Creationist conference

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This is what I’ve learned over the years:

The Hebrew word for ‘Day’ as used in the Genesis Creation story is “Yom”. Yom has several different meanings, but does refer to a time period. It could mean, a 24 hour period, an era, or an epoch.

So whoever translated the Hebrew YOM into English, CHOSE to use the 24 hour interpretation, probably based on the surrounding content: “and there was evening, and morning, the first day” (etc) Thus indicating a 24 hour period. So this has been the main influence.

Although it could possibly be a 24-hour period, it’s not necessarily so. The word could be correctly translated as any of the above time periods. Maybe, If the Bible were just now being translated from Hebrew to English, based on our current scientific knowledge, the translator could decide to translate the word as Epoch, and that would not be wrong either.

Here’s a quote (sorry, but it’s straight from Wikepedia)
“yom”, in its context, is sometimes translated as: “time” (Gen 4:3, Is. 30:8); “year” (I Kings 1:1, 2 Chronicles 21:19, Amos 4:4); “age” (Gen 18:11, 24:1 and 47:28; Joshua 23:1 and 23:2); “age” (1 Samuel 9:20); “always” (Deuteronomy 5:29, 6:24 and 14:23, and in 2 Chronicles 18:7); “season” (Genesis 40:4, Joshua 24:7, 2 Chronicles 15:3); epoch or 24-hour day (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31)
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Here’s the link: Yom - Wikipedia
 
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Popes since Pius XII have seen absolutely no conflict between Catholicism and modern scientific theories of biological evolution. The Catechism teaches us that the first few chapters of Genesis, while expressing primordial truths, employ symbolic language. I was into Answers-in-Genesis as an Evangelical teen. After becoming Catholic, I gradually realized that I had been duped with pseudoscience and came to understand that science and Catholicism are not at odds. With our modern knowledge of genetics, the idea, proposed by A-in-G, that all living humans are descended from Noah a mere 4000 years ago, is absolutely absurd. African Pygmies, for example, have tens of thousands of years of genetic isolation from other modern humans (including other Africans).

In terms of cosmological evolution, Catholics should be aware that a Catholic priest, who was also an astronomer, Monsignor Lemaitre, originally developed the Big Bang model (though he didn’t use the term, that was coined later) in the early 1900s. The Big Bang model shows us that the universe has a beginning…and thus a cause…this was contrary to the secular assumptions of the time that the material universe had simply existed without beginning from all eternity.
 
Philosophy professor Edward Feser proposes that in the beginning, there were human-like hominids but they weren’t fully human because they didn’t have souls. These hominids interbred with Adam and Eve who were given souls, and their offspring, causing their offspring to have souls, and so forth, and that’s how our population began.

You can find much more about this if you Google “Monkey in Your Soul,” by Edward Feser.

My former priest said we’re allowed to believe this as Catholics but he personally doesn’t. My former Bible teacher, a Catholic theologian who used to teach at our local seminary, said we’re allowed to believe it, too.
 
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I read your link. In English, does it mean we can believe in evolution or not?
 
Just for your info, if you type in the “at” symbol like

@Hope1960
@Paulfromiowa

It makes it more obvious who is being addressed.

Blessings,
Stephie
 
I recently watched this documentary on Netflix called “Is Genesis History.” It’s a creationist documentary that does a pretty good job making it’s arguments - at first. However, it really falls apart when it gets to how it handles the expansion of the Universe.


The problem I have with most “creationists” is that they literally stick to six days consisting of 24 Earth hours, instead of realizing that it very well could we 6 “God Days.” One “God Day” could easily be thousands or millions of Earth years.

When explaining the expansion of the universe, they completely throw out science and philosophy and make up a unsupported theory to support their six 24 hour days theory.

In my opinion, their explanation of the the expansion of the Universe completely discredits everything else they stated before hand. They also effectively trash the Intelligent Design theory, leaving it as “six 24 hour days” or nothing.

However, I do think the documentary is worth watching because I think it helps to know what everyone is saying.

God bless
 
JoyToTheWhirled said:
I am dealing with being told I can’t really be a real Christian without being a creationist ( let alone Catholic!!) I am curious what the Catholic position is on all this?
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One easy reply could be something like: “I believe God created everything in six ‘God Days,’ not necessarily in six ‘Earth days’”
 
Hi, Stephie!

…also if you click on the “Reply” box at the end of the particular post to which you are responding the post will be highlight and the automatic tracker will notify the poster via email that there’s been a response…

…and we can highlight and select text to quote from one or various posts by scrolling to them and highlighting them and clicking on the “” icon.

Maran atha!

Angel
 
jcrichton said:
Hi, Stephie!

…also if you click on the “Reply” box at the end of the particular post to which you are responding the post will be highlight and the automatic tracker will notify the poster via email that there’s been a response…

…and we can highlight and select text to quote from one or various posts by scrolling to them and highlighting them and clicking on the “” icon.

Maran atha!

Angel
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Yep. The only problem with that is I generally get those emails about a day or so late. Not sure why they tend to be delayed. So I tend not to recommend that.

Blessings,
Stephie
 
JoyToTheWhirled said:
I am curious what the Catholic position is on all this?
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The general view for many decades now has been that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are a peculiar genre of ancient literature which is difficult to interpret. There is much speculation.

The AiG crowd generally insist that their interpretation of Genesis is the only valid one, and that anything else undermines Biblical literalism. Catholic exegesis of Scripture disagrees.

Maybe someone recommended this already, but here’s a good booklet: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Catholic-Understanding-Ressourcement-Retrieval/dp/0802841066.
 
Ha! You might know, in the general Providence of God, tonight at RCIA, we did creation and fall. Father C was eloquent and helpful and covered much of what has already been said on thread.
 
Hi, Joy!

…if often find these God-incidences taking place, specifically when dealing with Sacred Scriptures or the Faith!

Maran atha!

Angel
 
JoyToTheWhirled said:
I have some friends who are going to an Answers in Genesis conference. …I know this will have been covered before, but as I am dealing with being told I can’t really be a real Christian without being a creationist ( let alone Catholic!!) I am curious what the Catholic position is on all this? Specifically in regards to AiG’s arguments?

Opens can of worms
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Yummy.
  1. You can’t be Catholic if you’re not a creationist. Catholics must believe that God is the Creator.
  2. The Catholic Church has not spoken against literal interpretation of Genesis. You can be a Catholic in good standing and understand the book of Genesis, literally.
  3. The Catholic Church does not micro-manage your understanding of Genesis. As long as you believe that God created Adam and Eve and that all mankind descends from those two. You can get a cursory understanding of Catholic Teaching of this subject from the Catechism.
  4. Although the Popes have hinted that they believe in Theistic Evolution, the idea that God guided evolution, there has by no means been any official Teaching on the matter. The idea has only been explained by theologians.
 
De_Maria said:
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JoyToTheWhirled:
I have some friends who are going to an Answers in Genesis conference. …I know this will have been covered before, but as I am dealing with being told I can’t really be a real Christian without being a creationist ( let alone Catholic!!) I am curious what the Catholic position is on all this? Specifically in regards to AiG’s arguments?

Opens can of worms
Click to expand...
Yummy.
  1. You can’t be Catholic if you’re not a creationist. Catholics must believe that God is the Creator.
  2. The Catholic Church has not spoken against literal interpretation of Genesis. You can be a Catholic in good standing and understand the book of Genesis, literally.
  3. The Catholic Church does not micro-manage your understanding of Genesis. As long as you believe that God created Adam and Eve and that all mankind descends from those two. You can get a cursory understanding of Catholic Teaching of this subject from the Catechism.
  4. Although the Popes have hinted that they believe in Theistic Evolution, the idea that God guided evolution, there has by no means been any official Teaching on the matter. The idea has only been explained by theologians.
Click to expand...
I think you’re confusing what is meant by “Creationist”. In common usage, it means someone who believes in Special Creation, and not simply someone who believes God was involved in some way in the process. Theistic Evolutionists generally don’t consider themselves Creationists by this standard. It’s one thing to say “God was involved”, and another to claim “The Earth is 10,000 or 6,000 years old and the organisms we see today were created ‘according to their kind’”, or whatever formula Creationists use.
 
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