Catholics and evolution

[Edwin_Taraba]

gomer tree:

There’s an important point to realize here: the Church does not say a person cannot believe in evolution. That does not mean the Church actively promotes the theory as correct. It just means that Genesis is understood to not necessarily be taken literally. That’s really all the deeper it gets.

Now, if a person used evolution to deny the soul or the Creator, that’s a no-no. There are significant and numerous literal truths of a spritual nature in Genesis. This does not translate to scientific truths of the course of events.

I was discussing this with a relative of mine who is Lutheran, and swears that the earth is only 6,000 years old. I made it a very clear point that I have no problem with him believing that, but if he thinks believing otherwise contradicts Scripture then I disagreed. He didn’t say he agreed, but it was a good discussion.

I personally don’t believe in evolution, but I do believe the earth is billions of years old. God is not a God of deception. Why would He create something 6000 years ago and give it every appearance of being billions of years old? That woould seem to me to be a direct hindrance to faith.

The question of billions of years is the most difficult one to overcome for anyone contemplating the doctrine of biblical creation and original sin. The fact that there are stars known to be billions of light years away tells us that the light took billions of years to travel here and therefore we conclude that the universe is billions of years old.
However, keep in mind we can only see part of the picture from our vantage point. Early scientific theories about astronomical bodies included the concept that the sun and stars revolved around the earth. From their vantage point it was obvious. Yet they were later astounded to find that they were 100 percent wrong.

Today we are faced with a similar dilemma in that we are sharing curious facts and observations and trying to put them together into a world-view without having all the facts that God has from His vantage point. Seeing all these bits of data beginning to point away from the bible God gave us a guy named Einstein to help us begin putting together additional pieces of the puzzle.

As further work is done on the theories of relativity it is beginning to reveal the possibility that the Earth could be 6,000 years old just as surmised by some biblical scholars, while at the same time billions of years passed in the universe as a whole. Is a common house fly traveling on the space shuttle flying at ¼ mile per hour or at 22,000 miles per hour? A brilliant scientist by the name of Dr. Humphries has spent his life as a nuclear scientist and has been working on calculations utilizing Einstein’s theories. He has some very interesting explanations that show the earth may have only gone around the sun 6,000 or so times while billions of years passed in the Universe. His book “Starlight and Time” helped me through the transition from old earth to young earth creationist.

christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c005.html

Won’t it be astounding to us all that have grown up in the 20th and 21st centuries to wake up one day to find the bible was right all along?

 

[Edwin_Taraba]

PhilVaz:

…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… Phil P

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we believe that Adam and Eve were the first people God created and from them all others have descended. Also the doctrine of original sin is a strongly held belief in Catholicism and all other Christian groups. This doctrine includes the concept that death did not exist before the fall of Adam and Eve.

Romans 5:12 “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.”

All theories of evolution (even theistic evolution) include the concept that death existed for millions of years prior to Adam and Eve. The two ideas (evolution and biblical creation/original sin) simply are not compatible any way you look at it.

The theistic evolutionist is undergoing quite a bit of mental gymnastics to reconcile evolution with biblical creation and doctrine of original sin. Truth cannot contradict truth. When all you know about science or your view of the physical universe seems to contradict the bible you have to bend both science and your interpretation of the bible to make them fit together. Thus we get theistic evolution theories.

Keep in mind that all the work being done by Behe and Dembski and Johnson and so on, are mere human scientists with the limited view of any other human. They are not privy to the whole picture that God sees from his vantage point. One must keep an open mind on science as it changes from year to year while keeping a firm foundation on biblical principles. Scientists one day believed that the sun and stars revolved around the earth because it was obvious from their vantage point. Just as they were astounded to one day wake up and see they were 100 percent wrong so will theistic evolutionsists wake up one day and be astounded to see the super natural phenomena of God’s creating everything from nothing. As we find out more pieces of the puzzle we will see science merge with the bible.

 

[Matt16_18]

Edwin Taraba

• All theories of evolution (even theistic evolution) include the concept that death existed for millions of years prior to Adam and Eve. The two ideas (evolution and biblical creation/original sin) simply are not compatible any way you look at it.*

I disagree. Are you are arguing that there are ultimately only two sides to this debate, a materialist evolutionary position, or a fundamentalist creation “science” position? I say that there are other positions besides these two. Positions that accept everything that the Church teaches as infallible dogma and that do not accept the junk science of fundamentalist “creationism”.

I don’t see that Genesis requires me to believe that this universe is the universe that the creation account in Genesis is describing. This universe is the universe where death and decay touch everything. The universe that is described being created in Genesis chapt 1-3 is a universe where there is no death or decay. In fact, I think that Genesis contradicts a view that the garden of Eden once existed somewhere in present day Iraq, and that the garden of Eden has been destroyed by sin.

I have no problem at all believing that the body that I possess came into existence through a process of gradual evolutionary change. Genesis states that Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of Eden, not that the garden of Eden was destroyed by their disobedience. Genesis is using figurative language to describe the historical fact that Adam and Eve once had immortal bodies, and they dwelt in a universe where there was no death or decay.

The Venerable Anne Catherine has some interesting things to say about the mortal bodies that Adam and Eve received as punishment for their sin of disobedience:

After the Fall, all was changed. All forms of creation were produced in self, dissipated in self. What had been one became many, creatures no longer looked to God alone, each was concentrated in self. ….

Once man was endowed with the kingship of nature, but now in him all has become nature. He is now one of its slaves, a master conquered and fettered. He must now struggle and fight with nature – but I cannot clearly express it. It was as if once man possessed all things in God, their Creator and their Center; but now he made himself their center, and they became his master.

I saw the interior, the organs of man as if in the flesh, in corporeal, corruptible images of creatures, as well as their relations to one another, from the stars down to the tiniest living thing. All exert and influence on man. He is connected to all of them; he must act and struggle against them, and from them suffer. But I cannot express it clearly since I, too, am a member of the fallen race.”

There is revulsion that some have expressed to the idea that their mortal bodies could have come about through the process of evolution. And that is understandable. But I think that the sin of Adam and Eve’s disobedience would merit just such a punishment. They who were once had dominion over nature became the slaves of nature. They who chose the created over the Creator received bodies that were subject to the laws of physics that govern a world degraded by their sin.

Evolution is the wrath of God.

 

[Matt16_18]

Benjamin

• You evolutionary people can believe what you want, but there is no way that I will ever believe that I “evolved” from slime crawling out of the mud fifty billion or what ever years ago.*

It is only your mortal body that evolved out of the slime. That never would have occurred if Adam and Eve had not fallen.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:2-4

Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal. 5:19-20

 

[Churchmouse]

To all the “evolutionists” out there,

I’m just a bit curious, at what point in the evolution of man did the soul come into play?

{{{{{Well, it seems like a logical question to me, anyway }}}}}

Peace,
CM

 

[Matt16_18]

BradW

• Uh, surely you know that eating part of a plant doesn’t kill the plant, right? I’ve never seen the issue directly addressed, but I really doubt any any creationist believes that no individual cell of a multi-cellular organism would ever die.*

I suppose that I can be called a creationist, if a creationist is someone that believes that God created * ex nihilo* angels and men and worlds for both to dwell in.

I do believe that death was not part of the garden of Eden, not even for an “individual cell of a multi-cellular organism.” I guess you could say that I am hardcore about that position - there was no death in the garden.

 

[Matt16_18]

churchmouse

• I’m just a bit curious, at what point in the evolution of man did the soul come into play?*

Great question. Adam and Eve had immortal souls that once dwelt in immortal bodies. They lost the preternatural gift of bodily immortality because of the Fall, and they were expelled from the garden of Eden into a world where decay and death ruled over all of creation. In this universe their souls dwelt in mortal bodies. The details as to how the transition between immortal bodies and mortal bodies occurred for Adam and Eve are not written about in the Bible. The Bible just says it happened.

The soul came into play before evolution, so to speak.

 

[Richard_Lamb]

opticks:

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!”

Actually Gravity is scientific law…

I do not discount anything I am open to all truth as the truth will always set me free…

 

[Churchmouse]

churchmouse

• I’m just a bit curious, at what point in the evolution of man did the soul come into play?*

Great question. Adam and Eve had immortal souls that once dwelt in immortal bodies. They lost the preternatural gift of bodily immortality because of the Fall, and they were expelled from the garden of Eden into a world where decay and death ruled over all of creation. In this universe their souls dwelt in mortal bodies. The details as to how the transition between immortal bodies and mortal bodies occurred for Adam and Eve are not written about in the Bible. The Bible just says it happened.

The soul came into play before evolution, so to speak.

Hi again Matt,

I’m a bit confused. Is it your belief that once Adam and Eve were dispelled they de-evoluted? IOW, when they came into this world and placed within mortal bodies, they were devoid of the intellectual faculties they possessed while in Eden, yet retained their souls? What about their descendents? Were they soul-less or soul-ful creatures who, due to their incapacitation, were unaware of sin and, maybe, even God? Did the array of hominids from Australopithecus to Cro-Magnon all have souls?

I’m not trolling, I’m just trying to fill in the gaps

Peace,
CM

 

[Churchmouse]

Richard Lamb:

Actually Gravity is scientific law…

I do not discount anything I am open to all truth as the truth will always set me free…

Hola Boriqua! Que tal hombre

Peace,
CM

 

[Matt16_18]

churchmouse

• Is it your belief that once Adam and Eve were dispelled they de-evoluted?*

What do you mean by “de-evoluted”? Adam and Eve were created without spot or stain (they weren’t immaculately conceived, they were immaculately created). Adam and Eve were certainly worse off after the Fall than they were before the Fall.

• when they came into this world and placed within mortal bodies, they were devoid of the intellectual faculties they possessed while in Eden, yet retained their souls?*

They didn’t loose all their intellectual faculties, but they did lose the preternatural gift of infused knowledge.

• What about their descendents? Were they soul-less or soul-ful creatures who, due to their incapacitation, were unaware of sin and, maybe, even God?*

Of course not. We are their descendents - we are the children that have been born with original sin into a corrupted world. All humans have bodies and souls. We have bodies that are mortal, and that is a consequence of our first parents sin. Our first parents sin brought down the wrath of God upon their childern.

Here are a few dogmas of the Catholic Church that are germane to what we are discussing:

Man consists of two essential parts - a material body and a spiritual soul. The rational soul per se is the essential form of the body.

Every human being possesses an individual soul.

Our first parents, before the fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace.

In addition to sanctifying grace, our first parents were endowed with the preternatural gift of bodily immortality.

Our first parents in Paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment.

Through sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God.

Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the devil.

Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation but by descent.

Original sin is transmitted by natural generation.

In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity.

• Did the array of hominids from Australopithecus to Cro-Magnon all have souls?*

Yes, of course, they just didn’t have human souls. All plants and animals have souls.

• I’m not trolling, I’m just trying to fill in the gaps*

There are mysteries in the gap.

 

[Churchmouse]

What do you mean by “de-evoluted”? Adam and Eve were created without spot or stain (they weren’t immaculately conceived, they were immaculately created). Adam and Eve were certainly worse off after the Fall than they were before the Fall.

What I meant was that Adam and Eve were superior creatures, created in the image of God, possessing all the intellectual faculties we humans possess today (maybe even moreso). Did they degrade or transform into our hominid predecessors? Or am I reading you wrong?

They didn’t loose all their intellectual faculties, but they did lose the preternatural gift of infused knowledge.

Let me restructure my original question a bit: Is it your opinion that they became less intelligent due to their physical and mental degradation (again, I am assuming this is what you are saying).

Of course not. We are their descendents - we are the children that have been born with original sin into a corrupted world. All humans have bodies and souls. We have bodies that are mortal, and that is a consequence of our first parents sin. Our first parents sin brought down the wrath of God upon their childern.

So what you are saying is that everyone, whether Neatherthal, Cro-Magnon, etc. were cognizent of their sin nature and able to make choices based on their recognition of this. Am I correct?

Here are a few dogmas of the Catholic Church that are germane to what we are discussing:

Man consists of two essential parts - a material body and a spiritual soul. The rational soul per se is the essential form of the body.

Every human being possesses an individual soul.

Our first parents, before the fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace.

In addition to sanctifying grace, our first parents were endowed with the preternatural gift of bodily immortality.

Our first parents in Paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment.

Through sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God.

Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the devil.

Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation but by descent.

Original sin is transmitted by natural generation.

In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity.

Noted

Yes, of course, they just didn’t have human souls. All plants and animals have souls.

Understood. So at what point did they have a human soul capable of adhering sin? At which point in the evolutionary process were they able to procure sin and, thus, be held responsible for the choices they made?

Peace,
CM

 

[PhilVaz]

EdwinT << A brilliant scientist by the name of Dr. Humphries has spent his life as a nuclear scientist and has been working on calculations utilizing Einstein’s theories. >>

Dr. Humphries is a young-earther, so he couldn’t be that brilliant. He’s been thoroughly answered by Dr. Hugh Ross, and refuses to debate Dr. Ross (Ph.D. astronomy, old earth creationist) in front Ph.D. physicists and astronomers. Looks like the Reasons.org site is pay only to access their apologetics articles, otherwise I would link to the Ross-Humphreys correspondence, and the detailed rebuttal of Humphrey’s Starlight and Time ideas. I’ve linked it at Steve Ray’s board in the past.

"Creation Physicist" D. Russell Humphreys
Fast, Old Light? Reply to Humphreys
Decay of earth’s magnetic field

And here is Humphrey’s own "Evidence for a Young World"
Many of these dealt with here
Evidence for an Old World

Phil P

 

[Richard_Lamb]

Churchmouse:

Hola Boriqua! Que tal hombre

Peace,
CM

Aqui Pasandola Bien…

 

[Churchmouse]

Richard Lamb:

Aqui Pasandola Bien…

Me encanta que estas lo mas bien, papito y, como son las cosas en Florida? Yo estoy seguro que estas bien caliente y humido en su ciudad. Aqui llego a 84% y yo se que haces mas calor donde tu vive. Quien necesitas un purgatorio cuando tenemos un estado como Florida?

Now try to translate that, hermanito

Paz,
El Raton de la Iglesia

 

[PhilVaz]

It enchants me these but, papito well to me and, as they are the things in Florida? I am sure that it is very hot and humid in his city. Here where I arrive at 84% and that beams but heat where you live. Who needs purgatory when we have a state like Florida?

oops a little off

Phil P

 

[twf]

Ah Phil…with all due respect, you obviously didn’t not read that article on “Garden of Eden” found. AiG was saying that we DO NOT know where Eden was. That was the whole point. Sure, a few rivers are named that we know of today, but obviously they are not the same rivers (the flood would have taken care of that). AiG says that the early Noahites probably adopted some of the “Old World” names when they re-colonized the Middle East after the Flood.

Anyway, could you please respond to my last few posts on the first page? And how is it that creation will be restored if it’s been in bondage and decay since the beginning? And how is it that all of creation groans because of our sin if it’s been a universe of death and suffering since long before Original Sin? (Romans 8:22)
In what way did God curse the ground (Gen. 3:17)?

As for Dr. Ross’ refutation of Dr. Humphrey’s work…it goes both ways (they’ve countered each other). (See answersingenesis.org/docs2/4389starlight10-10-2000.asp).

 

[Matt16_18]

churchmouse

• What I meant was that Adam and Eve were superior creatures, created in the image of God, possessing all the intellectual faculties we humans possess today (maybe even moreso).*

In the garden of Eden Adam and Eve possessed the preternatural gifts, and the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace. Do you agree with that statement?

Did they degrade or transform into our hominid predecessors? Or am I reading you wrong?

I think you are reading me wrong. Adam and Eve lost the preternatural gifts and the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace by committing the original sin. They were cast out of the garden of Eden and forced to dwell in Satan’s kingdom as human beings without sanctifying grace. I have never said that Adam and Eve lost their human nature. Do you understand what preternatural and supernatural means?

• Let me restructure my original question a bit: Is it your opinion that they became less intelligent due to their physical and mental degradation (again, I am assuming this is what you are saying).*

I wouldn’t know if they were less intelligent, but certainly they became more ignorant with the loss of the preternatural gift of infused knowledge.

• So what you are saying is that everyone, whether Neatherthal, Cro-Magnon, etc. were cognizent of their sin nature and able to make choices based on their recognition of this. Am I correct?*

No, you are not correct - I have never said this. I am having a hard time understanding exactly what you are trying to say, because you are using unusual terminolgy. For example, what is a “sin nature”?

• So at what point did they have a human soul capable of adhering sin?*

Please define the term ”adhering sin”. Don’t all sins “adhere” to us until they are forgiven?

 

[PhilVaz]

twf << AiG was saying that we DO NOT know where Eden was. >>

All right, I admit I didn’t read the punch line. I figured they thought it was found since they provided a map of eastern Turkey.

But I have printed out plenty of AiG articles in the past, and am not convinced there was a talking snake, that the dinosaurs lived with Adam, Eve, Noah and his family, that at least 1,000,000 species were brought aboard the ark, that the flood covered Mount Everest, that the fossils were deposited in the geologic column in the exact evolutionary order we find them by that flood, before that flood there were approx 2,000 animals per acre of land on earth (seems a bit crowded, e.g. billions of animal remains are estimated in the Karoo Formation alone), and that the earth was created around 4004 BC just like the Anglican Archbishop Ussher said in the 17th century.

But I’ll keep looking for scientific evidence for those things, and tell you when I find something…

AiG does a good job arguing against Geocentrism contra Bob Sungenis at least.

Have to get to your theological objections later…

Phil P

 

[Matt16_18]

PhilVaz

• Have to get to your theological objections later…*

A theological objection that has been raised to your attempts to reconcile Catholic Church teaching to evolutionary theory has to do with this doctrine:

CCC 1008 Death is a consequence of sin. The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin. Even though man’s nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin. …

You have done a good job refuting the bad science of the fundamentalists. But you have not addressed the theological problems with your system, a system that assumes that death was already reigning in the world when the first man made his appearance.