Creation, Thomistic Philosophy, and the Natural Sciences

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Richca said:
I am also a believer in ‘progressive creationism’ which I mentioned in my opening post to this thread and I agree with what you say in this post except that I don’t necessarily hold to the creation of Adam and Eve some 6000 - 10000 years ago. I mean, I think it could have possibly been earlier than that.
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I believe the genealogies in the OT are literal. Matt 1 says there are 42 generations between Jesus and Abraham. The Martyrology of the CC says Adam was created 5199 years before the birth of Christ. Evolution folklore, however, needs humans to be much older than that.
 
Fr. Michael Chaberek makes the point that a creature created from nothing much better reflects the power and glory of God than modifying an existing creature (evolution). The find that a compelling argument.
 
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Edgar said:
Fr. Michael Chaberek makes the point that a creature created from nothing much better reflects the power and glory of God than modifying an existing creature (evolution). The find that a compelling argument.
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Right, God didn’t have to use evolution .
 
Techno2000 said:
Right, God didn’t have to use evolution .
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It’s my understanding that evolution (ie, modifying an existing creature), according to Thomistic philosophy, would be a far lesser feat than creating a new creature from nothing. This doesn’t rule out the possibility that God used evolution, but the fossil record, with all it’s problematic (for evolutionists) gaps, does a very good impression of progressive creation - a process of separate creations that started with relatively simple life-forms and ended with man.
 
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I have read the book posted on the http://www.creationscience.com/ website. IMHO, it is phenomenal. It is written by a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. Topics related to life science, astronomy, geology, etc., etc., etc., are addressed in exhaustive detail. It pokes hole after hole in the current models taught in/pushed by academia.

The most enjoyable part of the book were the endnotes. He quotes many scientists, scientific journals, and atheists, to make the case for (yes, here it comes…) a young earth, created by God, in the manner stated in Genesis.

His hydroplate theory provides an extremely detailed explanation about the Flood; again, as described in Genesis. There is a 6-part video series about it on YouTube, narrated by another mechanical engineer. A warning, though. His voice is monotonous, so I highly recommend getting a good night’s sleep, and have a couple of 5-Hour-Energy shots (the Extra Strength ones!) at the ready in order to get through all 3 hours of it.

I can hear all the groans and guffaws, but all I can say is, read a couple of pages (AND the endnotes!) on the website before you judge.
 
The scientific consensus is that the earth is billions of years old, but if that turns out to be wrong, I can readily accept a young earth. All I need to know is that God was behind it all and directed each step of the creative process … and that man did not evolve, but was created from inanimate matter, as stated in Genesis 2:7.

The scientific community, being dominated by an atheistic world view, is pathologically fearful and hence, immediately dismissive, of any evidence that suggests a young earth, because a young earth means evolution couldn’t have occurred, which in turn strongly suggests life is a product of divine creation.
 
Yes, it’s fair to say there is a consensus. If you want to dispute the conclusions reached by atomic physics (ie, radiometric dating methods), I wish you luck.

If Thomas Aquinas lived today he would probably accept the available scientific evidence that the earth is billions of years old and realize that the ‘six days’ of Genesis 1 are but a symbolic descrption of creation.
 
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(Giant Sequoia - Calaveras Big Trees State Park, CA)

And God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day (Genesis 1: 11-13).
 
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If science has confirmed that the earth and its life are much older than what YECs claim, then how can one argue that the “six days” are anything other than symbolic?
 
God is quite capable of making a universe in 144 hours and make it look old.
I dislike that idea as (to me) that makes God a liar.
YECs would disagree with me.
 
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GodSpawned said:
God is quite capable of making a universe in 144 hours and make it look old.
I dislike that idea as (to me) that makes God a liar.
YECs would disagree with me.
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If one is walking down the beach and sees only left footprints should they conclude deception?
 
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(Michelangelo, Creation of Adam, from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, Rome, 1508-1512)

‘Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being’ (Gen. 2:7).
 
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Some food for reflection. I was just thinking that when God created Adam in Gen. 2:7 it is written that God '‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being’.

In one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to the disciples in the gospel of St John, Jesus ‘breathed on the them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit”’ (John 20:22). Here, I believe Jesus is bestowing on the disciples through the Holy Spirit the supernatural spiritual life of grace, the seed in this world of eternal life. The Holy Spirit, ‘the Lord, the giver of life’ (Nicene Creed) gives us not only our natural rational and animal life but also the supernatural life of grace. I thought it interesting in that in the creation of Adam God ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ and then in the gospels Jesus ‘breathed’ on the disciples and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’. There could be some purposeful analogy here of some kind for the New Testament is contained in the Old Testament and the Old in the New.
 
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From St. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, Book III, ch. 21, n. 10, concerning the virgin birth of Christ:

For as by one man’s disobedience sin entered, and death obtained [a place] through sin; so also by the obedience of one man, righteousness having been introduced, shall cause life to fructify in those persons who in times past were dead. Romans 5:19 And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil (for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground Genesis 2:5), and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for all things were made by Him, John 1:3 and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin. If, then, the first Adam had a man for his father, and was born of human seed, it were reasonable to say that the second Adam was begotten of Joseph. But if the former was taken from the dust, and God was his Maker, it was incumbent that the latter also, making a recapitulation in Himself, should be formed as man by God, to have an analogy with the former as respects His origin. Why, then, did not God again take dust, but wrought so that the formation should be made of Mary? It was that there might not be another formation called into being, nor any other which should [require to] be saved, but that the very same formation should be summed up [in Christ as had existed in Adam], the analogy having been preserved.

(Translation from New Advent website, Fathers of the Church).
 
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This is a fascinating insight from St Augustine’s work ‘The Literal Meaning of Genesis’ concerning God resting from all the work He had done in creation on the seventh day in the Genesis 1-2:3 creation narrative and Jesus resting in the tomb on the Sabbath day after finishing on the cross on the sixth day the new work of the creation and the redemption of mankind. I had to use pictures to quote from Augustine’s book.

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Richca said:
I thought it interesting in that in the creation of Adam God ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ and then in the gospels Jesus ‘breathed’ on the disciples and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.
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That’s one way of looking at Genesis 2:7. But Genesis also describes non-human creatures as having “the breath of life”. The reason I point this out is that evolutionists argue that Genesis 2:7 describes Adam as living creature who then receives spiritual life. But I disagree - I believe it describes Adam as being formed from inanimate matter, and then receiving life … not spiritual life, but just life, as non-human creatures have life.
 
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Exactly. The “last Adam” (Jesus) was like the “first Adam” - that is to say, Jesus was not the natural offspring of a mother and father, and neither was Adam.
 
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