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someperson
Guest
Hi everyone. So recently I’ve been hearing some Catholics say that God guided evolution and used evolution to create life. I was wondering if this was true or not.
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Wesrock
Guest
It’s not contrary to Carholic beliefs.
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CzechMan
Guest
If God exists, then sure, it can be true.
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thistle
Guest
" We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the ‘project’ of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—realities."
Tis_Bearself
Patron
Catholics are free to believe in a God-directed evolution, or free to believe in creationism. The Church does not take a position, except to teach that God created all things. Since God may very well have guided and used evolution as a way of creating, it’s not contrary to Catholic teaching to believe that.
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HeDa
Guest
Everything in the universe is ordered for the good. If planet Earth was closer to the sun it would be burnt and further away it would be frozen.
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Dan_Defender
Guest
And if there were no plate tectonics, meaning the earth crust being cracked, there would be no mountains or islands and possibly no life. And so on, just too many coincidences.
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HeDa
Guest
An Engineer of a very, very high calliber is indeed needed.
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niceatheist
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There are hundreds of billions of planets in the observable universe. Even if only a tiny fraction are capable of supporting life, that would still hundreds of thousands of millions of earth-like planets.
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goout
Guest
The Catholic Church embraces science as a way to learn about God’s creation.
Contrary to popular unfounded prejudice, the Church is responsible for a lot of scientific development and the fostering of universities.
Etc,…
Contrary to popular unfounded prejudice, the Church is responsible for a lot of scientific development and the fostering of universities.
Etc,…
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theCardinalbird
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Shortly after Darwin published his theory, Cardinal John Henry Newman remarked in a letter to a friend that “Mr. Darwin’s theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience [Foreknowledge] and skill.”
Evolution is not contrary to Catholic teaching, nor does it contradict the Genesis account, if you take it from a theistical approach of course
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FCS
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Some Catholics do not discount the possibility of life on other planets. At this point, no one really knows if aliens exist or if human-like aliens exist.
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KevinK
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What is a “theistical” approach?
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niceatheist
Guest
Which really wasn’t my point. My point is that making claims of uniqueness when the tools at our disposal are inadequate to determine whether Earth is unique or not currently don’t exist seems a tad premature.
Whether there is other intelligent life out there isn’t a question we can really answer, and sadly, considering the nature of radio transmissions, SETI can’t even really answer the question beyond a few hundred light years due to a coherent signal steadily degrading. The only way SETI really works is if some alien race does a very tight beam at very high energy levels (i.e. some sort of massive communications laser), we’re not likely to find intelligent life that way (and that would mean such a sentient race would have to know intelligent life existed on Earth to begin with, not likely as I’m afraid transmissions of I love Lucy aren’t more than 60-odd lightyears out, and were never transmitted at energy levels intended to transmit prime time TV to alien species).
Worst of all, it also supposes that alien life has to be like us at all. It seems likely that carbon-based life is the strongest contender for any complex life, simply because carbon is the element most capable of making complex polymers, but still, there are lots of speculation on either types of nucleotides. Looking for intelligent life really should be described as looking for intelligent life that behaves a lot like humans. Not necessarily unreasonable, but still a fairly narrow range.
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FCS
Guest
True.
Regardless of whether there are other planets or if we are unique, there is plenty of evidence in nature to suggest intelligent design, that is the point.
I agree, alien life would most likely be different from us.
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theCardinalbird
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The idea that God guides evolution rather than it being coincidence or chance
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steve-b
Guest
Without God, the uncaused cause of everything that is, there is no evolution because there is nothing to evolve. .
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edwest
Guest
Back to aliens for a moment. There is no evidence that primitive microbes exist on earth-like worlds. Perhaps something will be found on Mars. As a writer of speculative fiction, it’s good to know what’s plausible. Science has yet to provide solid evidence.
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Wesrock
Guest
You’ll see different response, I’m sure. I’ll just say that the mechanics of evolution is part of the natural world – the natural order – and God conserves the natural order of the world he created/creates.theCardinalbird:
What is a “theistical” approach?
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niceatheist
Guest
Where you see evidence of intelligent design, I see engineering problems that evolution solved, though not necessarily in an optimal fashion.
For example, even bipedalism in humans is an adaptation that comes with costs. Our spines are only partially adapted to bipedalism (hence the reason for back problems later in life), not to mention that women have it slightly worse, the width of the pelvis is a compromise between bipedalism and pregnancy and delivery. Most other mammals’ offspring are born far later than human babies, and have developed much further, but because humans have pretty large skulls due to larger brains, it means human females can’t carry a fetus as long, relatively speaking, as even other great apes, because that would require an even wider pelvis, which would impede bipedalism even more than a female pelvis already does. Thus, women have a different center of gravity than men, human infants are born prematurely compared to other mammals (and are thus helpless a lot longer after birth), and there are much higher risks to pregnant women and their offspring due to the restrictions on the size of the birth canal.
It works because the intelligence in humans (and other great apes) offsets that higher risks of infant (and maternal) mortality. That doesn’t strike me as the work of an intelligent designer that has it all figured out, it has everything to do with biological engineering. Evolution isn’t about achieving perfection, far from it. It’s about even a slight increase in survival. Humans may die in child birth with greater frequency than, say, baboons, but the larger brain still confers sufficient survival advantage that that overcomes the greater risks of childbirth and infancy.
None of this disproves God, of course. There’s no disproving God, and I wouldn’t even try. But if the argument is intelligent design, I do have an alternate explanation.
For example, even bipedalism in humans is an adaptation that comes with costs. Our spines are only partially adapted to bipedalism (hence the reason for back problems later in life), not to mention that women have it slightly worse, the width of the pelvis is a compromise between bipedalism and pregnancy and delivery. Most other mammals’ offspring are born far later than human babies, and have developed much further, but because humans have pretty large skulls due to larger brains, it means human females can’t carry a fetus as long, relatively speaking, as even other great apes, because that would require an even wider pelvis, which would impede bipedalism even more than a female pelvis already does. Thus, women have a different center of gravity than men, human infants are born prematurely compared to other mammals (and are thus helpless a lot longer after birth), and there are much higher risks to pregnant women and their offspring due to the restrictions on the size of the birth canal.
It works because the intelligence in humans (and other great apes) offsets that higher risks of infant (and maternal) mortality. That doesn’t strike me as the work of an intelligent designer that has it all figured out, it has everything to do with biological engineering. Evolution isn’t about achieving perfection, far from it. It’s about even a slight increase in survival. Humans may die in child birth with greater frequency than, say, baboons, but the larger brain still confers sufficient survival advantage that that overcomes the greater risks of childbirth and infancy.
None of this disproves God, of course. There’s no disproving God, and I wouldn’t even try. But if the argument is intelligent design, I do have an alternate explanation.
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