’m wary of any ‘theory’ that neatly explains and reconciles the biblical, literalist account of creation with current cosmology–especially one without the mathematical rigor of Relativity.
 
I cannot remember the source and would have to spend days searching for it, but Charles Darwin once wrote that if anyone could show him that anything in his evolution theory were the result of an intelligent source, his whole theory would have to be thrown out. Darwin himself claimed that intelligence CANNOT have anything to do with evolution, that it is totally based on chance.

Catholic dogma requires a Catholic in communion with the Church to believe that ALL of creation is the product of the Will of God. Everything that is not God is created by God. Catholic dogma also requires every Catholic to believe that ALL human life descends from a single person (we call him Adam).

There has never been any proof or strong indicator that any species has ever evolved into another species. Much wishful thinking and preposterous offerings (such as evolution being proved by a single tooth). There have been very many well-advertised discoveries that have been proved as fraud. There is, of course, many adaptations within a species to become compatible with changing environments. That can be seen in the human race which produces skin color from pitch black to albino white (and all the shades inbetween). Humans display heights from Tom Thumb to much larger than normal, but all are human beings; they all are in and remain in the human race; they all are descended from Adam

There can be no contrast between Truth and science. The dogmas of the Catholic Church are the Truth guaranteed by God, Who is also the creator of all science, and Who cannot produce a contradiction.
 
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opticks:
Special relativity also affects time in a similar way–it only looks different to an observer outside your reference frame.If you fell into a black hole, your watch would still be ticking away like normal. It’s your partner who is watching the whole thing (from another reference frame) who sees your watch ‘stop’.
Click to expand...
I think that was what the author was getting at: time appears to pass at different rates depending upon vantage point.

I you have an opportunity to read the book, I’d be very interested in your thoughts on it. He did include some high level math to support his theory. That part of the book went completely over my head.
 
Cooney << but Charles Darwin once wrote that if anyone could show him that anything in his evolution theory were the result of an intelligent source, his whole theory would have to be thrown out. >>

Yeah I remember the quote. Its quoted by both Mike Behe and Ken Miller. Miller gives the fuller quote:

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.” (Darwin, Origin of Species)

The bold part is normally not given. Also, the full Origin of Species is online

Cooney << Everything that is not God is created by God. >>

That’s true, but not necessarily directly. Evolution could have been used, with God as the guiding force, along with natural selection.

See this article on God and Evolution

Cooney << There has never been any proof or strong indicator that any species has ever evolved into another species. Much wishful thinking and preposterous offerings (such as evolution being proved by a single tooth). >>

Don’t know about “proof” since science isn’t about “proof” – but evidence yeah, there is plenty of evidence and strong indicators:

Evidence for Macroevolution: The scientific case for common descent

If that’s too long, my cliffs notes version here

If you can produce “The scientific case for special creation” then I might be able to accept creationism is a scientific theory like evolution. 😛 The single pig tooth is the old “Nebraska Man” and was mentioned in another thread. Here is the story

Creationist Arguments: Nebraska Man

The Role of Nebraska Man

Its not that bad after all, just science correcting science as usual. 😃

Phil P
 
optics << I’m wary of any ‘theory’ that neatly explains and reconciles the biblical, literalist account of creation with current cosmology–especially one without the mathematical rigor of Relativity. >>

You mean you would be wary of this? 😃

From the Frontpiece of Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible (Wittenberg, Germany: Hans Lufft, 1534)

Phil P
 
Two Catholic scientists on the topic and on each other.

MILLER on BEHE:

Behe, for example, accepts the reality of evolutionary change to an extent that even his supporters find surprising. In a 1995 debate [meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation at Montreat College in North Carolina], I presented him with molecular evidence indicating that humans and the great apes shared a recent, common ancestor, wondering how he would refute the obvious.

Without skipping a beat, he pronounced the evidence to be convincing, and stated categorically that he had absolutely no problem with the common ancestry of humans and the great apes. Creationists around the room – who had viewed him as their new champion – were dismayed. Behe’s views stand in opposition to those of Phillip Johnson, who reject any notion of a common ancestry for humans and other animals; and in bold contradiction to young-earth creationists like Henry Morris and Duane Gish, who reject common ancestry altogether and maintain that all species were separately created.

Johnson and Behe also accept what geologists tell us about the age of the earth, what astronomers tell us about the age of the universe, and what paleontologists tell us about the sequential appearance of species in the fossil record. The young-earth creationists reject all of this, and they view such concessions as logically fatal to their cause.

(Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin’s God [1999], page 163-164)

BEHE on MILLER:

Although I think my arguments are nothing short of compelling, some other Catholic academics have disagreed with me and have published other views. Brown University biology professor Ken Miller describes himself as “an orthodox Catholic and an orthodox Darwinist.” In his 1999 book “Finding Darwin’s God” Miller defends the standard view that, despite the unexpected complexity uncovered at the molecular level, natural selection is the best explanation for life. While admitting that Darwinian explanations currently don’t exist for many molecular systems, he expresses confidence that explanations will be forthcoming as science progresses.

Nonetheless, in his book he argues that the universe was indeed designed, using the fine-tuning of cosmological constants as his primary evidence. He also finds scope for God’s action in quantum indeterminacy and argues that miracles can occur, but that science can say nothing about them.

, [a section on John Haught and “God After Darwin” skipped]

The point I’m trying to drive home here by discussing my own work as well as the work of Miller and Haught, is that a very wide range of views about the mechanism of evolution is consistent with Catholic teaching, from the natural selection defended by Miller, to the intelligent design I have proposed, to the animated, information-suffused universe that John Haught sees. Those mechanisms are all proposed by persons who attach the same bottom-line philosophy to their ideas that Pope John Paul described:

that “it is the God of Israel who acts” and that “it is the one and the same God who establishes and guarantees the intelligibility and reasonableness of the natural order of things upon which scientists confidently depend, and who reveals himself as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Indeed, the range of possibilities that are available under a Catholic viewpoint is much wider than under a materialistic viewpoint.

(Michael Behe, from “A Catholic Scientist Looks at Darwinism” in Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing edited by William Dembski [2004], page 143-144)

That should clear things up on Behe and Miller, and add to this thread a bit.

Phil P
 
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