Catholics: (POLL) Do you accept evolution?

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I may be misunderstanding, but that doesn’t seem at all acceptable because:
  1. Evolution is, as far as I’m aware, referring to changes over generations, not within a lifetime
  2. Adam and Eve were the first two individual human beings, i.e. of our species
 
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No, because the Church is merely excusing people for error made in good faith.
 
I don’t really understand evolution that much so I guess I am wrong about this then.
 
ChunkMonk said:
No, because the Church is merely excusing people for error made in good faith.
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Let’s say I’ve read materials explaining that evolution is contrary to scripture. Yet I reject this view. Am I sinning?
 
As I said I may have misunderstood what you posted. What I had gotten out of it was that you were proposing something like that in the second paragraph of ChunkMonk’s post.

I do accept evolution but I won’t try to reconcile specific elements with Scripture here.
 
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Only if you reject Scripture on the basis of it being incompatible with evolution. For example, if you hold that:

A) Adam was formed from the dust.
B) Adam’s body was evolved from non-human creatures

You are holding two contradictory positions, but you are not explicitly denying the Scriptural truth. However, once you say:

“Because I know that B is true, I no longer believe A”

Then I think you are risking falling into sin, because it should be the opposite. Because we know Scripture is true, all things that contradict Scripture must be false. Now, most people don’t do that. They split the difference and say:

“Because I know B is true, I therefore must believe that A is an allegorical truth and not literal.”

As far as that goes… I cannot say. Is it sinful? I believe that most of the Church Fathers would probably say that it is, because we should not deny the literal meaning of the Scripture unless it is inconsistent with reason. However, I do think it would be less sinful (assuming it is sinful which I cannot say with authority) than to outright deny the Scripture entirely.

Let’s look at another example and see how it plays:

“Because I know that human biology requires both male and female parents, the “virgin” conception of Jesus must not be literal but is actually an allegorical truth.”

Would you say that is a sinful belief?
 
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Exactly. Given how harsh the Earth is, why should there be so much diversity? I could “maybe” see a few hardy plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Not to mention, every now and then, a mass extinction event wipes the slate clean.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Franklinia - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

Here’s a peculiar plant that literally doesn’t exist in the wild anymore. The sole member of its Genus, it’s notoriously finicky. It literally only grew in an area of 3 acres…
 
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None of the Church Fathers believed in Evolution or Old Earth of anything like that.
 
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The scientific proof was not evident to them.
They did not teach in terms of fossils.
They were not ignorant, but the Lord has revealed some historical events to us through the centuries.
So long as we believe that GOD is the supreme first cause, that He created everything, that He is eternal, no beginning, no end we are fine.

We do not deny that God created everything.
 
But did he create EVERYTHING at ONCE ex nihilo? Or did it all evolve over billions of years?
 
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semper_catholicus said:
None of the Church Fathers believed in Evolution or Old Earth of anything like that.
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They didn’t have the scientific knowledge available that we do now. They didn’t know about the rings of Saturn either; that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
 
I watched a great documentary the other day called “Is Genesis History?” It was very interesting, though I can’t say I am completely sure all their arguments stand up well.

A historian spoke about Genesis, comparing the account with how it would have been taken during its time (literal or metaphorical). He said it was written like a narrative, even using the Hebrew word, “yom” which means “day” as in a period of 24 hours.

They also discussed the discovery of intact, stretchy dinosaur tissue which could not possibly last more than 10,000 years without decaying.

There was a lot of other intriguing information in it; I suggest checking it out. It’s on Netflix.
 
semper_catholicus said:
But does anyone dare challenge that science?
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Yes. Scientists. Scientists challenge science all the time – that’s how we learn new things. That’s how theories are refined. That’s how knowledge is expanded.

You really should read up on the basics of how science works. You seem to think it’s some static monolith, and nothing could be further from the truth.
 
What I mean is that when it says in Genesis that God created the birds, he created ALL the species of birds at that one point in time and there didn’t appear new species of birds over time.
 
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