Creation

[EA_Man]

petra:

Adam and Eve were real people and the Fall was a real event in time, introducing moral corruption into the world. But this does not preclude the possibility that at a certain point in time, God selected a pre-human hominid, gave him an immortal soul, and named him Adam. Eve was then created from Adam.

See my previous post for reasons why creation in 6 literal days (as we know them to be) is untenable.

No - more than just MORAL corruption was introduced at the Fall. The Fall also had physical consequences - physical death, decay, physical corruption. All of creation is fallen, that is why the Bible speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. What you see around you today is NOT what God originally created, but a twisted, distorted, abnormal version of the creation.

I have no problem with the literal view of Creation. These other “Theistic Evolution” models must either ignore Scripture or allegorize it. If you take an allegorical view of Genesis 1-3 at what point do you begin to take it literally? Chapter 4? Chapter 5? Exodus 1:1? Leviticus? Ruth? Where do you start?

Peace

 

[Steve_Andersen]

when I read all this all I can think of is
“same planet, different worlds”

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

RikasAngel:

Hello All,

One of the biggest and most contentious theological/scientefic issues out there is the issue of Creation. There are three major opinions on the subject: 7 Day Creation, Intelligent Design, and Dawinian Evolution. I personally favor Intelligent Design. I want to get a sense of what most Catholics believe on the subject.

1. 7 Day Creation: The Biblical account of Creation is literally true.
2. Intelligent Design: God used Natural Forces to Create the Universe and Life over a long period of time.
3. Darwinian Evolution: The Origins of the Universe can be atributed to Natural Causes alone and not to any Higher Power.

What’s happened to a fourth choice, of theistic evolution ? ​

 

[Steve_Andersen]

## What’s happened to a fourth choice, of theistic evolution ? ##

as I understand it that is a subset of ID

 

[RikasAngel]

Hello All,

I want to clarify something. Intellegent Design and “Theistic Evolution” are basically the same thing. Many get unnecessarily upset about this, probably because there is a failure to communicate somewhere. Intelligent Design, as I have come to understand it, is the theory that God used natural forces to form Creation. The claim that the Universe was formed by natural forces alone, without God, is irreconcilable with Catholic Theology. It is clear teaching of the Church that God is, after all is said and done, the architect of Creation…

As for the Adam, Eve, and Original Sin problem, as I see it, there is an obvious conflict between the Evolutionary theory and the concept of the Fall of man. If there was no Original Sin, then Christ died for nothing, so the revelation that Man evolved over time does seem to conflict with Genesis 3. Now contrary to popular belief, there are significant gaps in the history of humanity (In fact some, such as the controversial author Michael Cremo www.mcremo.com , claim that it may be possible that homo sapeins may be far older than modern Anthropology would have us believe). So it is very possible that, because there are so many gaps in our understanding, there may be a missing link out there somewhere. Bottomline, we Catholics have to trust that the Church will always teach truth without error. For those who would like more food for thought, below are some resources that may be usefuel.

Tracts:
www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp
www.catholic.com/library/Creation_and_Genesis.asp
www.catholic.com/library/Creation_Out_of_Nothing.asp

Books:
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe by Michael Behe, Willam Dembski, and Stephen Meyer
Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe
Origins of the Species by Charles Darwin

Videos:
“The Creation of the Universe” PBS
“Evolution” PBS
“Origins” PBS
“The Privledged Planet” Illustra Media
“Unlocking the Mystery of Life” Illustra Media
“Icons of Evolution” Illustra Media
“Where Does the Evidence Lead?” Illustra Media

 

[PhilVaz]

Rik << I want to clarify something. Intelligent Design and “Theistic Evolution” are basically the same thing. Many get unnecessarily upset about this, probably because there is a failure to communicate somewhere. Intelligent Design, as I have come to understand it, is the theory that God used natural forces to form Creation. >>

And as I’ve explained above, you understand Intelligent Design wrong. Read the main theorist on this, William Dembski. He explicitly says “intelligent design is not theistic evolution” and then goes on to explain the differences. This is outlined in his 1999 book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, pages 109-114. Also in the book he edited with philosopher Michael Ruse, titled Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA the authors lay out 4 unique positions: with “Intelligent Design” and “Theistic Evolution” being 2 separate and distinct positions. Mike Behe, Stephen Meyer, and Dembski representing ID, and different authors in that book representing TE. They are not the same.

The main claim of ID is that “design can be detected scientifically.” That’s it, that’s the main claim and definition. There is nothing mentioned about “God” or “natural forces” in any definition of ID that I’ve seen, in fact they explicitly attempt to avoid identifying the designer as God so they can make the claim that ID is “science” just as much as evolution is.

Theistic evolution is simply “God using evolution as His main method of creation.” God did not necessarily “design” anything from scratch in TE, God “designed” by macroevolution.

As I mentioned it all depends how one defines ID and TE. Read Dembski himself on this.

Rik << If there was no Original Sin, then Christ died for nothing, so the revelation that Man evolved over time does seem to conflict with Genesis 3. >>

In the TE view, there was an Original Sin, we just can’t p(name removed by moderator)oint the time or nature of that sin. The Catechism talks about “figurative” and “symbolical” language in Genesis 1-3. See this article that lays out some possibilities on an historical Adam/Eve with an “evolutionary creation” or TE view.

Phil P

 

[KathleenElsie]

Theistic Evolution

 

[buffalo]

aridite:

Doesn’t this make God deceptive: burying fossils that look like they have been there for millions of years and that humans, in good faith, would naturally be led to believe have been there for millions of years, when in fact they are only six thousand years old?

Not at all. There are ssumptions made to derive ages. We could be wrong.

The truth will not change, but our understanding of it may.

 

[buffalo]

DavidFilmer:

I also favor Intelligent Design, although I cannot discount the possiblility of literal seven-day creation if one allows for the possibility that God could have created the earth in a way that reflected a prolonged development.

For example, God could have created the earth in a day, but have done so in a way which indicated prior existence. He could have created the earth complete with fossil records, etc. There is absolutely no way to scientfically disprove such a possibility, so I must accept the possibility that it could be true.

A possible way to look at it is like when a drop of water hits the pond. The ripples go out in all directions.

 

[buffalo]

PhilVaz:

OK, I’ll vote Darwinian evolution, which I’ll define as follows from the July 2004 International Theological Commission statement

Phil P

Uh No, Phil Actually Darwinain is ruled out, and an Intelligence ruled in:

July 7, 2005 Finding Design in Nature
By CHRISTOPH SCHÖNBORN Vienna

EVER since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was “more than just a hypothesis,” defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often invoked the supposed acceptance - or at least acquiescence - of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith.

But this is not true. The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things.

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.

Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited, we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that represents his robust teaching on nature:

“All the observations concerning the development of life lead to a similar conclusion. The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator.”

He went on: “To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator, some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be to abdicate human intelligence, which would thus refuse to think and to seek a solution for its problems.”

Note that in this quotation the word “finality” is a philosophical term synonymous with final cause, purpose or design. In comments at another general audience a year later, John Paul concludes, “It is clear that the truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity.”

Naturally, the authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees: “Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason.” It adds: “We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance.”

In an unfortunate new twist on this old controversy, neo-Darwinists recently have sought to portray our new pope, Benedict XVI, as a satisfied evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, pointed out that Benedict was at the time head of the commission, and concluded that the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of “evolution” as used by mainstream biologists - that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism.

** The commission’s document, however, reaffirms the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of design in nature. Commenting on the widespread abuse of John Paul’s 1996 letter on evolution, the commission cautions that “the letter cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe.”

Furthermore, according to the commission, “An unguided evolutionary process - one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence - simply cannot exist.”**

 

[buffalo]

I**ndeed, in the homily at his installation just a few weeks ago, Benedict proclaimed: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

Throughout history the church has defended the truths of faith given by Jesus Christ. But in the modern era, the Catholic Church is in the odd position of standing in firm defense of reason as well. In the 19th century, the First Vatican Council taught a world newly enthralled by the “death of God” that by the use of reason alone mankind could come to know the reality of the Uncaused Cause, the First Mover, the God of the philosophers.

Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of “chance and necessity” are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence. **

Christoph Schönborn, the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna, was the lead editor of the official 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church.

END

 

[buffalo]

Orogeny:

I believe God created everything. He is the Source.

I accept evolution as fact because all scientific evidence that I am aware of points to it and no scientific evidence that I am aware of points away from it.

I believe evolution is the tool God has used to generate the diversity of life on earth.

Peace

Tim

The language contained in DNA code?

 

[Orionthehunter]

aridite:

Doesn’t this make God deceptive: burying fossils that look like they have been there for millions of years and that humans, in good faith, would naturally be led to believe have been there for millions of years, when in fact they are only six thousand years old?

Not necessarily. Read St. Augustine when he talks about how time is something that God made and only applies while we are on earth. Thus “days” are nebulous. Personally, I ascribe to the theory that God made the heavens and earth, enjoyed his creation for a while, and then made a little more and enjoyed it, and so on until on the 6th day he made mankind. Sometimes when I look at what goes on in this world, I swear he must be still resting Just kidding.

 

[Orogeny]

buffalo:

The language contained in DNA code?

??? Are you asking me a question? If so, I don’t follow that question in regards to my post that you were responding to.

Peace

Tim

 

[aridite]

buffalo:

aridite:

Doesn’t this make God deceptive: burying fossils that look like they have been there for millions of years and that humans, in good faith, would naturally be led to believe have been there for millions of years, when in fact they are only six thousand years old?

Not at all. There are ssumptions made to derive ages. We could be wrong.

The truth will not change, but our understanding of it may.

Are you saying dinosaurs, and all of the various plants an animals in the fossil record that look like they form an evolutionary chain, did in fact exist, just less than 6000 years ago, and that scientists don’t really know how to date their fossils?

Also, are all you saying there is not really an evolutionary chain – that species that look like other ones are not really related to each other, but, in reality, God created first one species, had that one die out, then created another that was strikingly similar, but not the same, then had that one die out, and so on?

When I say humans would naturally be led to believe the fossils have been there for millions of years, I am assuming that the biologists, chemists, physicists who date these things have devised a good method for doing so. They take some known process, like radiological decay, and extrapolate the age of fossils based on how long this process would have to have been going on to produce the data they are now observing. [If it were not a good method, nothing would please other biologists, chemists, physicist more than to disprove their collegues in terms of the science. That’s how science works.]

In order for this procedure to work, these scientists are assuming that the decay process has been consistant over million of years (which they would grant they have not observed and tested). This assumption that the laws of nature are constant over time and across the universe, I would argue, is a reasonable one. It then leads man, by using his reason, to certain reasonable conclusions. Since God created the laws of nature and human reason, he, in a certain sense, intended us to draw reasonable conclusions. But, by the same token, reason cannot conflict with the truths he revealed through Scripture.

By incorporating details into his creation that lead reason to conclude it is of great age, when in fact it is not, it seems to me that God would be making it look like things are older than they really are; this would seem to be deceptive of him. With the fossils, it would be like God creating an hour glass in which the sands have half run out. Any reasonable person, on seeing it two seconds after its creation, would think that it has been there for at least half an hour (an that it had been made by a human hour-glass-maker). In reality, it has only been there 2 seconds and made miraculously by God. God could do this, but it seems it would be deceptive.

My comments were in response to DavidFilmer’s comments (post #2) that God could have created the world 6000 years ago, but made it appear to be millions of years old. I agreed that God could do lots of things (like created the world yesterday, but made it appear that we all have been alive for 20, 30, 40 years). He could have made dinosaur fossils appear millions of years old, or appear to have come from living, breathing dinosaurs (when if fact they did not). But it would be, at best, pointless for him to do so or, at worst, deceptive.

 

[buffalo]

aridite:

Are you saying dinosaurs, and all of the various plants an animals in the fossil record that look like they form an evolutionary chain, did in fact exist, just less than 6000 years ago, and that scientists don’t really know how to date their fossils?

Also, are all you saying there is not really an evolutionary chain – that species that look like other ones are not really related to each other, but, in reality, God created first one species, had that one die out, then created another that was strikingly similar, but not the same, then had that one die out, and so on?

When I say humans would naturally be led to believe the fossils have been there for millions of years, I am assuming that the biologists, chemists, physicists who date these things have devised a good method for doing so. They take some known process, like radiological decay, and extrapolate the age of fossils based on how long this process would have to have been going on to produce the data they are now observing. [If it were not a good method, nothing would please other biologists, chemists, physicist more than to disprove their collegues in terms of the science. That’s how science works.]

In order for this procedure to work, these scientists are assuming that the decay process has been consistant over million of years (which they would grant they have not observed and tested). This assumption that the laws of nature are constant over time and across the universe, I would argue, is a reasonable one. It then leads man, by using his reason, to certain reasonable conclusions. Since God created the laws of nature and human reason, he, in a certain sense, intended us to draw reasonable conclusions. But, by the same token, reason cannot conflict with the truths he revealed through Scripture.

By incorporating details into his creation that lead reason to conclude it is of great age, when in fact it is not, it seems to me that God would be making it look like things are older than they really are; this would seem to be deceptive of him. With the fossils, it would be like God creating an hour glass in which the sands have half run out. Any reasonable person, on seeing it two seconds after its creation, would think that it has been there for at least half an hour (an that it had been made by a human hour-glass-maker). In reality, it has only been there 2 seconds and made miraculously by God. God could do this, but it seems it would be deceptive.

My comments were in response to DavidFilmer’s comments (post #2) that God could have created the world 6000 years ago, but made it appear to be millions of years old. I agreed that God could do lots of things (like created the world yesterday, but made it appear that we all have been alive for 20, 30, 40 years). He could have made dinosaur fossils appear millions of years old, or appear to have come from living, breathing dinosaurs (when if fact they did not). But it would be, at best, pointless for him to do so or, at worst, deceptive.

Not at all. I am unsure how accurrate dating is? How sure are we rate of decay is constant back in time. What I am syaing is the lens we look back into time with may not give us a complete picture.

 

[EA_Man]

buffalo:

Not at all. I am unsure how accurrate dating is? How sure are we rate of decay is constant back in time. What I am syaing is the lens we look back into time with may not give us a complete picture.

True.

Furthermore the previous post (the one above yours) also assumes that God MUST or SHOULD reveal the age of the Earth in a certain way.

Perhaps God created the Earth 6,000-50,000 years ago and as a reult of the Fall and its effects the Earth (& universe) suffer from the symptoms in the form of the appearance of great age.

Peace

 

[buffalo]

EA_Man:

True.

Furthermore the previous post (the one above yours) also assumes that God MUST or SHOULD reveal the age of the Earth in a certain way.

Perhaps God created the Earth 6,000-50,000 years ago and as a reult of the Fall and its effects the Earth (& universe) suffer from the symptoms in the form of the appearance of great age.

Peace

Never though of it that way - decay was introduced after the fall. I will have to ponder it for a while.

 

[aridite]

buffalo:

Not at all. I am unsure how accurrate dating is? How sure are we rate of decay is constant back in time. What I am syaing is the lens we look back into time with may not give us a complete picture.

I am not sure which question or comment you are saying “not at all” to. Did dinosaurs exist? Are animals of which we have fossils related to each other?

The question of the accuracy of the dating is a scientific one, and one would have to know the science well to judge it. If it could be refuted scientifically, there is great incentive in the scientific community to do so. If you adopt a skeptical attitude about the consistency of scientific laws, a whole lot of “knowledge” becomes mere opinion. It’s a slippery slope . . . ultimately you have a basis for doubting just about everything, including your own personal history. That is too high a price to pay just to maintain a literal interpretation of the six days of creation.

I agree that science and scientists often overstep their scientific competence and make sweeping (unconscious) philosophical/theological claims. I just think that the evolution of species and an age for the earth in the billions of years is pretty hard to refute (God’s relation to both issues being unaddressed by the appropriate sciences). And completely unnecessary to refute. One can understand both as compatible – i.e., intelligent design.

 

[buffalo]

aridite:

I agree that science and scientists often overstep their scientific competence and make sweeping (unconscious) philosophical/theological claims. I just think that the evolution of species and an age for the earth in the billions of years is pretty hard to refute (God’s relation to both issues being unaddressed by the appropriate sciences). And completely unnecessary to refute. One can understand both as compatible – i.e., intelligent design.

An additional point is the fossil record is trying to describe a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle with only a few pieces.